"_Anglice_ consumptive," she explained. "There are lots of us in Switzerland, you know, and on the whole, we are a merry set. It is characteristic of our complaint. But never mind about me. There are two or three people here. I daresay you will think them odd, but they are clever in their way, and you ought to have something in common. Come in."
He followed her into the beautiful cool saloon, with its large, double French windows designed to keep out the bitter winds of winter, but opened now upon the brilliant garden. Never before had he been in so lovely a room, that is of a modern house, and it impressed him with sensations that at the moment he did not try to a.n.a.lyse. All he knew was that they were mingled with some spiritual quality, such as once or twice he had felt in ancient churches, something which suggested both the Past and the Future, and a brooding influence that he could not define. Yet the place was all light and charm, gay with flowers and landscape pictures, in short, lacking any sombre note.
Gathered at its far end where the bow window overlooked the sparkling lake, were three or four people, all elderly. Instantly one of these riveted his attention. She was stout, having her grey hair drawn back from a ma.s.sive forehead, beneath which shone piercing black eyes. Her rather ungainly figure was clothed in what he thought an ugly green dress, and she wore a necklet of emeralds in an old-fashioned setting, which he also thought ugly but striking. From the moment that he entered the doorway at the far end of that long saloon, he felt those black eyes fixed upon him, and was painfully aware of their owner"s presence, so much so, that in a whisper, he asked her name of Miss Ogilvy.
"Oh!" she answered, "that is Madame Riennes, the noted mesmerist and medium."
"Indeed," said G.o.dfrey in a vague voice, for he did not quite understand what was meant by this description.
Also there was a thin, elderly American gentleman to whom G.o.dfrey was introduced, named Colonel Josiah Smith, and a big, blond Dane, who talked English with a German accent, called Professor Petersen. All of these studied G.o.dfrey with the most unusual interest as, overwhelmed with shyness, he was led by Miss Ogilvy to make their acquaintance. He felt that their demeanour portended he knew not what, more at any rate than hope of deriving pleasure from his society; in fact, that they expected to get something out of him. Suddenly he recollected a picture that once he had seen in a pious work which he was given to read on Sundays. It represented a missionary being led by the hand by a smiling woman into the presence of some savages in a South Sea island, who were about to cook and eat him.
In the picture a large pot was already boiling over a fire in the background. Instinctively G.o.dfrey looked for the pot, but saw none, except one of the flowers which stood on a little table in a recess, and round it half a dozen chairs, one of them large, with arms. Had he but known it, that chair was the pot.
No sooner had he made his somewhat awkward bow than luncheon was announced, and they all went into another large and beautiful room, where they were served with a perfect meal. The conversation at table was general, and in English, but presently it drifted into a debate which G.o.dfrey did not understand, on the increase of spirituality among the "initiated" of the earth.
Colonel Josiah Smith, who appeared to a.s.sociate with remarkable persons whom he called "Masters," who dwelt in the remote places of the world, alleged that such increase was great, which Professor Petersen, who dwelt much among German intellectuals, denied. It appeared that these "intellectuals" were busy in turning their backs on every form of spirituality.
"Ah!" said Miss Ogilvy, with a sigh, "they seek the company of their kindred "Elementals," although they do not know it, and soon those Elementals will have the mastery of them and break them to pieces, as the lions did the maligners of Daniel."
In after years G.o.dfrey always remembered this as a very remarkable prophecy, but at the time, not knowing what an Elemental might be, he only marvelled.
At length Madame Riennes, who, it seemed, was half French and half Russian, intervened in a slow, heavy voice:
"What does it matter, friends of my soul?" she asked. Then having paused to drink off a full gla.s.s of sparkling Moselle, she went on: "Soon we shall be where the spirituality, or otherwise, of this little world matters nothing to us. Who will be the first to learn the truths, I wonder?" and she stared in turn at the faces of every one of them, a process which seemed to cause general alarm, bearing, as it did, a strong resemblance to the smelling-out of savage witch-doctors.
Indeed, they all began to talk of this or that at hazard, but she was not to be put off by such interruptions. Having investigated G.o.dfrey till he felt cold down the back, Madame turned her searchlight eyes upon Miss Ogilvy, who shrank beneath them. Then of a sudden she exclaimed with a kind of convulsive shudder:
"The Power possesses and guides me. It tells me that _you_ will be the first, Sister Helen. I see you among the immortal Lilies with the Wine of Life flowing through your veins."
On receipt of this information the Wine of Life seemed to cease to flow in poor Miss Ogilvy"s face. At any rate, she went deadly pale and rested her hand upon G.o.dfrey"s shoulder as if she were about to faint.
Recovering a little, she murmured to herself:
"I thought it! Well, what does it matter though the gulf is great and terrible?"
Then with an effort she rose and suggested that they should return to the drawing-room.
They did so, and were served with Turkish coffee and cigarettes, which Madame Riennes smoked one after the other very rapidly. Presently Miss Ogilvy rang the bell, and when the butler appeared to remove the cups, whispered something in French, at which he bowed and departed.
G.o.dfrey thought he heard him lock the door behind him, but was not sure.
CHAPTER VI
EXPERIENCES
"Let us sit round the table and talk," said Madame Riennes.
Thereon the whole party moved into the recess where was the flower-pot that has been mentioned, which Miss Ogilvy took away.
They seated themselves round the little table upon which it had stood.
G.o.dfrey, lingering behind, found, whether by design or accident, that the only place left for him was the arm-chair which he hesitated to occupy.
"Be seated, young Monsieur," said the formidable Madame in bell-like tones, whereon he collapsed into the chair. "Sister Helen," she went on, "draw the curtain, it is more private so; yes, and the blind that there may be no unholy glare."
Miss Ogilvy, who seemed to be entirely under Madame"s thumb, obeyed.
Now to all intents and purposes they were in a tiny, shadowed room cut off from the main apartment.
"Take that talisman from your neck and give it to young Monsieur Knight," commanded Madame.
"But I gave it to her, and do not want it back," ventured G.o.dfrey, who was growing alarmed.
"Do what I say," she said sternly, and he found himself holding the relic.
"Now, young Monsieur, look me in the eyes a little and listen. I request of you that holding that black, engraved stone in your hand, you will be so good as to throw your soul, do you understand, your soul, back, back, _back_ and tell us where it come from, who have it, what part it play in their life, and everything about it."
"How am I to know?" asked G.o.dfrey, with indignation.
Then suddenly everything before him faded, and he saw himself standing in a desert by a lump of black rock, at which a brown man clad only in a waist cloth and a kind of peaked straw hat, was striking with an instrument that seemed to be half chisel and half hammer, fashioned apparently from bronze, or perhaps of greenish-coloured flint.
Presently the brown man, who had a squint in one eye and a hurt toe that was bound round with something, picked up a piece of the black rock that he had knocked off, and surveyed it with evident satisfaction. Then the scene vanished.
G.o.dfrey told it with interest to the audience who were apparently also interested.
"The finding of the stone," said Madame. "Continue, young Monsieur."
Another vision rose before G.o.dfrey"s mind. He beheld a low room having a kind of verandah, roofed with reeds, and beyond it a little courtyard enclosed by a wall of grey-coloured mud bricks, out of some of which stuck pieces of straw. This courtyard opened onto a narrow street where many oddly-clothed people walked up and down, some of whom wore peaked caps. A little man, old and grey, sat with the fragment of black rock on a low table before him, which G.o.dfrey knew to be the same stone that he had already seen. By him lay graving tools, and he was engaged in polishing the stone, now covered with figures and writing, by help of a stick, a piece of rough cloth and oil. A young man with a curly beard walked into the little courtyard, and to him the old fellow delivered the engraved stone with obeisances, receiving payment in some curious currency.
Then followed picture upon picture in all of which the talisman appeared in the hands of sundry of its owners. Some of these pictures had to do with love, some with religious ceremonies, and some with war.
One, too, with its sale, perhaps in a time of siege or scarcity, for a small loaf of black-looking bread, by an aged woman who wept at parting with it.
After this he saw an Arab-looking man finding the stone amongst the crumbling remains of a brick wall that showed signs of having been burnt, which wall he was knocking down with a pick-axe to allow water to flow down an irrigation channel on his garden. Presently a person who wore a turban and was girt about with a large scimitar, rode by, and to him the man showed, and finally presented the stone, which the Saracen placed in the folds of his turban.
The next scene was of this man engaged in battle with a knight clad in mail. The battle was a very fine one, which G.o.dfrey described with much gusto. It ended in the knight killing the Eastern man and hacking off his head with a sword. This violent proceeding disarranged the turban out of which fell the black stone. The knight picked it up and hid it about him. Next G.o.dfrey saw this same knight, grown into an old man and being borne on a bier to burial, clad in the same armour that he had worn in the battle. Upon his breast hung the black stone which had now a hole bored through the top of it.
Lastly there came a picture of the old s.e.xton finding the talisman among the bones of the knight, and giving it to himself, G.o.dfrey, then a small boy, after which everything pa.s.sed away.
"I guess that either our young friend here has got the vision, or that he will make a first-cla.s.s novelist," said Colonel Josiah Smith. "Any way, if you care to part with that talisman, Miss Ogilvy, I will be glad to give you five hundred dollars for it on the chance of his integrity."
She smiled and shook her head, stretching out her hand to recover the Gnostic charm.
"Be silent, Brother Josiah Smith," exclaimed Madame Riennes, angrily.
"If this were imposture, should I not have discovered it? It is good vision--psychometry is the right term--though of a humbler order such as might be expected from a beginner. Still, there is hope, there is hope. Let us see, now. Young gentleman, be so good as to look me in the eye."
Much against his will G.o.dfrey found himself bound to obey, and looked her "in the eye." A few moments later he felt dizzy, and after that he remembered no more.
When G.o.dfrey awoke again the curtain was drawn, the blinds were pulled up and the butler was bringing in tea. Miss Ogilvy sat by his side, looking at him rather anxiously, while the others were conversing together in a somewhat excited fashion.
"It is splendid, splendid!" Madame was saying. "We have discovered a pearl beyond price, a great treasure. Hush! he awakes."