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Page 8
"The Master was indicated - but the peril antecedent to his
elevation remained . . . . It was to be permitted, and at its
leisure and in its choice of time."
He turned sharply toward me, the folds of his face unsteady.
"Excellency!" he cried. "I would have saved the Master, I would
have saved him with my soul's damnation, but it was not
permitted. On that first night in the Italian's tent I said all
I could."
His voice went into a higher note.
"Twice, for the Master, I have been checked and reduced in merit.
For that bias I was myself encircled. I was in an agony of
spirit when I knew that the thing was beginning to advance, but
my very will to aid was at the time environed."
His voice descended.
He sat motionless, as though the whole bulk of him were
devitalized, and maintained its outline only by the inclosing
frame of the chair.
"It began, Excellency, on an August night. There is a chill in
these mountains at sunset. I had put wood into the fireplace,
and lighted it, and was about the house. The Master, as I have
said, had worked out his formulae. He was at leisure. I could
not see him, for the door was closed, but the odor of his cigar
escaped from the room. It was very silent. I was placing the
Master's bed-candle on the table in the hall, when I heard his
voice. . . . You have read it, Excellency, as the scriveners
wrote it down before the judge."
He paused.
"It was an exclamation of surprise, of astonishment. Then I
heard the Master get up softly and go over to the fireplace. . .
Presently he returned. He got a new cigar, Excellency, clipped
it and lighted it. I could hear the blade of the knife on the
fiber of the tobacco, and of course, clearly the rasp of the
match. A moment later I knew that he was in the chair again.
The odor of ignited tobacco returned. It was some time before
there was another sound in the room; then suddenly I heard the
Master swear. His voice was sharp and astonished. This time,
Excellency, he got up swiftly and crossed the room to the
fireplace. . . I could hear him distinctly. There was the sound
of one tapping on metal, thumping it, as with the fingers."
He stopped again, for a brief moment, as in reflection.
"It was then that the Master unlocked the door and asked for the
liquor." He indicated the court record in my pocket. "I brought
it, a goblet of brandy, with some carbonated water. He drank it
all without putting down the glass . . . . His face was strange,
Excellency . . . . Then he looked at me.
"`Put a log on the fire,' he said.
"I went in and added wood to the fire and came out.
"The Master remained in the doorway; he reentered when I came
out, and closed the door behind him . . . . There was a long
silence after that; them I heard the voice, permitted to the
devocation thin, metallic, offering the barter to the Master. It
began and ceased because the Master was on his feet and before
the fireplace. I heard him swear again, and presently return to
his place by the table."
The big Oriental lifted his face and looked out at the sweep of
country before the window.
"The thing went on, Excellency, the voice offering its lure, and
presenting it in brief flashes of materialization, and the Master
endeavoring to seize and detain the visitations, which ceased
instantly at his approach to the hearth."
The man paused.
"I knew the Master contended in vain against the thing; if he
would acquire possession of what it offered, he must destroy what
the creative forces of the spirit had released to him."
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