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Page 75
We mounted three steps and stood before a tremendously massive oaken
door. An iron bell-pull, ancient and rusty, hung on the right of the
door, and Smith, giving me an odd glance, seized the ring and tugged
it.
From somewhere within the building answered a mournful clangor, a
cracked and toneless jangle, which, seeming to echo through empty
apartments, sought and found an exit apparently by way of one of the
openings in the round tower; for it was from above our heads that the
noise came to us.
It died away, that eerie ringing--that clanging so dismal that it
could chill my heart even then with the bright sunlight streaming down
out of the blue; it awoke no other response than the mournful cry of
the sea gull circling over our heads. Silence fell. We looked at one
another, and we were both about to express a mutual doubt when,
unheralded by any unfastening of bolts or bars, the oaken door was
opened, and a huge mulatto, dressed in white, stood there regarding
us.
I started nervously, for the apparition was so unexpected, but Nayland
Smith, without evidence of surprise, thrust a card into the man's
hand.
"Take my card to Mr. Van Roon, and say that I wish to see him on
important business," he directed, authoritatively.
The mulatto bowed and retired. His white figure seemed to be swallowed
up by the darkness within, for beyond the patch of uncarpeted floor
revealed by the peeping sunlight, was a barn-like place of densest
shadow. I was about to speak, but Smith laid his hand upon my arm
warningly, as, out from the shadows the mulatto returned. He stood on
the right of the door and bowed again.
"Be pleased to enter," he said, in his harsh, negro voice. "Mr. Van
Roon will see you."
The gladness of the sun could no longer stir me; a chill and sense of
foreboding bore me company, as beside Nayland Smith I entered Cragmire
Tower.
CHAPTER XXII
THE MULATTO
The room in which Van Roon received us was roughly of the shape of an
old-fashioned keyhole; one end of it occupied the base of the tower,
upon which the remainder had evidently been built. In many respects it
was a singular room, but the feature which caused me the greatest
amazement was this:--it had no windows!
In the deep alcove formed by the tower sat Van Roon at a littered
table, upon which stood an oil reading-lamp, green shaded, of the
"Victoria" pattern, to furnish the entire illumination of the
apartment. That bookshelves lined the rectangular portion of this
strange study I divined, although that end of the place was dark as a
catacomb. The walls were wood-paneled, and the ceiling was oaken
beamed. A small bookshelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon either
side of the table, and the celebrated American author and traveler lay
propped up in a long split-cane chair. He wore smoked glasses, and had
a clean-shaven, olive face, with a profusion of jet black hair. He was
garbed in a dirty red dressing-gown, and a perfect fog of cigar smoke
hung in the room. He did not rise to greet us, but merely extended his
right hand, between two fingers whereof he held Smith's card.
"You will excuse the seeming discourtesy of an invalid, gentlemen?" he
said; "but I am suffering from undue temerity in the interior of
China!"
He waved his hand vaguely, and I saw that two rough deal chairs stood
near the table. Smith and I seated ourselves, and my friend, leaning
his elbow upon the table, looked fixedly at the face of the man whom
we had come from London to visit. Although comparatively unfamiliar to
the British public, the name of Van Roon was well-known in American
literary circles; for he enjoyed in the United States a reputation
somewhat similar to that which had rendered the name of our mutual
friend, Sir Lionel Barton, a household word in England. It was Van
Roon who, following in the footsteps of Madame Blavatsky, had sought
out the haunts of the fabled mahatmas in the Himalayas, and Van Roon
who had essayed to explore the fever swamps of Yucatan in quest of the
secret of lost Atlantis; lastly, it was Van Roon, who, with an
overland car specially built for him by a celebrated American firm,
had undertaken the journey across China.
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