In Both Worlds Part 9

There was silence for several minutes, during which Ulema gazed steadfastly into the mirror. Martha could not help doing the same; and she gazed at the mirror until a strange, tingling, bewildered sensation began to creep over her frame, and she averted her eyes to escape its magical fascination.

The victim of this singular experiment now became rigid, and made a convulsive sound as if in a severe spasm. Martha was terribly frightened; but her aunt suddenly became relaxed with a profound sigh. Magistus took a long needle and pa.s.sed it through the skin of her hand. She did not flinch. He then put something which seemed to be a lock of hair into her palm, and closed the fingers tightly upon it.

"Follow this person," said he, "wherever he is, and tell me what you see."

The woman began, after a long pause:

"I am in a great wilderness of bare hills full of rocks and sand. The sense of solitude is terrible. It is cloudy but windy-and the sun will soon s.h.i.+ne in the west."

"But the youth?-the youth?" cried Magistus, impatiently.

"Wait a moment. The youth? I must find him. Bless me! how he has wandered!

how many circles! Ah! there he is! I see him stretched at full length upon the ground."

"That is good!" said Magistus eagerly; "that is good. He lies dead upon the ground. Go on."

"He is not dead," said the oracle slowly; "his heart still beats: he sleeps."

"Not dead?" screeched the old man, "what say you, not dead? Is he not wounded? Is he not stabbed? Is he not bleeding?" he continued in the highest excitement.

"No!" said the woman calmly; "he is not dead, he sleeps."

"Do you see no gashes upon his body?"

"No, I see only a bright new dagger."

"Furies!" exclaimed Magistus; "he has escaped me. I have been deceived."

Turning suddenly upon the woman, he seized her by the throat:

"Do you tell me the truth?"

"I tell you what I see. I fabricate nothing. I am now attracted around the hill. Ah! I see a young man with the face of an angel coming forth from a cave. He sings. Oh how sweetly he sings!"

"Angels and devils!" roared Magistus; "you have seen or reported falsely."

With that he seemed overwhelmed by a paroxysm of rage, and began beating the poor woman violently about the head and arms with a black rod he took from the table. She made no resistance, and did not seem to feel the blows. Ethopus raised his hands deprecatingly, and Martha was about to cry out from her place of concealment, when a low, fierce growl, from underneath the floor apparently, startled all of them but Ulema, who heard it not.

Simon Magus was feeding his leopard.

"The Master has returned," said my uncle, "I will consult him immediately.

He may deliver me from this difficulty."

He left the room. Ethopus made rapid pa.s.ses from her knees upward, and Ulema awoke. She rubbed her hands and eyes, looked wonderingly around her and exclaimed:

"I have had a long, painful sleep, and I must have seen sad things. Did I give him satisfaction?"

Ethopus shook his head sadly.

"Alas!" said she, with a distressed and puzzled air, "when will this cruel imprisonment cease, and this strange life of visions which I never remember?"

Martha now came forward and threw herself weeping upon the neck of her aunt. For a long time these sorrowful women exchanged those kisses and tears which are consolations. They then unburdened their hearts to each other. By questioning Ethopus and interpreting his pantomimic answers as well as they could, they learned that some secret dangers surrounded them, and that Ethopus wished Martha to spend the night in the chamber of her aunt. Martha thought it best to rejoin Mary immediately, and explain to her that Ulema was quite indisposed, and get her to sleep with Mary Magdalen, and permit the older sister to comfort and nurse the invalid.

All of which was easily accomplished.

Ulema had been confined for years in that little room by her husband as the subject and victim of his magical art. She was a clairvoyant of extraordinary power; and when put asleep by the s.h.i.+ning mirror and the waving hands, she would follow any clue given her, and the greatest physical obstacles seemed only penetrable shadows in the path of her mysterious vision.

She was thus employed by her husband to advance the schemes of his unscrupulous spirit. She was made to read the thoughts of others, so that Magistus became possessed of any man's or any woman's secret life whenever he chose. He obtained information in this manner which enabled him to make lucrative transactions in business, to plot in the dark against whomsoever he pleased, to destroy the peace of families, and to acquire a reputation for superior and almost miraculous wisdom.

She had long ceased to be anything but a mere tool in her husband's hands.

She was locked up and taken care of as any other valuable instrument would have been. She was visited and inspected only when her services were required. Love, sympathy, interchange of sentiments, all this had ceased.

She received nothing from him but contempt and threats. She lived within hearing of his midnight revels. She bore the ravages of these things in her pale and tearful face, with its sad and terrified expression.

Ethopus came softly into the room about midnight, and after many gestures expressive of the supreme necessity of caution and silence, he conducted the two women on tip-toe through a narrow pa.s.sage. Near the end of this he paused, and pressing on a secret spring, he discovered a sliding panel in the wall. This opened and admitted them into a large, empty room. This room was only for the ventilation of a more interior and secluded apartment. A series of movable slats effected the communication between the two chambers. The light streaming through the shutters showed that the inner room was occupied. Looking down through the apertures, with very little danger of being discovered, the women beheld, six or eight feet before them, the floor of the secret chamber of magic.

Ethopus left them as stealthily as a cat, after placing them in the best position to see and hear what was going on in the den of sorcery. He pressed Martha's hand to his heart before he departed. Perhaps he wished to show how deeply he felt for them; perhaps also to intimate how deeply he suffered. Perhaps he asked for help as well as sympathy. The poor, dumb African would not only save them, if possible, from their subtle enemies, but would enlist the knowledge and power of a superior race, to effect his own deliverance from the crus.h.i.+ng thraldom they had imposed upon him.

A thousand or two thousand years hence, magic as a science and an art will have ceased to exist. Generations unborn will enjoy the leaf.a.ge and fruit of that sacred tree of Christianity, whose little seed we have seen planted in the dark ground. The h.e.l.ls now opened will be closed; the superst.i.tions now triumphant will be a myth; the languages now living will be dead; the arts now flouris.h.i.+ng will have perished; the civilization now dominant will be a historic shadow. Those who find this ma.n.u.script and give it to the world, will not be able to comprehend the meaning, or to believe the truth, of the strange things I am going to relate-and yet they are true.

Magic, which pervades to a greater or less extent all nations, and in some shape influences all individuals, had its origin in the corruption and perversion of the sacred truths of religion. It is the life of all false systems, the voice of their oracles, the inspiration of their prophets, the power of their mighty men. It was the medium by which evil spirits took possession of their victims. It is the falsity which antagonizes truth; the darkness opposite to light; the h.e.l.l arrayed against heaven. To be under magical influence, is to be a.s.saulted, betrayed, possessed, governed, by demons.

Simon Magus, who believed himself attended by Moloch and Beelzebub, two princes of h.e.l.l, under the respective forms of a leopard and a serpent, was the most remarkable sorcerer in the time of Christ. He was a Samaritan by birth, but had spent his youth in Egypt, where he became addicted to the black art, and thoroughly conversant with all its mysteries. He was supposed by most men to be an Egyptian, and he took no pains to correct the mistake.

He was a man of unquestionable genius and boundless ambition. He was of majestic presence, bending weaker spirits easily to his will. He was brave to desperation, and eloquent as if he had been fed in his youth by the bees of Attica. He was the secret chief and leader of thousands of persons addicted to magic in different countries. His word was regarded as law; his power as irresistible; his wisdom as inscrutable.

Magicians generally resorted to remote caves and deserted ruins for their rites and incantations. Many of the most splendid temples, however, of the pagan religions, had private chambers devoted to their use. So also did the palaces of many kings, and the princely mansions of wealthy and powerful men. The magicians of Jerusalem and its neighborhood had a secret council-room in the quiet house of Magistus, in which they held their infernal conclave at every visit of the Master.

The two women peeped cautiously into this chamber of mystery. The floor and the ceiling were both covered with black cloth, the latter having a great many stars flaming upon it in imitation of night. Through them a vast comet trailed its fiery form. The walls were painted with figures of the most disgusting objects which creep on the earth, or fly in the air, or swim in the sea. Some of these figures had the heads of men and women: others had the heads of monsters attached to naked bodies in the human shape.

On a raised platform of black marble, and in a great arm-chair covered with crimson silk, sat Simon Magus, wearing a white robe of dazzling l.u.s.tre, a leopard skin loosely thrown over his shoulders, and a gilt crown surmounted by an eagle with outspread wings. He wore also a ma.s.sive gold chain around his neck, from which was suspended a little sapphire image, which was supposed to guide the Egyptian priest to the truth, as the breast-plate of precious stones did the Jew.

The short black hair of Simon Magus curled close to his head, and he had no beard after the fas.h.i.+on of his adopted country. His forehead was white as pearl and both wide and lofty. His eyes were large and brilliant. His whole face was illumined by the grand fires of intellect and pa.s.sion. His expression was too proud to be pleasing, too fierce to be beautiful. He was a man to strengthen the heart of his friends, and to make his enemies tremble.

A large black table was before him, brilliantly painted with the signs of the zodiac. In the centre of it stood an image or idol made of black stone or ebony, having the head of a man, the breast and fore-feet of a lion, and the hind quarters of a goat. The serpent was coiled on the platform at his right hand; the leopard crouched at his left. A splendid globe of crystal hung from the ceiling const.i.tuting a lamp, burning perfumed oil and shedding a rose-colored light over the scene.

In this mystic and formidable presence stood twelve or fifteen men with bowed heads, down-hanging hands, and att.i.tudes of the deepest humility.

The women recognized only the faces of Magistus and Caiaphas. The former stood nearest to the table. Simon was addressing them in terms of reproachful eloquence:

"You have made no progress in our sublime mysteries during the past year.

You have acquired no new powers over the spiritual world. You have not even given me information of the least importance. Alas! you are devoid of genuine ambition, without which whoever deals with spirits becomes a slave and not a master."

His voice became more sonorous and his eye more scornful as he warmed with his subject:

"Your tastes, your character, your life, are low and vulgar and sensual.

You employ the powers of magic for paltry and contemptible ends. To obtain reputation for cunning and foresight; to get good bargains out of your neighbors; to cheat some widow out of her property; to find stolen or buried treasure and appropriate it to yourselves; to pry into the secrets of men's bed-rooms and store-rooms and kitchens; to seduce silly maidens; to create trouble between husbands and wives; to inflict all kinds of petty and scurvy revenges upon your enemies,-that is all you do with our venerable and awful art. The grander destiny which awaits us all by the development and centralization of our powers, your vulgar pa.s.sions do not permit you to see or to appreciate.

"My example has been almost in vain. My spirit of self-sacrifice in achieving my lofty ends, is a mystery to your sluggish and ign.o.ble souls.

I have endured hunger and thirst and wakefulness and nakedness and heat and cold and solitude and plagues and wounds for mastery in the great path I have chosen. I have traversed the world from the frozen seas to the chasms of torrid heat. I have contended with wild beasts and with their guardians, the great spirits, by land and water. I have conquered the serpent and the leopard. The vulture lights on my shoulder like a sparrow; the lion crouches at my feet like a dog. Arch-demons come at my bidding, and hundreds of lesser spirits swarm at the signal of my curse."