The Witch of Prague Part 25

One moment only, and then all was gone. The change came, sure, swift and cruel. As she looked, it came, gradual, in that it pa.s.sed through every degree, but sudden also, as the fall of a fair and mighty building, which being undermined in its foundations pa.s.ses in one short minute through the change from perfect completeness to hopeless and utter ruin.

All the radiance, all the light, all the glory were gone in an instant.

Her own supremely loving look had not vanished, her lips still parted sweetly, as forming the word that was to answer his, and the calm indifferent face of the waking man was already before her.

"What is it?" he asked, in his kind and pa.s.sionless voice. "What were you going to ask me, Unorna?"

It was gone. The terribly earnest appeal had been in vain. Not a trace of that short vision of love remained impressed upon his brain.

With a smothered cry of agony Unorna leaned against the great slab of stone behind her and covered her eyes. The darkness of night descended upon her, and with it the fire of a burning shame.

Then a loud and cruel laugh rang through the chilly air, such a laugh as the devils in h.e.l.l bestow upon the shame of a proud soul that knows its own infinite bitterness. Unorna started and uncovered her eyes, her suffering changed in a single instant to ungovernable and destroying anger. She made a step forwards and then stopped short, breathing hard.

The Wanderer, too, had turned, more quickly than she. Between two tall gravestones, not a dozen paces away, stood a man with haggard face and eyes on fire, his keen, worn features contorted by a smile in which unspeakable satisfaction struggled for expression with a profound despair.

The man was Israel Kafka.

CHAPTER XIV

The Wanderer looked from Unorna to Kafka with profound surprise. He had never seen the man and had no means of knowing who he was, still less of guessing what had brought him to the lonely place, or why he had broken into a laugh, of which the harsh, wild tones still echoed through the wide cemetery. Totally unconscious of all that had happened to himself during the preceding quarter of an hour, the Wanderer was deprived of the key to the situation. He only understood that the stranger was for some reason or other deeply incensed against Unorna, and he realised that the intruder had, on the moment of appearance, no control over himself.

Israel Kafka remained where he stood, between the two tall stones, one hand resting on each, his body inclined a little forward, his dark, sunken eyes, bloodshot and full of a turbid, angry brightness, bent intently upon Unorna's face. He looked as though he were about to move suddenly forwards, but it was impossible to foresee that he might not as suddenly retreat, as a lean and hungry tiger crouches for a moment in uncertainty whether to fight or fly, when after tracking down his man he finds him not alone and defenceless as he had antic.i.p.ated, but well-armed and in company.

The Wanderer's indolence was only mental, and was moreover transitory and artificial. When he saw Unorna advance, he quickly placed himself between her and Israel Kafka, and looked from one to the other.

"Who is this man?" he asked. "And what does he want of you?"

Unorna made as though she would pa.s.s him. But he laid his hand upon her arm with a gesture that betrayed his anxiety for her safety. At his touch, her face changed for a moment and a faint blush dyed her cheek.

"You may well ask who I am," said the Moravian, speaking in a voice half-choked with pa.s.sion and anger. "She will tell you she does not know me--she will deny my existence to my face. But she knows me very well. I am Israel Kafka."

The Wanderer looked at him more curiously. He remembered what he had heard but a few hours earlier from Keyork concerning the young fellow's madness. The situation now partially explained itself.

"I understand," he said, looking at Unorna. "He seems to be dangerous.

What shall I do with him?"

He asked the question as calmly as though it had referred to the disposal of an inanimate object, instead of to the taking into custody of a madman.

"Do with me?" cried Kafka, advancing suddenly a step forwards from between the slabs. "Do with me? Do you speak of me as though I were a dog--a dumb animal--but I will----"

He choked and coughed, and could not finish the sentence. There was a hectic flush in his cheek and his thin, graceful frame shook violently from head to foot. Unable to speak for the moment, he waved his hand in a menacing gesture. The Wanderer shook his head rather sadly.

"He seems very ill," he said, in a tone of compa.s.sion.

But Unorna was pitiless. She knew what her companion could not know, namely, that Kafka must have followed them through the streets to the cemetery and must have overheard Unorna's pa.s.sionate appeal and must have seen and understood the means she was using to win the Wanderer's love. Her anger was terrible. She had suffered enough secret shame already in stooping to the use of her arts in such a course. It had cost her one of the greatest struggles of her life, and her disappointment at the result had been proportionately bitter. In that alone she had endured almost as much pain as she could bear. But to find suddenly that her humiliation, her hot speech, her failure, the look which she knew had been on her face until the moment when the Wanderer awoke, that all this had been seen and heard by Israel Kafka was intolerable. Even Keyork's unexpected appearance could not have so fired her wrath. Keyork might have laughed at her afterwards, but her failure would have been no triumph to him. Was not Keyork enlisted on her side, ready to help her at all times, by word or deed, in accordance with the terms of their agreement? But of all men Kafka, whom she had so wronged, was the one man who should have been ignorant of her defeat and miserable shame.

"Go!" she cried, with a gesture of command. Her eyes flashed and her extended hand trembled.

There was such concentrated fury in a single word that the Wanderer started in surprise, ignorant as he was of the true state of things.

"You are uselessly unkind," he said gravely. "The poor man is mad. Let me take him away."

"Leave him to me," she answered imperiously. "He will obey me."

But Israel Kafka did not turn. He rested one hand upon the slab and faced her. As when many different forces act together at one point, producing after the first shock a resultant little expected, so the many pa.s.sions that were at work in his face finally twisted his lips into a smile.

"Yes," he said, in a low tone, which did not express submission. "Leave me to her! Leave me to the Witch and to her mercy. It will be the end this time. She is drunk with her love of you and mad with her hatred of me."

Unorna grew suddenly pale, and would have again sprung forward. But the Wanderer stopped her and held her arm. At the same time he looked into Kafka's eyes and raised one hand as though in warning.

"Be silent!" he exclaimed.

"And if I speak, what then?" asked the Moravian with his evil smile.

"I will silence you," answered the Wanderer coldly. "Your madness excuses you, perhaps, but it does not justify me in allowing you to insult a woman."

Kafka's anger took a new direction. Even madmen are often calmed by the quiet opposition of a strong and self-possessed man. And Kafka was not mad. He was no coward either, but the subtlety of his race was in him.

As oil dropped by the board in a wild tempest does not calm the waves, but momentarily prevents their angry crests from breaking, so the Israelite's quick tact veiled the rough face of his dangerous humour.

"I insult no one," he said, almost deferentially. "Least of all her whom I have worshipped long and lost at last. You accuse me unjustly of that, and though my speech may have been somewhat rude, yet may I be forgiven for the sake of what I have suffered. For I have suffered much."

Seeing that he was taking a more courteous tone, the Wanderer folded his arms and left Unorna free to move, awaiting her commands, or the further development of events. He saw in her face that her anger was not subsiding, and he wondered less at it after hearing Kafka's insulting speech. It was a pity, he thought, that any one should take so seriously a maniac's words, but he was nevertheless resolved that they should not be repeated. After all, it would be an easy matter, if the man again overstepped the bounds of gentle speech, to take him bodily away from Unorna's presence.

"And are you going to charm our ears with a story of your sufferings?"

Unorna asked, in a tone so cruel, that the Wanderer expected a quick outburst of anger from Kafka, in reply. But he was disappointed in this.

The smile still lingered on the Moravian's face, when he answered, and his expressive voice, no longer choking with pa.s.sion, grew very soft and musical.

"It is not mine to charm," he said. "It is not given to me to make slaves of all living things with hand and eye and word. Such power Nature does not give to all, she has given none to me. I have no spell to win Unorna's love--and if I had, I cannot say that I would take a love thus earned."

He paused a moment and Unorna grew paler. She started, but then did not move again. His words had power to wound her, but she trembled lest the Wanderer should understand their hidden meaning, and she was silent, biding her time and curbing her pa.s.sion.

"No," continued Kafka, "I was not thus favoured in my nativity. The star of love was not in the ascendant, the lord of magic charms was not trembling upon my horizon, the sun of earthly happiness was not enthroned in my mid-heaven. How could it be? She had it all, this Unorna here, and Nature, generous in one mad moment, lavished upon her all there was to give. For she has all, and we have nothing, as I have learned and you will learn before you die."

He looked at the Wanderer as he spoke. His hollow eyes seemed calm enough, and in his dejected att.i.tude and subdued tone there was nothing that gave warning of a coming storm. The Wanderer listened, half-interested and yet half-annoyed by his persistence. Unorna herself was silent still.

"The nightingale was singing on that night," continued Kafka. "It was a dewy night in early spring, and the air was very soft, when Unorna first breathed it. The world was not asleep but dreaming, when her eyes first opened to look upon it. Heaven had put on all its glories--across its silent breast was bound the milk-white ribband, its crest was crowned with G.o.d's crown-jewels, the great northern stars, its mighty form was robed in the mantle of majesty set with the diamonds of suns and worlds, great and small, far and near--not one tiny spark of all the myriad million gems was darkened by a breath of wind-blown mist. The earth was very still, all wrapped in peace and lulled in love. The great trees pointed their dark spires upwards from the temple of the forest to the firmament of the greater temple on high. In the starlight the year's first roses breathed out the perfume gathered from the departed sun, and every dewdrop in the short, sweet gra.s.s caught in its little self the reflection of heaven's vast glory. Only, in the universal stillness, the nightingale sang the song of songs, and bound the angel of love with the chains of her linked melody and made him captive in bonds stronger than his own."

Israel Kafka spoke dreamily, resting against the stone beside him, seemingly little conscious of the words that fell in oriental imagery from his lips. In other days Unorna had heard him speak like this to her, and she had loved the speech, though not the man, and sometimes for its sake she had wished her heart could find its fellow in his. And even now, the tone and the words had a momentary effect upon her. What would have sounded as folly, overwrought, sentimental, almost laughable, perhaps, to other women, found an echo in her own childish memories and a sympathy in her belief in her own mysterious nature. The Wanderer had heard men talk as Israel Kafka talked, in other lands, where speech is prized by men and women not for its tough strength but for its wealth of flowers.

"And love was her first captive," said the Moravian, "and her first slave. Yes, I will tell you the story of Unorna's life. She is angry with me now. Well, let it be. It is my fault--or hers. What matter? She cannot quite forget me out of mind--and I? Has Lucifer forgotten G.o.d?"

He sighed, and a momentary light flashed in his eyes. Something in the blasphemous strength of the words attracted the Wanderer's attention.

Utterly indifferent himself, he saw that there was something more than madness in the man before him. He found himself wondering what encouragement Unorna had given the seed of pa.s.sion that it should have grown to such strength, and he traced the madness back to the love, instead of referring the love to the madness. But he said nothing.

"So she was born," continued Kafka, dreaming on. "She was born amid the perfume of the roses, under the starlight, when the nightingale was singing. And all things that lived, loved her, and submitted to her voice and hand, and to her eyes and to her unspoken will, as running water follows the course men give it, winding and gliding, falling and rushing, full often of a roar of resistance that covers the deep, quick-moving stream, flowing in spite of itself through the channel that is dug for it to the determined end. And nothing resisted her. Neither man nor woman nor child had any strength to oppose against her magic.

The wolf hounds licked her feet, the wolves themselves crouched fawning in her path. For she is without fear--as she is without mercy. Is that strange? What fear can there be for her who has the magic charm, who holds sleep in the one hand and death in the other, and between whose brows is set the knowledge of what shall be hereafter? Can any one harm her? Has any one the strength to harm her? Is there anything on earth which she covets and which shall not be hers?"

Though his voice was almost as soft as before, the evil smile flickered again about his drawn lips as he looked into Unorna's face. He wondered why she did not face him and crush him and force him to sleep with her eyes as he knew she could do. But he himself was past fear. He had suffered too much and cared not what chanced to him now. But she should know that he knew all, if he told her so with his latest breath. Despair had given him a strange control of his anger and of his words, and jealousy had taught him the art of wounding swiftly, surely and with a light touch. Sooner or later she would turn upon him and annihilate him in a dream of unconsciousness; he knew that, and he knew that such faint power of resisting her as he had ever possessed was gone. But so long as she was willing to listen to him, so long would he torture her with the sting of her own shame, and when her patience ended, or her caprice changed, he would find some bitter word to cast at her in the moment before losing his consciousness of thought and his power to speak.