The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel | Page 3

straight from shoulder to wrist down to the ground, so that she
looked like a shapeless bodiless, grey ghost in the dim, red light.
"Blood!" she exclaimed in a weird, cadaverous wail. "Blood around
thee and blood at thy feet! But not upon thy head, O Chosen of the
Almighty! Thy decrees are those of the Most High! Thy hand wields
His avenging Sword! I see thee walking upon a sea of blood, yet thy
feet are as white as lilies and thy garments are spotless as the driven
snow. Avaunt," she cried in sepulchral tones, "ye spirits of evil! Avaunt,
ye vampires and ghouls! and venture not with your noxious breath to
disturb the serenity of our Morning Star!"

The girls in front of the dais raised their arms above their heads and
echoed the old soothsayer's wails.
"Avaunt!' they cried solemnly. "Avaunt!"
Now from a distant corner of the room, a small figure detached itself
out of the murky shadows. It was the figure of a young negro, glad in
white from head to foot. In the semi-darkness the draperies which he
wore were alone visible, and the whites of his eyes. Thus he seemed to
be walking without any feet, to have eyes without any face, and to be
carrying a heavy vessel without using any hands. His appearance
indeed was so startling and so unearthly that the man upon the dais
could not suppress and exclamation of terror. Whereupon a wide row of
dazzlingly white teeth showed somewhere between the folds of the
spectral draperies, and further enhanced the spook-like appearance of
the blackamoor. He carried a deep bowl fashioned of chased copper,
which he placed upon the table in front of the old woman, immediately
behind the crystal globe and the small metal box. The seer then opened
the box, took out a pinch of something brown and powdery, and
holding it between finger and thumb, she said solemnly:
"From out the heart of France rises the incense of faith, of hope, and of
love!" and she dropped the powder into the bowl. "May it prove
acceptable to him who is her chosen Lord!"
A bluish flame shot up from out the depth of the vessel, shed for the
space of a second or two its ghostly light upon the gaunt features of the
old hag, the squat and grinning face of the negro, and toyed with the
will-o'-the-wisp-like fitfulness of the surrounding gloom. A
sweet-scented smoke rose upwards to the ceiling. Then the flame died
down again, making the crimson darkness around appear by contrast
more lurid and more mysterious than before.
Robespierre had not moved. His boundless vanity, his insatiable
ambition, blinded him to the effrontery, the ridicule of this mysticism.
He accepted the tangible incense, took a deep breath, as if to fill his
entire being with its heady fumes, just as he was always ready to accept
the fulsome adulation of his devotees and of his sycophants.

The old charlatan then repeated her incantations. Once more she took
powder from the box, threw some of it into the vessel, and spoke in a
sepulchral voice:
"From out of the heart of those who worship thee rises the incense of
their praise!"
A delicate white flame rose immediately out of the vessel. It shed a
momentary, unearthly brightness around, then as speedily vanished
again. And for the third time the witch spoke the mystic words:
"From out the heart of an entire nation rises the incense of perfect joy
in thy triumph over thine enemies!"
This time, however, the magic powder did not act quite so rapidly as it
had done on the two previous occasions. For a few seconds the vessel
remained dark and unresponsive; nothing came to dispel the
surrounding gloom. Even the light of the oil lamp overhead appeared
suddenly to grow dim. At any rate, so it seemed to the autocrat who,
with nerves on edge, sat upon his throne-like seat, his bony hands, so
like the talons of a bird of prey, clutching the arms of his chair, his
narrow eyes fixed upon the sybil, who in her turn was gazing on the
metal vessal as if she would extort some cabalistic mystery from its
depth.
All at once a bright red flame shot out of the bowl. Everything in the
room became suffused with a crimson glow. The old witch bending
over her cauldron looked as if she were smeared with blood, her eyes
appeared bloodshot, her long hooked nose cast a huge black shadow
over her mouth, distorting the face into a hideous, cadaverous grin.
From her throat issued strange sounds like those of an animal in the
throes of pain.
"Red! Red!' she lamented, and gradually as the flame subsided and
finally flickered out altogether, her