The Dark Star Read online

  THE DARK STAR

  PREFACE

  CHILDREN OF THE STAR

  Not the dark companion of Sirius, brightest of all stars--not our ownchill and spectral planet rushing toward Vega in the constellation ofLyra--presided at the birth of millions born to corroborate a bloodyhoroscope.

  But a Dark Star, speeding unseen through space, known to the ancients,by them called Erlik, after the Prince of Darkness, ruled at the birthof those myriad souls destined to be engulfed in the earthquake of theages, or flung by it out of the ordered pathway of their lives intostrange byways, stranger highways--into deeps and deserts neverdreamed of.

  Also one of the dozen odd temporary stars on record blazed up on thatday, flared for a month or two, dwindled to a cinder, and went out.

  But the Dark Star Erlik, terribly immortal, sped on through space tocomplete a two-hundred-thousand-year circuit of the heavens, and beginanew an immemorial journey by the will of the Most High.

  What spectroscope is to horoscope, destiny is to chance. The blackstar Erlik rushed through interstellar darkness unseen; those bornunder its violent augury squalled in their cradles, or, thumb inmouth, slumbered the dreamless slumber of the newly born.

  One of these, a tiny girl baby, fussed and fidgeted in her mother'sarms, tortured by prickly heat when the hot winds blew throughTrebizond.

  Overhead vultures circled; a _stein-adler_, cleaving the blue, lookeddown where the surf made a thin white line along the coast, then sethis lofty course for China.

  Thousands of miles to the westward, a little boy of eight gazed outacross the ruffled waters of the mill pond at Neeland's Mills, andwondered whether the ocean might not look that way.

  And, wondering, with the salt sea effervescence working in hisinland-born body, he fitted a cork to his fishing line and flung thebaited hook far out across the ripples. Then he seated himself on theparapet of the stone bridge and waited for monsters of the deep tocome.

  * * * * *

  And again, off Seraglio Point, men were rowing in a boat; and a cordedsack lay in the stern, horridly and limply heavy.

  There was also a box lying in the boat, oddly bound and clamped withmetal which glistened like silver under the Eastern stars when thewaves of the Bosporus dashed high, and the flying scud rained down onbox and sack and the red-capped rowers.

  * * * * *

  In Petrograd a little girl of twelve was learning to eat other thingsthan sour milk and cheese; learning to ride otherwise than like ademon on a Cossack saddle; learning deportment, too, and languages,and social graces and the fine arts. And, most thoroughly of all, thelittle girl was learning how deathless should be her hatred for theTurkish Empire and all its works; and how only less perfect than ourLord in Paradise was the Czar on his throne amid that earthly paradiseknown as "All the Russias."

  Her little brother was learning these things, too, in the Corps ofOfficers. Also he was already proficient on the balalaika.

  * * * * *

  And again, in the mountains of a conquered province, the littledaughter of a gamekeeper to nobility was preparing to emigrate withher father to a new home in the Western world, where she would learnto perform miracles with rifle and revolver, and where the beauty ofthe hermit thrush's song would startle her into comparing it to thebeauty of her own untried voice. But to her father, and to her, themost beautiful thing in all the world was love of Fatherland.

  * * * * *

  Over these, and millions of others, brooded the spell of the DarkStar. Even the world itself lay under it, vaguely uneasy, sometimesstartled to momentary seismic panic. Then, ere mundane self-controlrestored terrestrial equilibrium, a few mountains exploded, an islandor two lay shattered by earthquake, boiling mud and pumice blotted outone city; earth-shock and fire another; a tidal wave a third.

  But the world settled down and balanced itself once more on the edgeof the perpetual abyss into which it must fall some day; the invisibleshadow of the Dark Star swept it at intervals when some far andnameless sun blazed out unseen; days dawned; the sun of the solarsystem rose furtively each day and hung around the heavens until thatdusky huntress, Night, chased him once more beyond the earth'shorizon.

  The shadow of the Dark Star was always there, though none saw it insunshine or in moonlight, or in the silvery lustre of the planets.

  A boy, born under it, stood outside the fringe of willow and alder,through which moved two English setters followed and controlled by theboy's father.

  "Mark!" called the father.

  Out of the willows like a feathered bomb burst a big grouse, and thegreen foliage that barred its flight seemed to explode as the strongbird sheered out into the sunshine.

  The boy's gun, slanting upward at thirty degrees, glittered in the sunan instant, then the left barrel spoke; and the grouse, as thoughstruck by lightning in mid-air, stopped with a jerk, then slantedswiftly and struck the ground.

  "Dead!" cried the boy, as a setter appeared, leading on straight tothe heavy mass of feathers lying on the pasture grass.

  "Clean work, Jim," said his father, strolling out of the willows. "Butwasn't it a bit risky, considering the little girl yonder?"

  "Father!" exclaimed the boy, very red. "I never even saw her. I'mashamed."

  They stood looking across the pasture, where a little girl in a pinkgingham dress lingered watching them, evidently lured by her curiosityfrom the old house at the crossroads just beyond.

  Jim Neeland, still red with mortification, took the big cock-grousefrom the dog which brought it--a tender-mouthed, beautifully trainedBelton, who stood with his feathered offering in his jaws, veryserious, very proud, awaiting praise from the Neelands, father andson.

  Neeland senior "drew" the bird and distributed the sacrificeimpartially between both dogs--it being the custom of the country.

  Neeland junior broke his gun, replaced the exploded shell, contentindeed with his one hundred per cent performance.

  "Better run over and speak to the little girl, Jim," suggested oldDick Neeland, as he motioned the dogs into covert again.

  So Jim ran lightly across the stony, clover-set ground to where thelittle girl roamed along the old snake fence, picking berriessometimes, sometimes watching the sportsmen out of shy, golden-greyeyes.

  "Little girl," he said, "I'm afraid the shot from my gun came rattlingrather close to you that time. You'll have to be careful. I've noticedyou here before. It won't do; you'll have to keep out of range ofthose bushes, because when we're inside we can't see exactly wherewe're firing."

  The child said nothing. She looked up at the boy, smiled shyly, then,with much composure, began her retreat, not neglecting any temptingblackberry on the way.

  The sun hung low over the hazy Gayfield hills; the beeches and oaks ofMohawk County burned brown and crimson; silver birches supported theirdelicate canopies of burnt gold; and imperial white pines clothed hilland vale in a stately robe of green.

  Jim Neeland forgot the child--or remembered her only to exercisecaution in the Brookhollow covert.

  The little girl Ruhannah, who had once fidgeted with prickly heat inher mother's arms outside the walls of Trebizond, did not forget thiseasily smiling, tall young fellow--a grown man to her--who had comeacross the pasture lot to warn her.

  But it was many a day before they met again, though these two also hadbeen born under the invisible shadow of the Dark Star. But the shadowof Erlik is always passing like swift lightning across the PhantomPlanet which has fled the other way since Time was born.

  _Allahou Ekber, O Tchinguiz Khagan!_

  A native Mongol missionary said to Ruhannah's father:

  "As the chronicles of the Eighurs have it, long ago there fell metalfrom the Black Racer of the skies; the first dagger was made of it;and the first image of the Prince of Darkness. These pass from Kurd toCossack by theft, by gift, by loss; they pas
s from nation to nation byaccident, which is Divine design.

  "And where they remain, war is. And lasts until image and dagger arecarried to another land where war shall be. But where there is war,only the predestined suffer--those born under Erlik--children of theDark Star."

  "I thought," said the Reverend Wilbour Carew, "that my brother hadconfessed Christ."

  "I am but repeating to you what my father believed; and Temujin beforehim," replied the native convert, his remote gaze lost in reflection.

  His eyes were quite little and coloured like a lion's; and sometimes,in deep reverie, the corners of his upper lip twitched.

  This happened when Ruhannah lay fretting in her mother's arms, and thehot wind blew on Trebizond.

  * * * * *

  Under the Dark Star, too, a boy grew up in Minetta Lane, not lesscombative than other ragged boys about him, but he was inclined toarrange and superintend fist fights rather than to participate inbattle, except with his wits.

  His name was Eddie Brandes; his first fortune of three dollars wasamassed at craps; he became a hanger-on in ward politics, atrace-tracks, stable, club, squared ring, vaudeville, burlesque. LongAcre attracted him--but always the gambling end of the operation.

  Which predilection, with its years of ups and downs, landed him oneday in Western Canada with an "Unknown" to match against an Athabascablacksmith, and a training camp as the prospect for the next sixweeks.

  There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Dumont, lately headgamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a Lost Province, andwearing the Iron Cross of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bonychest, now as hollow as a Gothic ruin.

  And if, like a thousand fellow patriots, he had been ordered to theWestern World to watch and report to his Government the trend andtendency of that Western, English-speaking world, only his Governmentand his daughter knew it--a child of the Dark Star now grown to earlywomanhood, with a voice like a hermit thrush and the skill of asorceress with anything that sped a bullet.

  * * * * *

  Before the Unknown was quite ready to meet the Athabasca blacksmith,Albrecht Dumont, dying faster now, signed his last report to theGovernment at Berlin, which his daughter Ilse had written forhim--something about Canadian canals and stupid Yankees and theirgreed, indifference, cowardice, and sloth.

  Dumont's mind wandered:

  "After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my post," he whispered,"do thou pick up my burden and stand guard, little Ilse."

  "Yes, father."

  "Thy sacred promise?"

  "My promise."

  * * * * *

  The next day Dumont felt better than he had felt for a year.

  "Ilse, who is the short and broadly constructed American who comes nowalready every day to see thee and to hear thee sing?"

  "His name is Eddie Brandes."

  "He is of the fight _gesellschaft_, not?"

  "He should gain much money by the fight. A theatre in Chicago may hewillingly control, in which light opera shall be given."

  "Is it for that he hears so willingly thy voice?"

  "It is for that.... And love."

  "And what of Herr Max Venem, who has asked of me thy little hand inmarriage?"

  The girl was silent.

  "Thou dost not love him?"

  "No."

  * * * * *

  Toward sunset, Dumont, lying by the window, opened his eyes of a dying_Laemmergeier_:

  "My Ilse."

  "Father?"

  "What has thou to this man said?"

  "That I will be engaged to him if thou approve."

  "He has gained the fight?"

  "Today.... And many thousand dollars. The theatre in Chicago is hiswhen he desires. Riches, leisure, opportunity to study for a careerupon his stage, are mine if I desire."

  "Dost thou desire this, little Ilse?"

  "Yes."

  "And the man Venem who has followed thee so long?"

  "I cannot be what he would have me--a _Hausfrau_--to mend his linenfor my board and lodging."

  "And the Fatherland which placed me here on outpost?"

  "I take thy place when God relieves thee."

  "_So ist's recht!... Grues Gott_--Ilse----"

  * * * * *

  Among the German settlers a five-piece brass band had been organisedthe year before.

  It marched at the funeral of Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeperto nobility in the mountains of a long-lost province.

  Three months later Ilse Dumont arrived in Chicago to marry EddieBrandes. One Benjamin Stull was best man. Others present included"Captain" Quint, "Doc" Curfoot, "Parson" Smawley, Abe Gordon--friendsof the bridegroom.

  Invited by the bride, among others were Theodor Weishelm, the Hon.Charles Wilson, M. P., and Herr Johann Kestner, a wealthy gentlemanfrom Leipsic seeking safe and promising investments in Canada and theUnited States.

  * * * * *

  A year later Ilse Dumont Brandes, assuming the stage name of MinnaMinti, sang the role of _Bettina_ in "The Mascotte," at the BrandesTheatre in Chicago.

  A year later, when she created the part of _Kathi_ in "The WhiteHorse," Max Venem sent word to her that she would live to see herhusband lying in the gutter under his heel. Which made the girlunhappy in her triumph.

  But Venem hunted up Abe Grittlefeld and told him very coolly that hemeant to ruin Brandes.

  And within a month the latest public favourite, Minna Minti, sat inher dressing-room, wet-eyed, enraged, with the reports of Venem'sprivate detectives locked in the drawer of her dressing table, and thecurtain waiting.

  * * * * *

  So complex was life already becoming to these few among the millionchildren of the Dark Star Erlik--to everyone, from the child thatfretted in its mother's arms under the hot wind near Trebizond, to adeposed Sultan, cowering behind the ivory screen in his zenana,weeping tears that rolled like oil over his fat jowl to which stilladhered the powdered sugar of a Turkish sweetmeat.

  Allahou Ekber, _Khodja_; God is great. Great also, _Ande_, is Ali, theFourth Caliph, cousin-companion of Mahomet the Prophet. But, _Otougtchi_, be thy name Niaz and thy surname Bai, for Prince Erlikspeeds on his Dark Star, and beneath the end of the argument betweenthose two last survivors of a burnt-out world--behold! The sword!

  THE DARK STAR