The Yellow Sign & Other Stories Read online

  The time had come, the people should know the son of Hastur, and the whole world bow to the Black Stars which hand in the sky over Carcosa.

  Vance leaned on the table, his head buried in his hands. Mr. Wilde drew a rough sketch on the margin of yesterday’s Herald with a bit of lead pencil. It was a plan of Hawberk’s rooms. Then he wrote out the order and affixed the seal, and shaking like a palsied man I signed my first writ of execution with my name Hildred-Rex.

  Mr. Wilde clambered to the floor and unlocking the cabinet, took a long square box from the first shelf. This he brought to the table and opened. A new knife lay in the tissue paper inside and I picked it up and handed it to Vance, along with the order and the plan of Hawberk’s apartment. Then Mr. Wilde told Vance he could go; and he went, shambling like an outcast of the slums.

  I sat for a while watching the daylight fade behind the square tower of the Judson Memorial Church, and finally, gathering up the man- uscript and notes, took my hat and started for the door.

  Mr. Wilde watched me in silence. When I had stepped into the hall I looked back. Mr. Wilde’s small eyes were still fixed on me. Be- hind him, the shadows gathered in the fading light. Then I closed to door behind me and went out into the darkening streets.

  I had eaten nothing since breakfast, but I was not hungry. A wretched half-starved creature, who stood looking across the street at the Lethal Chamber, noticed me and came up to tell me a tale of misery. I gave him money, I don’t know why, and he went away without thanking me. An hour later another outcast approached and whined his story. I had a blank bit of paper in my pocket, on which was traced the Yellow Sign and I handed it to him. He looked at it stupidly for a moment, and then with an uncertain glance at me, folded it with what seemed to me exaggerated care and placed it in his bosom.

  The electric lights were sparkling among the trees, and the new moon shone in the sky above the Lethal Chamber. It was tiresome waiting in the square; I wandered from the Marble Arch to the artillery stables, and back again to the lotos fountain. The flowers and grass exhaled a fragrance which troubled me. The jet of the fountain played in the moonlight, and the musical splash of falling drops reminded me of the tinkle of chained mail in Hawberk’s shop. But it was not so fascinating, and the dull sparkle of the moonlight on the water brought no such sensations of exquisite pleasure, as when the sunshine played over the polished steel of a corselet on Hawberk’s knee. I watched the bats darting and turning above the water plants in the fountain basin, but their rapid, jerky flight set my nerves on edge, and I went away again to walk aimlessly to and fro among the trees.

  The artillery stables were dark, but in the cavalry barracks the officer’s windows were brilliantly lighted, and the sallyport was con- stantly filled with troopers in fatigues, carrying straw and harness and baskets filled with tin dishes.

  Twice the mounted sentry at the gates was changed, while I wandered up and down the asphalt walk. I looked at my watch. It was nearly time. The lights in the barracks went out one by one, the barred gate was closed, and every minute or two an officer passed in through the side wicket, leaving a rattle of accoutrements and a jungle of spurs on the night air. The square had become very silent. The last homeless loiterer had been driven away by the gray-coated park policemen, the car tracks along Wooster Street were deserted, and the only sound which broke the stillness was the stamping of the sentry’s horse and the ring of his sabre against the saddle pommel. In the barracks, the officer’s quarters were still lighted, and military servants passed the repassed before the bay windows. Twelve o’clock sounded from the new spire of St. Francis Xavier, and at the last stroke of the sad-toned bell a figure passed through the wicket beside the portcullis, returned the salute of the sentry, and crossing the street entered the square and advanced toward the Benedick apartment house.

  “Louis,” I called.

  The man pivoted on his spurred heels and came straight toward me. “Is that you, Hildred?”

  “Yes, you are on time.”

  I took his offered hand, and we strolled toward the Lethal Chamber. He rattled on about his wedding and the graces of Constance, and their future prospects, calling my attention to his captain’s shoulderstraps, and the triple gold arabesque on his sleeve and fatigue cap. I believe I listened as much to the music of his spurs and sabre as I did to his boyish babble, and at last we stood under the elms on the Fourth Street corner of the square opposite the Lethal Chamber. They he laughed and asked me what I wanted with him. I motioned him to a seat on a bench under the electric light, and sat down beside him. He looked at me curiously, with that same searching glance which I hate and fear so in doctors. I felt the insult of his look, but he did not know it, and I carefully concealed my feelings.

  “Well, old chap,” he enquired, “what can I do for you?” I drew from my pocket the manuscript and notes of the Imperial Dynasty of America, and looking him in the eye said: “I will tell you. On your word as a soldier, promise me to read this manuscript from beginning to end, without asking me a question. Promise me to read these notes in the same way, and promise me to listen to what I have to tell later.”

  “I promise, if you wish it,” he said pleasantly, “Give me the paper, Hildred.” He began to read, raising his eyebrows with a puzzled whimsical air, which made me tremble with suppressed anger. As he advanced his eyebrows contracted, and his lips seemed to form the word, “rubbish.”

  Then he looked slightly bored, but apparently for my sake read, with an attempt at interest, which presently ceased to be to be an effort. He started when in the closely written pages he came to his own name, and when he came to mine he lowered the paper, and looked sharply at me for a moment. But he kept his word, and resumed his reading, and I let the half-formed question die on his lips unanswered. When he came to the end and read the signature of Mr. Wilde, he folded the paper carefully and returned it to me. I handed him the notes, and he settled back, pushing his fatigue cap up to his forehead, with a boyish gesture, which I remembered so well in school. I watched his face as he read, and when he finished I took the notes with the manu- script, and placed them in my pocket. Then I unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not seem to recognize it, and I called his attention to it somewhat sharply.

  “Well,” he said, “I see it. What is it?”

  “It is the Yellow Sign,” I said, angrily.

  “Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Louis, in that flattering voice, which Doctor Archer used to employ with me, and would probably have employed again, had I not settled his affair for him.

  I kept my rage down and answered as steadily as possible, “Listen, you have engaged your word?” “I am listening, old chap,” he replied soothingly.

  I began to speak very calmly.

  “Dr. Archer, having by some means become possessed of the secret of the Imperial Succession, attempted to deprive me of my right, alleging that because of a fall from my horse four years ago, I have become mentally deficient. He presumed to place me under restraint in his own house in hopes of either driving me insane or poisoning me. I have not forgotten it. I visited him last night and the interview was final.”

  Louis turned quite pale, but did not move. I resumed triumphantly, “There are yet three people to be interviewed in the interests of Mr. Wilde and myself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his daughter Constance.”

  Louis sprang to his feet and I arose also, and flung the paper marked with the Yellow Sign to the ground. “Oh, I don’t need that to tell you what I have to say,” I cried with a laugh of triumph. “You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to me.”

  Louis looked at me with a startled air, but recovering himself said kindly, “Of course I renounce thewhat is it I must renounce?” “The crown,” I said angrily.

  “Of course,” he answered, “I renounce it. Come, old chap, I’ll walk back to your rooms with you.”

  “Don’t try any of your doctor’s tricks on me,” I cried, trembling with fury.
“Don’t act as if you think I am insane.”

  “What nonsense,” he replied. “Come, it’s getting late, Hildred.” “No,” I shouted, “you must listen. You cannot marry, I forbid it. Do you hear? I forbid it. You shall renounce the crown, and in reward I grant you exile, but if you refuse you shall die.”

  He tried to calm me but I was roused at last, and drawing my long knife barred his way. Then I told him how they would find Dr.Archer in the cellar with his throat open, and I laughed in his face when I thought of Vance and his knife, and the order signed by me.

  “Ah, you are the King,” I cried, “but I shall be King. Who are you to keep me from Empire over all the habitable earth. I was born the cousin of a king, but I shall be King!”

  Louis stood white and rigid before me. Suddenly a man came running up Fourth Street, entering the gate of the Lethal Temple, traversed the path to the bronze doors at full speed, and plunged into the death chamber with the cry of one demented, and I laughed until I wept tears, for I had recognized Vance, and knew that Hawberk and his daughter were no longer in my way.

  “Go,” I cried to Louis, “you have ceased to be a menace. You will never marry Constance now, and if you marry any one else in your exile, I will visit you as I did my doctor last night. Mr. Wilde takes charge of you to-morrow.” Then I turned and darted into South Fifth Avenue, and with a cry of terror Louis dropped his belt and sabre and followed me like the wind. I heard him close behind me at the corner of Bleecker Street, and I dashed into the doorway under Hawberk’s sign. He cried, “Halt, or I fire!” but when he saw that I flew up the stairs leaving Hawberk’s shop below, he left me, and I heard him hammering and shouting at their door as though it were possible to arouse the dead.

  Mr. Wilde’s door was open, and I entered crying, “It is done, it is done! Let the nations rise and look upon their King!” but I could not find Mr. Wilde, so I went to the cabinet and took the splendid dia- dem from its case. Then I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the yellow sign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King! The first gray pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which would shake two hemispheres. Then as I stood, my every never pitched to the highest tension, faint with the joy, and splendor of my thought, without, in the dark passage, a man groaned.

  I seized the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like a demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter then she, and I heard her screech, and I knew my knife had found her. For a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair, seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, my very life, lying prostrate there with the dead master, they came, seized me from behind, and bound me until my veins stood out like cords, and my voice failed with the paroxysms of my frenzied screams. But I still raged, bleeding and infuriated among them, and more than one policeman felt my sharp teeth. Then when I could no longer move they came nearer; I saw old Hawberk, and behind him my cousin Louis’ ghastly face, and farther away, in the corner, a woman, Constance, weeping softly.

  “Ah! I see it now!” I shrieked. “You have seized the throne and the empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in Yellow!”

  (EDITOR’S NOTE.Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for Criminal Insane.)

  The Mask

  Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.

  Stranger: Indeed?

  Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We all have laid aside

  disguise but you.

  Stranger: I wear no mask.

  Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!

  THE KING IN YELLOW: Act I Scene 2

  I Although I knew nothing of chemistry, I listened fascinated. He picked up an Easter lily which Geneviève had brought that morning from Notre Dame and dropped it into the basin. Instantly the liquid lost its crystalline clearness. For a second the lily was enveloped in a milk-white foam, which disappeared, leaving the fluid opalescent. Changing tints of orange and crimson played over the surface, and then what seemed to be a ray of pure sunlight struck through from the bottom where the lily was resting. At the same instant he plunged his hand into the basin and drew out the flower. “There is no danger,” he explained, “if you choose the right moment. That golden ray is the signal.”

  He held the lily toward me and I took it in my hand. It had turned to stone, to the purest marble.

  “You see,” he said, “it is without flaw. What sculptor could repro- duce it?” The marble was white as snow, but in its depths the veins of the lily were tinged with palest azure, and a faint flush lingered deep in its heart.

  “Don’t ask me the reason of that,” he smiled, noticing my wonder. “I have no idea why the veins and heart are tinted, but they always are. Yesterday I tried one of Geneviève’s gold fish,—there it is.”

  The fish looked as if sculptured in marble. But if you held it to the light the stone was beautifully veined with a faint blue, and from somewhere within came a rosy light like the tint which slumbers in an opal. I looked into the basin. Once more it seemed filled with clear- est crystal.

  “If I should touch it now?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, “but you had better not try.”

  “There is one thing I’m curious about,” I said, “and that is where the ray of sunlight comes from.” “It looked like a sunbeam true enough,” he said. “I don’t know, it always comes when I immerse any living thing. Perhaps,” he continued smiling, “perhaps it is the vital spark of the creature escaping to the source from whence it came.”

  I saw he was mocking and threatened him with a mahl-stick, but he only laughed and changed the subject.

  “Stay to lunch. Geneviève will be here directly.”

  “I saw her going to early mass,” I said, “and she looked as fresh and sweet as that lily—before you destroyed it.” “Do you think I destroyed it?” said Boris gravely.

  “Destroyed, preserved, how can we tell?”

  We sat in the corner of a studio near his unfinished group of “The Fates.” He leaned back on the sofa, twirling a sculptor’s chisel and squinting at his work.

  “By the way,” he said, “I have finished pointing up that old aca - demic Ariadne and I suppose it will have to go to the Salon. It’s all I have ready this year, but after the success the ‘Madonna’ brought me, I feel ashamed to send a thing like that.”

  The “Madonna,” an exquisite marble for which Geneviève had sat, had been the sensation of last year’s Salon. I looked at the Ariadne. It was a magnificent piece of technical work, but I agreed with Boris that the world would expect something better of him than that. Still it was impossible now to think of finishing in time for the Salon, that splendid terrible group half shrouded in the marble behind me. “The Fates” would have to wait.

  We were proud of Boris Yvain. We claimed him and he claimed us on the strength of his having been born in America, although his father was French and his mother was Russian. Every one in the Beaux Arts called him Boris. And yet there were only two of us whom he addressed in the same familiar way: Jack Scott and myself.

  Perhaps my being in love with Geneviève had something to do with his affection for me. Not that it had ever been acknowledged between us. But after all was settled, and she had told me with tears in her eyes that it was Boris whom she loved, I went over to his house and congratulated him. The perfect cordiality of that interview di
d not deceive either of us, I always believed, although to one at least it was a great comfort. I do not think he and Geneviève ever spoke of the matter together, but Boris knew.

  Geneviève was lovely. The Madonna-like purity of her face might have been inspired by the Sanctus in Gounod’s Mass. But I was always glad when she changed that mood for what we called her “April Manoeuvres.” She was often as variable as an April day. In the morning grave, dignified and sweet, at noon laughing, capricious, at eve- ning whatever one least expected. I preferred her so rather than in that Madonna-like tranquility which stirred the depths of my heart. I was dreaming of Geneviève when he spoke again.

  “What do you think of my discovery, Alec?”

  “I think it wonderful.”

  “I shall make no use of it, you know, beyond satisfying my own curiosity so far as may be and the secret will die with me.” “It would be rather a blow to sculpture, would it not? We painters lose more than we ever gain by photography.”

  Boris nodded, playing with the edge of the chisel.

  “This new vicious discovery would corrupt the world of art. No, I shall never confide the secret to any one,” he said slowly. It would be hard to find any one less informed about such phe - nomena than myself; but of course I had heard of mineral springs so saturated with silica that the leaves and twigs which fell into them were turned to stone after a time. I dimly comprehend the process, how the silica replaced the vegetable matter, atom by atom, and the result was a duplicate of the object in stone. This I confess had never interested me greatly, and as for the ancient fossils thus produced, they disgusted me. Boris, it appeared, feeling curiosity instead of repugnance, had investigated the subject, and had accidentally stumbled on a solution which, attacking the immersed object with a ferocity unheard of, in a second did the work of years. This was all I could make of the strange story he had just been telling me. He spoke again after a long silence.