“Not so loud, Connatt. And then, while Miss Holgar stands inside a circle—that, also, is part of the witch ceremony—he touches her head, and speaks words we do not know. But we can guess.”
He struck his stick hard against the sandy earth.
“What then?” I urged him on.
“It’s in an old Scottish trial of witches,” said Pursuivant. “Modern works—J. W. Wickwar’s book, and I think Margaret Alice Murray’s—quote it. The master of the coven touched the head of the neophyte and said that all beneath his hand now belonged to the powers of darkness.”
“No! No!” I cried, in a voice that wanted to break.
“No hysterics, please!” snapped Pursuivant. “Connatt, let me give you one stark thought—it will cool you, strengthen you for what you must help me achieve. Think what will follow if we let Miss Holgar take this oath, accept this initiation, however unwittingly. At once she will assume the curse that Varduk—Byron—lays down. Life after death, perhaps; the faculty of wreaking devastation at a word or touch; gifts beyond human will or comprehension, all of them a burden to her; and who can know the end?”
“There shall not be a beginning,” I vowed huskily. “I will kill Varduk—”
“Softly, softly. You know that weapons—ordinary weapons—do not even scratch him.”
The twilight was deepening into dusk, Pursuivant turned back toward the lodge, where windows had begun to glow warmly, and muffled motor-noises bespoke the parking of automobiles. There were other flecks of light, too. For myself, I felt beaten and weary, as though I had fought to the verge of losing against a stronger, wiser enemy.
“Look around you, Connatt. At the clumps of bush, the thickets. What do they hide?”
I knew what he meant. I felt, though I saw only dimly, the presence of an evil host in ambuscade all around us.
“They’re waiting to claim her, Connatt. There’s only one thing to do.”
“Then let’s do it, at once.”
“Not yet. The moment must be his moment, one hour before midnight. Escape, as I once said, will not be enough. We must conquer.”
I waited for him to instruct me.
“As you know, Connatt, I will make a speech before the curtain. After that, I’ll come backstage and stay in your dressing-room. What you must do is get the sword that you use in the second act. Bring it there and keep it there.”
“I’ve told you and told you that the sword meant nothing against him.”
“Bring it anyway,” he insisted.
I heard Sigrid’s clear voice, calling me to the stage door. Pursuivant and I shook hands quickly and warmly, like teammates just before a hard game, and we went together to the lodge.
Entering, I made my way at once to the property table. The sword still lay there, and I put out my hand for it.
“What do you want?” asked Elmo Davidson behind me.
“I thought I’d take the sword into my dressing-room.”
“It’s a prop, Connatt. Leave it right where it is.”
I turned and looked at him. “I’d rather have it with me,” I said doggedly.
“You’re being foolish,” he told me sharply, and there is hardly any doubt but that I sounded so to him. “What if I told Varduk about this?”
“Go and tell him, if you like. Tell him also that I won’t go on tonight if you’re going to order me around.” I said this as if I meant it, and he relaxed his commanding pose.
“Oh, go ahead. And for heaven’s sake calm your nerves.”
I took the weapon and bore it away. In my room I found my costume for the first act already laid out on two chairs—either Davidson or Jake had done that for me. Quickly I rubbed color into my cheeks, lined my brows and eyelids, affixed fluffy side-whiskers to my jaws. The mirror showed me a set, pale face, and I put on rather more makeup than I generally use. My hands trembled as I donned gleaming slippers of patent leather, fawn-colored trousers that strapped under the insteps, a frilled shirt and flowing necktie, a flowered waistcoat and a bottle-green frock coat with velvet facings and silver buttons. My hair was long enough to be combed into a wavy sweep back from my brow.
“Places, everybody,” the voice of Davidson was calling outside.
I emerged. Jake Switz was at my door, and he grinned his good wishes. I went quickly onstage, where Sigrid already waited. She looked ravishing in her simple yet striking gown of soft, light blue, with billows of skirt, little puffs of sleeves, a tight, low bodice. Her gleaming hair was caught back into a Grecian-looking coiffure, with a ribbon and a white flower at the side. The normal tan of her skin lay hidden beneath the pallor of her makeup.
At sight of me she smiled and put out a hand. I kissed it lightly, taking care that the red paint on my lips did not smear. She took her seat on the bench against the artificial bushes, and I, as gracefully as possible, dropped at her feet.
Applause sounded beyond the curtain, then died away. The voice of Judge Pursuivant became audible:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have been asked by the management to speak briefly. You are seeing, for the first time before any audience, the lost play of Lord Byron, Ruthven. My presence here is not as a figure of the theater, but as a modest scholar of some persistence, whose privilege it has been to examine the manuscript and perceive its genuineness.
“Consider yourselves all subpenaed as witnesses to a classic moment.” His voice rang as he pronounced the phrase required by Varduk. “I wonder if this night will not make spectacular history for the genius who did not die in Greece a century and more ago. I say, he did not die—for when does genius die? We are here to assist at, and to share in, a performance that will bring him his proper desserts.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I feel, and perhaps you feel as well, the presence of the
