Short Fiction

Sigrid and at him.

The smile vanished. His mouth fell open.

“Wait! That sword⁠—”

He hurled himself, as though to snatch it from my hand. But I lifted the point and lunged, extending myself almost to the boards of the stage. As once before, I felt the flesh tear before my blade. The slender spike of metal went in, in, until the hilt thudded against his breastbone.

No sound from audience or actors, no motion. We made a tableau, myself stretched out at lunge, Varduk transfixed, the other two gazing in sudden aghast wonder.

For one long breath’s space my victim stood like a figure of black stone, with only his white face betraying anything of life and feeling. His deep eyes, gone dark as a winter night, dug themselves into mine. I felt once again the intolerable weight of his stare⁠—yet it was not threatening, not angry even. The surprise ebbed from it, and the eyes and the sad mouth softened into a smile. Was he forgiving me? Thanking me?⁠ ⁠…

---

Sigrid found her voice again, and screamed tremulously. I released the cane-hilt and stepped backward, automatically. Varduk fell limply upon his face. The silver blade, standing out between his shoulders, gleamed red with blood. Next moment the red had turned dull black, as though the gore was a millennium old. Varduk’s body sagged. It shrank within its rich, gloomy garments. It crumbled.

The curtain had fallen. I had not heard its rumble of descent, nor had Sigrid, nor the stupefied Davidson. From beyond the folds came only choking silence. Then Pursuivant’s ready voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, a sad accident has ended the play unexpectedly⁠—tragically. Through the fault of nobody, one of the players has been fatally⁠—”

I heard no more. Holding Sigrid in my arms I told her, briefly and brokenly, the true story of Ruthven and its author. She, weeping, gazed fearfully at the motionless black heap.

“The poor soul!” she sobbed. “The poor, poor soul!”

Jake, leaving his post by the curtain-ropes, had walked on and was leading away the stunned, stumbling Davidson.

I still held Sigrid close. To my lips, as if at the bidding of another mind and memory, came the final lines of Manfred:

“He’s gone⁠—his soul hath ta’en its earthless flight⁠—
Whither? I dread to think⁠—but he is gone.”

Fearful Rock

I

The Sacrifice

Enid Mandifer tried to stand up under what she had just heard. She managed it, but her ears rang, her eyes misted. She felt as if she were drowning.

The voice of Persil Mandifer came through the fog, level and slow, with the hint of that foreign accent which nobody could identify:

“Now that you know that you are not really my daughter, perhaps you are curious as to why I adopted you.”

Curious⁠ ⁠… was that the word to use? But this man who was not her father after all, he delighted in understatements. Enid’s eyes had grown clearer now. She was able to move, to obey Persil Mandifer’s invitation to seat herself. She saw him, half sprawling in his rocking-chair against the plastered wall of the parlor, under the painting of his ancient friend Aaron Burr. Was the rumor true, she mused, that Burr had not really died, that he still lived and planned ambitiously to make himself a throne in America? But Aaron Burr would have to be an old, old man⁠—a hundred years old, or more than a hundred.

Persil Mandifer’s own age might have been anything, but probably he was nearer seventy than fifty. Physically he was the narrowest of men, in shoulders, hips, temples and legs alike, so that he appeared distorted and compressed. White hair, like combed thistledown, fitted itself in ordered streaks to his high skull. His eyes, dull and dark as musket-balls, peered expressionlessly above the nose like a stiletto, the chin like the pointed toe of a fancy boot. The fleshlessness of his legs was accentuated by tight trousers, strapped under the insteps. At his throat sprouted a frill of lace, after a fashion twenty-five years old.

At his left, on a stool, crouched his enormous son Larue. Larue’s body was a collection of soft-looking globes and bladders⁠—a tremendous belly, round-kneed short legs, puffy hands, a gross bald head between fat shoulders. His white linen suit was only a shade paler than his skin, and his loose, faded-pink lips moved incessantly. Once Enid had heard him talking to himself, had been close enough to distinguish the words. Over and over he had said: “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you.”

These two men had reared her from babyhood, here in this low, spacious manor of brick and timber in the Ozark country. Sixteen or eighteen years ago there had been Indians hereabouts, but they were gone, and the few settlers were on remote farms. The Mandifers dwelt alone with their slaves, who were unusually solemn and taciturn for Negroes.

Persil Mandifer was continuing: “I have brought you up as a gentleman would bring up his real daughter⁠—for the sole and simple end of making her a good wife. That explains, my dear, the governess, the finishing-school at St. Louis, the books, the journeys we have undertaken to New Orleans and elsewhere. I regret that this distressing war between the states,” and he paused to draw from his pocket his enameled snuffbox, “should have made recent junkets impracticable. However, the time has come, and you are not to be despised. Your marriage is now to befall you.”

“Marriage,” mumbled Larue, in a voice that Enid was barely able to hear. His fingers interlaced, like fat white worms in a jumble. His eyes were for Enid, his ears for his father.

Enid saw that she must respond. She did so: “You have⁠—chosen a husband for me?”

Persil Mandifer’s lips crawled into a smile, very wide on his narrow blade of a face, and he took a pinch of snuff. “Your husband, my dear, was chosen before ever you came into this world,” he replied. The smile grew broader, but Enid did not think it cheerful. “Does