Originally published in Temple Bar–A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers (Ward and Lock) vol.2 #7 (Jun 1861).
It is a relief inexpressible that the man is dead. As I looked upon his face and saw the fierce, terrified expression which even in the repose of death still lingered about the half-closed eyes and rigid blue lips, and though in that presence I could have no hope that his spirit had found rest, I gave thanks that his life on earth was ended. What was there in this man more than in others that the punishment of his crime should be so much heavier than that of other sinners, that it should be taken out of the hand of man, and inflicted by whom, or what, I cannot tell?
It is three years since I first made the acquaintance of John Temple. We met in travelling. I was a stranger in a strange land, and his perfect knowledge of the route made me gratefully accept his offer of assistance and companionship. He was many years older than I, possessed of a great deal of general information, and able to converse pleasingly and intelligently upon any topic that presented itself during our journey. While willing to speak on any subject of general interest, he was extremely reserved about himself; and though before long I had told him most of my personal and family history, he made no return of confidence. From his conversation I gathered that he had either lived abroad or travelled very extensively; and this was literally all that I learned of him besides his name. We parted in London, after travelling together for nearly a week; and when I gave him my address and urged his visiting me, he accepted the invitation, but did not return the compliment. It was during his first visit that I witnessed for the first time the inexplicable phenomena of one of his attacks of illness.
I was then, as now, a bachelor, and had lodgings in the Albany, and, the evening proving violently stormy, I had little difficulty in persuading Temple to remain at my rooms all night. I offered him my bed, but he preferred the couch by the fire, saying he would throw himself down upon it when weary, without the trouble of undressing. This arrangement made, I locked the outer door (my rooms opened one within the other), and, lighting fresh cigars, we seemed to take a new lease of the evening.
The tempest still howled outside; and, as a gust fiercer than any before shook the window-frame, I turned to congratulate my friend on being under shelter, instead of being exposed to the storm on his way home. When I had last observed him he was lazily reclining on the couch in a posture between sitting and lying; now as I looked he sprang suddenly to his feet and stood gazing intently at the opposite wall, while there gathered in his face a fierce expression of terror such as I had never before seen. Instinctively I rose and looked at the wall, but saw nothing in its blank expanse to account for Temple's intensity of gaze. Next moment he advanced two or three steps across the room, and threw himself into an attitude of defence, as though warding off a blow. With his left arm raised to the level of his eyes, he appeared to strike something with the clenched fist of his right hand. I say, to "strike something;" for though I could see nothing in the space before him, the blow was certainly not given in the air, but stopped short with tremendous force, as though met by some opposing object.
I was too much appalled to speak, and stood blindly staring at my friend, who began to breathe heavily. I could have imagined from the way in which he reeled backward that from time to time he received violent blows, and still the fight continued; for that it was a fight, a deadly struggle, I soon became convinced, though I could only see one of the combatants. Before long it was very plain that Temple had the worst of it: his blows were feebler, his breathing more oppressed, and his face became livid as death. Wrought up to the intensest pitch of excitement and agitation, I felt spell-bound; unable to move, though I believed my friend was dying. A moment, and he went down as I have seen a man go down before a heavy blow on the head; and as he fell he broke the silence, hitherto undisturbed except by his laboured breathing, by a yell of what seemed to me mortal terror rather than pain.
I sprang to him, and, finding him insensible, dragged him upon the couch, and tried to revive him. But the swoon was an obstinate one; and a sudden fear that he was dead sent me out into the stormy night for medical help. Physicians abound in that neighbourhood, and I was fortunate in speedily obtaining one with whom I was slightly acquainted.
Merely telling him that a friend who was spending the night at my rooms had been attacked by fainting, and that, my efforts to recover him having proved unavailing, I had sought his assistance, I hurried with him to my lodgings.
Temple lay on the couch as I had left him, pale and insensible. Dr. Simpson felt his pulse, and I thought looked puzzled. "Bring a pillow, Mr. Johnson," he said, "and raise his head."
I did as he requested. I could have sworn that the man was dead; and I will confess that my pulse quickened as the thought of an inquest crossed my mind, and how impossible it would be for me to explain the extraordinary scene that I had witnessed: I was roused from my thoughts by the physician's voice, sharp and quick:
"This is not mere fainting. He has had a blow upon' the head. You should have told me of this at once: the wound may be dangerous."
The wound! And I saw upon the pillow dark crimson stains of blood. I was petrified; for I was certain that in his fall his head had not struck against any thing likely to produce such a wound as the one I now saw. It was nearly two inches in length, and of a rough, jagged appearance.
Dr. Simpson went on sharply, as he busied himself with preparations for dressing the wound, "How long has he been in this state, and what has done this?"
I answered desperately, "Upon my soul I do not know. He seemed to me, when this fainting attacked him, to fall on the floor without striking against any thing."
"Impossible! Did he strike the fender? I tell you, Mr. Johnson, that this is not fainting at all, but a dangerous state of insensibility brought on by this blow on the head."
I stood by the fire, lost in confusing thought. I was sure that this wound was caused by the blow which had prostrated him at the close of that ghastly fight; but I had not seen the blow given, though I had seen it received; and I felt that to mention it would only make me appear like a madman, and complicate an affair already sufficiently puzzling, especially as Dr. Simpson seemed satisfied that the wound had been produced by striking against the sharp iron-work of the fender in his fall. I was roused again by the sharp voice:
"There, Mr. Johnson, that will do. I never saw such a wound from such a cause. Now I'll give him five minutes, and if my remedies produce no effect in that time, then I must bleed him,"—and he took his lancets from his pocket, selected one, and laid it on the table;—"You say he fainted and fell?"
"Yes," I answered doggedly. I was in no mood for conversation about it.
He seemed to observe my unwillingness to speak, and, turning towards the couch, said, as though speaking to himself,
"I should rather anticipate an attack of brain-fever after this; in which case, Mr. Johnson," and he raised his voice, "he must stay here: you must not think of moving him."
It was an intense relief to me when, before the expiration of the given time, Temple moaned and moved slightly. "Thank God!" I said; and I thanked Him more heartily still when in a short time he opened his eyes and uttered my name in a weak voice.
In the course of another hour we had laid him in my bed, and Dr. Simpson had left us, promising another call about noon of the day which had already dawned. There were no symptoms of fever about the patient; he was exceedingly exhausted. I sat by his bed-side till about seven o'clock; and then, leaving him comfortably sleeping, I threw myself into a large chair in the adjoining room. I meant to think the whole thing calmly over; but I was fatigued, and sleep overcame me.
He was at my rooms for nearly a week. The wound healed rapidly, and his strength returned much sooner than I had expected. On the sixth day after his strange attack, he told me to get him a cab, and he would go home. I made no attempt to prevent it; for in truth I was glad for him to go. My nerves had received a shock that terrible night, and while constantly in his presence I felt that they could not recover their tone. He left me about three o'clock in the afternoon, giving me his address, and requesting, rather than inviting, me to come to see him the following day. I would willingly have declined doing so, but he would take no denial, and I was obliged to promise that I would come.
I could not tell why, but I certainly dreaded my visit, and would gladly have accepted the slightest pretext for breaking the engagement, had one presented itself. About sunset I left my lodgings to walk to Brompton, where Temple lived. It was a bleak February day, and the quick walk in the keen wind did much towards restoring me to myself; so that by the time I knocked at Temple's door I had quite lost the vague feeling of uneasiness which during the day had disturbed me whenever I had thought of the evening.
I was shown into a large, bright, cheerful apartment, whose furniture and arrangements showed plainly wealth and taste combined in luxury and elegance.
Though Temple looked ill, I avoided making any inquiries about his health; and as we sat opposite to each other for some time in silence, my uneasy feelings returned in full force.
The hours passed slowly, Temple seeming lost in reverie. At length, rousing himself with evident effort,
"I am a dull dog to-night," he said. "Open that cabinet if you care for stones and shells."
"But I don't," I answered somewhat rudely.
He smiled.
"That's candid: look at the books; or stay,"— and he took from a large portfolio that stood against the wall a number of photographs, chiefly architectural, and perfectly beautiful of their kind.
In my own rooms, and at my leisure, I should have enjoyed few things more than the turning over of such a collection; but now I felt disinclined for it. My listlessness betrayed itself in my manner of examination, and I was glad when Temple perceived it, and gathering them up replaced them in their case.
I took up a book that lay on the table near me, and had scarcely opened it when Temple held out his hand for it. I gave it to him, and rapidly turning over the leaves, he read two lines with fierce bitter emphasis:
"There may be heaven, there must be hell,
Meanwhile there is our life here; well!"
He threw the book upon the table, and began to pace up and down the room, speaking slowly, "That man understood the whole thing when he wrote those lines; the possibility of heaven for some, the certainty of hell for many; and meanwhile, pending something worse or better, the endurance of this life for us all. I know nothing finer than those two lines; I should like them to be put upon my grave-stone."
"In Heaven's name, why?" I asked, startled more by his manner than his words.
"A queer kind of epitaph, I suppose you think," he continued smiling; "but I shall not die like a Christian, and so have no right to expect Christian burial, with the decency of a grave-stone, and the ornament of an epitaph."
He sat down again opposite to me, and my vague feeling of fear grew stronger every moment as I looked at him. I felt an irresistible impulse to question him.
"Why not?" I said.
He leaned forward towards me till I could feel his breath in my face, and said in a low clear tone,
"Because my life is haunted, and my death will be damned."
The words were terrible enough; but they derived additional horror from the manner of their utterance. He did not speak them recklessly, but with the calmest, deepest, most mournful appreciation of their awful signification; as though he had thought the matter over dispassionately, and decided once and for ever that there was no remedy, no escape, no hope.
Temple threw himself back in his chair for a moment, and then rising began again slowly to pace the floor. He spoke at length:
"I will tell you a story, Johnson, the strangest surely that ever passed human lips. It will be almost as new to me as to you; for though I have been living it for more than four years, I have never heard it put into words, and but for what occurred to me at your rooms a week ago I should not do so now.
"I am forty-five years old. Of the forty I shall say little, though they were important and eventful years enough; and it is to them, and to their work, that I owe the comfort and affluence of my present position. At forty a man's life should be very much decided, and I thought mine was. Owing to certain successful speculations, my fortune had become so considerable that I had no need for any further anxiety about it. I had travelled over the greater part of the globe, and concluded that England was, after all, the best place to live in of any in the world. I believed that I was destined for a bachelor, and prided myself on being true to the tender memory of a buried love; though I think now that the truth was, the grief of my young life had long given place to the indifference of my riper years, and the real reason of my celibacy was not the clinging memory of my early love, but that I feared if I married I should be obliged to give up the unsettled habits of many wandering years. Accordingly, I took a house in London; furnished it after my own somewhat peculiar taste, and was preparing to enjoy the remainder of my life in uneventful ease, when intelligence reached me of something wrong in connection with a Mexican mine in which I was concerned, and in which a large share of my fortune was invested. It was with a feeling of considerable annoyance that I prepared for the journey, as I judged the matter to require personal investigation; and from the time I reached Mexico I bade adieu to the life of other men, and from that date to the present hour have led a life that I think no demon in hell would be willing to accept in exchange for his Own proper torment.
"There was nothing really wrong with the mine: a panic had seized the shareholders, but I found that it had nearly subsided by the time that I reached Mexico. There was no necessity for my remaining there above a few days, for my agent was in all respects trustworthy; but quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat, and I made arrangements for spending the winter in the city. I have moralised a thousand times upon the small pivot on which man's destiny turns. If I could have gone mad, I should have done so, in trying to understand how, from such small premises, can be drawn conclusions so gigantic. I stayed in Mexico that winter; and the result is, a ruined life here, and hell hereafter.
"It was a particularly gay season, and at one of the public entertainments, of which there were many, I met with one at sight of whom my heart throbbed with the fiery pulses of twenty years. I, a man of forty, who prided himself on his insensibility to the charms of women, fell a victim, like a boy, to the fascinations of a beautiful Spaniard, little more than half my age. But though I was fascinated like a boy, by the brilliancy of her flashing eyes and the glowing ruby of her lips, I loved her with a man's devotion; curses on her, for a false heart and for a lying tongue! I told my love; in words which I had never thought to use, I vowed my life to her service. Bewildered by passion, I asked only leave to love, to bask in her presence day after day; I did not think it possible that she should return my love. But she told me, her hot Spanish blood burning in her beautiful cheeks, my native language broken into music in her sweet speech, how, since I loved her, the skies were bluer, the earth greener, the flowers lovelier; and I was beguiled by her false woman's tongue, and gave myself up even more fully to the infatuation. I thought I stood at the gate of heaven, and found too late that I had demanded admittance at the door of perdition; I listened for the music of the spheres, and heard the roaring of infernal fires; I thought to bathe in light, and leapt desperately into scorching flames.
"Had I been less reserved by nature, and made acquaintance with those whom I met from time to time, I might have learned the truth; as it was, I took the lie she gave me. She said she was the daughter of a man well known in the city, though of suspicious reputation,—one Alonzo Guandano. Though I had been so short a time in Mexico, I knew his name well, as an alchemist, an astrologer, a man versed in strange and unearthly knowledge; one to whom, by virtue of a compact with the evil one, no power was denied.
"I asked my beautiful Inez of the truth of this; she wept, she trembled; alas, it was all true, and she had felt his power. I pressed my love to my bosom, and swore to take her with me across the sea, to a happy home which I had already prepared. She hesitated, asked for time, and I gave it her, as I would have done my heart's blood. It was agreed that the new year should witness our flight.
"Two or three weeks passed in a kind of delirium. I saw Inez daily, and lost no opportunity of urging our flight. She yielded at length to my persuasions, and I blessed her for it, when I should rather have cursed her. I swear to Heaven that I believed her when she said she was Guandano's daughter; and I did not discover till too late that my love was as sinful as it was passionate.
"I had made every arrangement, and the evening came which was to be followed by the morning of our flight. We met at our trysting place for the last time, and I soothed the fluttered spirit of my timid love, and pictured to her our life that was to be in England. I told her, too, in glowing words, of what my pride would be in her as my wife; and she listened, and had not the mercy to destroy me by telling the truth at that last moment. Her exquisite face seemed to tremble in the moonshine; in the soft light her beauty assumed a character of unearthly fragility, and I clasped her closer in my arms, as though I feared she would have melted from my grasp. She uttered a faint cry, and struggled in my embrace. I loosed my hold, and saw an awful figure standing by my side. Though I had never seen Guandano, I knew at once that it was he; long flowing robes, curiously embroidered in fantastic figures and characters, enveloped a form taller and more majestic, it seemed to me, than that of mortal man.
"Bold in my integrity of purpose, I did not quail before his terrible eyes. But it was upon Inez that the terror of his glance fell. I could not intercept it; and, in a voice calm through excess of fury, he addressed her as one abandoned in character and shameless in conduct. I spoke for my love. I was not afraid to own my love boldly, regardless that his countenance gathered blackness at each word. I said that his daughter was pure as the angels in heaven. A mocking laugh answered me, and before its echoes had died away, words of doom pealed in my ears:
"'She is my wife.'
"Did the moon fall from the heavens, and the earth spin beneath my feet, or was it that my brain reeled under the blow of his words? I cannot tell.
"I turned to Inez, not to reproach her, but to see her face once more: in its rigid whiteness I read the confession of her guilt. I spoke three words tenderly, 'God forgive her;' and as I spoke, Guandano drew his dagger swiftly from his girdle, and sheathed it in her false heart.
"'She knew her fate,' he said: 'unfaithfulness, and death for her punishment. When I took her as my wife five years ago, I made that condition. I have kept it to-day. And there is also death for you, though not with this dagger.'
"He drew the weapon from its ghastly sheath, and breathing upon it threw it up high into the air. Instinctively I looked up after it, and saw it change into an evil-looking black bird, which flew screaming towards the north. Up to this moment I had not remembered Guandano's reputed powers: during this fearful interview I had regarded him only as the father of Inez, until I was obliged to recognise in him her husband and her murderer, and had not once thought of him as a magician. But in this sight I recognised the evil power I had heard attributed to him; and thinking that the only chance I had for life lay in surprising and disabling him, I threw myself upon him, and tried to grasp his throat. It was as I had hoped; completely off his guard, he had no time for spells and incantations, and though he was considerably taller than I, yet my personal strength greatly exceeded his. The moment my hand was on his throat there woke in me a deadly thirst for his life: I had attacked him in the first place to preserve my own life, but now every thought vanished in a consuming desire for his death.
"It was a fearful struggle, and blow after blow was given on either side with frenzied strength. I felt myself failing, and summoning all my powers, dealt Guandano a blow which sent him reeling backwards to the earth. This would have gained me very little more than a momentary respite, but that in falling he struck his head violently against a large stone lying near, and was wounded and partially stunned. I drew from my pocket a large knife which I always carried with me on my travels, and, mad for his blood, plunged it into his breast. My intention was to stab him to the heart; but the blade snapt, and the wound, though mortal, was not instantly fatal. He opened his eyes and told me he was dying, for my knife had pierced his breast precisely where there was a mark, the sign and seal of the compact with the evil one to which I have referred.
"Half raising himself by a convulsive effort, in a voice growing fainter and weaker every moment, he cursed me in strange words, calling upon strange powers for the fulfilment of his curse. I could understand very little of what he said; the words 'haunted in his life' were all that were distinctly intelligible. Then covering his face with a portion of his flowing robes, he lay down to die.
"It was a fearful scene. Inez lay on the ground to my left, with her face, still beautiful, turned up to the quiet stars; her attitude was one of childlike repose, lying peacefully as though in sleep. To my right lay Guandano's majestic figure, covered from head to heel in the fantastically embroidered robes, whose silver and golden threads glittered in the moonlight as they moved with the strong heaving of his wounded breast.
"The moon sank and the stars paled in the light of coming day; but it was not till the sun rose blood-red that I thought of flight. Guandano's convulsive breathing had died into silence long ago: I had been alone with the beautiful dead and the awful dead for hours. Suddenly I realised what my position would be if found under these circumstances, and the thought drove me to action.
"Every arrangement had been made for my leaving Mexico that morning, and nothing remained for me to do but to take the broken pieces of my knife to prevent detection, and to sail for England. I drew a ring from the finger of Inez, which I intended to keep in memory of her, and then raised Guandano's robe to take the broken knife-blade from the wound. It was gone: I could find it nowhere, though I was certain it had been lodged in his breast. To my unutterable horror I saw that the expression in Guandano's eye when he had cursed me, and which I had shudderingly noted at the time, was in it still: the curse came fearfully to mind, and hastily covering the face I fled. I looked back once in my flight, and saw the face uncovered; it may have been by the wind; but with a terror that the murdered man was watching me, I fled faster and still faster, not venturing to look behind me again.
"My escape was quite easy. The vessel which was in waiting to convey me and my beautiful bride to our happy home took me alone,—a murderer bearing a curse more fearful than that of Cain.
"Nor was it long before the mysterious curse took a shape, and I knew that mine was a haunted life. One day, a month after my return to England, I was standing by the fire in a room of one of the clubhouses in Pall Mall. There were about a dozen men in the room beside myself; some dining, some smoking and reading, some conversing; and I watched their movements as I saw them reflected in the mirror before me. It was evening, and the room was brilliantly lighted by many lamps: the reflection in the mirror reminded me of a scene in a play. As I looked I saw suddenly, high up in the glass, the reflection of a large round lamp, which I did not remember to have seen before. I turned to look into the room for it, but seeing nothing like it, turned again to the mirror. And now to my terror I saw that it was no lamp but a moon; and the ceiling of the room was changed for a deep blue midnight sky, and the dining-tables and card-tables, and all the familiar objects of the room vanished slowly, and in their place came trees and grass, a spot I knew too well,—our tryst when Inez and I were lovers. Presently the whole scene was visible; and there was enacted before my bewildered eyes the tragedy of my last night in Mexico. The most terrible thing was the image of myself fighting desperately with Guandano, the features distorted with mad rage. I tried to turn my glance aside, but it was impossible; I was constrained to watch the ghastly fight to its tragical ending. Just as it had really been, after Guandano had received the fatal blow, he rose and cursed me; and now I heard the words distinctly. My horror was insupportable, and I fainted.
"For about three months after that time I had no return of the curse, and I began to hope the single visitation would be all; but I was mistaken. I went one evening to the theatre: I was in my seat early, before the rising of the curtain, and was looking idly round the house, when my eye was caught by a glimmer that caused me to look straight before me for the light. Upon the dark expanse of the curtain, as though reflected upon it from a magic-lantern, was the spectral moon which I had before seen in the mirror. I knew what was coming, and watched the whole scene gleam slowly out—trees, grass, and two figures, for this time Inez and I were alone, as we had been in the early part of that tragical evening. And then Guandano's majestic form—but I need not describe it: the same vision appeared on the curtain that had appalled me in the mirror, but this time I heard the sound of blows, and of the heavy breathing of the combatants. As Guandano fell pierced by my knife, a mortal pang shot through my breast, and, as before, I fainted.
"I could never calculate time or place: the vision was presented to me in the street, in church, alone in my own room: sometimes for months I was altogether free from it, and again I saw it twice in one week. I ceased to attend all places of public resort, and gave myself up entirely to my curse; I felt that to attempt to evade it was useless, and I even came to take a morbid interest in watching the development of its phenomena. It was never exactly as I had seen it before: sometimes there was an awful silence, save when the words of the curse were spoken; and at others I heard every sound, from my first love-whisper to the trembling Inez, to the sound of my escaping footsteps as I ran from the murdered man.
"I grew curious to know what would be the next change, but was quite unprepared for what occurred about two years after my return to England.
"On the second anniversary of that fatal day I not only saw the scene more vividly than ever, like a picture on the wall of my study, but I actually felt the blows which I saw given to my wraith in the vision. You think me mad, but I tell you there were bruises on my body proving beyond all question that I had been severely beaten.
"You will now understand what seemed inexplicable in my attack at your rooms the other evening, though that time was the first that I have been wounded as well as beaten."
He turned back the sleeve on his left arm and held the limb before me; from the elbow to the wrist it was covered with many-coloured bruises. I glanced up into his face as he stood before me; it had altered considerably since he began to tell me his story, and now wore the look of a man prematurely aged; the features seemed moulded into wrinkles by the inexorable fingers of despair.
I rose and walked across the room, to shake off the clinging horror that oppressed me.
He spoke again in a dreary tone,
"And now, Johnson, you must make me a promise, and bind yourself by an oath to keep it."
I was startled, and must have shown that I was so, for Temple added:
"You need be under no apprehension; all I want is, that you shall promise to come to me whenever I send for you; and above all, that wherever you may be, you will come to me when I am dying, which time I cannot think far distant."
"Have you no older friend?" I asked.
He disregarded my question entirely, and continued,
"You need have no personal fear. It will be some comfort to me; and if it is terrible for you to witness, what must I suffer?"
I was ashamed of my cowardice, and gave the promise he asked, confirming it by a solemn oath which he dictated. He seemed satisfied; and, lighting another cigar, he handed the box to me and sat down again.
I was singularly ill at ease, and bitterly regretted,—now that regret was unavailing,—my oath and promise. Temple spoke presently, returning as by fascination to the evil subject:
"And I lead a cursed life between the visions. I should have ended it long ago, but I dared not let my soul out into the dark to meet Guandano. The meeting is but delayed, and though I know that, I am not brave enough to bring it one moment nearer by my own act. Look there—" and he pointed to a clear ray of moonlight which came through the window and lay white upon the carpet; 'I can never see that without feeling how lost and hopeless my life is."
"For God's sake, Temple," I broke in, "stop! I am nearly bewildered by the horrors I have heard to-night, and will not hear another word. I must keep my word, having pledged it; but I wish to Heaven we had never met!"
I regretted my passionate words a moment after, as I looked into his mournful face; but terror had made me cruel. I took my hat, and was about to leave the room.
"I will walk with you," said Temple, rising.
"You shall not," I answered hotly. "I am nearly as mad as yourself to have listened to your cursed story."
He did not seem displeased, but said quietly,
"Good night, then. Remember your promise."
I walked home like one in a dream. Call it cowardice, if you will; but my very flesh seemed to creep on my bones as I remembered what I had heard, and recalled the promise I had made. IfI could have thought Temple a madman, it would have relieved me; but his manner, so free from excitement, so full of quiet resignation, forbade my doing so: and yet the thing was monstrous. As I walked along Piccadilly,—saw its familiar objects and its nineteenth-century life,—I thought of wild stories that I had read in childhood of magicians and demons, and decided that such things were fictions. But again I recalled the scene in my rooms, and was staggered.
I began to hate Temple. Though sensible that I was doing him the bitterest injustice, and that he deserved only pity from me, I was still unable to repress the feeling which before long had grown to such a height that I felt it impossible to remain in the same country with him, and determined to leave England for a time. I had been for some years reading for the bar, and was expecting an immediate call to it. My legal knowledge therefore warranted my accepting an engagement which was offered me by an acquaintance who was prevented by illness from visiting personally some property which had become embarrassed, owing to the neglect or dishonesty of his agents. I was so eager to leave England, that it was not until I had fully determined upon the journey that I remembered I had not inquired where the business lay. With a strong feeling of shame at my unbusiness-like arrangements, I made the inquiry; but every feeling was lost in that of extreme astonishment when my friend said it was a Mexican mine. My first impulse was to throw up the engagement at once, Mexico being inseparably associated in my mind with Temple and his hideous story,—and it was from these that I sought escape; but upon second thought it struck me that thus I might find out for myself the truth of the tragedy in which Temple had played so fatal a part. If such a man as Guandano had lived in Mexico and come to an untimely death so short a time as four years before, the memory of his death would not have died out, and I should have Temple's story corroborated or contradicted.
During the interval that necessarily elapsed between the concluding of the engagement and my departure from England, as far as possible I avoided Temple, and scrupulously abstained from any reference to my approaching journey. It was with a feeling of relief, to which I had been a stranger ever since I became Temple's unwilling confidant, that I set sail early in July. The voyage was a propitious one, and I reached my destination early in August. Having once entertained the idea of investigating the truth of what Temple had told me, I came to consider that as my real errand, and began my inquiries the very day after I landed. I found no difficulty; no sooner had I asked of Guandano's fate,—saying I had heard of him as a man versed in strange lore, from an Englishman who had visited Mexico some years before,—than the whole story was told to me: how the bodies of Guandano and his wife had been found in the grove adjoining to his house,—hers stabbed to the heart, and his without sign of any cause of death. The bodies had been buried; but the following day the grave was found to be open, and Guandano's corpse missing. This circumstance had so impressed the inhabitants of the city that nothing had been done to his house, which remained in every respect as it had been left by the magician.
I asked if it were possible to enter it; and was told by my host that nothing could be easier, as it was open; and, though many visited it daily, no one had dared to remove or displace any thing contained in the building. He added, that there was one very singular thing connected with it,—that though every other room was dimmed by the dust, which had been so long accumulating, the one which from its curious furniture and arrangements was conjectured to have been Guandano's private apartment, had the appearance of being always kept in order as though still occupied, no trace of dust or disorder ever being visible in it. Popular superstition had long ago declared that this room had been the scene of unholy rites, and that the spirit of the magician had not found rest, but nightly visited his old haunts and kept the room free from change of any kind.
Business was imperative, and for three days after my arrival I found no opportunity of putting into execution my intention of visiting the deserted house. On the fourth day, taking my host as guide, I went early in the forenoon to see for myself what truth there was in the story I had heard. After walking for a couple of miles, we wound through a small plantation, and came suddenly upon a building of no extraordinary appearance; it was very much like other large houses in and near the city, but was much dilapidated—more, it seemed to me, than four or five years of neglect would account for. My companion pointed out to me the spot where the bodies had been found, marked beyond all question; for upon the green grass were two seared and withered places, bearing sufficient resemblance to the human form to show very plainly where they had lain.
We entered the house, and passed at once into the weird chamber. I observed it curiously; the walls were painted; on a black ground, and as though leaping out upon us, were large yellow dragons, fiery tongued. One side was covered with shelves containing books, and bottles of what I supposed to be chemicals. Every thing was in perfect order; but the whole had a cold, cruel look; there was no beautiful thing in all that large room, save one picture,—the painted head of a most lovely woman. I had no need to question my host; he told me at once that it was a portrait of Guandano's wife. I was fascinated by the power of its beauty; my pulse beat quickly, throbbing to my brain, as I looked into the luminous depths of those unfathomable eyes, false lights that had lured my unhappy friend to destruction. But as I gazed, the character of the face seemed to change; a mournful, pleading look seemed bent upon me from the solemn eyes; a tender, wistful expression stole round the curved corners of the exquisite lips. My heart beat like a drum in my ears, as I thought I heard a sweet, low voice speaking in extenuation of the cruel deception.
"T was so weary; life here with Guandano was so dreary to my wasting youth, it was killing me; and I loved Temple truly, though I was false in what I said."
With a desperate effort I tore myself from the picture, and we left the room.
"I should like to have that head," I said at length to my host.
"Holy Virgin!" he replied, in a terrified tone, and crossing himself devoutly; "you must be mad to dream of such a thing."
Ascending a flight of stairs, we entered a room dimmed and tarnished with dust, and showing signs of disorder, as though it had been hastily left by its occupant; there were a thousand evidences that this had been woman's room. On a table in the centre stood a large frame, containing a piece of embroidery, while by its side lay faded silks, and threads of tarnished silver and yellow gold. I associated it instantly with the curiously embroidered robes worn by Guandano on the fatal night, and looked carefully into it. It was a thin fabric, of a most brilliant blue, and in the finished portion were gorgeous leaves and flowers; and tiny humming-birds, bright as life, peeped out from among the leaves, or seemed, in the delicate perfection of their creation, to fly across the surface of the cloth. A vase of crystal, cased in golden filigree, stood upon a small table; from the little heap of dust upon its foot, I conjectured that it had held flowers. Stringed instruments of unusual form lay on one side, and thrown carelessly upon a kind of divan was something which I imagined to be a black lace mantilla; knowing the story as I did, there was something unutterably pathetic in these tokens, and declaring myself satisfied, I proposed our return to the city, being fully determined to visit the house again, alone, at my earliest opportunity.
The business which I had undertaken was of a most complicated nature, and would, I soon discovered, keep me in Mexico for at least a year; I was satisfied that it should be so, and leaving the hotel, established myself in a lodging just outside the city.
Though much occupied by business, it was rarely that a week passed without my finding time to visit Guandano's house, though, after the first few visits, I resolutely avoided more than a passing glance at the painted head in the magician's room. So surely as I gazed earnestly upon it, the pleading look stole over the face, and a sweet madness took possession of my brain, such as no living woman had ever caused me. I forgot then that I looked upon a picture, and longed to press my lips to hers, to kiss away the tender wistful expression that I could have wept to see. Is it possible that the power of the master of the chamber lingered in it still, and that I came under its influence at such times?
The year had more than expired, and still I was unable to finish my business and to return to England. I had made acquaintance with several young men of the city, and through them had been introduced to their families, so that I was by no means lonely, and was not displeased at the prospect of a longer stay in the pleasant city.
One night in the winter, some half-dozen of us were returning from a ball, somewhat exhilarated by the scene we had just quitted, and possibly excited by the wine which we had drunk, when one of our party proposed that we should pay a visit to the magician's house. The proposition was instantly agreed to by all but myself; and though I objected, I was weak enough to be over-persuaded, and we entered the grove leading to the house. It was a brilliant moonlight night, and the scene was almost as visible as at mid-day. I remembered Temple's story, and felt as one in a dream. I was roused by the voice of one of my companions:
"Come on; let us see who will first dare to kiss the portrait in Guandano's room."
All laughed but myself; I was terrified.
"Do nothing of the kind," I said; "let us go back."
"Go back!" was echoed scornfully; "Johnson, you are a coward. The old knave took such jealous care of his wife while she was living that one never could touch her hand even; and now, by all the demons, I will kiss her lips."
"Bravo! bravo!" applauded his companions, and we continued our walk; I was filled with a nameless horror, and yet was so fascinated that I could not leave the reckless group.
They burst open the door, and dashed noisily into the weird chamber; but not even the boldest of them dared advance another step, for a strange sight met their eyes.
The room was filled with light, which yet did not seem to come from the moon; for its pale rays streaming in through the windows were lost in the blaze. No lamp was visible; but the fireplace was filled with flames burning silently though intensely upwards. Standing near, and examining by its light the contents of a small phial, was a majestic figure, which I knew in a moment to be Guandano. Sitting, or rather reclining in a low chair on the opposite side of the fireplace, was the figure of Inez, radiant in unearthly beauty. I glanced instinctively at the portrait on the wall. Merciful Heaven! the frame was empty! For one mad moment I saw the yellow dragons, fiery-tongued, racing on the painted wall, and I fainted.
My friends took me home, I suppose, for I found myself next morning in my own room; I tried to think the whole thing a ghastly dream, and had almost succeeded in doing so when one of my companions of the preceding evening called upon me. The moment our eyes met, I was sure it was no dream, and spoke accordingly.
"What happened last night after I fainted?"
"Oh, the devil! Johnson, ask nothing about it: I think hell was let loose last night; I shall never go there again."
"Nor I," I said; "I shall leave for England as soon as possible."
I was determined upon this, and wound up my affairs speedily; I wrote to my friend that, though the business was not entirely settled, circumstances had occurred which obliged me to leave Mexico at once, and that I should see him very soon after he had received my letter, when I might be able to explain more fully what had transpired.
I lost no time in making arrangements for my return, and three weeks after that terrible night I was on my way to England.
It was a dreary voyage home, and yet I was in no haste to reach England. I tried to reason myself out of my fears; I thought over and over again how unlikely the whole story of Temple's haunted life was, and resolved that it was impossible that he should receive actual blows from what he himself called a vision. But no sooner had I done this than I remembered his attack in my rooms; he had been struck then beyond all question; and when I recalled the midnight-scene in Guandano's room, reason was of no avail, and I returned to implicit and most miserable belief in all that he had told me. So I was obliged to content myself by cursing the day on which I met him, and the still more evil day when I had listened to his story: meanwhile time passed, and in due course I found myself in London.
Much as I was disinclined for it, I felt it was my duty to call upon Temple at the earliest opportunity; and accordingly one day, about a month after my return, I walked over to Brompton.
The door was opened in answer to my knock by Temple himself, who said,
"I felt sure it was you, Johnson; I have been expecting you."
"How so?" I asked.
"I cannot tell; for I was not certain that you were in England; but all day I have been expecting to see you."
We were in his study by this time; I looked at him carefully by the full gaslight, and was shocked to see the change in him; his hair was quite gray, and his features sunken and fixed in a stony expression; I asked if he had been ill, and he answered, "No."
It was a strange meeting between two men calling themselves friends, who had not met for nearly two years. I was unwilling to make any reference to my Mexican visit; but I wondered that Temple should seem to have the same feeling.
We spoke of things we felt little interest in—of politics, of the weather, and I felt that each moment was bringing us nearer to what I least wished to speak of. Presently came an interval of silence, and during its long moments I made a resolution that, cost what it might, I would no longer avoid Temple or any subject of conversation which he might choose to introduce; and I determined, too, that henceforth, if my society was of any consolation, he should have it at any time he might wish, and I would keep my promise faithfully and readily. I was brought to this resolution by a careful study of his face, with its sad, patient, careworn expression; it had what I can only describe as a lonely look, and my very soul was filled with compassion. I realised clearly the bitter injustice of his fate, the punishment so much too heavy for the transgression; and this thought threw me at once back to the supernatural character and power of his victim and tormentor.
I rose and held out my hand to him; he gave his as though instinctively, and with a look of some surprise.
"Temple," I said, "I now renew the promise I made in this room two years ago. I made it then reluctantly, and though I intended to keep it, I should have done so in a very half-hearted fashion; now I make it willingly;" and I repeated the solemn words of the oath.
We shook hands in silence; the compact was fully made. I sat down again, and continued, still urged to speech by the expression of Temple's face:
"I confess that I left England to escape you: your confidence oppressed me till life here seemed unbearable. If I did not think you were a madman, at least I regarded you as a monomaniac; but now I am sure that every word you spoke to me was terrible truth; and if you can find help or strength in my friendship, I bid you use it unsparingly; for I give it to you freely."
There was evidence of intense and painful emotion in Temple's countenance—emotion which for a time prevented his speaking. He found words at length.
"Thank God, Johnson, and thank you. Since you have given me your sympathy and friendship, I no longer utterly despair: I shall not go out of the world wholly desolate; and who knows if this may not be given to me as an emblem of the rest and comfort which I may find in another?"
"God grant it!" I said solemnly; and the words were a prayer.
I no longer dreaded to speak of my Mexican visit, and told him all that I could remember of Guandano's house. When I began to tell of the picture and its fascination, he stopped me abruptly.
"Not that, Johnson. I know that tender pleading look so well." He pressed his hands against his eyes, as though striving to shut out some agonising sight. "My curse grows heavier, Johnson; and I sometimes think it is because, spite of all my knowledge of her unworthiness and my suffering, I love her still. 'Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.' Perhaps Guandano is jealous still," he added with a bitter laugh: "the dead man jealous of his dead wife!"
I went on to tell him of the midnight scene, and it affected him in a way I was not prepared for.
"Poor love!" he said, "does he bring her there for one sad hour?—Then indeed I am avenged." He seemed moved with pity.
I felt this to be wrong, and said so. "Do you forget?" I asked.
"Oh, I forget nothing. But I see you are uneasy at the turn our conversation has taken; we will change it. I do not wish to make unnecessary demands upon your goodness. I promise in my turn not to distress you needlessly."
He kept his word; sending for me rarely, but always, I found, after one of his strange attacks, which now were not only more violent, but more frequent.
The year passed; and I agreed to spend the night of the 31st of December with Temple; we were to watch the new year in together.
I found my friend looking very weak and ill.
"I have had a terrible attack this week, Johnson," he said; "and I am afraid of another to-night. I feel certain that this coming year will be my last; indeed, I do not think I shall live to see many days of it."
"Pooh, Temple, you are nervous," I said, as I tried to rally him upon his low spirits. But I failed to do so; and in his solemn presence my own spirits lost their lightness, and I was not able to do or say any cheerful thing. I wished the night over as the hours dragged slowly on, and listened anxiously for the tolling of twelve o'clock, which should announce the death of the old year, and which I had determined should be the signal for my departure.
The deep-toned church clock boomed twelve through the quiet air, interrupted by the quick silvery sound of the small chimney time-piece, which, beginning to strike at three of the large clock, had rapidly beaten out its twelve strokes, and become silent long before the last echoes of the deep tone had died away. I rose with alacrity.
"A happy new year to you, Temple; and good night."
He rose, as I thought, to return my greeting, and to accompany me to the door; but I looked into his face, and saw -- How shall I describe it? It was the same scene that I had witnessed in my own rooms, but intensified. I was appalled, but this time not stupefied. I rang the bell, called for the housekeeper, and despatched a messenger for Dr. Simpson, who had attended Temple at intervals ever since the evening when I had first called him in.
During the time that necessarily elapsed before he could arrive, I was in an agony; nearly maddened by the feeling of impotence that oppressed me as I saw the frantic struggling of my tortured friend, the joyful chiming of the new year's bells added much to my distraction. I implored him to try to escape; I opened wide the door, and urged him to fly; but he took no heed.
As I heard the sound of rapidly-approaching wheels, I flew to the door, and opened it to the physician. No explanation was needed; and we hastened to Temple's room, accompanied by a strange man whom Dr. Simpson had brought with him. In an instant they had seized Temple, who struggled desperately in their grasp. I saw that my help was necessary, and gave it. Ultimately we succeeded in carrying him to his bedroom, and laying him exhausted upon his bed.
It is of no use. I have thought it over, and tried in vain to find words in which to describe the ever-varying phenomena of his illness. Any thing I might write would seem too mad for belief, and nothing I could say would do justice to the desperate terror and its fearful manifestations which for two days and two nights convulsed my unhappy friend. The physician and I remained with him night and day, doing all that lay in our power to calm the frenzy that was destroying him. On the morning of the third day Dr. Simpson yielded to my entreaties, and bled him from the arm till syncope ensued.
Dr. Simpson anticipated that after his recovery from this swoon, Temple would be too much exhausted to rally, and would gradually and quietly sink away; but to our horror, with the first sign of restoration, the violent symptoms returned, aggravated tenfold by the extreme weakness of the tortured patient.
The third day passed, a day of greater anguish even than the two preceding, and as night came on Temple's frenzy increased to raging madness.
"God help me! I must take the consequences!" said Dr. Simpson, and again he bled Temple in the arm. Two minutes after the operation, and though he had scarcely lost any blood, he threw his head back with a peculiar jerking motion, and was dead. I raised his head to lay it upon the pillow, and in so doing I displaced the bedclothes. Something fell to the floor with a ringing, metallic sound: I looked to see what caused it, and took up a small piece of a knife-blade, about an inch and a half in length. Temple had once shown me the broken knife with which he had stabbed Guandano, and I recognised this as the missing portion of the blade. How it came there I had no means of knowing, but its presence seemed to confirm Temple's hideous story, if confirmation had been needed. I struggled for a moment with a feeling which I believed to be the sickness of death, and was conscious of nothing more till I found myself some hours later on the couch in my own room, Dr. Simpson standing by my side.
It was not for some days that I made any inquiry as to Temple's burial, and it was a great relief when the physician told me that he had made every necessary arrangement. I do not know, nor do I wish to know, where he is buried.