HPB-SB-1-120: Difference between revisions

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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|The Cave of the Echoes|1-119}}

{{Style P-Subtitle|A MARRIAGE.}}

It was a strange child, this babe of Nicholas and Minchen, and seemed to have an uncanny atmosphere about it. Small, delicate, and ever ailing, his frail life appeared to hang by a thread as he grew. When his features were in repose, his resemblance to his grand uncle was so striking that the members of the family often shrank from him in terror. It was the pale, shrivelled face of a man of sixty upon the shoulders of a child of nine years. He was never seen to either laugh or play; but, perched in his high chair, gravely sat, folding his arms in a way peculiar to the late Izvertzoff. He would remain so for hours, motionless and drowsy. His nurse was often seen furtively crossing herself, at night upon approaching him; and not one of his attendants would consent to sleep alone with him in the nursery. His father’s behaviour toward him was still more strange. He seemed to love him passionately, and yet to hate him bitterly at moments. He never embraced or caressed the boy, but would pass long hours watching him, with livid cheek and staring eye, as he sat quietly in a corner, in his goblin-like, old-fashioned way. The child had never left the estate, and few outside the family knew him.

{{Style P-Subtitle|A MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER.}}

The first cavern and the platform beside the bottomless lake glittered that evening with lights. Hundreds of flickering torches and lamps, stuck in the clefts of the rocks, illuminated the place, and drove the shadows from the mossy nooks and corners, where they had been undisturbed for many years. The stalactites on the walls sparkled brightly, and the sleeping echoes were suddenly awakened by a confusion of joyous laughter and conversation. The Shaman, who was never lost sight of by his friend and patron, sat in a corner, half entranced as usual. Crouched on a projecting rock, about midway between the entrance and the water, with his orange-yellow wrinkled face, flat nose, and thin beard, he looked more like an ugly stone idol than a human being. Many of the company pressed round him and received correct answers from the oracle to their questions, the Hungarian cheerfully submitting his mesmerized “subject” to cross examination.

{{Style P-Subtitle|A LOVING NEPHEW.}}

At these strange words the guests stared at each other in mute surprise, and some of them looked upon the speaker with real terror.

{{Style P-Subtitle|UNRAVELING THE MYSTERY AT LAST.}}

Without waiting for an answer he drew from a bag that, as he explained, never left his person, first, a small drum, and then two little vials—one full of liquid, the other empty. With the contents of the former he sprinkled the Shaman, who fell to trembling and nodding more violently than ever. The air was filled with the perfumes of spicy odors, and the atmosphere itself seemed to become clearer. Then, to the horror of those present, he approached the Shaman, and taking a miniature, antiquated-looking knife from his bosom, quietly plunged the sharp steel into the man’s forearm and, drew blood from it, which he caught in the empty vial. When it was half-filled he pressed the orifice of the wound with his thumb, and stopped the flow as easily as if he had corked a bottle; after which he sprinkled the blood over the little boy’s head. He then suspended the drum from his neck, and with two ivory drumsticks which were covered with strange carved letters and signs, be began beating a sort of reveille——he said to drum up the Shaman’s “spirits.”

{{Style P-Subtitle|MAGICAL WONDERS.}}

Another chant and a roll of the drum, and the mountain trembled to its foundation with the cannon-like peals which rolled through the dark and distant corridors. The Shaman’s body rose two yards in the air, and, nodding and swaying, he sat, self-suspended, like a hideous apparition. But the transformation which now occurred in the boy chilled everyone with fear as they speechlessly watched the scene. The silvery cloud about the child now seemed to lift him, too, into the air; but, unlike the Shaman, his feet never left the ground. The little boy began to grow as if the work of years was to be miraculously accomplished in a few seconds. He became tall and large, and his senile features grew older, in harmony with the body. A few more seconds and the youthful form had entirely disappeared: it was totally absorbed in another individuality! and, to the horror of those present who had been familiar with his appearance, this individuality was old Izvertzoff! . . .

{{Style P-Subtitle|THE PHANTOM.}}

{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Hadji Mora.}}

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