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The Brass Bottle, a novel by F. Anstey |
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Chapter 13. A Choice Of Evils |
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_ CHAPTER XIII. A CHOICE OF EVILS Not even his morning tub could brace Ventimore's spirits to their usual cheerfulness. After sending away his breakfast almost untasted he stood at his window, looking drearily out over the crude green turf of Vincent Square at the indigo masses of the Abbey and the Victoria Tower and the huge gasometers to the right which loomed faintly through a dun-coloured haze. He felt a positive loathing for his office, to which he had gone with such high hopes and enthusiasm of late. There was no work for him to do there any longer, and the sight of his drawing-table and materials would, he knew, be intolerable in their mute mockery. Nor could he with any decency present himself again at Cottesmore Gardens while the situation still remained unchanged, as it must do until he had seen Fakrash. When would the Jinnee return, or--horrible suspicion!--did he never intend to return at all? "Fakrash!" he groaned aloud, "you can't really mean to leave me in such a regular deuce of a hole as this?" "At thy service!" said a well-known voice behind him, and he turned to see the Jinnee standing smiling on the hearthrug--and at this accomplishment of his dearest desire all his indignation surged back. "Oh, there you are!" he said irritably. "Where on earth have you been all this time?" "Nowhere on earth," was the bland reply; "but in the regions of the air, seeking to promote thy welfare." "If you have been as brilliantly successful up there as you have down here," retorted Horace, "I have much to thank you for." "I am more than repaid," answered the Jinnee, who, like many highly estimable persons, was almost impervious to irony, "by such assurances of thy gratitude." "I'm not grateful," said Horace, fuming. "I'm devilish annoyed!" "Well hath it been written," replied the Jinnee:--
"Why is thy countenance thus troubled, and what new complaint hast thou against me?" "What the devil do you mean by turning a distinguished and perfectly inoffensive scholar into a wall-eyed mule?" Horace broke out. "If that is your idea of a practical joke----!" "It is one of the easiest affairs possible," said the Jinnee, complacently running his fingers through the thin strands of his beard. "I have accomplished such transformations on several occasions." "Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that's all. The question is now--how do you propose to restore him again?" "Far from undoing be that which is accomplished!" was the sententious answer. "What?" cried Horace, hardly believing his ears; "you surely don't mean to allow that unhappy Professor to remain like that for ever, do you?" "None can alter what is predestined." "Very likely not. But it wasn't decreed that a learned man should be suddenly degraded to a beastly mule for the rest of his life. Destiny wouldn't be such a fool!" "Despise not mules, for they are useful and valuable animals in the household." "But, confound it all, have you no imagination? Can't you enter at all into the feelings of a man--a man of wide learning and reputation--suddenly plunged into such a humiliating condition?" "Upon his own head be it," said Fakrash, coldly. "For he hath brought this fate upon himself." "Well, how do you suppose that you have helped me by this performance? Will it make him any the more disposed to consent to my marrying his daughter? Is that all you know of the world?" "It is not my intention that thou shouldst take his daughter to wife." "Whether you approve or not, it's my intention to marry her." "Assuredly she will not marry thee so long as her father remaineth a mule." "There I agree with you. But is that your notion of doing me a good turn?" "I did not consider thy interest in this matter." "Then will you be good enough to consider it now? I have pledged my word that he shall be restored to his original form. Not only my happiness is at stake, but my honour." "By failure to perform the impossible none can lose honour. And this is a thing that cannot be undone." "Cannot be undone?" repeated Horace, feeling a cold clutch at his heart. "Why?" "Because," said the Jinnee, sullenly, "I have forgotten the way." "Nonsense!" retorted Horace; "I don't believe it. Why," he urged, descending to flattery, "you're such a clever old Johnny--I beg your pardon, I meant such a clever old Jinnee--you can do anything, if you only give your mind to it. Just look at the way you changed this house back again to what it was. Marvellous!" "That was the veriest trifle," said Fakrash, though he was obviously pleased by this tribute to his talent; "this would be a different affair altogether." "But child's play to you!" insinuated Horace. "Come, you know very well you can do it if you only choose." "It may be as thou sayest. But I do not choose." "Then I think," said Horace, "that, considering the obligation you admit yourself you are under to me, I have a right to know the reason--the real reason--why you refuse." "Thy claim is not without justice," answered the Jinnee, after a pause, "nor can I decline to gratify thee." "That's right," cried Horace; "I knew you'd see it in the proper light when it was once put to you. Now, don't lose any more time, but restore that unfortunate man at once, as you've promised." "Not so," said the Jinnee; "I promised thee a reason for my refusal--and that thou shalt have. Know then, O my son, that this indiscreet one had, by some vile and unhallowed arts, divined the hidden meaning of what was written upon the seal of the bottle wherein I was confined, and was preparing to reveal the same unto all men." "What would it matter to you if he did?" "Much--for the writing contained a false and lying record of my actions." "If it is all lies, it can't do you any harm. Why not treat them with the contempt they deserve?" "They are not all lies," the Jinnee admitted reluctantly. "Well, never mind. Whatever you've done, you've expiated it by this time." "Now that Suleyman is no more, it is my desire to seek out my kinsmen of the Green Jinn, and live out my days in amity and honour. How can that be if they hear my name execrated by all mortals?" "Nobody would think of execrating you about an affair three thousand years old. It's too stale a scandal." "Thou speakest without understanding. I tell thee that if men knew but the half of my misdoings," said Fakrash, in a tone not altogether free from a kind of sombre complacency, "the noise of them would rise even unto the uppermost regions, and scorn and loathing would be my portion." "Oh, it's not so bad as all that," said Horace, who had a private impression that the Jinnee's "past" would probably turn out to be chiefly made up of peccadilloes. "But, anyway, I'm sure the Professor will readily agree to keep silence about it; and, as you have of course, got the seal in your own possession again----" "Nay; the seal is still in his possession, and it is naught to me where it is deposited," said Fakrash, "since the only mortal who hath deciphered it is now a dumb animal." "Not at all," said Horace. "There are several friends of his who could decipher that inscription quite as easily as he did." "Is this the truth?" said the Jinnee, in visible alarm. "Certainly," said Horace. "Within the last quarter of a century archæology has made great strides. Our learned men can now read Babylonian bricks and Chaldean tablets as easily as if they were advertisements on galvanised iron. You may think you've been extremely clever in turning the Professor into an animal, but you'll probably find you've only made another mistake." "How so?" inquired Fakrash. "Well," said Horace, seeing his advantage, and pushing it unscrupulously, "now, that, in your infinite wisdom, you have ordained that he should be a mule, he naturally can't possess property. Therefore all his effects will have to be sold, and amongst them will be that seal of yours, which, like many other things in his collection, will probably be bought up by the British Museum, where it will be examined and commented upon by every Orientalist in Europe. I suppose you've thought of all that?" "O young man of marvellous sagacity!" said the Jinnee; "truly I had omitted to consider these things, and thou hast opened my eyes in time. For I will present myself unto this man-mule and adjure him to reveal where he hath bestowed this seal, so that I may regain it." "He can't do that, you know, so long as he remains a mule." "I will endow him with speech for the purpose." "Let me tell you this," said Horace: "he's in a very nasty temper just now, naturally enough, and you won't get anything out of him until you have restored him to human form. If you do that, he'll agree to anything." "Whether I restore him or not will depend not on me, but on the damsel who is his daughter, and to whom thou art contracted in marriage. For first of all I must speak with her." "So long as I am present and you promise not to play any tricks," said Horace, "I've no objection, for I believe, if you once saw her and heard her plead for her poor father, you wouldn't have the heart to hold out any longer. But you must give me your word that you'll behave yourself." "Thou hast it," said the Jinnee; "I do but desire to see her on thine account." "Very well," agreed Horace; "but I really can't introduce you in that turban--she'd be terrified. Couldn't you contrive to get yourself up in commonplace English clothes, just for once--something that wouldn't attract so much attention?" "Will this satisfy thee?" inquired the Jinnee, as his green turban and flowing robes suddenly resolved themselves into the conventional chimney-pot hat, frock-coat, and trousers of modern civilisation. He bore a painful resemblance in them to the kind of elderly gentleman who comes on in the harlequinade to be bonneted by the clown; but Horace was in no mood to be critical just then. "That's better," he said encouragingly; "much better. Now," he added, as he led the way to the hall and put on his own hat and overcoat, "we'll go out and find a hansom and be at Kensington in less than twenty minutes." "We shall be there in less than twenty seconds," said the Jinnee, seizing him by the arm above the elbow; and Horace found himself suddenly carried up into the air and set down, gasping with surprise and want of breath, on the pavement opposite the Futvoyes' door. "I should just like to observe," he said, as soon as he could speak, "that if we've been seen, we shall probably cause a sensation. Londoners are not accustomed to seeing people skimming over the chimney-pots like amateur rooks." "Trouble not for that," said Fakrash, "for no mortal eyes are capable of following our flight." "I hope not," said Horace, "or I shall lose any reputation I have left. I think," he added, "I'd better go in alone first and prepare them, if you don't mind waiting outside. I'll come to the window and wave my pocket-handkerchief when they're ready. And do come in by the door like an ordinary person, and ask the maidservant if you may see me." "I will bear it in mind," answered the Jinnee, and suddenly sank, or seemed to sink, through a chink in the pavement. Horace, after ringing at the Futvoyes' door, was admitted and shown into the drawing-room, where Sylvia presently came to him, looking as lovely as ever, in spite of the pallor due to sleeplessness and anxiety. "It is kind of you to call and inquire," she said, with the unnatural calm of suppressed hysteria. "Dad is much the same this morning. He had a fairly good night, and was able to take part of a carrot for breakfast--but I'm afraid he has just remembered that he has to read a paper on 'Oriental Occultism' before the Asiatic Society this evening, and it's worrying him a little.... Oh, Horace," she broke out, unexpectedly, "how perfectly awful all this is! How are we to bear it?" "Don't give way, darling!" said Horace; "you will not have to bear it much longer." "It's all very well, Horace, but unless something is done soon it will be too late. We can't go on keeping a mule in the study without the servants suspecting something, and where are we to put poor, dear papa? It's too ghastly to think of his having to be sent away to--to a Home of Rest for Horses--and yet what is to be done with him?... Why do you come if you can't do anything?" "I shouldn't be here unless I could bring you good news. You remember what I told you about the Jinnee?" "Remember!" cried Sylvia. "As if I could forget! Has he really come back, Horace?" "Yes. I think I have brought him to see that he has made a foolish mistake in enchanting your unfortunate father, and he seems willing to undo it on certain conditions. He is somewhere within call at this moment, and will come in whenever I give the signal. But he wishes to speak to you first." "To me? Oh, no, Horace!" exclaimed Sylvia, recoiling. "I'd so much rather not. I don't like things that have come out of brass bottles. I shouldn't know what to say, and it would frighten me horribly." "You must be brave, darling!" said Horace. "Remember that it depends on you whether the Professor is to be restored or not. And there's nothing alarming about old Fakrash, either, I've got him to put on ordinary things, and he really doesn't look so bad in them. He's quite a mild, amiable old noodle, and he'll do anything for you, if you'll only stroke him down the right way. You will see him, won't you, for your father's sake?" "If I must," said Sylvia, with a shudder, "I--I'll be as nice to him as I can." Horace went to the window and gave the signal, though there was no one in sight. However, it was evidently seen, for the next moment there was a resounding blow at the front door, and a little later Jessie, the parlour-maid, announced "Mr. Fatrasher Larmash--to see Mr. Ventimore," and the Jinnee stalked gravely in, with his tall hat on his head. "You are probably not aware of it, sir," said Horace, "but it is the custom here to uncover in the presence of a lady." The Jinnee removed his hat with both hands, and stood silent and impassive. "Let me present you to Miss Sylvia Futvoye," Ventimore continued, "the lady whose name you have already heard." There was a momentary gleam in Fakrash's odd, slanting eyes as they lighted on Sylvia's shrinking figure, but he made no acknowledgment of the introduction. "The damsel is not without comeliness," he remarked to Horace; "but there are lovelier far than she." "I didn't ask you for either criticisms or comparisons," said Ventimore, sharply; "there is nobody in the world equal to Miss Futvoye, in my opinion, and you will be good enough to remember that fact. She is exceedingly distressed (as any dutiful daughter would be) by the cruel and senseless trick you have played her father, and she begs that you will rectify it at once. Don't you, Sylvia?" "Yes, indeed!" said Sylvia, almost in a whisper, "if--if it isn't troubling you too much!" "I have been turning over thy words in my mind," said Fakrash to Horace, still ignoring Sylvia, "and I am convinced that thou art right. Even if the contents of the seal were known of all men, they would raise no clamour about affairs that concern them not. Therefore it is nothing to me in whose hands the seal may be. Dost thou not agree with me in this?" "Of course I do," said Horace. "And it naturally follows that----" "It naturally follows, as thou sayest," said the Jinnee, with a cunning assumption of indifference, "that I have naught to gain by demanding back the seal as the price of restoring this damsel's father to his original form. Wherefore, so far as I am concerned, let him remain a mule for ever; unless, indeed, thou art ready to comply with my conditions." "Conditions!" cried Horace, utterly unprepared for this conclusion. "What can you possibly want from me? But state them. I'll agree to anything, in reason!" "I demand that thou shouldst renounce the hand of this damsel." "That's out of all reason," said Horace, "and you know it. I will never give her up, so long as she is willing to keep me." "Maiden," said the Jinnee, addressing Sylvia for the first time, "the matter rests with thee. Wilt thou release this my son from his contract, since thou art no fit wife for such as he?" "How can I," cried Sylvia, "when I love him and he loves me? What a wicked tyrannical old thing you must be to expect it! I can't give him up." "It is but giving up what can never be thine," said Fakrash. "And be not anxious for him, for I will reward and console him a thousandfold for the loss of thy society. A little while, and he shall remember thee no more." "Don't believe him, darling," said Horace; "you know me better than that." "Remember," said the Jinnee, "that by thy refusal thou wilt condemn thy parent to remain a mule throughout all his days. Art thou so unnatural and hard-hearted a daughter as to do this thing?" "Oh, I couldn't!" cried Sylvia. "I can't let poor father remain a mule all his life when one word--and yet what am I to do? Horace, what shall I say? Advise me.... Advise me!" "Heaven help us both!" groaned Ventimore. "If I could only see the right thing to do. Look here, Mr. Fakrash," he added, "this is a matter that requires consideration. Will you relieve us of your presence for a short time, while we talk it over?" "With all my heart," said the Jinnee, in the most obliging manner in the world, and vanished instantly. "Now, darling," began Horace, after he had gone, "if that unspeakable old scoundrel is really in earnest, there's no denying that he's got us in an extremely tight place. But I can't bring myself to believe that he does mean it. I fancy he's only trying us. And what I want you to do is not to consider me in the matter at all." "How can I help it?" said poor Sylvia. "Horace, you--you don't want to be released, do you?" "I?" said Horace, "when you are all I have in the world! That's so likely, Sylvia! But we are bound to look facts in the face. To begin with, even if this hadn't happened, your people wouldn't let our engagement continue. For my prospects have changed again, dearest. I'm even worse off than when we first met, for that confounded Jinnee has contrived to lose my first and only client for me--the one thing worth having he ever gave me." And he told her the story of the mushroom palace and Mr. Wackerbath's withdrawal. "So you see, darling," he concluded, "I haven't even a home to offer you; and if I had, it would be miserably uncomfortable for you with that old Marplot continually dropping in on us--especially if, as I'm afraid he has, he's taken some unreasonable dislike to you." "But surely you can talk him over?" said Sylvia; "you said you could do anything you liked with him." "I'm beginning to find," he replied, ruefully enough, "that he's not so easily managed as I thought. And for the present, I'm afraid, if we are to get the Professor out of this, that there's nothing for it but to humour old Fakrash." "Then you actually advise me to--to break it off?" she cried; "I never thought you would do that!" "For your own sake," said Horace; "for your father's sake. If you won't, Sylvia, I must. And you will spare me that? Let us both agree to part and--and trust that we shall be united some day." "Don't try to deceive me or yourself, Horace," she said; "if we part now, it will be for ever." He had a dismal conviction that she was right. "We must hope for the best," he said drearily; "Fakrash may have some motive in all this we don't understand. Or he may relent. But part we must, for the present." "Very well," she said. "If he restores dad, I will give you up. But not unless." "Hath the damsel decided?" asked the Jinnee, suddenly re-appearing; "for the period of deliberation is past." "Miss Futvoye and I," Horace answered for her, "are willing to consider our engagement at an end, until you approve of its renewal, on condition that you restore her father at once." "Agreed!" said Fakrash. "Conduct me to him, and we will arrange the matter without delay." Outside they met Mrs. Futvoye on her way from the study. "You here, Horace?" she exclaimed. "And who is this--gentleman?" "This," said Horace, "is the--er--author of the Professor's misfortunes, and he had come here at my request to undo his work." "It would be so kind of him!" exclaimed the distressed lady, who was by this time far beyond either surprise or resentment. "I'm sure, if he knew all we have gone through----!" and she led the way to her husband's room. As soon as the door was opened the Professor seemed to recognise his tormentor in spite of his changed raiment, and was so powerfully agitated that he actually reeled on his four legs, and "stood over" in a lamentable fashion. "O man of distinguished attainments!" began the Jinnee, "whom I have caused, for reasons that are known unto thee, to assume the shape of a mule, speak, I adjure thee, and tell me where thou hast deposited the inscribed seal which is in thy possession." The Professor spoke; and the effect of articulate speech proceeding from the mouth of what was to all outward seeming an ordinary mule was strange beyond description. "I'll see you damned first," he said sullenly. "You can't do worse to me than you've done already!" "As thou wilt," said Fakrash; "but unless I regain it, I will not restore thee to what thou wast." "Well, then," said the mule, savagely, "you'll find it in the top right-hand drawer of my writing-table: the key is in that diorite bowl on the mantelpiece." The Jinnee unlocked the drawer, and took out the metal cap, which he placed in the breast pocket of his incongruous frock-coat. "So far, well," he said; "next thou must deliver up to me the transcription thou hast made, and swear to preserve an inviolable secrecy regarding the meaning thereof." "Do you know what you're asking, sir?" said the mule, laying back his ears viciously. "Do you think that to oblige you I'm going to suppress one of the most remarkable discoveries of my whole scientific career? Never, sir--never!" "Since if thou refusest I shall assuredly deprive thee of speech once more and leave thee a mule, as thou art now, of hideous appearance," said the Jinnee, "thou art like to gain little by a discovery which thou wilt be unable to impart. However, the choice rests with thee." The mule rolled his one eye, and showed all his teeth in a vicious snarl. "You've got the whip-hand of me," he said, "and I may as well give in. There's a transcript inside my blotting-case--it's the only copy I've made." Fakrash found the paper, which he rubbed into invisibility between his palms, as any ordinary conjurer might do. "Now raise thy right forefoot," he said, "and swear by all thou holdest sacred never to divulge what thou hast learnt"--which oath the Professor, in the vilest of tempers, took, clumsily enough. "Good," said the Jinnee, with a grim smile. "Now let one of thy women bring me a cup of fair water." Sylvia went out, and came back with a cup of water. "It's filtered," she said anxiously; "I don't know if that will do?" "It will suffice," said Fakrash. "Let both the women withdraw." "Surely," remonstrated Mrs. Futvoye, "you don't mean to turn his wife and daughter out of the room at such a moment as this? We shall be perfectly quiet, and we may even be of some help." "Do as you're told, my dear!" snapped the ungrateful mule; "do as you're told. You'll only be in the way here. Do you suppose he doesn't know his own beastly business?" They left accordingly; whereupon Fakrash took the cup--an ordinary breakfast cup with a Greek key-border pattern in pale blue round the top--and, drenching the mule with the contents, exclaimed, "Quit this form and return to the form in which thou wast!" For a dreadful moment or two it seemed as if no effect was to be produced; the animal simply stood and shivered, and Ventimore began to feel an agonising suspicion that the Jinnee really had, as he had first asserted, forgotten how to perform this particular incantation. All at once the mule reared, and began to beat the air frantically with his fore-hoofs; after which he fell heavily backward into the nearest armchair (which was, fortunately, a solid and capacious piece of furniture) with his fore-legs hanging limply at his side, in a semi-human fashion. There was a brief convulsion, and then, by some gradual process unspeakably impressive to witness, the man seemed to break through the mule, the mule became merged in the man--and Professor Futvoye, restored to his own natural form and habit, sat gasping and trembling in the chair before them. _ |
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