Jurgen, James Branch Cabell [ebook reader computer .txt] 📗

“Ay,” said a squeaking voice, “this is the time. A ab hur hus!”

“High time!”

“Oh, more than time!”

“Look, the man in the oak!”

“Oho, the firedrake!”

Thus many voices screeched and wailed confusedly. But Jurgen, staring about him, could see nobody: and all the tiny voices seemed to come from far overhead, where nothing was visible save the clouds which of a sudden were gathering; for a wind was rising, and already the moon was overcast. Now for a while that noise high in the air became like a wrangling of sparrows, wherein no words were distinguishable.

Then said a small shrill voice distinctly: “Note now, sweethearts, how high we pass over the wind-vexed heath, where the gallows’ burden creaks and groans swaying to and fro in the night! Now the rain breaks loose as a hawk from the fowler, and grave Queen Holda draws her tresses over the moon’s bright shield. Now the bed is made, and the water drawn, and we the bride’s maids seek for the lass who will be bride to Sclaug.”

Said another: “Oh, search for a maid with golden hair, who is perfect, tender and pure, and fit for a king who is old as love, with no trace of love in him. Even now our grinning dusty master wakes from sleep, and his yellow fingers shake to think of her flower-soft lips who comes tonight to his lank embrace and warms the ribs that our eyes have seen. Who will be bride to Sclaug?”

And a third said: “The wedding-gown we have brought with us, we that a-questing ride; and a maid will go hence on Phorgemon in Cleopatra’s shroud. Hah. Will o’the Wisp will marry the couple⁠—”

“No, no! let Brachyotus!”

“No, be it Kitt with the candlestick!”

“Eman hetan, a fight, a fight!”

“Oho, Tom Tumbler, ’ware of Stadlin!”

“Hast thou the marmaritin, Tib?”

“A ab hur hus!”

“Come, Bembo, come away!”

So they all fell to screeching and whistling and wrangling high over Jurgen’s head, and Jurgen was not pleased with his surroundings.

“For these are the witches of Amneran about some deviltry or another in which I prefer to take no part. I now regret that I flung away a cross in this neighborhood so very recently, and trust the action was understood. If my wife had not made a point of it, and had not positively insisted upon it, I would never have thought of doing such a thing. I intended no reflection upon anybody. Even so, I consider this heath to be unwholesome. And upon the whole, I prefer to seek whatever I may encounter in this cave.”

So in went Jurgen, for the second time.

And the tale tells that all was dark there, and Jurgen could see no one. But the cave stretched straight forward, and downward, and at the far end was a glow of light. Jurgen went on and on, and so came to the place where he had found the Centaur. This part of the cave was now vacant. But behind where Nessus had lain in wait for Jurgen was an opening in the cave’s wall, and through this opening streamed the light. Jurgen stooped and crawled through the orifice.

He stood erect. He caught his breath sharply. Here at his feet was, of all things, a tomb carved with the recumbent effigy of a woman. Now this part of the cave was lighted by lamps upon tall iron stands, so that everything was clearly visible, even to Jurgen, whose eyesight had of late years failed him. This was certainly a low flat tombstone such as Jurgen had seen in many churches: but the tinted effigy thereupon was curious, somehow. Jurgen looked more closely. He touched the thing.

Then he recoiled, because there is no mistaking the feel of dead flesh. The effigy was not colored stone: it was the body of a dead woman. More unaccountable still, it was the body of Félise de Puysange, whom Jurgen had loved very long ago in Gâtinais, a great many years before he set up in business as a pawnbroker.

Very strange it was to Jurgen again to see her face. He had often wondered what had become of this large brown woman; had wondered if he were really the first man for whom she had put a deceit upon her husband; and had wondered what sort of person Madame Félise de Puysange had been in reality.

“Two months it was that we played at intimacy, was it not, Félise? You comprehend, my dear, I really remember very little about you. But I recall quite clearly the door left just ajar, and how as I opened it gently I would see first of all the lamp upon your dressing-table, turned down almost to extinction, and the glowing dust upon its glass shade. Is it not strange that our exceeding wickedness should have resulted in nothing save the memory of dust upon a lamp chimney? Yet you were very handsome, Félise. I dare say I would have liked you if I had ever known you. But when you told me of the child you had lost, and showed me his baby picture, I took a dislike to you. It seemed to me you were betraying that child by dealing over-generously with me: and always between us afterward was his little ghost. Yet I did not at all mind the deceits you put upon your husband. It is true I knew your husband rather intimately⁠—. Well, and they tell me the good Vicomte was vastly pleased by the son you bore him some months after you and I had parted. So there was no great harm done, after all⁠—”

Then Jurgen saw there was another woman’s body lying like an effigy upon another low flat tomb, and beyond that another, and then still others. And Jurgen whistled.

“What, all of them!” he said. “Am I to be confronted with every pound of tender flesh I have embraced? Yes, here is Graine, and Rosamond, and Marcouève, and Elinor. This girl, though, I do not