A Modern Aladdin

His struggles grew fainter and fainter, and at last he hung helplessly clinging to the edge of the hole above him with cramped and nervous fingers. A red light seemed to dance before his eyes, and he felt his strength crumbling away from him like undermined earth. He breathed a short prayer, loosed his hold – and fell about six inches to the bottom of the shaft beneath.

He crouched there for a while, weak and trembling in the reaction from his terror. At last he heaved a great sigh and wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Then, rousing himself and feeling about him, he found that the passage-way continued at right angles with the bottom of the shaft. It seemed to Oliver that he could distinguish a faint gray light in the gloom with which he was enveloped. Nor was he mistaken, for, crawling slowly and painfully forward, he found that the light grew brighter and brighter.

Presently the passage took an upward turn, and by-and-by became so steep that Oliver could hardly struggle forward. At last it again became level and easy to traverse; and still the light grew brighter and brighter.

Suddenly the passage-way became horizontal again, and Oliver stopped in his forward scrambling, and, sitting helplessly down, began crying; for there in front of him, a few yards distant, the gray light of the fading evening shone in at a square window-like hole, and into it swept the sweet fresh open air, fragrant as violets after the close, dank smell of the rooms he had left.

It was through this passage-way that the silent rooms behind must have been supplied with pure air. At last Oliver roused himself, and scrambled forward and through the hole. He found that he had come through a blank wall and upon a little brick ledge or shelf that ran along it.

Not far away sat the cat by means of whose aid he had come forth thus to freedom – the end of the silken cord was still around its neck. It was a black and white mangy-looking creature, but Oliver could have kissed it in his joy. He reached out his hand towards it and called to it, but instead of answering it leaped from the brick ledge to the pavement beneath, and the next moment had disappeared into a blind alley across the narrow court upon which Oliver had come through the hole in the wall.

Oliver sat for a moment or two upon the brick ledge, looking about him. Across the way was a high windowless wall of a house, and below that, at a considerable distance, a low building with a double row of windows extending along the length of it. Close to him was a narrow door-way – the only other opening in the wall through which he had just come. The ledge upon which he sat ended abruptly at that door-way. Above him, and at the end of the alley-way, was another blind windowless wall. All this Oliver observed as he sat upon the ledge, swinging his heels. Then he turned and dropped lightly to the pavement beneath. Something chinked in his pocket as he did so; it was the two bottles of water.

"Thank Heaven!" said Oliver, heaving a sigh. "I am safe at last."

There was a sharp click of the latch of the door near to where he stood, and then it opened. "Good-day, monsieur," said a familiar voice. "Your uncle waits supper for you." It was Gaspard, the servant, who stood in the door-way, bowing and grimacing respectfully as he held it open.

Oliver staggered back against the wall behind him, and there leaned, sick and dizzy. Presently he groaned, sick at heart, and looked up and down the length of the narrow street, but not another soul was in sight; there was nothing for him to do but to enter the door that Gaspard held open for him.

"Straight ahead, monsieur," said Gaspard, bowing as Oliver passed him. "I will show you to your uncle, who is waiting for you." He closed the door as he spoke, and, as Oliver stood aside, he passed him with another respectful bow, and led the way down the long, gloomy passage-way, lit only by a narrow window at the farther end.

Scene Sixth. —The master's house

At the end of the passage-way Gaspard opened another door, and then, motioning with his hand, bowed respectfully for the third time.

Oliver passed through the door-way, and it was as though he had stepped from the threshhold of one world into another. Never in his life had he seen anything like that world. He turned his head this way and that, looking about him in dumb bewilderment. In confused perception he saw white and gold panels, twinkling lights, tapestried furniture, inlaid cabinets glittering with glass and china, painted screens whereon shepherds and shepherdesses piped and danced, and white-wigged ladies and gentlemen bowed and postured. A black satin mask, a painted fan, and a slender glove lay upon the blue damask upholstery of a white and gold sofa that stood against the wall – the mask, the fan, and the glove of a fine lady. But all these things Oliver saw only in the moment of passing, for Gaspard led the way directly up the long room with a step silent as that of a cat. A heavy green silk curtain hung in the door-way. Gaspard drew it aside, and Oliver, still as in a dream, passed through and found himself in a small room crowded with rare books, porcelains, crystals, and what not.

But he had no sight for them; for in front of a glowing fire, protected by a square screen exquisitely painted, and reclining in the midst of cushions on a tapestried sofa, clad in a loose, richly-embroidered, quilted dressing-robe, his white hand holding a book, between the leaves of which his finger was thrust, his smiling face turned towards Oliver – sat the master.

As Oliver entered past the bowing Gaspard, he tossed the book aside upon the table, and sprang to his feet.

"Ah, Oliver, my dear child!" he cried. "Is it then thou again? Embrace me!" and he took the limp Oliver into his arms. "Where hast thou been?" And he drew back and looked into Oliver's face.

"I do not know," croaked Oliver, helplessly.

"Ah! Thou hast been gone a long time. Thou art hungry?"

"I was," said Oliver, wretchedly; "but I am not hungry now."

"Nay," said the other; "thou must be hungry. See! Another little supper;" and he motioned with his hand.

Oliver had not noticed it before, but there was a table spread with a white damask cloth, and with chairs placed for two.

"Let Gaspard show you to your apartment, where you may wash and refresh yourself, and by that time the little supper will be ready."

Oliver wondered what all this meant. He could scarcely believe that the smooth-spoken master and the quiet and well-trained serving-man were the same two as those white-faced demons who had grinned and gnashed at him across the blood-red line drawn around the door-way yonder, and yet he could not doubt it.

The supper was over, and the master, with his fingers locked around his glass, leaned across the table towards Oliver, who, after all, had made a good meal of it.

"And those bottles of water," said he. "Did we then bring them with us from that place down yonder?" He jerked his head over his shoulder.

The question was so sudden and so startling that Oliver sank back in his seat, with all the strength gone out of his back – and he was just beginning to feel more easy. He could not speak a word in answer, but he nodded his head.

"Then give them to me," said the other, sharply. And Oliver saw the delicate pointed fingers hook in spite of themselves.

But Oliver was no longer the Oliver that had sat on the bench in front of the inn at Flourens that little while ago; he had passed through much of late, he had gained wisdom, shrewdness, cunning. Instead of helplessly handing the two phials over to the other, as he might have done a few hours before, he suddenly pushed back his chair, and rose to his feet. Not far from him was a window that looked out upon the street; he stepped quickly to it, and flung it open. "Look!" he cried, in a ringing voice. "I know you now – you and your servant. You are devils! You are stronger than I, but I have some power." He drew forth the two bottles from his pocket. "See!" said he, "here is what you have set your soul upon, and for which you desired to kill me. Without you promise me all that I ask, I will fling them both out upon the pavement beneath. And what then? They will be broken, and the water will run down into the gutter and be gone."

There was a moment of dead silence, during which Oliver stood by the open window with the two phials in his hand, and the master sat looking smilingly at him. After a while the smile broke into a laugh.

"Come, Oliver," said he, "you have learned much since I first saw you at Flourens. You are grand in your heroics. What, then, would you have of me, that you thus threaten?"

Oliver thought for a moment. "I would have you let me go from here safe and sound," said he.

"Very good," said the other. "And what else?"

"That you promise I shall suffer no harm either from you or your servant Gaspard."

"Very good. And what else?"

"That you tell me the secret of that dreadful place where I have been."

"Very good. And what else?"

"That you show me the virtue of this water."

"Very good. And what else?"

"That you let me have half the gain that is to be had from it."

"Very good. And what else?"

Oliver thought for a moment or two. "Why this!" said he; "that you tell me why you sought me out at Flourens, and how you knew that I had escaped from that pit into which you had locked me."

"Very good. And what else?"

Oliver thought for another little while. "Nothing else," said he at last.

Once more the other laughed. "If I refuse," said he, "you throw those bottles out of the window?"

Oliver nodded.

"And you know what would then happen?"

Oliver nodded again.

"And if I promise," said he, "what then?"

"I will give to you those bottles that you seek," said Oliver.