Stolen Souls

Several times he repeated this, until at length her eyes twitched, her face flushed, and she gradually became perfectly conscious, answering the doctor’s questions quite rationally. But at me she glanced shyly, and blushed.

“She remembers nothing distinctly since she was hypnotised,” Ferguson said, “therefore you are a stranger.”

I endeavoured to explain that I had delivered the letter she entrusted to me; but she shook her head, saying —

“I only saw you once, in the Dominique Restaurant in Petersburg, when you drank the wine over which Petrovitch Délianoff had made passes during the few moments you were absent.”

Ferguson, who was one of the greatest English authorities on hypnotism and a student of the occult, eagerly asked what the man had done.

“He touched my forehead quickly in a curious way,” she answered, “and he afterwards dipped his finger in the wine, saying, ‘Your sensibility and soul will now leave you and be transferred to this glass of wine. In future you will feel nothing.’ Since that time I – I seem to have been in a long dream; I can remember nothing distinctly.”

“Ah! I now understand,” exclaimed my friend, raising the candle and looking into my eyes. “The man has experimented successfully upon you with the novel method of producing hypnosis recently discovered by Charcot at La Salpêtrière. Remarkable as it may seem, it is, nevertheless, possible to transfer by suggestion the sensibility of hystero-epileptic subjects to any liquid. On drinking the wine, you absorbed her sensibility, and her very soul thus transferred to you, produced the mysterious affinity of thought and deed. The very singular coincidence of the marks upon your wrists, and the curious magnetic force that impelled you towards her, are nothing more than demonstrations of the powerful psychical influence of the mind on the body.”

“What can have been the motive for all this?” I exclaimed, when, after considerable difficulty, we had broken the chains and led her to a chair.

“The motive was gold,” she answered in a weak voice. “I – I am the victim of the man Délianoff. Mine has been a tragic career. Three years ago I loved Nikanôr Baranovitch; but, although only eighteen, my mother compelled me to marry the Prince, who was nearly forty years older than myself. It is true he idolised me, but I cannot say that I experienced the least regret when, five months later, he died, leaving me all his wealth. Then, alas! my unhappiness commenced. The management of the estate was left to Délianoff, and there was a clause in the will which provided that if I died, or married Nikanôr, the property should go to Vladimir Lemontzeff, a nephew of the Prince’s who was an attaché at the Embassy in London.

“Almost as soon as the Prince was buried, Délianoff proceeded to place me under his influence, for, my mother and most of my near relations being dead, I was utterly alone. The scoundrel was an accomplished hypnotist, and in order to further his villainous scheme, he put cruel rumours in circulation which caused Petersburg society to shun me. His irresistible power of fascination I was unable to withstand, and by hypnotic suggestion he has caused me to hand over to him the greater part of my fortune. He kept me constantly in his thrall by threatening to give information to the police that I had committed murder. This crime he had suggested to me, causing me to believe that I had actually stained my hands with blood. Just at that period I saw you in the Dominique, and, as I have already explained, he practised on you one of his devilish experiments. He was a Nihilist, and on that night he used his influence to induce me to attend a meeting alone, and swear to kill whoever the Executive decided should be removed. Soon afterwards I heard of Nikanôr’s illness in Pavlova, and you were good enough to convey to him a letter in which I told him how Délianoff had attempted to cut my throat, and how utterly helpless I was in his hands.”

“Nikanôr died, and could not save you,” I observed sorrowfully.

“Yes,” she sighed; “Délianoffs motive for getting me to take the oath was as ingenious as his other villainies, for, when his plans were complete, he brought me to London, invited Vladimir here, and then, by the exercise of his occult power, he made me believe that the Prince’s nephew was the man the Executive had ordered me to kill. But you saved me, for just as I was about to strike the fatal blow, you entered. Délianoff at that moment came behind you, and, with his curious touch, insinuated in your brain the image of sleep. Of what afterwards occurred I know nothing, for I fainted.

“This scoundrel, who had planned that I should kill Vladimir and afterwards commit suicide, in order that his villainy should not be exposed, was mad with rage at the failure of his plot. When I regained consciousness, he dragged me about the room, brandishing a knife and threatening to murder me; but at last his anger cooled, and his demoniacal ingenuity devised a terrible torture. My passive will was still under his influence, and I could not escape or utter cry when he locked the fetters upon my wrists and chained me to yonder column. For several days he came regularly with food and water, but four days ago, after telling me how he had obtained possession of all that belonged to me, he laughed derisively, and said he should leave me to die of starvation.”

“Yes; we were only just in time,” the doctor remarked, feeling her pulse, with his eyes upon his watch. “You would have been dead to-morrow.”

The Princess had no friends in London, therefore I gave up my chambers to her, taking up quarters at a neighbouring hotel, while the hospital nurse I engaged attended her until she fully recovered.

She can never recover the bulk of her fortune; nevertheless she has the satisfaction of knowing that Délianoff speedily met with his deserts.

Although ostensibly a Nihilist, it was ascertained that he acted as a spy in the pay of the Secret Police. His end was befitting a coward and a traitor, for while assisting in an attempt to wreck the Winter Palace, he handled a bomb carelessly, with the result that it exploded and killed him.

Some are of opinion that, being an informer, the vengeance of the Narodnaya Volya fell upon him, and I incline to that belief.

Chapter Two.

The Golden Hand

Ramblings, erratic and obsession-dogged, had taken me to Bagnères de Luchon, over the snow-capped Pyrenees by the Porte de Vénasque to Huesca, thence to quaint old Zaragoza and Valencia, and in returning from Madrid I found myself idling away a few days at San Sebastian, that gay and charming watering-place which somebody has termed “the Brighton of Spain.” The month was July, the town was filled with Madrileftos attracted by the excellent bathing, and glad to escape the stifling heat and dust of the Castellana or the Calle de Alcala, while the shell-like Concha, or bay, was given up to the campamento of bathing-tents.

From my seat in the porch of the Fonda de Ezcurra I gazed upon the beautiful Bay of Zurriola, with its twinkling lights, crowded with a thousand fantastic shadows; I heard the creak of the row-locks and the plashing of oars, and the laughter of girls; and in the deep gloom not far away the faint music of violins and mandolines trembled in the air. So still was the night that the regular throbbing of paddle-wheels from a steamboat not yet visible formed a rumbling undertone to all the other sounds, and the summer moon bathed all things in its mystic light, throwing far out over the water into the Bay of Biscay a bright, shining pathway.

Across this path boats glided from time to time; on the asphalte walk at the edge of the beach fair flirtatious little dames in graceful mantillas passed to and fro, and as I lit a cigarette, I dreamed and dwelt upon the future.

Presently a neat-ankled waiting-maid came out and handed me a telegram which she said had arrived during dinner, and I rose, sauntered over to where the great light was placed above the door, and opened the dispatch. It gave me satisfaction, for it was an order from the journal I represented to remain there, and transmit by telegraph daily what fresh intelligence I could gather with regard to the political crisis through which Spain was at that moment passing. By reason of the Queen-Regent, the young King, and the Court having left Madrid for San Sebastian a week earlier, the locale of the crisis had been removed from the capital, and among those staying at my hotel were Señor Canovas del Castillo, the Conservative leader, Señor Novarro Reverter, Minister of Finance, and Señor Villaverdi, ex-Minister of the Interior, besides several members of the Cortes. In these circumstances the prospect of a week or two at one of the most charming of European health-resorts was by no means distasteful, especially as I saw that I should experience but little difficulty in obtaining such information regarding the situation as I required. A rigorous censorship had been established by the Government over all telegraphic messages sent out of the country, therefore it would be necessary for me to cross the frontier into France each day, and send off my dispatch from Bayonne.

Thrusting the telegram into my pocket, I lit a fresh cigarette, and lounged away down the Avenida de la Libertad to the Calle del Pozzo; the fine tree-lined promenade behind the Casino, where the life and gaiety of the town had assembled. Under the bright electric rays crowds of well-dressed promenaders were strolling slowly up and down, listening to the strains of a military band, and ever and anon, when the music paused, the chatter and laughter mingled in a din of merriment with the jingle of the many gaily-lit cafés in the vicinity. Carried to and fro the length of the asphalte by the ebb and flow of promenaders, I spent a pleasant hour watching the life around me, and enjoying the cool air after the heat and burden of the glaring day. San Sebastian is noted for the beauty of its female population, and, indeed, I am fain to admit that I saw more beautiful women during that brief hour than it had ever been my lot to meet at Vichy, Etretat, Royat, Arcachon, Biarritz, Nice, or any of the other favoured spots where Dame Society allows her world-weary children to disport themselves at certain seasons. Spanish women know how to dress, but the women of San Sebastian rely not upon the manipulation of the fan nor the arrangement of the mantilla to attract; they are naturally graceful in gait and fair of face.

Two figures in that crowd riveted my attention, but, alas! only for a moment. I gazed upon them, but next instant they were gone, swallowed in that ever-shifting vortex of laughter-loving pleasure-seekers. Both were attired in black, one an elderly lady with white hair, upon whose refined face care had left deep furrows; the other a tall, graceful girl, scarcely more than nineteen, evidently from the South, whose calm, serious face was even more strikingly handsome than those of the many beauties about her. The chevelure had evidently been arranged by a maid of the first order; the mantilla she wore, graceful in every fold, gave to her clear olive complexion an essentially soft and feminine look; her dark eyes were large and languishing, and there was that peculiar grey tint upon the skin that when natural in women of the South is so unusual and so artistic.

For a second, unnoticed by her, I gazed in admiration, but she passed on and was lost. Turning a few moments afterwards, I sped back in the hope of overtaking her and again feasting my eyes upon her incomparable beauty, but though I searched the crowd for fully half an hour, I was compelled to relinquish my self-imposed task, turning at last into the Casino, where, over cigarettes and coffee, I sat chatting to a loquacious old captain of artillery upon the political crisis until the musical carillon of San Vicente chimed the midnight hour. Then, wishing my companion “Buenas noches,” I rose and strolled back to my hotel, haunted by the sad, sweet face that had passed and vanished like a shadow.

But I had work before me. The relations between England and Spain were strained, and diplomatic negotiations regarding some incidents in Morocco and in Cuba had been rendered more difficult on account of the unexpected overthrow of the Ministry. The British Government was more interested in the affairs of Spain than it had been for many years, so the British public were eager for the latest intelligence; therefore, when I retired to my room, I was compelled to sit far into the night, writing by the light of a guttering candle all I knew, and recording every rumour anent the complex questions.

Those who have wandered over the yellow sands of San Sebastian well know how picturesque is the view across the Bay of Zurriola. It was upon this scene I gazed on opening my windows on the following morning. Beyond the broad Plaza, lined on three sides by handsome houses, the sunlit waters of the Bay of Biscay rolled in upon the shore, wave after wave of transparent emerald breaking in long lines of snowy foam. White villas gleamed from among the foliage on the hillsides, and high brown cliffs rose from right and left, against which the rollers, roaring and surging, dashed and went up in columns of spray.

Swallowing my coffee, I went out – not, however, before I had made a gratifying discovery; namely, that the room next mine, communicating by a locked door, was the private sitting-room of Señor Canovas del Castillo, the statesman upon whose political actions the eyes of Europe were at that moment centred. Success in journalism depends a good deal upon luck, and to accidental incidents I attribute any good fortune I have enjoyed in obtaining exclusive and reliable information in various holes and corners of the Continent where I have had to compete with the resident correspondents of Reuter’s, the Havas, and the Central News agencies. I had walked across the Plaza de la Constitucion, wondering how I could best turn this fortuitous circumstance to account, when suddenly I found myself before the grey façade of Santa Maria, and almost involuntarily I entered. The air was heavy with incense, and the church was in semi-darkness – a chiaroscuro that was exceedingly striking and effective. There was, however, little of interest beyond the heavily-gilded and somewhat tawdry altars, which are the feature in most Spanish churches, and I was just about to leave when the silence was broken by loud sobbing close to me. I had believed myself alone in the place, but on gazing round in surprise, I saw within a few yards of me, half hidden by one of the great stone columns, a female figure kneeling before one of the altars, with her face buried in her hands, sobbing as though her heart would break. I was turning away, leaving the lonely worshipper to her grief, when the dress, the softness of outline, and the flawless complexion seemed strangely familiar. Next instant I recognised her as the girl I had passed in the crowd, and whose beauty had so impressed me.

Upon the stones she was kneeling in abject despair. In her dark hair she had placed a crimson rose, and her delicate white hands, upon which some bright gems glistened, were wet with bitter tears.

My feet fell noiselessly upon the matting, and she was unaware of my presence, until, placing my hand lightly upon her shoulder, I bent, exclaiming in French: —

“Mademoiselle is unhappy! Is there no assistance I can render?”

She started, raising her pale, pensive face to mine in surprise. Then in sorrow she shook her head.

“M’sieur is very kind,” she answered, in a voice that betrayed a poignant grief. “Words of sympathy may lighten one’s burden of sorrow, but nothing can heal a broken heart.”

“It mainly depends on how the fracture was caused,” I answered, smiling, and, grasping her tiny hand, assisted her to rise.

She brushed the dust from her dress, dashed away her tears, and, turning to me, said —

“I have heard that gaiety is efficacious – sometimes.”

“Until I know the cause, I cannot prescribe for the effect,” I replied, as I held open the door and she passed out into the sunlight.

“Ah, m’sieur,” she sighed bitterly, her beautiful eyes still full of tears, “woe is my heritage! The brightness of each dawn jars upon me, showing me how gloomy life is, and how utterly hopeless and lonely is the sea of despair upon which I am drifting. I welcome each night with joy, because – because it brings me one day nearer – nearer to death.”

“You are young and fair; you have joy and life around you. Surely you are joking?”

“No, m’sieur. Ah, you do not know!” she sighed. “If you were aware of my secret, you would, I assure you, not be surprised that, even though surrounded by friends, I desire to die.”

“But it is so extraordinary!” I said, walking beside her and chatting as if we were old acquaintances. “Have you never tried to unburden yourself by confiding your secret to some friend?”

“Dieu! No. I – I dare not.”

“Dare not?” I echoed. “Of what are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” she repeated in a strained voice, speaking like one in a dream, with her eyes fixed straight before her. “Yes, I – I am a wretched, miserable coward, because I fear the punishment.”

“Is your crime of such a flagitious character, then?”

“My crime?” she cried, turning suddenly upon me with flashing eyes. “What – what do you know of my crime? What do you insinuate?”

“Nothing, mademoiselle,” I answered, as politely as I could, though amazed at her sudden change of manner. “Your own strange words must be my excuse for inquisitiveness.”

“Then let us change the subject. To you my private affairs can be of no concern whatever.”