The Bond of Black

“But mine was destroyed by fire – as was also the chalice at St. Peter’s,” I observed.

“No; in order to mystify those who follow Christianity the Diabolists have established a system by which the ashes of various objects burned in the brazier are afterwards supplied to the votaries of Satan, and when any sacred objects are stolen the ashes are substituted. Being carried in a bag of chamois-leather, they are warmed by the heat of the body, and hence, increased mystery is added by the ashes, when discovered, being warm.”

“Then you stole my crucifix in order that it should be burnt here!” I exclaimed, amazed.

“Yes. The chalice, too, was melted in that brazier, as well as objects from the rooms of your poor friend Morgan.”

“Morgan!” I cried, interrupting. “He was murdered! Tell us the truth.”

“Yes,” answered the unhappy woman, hoarsely. “He was murdered.”

“Who was the assassin?” I inquired quickly.

“I do not know,” she answered, looking boldly at me. “I myself have tried to discover, but cannot.”

“But how do you reconcile your assertion that he died at Monte Carlo with the fact that he was assassinated in London?” I demanded.

“I felt assured that he committed suicide there, for I saw him carried out of the rooms dying. But, from further information which I have since obtained from the Administration there, I have found that he lay ill for some weeks in a hospital at Nice, and afterwards recovered sufficiently to be able to return to London. The Administration are always reticent upon the subject of suicides, and it was their refusal to give me any information when I applied on the day following the tragic affair that led me to believe that your friend had died and been buried in a nameless grave in the suicides’ cemetery at La Turbie.”

“Why did you so deceive me regarding your address at Hampstead?” I inquired. “Surely there could have been no necessity for doing that?”

“Yes, there was,” she replied. “I was compelled to act as I did. In the house of Mrs Popejoy was a valuable ring belonging to the Pope which he had given to the Ambassador of France together with his blessing. This ring had been traced by the cult of Satan to this lady’s possession, and it was arranged that I should enter the house as her companion and secure it. I did so on the night when you escorted me to that house, and the ring is now upon the hand of the chief of the order – the man yonder who personifies the King of Evil.”

“Extraordinary!” I exclaimed when I had heard her explanation. “Your ingenuity at deception was truly marvellous.”

“Yes,” she answered, “but my actions were not my own voluntary ones. They were directed by the leader of the sect in whose power I have been held, unable to extricate myself for fear of exposure and a terrible denunciation. But it is all at an end now,” she added in despair. “You have all of you witnessed my awful degradation, and how I have committed the deadly sins. For me what forgiveness can there be; for what may I hope?”

“Hope for the forgiveness of the man who loves you,” I answered, glancing at Yelverton, who remained rigid and silent, his face white as death.

But she only burst into tears, and grasping her lover’s hand pressed it to her lips, murmuring some broken words imploring pity.

“And you, Muriel?” I asked, turning to my beloved who was standing at my side shielded from the wrath of these angry people by my revolver. “How is it that you have been enabled to expose this most extraordinary state of affairs?”

“But for one thing I should never have dared to bring you here,” she answered, looking at me openly. “I was jealous of Aline, because I thought you loved her, and was therefore content that she should suffer all the tortures of the mind which she has suffered, being compelled to bow before Satan and ridicule the Faith. I refused your offer of marriage because I believed you loved her, and in pique I allowed this man Hibbert to admire me. I – ”

“Then you are a Diabolist yourself?” I gasped, dismayed.

“Yes. It was Hibbert who induced me to allow myself to become initiated. Truth to tell, I was curious to witness the strange rites of which he told me, but as soon as I found myself fettered by the Bond of Black I repented, and wished to come out of the terrible cult whose faith is in profanity and whose deeds are wickedness. Like Aline, I have been compelled to steal prayer-books, Bibles, and sacred objects, all of which have been defiled and consumed. I dared not tell you of my association with these Satanists, hence my constant silence regarding matters upon which you have desired explanation.”

“But what caused you to so suddenly abandon Hibbert and return to me?” I asked, recollecting my curious compact with Aline.

“A discovery which I made – a revelation which, by Aline’s instigation, was made to me,” she answered. “I know full well how she bought your silence by promising that I should return to you. I came, and you believed, because of that, she was possessed of power supernatural. It is the object of every worshipper of Satan to cause the outside world to believe that he or she is endowed with a miraculous power by the Evil One, hence the manner in which ashes are substituted for the holy objects stolen. Aline, like myself, was compelled by the oath she had taken to impose upon you, upon Roddy Morgan, upon her lover, nay, upon every one about her, until they believed her endowed with power not possessed by any other living being.”

“Yes,” Aline interrupted, “what Muriel tells you is the truth. At my will this man Hibbert forsook her, and she returned to you because she was no longer jealous of me. And you believed that I committed the crime!” she said reproachfully. “You suspected that I killed the man who had been so kind to me.”

“I certainly did believe so. All the evidence seemed to point to the fact that Roddy was killed by some secret means, and that the person who visited him was yourself. I found the button of one of your gloves there.”

Slowly she rose to her feet, and seeing how grave was her lover’s face she turned again to me, saying, in a tremulous voice —

“Yes, I know, it is useless for me to now conceal the truth. On leaving you that morning I went there and saw him. He opened the door himself, and I remained about a quarter of an hour. We had not met since I had seen him carried out of the rooms at Monte Carlo, and the reason of my visit was to ascertain whether what you alleged, namely, that he was still alive, was true. I fully expected to find that this man who was passing as Roddy Morgan was an impostor, but discovered that he was no doubt the same person with whom I had been acquainted at Monte Carlo. My aunt, with whom I was on the Riviera, liked him very much, and I confess that only by his attempted suicide was a match between us prevented. In that brief space, while I remained there, he again told me that he loved me, but I explained that I had now formed another attachment, a statement which threw him into a fit of deep despondency. His man was out, therefore he went himself into an adjoining room to get me a glass of wine, and while he was absent I stole a rosary from a casket, depositing ashes in its place. Then I drank the wine, and left him, promising to call soon, but giving him plainly to understand that although we might be friends, we could never again be lovers.”

“And then?” I asked gravely.

“Ah! I have no knowledge of what occurred after that,” she said. “I have endeavoured to fathom the mystery, but have failed. That poor Roddy was murdered is absolutely certain.”

“You refused his love because of your affection for me, Aline!” Jack exclaimed, in a low, broken voice, for this discovery that she worshipped the power which he held in greatest hatred had utterly crushed and appalled him. Truly he had spoken the truth on that night in Duddington when he had told me that the Devil had sent her into his life to arrest the good deeds he was endeavouring to perform.

“Yes,” she answered, looking up into his dark, grave face with eyes fall of tears. “You know, Jack, that I have ever been true to you. I have been forced to act like this; compelled to commit a profanity which has horrified me, and made to exercise the ingenious trickery which was born of the fertile resources of this man beneath whose thrall I have been held.”

“It’s a lie!” cried the hideous fellow who personified the Evil One. His very appearance caused us to shudder. “You are one of us – our priestess. Was it not you, yourself, who suggested to our brothers the Sacrifice of the Cat?”

“Yes,” cried half a dozen voices, “it was Aline who suggested it.”

“At your instigation,” she answered boldly. “You first broached the subject and then induced me to suggest it. I’ve been your catspaw from the very moment we first met at Montgeron, and you took me to the Temple of Satan at Passy. From that day I have known not a moment’s peace; the spirit of Satan has entered my soul, and I’ve existed in an awful torment of mind, like that prepared for the wicked.”

Chapter Twenty Five

Conclusion

The faces of that excited group seemed as demoniacal as the power they had worshipped, and about me I heard ominous words – words which caused me to grip my weapon resolutely. My arm was still around Muriel’s waist, for I saw that another attempt would probably be made upon her, so incensed were they that she should have betrayed them. The cult of Satan worships in secret, hiding their infamous rites in underground temples – as well they may – and the votaries of the Evil One are under oath not to divulge the whereabouts of the Devil’s dwelling-place or the character of their blasphemies and outrages, on penalty of death. Truly this religion of darkness, springing as it has done from the drawing-rooms of debased Paris, is a terrible and awful spectacle in our present enlightened age.

I glanced around. The doors were closed, and there were only two of us armed, while the daggers used for the piercing of the sacred element were gleaming in several hands. They now numbered nearly a dozen to each of us, and I knew that if we had to defend the two women we loved we should be compelled to fight desperately.

“Forgive me!” implored Aline, looking into her lover’s face. “I swear that I have always loved you, and that I have been what you believed me to be, an honest woman. Tell me,” she cried, falling again upon her knees before him. “Tell me, Jack, that you will forgive me, now that you know all.”

“I do not know all,” he answered, in a hard voice. “You confess to having visited Morgan immediately before his death.”

“But I did not commit the crime!” she said wildly. “I am innocent – innocent!”

Some jeering laughter greeted this terribly earnest protest. Those around, mostly better-class people, judging from their dress and speech, now took a keen delight in her disgrace and grief.

“He was her lover, and she killed him when she knew that he had not died at Monte Carlo!” somebody exclaimed. “She wanted to marry the parson.”

“It’s untrue. I swear it is!” she cried. “We had flirted at Monte Carlo, but I had no thought beyond his friendship. When I left him on that fatal morning we parted the best of friends. Not until next day did I know of his strange death, then reported in the papers.”

At the moment Muriel, who had remained silent and motionless, as if listening intently, suddenly disengaged herself from my embrace, and walking boldly forward, exclaimed in a loud, firm voice —

“Enough! The mystery of poor Roddy’s death shall no longer cause your estrangement from your lover, Aline. Listen!” Then turning to me, she added: “You will remember that once, about eighteen months ago, when I was having tea one Sunday at your rooms, Roddy called, and you introduced us.”

“Yes,” I cried, suddenly remembering. “I had always believed that you were unacquainted, but I remember quite well now.”

“A few days later I met him in Oxford Street, and from that time we were friends, although I saw but very little of him. One day, however, by a word I let drop, he suspected that I was connected with this terrible cult of Evil, and at once asked me to reveal some of its secrets, because he was about to ask a question in Parliament upon the subject, and wished to obtain reliable information. The asking of a question upon such a subject would, he knew, cause a great sensation, and if not armed with facts he must bring himself into ridicule. Well, I confess that I told him something of the rites, and afterwards, at his urgent request, brought him here by the secret way through which I brought you to-night. Unfortunately, however, his presence was detected, and his identity established; although at the time I had no idea that such was the case.”

I noticed how the white-faced band of Satanists exchanged glances of fear as they listened to her words spoken clearly and fearlessly. She, too, glanced round at them with a look of hatred and defiance.

“The day on which he accompanied me here was,” she continued, “three days prior to his death. I was in the habit of meeting him at railway stations of an evening and imparting to him various information until he knew almost as much of the ways and doings of the Diabolists as I did myself. We had an arrangement by which, if he was unable to keep an appointment, his man should come and bring me a letter with a blank sheet of paper, by which I should know that to keep the appointment was impossible. We met at railway stations for two reasons: first, because the Satanists should not discover my dealings with this Member of Parliament who would, in a few days, startle England with his statements; and, secondly, because you, Clifton, should not call and find me with your friend.”

“Extraordinary!” I ejaculated. “Then the note taken by Ash to the King’s Cross terminus was meant for you?”