Rodrigues Ottolengui - A Modern Wizard

"You are Jack Barnes, the assistant of Dudley & Bliss. You are ambitious to become a detective. Therefore, when you read my name on my card this morning, you thought it a good opportunity to track a murderer, did you not? Answer me, and tell me no lies!"

"Yes," said Barnes, surprised to find that a curious sensation in his throat, as though he were parching, precluded his saying more.

"Well, you have tracked the murderer to his den. What do you think of the place. Safe enough from the police, eh!" The Doctor laughed in a soft congratulatory way, which grated upon his hearer's ear. He continued, as though to himself: "And Dudley & Bliss warned me that I could not escape from the police. I, Emanuel Medjora! I could not escape!" Then he burst out into a prolonged ringing peal of laughter which made Barnes tremble affrighted, as a hundred echoes for the moment made his imagination picture myriads of demons chiming in with the merriment of their master.

"Come here," cried the Doctor, checking his laugh. Barnes hesitated and then retreated. "Come here, you coward!" said the Doctor, in a sterner voice. The taunt made the blood course more swiftly through the young man's veins, and the laugh of the demon echo having died away, he threw his head up and approached the stone, stopping within a few feet of Dr. Medjora, and looking him in the eye.

"Ah! As I thought. A strong will, for a youngster. I must use strategy." This so softly that Barnes did not comprehend the sense of the words. Then the Doctor spoke in his most alluring manner:

"You are plucky, Mr. Barnes. This is a gruesome place, and I have brought you here under such peculiar circumstances that you might well be alarmed. But I see that you are not, and I admire you for your courage. It is his courage that has made man the master of all the animal world. By that he controls beasts, who could rend him to a thousand bits, with ease: only they dare not. So, for your courage, I forgive your impudence, and I might say imprudence, in following me this morning."

Barnes was mystified by this alteration of manner, and was not such a fool that he did not suspect that it boded him no special favor. He did not reply, not knowing what to say. The Doctor jumped up from his seat, saying pleasantly:

"I am forgetting my politeness. You are my guest, and I am occupying the only available seat. Pardon me, and be seated." Barnes hesitated, and the Doctor said, "Oblige me!" in a tone which made Barnes think it wise to comply. He therefore seated himself on the stone, and the Doctor muttered low to himself:

"How innocently he goes to the sacrifice," words which Barnes did not hear and would not have understood had he done so. Then the Doctor laughed with a muffled, gurgling sound, which, answered by the echoes, again made Barnes feel uncomfortable.

"Now then, Mr. Barnes," began Dr. Medjora, "I have no doubt that your curiosity has been aroused, and that you would like to know what sort of place this is, and how it came here. It is a very curious story altogether, and as we shall find time hang heavily on our hands whilst the fire is burning upstairs, I cannot entertain you better, perhaps, than with the tale. You know, of course, or you have heard, that I am a physician. But no one knows how thoroughly entitled I am to the name. I am a lineal descendant of the great Æsculapius himself." Barnes stared, wondering whether the man were mad. Having begun his recital, Dr. Medjora apparently took no more notice of Barnes than though he had not been present. But whilst he spoke, with his hands clasped behind his back, he began to pace around the room, thus walking in a circle about Barnes, as he sat upon the stone in the centre.

"The ancient Mexicans worshipped a god to whom they built pyramids. This was no other than my great ancestor Æsculapius. He was also known to many of the races that inhabited the great North country. Here in this place, a powerful tribe built a great pyramid, the top of which was this dome, hewn from a single rock, and carved, as you see, with characters which, translated would tell secrets which would astound the world. The man who acquires all the knowledge here inscribed, may well call himself the master of this century. I will be that man!"

He had increased his pace as he walked around, so that during this speech he had made three circles about Barnes, who, astonished as much by his actions as by his words, had followed him with his eyes, turning his head as far as possible in one direction to accomplish this, and then rapidly turning it to the opposite side so that he might not lose sight of the Doctor. As the last words were uttered, the Doctor stopped suddenly before him, and hurled the words at him as though they contained a menace. But Barnes flinched only slightly, and the Doctor continued his walk and his narrative.

"Yes, for here on these rocks are graven the sum of all the knowledge of the past, which the great cataclysm lost to us for so many centuries. This dome was the summit of the great temple. This floor was a hundred feet below it, and was the floor of the edifice. Then came the flood. The earth quaked, the waters rose, the earth parted, the temple was riven, and the dome fell, here upon this floor, and the record of the greatest wisdom in the world was buried beneath the earth. Lost! Lost! Lost!!"

His gyrations had increased in rapidity, so that he had run around Barnes six times during the above speech, and, as before, he stopped to confront him, fairly screaming the last words. Barnes began to feel odd in his head from turning it to watch this man who, he had now decided, was surely a madman, and as the Doctor screamed out "Lost! Lost! Lost!" almost in his face, he started to his feet, standing upon the stone and prepared to defend himself if necessary. As though much amused at this action, Dr. Medjora threw back his head and laughed. Laughed long and loud! Laughed until the answering echoes reverberated through the place as though a million tongues had been hidden in the recesses. Stopping suddenly, he began racing around again, and resumed his story:

"And so came that great cataclysm which all corners of the world record as the flood. So the great Atlantis, the centre of the civilization of the world, was lost for centuries, until at last re-discovered and re-christened America. Æsculapius perished, and his wisdom died. His records were hidden. But he left a son, and that son another, and from him sprung another, and another, and another, and so on, and on, as time sped, until to-day I am the last of the great line. Ha! You doubt it. You think that I am lying. Then how comes it that I am here? Here in the treasure house of my great ancestor? Because among my people there are traditions, and one told of this temple. I studied it, and worked it out, until I located it. Then I came here and found this old house built over it. And I knew that it covered the greatest secret in all the world. But it contained another secret too. A simple, easy secret for a man like me to solve. A secret staircase, built by some stupid old colonist, to lead him down to a secret wine-cellar, which is on the other side of that stairway. But Providence would not permit the old drunkard to turn to the right, in digging for his vault, or he would have entered this chamber, as I have done. I found this staircase, and cut my way into this place, which I closed with that iron door. And you, you fool, thought that I did not know how to open a door that I had built myself." His laugh rang out again, and the piercing shrieks, coming back from the echoes, darted through Barnes's brain, confused by his pivotal turning on the stone as he tried to follow the Doctor racing around the chamber, and as the man now rushed at him screaming:

"Now! Now! You fool, you are mine! Mine! All mine!" Barnes felt as though something in his brain had snapped, and, tottering, he threw up his arms, and then sank down, to be caught by Dr. Medjora, who lifted him as though he had been a child, and laid him upon the floor. Placing his ear to his heart a moment, the Doctor arose to his feet with a satisfied expression and speaking low, said: