Абрахам Меррит - Seven Footprints To Satan

He swayed forward, fighting against it. He stumbled up the steps. I knew with what destroying effort he dragged his eyes down to the next shining print. He poised over it a shaking foot-

And slowly, slowly, ever his head turned… back, back to the telltale globe!

He drew back the foot. He thrust it forward again… and again withdrew it. He sobbed. And I strained at my bonds, cursing and sobbing with him…

Now his head was half around, his face turned directly to me…

He recoiled from the print. His body swung about with the snap of a breaking spring. He looked at the globe and saw.

The three prints upon the fortunate field!

A vast sighing went up from the black amphitheater.

"The tool again betrays its weakness!" It was Satan's voice. "Lo, deliverance was in your hands, Cartright. And like Lot's wife, you turned to look! And now you must descend… and all is to do again. But wait. Let us see if you may not have lost something far greater than deliverance. That footprint upon which you could not summon the courage to tread. What was it? I am curious to know."

He spoke in some strange tongue to the guard at the right of the print. The man came forward and pressed his foot upon the mark.

Out upon the pale semi-disk of the globe flashed out another shimmering print!

Crown and scepter! Empire of Earth! Not only free from Satan- but his master!

All this Cartright might have won.

And he had turned to look- and lost.

A groan went up from the darkness, murmurings. They were stilled by the dreadful laughter that rolled from Satan's still lips.

"Lost! Lost!" he mocked. "Go back, Cartright, And climb again. And not twice, I think, will such luck as this come to you. Go back, traitor. And climb!" He pressed the lever and the hidden mechanism whirred and the seven prints flashed out.

Cartright tottered down the steps. He walked like a puppet whose legs are pulled by strings.

He stopped at the base of the steps. He turned, and again, like some marionette, began to climb, putting his foot automatically on each mark as he came to it. His eyes were fixed upon the scepter and the crown. His arms were stretched out to them. His mouth was drawn at the corners like a heartbroken child, and as he climbed he wept.

One- and a shining print sprang out on the black field of the globe.

Two- another.

Three- a print on the white side.

Four- a print on the black I

A roar of hellish laughter shook Satan. For an instant I seemed to see his black robe melt, become vaporous and change into an enveloping shadow. A blacker shadow seemed to hover over him.

And still his laughter roared and still Cartright climbed the steps, his eyes streaming, face contorted, gaze fixed upon the glittering baubles in the golden throne, arms reaching out for them…

There was a swishing sound. The black horror had leaned forward and cast his cord. It circled over Cartright's head and tightened about his shoulders.

A tug, and he had fallen.

Then hand over hand, unresisting, the torturer pulled him up the steps and to him like a fish:

The light went out. It left a blackness made darker by the rolling, demonic laughter.

The laughter ceased. I heard a thin, wailing cry.

The light came on.

The black throne was empty. Empty too was the dais. Empty of Satan, of the torturer and of- Cartright!

Only the orb of the scepter and the crown glittered mockingly on the golden throne between the two lines of watching, white-robed men.

I felt a touch upon my arm, sprang back and faced Consardine. On his face was a shadow of that horror I knew was on my own.

The bands around my arms and legs sprang back, veil and gag were lifted from me. I leaped from the chair. And again blackness fell.

The amber glow returned, slowly. I looked toward the back of the temple. Empty now was the amphitheater of all that hidden audience whose sighing and murmuring had come to me. I stared back at the steps.

Golden throne and its burden had vanished. Gone were all but two of the white-robed figures. These stood guarding the black throne.

The blue eyes of the stone Satan blazed out at me. The seven shining prints of a child's foot sparkled.

"They opened his way into Paradise, and he weakened, and they led him straight into Hell."

Consardine stared at the seven shining footsteps, and on his face was that avid look I had seen on faces bent over the rouge-et-noir tables at Monte Carlo; faces molded by the scorching fingers of the gambler's passion which is a lust exceeding that for women; faces that glare hungrily at the wheel just before it begins to spin and that see not the wheel but the golden booty its spinning may draw for them from Fortune's heaped hands. Like them, Consardine was seeing not the gleaming prints but that enchanted land to which they led where all desire was fulfilled.

The web of Satan's lure had him!

Well, despite what I had just beheld, so had it me. I was conscious of an impatience, a straining desire to put my own luck to the test. But in it, stronger far than the desire to gain the treasures he had promised was the desire to make that mocking, cold and merciless devil do my bidding as he had made me do his.

Consardine broke the spell that held him and turned to me.

"It's been rather an evening for you, Kirkham," he said. "Do you want to go to your room now, or will you stop in my quarters and have a night-cap with me?"

I hesitated. I had a thousand questions to ask. And yet I felt even more the necessity of being by myself and digesting what I had heard and seen since I had been brought to this place. Besides- of my thousand questions how many would he answer? Reasoning from my recent experiences, few. He, himself, ended the uncertainty.

"You'd better go to bed," he said. "Satan desires you to think over what he has proposed to you. And, after all, I am not permitted"- he caught himself hastily- "I mean I can add nothing to what he did say. He will want your answer tomorrow- or rather"- he glanced at his watch – "today, since it is nearly two o'clock."

"What time shall I see him?" I asked.

"Oh, not till afternoon, surely," he answered. "He"- a slight shudder passed over him- "he will be occupied for hours still. You may sleep till noon if you wish."

"Very well," I said, "I'll go to my room."

Without further comment he led me back toward the amphitheater, and up to the rear wall. He pressed, and one of the inevitable panels slid away revealing another of the little elevators. He looked back at the footprints before closing the panel. They glimmered, alertly. The two white-robed guards stood at the sides of the black throne, their strange eyes intent upon us.

Again he shivered, then sighed and closed the slide. We stepped out into a long, vaulted corridor sheathed with slabs of marble. It was doorless. He pressed upon one of the slabs and we entered a second lift. It stopped and I passed out of it into the chamber where I had changed into evening clothes.

Pajamas had been laid out for me on the bed, slippers and a bathrobe were on an easy chair. On a table were decanters of Scotch, rye and brandy, soda, a bowl of ice, some fruit and cakes, several boxes of my favorite cigarettes – and my missing wallet.

I opened the latter. There were my cards and letters and my money all intact. Making no comment, I poured myself out a drink and invited Consardine to join me.

"To the fortunate steps," he raised his glass. "May you have the luck to pick them!"

"May you," I answered. His face twitched, a haggard shadow dimmed his eyes, he looked at me strangely, and half set down his drink.

"The toast is to you, not to me," he said at last and drained his glass. He walked across the room. At the panel he paused.