Абрахам Меррит - Seven Footprints To Satan

"You mean- "

"They were girl children," he said somberly. "They were disappointments. Therefore, they ceased to be."

And now behind the imperturbable, heavy mask of his face I glimpsed the Chinese. Perceptibly the slant of the eyes had accentuated, the high cheek bones became more prominent. I nodded, thoughtfully.

"But if again you are- " I had meant to add "disappointed."

He caught me up with a touch of that demonic fury he had shown at the ordeal of Cartright.

"Do not dare say it! Do not dare think it! Her first-born shall be a son! A son, I say!"

What I might have answered, what have done, I do not know. His sudden deadliness, his arrogance, had set my smoldering wrath ablaze again. Consardine saved me. I heard the door open and the menacing gaze turned from me for a moment. It gave me my chance to recover myself.

"All is prepared, Satan," Consardine announced. I arose eagerly, nor was that eagerness feigned. I was conscious of the beginning of a curious excitement, a heady exaltation.

"It is your moment, James Kirkham." Satan's voice was again expressionless, his face marble, his eyes sparkling. "But a few minutes – and I may be your servant. The world your plaything! Who knows! Who knows!"

He stepped to the farther wall and opened one of the panels.

"Dr. Consardine," he said, "you will escort the neophyte to the temple."

He brooded upon me, almost caressingly- I saw the hidden devil lick its lips.

"Master of the world!" he repeated. "And Satan your loyal slave! Who knows!"

He was gone. Consardine drew a deep breath. He spoke, in carefully matter- of-fact fashion.

"Want a drink before you try it; Kirkham?"

I shook my head, the tingling excitement increasing.

"You know the rules," he said briskly. "You step on any four of the seven footprints. You can stop at any one of them you choose, and abide by the consequences. One of Satan's gives you to him for one- service; two give you to him for a year; three- and you are his forever. No more chances for you then, Kirkham. Hit the four fortunate ones and you sit on the top of the world, just as he promised you. Look back while you're on the climb, and you have to begin all over again. All clear?"

"Let's go," I said, somewhat huskily- my throat felt oddly dry.

He led me to the wall and through it into one of the marble-lined corridors. From that we passed into a lift. It dropped. A panel slid aside. Consardine leading, I stepped out into the webbed temple.

I was close to the base of the steps, just within the half-circle of brilliant light that masked the amphitheater. From it came a faint rustling and murmuring. Foolishly, I hoped that Eve had picked out a good seat. I realized that I was trembling. Cursing myself silently, I mastered the tremor, praying that it had been too slight to be noticed.

I looked up at the black throne, met Satan's mocking eyes and my nerves steadied, my control clicked into place. He sat there in his black robe, just as I had seen him the night before. The blue jeweled eyes of his stone counterpart glittered behind him. Instead of the fourteen white-robed, pallid-faced men with the noosed ropes there were but two, midway up the steps. And something else was missing. The black-visaged fiend of an executioner!

What did that mean? Was it Satan's way of telling me that even if I trod upon his three prints he would not have me killed? Or at least that I need not fear death until I had finished the work for which he had picked me?

Or was it a trap?

That was the more likely. Somehow I could not conceive Satan thus solicitously though subtly reassuring me of a suspended sentence. Was it not, rather, that by cutting down his guards and eliminating his torturer he had schemed to plant that very thought? Lure me on to make the full gamble and go the limit of the four steps in the belief that if I lost I was sure of a reprieve that might give me time to escape him?

Or, admitting that his present purpose was benevolent, if I did lose, might it not suddenly occur to him that he would derive greater amusement from evoking his hellish servant with the cord of woman's hair and giving me to him- like Cartright.

As Cartright had, I studied his face. It was inscrutable, nothing in it to guide me. And now, far more vividly than when I had watched that despairing wretch being hauled in to his torment, did I realize the infernal ingenuity of this game. For now it was I who had to play it.

I dropped my eyes from Satan's. They fell upon the seven shining footprints and followed them up to the golden throne. Crown and scepter glittered upon it. Their gem fires beckoned and called to me. Again the excitement seized me, tingling along every nerve.

If I could win them! Win them and what they stood for!

Satan pressed down the lever between the two thrones. I heard the whirring of the controlling mechanism and saw the seven marks of the childish foot shine with intenser light.

"The steps are ready," he intoned, and thrust his hands beneath his black robe. "They await their conqueror, the chosen one of fortune! Are you he? Ascend- and learn?" I walked to the steps, mounted and set my foot unhesitatingly upon the first of the prints. Behind me, I knew, its symbol glimmered on the telltale of the luminous globe-

On Satan's side- or mine?

Again I ascended, more slowly, and paused at the next print. But it was not to weigh its probabilities of good or evil that I halted. The truth is that the gambler's fever was rising high within me, crazily high, undermining my determination to limit this first game of mine with Satan to only two of the footsteps.

Common sense bade me go slow and get back my grip upon my judgment. Common sense, fighting for time, moved me past that mark and slowly on to the next.

I trod upon it. There was another symbol on the telltale- mine – or Satan's?

Now the fever had me wholly. My eyes were bright with it as Satan's own. My heart was thumping like a drum, my fingers cold, a dry electric heat beating about my head. The little feet of fire seemed to quiver and dance with eagerness to lead me on.

"Take me!" beckoned one.

"Take me!" signaled another.

The jeweled crown and scepter summoned. On the golden throne I saw a phantom- myself, triumphant, with crown upon my head, scepter in my hand, Satan at my beck and the world at my knees!

It may be true that thoughts have form, and that intense emotion or desire leave behind something of themselves that persists, lives on in the place where it was called forth and wakes, ravening, when some one moved by the same impulses that created it appears in that place. At any rate, it was as though the ghosts of desire of all those who had ascended those steps before me had rushed to me and, hungering for fulfillment, were clamoring to me to go on.

But their will was also my will. I needed no urging. I wanted to go on. After all, the two prints upon which I had trodden might well be fortunate ones. At the worst, by all the laws of chance, I should have broken even. And if so then there would be no more risk in making one more throw than I had already resolved to incur.

What did the telltale show?

Ah, if I could but know! If I could but know!

And suddenly a chill went through me, as though the ghosts of despair of all those who had mounted before me and lost had pressed back the hungry wraiths of desire.

Glitter of crown and scepter tarnished and grew sinister.

For an instant I saw the seven shining prints not as those of a child's foot, but as of a cloven hoof!

I drew back up and looked up at Satan. He sat head bent forward, glaring at me, and with distinct shock I realized that with full force of his will he was commanding me to proceed. Instantly after that apperception came another. It was as though a hand touched my shoulder, drawing me still further back, and clearly as though lips were close to my ear I heard a counter-command, imperative-