Абрахам Меррит - Seven Footprints To Satan

But this torture of the many-mirrored cell, with its sleep-slaying light and sound, its slow killing, in utter aloneness, of a man's mind- there was something about that, something not to be put in words, that shook me to the soul.

"How long will he- last?" I put the question to Consardine as we passed in to my rooms.

"It is hard to say," he answered, gently again. "He will come out of that room without memory. He will not know his name, nor what he has been, nor anything that he has ever learned. He will know nothing of all these hereafter- ever. Like an animal, he will know when he is hungry and thirsty, cold or warm. That is all. He will forget from minute to minute. He will live only in each moment. And when that moment goes it will be forgotten. Mindless, soulless- empty. I have known men to come to it in a week, others have resisted for three. Never longer."

I shivered.

"I'll not go down for dinner, Consardine," I said.

"I would, if I were you," he said gravely. "It will be wiser. You cannot help Cobham. After all, it is Satan's right. Like me, Cobham had taken the steps and lost. He lived at Satan's will. And Satan will be watching you. He will want to know how you have taken it. Pull yourself together, Kirkham. Come down, and be gay. I shall tell him that you were only interested in his exhibition. What, lad! Will you let him know what he has made you feel? Where is your pride? And to do so would be dangerous- for any plans you may have. I tell you so."

"Stay with me till it's time to go, Consardine," I said. "Can you?"

"I intended to," he answered, "if you asked me. And I think both of us can stand putting ourselves outside of an extra-sized drink."

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I poured. The glass in my hand shook and spilled.

"I'll never want to look in one again," I told him.

He poured me another drink.

"Enough of that," he said briskly. "You must get it from your mind. Should Satan be at dinner- thank him for a new experience."

Satan was not at dinner. I hoped that he would receive a report, as no doubt he did, of my behavior. I was gay enough to satisfy Consardine. I drank recklessly and often.

Eve was there. I caught her glancing at me, puzzled, now and then.

If she had known how little real gaiety there was in my heart, how much of black despair, she would have been more puzzled still.

I sat late at dinner, with a few others who, like me, had declined the bridge game. It was close to twelve when I returned to my room. I had the feeling that I would see Barker this night, whether or not he had been successful in getting hold of the kehjt.

Alone, the memory of Cobham and the mirrored cell swept back on me with full force. Why had Satan willed me to look upon the prisoner? Why to see myself in those cursed glasses? And why had he decreed that Cobham must see me?

To the first two questions there could be but one answer. He meant it as a warning. He was not, then, wholly satisfied with my explanation. And yet, if he were not, would he not have used harsher measures? Satan was not given to taking chances. I decided that he was satisfied, but nevertheless wished to give me a warning of what might happen to me if he should ever become not so.

Why, if Cobham's memory was to be destroyed, he should have wished him to take note of me peering in upon him, I could not tell. There seemed no answer to that, unless it was one of his whims. But, again, Satan's whims, as he called them, were never without reason. I gave it up, reluctantly and uneasily.

It was twelve-thirty when I heard a jubilant whisper from the bedroom.

"Got it, Cap'n!"

I walked into the bedroom. My nerves had suddenly grown taut, and there was a little ache in my throat. The moment had come. There could be no withdrawing now. The hand was ready to be played. And, without doubt, Death in a peculiarly unpleasant mood was the other player.

"'Ere it is!" Barker thrust a half-pint flask into my cold fingers. It was full of that green liquor which I had watched Satan give to the slaves in the marble hall. The kehjt.

It was a clear fluid, with an elusive sparkle as of microscopic particles catching the light. I uncorked the flask and smelled it. It had a faintly acrid odor with an undertaint of musk. I was about to taste it when Barker stopped me.

"Keep awye from it, Cap'n," he said earnestly. "That stuff was brewed in 'Ell, it was. You're close enough."

"All right," I recorked the flask. "When do we go?"

"Right awye," he answered. "They chynged the blighters in the Temple at midnight. Syfe to start now as at anytime. Oh, yes- "

He fished down in a pocket.

"Thought I'd best bring along some of the scenery," he grinned.

He held out a pair of the golden cups into which the veiled figure with the ewer had poured the kehjt.

"Did you have a hard time getting the stuff, Harry?" I asked.

"It was touch an' go," he said soberly. "I 'ate to think of gettin' them cups back. I 'ates to think of it, but it's got to be done. Still," he added, hopefully, "I'm good."

"I'll say you are, Harry," I told him.

He hesitated.

"Cap'n," he said, "I won't 'ide from you; I feel as if we was h'about to slip into a room what's got a 'undred snakes in every corner."

"You've nothing on me, Harry," I answered cheerfully. "I think maybe it's got a snake carpet and scorpion curtains."

"Well," he said, "let's go."

"Sure," I said, "let's go."

I snapped off the lights in the outer room. We passed through the wall of the bedroom into a dimly lighted passage. A little along it and we went into one of the lifts. We dropped. We came out into a long passage, transverse to the first; another short drop, and we were in a pitch dark corridor. Here Harry took my hand and led me. Suddenly he stopped and flashed his light against the wall. He pressed his finger upon a certain spot. I could not see what had guided him, but a small panel slid aside. It revealed an aperture in which were a number of switches.

"Light control," Barker's mouth was close to my ear. "We're right be'ind the chair you sat in. Lie down."

I slipped to the floor. He dropped softly beside me. Another panel about six inches wide and a foot high opened with the noiseless swiftness of a camera shutter.

I looked into the Temple.

The slit through which I was peering was at the level of the floor. It was hidden by the apparatus in which I had been prisoned when Cartright climbed to his doom. By craning my neck, I could see between its legs a horizontal slice of the whole immense chamber.

A brilliant light poured directly upon the black throne. It stood there empty- but menacing. About a dozen feet on each side of it was one of the kehjt slaves. They were tall, strong fellows, white robed, with their noosed cords ready in their hands. Their pallid faces showed dead-white under the glare. The pupilless eyes were not dreaming, but alert.

I caught a glitter of blue eyes behind the black throne. The eyes of the Satan of the pictured stone. They seemed to watch me, malignantly. I turned my gaze abruptly away from them. I saw the back of the Temple.

It, too, was illumined by one strong light. It was larger even than I had sensed it to be. The black seats ranged upward in semicircles, and there were at least three hundred of them.

The slit through which I had been looking closed. Barker touched me, and I arose.

"Give me the dope," he whispered. I handed him the flask of the kehjt; he had kept the golden cups.

Again he flashed his light upon the switches. He took my hands and placed them upon two.

"County sixty," he said. "Then open them switches. It puts out the lights. Keep your 'ands on 'em till I get back. Start now like this- one – two- "