“who is the gentleman that has just left you?” asked miss chester, smiling prettily up into vaughan’s eyes, as she accepted his proffered arm to lead her to her carriage,—“such a distinguished-looking dreadful person!”
vaughan smiled at this description.
“he is certainly rather singular in personal appearance,” he began, when his cousin, lord melthorpe, interrupted him.
“you mean el-râmi? it was el-râmi, wasn’t it? ah, i thought so. why did he give us the slip, i wonder? i wish he had waited a minute—he is a most interesting fellow.”
“but who is he?” persisted miss chester. she was now comfortably ensconced in her luxurious brougham, her mother beside her, and two men of “title” opposite to her—a position which exactly suited the aspirations of her soul. “how very tiresome you both are! you don’t explain him a bit; you only say he is ‘interesting,’ and of course one can see that; people with such white hair and such black eyes are always interesting, don’t you think so?”
“well, i don’t see why they should be,” said lord melthorpe dubiously. “now, just think what horrible chaps albinos are, and they have white hair and pink eyes——”
“oh, don’t drift off on the subject of albinos, please!” pleaded miss chester, with a soft laugh. “if you do, i shall never know anything about this particular person—el-râmi, did you say? isn’t it a very odd name? eastern, of course?”
“oh yes! he is a pure oriental thoroughbred,” replied lord melthorpe, who took the burden of the conversation upon himself, while he inwardly wondered why his cousin vaughan was in such an evidently taciturn mood. “that is, i mean, he is an oriental of the very old stock, not one of the modern indian mixtures of vice and knavery. but when he came from the east, and why he came from the east, i don’t suppose any one could tell you. i have only met him two or three times in society, and on those occasions he managed to perplex and fascinate a good many people. my wife, for instance, thinks him quite a marvellous man; she always asks him to her parties, but he hardly ever comes. his name in full is el-râmi-zarânos, though i believe he is best known as el-râmi simply.”
“and what is he?” asked miss chester. “an artist?—a literary celebrity?”
“neither, that i am aware of. indeed, i don’t know what he is, or how he lives. i have always looked upon him as a sort of magician—a kind of private conjurer, you know.”
“dear me!” said fat mrs. chester, waking up from a semi-doze, and trying to get interested in the subject. “does he do drawing-room tricks?”
“oh no, he doesn’t do tricks;” and lord melthorpe looked a little amused. “he isn’t that sort of man at all; i’m afraid i explain myself badly. i mean that he can tell you extraordinary things about your past and future——”
“oh, by your hand—i know!” and the pretty idina nodded her head sagaciously. “there really is something awfully clever in palmistry. i can tell fortunes that way!”
“can you?” lord melthorpe smiled indulgently, and went on,—“but it so happens that el-râmi does not tell anything by the hands,—he judges by the face, figure, and movement. he doesn’t make a profession of it; but, really, he does foretell events in rather a curious way now and then.”
“he certainly does!” agreed vaughan, rousing himself from a reverie into which he had fallen, and fixing his eyes on the small piquante features of the girl opposite him. “some of his prophecies are quite remarkable.”
“really! how very delightful!” said miss chester, who was fully aware of sir frederick’s intent, almost searching, gaze, but pretended to be absorbed in buttoning one of her gloves. “i must ask him to tell me what sort of fate is in store for me—something awful, i’m positive! don’t you think he has horrid eyes?—splendid, but horrid? he looked at me in the theatre——”
“my dear, you looked at him first,” murmured mrs. chester.
“yes; but i’m sure i didn’t make him shiver. now, when he looked at me, i felt as if some one were pouring cold water very slowly down my back. it was such a creepy sensation! do fasten this, mother—will you?” and she extended the hand with the refractory glove upon it to mrs. chester, but vaughan promptly interposed:
“allow me!”
“oh, well! if you know how to fix a button that is almost off!” she said laughingly, with a blush that well became her transparent skin.
“i can make an attempt,”—said vaughan, with due humility. “if i succeed will you give me one or two dances presently?”
“with pleasure!”
“oh! you are coming in to the somers’s, then?” said lord melthorpe, in a pleased tone. “that’s right. you know, fred, you’re so absent-minded to-night that you never said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when i asked you to accompany us.”
“didn’t i? i’m awfully sorry!” and, having fastened the glove with careful daintiness, he smiled. “please set down my rudeness and distraction to the uncanny influence of el-râmi; i can’t imagine any other reason.”
they all laughed carelessly, as people in an idle humour laugh at trifles, and the carriage bore them on to their destination—a great house in queen’s gate, where a magnificent entertainment was being held in honour of some serene and exalted foreign potentate who had taken it into his head to see how london amused itself during a “season.” the foreign potentate had heard that the splendid english capital was full of gloom and misery—that its women were unapproachable, and its men difficult to make friends with; and all these erroneous notions had to be dispersed in his serene and exalted brain, no matter what his education cost the “upper ten” who undertook to enlighten his barbarian ignorance.
meanwhile, the subject of lord melthorpe’s conversation—el-râmi, or el-râmi-zarânos, as he was called by those of his own race—was walking quietly homewards with that firm, swift, yet apparently unhasting pace which so often distinguishes the desert-born savage, and so seldom gives grace to the deportment of the cultured citizen. it was a mild night in may; the weather was unusually fine and warm; the skies were undarkened by any mist or cloud, and the stars shone forth with as much brilliancy as though the city lying under their immediate ken had been the smiling fairy florence, instead of the brooding giant london. now and again el-râmi raised his eyes to the sparkling belt of orion, which glittered aloft with a lustre that is seldom seen in the hazy english air;—he was thinking his own thoughts, and the fact that there were many passers to and fro in the streets besides himself did not appear to disturb him in the least, for he strode through their ranks without any hurry or jostling, as if he alone existed, and they were but shadows.
“what fools are the majority of men!” he mused. “how easy to gull them, and how willing they are to be gulled! how that silly young vaughan marvelled at my prophecy of his marriage!—as if it were not as easy to foretell as that two and two inevitably make four! given the characters of people in the same way that you give figures, and you are certain to arrive at a sum-total of them in time. how simple the process of calculation as to vaughan’s matrimonial prospects! here are the set of numerals i employed: two nights ago i heard lord melthorpe say he meant to marry his cousin fred to miss chester, daughter of jabez chester of new york. miss chester herself entered the room a few minutes later on, and i saw the sort of young woman she was. to-night at the theatre i see her again;—in an opposite box, well back in shadow, i perceive lord melthorpe. young vaughan, whose character i know to be of such weakness that it can be moulded whichever way a stronger will turns it, sits close behind me; and i proceed to make the little sum-total. given lord melthorpe, with a determination that resembles the obstinacy of a pig rather than of a man; frederick vaughan, with no determination at all; and the little chester girl, with her heart set on an english title, even though it only be that of a baronet, and the marriage is certain. what was uncertain was the possibility of their all meeting to-night; but they were all there, and i counted that possibility as the fraction over,—there is always a fraction over in character-sums; it stands as providence or fate, and must always be allowed for. i chanced it, and won. i always do win in these things,—these ridiculous trifles of calculation, which are actually accepted as prophetic utterances by people who never will think out anything for themselves. good heavens! what a monster-burden of crass ignorance and wilful stupidity this poor planet has groaned under ever since it was hurled into space! immense!—incalculable! and for what purpose? for what progress? for what end?”
he stopped a moment; he had walked from the strand up through piccadilly, and was now close to hyde park. taking out his watch, he glanced at the time—it was close upon midnight. all at once he was struck fiercely from behind, and the watch he held was snatched from his hand by a man who had no sooner committed the theft than he uttered a loud cry, and remained inert and motionless. el-râmi turned quietly round and surveyed him.
“well, my friend?” he inquired blandly—“what did you do that for?”
the fellow stared about him vaguely, but seemed unable to answer,—his arm was stiffly outstretched, and the watch was clutched fast within his palm.
“you had better give that little piece of property back to me,” went on el-râmi, coldly smiling,—and, stepping close up to his assailant, he undid the closed fingers one by one, and, removing the watch, restored it to his own pocket. the thief’s arm at the same moment fell limply at his side; but he remained where he was, trembling violently as though seized with a sudden ague-fit.
“you would find it an inconvenient thing to have about you, i assure you. stolen goods are always more or less of a bore, i believe. you seem rather discomposed? ah! you have had a little shock, that’s all. you’ve heard of torpedoes, i dare say? well, in this scientific age of ours, there are human torpedoes going about; and i am one of them. it is necessary to be careful whom you touch nowadays,—it really is, you know! you will be better presently—take time!”
he spoke banteringly, observing the thief meanwhile with the most curious air, as though he were some peculiar specimen of beetle or frog. the wretched man’s features worked convulsively, and he made a gesture of appeal:
“you won’t ’ave me took up?” he muttered hoarsely, “i’m starvin’!”
“no, no!” said el-râmi persuasively—“you are nothing of the sort. do not tell lies, my friend; that is a great mistake—as great a mistake as thieving. both things, as you practise them, will put you to no end of trouble,—and to avoid trouble is the chief aim of modern life. you are not starving—you are as plump as a rabbit,”—and, with a dexterous touch, he threw up the man’s loose shirt-sleeve, and displayed the full, firm flesh of the strong and sinewy arm beneath. “you have had more meat in you to-day than i can manage in a week; you will do very well. you are a professional thief,—a sort of—lawyer, shall we say? only, instead of protesting the right you have to live, politely by means of documents and red tape, you assert it roughly by stealing a watch. it’s very frank conduct,—but it is not civil; and, in the present state of ethics, it doesn’t pay—it really doesn’t. i’m afraid i’m boring you! you feel better? then—good evening!”
he was about to resume his walk, when the now recovered rough took a hasty step towards him.
“i wanted to knock ye down!” he began.
“i know you did,”—returned el-râmi composedly. “well—would you like to try again?”
the man stared at him, half in amazement, half in fear.
“ye see,” he went on, “ye pulled out yer watch, and it was all jools and sparkles——”
“and it was a glittering temptation”—finished el-râmi. “i see! i had no business to pull it out; i grant it; but, being pulled out, you had no business to want it. we were both wrong; let us both endeavour to be wiser in future. good-night!”
“well, i’m blowed if yer not a rum un, and an orful un!” ejaculated the man, who had certainly received a fright, and was still nervous from the effects of it. “blowed if he ain’t the rummest card!”
but the “rummest card” heard none of these observations. he crossed the road, and went on his way serenely, taking up the thread of his interrupted musings as though nothing had occurred.
“fools—fools all!” he murmured. “thieves steal, murderers slay, labourers toil, and all men and women lust and live and die—to what purpose? for what progress? for what end? destruction or new life? heaven or hell? wisdom or caprice? kindness or cruelty? god or the devil? which? if i knew that i should be wise,—but till i know, i am but a fool also,—a fool among fools, fooled by a fate whose secret i mean to discover and conquer—and defy!”
he paused,—and, drawing a long, deep breath, raised his eyes to the stars once more. his lips moved as though he repeated inwardly some vow or prayer, then he proceeded at a quicker pace, and stopped no more till he reached his destination, which was a small, quiet, and unfashionable square off sloane street. here he made his way to an unpretentious-looking little house, semi-detached, and one of a row of similar buildings; the only particularly distinctive mark about it being a heavy and massively-carved ancient oaken door, which opened easily at the turn of his latch-key, and closed after him without the slightest sound as he entered.
