Not the dark companion of Sirius, brightest of all stars—not our own chill and spectral1 planet rushing toward Vega in the constellation3 of Lyra—presided at the birth of millions born to corroborate4 a bloody5 horoscope.
But a Dark Star, speeding unseen through space, known to the ancients, by them called Erlik, after the Prince of Darkness, ruled at the birth of those myriad6 souls destined7 to be engulfed8 in the earthquake of the ages, or flung by it out of the ordered pathway of their lives into strange byways, stranger highways—into deeps and deserts never dreamed of.
Also one of the dozen odd temporary stars on record blazed up on that day, flared9 for a month or two, dwindled10 to a cinder11, and went out.
But the Dark Star Erlik, terribly immortal12, sped on through space to complete a two-hundred-thousand-year circuit of the heavens, and begin anew an immemorial journey by the will of the Most High.
What spectroscope is to horoscope, destiny is to chance. The black star Erlik rushed through interstellar darkness unseen; those born under its violent augury13 squalled in their cradles, or, thumb in mouth, slumbered15 the dreamless slumber14 of the newly born.xix
One of these, a tiny girl baby, fussed and fidgeted in her mother’s arms, tortured by prickly heat when the hot winds blew through Trebizond.
Overhead vultures circled; a stein-adler, cleaving16 the blue, looked down where the surf made a thin white line along the coast, then set his lofty course for China.
Thousands of miles to the westward17, a little boy of eight gazed out across the ruffled18 waters of the mill pond at Neeland’s Mills, and wondered whether the ocean might not look that way.
And, wondering, with the salt sea effervescence working in his inland-born body, he fitted a cork19 to his fishing line and flung the baited hook far out across the ripples20. Then he seated himself on the parapet of the stone bridge and waited for monsters of the deep to come.
And again, off Seraglio Point, men were rowing in a boat; and a corded sack lay in the stern, horridly21 and limply heavy.
There was also a box lying in the boat, oddly bound and clamped with metal which glistened22 like silver under the Eastern stars when the waves of the Bosporus dashed high, and the flying scud23 rained down on box and sack and the red-capped rowers.
In Petrograd a little girl of twelve was learning to eat other things than sour milk and cheese; learning to ride otherwise than like a demon24 on a Cossack saddle; learning deportment, too, and languages, and social graces and the fine arts. And, most thoroughly25 of all, the little girl was learning how deathless should be her hatred26 for the Turkish Empire and all its works; and xxhow only less perfect than our Lord in Paradise was the Czar on his throne amid that earthly paradise known as “All the Russias.”
Her little brother was learning these things, too, in the Corps27 of Officers. Also he was already proficient28 on the balalaika.
And again, in the mountains of a conquered province, the little daughter of a gamekeeper to nobility was preparing to emigrate with her father to a new home in the Western world, where she would learn to perform miracles with rifle and revolver, and where the beauty of the hermit29 thrush’s song would startle her into comparing it to the beauty of her own untried voice. But to her father, and to her, the most beautiful thing in all the world was love of Fatherland.
Over these, and millions of others, brooded the spell of the Dark Star. Even the world itself lay under it, vaguely30 uneasy, sometimes startled to momentary31 seismic32 panic. Then, ere mundane33 self-control restored terrestrial equilibrium34, a few mountains exploded, an island or two lay shattered by earthquake, boiling mud and pumice blotted35 out one city; earth-shock and fire another; a tidal wave a third.
But the world settled down and balanced itself once more on the edge of the perpetual abyss into which it must fall some day; the invisible shadow of the Dark Star swept it at intervals36 when some far and nameless sun blazed out unseen; days dawned; the sun of the solar system rose furtively37 each day and hung around the heavens until that dusky huntress, Night, chased him once more beyond the earth’s horizon.xxi
The shadow of the Dark Star was always there, though none saw it in sunshine or in moonlight, or in the silvery lustre38 of the planets.
A boy, born under it, stood outside the fringe of willow39 and alder40, through which moved two English setters followed and controlled by the boy’s father.
“Mark!” called the father.
Out of the willows41 like a feathered bomb burst a big grouse42, and the green foliage43 that barred its flight seemed to explode as the strong bird sheered out into the sunshine.
The boy’s gun, slanting44 upward at thirty degrees, glittered in the sun an instant, then the left barrel spoke45; and the grouse, as though struck by lightning in mid-air, stopped with a jerk, then slanted46 swiftly and struck the ground.
“Dead!” cried the boy, as a setter appeared, leading on straight to the heavy mass of feathers lying on the pasture grass.
“Clean work, Jim,” said his father, strolling out of the willows. “But wasn’t it a bit risky47, considering the little girl yonder?”
“Father!” exclaimed the boy, very red. “I never even saw her. I’m ashamed.”
They stood looking across the pasture, where a little girl in a pink gingham dress lingered watching them, evidently lured48 by her curiosity from the old house at the crossroads just beyond.
Jim Neeland, still red with mortification49, took the big cock-grouse from the dog which brought it—a tender-mouthed, beautifully trained Belton, who stood with his feathered offering in his jaws50, very serious, very proud, awaiting praise from the Neelands, father and son.xxii
Neeland senior “drew” the bird and distributed the sacrifice impartially51 between both dogs—it being the custom of the country.
Neeland junior broke his gun, replaced the exploded shell, content indeed with his one hundred per cent performance.
“Better run over and speak to the little girl, Jim,” suggested old Dick Neeland, as he motioned the dogs into covert52 again.
So Jim ran lightly across the stony53, clover-set ground to where the little girl roamed along the old snake fence, picking berries sometimes, sometimes watching the sportsmen out of shy, golden-grey eyes.
“Little girl,” he said, “I’m afraid the shot from my gun came rattling54 rather close to you that time. You’ll have to be careful. I’ve noticed you here before. It won’t do; you’ll have to keep out of range of those bushes, because when we’re inside we can’t see exactly where we’re firing.”
The child said nothing. She looked up at the boy, smiled shyly, then, with much composure, began her retreat, not neglecting any tempting55 blackberry on the way.
The sun hung low over the hazy56 Gayfield hills; the beeches57 and oaks of Mohawk County burned brown and crimson58; silver birches supported their delicate canopies59 of burnt gold; and imperial white pines clothed hill and vale in a stately robe of green.
Jim Neeland forgot the child—or remembered her only to exercise caution in the Brookhollow covert.
The little girl Ruhannah, who had once fidgeted with prickly heat in her mother’s arms outside the walls of Trebizond, did not forget this easily smiling, tall young xxiiifellow—a grown man to her—who had come across the pasture lot to warn her.
But it was many a day before they met again, though these two also had been born under the invisible shadow of the Dark Star. But the shadow of Erlik is always passing like swift lightning across the Phantom60 Planet which has fled the other way since Time was born.
Allahou Ekber, O Tchinguiz Khagan!
A native Mongol missionary61 said to Ruhannah’s father:
“As the chronicles of the Eighurs have it, long ago there fell metal from the Black Racer of the skies; the first dagger62 was made of it; and the first image of the Prince of Darkness. These pass from Kurd to Cossack by theft, by gift, by loss; they pass from nation to nation by accident, which is Divine design.
“And where they remain, war is. And lasts until image and dagger are carried to another land where war shall be. But where there is war, only the predestined suffer—those born under Erlik—children of the Dark Star.”
“I thought,” said the Reverend Wilbour Carew, “that my brother had confessed Christ.”
“I am but repeating to you what my father believed; and Temujin before him,” replied the native convert, his remote gaze lost in reflection.
His eyes were quite little and coloured like a lion’s; and sometimes, in deep reverie, the corners of his upper lip twitched63.
This happened when Ruhannah lay fretting64 in her mother’s arms, and the hot wind blew on Trebizond.
Under the Dark Star, too, a boy grew up in Minetta Lane, not less combative65 than other ragged66 boys about xxivhim, but he was inclined to arrange and superintend fist fights rather than to participate in battle, except with his wits.
His name was Eddie Brandes; his first fortune of three dollars was amassed67 at craps; he became a hanger-on in ward2 politics, at race-tracks, stable, club, squared ring, vaudeville68, burlesque69. Long Acre attracted him—but always the gambling70 end of the operation.
Which predilection71, with its years of ups and downs, landed him one day in Western Canada with an “Unknown” to match against an Athabasca blacksmith, and a training camp as the prospect72 for the next six weeks.
There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a Lost Province, and wearing the Iron Cross of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bony chest, now as hollow as a Gothic ruin.
And if, like a thousand fellow patriots73, he had been ordered to the Western World to watch and report to his Government the trend and tendency of that Western, English-speaking world, only his Government and his daughter knew it—a child of the Dark Star now grown to early womanhood, with a voice like a hermit thrush and the skill of a sorceress with anything that sped a bullet.
Before the Unknown was quite ready to meet the Athabasca blacksmith, Albrecht Dumont, dying faster now, signed his last report to the Government at Berlin, which his daughter Ilse had written for him—something about Canadian canals and stupid Yankees and their greed, indifference74, cowardice75, and sloth76.xxv
Dumont’s mind wandered:
“After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my post,” he whispered, “do thou pick up my burden and stand guard, little Ilse.”
“Yes, father.”
“Thy sacred promise?”
“My promise.”
The next day Dumont felt better than he had felt for a year.
“Ilse, who is the short and broadly constructed American who comes now already every day to see thee and to hear thee sing?”
“His name is Eddie Brandes.”
“He is of the fight gesellschaft, not?”
“He should gain much money by the fight. A theatre in Chicago may he willingly control, in which light opera shall be given.”
“Is it for that he hears so willingly thy voice?”
“It is for that.... And love.”
“And what of Herr Max Venem, who has asked of me thy little hand in marriage?”
The girl was silent.
“Thou dost not love him?”
“No.”
Toward sunset, Dumont, lying by the window, opened his eyes of a dying Lämmergeier:
“My Ilse.”
“Father?”
“What has thou to this man said?”
“That I will be engaged to him if thou approve.”
“He has gained the fight?”
“Today.... And many thousand dollars. The xxvitheatre in Chicago is his when he desires. Riches, leisure, opportunity to study for a career upon his stage, are mine if I desire.”
“Dost thou desire this, little Ilse?”
“Yes.”
“And the man Venem who has followed thee so long?”
“And the Fatherland which placed me here on outpost?”
“I take thy place when God relieves thee.”
“So ist’s recht!... Grüs Gott—Ilse––”
It marched at the funeral of Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a long-lost province.
Three months later Ilse Dumont arrived in Chicago to marry Eddie Brandes. One Benjamin Stull was best man. Others present included “Captain” Quint, “Doc” Curfoot, “Parson” Smawley, Abe Gordon—friends of the bridegroom.
Invited by the bride, among others were Theodor Weishelm, the Hon. Charles Wilson, M. P., and Herr Johann Kestner, a wealthy gentleman from Leipsic seeking safe and promising80 investments in Canada and the United States.
A year later Ilse Dumont Brandes, assuming the stage name of Minna Minti, sang the rôle of Bettina in “The Mascotte,” at the Brandes Theatre in Chicago.
A year later, when she created the part of Kathi in “The White Horse,” Max Venem sent word to her that xxviishe would live to see her husband lying in the gutter81 under his heel. Which made the girl unhappy in her triumph.
But Venem hunted up Abe Grittlefeld and told him very coolly that he meant to ruin Brandes.
And within a month the latest public favourite, Minna Minti, sat in her dressing82-room, wet-eyed, enraged83, with the reports of Venem’s private detectives locked in the drawer of her dressing table, and the curtain waiting.
So complex was life already becoming to these few among the million children of the Dark Star Erlik—to everyone, from the child that fretted84 in its mother’s arms under the hot wind near Trebizond, to a deposed85 Sultan, cowering86 behind the ivory screen in his zenana, weeping tears that rolled like oil over his fat jowl to which still adhered the powdered sugar of a Turkish sweetmeat.
Allahou Ekber, Khodja; God is great. Great also, Ande, is Ali, the Fourth Caliph, cousin-companion of Mahomet the Prophet. But, O tougtchi, be thy name Niaz and thy surname Baï, for Prince Erlik speeds on his Dark Star, and beneath the end of the argument between those two last survivors87 of a burnt-out world—behold! The sword!
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1
spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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constellation
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| n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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4
corroborate
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| v.支持，证实，确定 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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8
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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augury
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| n.预言，征兆，占卦 | |
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slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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16
cleaving
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| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的现在分词 ) | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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18
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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21
horridly
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| 可怕地，讨厌地 | |
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glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
scud
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| n.疾行；v.疾行 | |
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24
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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proficient
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| adj.熟练的，精通的；n.能手，专家 | |
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hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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32
seismic
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| a.地震的，地震强度的 | |
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mundane
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| adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的 | |
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equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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alder
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| n.赤杨树 | |
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41
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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grouse
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| n.松鸡；v.牢骚，诉苦 | |
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43
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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46
slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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50
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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51
impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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52
covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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53
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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54
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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55
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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59
canopies
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| （宝座或床等上面的）华盖( canopy的名词复数 )； （飞行器上的）座舱罩； 任何悬于上空的覆盖物； 森林中天棚似的树荫 | |
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60
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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63
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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64
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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combative
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| adj.好战的；好斗的 | |
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66
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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67
amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
vaudeville
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| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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69
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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71
predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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72
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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patriots
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| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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74
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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75
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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76
sloth
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| n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散 | |
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77
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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78
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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79
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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80
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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81
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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82
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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83
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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84
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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85
deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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86
cowering
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的现在分词 ) | |
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87
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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