The King in Yellow
the shadows gathered in the fading light. Then I closed the door behind
me and went out into the darkening streets.
I had eaten nothing since breakfast, but I was not hungry. A wretched,
half-starved creature, who stood looking across the street at the
Lethal Chamber, noticed me and came up to tell me a tale of misery. I
gave him money, I don’t know why, and he went away without thanking me.
An hour later another outcast approached and whined his story. I had a
blank bit of paper in my pocket, on which was traced the Yellow Sign,
and I handed it to him. He looked at it stupidly for a moment, and
then with an uncertain glance at me, folded it with what seemed to me
exaggerated care and placed it in his bosom.
The electric lights were sparkling among the trees, and the new moon
shone in the sky above the Lethal Chamber. It was tiresome waiting in
the square; I wandered from the Marble Arch to the artillery stables
and back again to the lotos fountain. The flowers and grass exhaled
a fragrance which troubled me. The jet of the fountain played in
the moonlight, and the musical splash of falling drops reminded me
of the tinkle of chained mail in Hawberk’s shop. But it was not so
fascinating, and the dull sparkle of the moonlight on the water brought
no such sensations of exquisite pleasure, as when the sunshine played
over the polished steel of a corselet on Hawberk’s knee. I watched the
bats darting and turning above the water plants in the fountain basin,
but their rapid, jerky flight set my nerves on edge, and I went away
again to walk aimlessly to and fro among the trees.
The artillery stables were dark, but in the cavalry barracks the
officers’ windows were brilliantly lighted, and the sallyport was
constantly filled with troopers in fatigue, carrying straw and harness
and baskets filled with tin dishes.
Twice the mounted sentry at the gates was changed while I wandered up
and down the asphalt walk. I looked at my watch. It was nearly time.
The lights in the barracks went out one by one, the barred gate was
closed, and every minute or two an officer passed in through the side
wicket, leaving a rattle of accoutrements and a jingle of spurs on
the night air. The square had become very silent. The last homeless
loiterer had been driven away by the grey-coated park policeman, the
car tracks along Wooster Street were deserted, and the only sound which
broke the stillness was the stamping of the sentry’s horse and the ring
of his sabre against the saddle pommel. In the barracks, the officers’
quarters were still lighted, and military servants passed and repassed
before the bay windows. Twelve o’clock sounded from the new spire of
St. Francis Xavier, and at the last stroke of the sad-toned bell a
figure passed through the wicket beside the portcullis, returned the
salute of the sentry, and crossing the street entered the square and
advanced toward the Benedick apartment house.
“Louis,” I called.
The man pivoted on his spurred heels and came straight toward me.
“Is that you, Hildred?”
“Yes, you are on time.”
I took his offered hand, and we strolled toward the Lethal Chamber.
He rattled on about his wedding and the graces of Constance, and
their future prospects, calling my attention to his captain’s
shoulder-straps, and the triple gold arabesque on his sleeve and
fatigue cap. I believe I listened as much to the music of his spurs
and sabre as I did to his boyish babble, and at last we stood under
the elms on the Fourth Street corner of the square opposite the
Lethal Chamber. Then he laughed and asked me what I wanted with him.
I motioned him to a seat on a bench under the electric light, and sat
down beside him. He looked at me curiously, with that same searching
glance which I hate and fear so in doctors. I felt the insult of his
look, but he did not know it, and I carefully concealed my feelings.
“Well, old chap,” he inquired, “what can I do for you?”
I drew from my pocket the manuscript and notes of the Imperial Dynasty
of America, and looking him in the eye said:
“I will tell you. On your word as a soldier, promise me to read this
manuscript from beginning to end, without asking me a question. Promise
me to read these notes in the same way, and promise me to listen to
what I have to tell later.”
“I promise, if you wish it,” he said pleasantly. “Give me the paper,
Hildred.”
He began to read, raising his eyebrows with a puzzled, whimsical air,
which made me tremble with suppressed anger. As he advanced, his
eyebrows contracted, and his lips seemed to form the word “rubbish.”
Then he looked slightly bored, but apparently for my sake read, with an
attempt at interest, which presently ceased to be an effort. He started
when in the closely written pages he came to his own name, and when
he came to mine he lowered the paper, and looked sharply at me for a
moment. But he kept his word, and resumed his reading, and I let the
half-formed question die on his lips unanswered. When he came to the
end and read the signature of Mr. Wilde, he folded the paper carefully
and returned it to me. I handed him the notes, and he settled back,
pushing his fatigue cap up to his forehead, with a boyish gesture,
which I remembered so well in school. I watched his face as he read,
and when he finished I took the notes with the manuscript, and placed
them in my pocket. Then I unfolded a scroll marked with the Yellow
Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not seem to recognize it, and I
called his attention to it somewhat sharply.
“Well,” he said, “I see it. What is it?”
“It is the Yellow Sign,” I said angrily.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Louis, in that flattering voice, which
Doctor Archer used to employ with me, and would probably have employed
again, had I not settled his affair for him.
I kept my rage down and answered as steadily as possible, “Listen, you
have engaged your word?”
“I am listening, old chap,” he replied soothingly.
I began to speak very calmly.
“Dr. Archer, having by some means become possessed of the secret of the
Imperial Succession, attempted to deprive me of my right, alleging that
because of a fall from my horse four years ago, I had become mentally
deficient. He presumed to place me under restraint in his own house in
hopes of either driving me insane or poisoning me. I have not forgotten
it. I visited him last night and the interview was final.”
Louis turned quite pale, but did not move. I resumed triumphantly,
“There are yet three people to be interviewed in the interests of
Mr. Wilde and myself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his
daughter Constance.”
Louis sprang to his feet and I arose also, and flung the paper marked
with the Yellow Sign to the ground.
“Oh, I don’t need that to tell you what I have to say,” I cried, with a
laugh of triumph. “You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to
_me_.”
Louis looked at me with a startled air, but recovering himself said
kindly, “Of course I renounce the—what is it I must renounce?”
“The crown,” I said angrily.
“Of course,” he answered, “I renounce it. Come, old chap, I’ll walk
back to your rooms with you.”
“Don’t try any of your doctor’s tricks on me,” I cried, trembling with
fury. “Don’t act as if you think I am insane.”
“What nonsense,” he replied. “Come, it’s getting late, Hildred.”
“No,” I shouted, “you must listen. You cannot marry, I forbid it. Do
you hear? I forbid it. You shall renounce the crown, and in reward I
grant you exile, but if you refuse you shall die.”
He tried to calm me, but I was roused at last, and drawing my long
knife barred his way.
Then I told him how they would find Dr. Archer in the cellar with his
throat open, and I laughed in his face when I thought of Vance and his
knife, and the order signed by me.
“Ah, you are the King,” I cried, “but I shall be King. Who are you to
keep me from Empire over all the habitable earth! I was born the cousin
of a king, but I shall be King!”
Louis stood white and rigid before me. Suddenly a man came running up
Fourth Street, entered the gate of the Lethal Temple, traversed the
path to the bronze doors at full speed, and plunged into the death
chamber with the cry of one demented, and I laughed until I wept tears,
for I had recognized Vance, and knew that Hawberk and his daughter were
no longer in my way.
“Go,” I cried to Louis, “you have ceased to be a menace. You will never
marry Constance now, and if you marry any one else in your exile, I
will visit you as I did my doctor last night. Mr. Wilde takes charge of
you to-morrow.” Then I turned and darted into South Fifth Avenue, and
with a cry of terror Louis dropped his belt and sabre and followed me
like the wind. I heard him close behind me at the corner of Bleecker
Street, and I dashed into the doorway under Hawberk’s sign. He cried,
“Halt, or I fire!” but when he saw that I flew up the stairs leaving
Hawberk’s shop below, he left me, and I heard him hammering and
shouting at their door as though it were possible to arouse the dead.
Mr. Wilde’s door was open, and I entered crying, “It is done, it is
done! Let the nations rise and look upon their King!” but I could not
find Mr. Wilde, so I went to the cabinet and took the splendid diadem
from its case. Then I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the
Yellow Sign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King,
King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the
Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was
King! The first grey pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which
would shake two hemispheres. Then as I stood, my every nerve pitched to
the highest tension, faint with the joy and splendour of my thought,
without, in the dark passage, a man groaned.
I seized the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like
a demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter
than she, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found
her. For a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the
darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised
it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open.
At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came
into his sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm
stretched his mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair
gave place to hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean
around in his head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with
rage and despair, seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every
ambition, my very life, lying prostrate there with the dead master,
_they_ came, seized me from behind, and bound me until my veins stood
out like cords, and my voice failed with the paroxysms of my frenzied
screams. But I still raged, bleeding and infuriated among them, and
more than one policeman felt my sharp teeth. Then when I could no
longer move they came nearer; I saw old Hawberk, and behind him my
cousin Louis’ ghastly face, and farther away, in the corner, a woman,
Constance, weeping softly.
“Ah! I see it now!” I shrieked. “You have seized the throne and the
empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in
Yellow!”
[EDITOR’S NOTE.—Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for
Criminal Insane.]
THE MASK
CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it’s time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
_The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2_.
I
Although I knew nothing of chemistry, I listened fascinated. He picked