replied Rimanez. “I feed it and it knows me. It is quite tame and friendly as you perceive.”
He opened the case gently. The beetle expanded its radiant wings, and it rose at once to its protector’s hand. He lifted it and held it aloft, then shaking it to and fro lightly, he exclaimed,
“Off, Sprite! Fly, and return to me!”
The creature was looking like a beautiful iridescent jewel. After a few graceful movements hither and thither, it returned to its owner’s hand, and again settled there.
“There is a well-worn saying which declares that ‘in the midst of life we are in death’,” said the prince. “But that maxim is wrong. It should be ‘in the midst of death we are in life.’ This creature is a rare and curious production of death. I found it myself. Listen. I was present at the uncasing of an Egyptian female mummy. She was a princess of a famous royal house. On her chest was a piece of a gold quarter. Underneath this gold plate, her body was swathed round and round. When these were removed it was discovered that the mummified flesh between her breasts had decayed away, and in the hollow or nest, this insect was found alive!”
I could not repress a slight nervous shudder.
“Horrible!” I said. “If I were you, I should kill it, I think.”
He looked at me.
“Why?” he asked. “I’m afraid, my dear Geoffrey, you are not a scientist. To kill the poor creature who managed to find life in the very bosom of death, is a cruel suggestion, is it not? It has eyes, and the senses of taste, smell, touch and hearing. I accept the idea of the transmigration of souls, and so sometimes I think that perhaps the princess of that Royal Egyptian house had a wicked, brilliant, vampire soul, – and that… here it is!”
A cold thrill ran through me from head to foot at these words, and as I looked at the speaker standing opposite me, with the ‘wicked, brilliant, vampire soul’ on his hand. I examined the weird insect more closely. As I did so, its bright beady eyes sparkled, I thought, vindictively, and I stepped back.
“It is certainly remarkable,” I murmured. “No wonder you value it, as a curiosity. Its eyes are quite distinct, almost intelligent.”
“No doubt she had beautiful eyes,” said Rimanez smiling.
“She? Whom do you mean?”
“The princess, of course!” he answered, evidently amused. “The dear dead lady. Some of her personality must be in this creature: it had nothing but her body to nourish itself upon.”
And here he replaced the creature in its crystal habitation.
“I suppose,” I said slowly, “you think that nothing actually perishes completely?”
“Exactly!” returned Rimanez emphatically. “Nothing can be entirely annihilated; not even a thought.”
I was silent.
“And now for luncheon,” he said gaily, passing his arm through mine. “You look twenty per cent. better than when you went out this morning, Geoffrey.”
Seated at table with the dark-faced Amiel in attendance, I related my morning’s adventures. I told him about the publisher who had on the previous day refused my manuscript, and who now, I felt sure, would be glad to accept the offer I had made. Rimanez listened attentively, smiling.
“Of course!” he said, when I had concluded. “I think he showed remarkable discretion and decency. His pleasant hypocrisy shows him to be a person of tact and foresight. Did you ever imagine a human being or a human conscience that could not be bought? The Pope will sell you a specially reserved seat in his heaven if you give him the cash while he is on earth! Nothing is given free in this world. Everything must be bought – with blood, tears and groans occasionally, – but usually with money.”
I fancied that Amiel, behind his master’s chair, smiled darkly at this. I could not formulate to myself any substantial reason for my aversion to this confidential servant. But the aversion increased each time I saw his sullen and sneering features. Yet he was perfectly respectful and deferential; I could find no fault with him
As soon as we were alone, Rimanez lit a cigar.
“Now let us talk,” he said. “I believe I am at present your best friend, and I certainly know the world better than you do. How will you begin spending your money?”
I laughed.
“Well, I shan’t provide funds for the building of a church or a hospital,” I said. “My dear Prince Rimanez, I mean to spend my money on my own pleasure, and I daresay I shall find plenty of ways to do it.”
“With your fortune, you could make hundreds of miserable people happy;” he suggested.
“Thanks, I would rather be happy myself first,” I answered gaily. “I daresay I seem to you selfish. You are philanthropic I know; I am not.”
He still regarded me steadily.
“You might help your fellow-workers in literature…”
I interrupted him with a decided gesture.
“That I will never do, my friend! My fellow-workers in literature have kicked me down at every opportunity. It is my turn at kicking now, and I will show them as little mercy, as little help, as little sympathy as they have shown me!”
“Revenge is sweet!” he said. “Well, in what, at present does your idea of enjoying your heritage consist?”
“In publishing my book,” I answered.
“Tempest,” he said, looking at me through half-closed eyes and a cloud of smoke, “man gives no clue to his intent – more malignant than the lion, more treacherous than the snake, more greedy than the wolf, he takes his fellow-man’s hand in pretended friendship, and with a smiling face he hides a false and selfish heart!”
His eyes glowed with a fiery ardour. I stared at him in mute amazement. There was something terrifying in his attitude. He caught my wondering glance,
“I think I was born to be an actor,” he said carelessly.
“I think,” I answered him, smiling a little, “you are a creature of impulse.”
“How wise of you!” he exclaimed. “Good Geoffrey Tempest, how very wise of you! But you are wrong. If I told you that I am a dangerous companion, that I like evil things better than good, that I am not a safe guide for any man, what would you think?”
“I’d think you were whimsically fond of underestimating your own qualities,” I said. “But I’d like you anyway.”
At these words, he looked at me:
“Tempest, you follow the fashion of the prettiest women. They always like the greatest scoundrels!”
“But you are not a scoundrel,” I rejoined.
“No, I’m not a scoundrel, but there’s a devil in me.”
“All the better![13]” I said, stretching myself out in my chair with lazy comfort – “I hope there’s something of him in me too.”
“Do you believe in him?” asked Rimanez smiling.
“The devil? Of course not!”
“He is a very fascinating legendary personage,” continued the prince. “Just imagine his fall from heaven! ‘Lucifer Son of the Morning’ – what a title, and what a birthright! Splendid and supreme, at the right hand of Deity itself he stood, this majestic Archangel. At once he perceived in the vista of embryonic things a new small world, and on it a being forming itself slowly. Then Lucifer, full of wrath, turned on the Master of the Spheres, crying aloud: ‘Will you make of this slight poor creature an Angel even as I? I protest against you and condemn! If you make Man in Our image I will destroy him utterly, as unfit to share with me the splendours of Your Wisdom, the glory of Your love!’ And the Supreme Voice replied; ‘Lucifer, Son of the Morning! Fall, proud Spirit from your high estate! Return no more till Man himself redeem you!