The San Francisco call., 1905-04-09
CHAPTER XIV.
The Mark of the Beast

CHAPTER XIV.
The Mark of the Beast.
Your coffee, my lord 2"
1t was Fletcher's usual inquiry, res
peated night and morning-the same
words that on the Ostend packet had
tCld his master that his wandefings
we're shared. After these many months
in Venice, where George Gordon had
shut upon his retreat the f1oodgates of
the world, the old servants tone had
the same wistful cadence of solicitude.
Time for Gordon had passed like
wreckage running with the tide. The
few fevered weeks of wandering
through Switzerland with Jane Cler-
mont-he scarcely knew where or how
they had ended-had left In his mind
only series of phantom impressions;
woods of withered pine, Alpine glaciers
shining like truth, Wengen torrents
like tails of white horses and distant
thunder of avalanches, as if God were
pelting the devil down from heaven
with Snowballs. And neither the pip
ing of the shepherd, nor the rumble of
the storm. nor the torrent. the noun
tain, the glacier, the forest or the
cloud, had lighted the darkness of his
heart or enabled him to lose his
Wretched identity in the power and the
glory above and beneath him.
At Rome his numbed senses awak-
ened and ne found himself alone, and
around him his huma nkind which he
hated. spying tourists and scribblers,
who Sharpened their ScaVenger- pencils
TO record his vagaries. He fled from
then to Venice. where, thanks to re-
port, Fletcher had found his master.
But it was a changed Gordon who
had ensconced himself here-a Gordon
fo u-ba1u- corial convention had hapornp
a sneer and the praise or blame of his
fellows Idle chan cast in the wind. He
ate and drank and slept-not as other
men, but as a gormand and debauche.
Such letters as he wrote-to his sister,
to Tom Moore, to Hobhouse-were flip
pant mockeries. Rarely was he seen at
opera. at ridotto, at conversations.
When he went abroad it was most
often by night, as though he Stunned
Sthe daylight. More than one cabaret
in the shadow of the Palace of the
Doges knew the white satiric face that
stared out from its terrace over the
waterways, where covered gondolas
crept like black spiders, till the clock
of st. Marks struck the third hour of
the morning. And more than one black
and red sashed boatman whispered
tales of the Palazzo Mocenigo on the
Grand Canal and the "Giovannotto
Inglese who spent great sums"
The gondolieri turned their heads to
gaze as they sculled past the carved
gateway. Did not the priests call him
the wicked milord?" And did not all
Venice know of Mariana, the linen
draper's wife of the street Spezieria,
and of Margarita Cogni, the black-eyed
Fornarina, who came and went as she
pleased in the milord's household
They themselves had gained many a
coin by telling these tales to the
tourists from milord's own country,
who came to watch from across the
canal with opera glasses, as IL he were
a ravenous beast or a raree-show: who
lay in wait at nightfall to see his gon-
dola pass to the wide outlying lagoon,
haunted the sandspit of the Lido
where he rode horseback, and offered
bribes to his servants to see the bed
wherein he slept. They took the
tourists soldi shamefacedly. however.
for they knew other tales, too: how he
had furnished money to send Beppo,
the son of the fruit peddler, to the art
school at Naples: how he had given
fifty louis dor to rebuild the burned
shop of the printer of San Samuele.
Your coffee. my lord?" Fletcher re-
peated the inquiry, for his master had
not heard.
mo, bring some cognac, Fletcher"
Even IN the warm DldZe dOruOIl
shivered. Ghosts had troubled him
this day. Ghosts that stalked through
the confused mist and rose before him
in the throngs that passed and re-
passed before his minds eye. Ghosts
whose diverse countenances resolved
themselves, like phantasmagoria, into
a single one-the panied eager face of
Shelley. The recurring sensation had
brought sick sense of awakening, as
- - Isx~-f CIT fc
submerged chrysalis, protesting
against the silt settling upon it.
But brandy had lost it's power to lay
those ghosts. He went to the desk
which held the black phial, the tiny
glass comforter to which he resorted
more and more often. Once with its
surcease 1t had brought splendor and
plenitude Of power: of late its relief
had been lent at the price of distorted
visions. AS he drew out the thin-walled
drawer, its worm-eaten bottom col
lapsed and its tumble of contents
poured down on the mahogany.
He paused, his hand outstretched.
Atop of the melange lay q silver-set
miniature. He picked it up, holding it
nearer the light. A girls face. hued
like a hyacinth, looked out of his palm,
painted on ivory. A string Of pearls
was about her neck.
For an instant ne regarded the min
iature flxedly, his recollection travelling
far. The pearls aided. 1t was the one
he had found in the capsized boat at
Villa Diodati, He had purposed send
ing it after the two strangers. The
events of that wild night had effaced
the incident from his mind as a wet
sponge wipes off slate. Fletcher.
finding the oval long ago in a poket
lining. had put in the desk drawer for
safe keeping, where until this moment
it had not met his masters eye.