The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-07-18
The DEMON OF :.
=. The BED HORROR
adapted From the Portuguese.l
By WILLIAM S. BIRGE.

I sat down in the desert with Alb
derah, the Arab, and the Arab told
his tale. An Elusive mirage had
lured the twain. Abderah and myself,
into the very Valley Of the Dry
Bones, an arid and sandy gorge south
of Arabia Deserta Our throats were
dry as vellum with thirst, and Abb
derah's voice had husky rattle as
he spoke.
" cit is exactly a year to-day" began
Adberah, the prince of his clan,
stsince lara, the Beautiful, gave up
the ghost, and at every anniversary
thereof, I must tell my story or die.
g could give no reason" he went on
ifuskfly, mo reason, on the oath of
a Saracen, why I married the low
born lara of the desert, Of whose
parentage l knew nothing, except
that she was called lara, the Beauti-
ful-no reason in the world why /,
the prince Abderah. only son Of the
king, and heir to the kingly domain,
should have married the loW-boTn
lara, Of whom and whose antece-
dents nobody knew anything whatso-
Over, except that she was gifted with
strange gifts and had dropped in
upon the domain suddenly, as If
from another world.
''I did not love her; of that fact
s am certain. / did not even respect
her; of that fact I am equally GER
tain. hated her with an unaccount-
able perversity of hatred; of this
third fact I am just as certain as of
the two preceding. Three very good
reasons why should not have done
what 1 did. Nevertheless, did it
did indeed wed her after the manner
of my fathers, installing her, devil as
she was, in the ancestral palace of
an ancient and honorable race of
Saracenic kings.
True she was beautiful-strange-
iy beautiful. in her way; but that
was no reason why I should have
married an adventures. 1t was eX-
nctly because she was beautiful in
her way that I hated her There
Is beauty of heaven: it pursues,
haunts. breaks like weird music in
all Drescient dreams. I have con-
jured up it's phantoms with hash
heesh, in opium browse, through
EfumbrouS nights of cain, opening
my eyes again upon earth with wild
wish to die. There is a beauty of
earth it is like unto fagots under the
caidron of passion, like red wine in
the cup, like fitful fever in the blood.
1t is glittering' and sudden tiger,
Fhat fever. that springs upon it's prey
Tehemently, feeding thereupon in the
jungle of home. There is a beauty
OF hell, and it. stings while it fascin-
ates-stings scorpion like, fascinat-
ing. serpent like. with sinuous,
loathsome. devilish fascination. This
last was the beauty of lara. the
Beautiful; and it stung me. fascin-
ated me-fascinated me though 1
mated. stung me though 1 loathed.
Now I think Of it, I fancy the
'Screature's fascination was in that
> devilish eye of hers. 1t was-I recol-
lect, it distinctly-it was small, scin-
tIlant, and shot sudden, furtiye ravs
at its victim; lurid. without white,
and all a single round, devilish
pupil; bulbously prominent with
1lVld lids, and almost iashless edges;
oddly beautiful strangely fascinat-
ing, Intoxicating as the eye of an
Houri
This was Zara's eye, and it fas-
cinated me with an unnatural fascin-
alton. l saw it day and night; and
the fever of its sting I mistook for
passion, though passion it was not
1t was the ain rab that I pursued to
an evil destiny.
There is an imp of the perverse. :"
Abderah went on. his words rattline
like dry leaves in his parched throat,
IAN imp of the perverse, which has
more hand in human affairs than hu-
manity in general would be willing
TO acknowledge.
1t is the logical basis of all trag-
edy, the Drompter Of all suicide, the
demons Of all that is terribly mex
plicable, as we'll as Of all that is abb
surdly comical in human action. In
its play it is comedy, and you laugh;
in its serious moods it is tragedy,
often so original, so motiveless, so
apparently put of mere whinl, that
you stare haggard with horror, yet
fascinated as you stare. 1t is either
a Puck or a Mephistopheles latent in
in every human heart-either dane
ing balloon or omnivorous hyena, as
may suit the whim of the hour.
Have you ever been tempted to
swallow poison simply because you
knew it would kill you, and for no
other reason? Have you never been
taken with an almost uncomfortable
impulse to hurl yourself from a prec-
ipice simply because you must not,