Louis turned quite pale, but did not move. I resumed, triumphantly:" There are yet three people to be interviewed in the interests ofMr. Wilde and myself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his daughterConstance. "
Louis sprang to his feet, and I arose also, and flung the paper markedwith the Yellow Sign to the ground.
"Oh, I don't need that to tell you what I have to say," Icried, 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, saidkindly, "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 your doctor's tricks on
me," I cried, tremblingwith 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, andin
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 longknife,
barred his way. Then I told him how they would find Dr. Archer in
the cellar with histhroat open, and I laughed in his face when I thought
of Vance and hisknife, 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 wasborn
the cousin of a king, but I shall be King!" Louis stood white
and rigid before me. Suddenly a man came running upFourth Street, entered
the gate of the Lethal Temple, traversed the pathto the bronze doors at
full speed, and plunged into the death-chamber withthe cry of one demented,
and I laughed until I wept tears, for I had recognizedVance, 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 yourexile, I will visit you
as I did my doctor last night. Mr. Wilde takes
Mr. Wilde's door was open, and I entered,
crying "It is done, itis done! Let the nations rise and look upon
their King!" but I couldnot find Mr. Wilde, so I went to the cabinet
and took the splendid diademfrom its case. Then I drew on the white silk
robe, embroidered with theYellow Sign, and placed the crown upon my head.
At last I was King, Kingin my right in Hastur, King because I knew the
mystery of the Hyades, andmy mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of
Hali. I was King! The firstgray 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 withthe joy and splendor of my thought, without,
in the dark passage, a mangroaned.
I seized
the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me likea demon, and the
tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter thanshe, and I heard her
screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. Fora 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 myhead. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his
throat torn open. At first Ithought he was dead, but as I looked a green sparkle
came into his sunkeneyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched
his mouth "Ah, I see it now!" I shrieked. "You have seized thethrone and
the empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown ofthe King in
Yellow!" [EDITOR'S NOTE. -- Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylumfor
Criminal Insane.]
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 followedme like the wind. I heard him close
behind me at the corner of BleeckerStreet, and I dashed into the door-way
under Hawberk's sign. He cried,"Halt, or I fire!" but when he saw
that I flew up the stairsleaving 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.
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, andhe died. Then, while I stood
transfixed with rage and despair, seeing mycrown, my empire, every hope and every
ambition, my very life, lying prostratethere with the dead master, they came,
seized me from behind andbound me until my veins stood out like cords, and my voice
failed withthe paroxysms of my frenzied screams. But still I 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 himmy cousin
Louis' ghastly face, and farther away, in the corner, a woman,Constance, weeping
softly.
ARTWORK � Larry Loc 1997