Chapter XX

The Witch of Prague

by F. Marion Crawford

The deeds here recounted are not imaginary. Not
very long ago the sacrilege which Unorna attempted was actually
committed at night in a Catholic church in London, under
circumstances that clearly proved the intention of some person or
persons to defile the consecrated wafers. A case of hypnotic
suggestion to the committal of a crime in a convent occurred in
Hungary not many years since, with a different object, namely, a
daring robbery, but precisely as here described. A complete
account of the case will be found, with authority and evidence,
in a pamphlet entitled Eine experimentale Studie auf dem Gebiete
des Hypnotismus, by Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing, Professor of
Psychiatry and for nervous diseases, in the University of Gratz.
Second Edition, Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke, 1889. It is not
possible, in a work of fiction, to quote learned authorities at
every chapter, but it may be said here, and once for all, that
all the most important situations have been taken from cases
which have come under medical observation within the last few
years.

Unorna was hardly conscious of what she had done.
She had not had the intention of making Beatrice sleep, for she had
no distinct intention whatever at that moment. Her words and her look
had been but the natural results of overstrained passion, and she
repeated what she had said again and again, and gazed long and
fiercely into Beatrice's face before she realised that she had
unintentionally thrown her rival and enemy into the intermediate
state. It is rarely that the first stage of hypnotism produces the
same consequences in two different individuals. In Beatrice it took
the form of total unconsciousness, as though she had merely fainted
away.

Unorna gradually regained her self-possession. After all,
Beatrice had told her nothing which she did not either wholly know or
partly guess, and her anger was not the result of the revelation but
of the way in which the story had been told. Word after word, phrase
after phrase had cut her and stabbed her to the quick, and when
Beatrice had thrust the miniature into her hands her wrath had risen
in spite of herself. But now that she had returned to a state in
which she could think connectedly, and now that she saw Beatrice
asleep before her, she did not regret what she had unwittingly done.
From the first moment when, in the balcony over the church, she had
realised that she was in the presence of the woman she hated, she had
determined to destroy her. To accomplish this she would in any case
have used her especial weapons, and though she had intended to steal
by degrees upon her enemy, lulling her to sleep by a more gentle
fascination, at an hour when the whole convent should be quiet, yet
since the first step had been made unexpectedly and without her will,
she did not regret it.

She leaned back and looked at Beatrice during several minutes,
smiling to herself from time to time, scornfully and cruelly. Then
she rose and locked the outer door and closed the inner one
carefully. She knew from long ago that no sound could then find its
way to the corridor without. She came back and sat down again, and
again looked at the sleeping face, and she admitted for the hundredth
time that evening, that Beatrice was very beautiful.

"If he could see us now!" she exclaimed aloud.

The thought suggested something to her. She would like to see
herself beside this other woman and compare the beauty he loved with
the beauty that could not touch him. It was very easy. She found a
small mirror, and set it up upon the back of the sofa, on a level
with Beatrice's head. Then she changed the position of the lamp and
looked at herself, and touched her hair, and smoothed her brow, and
loosened the black lace about her white throat. And she looked from
herself to Beatrice, and back to herself again, many times.

"It is strange that black should suit us both so well--she so
dark and I so fair!" she said. "She will look well when she is
dead."

She gazed again for many seconds at the sleeping woman.

"But he will not see her, then," she added, rising to her feet
and laying the mirror on the table.

She began to walk up and down the room as was her habit when in
deep thought, turning over in her mind the deed to be done and the
surest and best way of doing it. It never occurred to her that
Beatrice could be allowed to live beyond that night. If the woman had
been but an unconscious obstacle in her path Unorna would have spared
her life, but as matters stood, she had no inclination to be
merciful.

There was nothing to prevent the possibility of a meeting
between Beatrice and the Wanderer, if Beatrice remained alive. They
were in the same city together, and their paths might cross at any
moment. The Wanderer had forgotten, but it was not sure that the
artificial forgetfulness would be proof against an actual sight of
the woman once so dearly loved. The same consideration was true of
Beatrice. She, too, might be made to forget, though it was always an
experiment of uncertain issue and of more than uncertain result, even
when successful, so far as duration was concerned. Unorna reasoned
coldly with herself, recalling all that Keyork Arabian had told her
and all that she had read. She tried to admit that Beatrice might be
disposed of in some other way, but the difficulties seemed to be
insurmountable. To effect such a disappearance Unorna must find some
safe place in which the wretched woman might drag out her existence
undiscovered. But Beatrice was not like the old beggar who in his
hundredth year had leaned against Unorna's door, unnoticed and
uncared for, and had been taken in and had never been seen again. The
case was different. The aged scholar, too, had been cared for as he
could not have been cared for elsewhere, and, in the event of an
inquiry being made, he could be produced at any moment, and would
even afford a brilliant example of Unorna's charitable doings. But
Beatrice was a stranger and a person of some importance in the world.
The Cardinal Archbishop himself had directed the nuns to receive her,
and they were responsible for her safety. To spirit her away in the
night would be a dangerous thing. Wherever she was to be taken,
Unorna would have to lead her there alone. Unorna would herself be
missed. Sister Paul already suspected that the name of Witch was more
than a mere appellation. There would be a search made, and suspicion
might easily fall upon Unorna, who would have been obliged, of
course, to conceal her enemy in her own house for lack of any other
convenient place.

There was no escape from the deed. Beatrice must die. Unorna
could produce death in a form which could leave no trace, and it
would be attributed to a weakness of the heart. Does any one account
otherwise for those sudden deaths which are no longer unfrequent in
the world? A man, a woman, is to all appearances in perfect health.
He or she was last seen by a friend, who describes the conversation
accurately, and expresses astonishment at the catastrophe which
followed so closely upon the visit. He, or she, is found alone by a
servant, or a third person, in a profound lethargy from which neither
restoratives nor violent shocks upon the nerves can produce any
awakening. In one hour, or a few hours, it is over. There is an
examination, and the authorities pronounce an ambiguous
verdict--death from a syncope of the heart. Such things happen, they
say, with a shake of the head. And, indeed, they know that such
things really do happen, and they suspect that they do not happen
naturally; but there is no evidence, not even so much as may be
detected in a clever case of vegetable poisoning. The heart has
stopped beating, and death has followed. There are wise men by the
score to-day who do not ask "What made it stop?" but "Who made it
stop?" But they have no evidence to bring, and the new jurisprudence,
which in some countries covers the cases of thefts and frauds
committed under hypnotic suggestion, cannot as yet lay down the law
for cases where a man has been told to die, and dies --from "weakness
of the heart." And yet it is known, and well known, that by hypnotic
suggestion the pulse can be made to fall to the lowest number of
beatings consistent with life, and that the temperature of the body
can be commanded beforehand to stand at a certain degree and fraction
of a degree at a certain hour, high or low, as may be desired. Let
those who do not believe read the accounts of what is done from day
to day in the great European seats of learning, accounts of which
every one bears the name of some man speaking with authority and
responsible to the world of science for every word he speaks, and
doubly so for every word he writes. A few believe in the antiquated
doctrine of electric animal currents, the vast majority are firm in
the belief that the influence is a moral one --all admit that
whatever force, or influence, lies at the root of hypnotism, the
effects it can produce are practically unlimited, terrible in their
comprehensiveness, and almost entirely unprovided for in the scheme
of modern criminal law.

Unorna was sure of herself, and of her strength to perform what
she contemplated. There lay the dark beauty in the corner of the
sofa, where she had sat and talked so long, and told her last story,
the story of her life which was now to end. A few determined words
spoken in her ear, a pressure of the hand upon the brow and the
heart, and she would never wake again. She would lie there still,
until they found her, hour after hour, the pulse growing weaker and
weaker, the delicate hands colder, the face more set. At the last,
there would be a convulsive shiver of the queenly form, and that
would be the end. The physicians and the authorities would come and
would speak of a weakness of the heart, and there would be masses
sung for her soul, and she would rest in peace.

Her soul? In peace? Unorna stood still. Was that to be all her
vengeance upon the woman who stood between her and happiness? Was
there to be nothing but that, nothing but the painless passing of the
pure young spirit from earth to heaven? Was no one to suffer for all
Unorna's pain? It was not enough. There must be more than that. And
yet, what more? That was the question. What imaginable wealth of
agony would be a just retribution for her existence? Unorna could
lead her, as she had led Israel Kafka, through the life and death of
a martyr, through a life of wretchedness and a death of shame, but
then, the moment must come at last, since this was to be death
indeed, and her spotless soul would be beyond Unorna's reach forever.
No, that was not enough. Since she could not be allowed to live to be
tormented, vengeance must follow her beyond the end of life.

Unorna stood still and an awful light of evil came into her
face. A thought of which the enormity would have terrified a common
being had entered her mind and taken possession of it. Beatrice was
in her power. Beatrice should die in mortal sin, and her soul would
be lost for ever.

For a long time she did not move, but stood looking down at the
calm and lovely face of her sleeping enemy, devising a crime to be
imposed upon her for her eternal destruction. Unorna was very
superstitious, or the hideous scheme could never have presented
itself to her. To her mind the deed was everything, whatever it was
to be, and the intention or the unconsciousness in doing it could
have nothing to do with the consequences to the soul of the doer. She
made no theological distinctions. Beatrice should commit some
terrible crime and should die in committing it. Then she would be
lost, and devils would do in hell the worst torment which Unorna
could not do on earth. A crime--a robbery, a murder--it must be done
in the convent. Unorna hesitated, bending her brows and poring in
imagination over the dark catalogue of all imaginable evil.

A momentary and vague terror cast its shadow on her thoughts. By
some accident of connection between two ideas, her mind went back a
month, and reviewed as in a flash of light all that she had thought
and done since that day. She had greatly changed since then. She
could think calmly now of deeds which even she would not have dared
then. She thought of the evening when she had cried aloud that she
would give her soul to know the Wanderer safe, of the quick answer
that had followed, and of Keyork Arabian's face. Was he a devil,
indeed, as she sometimes fancied, and had there been a reality and a
binding meaning in that contract?

Keyork Arabian! He, indeed, possessed the key to all evil. What
would he have done with Beatrice? Would he make her rob the
church--murder the abbess in her sleep? Bad, but not bad enough.

Unorna started. A deed suggested itself so hellish, so horrible
in its enormity, so far beyond all conceivable human sin, that for
one moment her brain reeled. She shuddered again and again, and
groped for support and leaned against the wall in a bodily weakness
of terror. For one moment she, who feared nothing, was shaken by fear
from head to foot, her face turned white, her knees shook, her sight
failed her, her teeth chattered, her lips moved hysterically.

But she was strong still. The thing she had sought had come to
her suddenly. She set her teeth, and thought of it again and again,
till she could face the horror of it without quaking. Is there any
limit to the hardening of the human heart?

The distant bells rang out the call to midnight prayer. Unorna
stopped and listened. She had not known how quickly time was passing.
But it was better so. She was glad it was so late, and she said so to
herself, but the evil smile that was sometimes in her face was not
there now. She had thought a thought that left a mark on her
forehead. Was there any reality in that jesting contract with Keyork
Arabian?

She must wait before she did the deed. The nuns would go down
into the lighted church, and kneel and pray before the altar. It
would last some time, the midnight lessons, the psalms, the
prayers--and she must be sure that all was quiet, for the deed could
not be done in the room where Beatrice was sleeping.

She was conscious of the time now, and every minute seemed an
hour, and every second was full of that one deed, done over and over
again before her eyes, until every awful detail of the awful whole
was stamped indelibly upon her brain. She had sat down now, and
leaning forwards, was watching the innocent woman and wondering how
she would look when she was doing it. But she was calm now, as she
felt that she had never been in her life. Her breath came evenly, her
heart beat naturally, she thought connectedly of what she was about
to do. But the time seemed endless.

The distant clocks chimed the half hour, three-quarters, past
midnight. Still she waited. At the stroke of one she rose from her
seat, and standing beside Beatrice laid her hand upon the dark
brow.

A few questions, a few answers followed. She must assure herself
that her victim was in the right state to execute minutely all her
commands. Then she opened the door upon the corridor and listened.
Not a sound broke the intense stillness, and all was dark. The
hanging lamp had been extinguished and the nuns had all returned from
the midnight service to their cells. No one would be stirring now
until four o'clock, and half an hour was all that Unorna needed.

She took Beatrice's hand. The dark woman rose with half-closed
eyes and set features. Unorna led her out into the dark passage.

"It is light here," Unorna said. "You can see your way. But I am
blind. Take my hand--so--and now lead me to the church by the nun's
staircase. Make no noise."

"I do not know the staircase," said the sleeper in drowsy
tones.

Unorna knew the way well enough, but not wishing to take a light
with her, she was obliged to trust herself to her victim, for whose
vision there was no such thing as darkness unless Unorna willed
it.

"Go as you went to-day, to the room where the balcony is, but do
not enter it. The staircase is on the right of the door, and leads
into the choir. Go!"

Without hesitation Beatrice led her out into the impenetrable
gloom, with swift, noiseless footsteps in the direction commanded,
never wavering nor hesitating whether to turn to the right or the
left, but walking as confidently as though in broad daylight. Unorna
counted the turnings and knew that there was no mistake. Beatrice was
leading her unerringly towards the staircase. They reached it, and
began to descend the winding steps. Unorna, holding her leader by one
hand, steadied herself with the other against the smooth, curved
wall, fearing at every moment lest she should stumble and fall in the
total darkness. But Beatrice never faltered. To her the way was as
bright as though the noonday sun had shone before her.

The stairs ended abruptly against a door. Beatrice stood still.
She had received no further commands and the impulse ceased.

"Draw back the bolt and take me into the church," said Unorna,
who could see nothing, but who knew that the nuns fastened the door
behind them when they returned into the convent. Beatrice obeyed
without hesitation and led her forward.

They came out between the high carved seats of the choir, behind
the high altar. The church was not quite as dark as the staircase and
passages had been, and Unorna stood still for a moment. In some of
the chapels hanging lamps of silver were lighted, and their tiny
flames spread a faint radiance upwards and sideways, though not
downwards, sufficient to break the total obscurity to eyes accustomed
for some minutes to no light at all. The church stood, too, on a
little eminence in the city, where the air without was less murky and
impenetrable with the night mists, and though there was no moon the
high upper windows of the nave were distinctly visible in the gloomy
height like great lancet-shaped patches of gray upon a black
ground.

In the dimness, all objects took vast and mysterious
proportions. A huge giant reared his height against one of the
pillars, crowned with a high, pointed crown, stretching out one great
shadowy hand into the gloom--the tall pulpit was there, as Unorna
knew, and the hand was the wooden crucifix standing out in its
extended socket. The black confessionals, too, took shape, like
monster nuns, kneeling in their heavy hoods and veils, with heads
inclined, behind the fluted pilasters, just within the circle of the
feeble chapel lights. Within the choir, the deep shadows seemed to
fill the carved stalls with the black ghosts of long dead sisters,
returned to their familiar seats out of the damp crypt below. The
great lectern in the midst of the half circle behind the high altar
became a hideous skeleton, headless, its straight arms folded on its
bony breast. The back of the high altar itself was a great throne
whereon sat in judgment a misty being of awful form, judging the dead
women all through the lonely night. The stillness was appalling. Not
a rat stirred.

Unorna shuddered, not at what she saw, but at what she felt. She
had reached the place, and the doing of the deed was at hand.
Beatrice stood beside her erect, asleep, motionless, her dark face
just outlined in the surrounding dusk.

Unorna took her hand and led her forwards. She could see now,
and the moment had come. She brought Beatrice before the high altar
and made her stand in front of it. Then she herself went back and
groped for something in the dark. It was the pair of small wooden
steps upon which the priest mounts in order to open the golden door
of the high tabernacle above the altar, when it is necessary to take
therefrom the Sacred Host for the Benediction, or other consecrated
wafers for the administration of the Communion. To all Christians, of
all denominations whatsoever, the bread-wafer when once consecrated
is a holy thing. To Catholics and Lutherans there is there,
substantially, the Presence of God. No imaginable act of sacrilege
can be more unpardonable than the desecration of the tabernacle and
the wilful defilement and destruction of the Sacred Host.

This was Unorna's determination. Beatrice should commit this
crime against Heaven, and then die with the whole weight of it upon
her soul, and thus should her soul itself be tormented for ever and
ever to ages of ages.

Considering what she believed, it is no wonder that she should
have shuddered at the tremendous thought. And yet, in the distortion
of her reasoning, the sin would be upon Beatrice who did the act, and
not upon herself who commanded it. There was no diminution of her own
faith in the sacredness of the place and the holiness of the
consecrated object--had she been one whit less sure of that, her
vengeance would have been vain and her whole scheme meaningless.

She came back out of the darkness and set the wooden steps in
their place before the altar at Beatrice's feet. Then, as though to
save herself from all participation in the guilt of the sacrilege
which was to follow, she withdrew outside the Communion rail, and
closed the gate behind her.

Beatrice, obedient to her smallest command, and powerless to
move or act without her suggestion, stood still as she had been
placed, with her back to the church and her face to the altar. Above
her head the richly wrought door of the tabernacle caught what little
light there was and reflected it from its own uneven surface.

Unorna paused a moment, looked at the shadowy figure, and then
glanced behind her into the body of the church, not out of any
ghostly fear, but to assure herself that she was alone with her
victim. She saw that all was quite ready, and then she calmly knelt
down just upon one side of the gate and rested her folded hands upon
the marble railing. A moment of intense stillness followed. Again the
thought of Keyork Arabian flashed across her mind. Had there been any
reality, she vaguely wondered, in that compact made with him? What
was she doing now? But the crime was to be Beatrice's, not hers. Her
heart beat fast for a moment, and then she grew very calm again.

The clock in the church tower chimed the first quarter past one.
She was able to count the strokes and was glad to find that she had
lost no time. As soon as the long, singing echo of the bells had died
away, she spoke, not loudly, but clearly and distinctly.

"Beatrice Varanger, go forward and mount the steps I have placed
for you."

The dark figure moved obediently, and Unorna heard the slight
sound of Beatrice's foot upon the wood. The shadowy form rose higher
and higher in the gloom, and stood upon the altar itself.

"Now do as I command you. Open wide the door of the
tabernacle."

Unorna watched the black form intently. It seemed to stretch out
its hand as though searching for something, and then the arm fell
again to the side.

"Do as I command you," Unorna repeated with the angry and
dominant intonation that always came into her voice when she was not
obeyed.

Again the hand was raised for a moment, groped in the darkness
and sank down into the shadow.

"Beatrice Varanger, you must do my will. I order you to open the
door of the tabernacle, to take out what is within and to throw it to
the ground!" Her voice rang clearly through the church. "And may the
crime be on your soul for ever and ever," she added in a low
voice.

A third time the figure moved. A strange flash of light played
for a moment upon the tabernacle, the effect, Unorna thought, of the
golden door being suddenly opened.

But she was wrong. The figure moved, indeed, and stretched out a
hand and moved again. A sudden crash of something very heavy, falling
upon stone, broke the great stillness--the dark form tottered, reeled
and fell to its length upon the great altar. Unorna saw that the
golden door was still closed, and that Beatrice had fallen. Unable to
move or act by her own free judgment, and compelled by Unorna's
determined command, she had made a desperate effort to obey. Unorna
had forgotten that there was a raised step upon the altar itself, and
that there were other obstacles in the way, including heavy
candlesticks and the framed Canon of the Mass, all of which are
usually set aside before the tabernacle is opened by the priest. In
attempting to do as she was told, the sleeping woman had stumbled,
had overbalanced herself, had clutched one of the great silver
candlesticks so that it fell heavily beside her, and then, having no
further support, she had fallen herself.

Unorna sprang to her feet and hastily opened the gate of the
railing. In a moment she was standing by the altar at Beatrice's
head. She could see that the dark eyes were open now. The great shock
had recalled her to consciousness.

"Where am I?" she asked in great distress, seeing nothing in the
darkness now, and groping with her hands.

"Sleep--be silent and sleep!" said Unorna in low, firm tones,
pressing her palm upon the forehead.

"No--no!" cried the startled woman in a voice of horror. "No--I
will not sleep--no, do not touch me! Oh, where am I--help! Help!"

She was not hurt. With one strong, lithe movement, she sprang to
the ground and stood with her back to the altar, her hands stretched
out to defend herself from Unorna. But Unorna knew what extreme
danger she was in if Beatrice left the church awake and conscious of
what had happened. She seized the moving arms and tried to hold them
down, pressing her face forward so as to look into the dark eyes she
could but faintly distinguish. It was no easy matter, however, for
Beatrice was young and strong and active. Then all at once she began
to see Unorna's eyes, as Unorna could see hers, and she felt the
terrible influence stealing over her again.

"No--no--no!" she cried, struggling desperately. "You shall not
make me sleep. I will not--I will not!"

There was a flash of light again in the church, this time from
behind the high altar, and the noise of quick footsteps. But neither
Unorna nor Beatrice noticed the light or the sound. Then the full
glow of a strong lamp fell upon the faces of both and dazzled them,
and Unorna felt a cool thin hand upon her own. Sister Paul was beside
them, her face very white and her faded eyes turning from the one to
the other.

It was very simple. Soon after Compline was over the nun had
gone to Unorna's room, had knocked and had entered. To her surprise
Unorna was not there, but Sister Paul imagined that she had lingered
over her prayers and would soon return. The good nun had sat down to
wait for her, and telling her beads had fallen asleep. The
unaccustomed warmth and comfort of the guest's room had been too much
for the weariness that constantly oppressed a constitution broken
with ascetic practices. Accustomed by long habit to awake at midnight
to attend the service, her eyes opened of themselves, indeed, but a
full hour later than usual. She heard the clock strike one, and for a
moment could not believe her senses. Then she understood that she had
been asleep, and was amazed to find that Unorna had not come back.
She went out hastily into the corridor. The lay sister had long ago
extinguished the hanging lamp, but Sister Paul saw the light
streaming from Beatrice's open door. She went in and called aloud.
The bed had not been touched. Beatrice was not there. Sister Paul
began to think that both the ladies must have gone to the midnight
service. The corridors were dark and they might have lost their way.
She took the lamp from the table and went to the balcony at which the
guests performed their devotion. It had been her light that had
flashed across the door of the tabernacle. She had looked down into
the choir, and far below her had seen a figure, unrecognisable from
that height in the dusk of the church, but clearly the figure of a
woman standing upon the altar. Visions of horror rose before her eyes
of the sacrilegious practices of witchcraft, for she had thought of
nothing else during the whole evening. Lamp in hand she descended the
stairs to the choir and reached the altar, providentially, just in
time to save Beatrice from falling a victim again to the evil
fascination of the enemy who had planned the destruction of her soul
as well as of her body.

"What is this? What are you doing in this holy place and at this
hour?" asked Sister Paul, solemnly and sternly.

Unorna folded her arms and was silent. No possible explanation
of the struggle presented itself even to her quick intellect. She
fixed her eyes on the nun's face, concentrating all her will, for she
knew that unless she could control her also, she herself was lost.
Beatrice answered the question, drawing herself up proudly against
the great altar and pointing at Unorna with her outstretched hand,
her dark eyes flashing indignantly.

"We were talking together, this woman and I. She looked at
me--she was angry--and then I fainted, or fell asleep, I cannot tell
which. I awoke in the dark to find myself lying upon the altar here.
Then she took hold of me and tried to make me sleep again. But I
would not. Let her explain, herself, what she has done, and why she
brought me here!"

Sister Paul turned to Unorna and met the full glare of the
unlike eyes, with her own calm, half heavenly look of innocence.

"What have you done, Unorna? What have you done?" she asked very
sadly.

But Unorna did not answer. She only looked at the nun more
fixedly and savagely. She felt that she might as well have looked
upon some ancient picture of a saint in heaven, and bid it close its
eyes. But she would not give up the attempt, for her only safety lay
in its success. For a long time Sister Paul returned her gaze
steadily.

"Sleep!" said Unorna, putting up her hand. "Sleep, I command
you!"

But Sister Paul's eyes did not waver. A sad smile played for a
moment upon her waxen features.

"You have no power over me--for your power is not of good," she
said, slowly and softly.

Then she quietly turned to Beatrice, and took her hand.

"Come with me, my daughter," she said. "I have a light and will
take you to a place where you will be safe. She will not trouble you
any more to-night. Say a prayer, my child, and do not be afraid."

"I am not afraid," said Beatrice. "But where is she?" she asked
suddenly.

Unorna had glided away while they were speaking. Sister Paul
held the lamp high and looked in all directions. Then she heard the
heavy door of the sacristy swing upon its hinges and strike with a
soft thud against the small leathern cushion. Both women followed
her, but as they opened the door again a blast of cold air almost
extinguished the lamp. The night wind was blowing in from the
street.

"She is gone out," said Sister Paul. "Alone and at this
hour--Heaven help her!" It was as she said, Unorna had escaped.