Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/35

34 light at the head of the stair, she found that she was bathed in blood.

Her sister Annie would have fled from the place, but Madame de Laval's curiosity was stronger than fear, and she returned to the room again, taking with her a lamp from the infernal chapel.

She now perceived a frightful spectacle, for, ranged the whole length of the room were copper basins filled with blood and each bearing a label containing a date, and in the middle of the room there was a black marble table, on which lay the body of a child, quite recently murdered.

It was one of these basins which had fallen, and the black blood had spread far and wide on the grimy and worm-eaten wooden floor.

The two women were now half dead with terror, but Madame de Laval endeavored at all costs to remove the evidence of her indiscretion.

She went in search of a sponge and water, to wash the boards; but she only extended the stain, and that which at first seemed black became scarlet in hue.

Suddenly a loud commotion echoed throughout the castle, mixed with the cries of people calling for Madame de Laval. She distinguished the startling words: "The Marshal has returned!"

The two women rushed for the staircase, but at the same moment they were aware of the trampling of steps and the sound of voices in the devil's chapel.

The sister, Annie, fled upward to the battlement of the tower; while Madame de Laval went down, trembling, and found herself face to face with her husband, in the act of ascending, accompanied by the sorcerer Prelati and Sille, the steward.

Gilles de Laval seized his wife by the arm, and, without speaking, dragged her into the infernal chapel.

It was then that Prelati, the sorcerer, spoke, saying:

"It must be, as you see, and the victim has come of her own accord."

"Be it so," replied his master. "Begin the Black Mass."

The unfrocked priest went to the altar, while Gilles de Laval opened a little cupboard fixed therein and drew out a large knife, after which he sat down beside his wife, who was now almost in a swoon and lying in a heap upon a bench near the wall.

The sacrilegious ceremony now began, with Perlati, the sorcerer, repeating the Mass backward, which was the invocation to the Devil to appear.

ERE it should be explained that the marshal, so far from starting for the Crusades, had proceeded only to Nantes, where Prelati lived; he attacked this miserable wretch with the utmost fury and threatened to slay him if he did not furnish the means of extracting gold from the Devil by the aid of Black Magic.

With the object of obtaining delay, Prelati declared that terrible conditions were required by his infernal master, first among which would be the sacrifice of the marshal's wife with her unborn child (for Madame de Laval was soon to become a mother) on the Devil's altar.

To this horrible suggestion, Gilles de Laval made no reply, but returned at once to Machecoul, Prelati and Sille, the steward, accompanying him.

In the meanwhile, Annie, sister of Madame de Laval, left to her own devices on the roof of the tower and not daring to come down, had removed her veil, to make signals of distress on the chance of attracting help.

They were answered by two cavaliers, accompanied by a troop of horsemen, who were riding toward the castle; they proved to be her two brothers who, on learning of the spurious departure of the marshal for Palestine, had come to visit and console Madame de Laval.

They soon rode into the court of the castle with a clatter of hoofs, whereupon Gilles de Laval suspended the hideous ceremony and said to his wife:

"Madame, I forgive your meddling, and the matter is at an end between us, if you now do as I tell you.

"Return to your apartment, change your garments and join me and your brothers in the guest-room, whither I am going to meet them.

"But if you say one word, or cause them the slightest suspicion, I will bring you hither on their departure; we shall proceed with the Black Mass at the point where it is now broken off, and at the consecration you will die.

"Mark where I place this knife."

He then rose, led his wife to the door of her chamber and subsequently received her relatives and their suite, saying that his wife was preparing herself to come and salute her brothers.

Madame de Laval almost immediately appeared, pale as a specter. Her husband never took his eyes off her, seeking to control her by his glance.

When her brothers asked if she was ill, she answered that she was only fatigued, but added in an undertone: "Save me; he seeks to kill me."

At the same moment her sister, Annie, rushed into the room, crying:

"Take us away; save us, my brothers: this man is an assassin"—and she pointed to Gilles de Laval.

While the marshal cried out for his retainers, the escort of the two visitors surrounded the two women with drawn swords; and when the marshal's men arrived, they were ordered to stand back or fight.

While de Laval's retainers hesitated, Madame de Laval, with her sister and brothers, gained the drawbridge, mounted and galloped off.

They hurried to the neighboring city of Nantes, where information regarding the marshal's crimes was laid before the authorities, who at once ordered de Laval's arrest.

A troop of horse surrounded the castle of the marshal and he was, without resistance, placed under arrest and placed in the prison at Nantes.

The civil authorities desired to try him for murder, but the Inquisition intervened and demanded that he be turned over to the Ecclesiastical Court to answer charges of Sorcery and Heresy.

Now throughout the surrounding country, rose the voices of parents, long silenced by terror, demanding their missing children: there was dole and outcry throughout the province.

The castles of Machecoul and Chantoce were ransacked, resulting in the discovery of over three hundred skeletons of children; the rest had been consumed by fire.

Two months later Gilles de Laval appeared before the judges of the Inquisition. He was as arrogant and proud as ever and refused to answer their questions or to admit their authority over him.

But this haughty insolence was demolished by the threat of torture, and he ended by confessing that, aided by Prelati, ex-priest and sorcerer, and Sille, the steward, he had murdered, during a period of three years, over eight hundred children.

Pressed for his motive, he replied that he enjoyed an execrable delight during the death agony of the poor little beings.

The president of the Inquisition found it difficult to credit his statements and questioned him anew, but received no other answer.

That which Gilles de Laval shrank from confessing was that he sought the Elixir of Everlasting Life, which, so he had been told by Prelati, was to be found in mixing the blood of fresh slain children with salt, sulphur and mercury, and this horrible concoction was to be drunk while warm.

