Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 6 (1925-06).djvu/82

Rh his days to a program of social activity!

The excavation was completed and work was rapidly progressing on the foundation of the mansion when Simeon Lavkovich first met the famed beauty of Kravetz.

one afternoon. Lavkovich galloped away on a wiry Cossack steed. He rode out of the domain of Kravetz and broke into a wild canter across the barren steppes adjoining the district. This limitless expanse enthralled him. The silence and magnitude of the rolling land was appalling. He rode over this waste with no regard for the time of day.

When the sun threatened to disappear below the horizon and an awesome dusk furtively crept over the land, Simeon brought up his horse with an ejaculation. His heart began to experience a fearsome constriction. How should he turn? How was he to be guided on his return?

He turned his horse and let the beast choose his own road. It was a long and lonesome ride, through a blackness that enveloped him like a cloak. His fatigued horse refused to respond to entreaties, spurs or whip, but staggered ahead with head almost reaching the ground. The silence of the steppes filled the man with unaccountable terror.

Simeon’s strained eyes at length detected a distant glimmer of lights. He exclaimed like a truant boy. His heart pulsed happily. He begged his horse to quicken his pace. The patient steed must have sensed the proximity of humanity and possible prospects of food and rest, for he picked up his head, raised his ears and put new vigor into his exhausted limbs.

Before this lonely cottage Simeon drew rein. A haggard crone came in reply to his repeated knocking. She eyed him suspiciously. His plea did not interest her. She hardly waited for him to finish. He followed her. She silently led the way down a dimly lighted hall and motioned him to sit down in the adjoining room.

The man stood stupefied on the threshold. His amazed eyes surveyed the colorful landscapes on the walls, the unique draperies, the unexpected splendor of the furnishings. The sight of a grand piano was enough to astonish him—all this artistry in a peasant’s hut!

He stepped into the center of the room, the better to observe a painting. The rustle of skirts and the slightest breath of a heavenly aroma startled him. He sensed another’s presence in the room.

He turned slowly and almost gasped in dumfounded adoration. He wanted to fail on his knees in reverence. The blood rushed to his head. It pounded in his temples. His tongue was chained. The holy charm of her whirled him into another sphere.

Now he realized that he had fallen under the divine eyes of the noted “enchantress of the steppes”. They called her that in Moscow. He had heard men speak of her. He had heard nobles rave over her. The unequaled charm of this woman was history. Men had offered fabulous riches to her. She had spurned them.

She stood tall and majestic in the doorway, the velvet portières parted by hands of a grace and whiteness he had never before beheld. An abundance of black glossy hair was coiled on her regal head. There was that white sheen to her forehead, neck and shoulders that recalled newly washed marble. In her adorable lips was that moist, pink fullness with a petulance that craved pressure from another’s lips. In her eyes, scarcely glowing through half closed lids, smoldered the soft amorous fire that had seared the heart of many a noble, and would turn the heart of a monastic.

It had already wrought destruction with Simeon. He was shamefully disconcerted in her queenly presence.