Chapter Fourteen. A Sign Afar.

The movement of the huge crystal was so slow as to be almost imperceptible, but the kaleidoscope of life and movement it presented held me spellbound.

By this strange combination of dactyliomancy with christallomantia, an effect was produced so amazing and unaccountable that my wondering vision became riveted upon it, as gradually my mind cleared of the chaotic impression it had received.

The reflecting surfaces, turned at various angles to my line of sight, presented in their unsullied transparency a specular inversion of figures and scenes that, ere they took clearly-delineated shape, dissolved and faded, to be succeeded by others of a totally different character. Objects and persons with whom I seemed to have been familiar in my youth in the far-off Aures passed before my gaze in bewildering confusion. Ere I could recognise them, however, they disappeared, phantom-like, giving place to a series of pictures of the terrors of battle, so vividly portrayed that they held me overawed. The first showed a beautiful court, evidently the private pavilion of some potentate, with cool arcades, plashing fountains, tall palms and trailing vines. But the place had been assaulted and ignominiously fallen. The courts sacred to the women were full of armed, dark-skinned men, who, with brutal ruthlessness, were tearing from the “pearls of the harem” their jewels, and with wanton cruelty massacring them even as I gazed. Over the pavements of polished jasper, blood flowed, trickling into the great basin of the fountain, and as one after another the houris fell and died, a fierce red light shone in the sky, showing that the barbarous conquerors, intoxicated with blood and loot, had fired the palace. Then in the dense smoke that curled from out the arcades as they were enveloped and destroyed, the scene of merciless slaughter and ruthless destruction was lost, and there gradually evolved scenes of burning desert, of welcome oases, of great and wonderful cities, all of which grew slowly and were quickly lost. Just at that moment, however, a sound behind me caused me to start, and turning, I saw that the dwarf, who had risen noiselessly, had witnessed the magic pictures as well as ourselves.

On seeing that his inquisitiveness had been detected, he turned quickly, rejoined his fellow-slaves, and fell again upon his knees, raising his voice in the strange incantation the girls continued to repeat. Apparently Azala did not notice him; too engrossed was she in the revelations of the prism, for when I again gazed into the crystal, objects and persons were passing in rapid confusion, and she was vainly endeavouring to decipher their mysterious import.

For a second we saw the face of a beautiful woman with hair like golden sheen, and were both amazed to discover that in place of rows of sequins she wore a single ornament suspended upon her white, unfurrowed brow. Apparently it was carved from a single diamond of enormous size and exceeding lustre, but its shape puzzled us; it was fashioned to represent a curious device of arrowheads. Quickly the mysteriously-beautiful face dissolved, and from its remains there came in rapid succession pictures of a mighty city, of a great plain, of running water, of a seething populace, and of a cool garden rich in flowers and fruit. Then there appeared a vision so ghastly and gruesome that I drew back in horror.

It represented a pavement of polished marble, whereon a woman was stretched dead, mutilated by the keen scimitar of a black eunuch of giant stature, who with his foot upon the lifeless body gazed down, grinning with satisfaction at his own brutality.

The face of the man startled me. The hideous countenance, on which revenge was so strongly depicted, was that of our mutual enemy, Khazneh, Chief of the Black Eunuchs of his Imperial Majesty!

“Enough!” cried Azala, horrified at what seemed a revolting augury of her own end. “See! the brute hath struck off her head!” And shuddering, she gazed around the apartment with a look of abject terror, her haggard features in that moment becoming paler and more drawn.

“Heed it not as ill-potent,” I said, smoothing her hair tenderly, and endeavouring to remove from her mind the horrifying thought that she might fall under the doka of the Grand Eunuch. “The mystic Prism of Destiny showeth much that is grim, distorted and fantastic. The eventuality is only resolved so that we may arm ourselves against the Destroyer.”

But, apprehensive of her fate, she shook her head sorrowfully, saying in low, harsh tones, “When on the previous occasion I gazed into the prism a similar scene was conjured up before me, only the woman was then at his knees imploring mercy, while he, with doka uplifted, laughed her to scorn. Now, see the end! Her head hath fallen!”

Again I turned to ascertain what next might be shown in the revolving crystal, the mystery of which was ever-increasing, but it had ceased to move. Eagerly I bent, gazing into its green, transparent depths in order to discover whether the strange scenes were mere optical illusions. Only for a second was I permitted to gaze, but in that brief moment suspicion seized me that I had been imposed upon. Whether Azala actually believed that forecasts of the future could be witnessed in the crystal, or whether she was only striving to impress me by regaling me with an exhibition of the mystical, in which all women of her race delight, I know not; but I was sceptical and became convinced that the pictures had been conjured up by mechanical contrivance, and that the illusions—probably the stock-in-trade of some court necromancer—were performed by ingenious but hidden paintings or tableaux.

By this discovery I was much perturbed, for it was remarkable that, on witnessing the scenes, Azala’s surprise and agitation were natural and unfeigned, and this act led me to the conclusion that, believing in spells and amulets, she was also ready to place faith in any extraordinary marvel that she might gaze upon.

It was common knowledge, I remembered, that the women of Sokoto were extremely superstitious, believing as implicitly in the sayings of their astrologers as we, of the North, believe in the efficacy of representations of the hand of Fathma of Algiers nailed over our doors to avert the Evil Eye. Was this chamber the sanctum of some seer whose duty it was to forecast the good or evil fortune of the doves of the harem?

I turned, and was about to address to her some question directed towards fathoming the secrets of this cunningly-contrived instrument of psychomancy, when suddenly she drew aside the curtain from a lattice near, uttering an exclamation of mingled surprise and dismay.

Rushing towards her, I looked out, and the sight riveted my gaze in abject amazement.

The dawn had already spread with delicate tints of pink and rose, but in the northern sky a strange, inverted picture was presented with such clearness and vividness of outline that every detail is still as fresh in my mind as it was at the moment I witnessed it.

The picture was produced not by the chicanery of any necromancer, but by Nature herself. It was that strange, puzzling illusion—the mirage. So weird and wonderful was it that, even though I had seen many similar pictures in the heavens during my journeys over the plains, I gave an involuntary exclamation of amazement.

As we gazed away beyond the city, across the sandy desert, the aerial tableaux mirrored above appeared to be the reflection of a flat, black rock of colossal dimensions, rising high and inaccessible like a wall, and descending sheer into dark, deep water, upon the surface of which its gloomy image was reflected as in a mirror. The spot, weird and lonely, was devoid of every vestige of herbage or any living thing, and as I looked upon it in wonderment, impressed by its weirdness, Azala suddenly grasped my arm, exclaiming excitedly,—

“Behold! that black pool! See, it is the Lake of the Accursed! Many times hath its image been revealed unto us in the sky. Remark it carefully, for of a verity am I convinced that in this vision we have a key to the Secret. At that spot must thou search if thou desirest to fathom the mystery.”

My eyes took in every detail of the ineffably dismal picture, the great, inhospitable face of dark granite seemingly so smooth that an eagle could scarce obtain a foothold, its rugged summit with one pointed crag, like a man’s forefinger, pointing higher than the rest towards the dark, lowering clouds that seemed to hang about it, and the Stygian blackness of the stagnant water at its gigantic base. But its sight told me nothing, for it was the reflected image of a scene I had never before gazed upon, a scene so unutterably dismal and dispiriting that I doubted whether any clue could there be found.

Cloud-pictures are of such frequent occurrence at Kano that it is known among the desert tribes as “The City of the Mirage.”

For a few moments the sky remained the mirror of this mystic picture; then gradually it faded into air. When it had entirely disappeared, Azala, uttering no word, drew the curtain again before the lattice as at the same instant Tiamo and the two slaves rose, bowing before their mistress. With quick, impatient gesture she motioned to them to leave, and I, marvelling greatly at the strange religio-magic and extraordinary mirage I had witnessed, followed her through the open curtain and up the stairs back to her own sweetly perfumed apartment.

But in that moment there occurred to me the solemn declaration I had so often heard in the mosque: “Whoso taketh Eblis for his patron beside Allah, shall surely perish with a manifest destruction.”