The Dark Star

"And where they remain, war is. And lasts until image and dagger are

carried to another land where war shall be. But where there is war,

only the predestined suffer--those born under Erlik--children of the

Dark Star."

"I thought," said the Reverend Wilbour Carew, "that my brother had

confessed Christ."

"I am but repeating to you what my father believed; and Temujin before

him," replied the native convert, his remote gaze lost in reflection.

His eyes were quite little and coloured like a lion's; and sometimes,

in deep reverie, the corners of his upper lip twitched.

This happened when Ruhannah lay fretting in her mother's arms, and the

hot wind blew on Trebizond.

* * * * *

Under the Dark Star, too, a boy grew up in Minetta Lane, not less

combative than other ragged boys about him, but he was inclined to

arrange and superintend fist fights rather than to participate in

battle, except with his wits.

His name was Eddie Brandes; his first fortune of three dollars was

amassed at craps; he became a hanger-on in ward politics, at

race-tracks, stable, club, squared ring, vaudeville, burlesque. Long

Acre attracted him--but always the gambling end of the operation.

Which predilection, with its years of ups and downs, landed him one

day in Western Canada with an "Unknown" to match against an Athabasca

blacksmith, and a training camp as the prospect for the next six

weeks.

There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Dumont, lately head

gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a Lost Province, and

wearing the Iron Cross of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bony

chest, now as hollow as a Gothic ruin.

And if, like a thousand fellow patriots, he had been ordered to the

Western World to watch and report to his Government the trend and

tendency of that Western, English-speaking world, only his Government

and his daughter knew it--a child of the Dark Star now grown to early

womanhood, with a voice like a hermit thrush and the skill of a

sorceress with anything that sped a bullet.

* * * * *

Before the Unknown was quite ready to meet the Athabasca blacksmith,

Albrecht Dumont, dying faster now, signed his last report to the

Government at Berlin, which his daughter Ilse had written for

him--something about Canadian canals and stupid Yankees and their

greed, indifference, cowardice, and sloth.

Dumont's mind wandered: "After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my post," he whispered,

"do thou pick up my burden and stand guard, little Ilse."

"Yes, father."

"Thy sacred promise?"

"My promise."