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The Scimitar

By John Briggs, Jr.

HE STUDIO was in darkness except for a splash of yellow light above the chair in which lay my friend. In a heavy oaken frame on the opposite wall, illuminated by the upward flash of the light, was a painting of a giant negro, dressed in oriental garments of a deep blue and grasping a great blue scimitar. The painting was alive with sinister personality. It was as though the artist had caught the essence of some evil power and had transmitted it bodily to canvas. So vivid was the delineation that one almost expected the figure to step out of its shadowy background and down into the room.

My friend looked up.

"A peculiar picture," he said. “And I painted it under peculiar circumstances. If you won't interrupt I'll tell you the story. It happened five years ago. Carter and I were playing

around at Chaddsford. We'd fixed up a studio of sorts there. We'd paint while the light held good; play the rest of the time; and slept not at all— great life that. We made innumerable sketches of subjects ranging from plump country maidens to even plumper pigs in clover, all of them shockingly bad-and were quite happy. Then one evening we ran into an experience that was anything but pleasing and innocuous.

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I had sent a canoe up to Northbrook. We piled our supper and some painting stuff into the boat, and at about three o'clock went coasting down Brandywine towards Chaddsford. The principle of the thing was quite beautiful. You had only to stay in the canoe and the current would take you wherever you wanted to go; work was not necessary. The day was one of

those pleasantly warm ones in Indian summer that give a blue haze to the hills and leave a smell of burning brush tingling one's nostrils. I lay down on the bottom of the canoe and went to sleep. 1 was awakened by the shock of cold water, and found myself floating down the stream. I pulled myself up on the bank and looked back. The canoe had wrapped itself around a rock in the middle of a rapid, and on that rock sat Carter, daintily perched, like a bird on a telegraph pole.

He splashed across from his rock; came down to where I was; and we looked things over. It seems to me he had been asleep, too, and neither of us had the faintest idea of where we were. Going on was out of the question; the canoe had a foot-long rip in it. Besides it was getting latethe sun was almost down, and we decided that the best thing to do would be to beg shelter for the night at some farmhouse, always providing that we were fortunate to find one, for that part of the Brandywine Valley is none too thickly populated.

We pulled the canoe up on the bank and started across the field. There wasn't a house in sight, just the long expanse of meadow, covered with lush grass, and the hills beyond. We headed for those. It was a pretty scene. All the colors were mellowed to pastel indistinctness by the autumn haze. The brown and green of the field was split by the silver of the stream, and on both sides rose up the gently rounded hills. Everything was soft and melting like a Corot landscape.

We were halfway up one of the hills when we looked back. Over to the right and nestling in by three big willows, was a little house. We had

needed the rising ground to see it. "Our meat," said Carter, and over we went. The place was enchantingand one of those close-stoned, whitewashed, cottages that are rambling without being loose. Old it looked, and somehow made you feel as though you had stepped back a hundred years. There was a small porch in front; a porch which was covered with masses of green vine that flaunted themselves in your face. The entire place had a whimsically fascinating charm.

We knocked on the door and waited. There was a long pause, during which we heard the approach of hesitating steps. Then the door was suddenly flung open, and we stood face to face with the most enormous negro I have ever seen in my life. Framed in the green of the porch he seemed positively unreal. Black as jet he was, with eyes whose whites were unusually large. His squat face was enormously evil, and was twisted into a senseless grin.

His eyes and I've studied a good many eyes-had so much of that horribly rolling white. It was not a healthy color, but like the surface covering of a month-old snow. His face was seared with lines of bad living, and he had the loose mouth of the extreme sensualist. The fellow's capabilities as a model for a difficult picture I was then painting struck me instantly, and I determined to get hold of him and make him pose as soon as possible. He had just the build I wanted: a magnificent build, mighty thighs, big shoulders and

small

waist. You could see the big muscles rippling to and fro under the black skin on his neck and shoulders like the slow weaving coil and recoil of a cobra, and with that face he was one man in a hundred for me.

"There's nobody here," he said sullenly.

"You're here, aren't you?" replied little Carter.

The fellow convulsively gathered himself up. It was evident that the moment had unpleasant possibilities.

"Our canoe upset," I interposed, hastily, supposing him to be a farmhand left in charge of some tenanthouse. "Can you put us up for the night? We'll pay you well for your trouble."

At the mention of money his face lost something of its scowl. It was like the face of a bad child, tempted by a stick of candy. I pulled out my wallet and thrust a dollar bill into his hands. The result was astounding. It was as though an artist had painted a hideously malignant face, and then, with a single sweep of his brush, had changed the expression to one of abject servility. The fellow actually began to bow and scrape. It was sickeningly like the fawning of a dog. Then he opened the door and bowed us in. The room was clean and decently furnished. A large oil lamp on the center of a table fought back the gathering gloom, and I began to think we'd be quite comfortable.

"Can you get us anything to eat?" I asked.

The negro disappeared into the next room, evidently a kitchen, and brought out hot sweet potatoes, liver and bacon; pretty fair living for a farmhand. He placed the food before us, and, always cringing, stepped back. Yet to me it seemed that under his outward shell of servility lay something deeper and infinitely more sinister, just as the steel of a sword underlies a velvet scabbard. It was as though he were dissecting us, blindly wondering at us. As we ate, I could feel his gaze on the back of my neck, cold, prying and yet, somehow, senseless. It was not a pleasant meal as far as I was concerned, although I doubt whether Carter was disturbed in the least. Whenever I would turn casually around, there the negro would be, subservient and cringing, and yet, more and more, despite every tightening hitch I gave to my mind, he made me think of a great moriothose hideous imbeciles that the ladies of old Rome used to consider so amusing. He fascinated the artist in me, too. I thought of how I would

pose him; how I would arrange that huge body. This feeling grew on me, until I became quite mad to paint him.

It was almost seven o'clock when we finished eating. The negro cleared away the dishes, and we sat and smoked our wet tobacco. Then he reappeared, carrying some dirty blankets, put them down, asked us if there was anything else we wanted, and at our "no," went back into the kitchen. Carter and I talked for a while and then turned in on the floor with our blankets about us. Carter, I am sure, went to sleep almost at once. I closed my eyes and began one of those endless thought-chains that most people indulge in before sleeping, my mind skipping heedlessly from one subject to another. Yet always it came back to this strange negro, and the painting I would make of him. I could visualize every bit of it; see the detail, every pigment of the color. I really think I could have painted it then precisely as one colors a photograph, and always that giant black was the personification of it, as though I had always painted him, and he had stepped bodily out of the canvas.

I was awakened by little Carter poking me in the side. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. The room was flooded with soft light. It startled me until I remembered that the moon had risen. Everything, indoors and out, was bathed in that silver mellowness that only a harvest moon gives. It must have been a beautiful night, but still I couldn't understand why Carter should wake me up to look at it; even a harvest moon is common enough. I was preparing to discuss his shortcomings in detail, when he leaned over and whispered to

me:

"Our friend is holding an 'at home.' He's been at it for some time now."

I listened and I could hear a low murmur of voices coming from the kitchen. The murmur was punctuated here and there by a plainly audible oath. The thing was interesting; Carter and I left our blankets, and stole over to the kitchen door. It was

a battered affair with a wide gap by each hinge, so that we could easily see through.

It was a larger room than I had thought, and looked older than the rest of the house. In its center was a great oaken table at each end of which, jammed into the necks of two broken bottles, were candles. The flames of the candles went straight up toward the ceiling. All the windows were barred; there wasn't a breath of air in the room. Around the table, their faces grotesquely tinged and shadowed in the dim light, sat a strange company. They were all negroes, and seemed to be playing nickel high-card. At the end of the table, and facing us, was a dealer, a little bullet-headed yellow man, his neck encompassed with a high collar and a red tie. A cigar butt, which he chewed around and around, was stuck in the corner of his mouth. He had his thumbs in his vest, and was leaning back in his chair. On his right was an individual whom I would have sworn was either a politician or a minister. He was tall and lank and dressed in rusty black. Opposite him was a very dirty darkey, his clothes. in rags and tatters and his eyes rolling with excitement. There was nothing very distinct about the others to me-just lumps of black flesh, but behind the little yellow man, like a distorted shadow, loomed up the negro who had let us in. The outlines of his figure, merging with the smoky wall behind him, were indistinct, but his face and what a face it was!stood out like a cameo cut in black ivory. Have you ever seen a caged animal who smells the food about to be thrown to him. That's how that giant black looked. His mask of servility had dropped from him as a woman peels off a glove, and he was as we had first seen him in the doorway. It was as though he had changed his very soul, and by some marvelous transformation had brought the beast in himself uppermost. His body was hunched over as though he were waiting to spring, his arms were slightly

swinging, and across his face was skewered that hideous, twisted, grin.

The game must have been a long one, since some of the players had many nickels before them, while others had few. The little yellow man deftly shuffled and gave out the cards. Beads of sweat gathered on the forehead of the darky in rags. Slowly he pushed out on the table all his remaining money. Then with the utmost furtiveness he reached down, pulled up a card, and neatly substituted it for the one he had received. The thing was so beautifully done as to be almost imperceptible, but like a flash the great negro leaped the table and grasped the cheat by the throat. It was as instantaneous as though prearranged. That was all we saw, for the next instant the candles were out and there was wild confusion. We could hear the beat of running feet outside. Then came silence, followed by the relighting of a single candle. The room was empty except for the little yellow man and his giant guard, who was cringing under a berating he was receiving. It made me think of a great mongrel dog cowering at a stick in the hands of a small child. Gone was all the surly power, the evil strength. The little yellow man strode to the door and went out, slamming it behind him.

Slowly, as though a hand were pressing itself down upon his facial muscles, the giant's expression changed. Line by line the features tightened, the liniaments shaping themselves with a horrible precision as though a sculptor were deftly modeling them out of wet clay. Bit by bit, with a thousand minor evolutions, the face worked itself into a hideous entirety, and there stood before us the negro of the vine-covered doorway, the negro who had leaped the table to grasp the cheat by the throat. We saw him gather himself up and grasp the table with his great hands. The muscles of his arms flexed and contracted as though he were tearing something to bits. Suddenly, with a sweep of his hand, he brushed the

light from the candle. We jumped back, and silently rolled up in our blankets. Perhaps he might come in to look at us; we were taking no chances.

We were up early the next morning, but the negro was up before us, the fawning, docile creature we had come to fear. He gave us breakfast—a good breakfast-which we received with our best attempts at naturalness. We payed for our lodging, and I gave him my card and an extra dollar, saying that I wanted him a day or two as a model. I impressed on him the fact that he would be well paid for easy work. That any one should want to paint him seemed to give him a satisfaction almost childlike. Sane or insane, I wanted him; in fact, I needed him and had to have him. Then we left, Carter telling me that he felt as though he had emerged from a particularly dark and disagreeable tunnel. We hired a wagon to take us to Chaddsford. The incident seemed closed.

Carter went home soon after that, and left me to myself. I improved the opportunity by getting over a good deal of work. I finished all the illustrations for the Arabian story, with the exception of a single painting. It was to be of a great blackamoor, with scimitar uplifted, standing guard at a harem gate. For that I needed a model, and every available model seemed totally inadequate in comparison with the negro of the tenanthouse. Daily I expected him, but he always failed me, and somehow I did not care to go get him. I imagine that it was pure nervousness on my part, but I didn't quite care to stick my head into that hornet's nest again. I wasn't quite sure just which incarnation I should find him in. Meanwhile the picture hung fire, and I went back to sketching.

Then came a certain evening in the beginning of November. I had turned on the big incandescent lights we used for night work, and was trying in their blaze to make a few sketches. I had been scribbling away for a couple of

hours and was becoming quite tired. I yawned, got up, looked around, and recoiled in horrible surprise. There by the open bay window was the identical negro of the farm-house. I closed my eyes and then looked again. The nightmare figure was still there. Hunched over he was, like a great ape and senselessly swinging his arms, as I had seen him do that other night. His hands were clenching and reclenching, and his eyes were lit with a kind of foolish cunning. That he was now quite mad I never for an instant doubted. How long he had been there, or what particular bit of devil's luck had brought him to me, were questions which my mind was totally unable to grasp, let alone solve.

We stood and stared at each other for what must have been a full minute. Then he took a step forward.

"You goin' to paint," he growled. His voice was hideous, seeming to come not from his throat, but from deep down in his body.

With a tremendous effort, I pulled myself together.

"I can't in this light," I said.

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"You paint," he ordered, and came forward a little more, tensed and ready to spring. I could almost feel the grip of those huge hands on my throat. My mind worked furiously. There must be some way out. haps he had done some terrible thing and was even then fleeing. The condition of his clothes supported me in this belief. They were badly ripped, and the tears appeared to be fresh; besides, he was soaked to the skin as though he had been fording the river. His pursuers might be just behind. If I could only keep the madman in him down-make him somewhat nearer the fawning coward I had seen him to be, until help came! Anything that would occupy his mind. would do.

"Strip and step over there," I said, pointing to the model stand. I was calm by now, with a kind of icy dread, and was giving myself orders, precisely as a general behind the lines sends instructions to his troops at the

front. I wondered dimly if he would obey me. If he obeyed once, he might obey again, and that would be something gained. For just an instant, while my heart stood still, he hesitated and then ripping off his rags, he stepped up on the stand; I had won the first point.

A canvas was strapped on the easel before me, and feverishly I set to work. That scene is forever burned into my memory. If you were to take a knife and rip up that painting, I could do it again just as it was. That huge madman standing up before me like a great black panther, and I painting for my life. I can remember every line of his glistening body, every twist of his dreadful face. I moved the easel slightly so that he could plainly see it, and at the same time I could see him without turning entirely around. I prayed that he might weaken, become again the cur-but there was no sign of it.

Quickly the picture took shape-I wasn't bothering with any preliminary sketching-and I painted that nigger as I saw him, and felt him, and feared him. How long we were there I don't know, but it seemed eternity. He began to grow restless. Color, I thought, might hold him, and I swept my brush in big blue swathes down the canvas. Would help never come! I was painting in a delirious dream when I heard the beat of hoofs outside and a knock at the door.

"Come in, come in!" I screamed. "He's here. He's here!"-and then I hurled myself across the room

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"Well," I said, "did they get him?" "Yes," was the reply. "They got him, though he fought like a wildcat. He had been mentally deranged although not actually insane from childhood. To those he feared, he was like a great dog; to the others well! The little yellow man whom Carter and I had seen that night was Spike Francis, a notorious mulatto gambler. Spike realized the capabilities of this nigger and used him as a bully to terrorize the patrons of his games. He played with fire once too often. The

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