I handed him the notes, and he settled back, pushing his fatigue cap
up to his forehead, with a boyish gesture, which I remembered so well in
school. I watched his face as he read, and when he finished I took the
notes with the manuscript, and placed them in my pocket. Then I unfolded
a scroll marked with the Yellow Sign. He saw the sign, but he did not
seem to recognize it, and I called his attention to it somewhat sharply. "Well," he said, "I see it. What is it?" "It is the Yellow Sign," I said angrily. "Oh, that's it, is it?" said Louis, in that flattering voice, which
Doctor Archer used to employ with me, and would probably have employed
again, had I not settled his affair for him. I kept my rage down and answered as steadily as possible, "Listen, you
have engaged your word?" "I am listening, old chap," he replied soothingly. I began to speak very calmly. "Dr. Archer, having by some means become possessed of the secret of the
Imperial Succession, attempted to deprive me of my right, alleging that
because of a fall from my horse four years ago, I had become mentally
deficient. He presumed to place me under restraint in his own house in
hopes of either driving me insane or poisoning me. I have not forgotten
it. I visited him last night and the interview was final." Louis turned quite pale, but did not move. I resumed triumphantly, "There
are yet three people to be interviewed in the interests of Mr. Wilde and
myself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his daughter
Constance." Louis sprang to his feet and I arose also, and flung the paper marked
with the Yellow Sign to the ground. "Oh, I don't need that to tell you what I have to say," I cried, with a
laugh of triumph. "You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to
_me_." Louis looked at me with a startled air, but recovering himself said
kindly, "Of course I renounce the--what is it I must renounce?" "The crown," I said angrily. "Of course," he answered, "I renounce it. Come, old chap, I'll walk back
to your rooms with you." "Don't try any of your doctor's tricks on me," I cried, trembling with
fury. "Don't act as if you think I am insane." "What nonsense," he replied. "Come, it's getting late, Hildred." "No," I shouted, "you must listen. You cannot marry, I forbid it. Do you
hear? I forbid it. You shall renounce the crown, and in reward I grant
you exile, but if you refuse you shall die." He tried to calm me, but I was roused at last, and drawing my long knife
barred his way. Then I told him how they would find Dr. Archer in the cellar with his
throat open, and I laughed in his face when I thought of Vance and his
knife, and the order signed by me. "Ah, you are the King," I cried, "but I shall be King. Who are you to
keep me from Empire over all the habitable earth! I was born the cousin
of a king, but I shall be King!" Louis stood white and rigid before me. Suddenly a man came running up
Fourth Street, entered the gate of the Lethal Temple, traversed the path
to the bronze doors at full speed, and plunged into the death chamber
with the cry of one demented, and I laughed until I wept tears, for I had
recognized Vance, and knew that Hawberk and his daughter were no longer
in my way. "Go," I cried to Louis, "you have ceased to be a menace. You will never
marry Constance now, and if you marry any one else in your exile, I will
visit you as I did my doctor last night. Mr. Wilde takes charge of you
to-morrow." Then I turned and darted into South Fifth Avenue, and with a
cry of terror Louis dropped his belt and sabre and followed me like the
wind. I heard him close behind me at the corner of Bleecker Street, and I
dashed into the doorway under Hawberk's sign. He cried, "Halt, or I
fire!" but when he saw that I flew up the stairs leaving Hawberk's shop
below, he left me, and I heard him hammering and shouting at their door
as though it were possible to arouse the dead. Mr. Wilde's door was open, and I entered crying, "It is done, it is done! Let the nations rise and look upon their King!" but I could not find Mr.
Wilde, so I went to the cabinet and took the splendid diadem from its
case. Then I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the Yellow
Sign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King, King by my
right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my
mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King! The first
grey pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which would shake two
hemispheres. Then as I stood, my every nerve pitched to the highest
tension, faint with the joy and splendour of my thought, without, in the
dark passage, a man groaned. I seized the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like a
demon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter than
she, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. For
a moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness,
and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my
head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I
thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his
sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his
mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to
hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his
head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair,
seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, my very life,
lying prostrate there with the dead master, _they_ came, seized me
from behind, and bound me until my veins stood out like cords, and my
voice failed with the paroxysms of my frenzied screams. But I still
raged, bleeding and infuriated among them, and more than one policeman
felt my sharp teeth. Then when I could no longer move they came nearer; I
saw old Hawberk, and behind him my cousin Louis' ghastly face, and
farther away, in the corner, a woman, Constance, weeping softly. "Ah! I see it now!" I shrieked. "You have seized the throne and the
empire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King in
Yellow!" [EDITOR'S NOTE.--Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for Criminal
Insane.] THE MASK

CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask. STRANGER: Indeed? CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you. STRANGER: I wear no mask. CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask! _The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2_. I

Although I knew nothing of chemistry, I listened fascinated. He picked up
an Easter lily which Geneviève had brought that morning from Notre Dame,
and dropped it into the basin. Instantly the liquid lost its crystalline
clearness. For a second the lily was enveloped in a milk-white foam,
which disappeared, leaving the fluid opalescent. Changing tints of orange
and crimson played over the surface, and then what seemed to be a ray of
pure sunlight struck through from the bottom where the lily was resting.