A Fantastic Bit of Fiction
By FARNSWORTH WRIGHT
THE TEAK-WOOD
SHRINE
HERE ends the curse of the teak-wood devil. Its tale of horror is full. I have brought it here to this bridge to throw it into the river before it brings more misery into the world.
I don’t wonder that you look amazed at me, sir, for I am much changed since you last saw me, a scant two months ago. I am no longer the same woman, for the power of the teak-wood shrine has dragged me through hell. See how the teak-wood devil grins! How the little rubies of its eyes shine! Do you think it does not know what it has done to me—that it is merely a dead thing of wood and precious stones? It knows only too well. It has turned my hair white and lined my face with suffering. I have forgotten how to smile.
Oh, no, sir, I would rather you did not take it into your hands. Let me hurl it over the railing. Let me destroy it at once. No, I beseech you, sir! Not for all the wealth of the world would I give this jeweled shrine away. It can cause nothing but unhappiness and troubled thoughts—thoughts so terrible that only death can chase them away.
No person has ever looked into this shrine and lived, save only me and one other—but he was a holy man of India, and I am dying. My sands are running out rapidly. I shall welcome death.
This is the Shrine-devil. See how sleek and yellow it is! How fat and smiling! Was it carved thus, think you, to quell suspicion and invite the unfortunate possessor to touch the ruby that opens the sliding door? How unctuously that little idol guards its terrible secret!
A thousand dollars? No, sir, not for fifty thousand would I sell it to you, nor for fifty times fifty thousand. Money cannot buy happiness for me. But grief and suffering would attend you if I gave you this shrine. The secret locked in its heart would drive you mad. If death failed to hunt you out, you would go in search of it. For the secret is not to be borne. I have looked into the shrine and I still live, but that is because of my prayers before I touched the jewel that released the little panel. Woe is me that I prayed! For had I not prayed, I might now be dead, and therefore happy, instead of slowly drowning in the welter of misery that rises ever higher about me.
A holy man of India gave the shrine to a Christian bishop who had done him a great service.
"Ask and you shall receive," he said; but he fell upon his knees and begged release from his promise when the bishop demanded this little teak-wood shrine.
"The bishop knows not what he asks," said the holy man. "Fain would I grant him anything but this, for it will bring him misery and ruin."
"Nay, by my holy faith," said the bishop, "since you have asked me to choose, and it is no small service I have done you, I will be satisfied with nothing else but the shrine. I shall annul the power of the shrine-devil with a Christian prayer, and show you once more the impotency of pagan charms."
"Bishop, bishop," answered the holy man very gravely, "it will take a potent spell indeed to chain the fat devil of the teak-wood shrine. And until you find that potent spell, I conjure you not to examine the shrine too closely, lest you touch by chance the little jewel push-button that opens the door to the mystery within it, for then you will be lost utterly."
"Tonight," said the bishop, "I shall open it."
"Nay," said the holy man, "if I thought you were not jesting, I would kill you now, and count myself your benefactor as having saved you from misery the like of which you cannot dream exists."
So the bishop gave his promise that he would not open the shrine. For months the teak-wood devil smiled at him from behind the big Bible in his study and wrought him no manner of harm at all, for he had not pressed the ruby that opens the sliding door.
Then one day guests came to the bishop’s house, and he told them the story of the shrine, even as I have related it to you. One of them took it into his hands and curiously examined the jewels that were embedded in the teak. As he examined it, his face turned ghastly pale, and he stared like a man whose eyes are fixed open in death, for by chance he had touched the ruby and opened the sliding door.
Then he uttered a laugh so mirthless, so terrible, that one of the women shrieked and fainted dead away. It was plain that the man was a maniac.
The boshop took from his hands the shrine, and touched in his turn the revealing ruby. The panel slid back again, and the bishop found himself looking into the interior of the shrine.
"There is nothing here at all," he exclaimed, "but McRae has gone mad from terror."
Then suddenly the bishop’s face went white, as he realized what he had seen. He sank to his knees and prayed. McRae broke away from the group and, ran to his lodgings in the English quarter of that native village. When they went for him he lay dead on the floor, grasping tightly in his hand the revolver with which he had slain himself. The bishop never ceased to cry out for death, and he passed away in delirium within a week.
There was in the bishop’s household a native servant, who had listened to his master’s recital and witnessed the tragic results of opening the shrine. He determined to possess the treasure, because of the jewels that shone between the yellow hands of the image. The servant was very cautious, for he feared lest he might himself experience the agony of soul that had killed the bishop and caused McRae to slay himself. He visited a seer, therefore, and paid ten rupees for a spell to bind the teak-wood devil. Then the servant took the shrine from the bishop’s study, and fled with it to Singapore, where he tried to dispose of it. But the shops all turned against him, and offered him little or nothing for his treasure, for they said the jewels were of no value.
Disconsolate, the servant took the shrine between his knees and tried to dig out the rubies that lay between the hands
