Read Online Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure by David Hambling - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Hambling
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tricks.
There’s levitation—rising into the air—and being thrust through
with a metal sword without being harmed, which he got from a fakir. But then
there's this—he forced a witch in Sicily to give him the secret of a
green ointment which, applied to the nerves above the eyes, gave the power of
the fatal glance. He said he could kill cats and dogs with one look!”
“Really?” I
said.
“That’s
what he said,” said Powell with a laugh. “I might take that with a pinch of
salt. He wasn’t a modest chap, and he liked stories. D’Onston said that in
Germany, he was able to swap minds with a fellow student. While he was in the
other man’s body, he went out and made love to his fiancé.”
“Indeed,”
said Yang.
Powell
stopped suddenly. I turned to follow his look. Behind me, a woman in a plain
brown dress was going down the shelves, looking for a particular author. She
took out a book, examined it, replaced it again, and selected another. Powell
waited for her to go before continuing.
“In Africa,
he was apprenticed to a sorceress called Sube,” said Powell. “He claimed she
was the original for Rider Haggard's She .”
“That's
another popular novel,” I added for Yang’s benefit.
“Sube could
kill a man at four hundred paces, make plants grow in minutes and transform men
into half-bestial creatures for pagan orgies.” He was leafing through a book,
finding a marked passage. “And more surprising yet, listen to this:
“‘But the
most terrible example of her power, to my mind, was in the transformation of
the sexes. One day, being offended with a chief, who sought in vain to pacify
her, she said to him, ‘I will degrade you, and you shall become a woman!’
Placing her hands upon him while he stood powerless as though turned to
stone—his eyeballs staring in horror—she commenced her manipulations.’”
Powell paused
for effect. He enjoyed having an audience.
“‘Beginning
with his face, she rubbed away every vestige of beard and moustache. The
prominent cheekbones fell in, and the smooth, rounded face of a woman became
apparent. Next, the powerful biceps and triceps were rubbed down, and the lank
lean arm of the African woman appeared. Next, seizing hold of his vast pectoral
muscles, she began a different process, pinching up and pulling them out until
there were shortly visible, well-developed mammae. And so she proceeded, from
head tofoot, until, in less than ten minutes, every vestige of manhood
had disappeared, and there stood before us a hulking, clumsy, knock-kneed
woman.’”
“Indeed,”
said Yang. He had stopped taking notes.
While
Powell was talking, I happened to look down at his shoes. The soles were
secured to the uppers with lengths of twine, and they were battered and scuffed
far beyond the ordinary degree. Powell was not simply an impoverished scholar
who paid little attention to his appearance; he was an actual tramp. When I
sniffed, I could detect the smell of the gutter common to all men of that type.
Powell was
explaining to Yang how D’Onston could project scenes of history in the air by
means of the fourth dimension and how this was a fact of science as well as
scripture. For all his rough appearance, he spoke like a scholar. You could
tell he had not always been the man we saw here. I believe Powell had been a
respectable man once, a dry-goods wholesaler or some such. He had read an
article about Jack the Ripper and then a book; it had become a hobby and then
an obsession. The rest of his life had dropped away. Just from looking at him,
you knew he did not have a home, a family, or a steady occupation anymore. All
he had was this obsession, and it was meat and drink and family to him. This
library had become his whole world. No wonder he was happy to admit others who
shared the same interest.
I had an
awful premonition of my own future. How far astray would I go from the broad,
high road of normal life?
“But the
blackest magic of all was that of Jack
There’s levitation—rising into the air—and being thrust through
with a metal sword without being harmed, which he got from a fakir. But then
there's this—he forced a witch in Sicily to give him the secret of a
green ointment which, applied to the nerves above the eyes, gave the power of
the fatal glance. He said he could kill cats and dogs with one look!”
“Really?” I
said.
“That’s
what he said,” said Powell with a laugh. “I might take that with a pinch of
salt. He wasn’t a modest chap, and he liked stories. D’Onston said that in
Germany, he was able to swap minds with a fellow student. While he was in the
other man’s body, he went out and made love to his fiancé.”
“Indeed,”
said Yang.
Powell
stopped suddenly. I turned to follow his look. Behind me, a woman in a plain
brown dress was going down the shelves, looking for a particular author. She
took out a book, examined it, replaced it again, and selected another. Powell
waited for her to go before continuing.
“In Africa,
he was apprenticed to a sorceress called Sube,” said Powell. “He claimed she
was the original for Rider Haggard's She .”
“That's
another popular novel,” I added for Yang’s benefit.
“Sube could
kill a man at four hundred paces, make plants grow in minutes and transform men
into half-bestial creatures for pagan orgies.” He was leafing through a book,
finding a marked passage. “And more surprising yet, listen to this:
“‘But the
most terrible example of her power, to my mind, was in the transformation of
the sexes. One day, being offended with a chief, who sought in vain to pacify
her, she said to him, ‘I will degrade you, and you shall become a woman!’
Placing her hands upon him while he stood powerless as though turned to
stone—his eyeballs staring in horror—she commenced her manipulations.’”
Powell paused
for effect. He enjoyed having an audience.
“‘Beginning
with his face, she rubbed away every vestige of beard and moustache. The
prominent cheekbones fell in, and the smooth, rounded face of a woman became
apparent. Next, the powerful biceps and triceps were rubbed down, and the lank
lean arm of the African woman appeared. Next, seizing hold of his vast pectoral
muscles, she began a different process, pinching up and pulling them out until
there were shortly visible, well-developed mammae. And so she proceeded, from
head tofoot, until, in less than ten minutes, every vestige of manhood
had disappeared, and there stood before us a hulking, clumsy, knock-kneed
woman.’”
“Indeed,”
said Yang. He had stopped taking notes.
While
Powell was talking, I happened to look down at his shoes. The soles were
secured to the uppers with lengths of twine, and they were battered and scuffed
far beyond the ordinary degree. Powell was not simply an impoverished scholar
who paid little attention to his appearance; he was an actual tramp. When I
sniffed, I could detect the smell of the gutter common to all men of that type.
Powell was
explaining to Yang how D’Onston could project scenes of history in the air by
means of the fourth dimension and how this was a fact of science as well as
scripture. For all his rough appearance, he spoke like a scholar. You could
tell he had not always been the man we saw here. I believe Powell had been a
respectable man once, a dry-goods wholesaler or some such. He had read an
article about Jack the Ripper and then a book; it had become a hobby and then
an obsession. The rest of his life had dropped away. Just from looking at him,
you knew he did not have a home, a family, or a steady occupation anymore. All
he had was this obsession, and it was meat and drink and family to him. This
library had become his whole world. No wonder he was happy to admit others who
shared the same interest.
I had an
awful premonition of my own future. How far astray would I go from the broad,
high road of normal life?
“But the
blackest magic of all was that of Jack
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