The Green Flame

by Donald Wandrei

The Green Flame

Moulton’s grandson watched with covetous eyes the strange actions of the old man. Behind locked doors, the old man thought himself safe, and performed the ritual that had become the soul of his existence. But his precautions were useless, as they had been for weeks, and his grandson looked on.

Within, for all his eagerness, the old man raised the lid of the box as if he thought it was empty. And even when he saw the heap within, he tilted the lid slowly until it hung back. Not till then did he raise the lamp. The emeralds that had lain dark within the chest began to glow softly as the first rays of light fell upon them, and when the lamp was directly over the heap, those on the surface shone with a wondrous green fire, a fire that mingled the dark tones of the sea with the sinister duskiness that moves within the depths of absinthe, a radiance as of stars and phosphorus and polished jade all wrought into one color, glowing with a mystic and ineffable glow. He lowered the lamp closer to the heap, and the slumbering fire burst into a blaze of dark glory that flashed from center to center, from stone to stone, from facet to facet, kindling every jewel, melting and blending the shades into living splendor. He swayed the lamp back and forth above the horde, and all the emeralds began an innumerable winking and twinkling in little green tongues of fire that played across the gems, that flickered from every jewel, that leaped and danced as they poured forth all together their deep beauty. And he set the lamp down at his side and plunged his hands into the pile, and drew forth great handfuls of emeralds. And he let them fall in a stream past the lamp so that every stone sparkled and scintillated mysteriously while it imprisoned within its depths that priceless, living glow. And the stream of stones flashed upon the walls dark shadows that shifted with the shifting of the lambent tints of the jewels. In an ecstasy, he threw a shower of emeralds into the air so that flaming jewels filled the room with a tinted darkness shot with sparkles of green.

Again he lifted the lamp above the chest, and the emeralds shone with a multitudinous fire that swayed, oddly rhythmically, as if the gems were chanting an unknown music, could he but translate the colors into sound, into a symphony in green.

His eyes were lighted and his face shone with rapture; as he turned away from the horde to leave the chamber, green fires burned before his haunted eyes.

Moulton’s grandson wanted those jewels. There was only one way to obtain them. Even the thought of murder did not appall him in their presence. His kinship had long passed from his mind. Since he could not open the safe himself, he would be forced to kill Moulton while the old man played with his sorcerous gems. One thing still delayed the grandson.

A week later, even that one thing no longer made him wait. He was watching Moulton the night his collection became complete, the night he unwrapped the hugest emerald in all the world, and the myriad other stones paled beside a blaze of fire that flared out from his last jewel. They called it “The Green Flame.” It had come from the heart of India, and now, in this chamber, it seemed to foam and overflow and spill out a wicked torrent of light. But the fiery stream that enchanted the old man raised in the younger only greedy thoughts.

It was after 1 o’clock when Moulton’s grandson left his room a couple of nights later. He carefully turned his flashlight around him. The house was of great age, and strange. All the paneling, the decorations and tapestries dated back to older years. There were many rooms, and the passageway rambled in all directions. Some of the doors looked as if they had never been opened. It was a good thing he had lived in the house, else he could only have found his way with difficulty.

He followed his course and halted at length before the heavy door. Before entering, he stood in dusk for a minute. The silence was unbroken, as before. Somehow, he wished it weren’t quite so silent, or the house so gloomy. Still, everything must be all right. Moulton had entered more than an hour before, and a light still burned inside.

He cautiously inserted his duplicate key and turned the door-knob, taking pains to make no sound. Then he slowly pushed the door open.

On the threshold he halted aghast. In the center of the room lay the body of the old man, curiously shriveled and shrunken. Beside it, on a table, lay an emerald, an emerald such as the eyes of man had never beheld, a great jewel of monstrous size. But he knew that no gem of such size existed in all the world, that “The Green Flame” was not one-third so large. The entire room shone with light and more than light, and in that fire, the bright ray of his flashlight glimmered pale and feeble. For out of the center of the emerald shone a flame, and that elfin flame rose and fell and rose, and with its rising and falling, an awful fire streamed out upon the table, across to the walls and along the walls to all the comers of the room and back; and with the ebb and flow of that terrible flame, the fire in the jewel blazed anew, while the air burned with a strange, unearthly radiance. For the emerald was aflame, and its heart was aflame, and its surface was aflame, and inside it was all fire, and from it poured that dreadful wave of glory. And in the core of the jewel, a great, burning stream arose, and with its rise and fall, the hellish fire shone forth and the sinister blaze burst out as if long pent up, to swell the ebb and flow of flame across the table. And the fire blazed from one emerald!

A shiver shook Moulton’s grandson. Then a blind terror overwhelmed him, and, scarce knowing what he did, he swung up his revolver and fired. There came an angry spat, an answering crack as the gem shattered. He screamed; at the same time, the house rocked to its foundation — the air burst with thunder — a strange lightning flickered about — the entire heavens seemed to be falling — he groped vainly as a rushing wall of blackness swept upon him.