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Algernon Blackwood and Wilfred Wilson
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Title: The Wolves of God
And Other Fey Stories
Author: Algernon Blackwood
Wilfred Wilson
Release Date: December 15, 2011 [EBook #38310]
Language: English
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THE WOLVES OF GOD
_OTHER WORKS BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD_
JULIUS LE VALLON
THE WAVE: An Egyptian Aftermath
TEN-MINUTE STORIES
DAY AND NIGHT STORIES
THE PROMISE OF AIR
THE GARDEN OF SURVIVAL
THE LISTENER and Other Stories
THE EMPTY HOUSE and Other Stories
THE LOST VALLEY and Other Stories
JOHN SILENCE: Physician Extraordinary
_With Violet Pearn_
KARMA: A Reincarnation Play
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
THE WOLVES OF GOD
_And Other Fey Stories_
BY
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
_Author of "The Wave," "The Promise of Air," etc_
AND
WILFRED WILSON
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1921
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
_Printed in the United States of America_
TO THE MEMORY
OF
OUR CAMP-FIRES IN THE WILDERNESS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WOLVES OF GOD 1
II. CHINESE MAGIC 27
III. RUNNING WOLF 52
IV. FIRST HATE 74
V. THE TARN OF SACRIFICE 86
VI. THE VALLEY OF THE BEASTS 113
VII. THE CALL 137
VIII. EGYPTIAN SORCERY 151
IX. THE DECOY 169
X. THE MAN WHO FOUND OUT 192
XI. THE EMPTY SLEEVE 211
XII. WIRELESS CONFUSION 230
XIII. CONFESSION 237
XIV. THE LANE THAT RAN EAST AND WEST 259
XV. "VENGEANCE IS MINE" 279
THE WOLVES OF GOD
I
THE WOLVES OF GOD
1
As the little steamer entered the bay of Kettletoft in the Orkneys the
beach at Sanday appeared so low that the houses almost seemed to be
standing in the water; and to the big, dark man leaning over the rail of
the upper deck the sight of them came with a pang of mingled pain and
pleasure. The scene, to his eyes, had not changed. The houses, the low
shore, the flat treeless country beyond, the vast open sky, all looked
exactly the same as when he left the island thirty years ago to work for
the Hudson Bay Company in distant N. W. Canada. A lad of eighteen then,
he was now a man of forty-eight, old for his years, and this was the
home-coming he had so often dreamed about in the lonely wilderness of
trees where he had spent his life. Yet his grim face wore an anxious
rather than a tender expression. The return was perhaps not quite as he
had pictured it.
Jim Peace had not done too badly, however, in the Company's service.
For an islander, he would be a rich man now; he had not married, he had
saved the greater part of his salary, and even in the far-away Post
where he had spent so many years there had been occasional opportunities
of the kind common to new, wild countries where life and law are in
the making. He had not hesitated to take them. None of the big Company
Posts, it was true, had come his way, nor had he risen very high in the
service; in another two years his turn would have come, yet he had left
of his own accord before those two years were up. His decision, judging
by the strength in the features, was not due to impulse; the move
had been deliberately weighed and calculated; he had renounced his
opportunity after full reflection. A man with those steady eyes, with
that square jaw and determined mouth, certainly did not act without good
reason.
A curious expression now flickered over his weather-hardened face as he
saw again his childhood's home, and the return, so often dreamed about,
actually took place at last. An uneasy light flashed for a moment in the
deep-set grey eyes, but was quickly gone again, and the tanned visage
recovered its accustomed look of stern composure. His keen sight took in
a dark knot of figures on the landing-pier--his brother, he knew, among
them. A wave of home-sickness swept over him. He longed to see his
brother again, the old farm, the sweep of open country, the sand-dunes,
and the breaking seas. The smell of long-forgotten days came to his
nostrils with its sweet, painful pang of youthful memories.
How fine, he thought, to be back there in the old familiar fields of
childhood, with sea and sand about him instead of the smother of
endless woods that ran a thousand miles without a break. He was glad in
particular that no trees were visible, and that rabbits scampering among
the dunes were the only wild animals he need ever meet....
Those thirty years in the woods, it seemed, oppressed his mind; the
forests, the countless multitudes of trees, had wearied him. His nerves,
perhaps, had suffered finally. Snow, frost and sun, stars, and the wind
had been his companions during the long days and endless nights in his
lonely Post, but chiefly--trees. Trees, trees, trees! On the whole, he
had preferred them in stormy weather, though, in another way, their
rigid hosts, 'mid the deep silence of still days, had been equally
oppressive. In the clear sunlight of a windless day they assumed a
waiting, listening, watching aspect that had something spectral in it,
but when in motion--well, he preferred a moving animal to one that stood
stock-still and stared. Wind, moreover, in a million trees, even the
lightest breeze, drowned all other sounds--the howling of the wolves,
for instance, in winter, or the ceaseless harsh barking of the husky
dogs he so disliked.
Even on this warm September afternoon a slight shiver ran over him as
the background of dead years loomed up behind the present scene. He
thrust the picture back, deep down inside himself. The self-control, the
strong, even violent will that the face betrayed, came into operation
instantly. The background was background; it belonged to what was past,
and the past was over and done with. It was dead. Jim meant it to stay
dead.
The figure waving to him from the pier was his brother. He knew Tom
instantly; the years had dealt easily with him in this quiet island;
there was no startling, no unkindly change, and a deep emotion, though
unexpressed, rose in his heart. It was good to be home again, he
realized, as he sat presently in the cart, Tom holding the reins,
driving slowly back to the farm at the north end of the island.
Everything he found familiar, yet at the same time strange. They passed
the school where he used to go as a little bare-legged boy; other boys
were now learning their lessons exactly as he used to do. Through the
open window he could hear the droning voice of the schoolmaster, who,
though invisible, wore the face of Mr. Lovibond, his own teacher.
"Lovibond?" said Tom, in reply to his question. "Oh, he's been dead
these twenty years. He went south, you know--Glasgow, I think it was, or
Edinburgh. He got typhoid."
Stands of golden plover were to be seen as of old in the fields, or
flashing overhead in swift flight with a whir of wings, wheeling and
turning together like one huge bird. Down on the empty shore a curlew
cried. Its piercing note rose clear above the noisy clamour of the
gulls. The sun played softly on the quiet sea, the air was keen but
pleasant, the tang of salt mixed sweetly with the clean smells of open
country that he knew so well. Nothing of essentials had changed, even
the low clouds beyond the heaving uplands were the clouds of childhood.
They came presently to the sand-dunes, where rabbits sat at their
burrow-mouths, or ran helter-skelter across the road in front of the
slow cart.
"They're safe till the colder weather comes and trapping begins," he
mentioned. It all came back to him in detail.
"And they know it, too--the canny little beggars," replied Tom. "Any
rabbits out where you've been?" he asked casually.
"Not to hurt you," returned his brother shortly.
Nothing seemed changed, although everything seemed different. He looked
upon the old, familiar things, but with other eyes. There were, of
course, changes, alterations, yet so slight, in a way so odd and
curious, that they evaded him; not being of the physical order, they
reported to his soul, not to his mind. But his soul, being troubled,
sought to deny the changes; to admit them meant to admit a change in
himself he had determined to conceal even if he could not entirely deny
it.
"Same old place, Tom," came one of his rare remarks. "The years ain't
done much to it." He looked into his brother's face a moment squarely.
"Nor to you, either, Tom," he added, affection and tenderness just
touching his voice and breaking through a natural reserve that was
almost taciturnity.
His brother returned the look; and something in that instant passed
between the two men, something of understanding that no words had
hinted at, much less expressed. The tie was real, they loved each other,
they were loyal, true, steadfast fellows. In youth they had known no
secrets. The shadow that now passed and vanished left a vague trouble in
both hearts.
"The forests," said Tom slowly, "have made a silent man of you, Jim.
You'll miss them here, I'm thinking."
"Maybe," was the curt reply, "but I guess not."
His lips snapped to as though they were of steel and could never open
again, while the tone he used made Tom realize that the subject was not
one his brother cared to talk about particularly. He was surprised,
therefore, when, after a pause, Jim returned to it of his own accord. He
was sitting a little sideways as he spoke, taking in the scene with
hungry eyes. "It's a queer thing," he observed, "to look round and see
nothing but clean empty land, and not a single tree in sight. You see,
it don't look natural quite."
Again his brother was struck by the tone of voice, but this time by
something else as well he could not name. Jim was excusing himself,
explaining. The manner, too, arrested him. And thirty years disappeared
as though they had not been, for it was thus Jim acted as a boy when
there was something unpleasant he had to say and wished to get it over.
The tone, the gesture, the manner, all were there. He was edging up to
something he wished to say, yet dared not utter.
"You've had enough of trees then?" Tom said sympathetically, trying to
help, "and things?"
The instant the last two words were out he realized that they had been
drawn from him instinctively, and that it was the anxiety of deep
affection which had prompted them. He had guessed without knowing he had
guessed, or rather, without intention or attempt to guess. Jim had a
secret. Love's clairvoyance had discovered it, though not yet its hidden
terms.
"I have----" began the other, then paused, evidently to choose his
words with care. "I've had enough of trees." He was about to speak of
something that his brother had unwittingly touched upon in his chance
phrase, but instead of finding the words he sought, he gave a sudden
start, his breath caught sharply. "What's that?" he exclaimed, jerking
his body round so abruptly that Tom automatically pulled the reins.
"What is it?"
"A dog barking," Tom answered, much surprised. "A farm dog barking. Why?
What did you think it was?" he asked, as he flicked the horse to go on
again. "You made me jump," he added, with a laugh. "You're used to
huskies, ain't you?"
"It sounded so--not like a dog, I mean," came the slow explanation.
"It's long since I heard a sheep-dog bark, I suppose it startled me."
"Oh, it's a dog all right," Tom assured him comfortingly, for his heart
told him infallibly the kind of tone to use. And presently, too, he
changed the subject in his blunt, honest fashion, knowing that, also,
was the right and kindly thing to do. He pointed out the old farms as
they drove along, his brother silent again, sitting stiff and rigid at
his side. "And it's good to have you back, Jim, from those outlandish
places. There are not too many of the family left now--just you and I,
as a matter of fact."
"Just you and I," the other repeated gruffly, but in a sweetened tone
that proved he appreciated the ready sympathy and tact. "We'll stick
together, Tom, eh? Blood's thicker than water, ain't it? I've learnt
that much, anyhow."
The voice had something gentle and appealing in it, something his
brother heard now for the first time. An elbow nudged into his side, and
Tom knew the gesture was not solely a sign of affection, but grew
partly also from the comfort born of physical contact when the heart is
anxious. The touch, like the last words, conveyed an appeal for help.
Tom was so surprised he couldn't believe it quite.
Scared! Jim scared! The thought puzzled and afflicted him who knew his
brother's character inside out, his courage, his presence of mind in
danger, his resolution. Jim frightened seemed an impossibility, a
contradiction in terms; he was the kind of man who did not know the
meaning of fear, who shrank from nothing, whose spirits rose highest
when things appeared most hopeless. It must, indeed, be an uncommon,
even a terrible danger that could shake such nerves; yet Tom saw the
signs and read them clearly. Explain them he could not, nor did he try.
All he knew with certainty was that his brother, sitting now beside him
in the cart, hid a secret terror in his heart. Sooner or later, in his
own good time, he would share it with him.
He ascribed it, this simple Orkney farmer, to those thirty years of
loneliness and exile in wild desolate places, without companionship,
without the society of women, with only Indians, husky dogs, a few
trappers or fur-dealers like himself, but none of the wholesome, natural
influences that sweeten life within reach. Thirty years was a long, long
time. He began planning schemes to help. Jim must see people as much as
possible, and his mind ran quickly over the men and women available. In
women the neighbourhood was not rich, but there were several men of
the right sort who might be useful, good fellows all. There was John
Rossiter, another old Hudson Bay man, who had been factor at Cartwright,
Labrador, for many years, and had returned long ago to spend his last
days in civilization. There was Sandy McKay, also back from a long spell
of rubber-planting in Malay.... Tom was still busy making plans when
they reached the old farm and presently sat down to their first meal
together since that early breakfast thirty years ago before Jim caught
the steamer that bore him off to exile--an exile that now returned him
with nerves unstrung and a secret terror hidden in his heart.
"I'll ask no questions," he decided. "Jim will tell me in his own good
time. And meanwhile, I'll get him to see as many folks as possible." He
meant it too; yet not only for his brother's sake. Jim's terror was so
vivid it had touched his own heart too.
"Ah, a man can open his lungs here and breathe!" exclaimed Jim, as the
two came out after supper and stood before the house, gazing across the
open country. He drew a deep breath as though to prove his assertion,
exhaling with slow satisfaction again. "It's good to see a clear horizon
and to know there's all that water between--between me and where I've
been." He turned his face to watch the plover in the sky, then looked
towards the distant shore-line where the sea was just visible in the
long evening light. "There can't be too much water for me," he added,
half to himself. "I guess they can't cross water--not that much water at
any rate."
Tom stared, wondering uneasily what to make of it.
"At the trees again, Jim?" he said laughingly. He had overheard the last
words, though spoken low, and thought it best not to ignore them
altogether. To be natural was the right way, he believed, natural and
cheery. To make a joke of anything unpleasant, he felt, was to make it
less serious. "I've never seen a tree come across the Atlantic yet,
except as a mast--dead," he added.
"I wasn't thinking of the trees just then," was the blunt reply, "but
of--something else. The damned trees are nothing, though I hate the
sight of 'em. Not of much account, anyway"--as though he compared them
mentally with another thing. He puffed at his pipe, a moment.
"They certainly can't move," put in his brother, "nor swim either."
"Nor another thing," said Jim, his voice thick suddenly, but not
with smoke, and his speech confused, though the idea in his mind was
certainly clear as daylight. "Things can't hide behind 'em--can they?"
"Not much cover hereabouts, I admit," laughed Tom, though the look in
his brother's eyes made his laughter as short as it sounded unnatural.
"That's so," agreed the other. "But what I meant was"--he threw out his
chest, looked about him with an air of intense relief, drew in another
deep breath, and again exhaled with satisfaction--"if there are no
trees, there's no hiding."
It was the expression on the rugged, weathered face that sent the blood
in a sudden gulping rush from his brother's heart. He had seen men
frightened, seen men afraid before they were actually frightened; he
had also seen men stiff with terror in the face both of natural and
so-called supernatural things; but never in his life before had he seen
the look of unearthly dread that now turned his brother's face as white
as chalk and yet put the glow of fire in two haunted burning eyes.
Across the darkening landscape the sound of distant barking had floated
to them on the evening wind.
"It's only a farm-dog barking." Yet it was Jim's deep, quiet voice that
said it, one hand upon his brother's arm.
"That's all," replied Tom, ashamed that he had betrayed himself, and
realizing with a shock of surprise that it was Jim who now played the
rôle of comforter--a startling change in their relations. "Why, what did
you think it was?"
He tried hard to speak naturally and easily, but his voice shook. So
deep was the brothers' love and intimacy that they could not help but
share.
Jim lowered his great head. "I thought," he whispered, his grey beard
touching the other's cheek, "maybe it was the wolves"--an agony of
terror made both voice and body tremble--"the Wolves of God!"
2
The interval of thirty years had been bridged easily enough; it was the
secret that left the open gap neither of them cared or dared to cross.
Jim's reason for hesitation lay within reach of guesswork, but Tom's
silence was more complicated.
With strong, simple men, strangers to affectation or pretence, reserve
is a real, almost a sacred thing. Jim offered nothing more; Tom asked no
single question. In the latter's mind lay, for one thing, a singular
intuitive certainty: that if he knew the truth he would lose his
brother. How, why, wherefore, he had no notion; whether by death, or
because, having told an awful thing, Jim would hide--physically or
mentally--he knew not, nor even asked himself. No subtlety lay in Tom,
the Orkney farmer. He merely felt that a knowledge of the truth involved
separation which was death.
Day and night, however, that extraordinary phrase which, at its first
hearing, had frozen his blood, ran on beating in his mind. With it came
always the original, nameless horror that had held him motionless where
he stood, his brother's bearded lips against his ear: _The Wolves of
God_. In some dim way, he sometimes felt--tried to persuade himself,
rather--the horror did not belong to the phrase alone, but was a
sympathetic echo of what Jim felt himself. It had entered his own mind
and heart. They had always shared in this same strange, intimate way.
The deep brotherly tie accounted for it. Of the possible transference of
thought and emotion he knew nothing, but this was what he meant perhaps.
At the same time he fought and strove to keep it out, not because it
brought uneasy and distressing feelings to him, but because he did not
wish to pry, to ascertain, to discover his brother's secret as by some
kind of subterfuge that seemed too near to eavesdropping almost.
Also, he wished most earnestly to protect him. Meanwhile, in spite of
himself, or perhaps because of himself, he watched his brother as a wild
animal watches its young. Jim was the only tie he had on earth. He loved
him with a brother's love, and Jim, similarly, he knew, loved him. His
job was difficult. Love alone could guide him.
He gave openings, but he never questioned:
"Your letter did surprise me, Jim. I was never so delighted in my life.
You had still two years to run."
"I'd had enough," was the short reply. "God, man, it was good to get
home again!"
This, and the blunt talk that followed their first meeting, was all
Tom had to go upon, while those eyes that refused to shut watched
ceaselessly always. There was improvement, unless, which never occurred
to Tom, it was self-control; there was no more talk of trees and water,
the barking of the dogs passed unnoticed, no reference to the loneliness
of the backwoods life passed his lips; he spent his days fishing,
shooting, helping with the work of the farm, his evenings smoking over
a glass--he was more than temperate--and talking over the days of long
ago.
The signs of uneasiness still were there, but they were negative, far
more suggestive, therefore, than if open and direct. He desired no
company, for instance--an unnatural thing, thought Tom, after so many
years of loneliness.
It was this and the awkward fact that he had given up two years before
his time was finished, renouncing, therefore, a comfortable pension--it
was these two big details that stuck with such unkind persistence in
his brother's thoughts. Behind both, moreover, ran ever the strange
whispered phrase. What the words meant, or whence they were derived, Tom
had no possible inkling. Like the wicked refrain of some forbidden song,
they haunted him day and night, even his sleep not free from them
entirely. All of which, to the simple Orkney farmer, was so new an
experience that he knew not how to deal with it at all. Too strong to
be flustered, he was at any rate bewildered. And it was for Jim, his
brother, he suffered most.
What perplexed him chiefly, however, was the attitude his brother showed
towards old John Rossiter. He could almost have imagined that the two
men had met and known each other out in Canada, though Rossiter showed
him how impossible that was, both in point of time and of geography as
well. He had brought them together within the first few days, and Jim,
silent, gloomy, morose, even surly, had eyed him like an enemy. Old
Rossiter, the milk of human kindness as thick in his veins as cream, had
taken no offence. Grizzled veteran of the wilds, he had served his full
term with the Company and now enjoyed his well-earned pension. He was
full of stories, reminiscences, adventures of every sort and kind;
he knew men and values, had seen strange things that only the true
wilderness delivers, and he loved nothing better than to tell them over
a glass. He talked with Jim so genially and affably that little response
was called for luckily, for Jim was glum and unresponsive almost to
rudeness. Old Rossiter noticed nothing. What Tom noticed was, chiefly
perhaps, his brother's acute uneasiness. Between his desire to help, his
attachment to Rossiter, and his keen personal distress, he knew not what
to do or say. The situation was becoming too much for him.
The two families, besides--Peace and Rossiter--had been neighbours
for generations, had intermarried freely, and were related in various
degrees. He was too fond of his brother to feel ashamed, but he was glad
when the visit was over and they were out of their host's house. Jim had
even declined to drink with him.
"They're good fellows on the island," said Tom on their way home, "but
not specially entertaining, perhaps. We all stick together though. You
can trust 'em mostly."
"I never was a talker, Tom," came the gruff reply. "You know that." And
Tom, understanding more than he understood, accepted the apology and
made generous allowances.
"John likes to talk," he helped him. "He appreciates a good listener."
"It's the kind of talk I'm finished with," was the rejoinder. "The
Company and their goings-on don't interest me any more. I've had
enough."
Tom noticed other things as well with those affectionate eyes of his
that did not want to see yet would not close. As the days drew in, for
instance, Jim seemed reluctant to leave the house towards evening. Once
the full light of day had passed, he kept indoors. He was eager and
ready enough to shoot in the early morning, no matter at what hour he
had to get up, but he refused point blank to go with his brother to the
lake for an evening flight. No excuse was offered; he simply declined to
go.
The gap between them thus widened and deepened, while yet in another
sense it grew less formidable. Both knew, that is, that a secret lay
between them for the first time in their lives, yet both knew also that
at the right and proper moment it would be revealed. Jim only waited
till the proper moment came. And Tom understood. His deep, simple love
was equal to all emergencies. He respected his brother's reserve. The
obvious desire of John Rossiter to talk and ask questions, for instance,
he resisted staunchly as far as he was able. Only when he could help and
protect his brother did he yield a little. The talk was brief, even
monosyllabic; neither the old Hudson Bay fellow nor the Orkney farmer
ran to many words:
"He ain't right with himself," offered John, taking his pipe out of his
mouth and leaning forward. "That's what I don't like to see." He put a
skinny hand on Tom's knee, and looked earnestly into his face as he said
it.
"Jim!" replied the other. "Jim ill, you mean!" It sounded ridiculous.
"His mind is sick."
"I don't understand," Tom said, though the truth bit like rough-edged
steel into the brother's heart.
"His soul, then, if you like that better."
Tom fought with himself a moment, then asked him to be more explicit.
"More'n I can say," rejoined the laconic old backwoodsman. "I don't know
myself. The woods heal some men and make others sick."
"Maybe, John, maybe." Tom fought back his resentment. "You've lived,
like him, in lonely places. You ought to know." His mouth shut with a
snap, as though he had said too much. Loyalty to his suffering brother
caught him strongly. Already his heart ached for Jim. He felt angry with
Rossiter for his divination, but perceived, too, that the old fellow
meant well and was trying to help him. If he lost Jim, he lost the
world--his all.
A considerable pause followed, during which both men puffed their pipes
with reckless energy. Both, that is, were a bit excited. Yet both had
their code, a code they would not exceed for worlds.
"Jim," added Tom presently, making an effort to meet the sympathy half
way, "ain't quite up to the mark, I'll admit that."
There was another long pause, while Rossiter kept his eyes on his
companion steadily, though without a trace of expression in them--a
habit that the woods had taught him.
"Jim," he said at length, with an obvious effort, "is skeered. And it's
the soul in him that's skeered."
Tom wavered dreadfully then. He saw that old Rossiter, experienced
backwoodsman and taught by the Company as he was, knew where the secret
lay, if he did not yet know its exact terms. It was easy enough to put
the question, yet he hesitated, because loyalty forbade.
"It's a dirty outfit somewheres," the old man mumbled to himself.
Tom sprang to his feet, "If you talk that way," he exclaimed angrily,
"you're no friend of mine--or his." His anger gained upon him as he said
it. "Say that again," he cried, "and I'll knock your teeth----"
He sat back, stunned a moment.
"Forgive me, John," he faltered, shamed yet still angry. "It's pain to
me, it's pain. Jim," he went on, after a long breath and a pull at his
glass, "Jim _is_ scared, I know it." He waited a moment, hunting for the
words that he could use without disloyalty. "But it's nothing he's done
himself," he said, "nothing to his discredit. I know _that_."
Old Rossiter looked up, a strange light in his eyes.
"No offence," he said quietly.
"Tell me what you know," cried Tom suddenly, standing up again.
The old factor met his eye squarely, steadfastly. He laid his pipe
aside.
"D'ye really want to hear?" he asked in a lowered voice. "Because, if
you don't--why, say so right now. I'm all for justice," he added, "and
always was."
"Tell me," said Tom, his heart in his mouth. "Maybe, if I knew--I might
help him." The old man's words woke fear in him. He well knew his
passionate, remorseless sense of justice.
"Help him," repeated the other. "For a man skeered in his soul there
ain't no help. But--if you want to hear--I'll tell you."
"Tell me," cried Tom. "I _will_ help him," while rising anger fought
back rising fear.
John took another pull at his glass.
"Jest between you and me like."
"Between you and me," said Tom. "Get on with it."
There was a deep silence in the little room. Only the sound of the sea
came in, the wind behind it.
"The Wolves," whispered old Rossiter. "The Wolves of God."
Tom sat still in his chair, as though struck in the face. He shivered.
He kept silent and the silence seemed to him long and curious. His heart
was throbbing, the blood in his veins played strange tricks. All he
remembered was that old Rossiter had gone on talking. The voice,
however, sounded far away and distant. It was all unreal, he felt, as he
went homewards across the bleak, wind-swept upland, the sound of the sea
for ever in his ears....
Yes, old John Rossiter, damned be his soul, had gone on talking. He had
said wild, incredible things. Damned be his soul! His teeth should be
smashed for that. It was outrageous, it was cowardly, it was not true.
"Jim," he thought, "my brother, Jim!" as he ploughed his way wearily
against the wind. "I'll teach him. I'll teach him to spread such wicked
tales!" He referred to Rossiter. "God blast these fellows! They come
home from their outlandish places and think they can say anything! I'll
knock his yellow dog's teeth...!"
While, inside, his heart went quailing, crying for help, afraid.
He tried hard to remember exactly what old John had said. Round Garden
Lake--that's where Jim was located in his lonely Post--there was a tribe
of Redskins. They were of unusual type. Malefactors among them--thieves,
criminals, murderers--were not punished. They were merely turned out by
the Tribe to die.
But how?
The Wolves of God took care of them. What were the Wolves of God?
A pack of wolves the Redskins held in awe, a sacred pack, a spirit
pack--God curse the man! Absurd, outlandish nonsense! Superstitious
humbug! A pack of wolves that punished malefactors, killing but never
eating them. "Torn but not eaten," the words came back to him, "white
men as well as red. They could even cross the sea...."
"He ought to be strung up for telling such wild yarns. By God--I'll
teach him!"
"Jim! My brother, Jim! It's monstrous."
But the old man, in his passionate cold justice, had said a yet more
terrible thing, a thing that Tom would never forget, as he never could
forgive it: "You mustn't keep him here; you must send him away. We
cannot have him on the island." And for that, though he could scarcely
believe his ears, wondering afterwards whether he heard aright, for
that, the proper answer to which was a blow in the mouth, Tom knew that
his old friendship and affection had turned to bitter hatred.
"If I don't kill him, for that cursed lie, may God--and Jim--forgive
me!"
3
It was a few days later that the storm caught the islands, making them
tremble in their sea-born bed. The wind tearing over the treeless
expanse was terrible, the lightning lit the skies. No such rain had ever
been known. The building shook and trembled. It almost seemed the sea
had burst her limits, and the waves poured in. Its fury and the noises
that the wind made affected both the brothers, but Jim disliked the
uproar most. It made him gloomy, silent, morose. It made him--Tom
perceived it at once--uneasy. "Scared in his soul"--the ugly phrase came
back to him.
"God save anyone who's out to-night," said Jim anxiously, as the old
farm rattled about his head. Whereupon the door opened as of itself.
There was no knock. It flew wide, as if the wind had burst it. Two
drenched and beaten figures showed in the gap against the lurid sky--old
John Rossiter and Sandy. They laid their fowling pieces down and took
off their capes; they had been up at the lake for the evening flight and
six birds were in the game bag. So suddenly had the storm come up that
they had been caught before they could get home.
And, while Tom welcomed them, looked after their creature wants, and
made them feel at home as in duty bound, no visit, he felt at the same
time, could have been less opportune. Sandy did not matter--Sandy never
did matter anywhere, his personality being negligible--but John Rossiter
was the last man Tom wished to see just then. He hated the man; hated
that sense of implacable justice that he knew was in him; with the
slightest excuse he would have turned him out and sent him on to his own
home, storm or no storm. But Rossiter provided no excuse; he was all
gratitude and easy politeness, more pleasant and friendly to Jim even
than to his brother. Tom set out the whisky and sugar, sliced the lemon,
put the kettle on, and furnished dry coats while the soaked garments
hung up before the roaring fire that Orkney makes customary even when
days are warm.
"It might be the equinoctials," observed Sandy, "if it wasn't late
October." He shivered, for the tropics had thinned his blood.
"This ain't no ordinary storm," put in Rossiter, drying his drenched
boots. "It reminds me a bit"--he jerked his head to the window that
gave seawards, the rush of rain against the panes half drowning his
voice--"reminds me a bit of yonder." He looked up, as though to find
someone to agree with him, only one such person being in the room.
"Sure, it ain't," agreed Jim at once, but speaking slowly, "no ordinary
storm." His voice was quiet as a child's. Tom, stooping over the kettle,
felt something cold go trickling down his back. "It's from acrost the
Atlantic too."
"All our big storms come from the sea," offered Sandy, saying just what
Sandy was expected to say. His lank red hair lay matted on his forehead,
making him look like an unhappy collie dog.
"There's no hospitality," Rossiter changed the talk, "like an
islander's," as Tom mixed and filled the glasses. "He don't even ask
'Say when?'" He chuckled in his beard and turned to Sandy, well pleased
with the compliment to his host. "Now, in Malay," he added dryly, "it's
probably different, I guess." And the two men, one from Labrador, the
other from the tropics, fell to bantering one another with heavy humour,
while Tom made things comfortable and Jim stood silent with his back to
the fire. At each blow of the wind that shook the building, a suitable
remark was made, generally by Sandy: "Did you hear that now?" "Ninety
miles an hour at least." "Good thing you build solid in this country!"
while Rossiter occasionally repeated that it was an "uncommon storm" and
that "it reminded" him of the northern tempests he had known "out
yonder."
Tom said little, one thought and one thought only in his heart--the wish
that the storm would abate and his guests depart. He felt uneasy about
Jim. He hated Rossiter. In the kitchen he had steadied himself already
with a good stiff drink, and was now half-way through a second; the
feeling was in him that he would need their help before the evening was
out. Jim, he noticed, had left his glass untouched. His attention,
clearly, went to the wind and the outer night; he added little to the
conversation.
"Hark!" cried Sandy's shrill voice. "Did you hear that? That wasn't
wind, I'll swear." He sat up, looking for all the world like a dog
pricking its ears to something no one else could hear.
"The sea coming over the dunes," said Rossiter. "There'll be an awful
tide to-night and a terrible sea off the Swarf. Moon at the full, too."
He cocked his head sideways to listen. The roaring was tremendous, waves
and wind combining with a result that almost shook the ground. Rain hit
the glass with incessant volleys like duck shot.
It was then that Jim spoke, having said no word for a long time.
"It's good there's no trees," he mentioned quietly. "I'm glad of that."
"There'd be fearful damage, wouldn't there?" remarked Sandy. "They might
fall on the house too."
But it was the tone Jim used that made Rossiter turn stiffly in his
chair, looking first at the speaker, then at his brother. Tom caught
both glances and saw the hard keen glitter in the eyes. This kind of
talk, he decided, had got to stop, yet how to stop it he hardly knew,
for his were not subtle methods, and rudeness to his guests ran too
strong against the island customs. He refilled the glasses, thinking in
his blunt fashion how best to achieve his object, when Sandy helped the
situation without knowing it.
"That's my first," he observed, and all burst out laughing. For Sandy's
tenth glass was equally his "first," and he absorbed his liquor like
a sponge, yet showed no effects of it until the moment when he would
suddenly collapse and sink helpless to the ground. The glass in
question, however, was only his third, the final moment still far away.
"Three in one and one in three," said Rossiter, amid the general
laughter, while Sandy, grave as a judge, half emptied it at a single
gulp. Good-natured, obtuse as a cart-horse, the tropics, it seemed, had
first worn out his nerves, then removed them entirely from his body.
"That's Malay theology, I guess," finished Rossiter. And the laugh broke
out again. Whereupon, setting his glass down, Sandy offered his usual
explanation that the hot lands had thinned his blood, that he felt the
cold in these "arctic islands," and that alcohol was a necessity of life
with him. Tom, grateful for the unexpected help, encouraged him to talk,
and Sandy, accustomed to neglect as a rule, responded readily. Having
saved the situation, however, he now unwittingly led it back into the
danger zone.
"A night for tales, eh?" he remarked, as the wind came howling with
a burst of strangest noises against the house. "Down there in the
States," he went on, "they'd say the evil spirits were out. They're a
superstitious crowd, the natives. I remember once----" And he told a
tale, half foolish, half interesting, of a mysterious track he had seen
when following buffalo in the jungle. It ran close to the spoor of a
wounded buffalo for miles, a track unlike that of any known animal, and
the natives, though unable to name it, regarded it with awe. It was
a good sign, a kill was certain. They said it was a spirit track.
"You got your buffalo?" asked Tom.
"Found him two miles away, lying dead. The mysterious spoor came to an
end close beside the carcass. It didn't continue."
"And that reminds me----" began old Rossiter, ignoring Tom's attempt to
introduce another subject. He told them of the haunted island at Eagle
River, and a tale of the man who would not stay buried on another island
off the coast. From that he went on to describe the strange man-beast
that hides in the deep forests of Labrador, manifesting but rarely, and
dangerous to men who stray too far from camp, men with a passion for
wild life over-strong in their blood--the great mythical Wendigo. And
while he talked, Tom noticed that Sandy used each pause as a good moment
for a drink, but that Jim's glass still remained untouched.
The atmosphere of incredible things, thus, grew in the little room, much
as it gathers among the shadows round a forest camp-fire when men who
have seen strange places of the world give tongue about them, knowing
they will not be laughed at--an atmosphere, once established, it is
vain to fight against. The ingrained superstition that hides in every
mother's son comes up at such times to breathe. It came up now. Sandy,
closer by several glasses to the moment, Tom saw, when he would be
suddenly drunk, gave birth again, a tale this time of a Scottish planter
who had brutally dismissed a native servant for no other reason than
that he disliked him. The man disappeared completely, but the villagers
hinted that he would--soon indeed that he had--come back, though "not
quite as he went." The planter armed, knowing that vengeance might
be violent. A black panther, meanwhile, was seen prowling about the
bungalow. One night a noise outside his door on the veranda roused him.
Just in time to see the black brute leaping over the railings into the
compound, he fired, and the beast fell with a savage growl of pain. Help
arrived and more shots were fired into the animal, as it lay, mortally
wounded already, lashing its tail upon the grass. The lanterns, however,
showed that instead of a panther, it was the servant they had shot to
shreds.
Sandy told the story well, a certain odd conviction in his tone and
manner, neither of them at all to the liking of his host. Uneasiness and
annoyance had been growing in Tom for some time already, his inability
to control the situation adding to his anger. Emotion was accumulating
in him dangerously; it was directed chiefly against Rossiter, who,
though saying nothing definite, somehow deliberately encouraged both
talk and atmosphere. Given the conditions, it was natural enough the
talk should take the turn it did take, but what made Tom more and more
angry was that, if Rossiter had not been present, he could have stopped
it easily enough. It was the presence of the old Hudson Bay man that
prevented his taking decided action. He was afraid of Rossiter, afraid
of putting his back up. That was the truth. His recognition of it made
him furious.
"Tell us another, Sandy McKay," said the veteran. "There's a lot in such
tales. They're found the world over--men turning into animals and the
like."
And Sandy, yet nearer to his moment of collapse, but still showing no
effects, obeyed willingly. He noticed nothing; the whisky was good, his
tales were appreciated, and that sufficed him. He thanked Tom, who just
then refilled his glass, and went on with his tale. But Tom, hatred
and fury in his heart, had reached the point where he could no longer
contain himself, and Rossiter's last words inflamed him. He went over,
under cover of a tremendous clap of wind, to fill the old man's glass.
The latter refused, covering the tumbler with his big, lean hand.
Tom stood over him a moment, lowering his face. "You keep still," he
whispered ferociously, but so that no one else heard it. He glared into
his eyes with an intensity that held danger, and Rossiter, without
answering, flung back that glare with equal, but with a calmer, anger.
The wind, meanwhile, had a trick of veering, and each time it shifted,
Jim shifted his seat too. Apparently, he preferred to face the sound,
rather than have his back to it.
"Your turn now for a tale," said Rossiter with purpose, when Sandy
finished. He looked across at him, just as Jim, hearing the burst of
wind at the walls behind him, was in the act of moving his chair again.
The same moment the attack rattled the door and windows facing him. Jim,
without answering, stood for a moment still as death, not knowing which
way to turn.
"It's beatin' up from all sides," remarked Rossiter, "like it was goin'
round the building."
There was a moment's pause, the four men listening with awe to the roar
and power of the terrific wind. Tom listened too, but at the same time
watched, wondering vaguely why he didn't cross the room and crash his
fist into the old man's chattering mouth. Jim put out his hand and took
his glass, but did not raise it to his lips. And a lull came abruptly in
the storm, the wind sinking into a moment's dreadful silence. Tom and
Rossiter turned their heads in the same instant and stared into each
other's eyes. For Tom the instant seemed enormously prolonged. He
realized the challenge in the other and that his rudeness had roused it
into action. It had become a contest of wills--Justice battling against
Love.
Jim's glass had now reached his lips, and the chattering of his teeth
against its rim was audible.
But the lull passed quickly and the wind began again, though so gently
at first, it had the sound of innumerable swift footsteps treading
lightly, of countless hands fingering the doors and windows, but then
suddenly with a mighty shout as it swept against the walls, rushed
across the roof and descended like a battering-ram against the farther
side.
"God, did you hear that?" cried Sandy. "It's trying to get in!" and
having said it, he sank in a heap beside his chair, all of a sudden
completely drunk. "It's wolves or panthersh," he mumbled in his stupor
on the floor, "but whatsh's happened to Malay?" It was the last thing he
said before unconsciousness took him, and apparently he was insensible
to the kick on the head from a heavy farmer's boot. For Jim's glass had
fallen with a crash and the second kick was stopped midway. Tom stood
spell-bound, unable to move or speak, as he watched his brother suddenly
cross the room and open a window into the very teeth of the gale.
"Let be! Let be!" came the voice of Rossiter, an authority in it, a
curious gentleness too, both of them new. He had risen, his lips were
still moving, but the words that issued from them were inaudible, as the
wind and rain leaped with a galloping violence into the room, smashing
the glass to atoms and dashing a dozen loose objects helter-skelter on
to the floor.
"I saw it!" cried Jim, in a voice that rose above the din and clamour of
the elements. He turned and faced the others, but it was at Rossiter he
looked. "I saw the leader." He shouted to make himself heard, although
the tone was quiet. "A splash of white on his great chest. I saw them
all!"
At the words, and at the expression in Jim's eyes, old Rossiter, white
to the lips, dropped back into his chair as if a blow had struck him.
Tom, petrified, felt his own heart stop. For through the broken window,
above yet within the wind, came the sound of a wolf-pack running,
howling in deep, full-throated chorus, mad for blood. It passed like a
whirlwind and was gone. And, of the three men so close together, one
sitting and two standing, Jim alone was in that terrible moment wholly
master of himself.
Before the others could move or speak, he turned and looked full into
the eyes of each in succession. His speech went back to his wilderness
days:
"I done it," he said calmly. "I killed him--and I got ter go."
With a look of mystical horror on his face, he took one stride, flung
the door wide, and vanished into the darkness.
So quick were both words and action, that Tom's paralysis passed only as
the draught from the broken window banged the door behind him. He seemed
to leap across the room, old Rossiter, tears on his cheeks and his lips
mumbling foolish words, so close upon his heels that the backward blow
of fury Tom aimed at his face caught him only in the neck and sent him
reeling sideways to the floor instead of flat upon his back.
"Murderer! My brother's death upon you!" he shouted as he tore the door
open again and plunged out into the night.
And the odd thing that happened then, the thing that touched old John
Rossiter's reason, leaving him from that moment till his death a foolish
man of uncertain mind and memory, happened when he and the unconscious,
drink-sodden Sandy lay alone together on the stone floor of that
farm-house room.
Rossiter, dazed by the blow and his fall, but in full possession of his
senses, and the anger gone out of him owing to what he had brought
about, this same John Rossiter sat up and saw Sandy also sitting up and
staring at him hard. And Sandy was sober as a judge, his eyes and
speech both clear, even his face unflushed.
"John Rossiter," he said, "it was not God who appointed you executioner.
It was the devil." And his eyes, thought Rossiter, were like the eyes of
an angel.
"Sandy McKay," he stammered, his teeth chattering and breath failing
him. "Sandy McKay!" It was all the words that he could find. But Sandy,
already sunk back into his stupor again, was stretched drunk and
incapable upon the farm-house floor, and remained in that condition till
the dawn.
Jim's body lay hidden among the dunes for many months and in spite of
the most careful and prolonged searching. It was another storm that laid
it bare. The sand had covered it. The clothes were gone, and the flesh,
torn but not eaten, was naked to the December sun and wind.
II
CHINESE MAGIC
1
Dr. Owen Francis felt a sudden wave of pleasure and admiration sweep
over him as he saw her enter the room. He was in the act of going out;
in fact, he had already said good-bye to his hostess, glad to make his
escape from the chattering throng, when the tall and graceful young
woman glided past him. Her carriage was superb; she had black eyes with
a twinkling happiness in them; her mouth was exquisite. Round her
neck, in spite of the warm afternoon, she wore a soft thing of fur or
feathers; and as she brushed by to shake the hand he had just shaken
himself, the tail of this touched his very cheek. Their eyes met fair
and square. He felt as though her eyes also touched him.
Changing his mind, he lingered another ten minutes, chatting with
various ladies he did not in the least remember, but who remembered him.
He did not, of course, desire to exchange banalities with these other
ladies, yet did so gallantly enough. If they found him absent-minded
they excused him since he was the famous mental specialist whom
everybody was proud to know. And all the time his eyes never left the
tall graceful figure that allured him almost to the point of casting a
spell upon him.
His first impression deepened as he watched. He was aware of excitement,
curiosity, longing; there was a touch even of exaltation in him; yet
he took no steps to seek the introduction which was easily enough
procurable. He checked himself, if with an effort. Several times
their eyes met across the crowded room; he dared to believe--he felt
instinctively--that his interest was returned. Indeed, it was more than
instinct, for she was certainly aware of his presence, and he even
caught her indicating him to a woman she spoke with, and evidently
asking who he was. Once he half bowed, and once, in spite of himself, he
went so far as to smile, and there came, he was sure, a faint, delicious
brightening of the eyes in answer. There was, he fancied, a look of
yearning in the face. The young woman charmed him inexpressibly; the
very way she moved delighted him. Yet at last he slipped out of the room
without a word, without an introduction, without even knowing her name.
He chose his moment when her back was turned. It was characteristic of
him.
For Owen Francis had ever regarded marriage, for himself at least, as a
disaster that could be avoided. He was in love with his work, and his
work was necessary to humanity. Others might perpetuate the race, but he
must heal it. He had come to regard love as the bait wherewith Nature
lays her trap to fulfill her own ends. A man in love was a man enjoying
a delusion, a deluded man. In his case, and he was nearing forty-five,
the theory had worked admirably, and the dangerous exception that proved
it had as yet not troubled him.
"It's come at last--I do believe," he thought to himself, as he walked
home, a new tumultuous emotion in his blood; "the exception, quite
possibly, has come at last. I wonder...."
And it seemed he said it to the tall graceful figure by his side, who
turned up dark eyes smilingly to meet his own, and whose lips repeated
softly his last two words "I wonder...."
The experience, being new to him, was baffling. A part of his nature,
long dormant, received the authentic thrill that pertains actually to
youth. He was a man of chaste, abstemious custom. The reaction was
vehement. That dormant part of him became obstreperous. He thought of
his age, his appearance, his prospects; he looked thirty-eight, he was
not unhandsome, his position was secure, even remarkable. That gorgeous
young woman--he called her gorgeous--haunted him. Never could he forget
that face, those eyes. It was extraordinary--he had left her there
unspoken to, unknown, when an introduction would have been the simplest
thing in the world.
"But it still is," he replied. And the reflection filled his being with
a flood of joy.
He checked himself again. Not so easily is established habit routed. He
felt instinctively that, at last, he had met his mate; if he followed it
up he was a man in love, a lost man enjoying a delusion, a deluded man.
But the way she had looked at him! That air of intuitive invitation
which not even the sweetest modesty could conceal! He felt an immense
confidence in himself; also he felt oddly sure of her.
The presence of that following figure, already precious, came with him
into his house, even into his study at the back where he sat over a
number of letters by the open window. The pathetic little London garden
showed its pitiful patch. The lilac had faded, but a smell of roses
entered. The sun was just behind the buildings opposite, and the garden
lay soft and warm in summer shadows.
He read and tossed aside the letters; one only interested him, from
Edward Farque, whose journey to China had interrupted a friendship of
long standing. Edward Farque's work on eastern art and philosophy, on
Chinese painting and Chinese thought in particular, had made its mark.
He was an authority. He was to be back about this time, and his friend
smiled with pleasure. "Dear old unpractical dreamer, as I used to call
him," he mused. "He's a success, anyhow!" And as he mused, the presence
that sat beside him came a little closer, yet at the same time faded.
Not that he forgot her--that was impossible--but that just before
opening the letter from his friend, he had come to a decision. He had
definitely made up his mind to seek acquaintance. The reality replaced
the remembered substitute.
"As the newspapers may have warned you," ran the familiar and kinky
writing, "I am back in England after what the scribes term my ten
years of exile in Cathay. I have taken a little house in Hampstead
for six months, and am just settling in. Come to us to-morrow night
and let me prove it to you. Come to dinner. We shall have much to
say; we both are ten years wiser. You know how glad I shall be to
see my old-time critic and disparager, but let me add frankly
that I want to ask you a few professional, or, rather, technical,
questions. So prepare yourself to come as doctor and as friend. I
am writing, as the papers said truthfully, a treatise on Chinese
thought. But--don't shy!--it is about Chinese Magic that I want
your technical advice [the last two words were substituted for
"professional wisdom," which had been crossed out] and the benefit
of your vast experience. So come, old friend, come quickly, and come
hungry! I'll feed your body as you shall feed my mind.--Yours,
"EDWARD FARQUE."
"P.S.--'The coming of a friend from a far-off land--is not this true
joy?'"
Dr. Francis laid down the letter with a pleased anticipatory chuckle,
and it was the touch in the final sentence that amused him. In spite of
being an authority, Farque was clearly the same fanciful, poetic dreamer
as of old. He quoted Confucius as in other days. The firm but kinky
writing had not altered either. The only sign of novelty he noticed was
the use of scented paper, for a faint and pungent aroma clung to the big
quarto sheet.
"A Chinese habit, doubtless," he decided, sniffing it with a puzzled air
of disapproval. Yet it had nothing in common with the scented sachets
some ladies use too lavishly, so that even the air of the street is
polluted by their passing for a dozen yards. He was familiar with every
kind of perfumed note-paper used in London, Paris, and Constantinople.
This one was difficult. It was delicate and penetrating for all its
faintness, pleasurable too. He rather liked it, and while annoyed that
he could not name it, he sniffed at the letter several times, as though
it were a flower.
"I'll go," he decided at once, and wrote an acceptance then and there.
He went out and posted it. He meant to prolong his walk into the Park,
taking his chief preoccupation, the face, the eyes, the figure, with
him. Already he was composing the note of inquiry to Mrs. Malleson, his
hostess of the tea-party, the note whose willing answer should give him
the name, the address, the means of introduction he had now determined
to secure. He visualized that note of inquiry, seeing it in his mind's
eye; only, for some odd reason, he saw the kinky writing of Farque
instead of his own more elegant script. Association of ideas and
emotions readily explained this. Two new and unexpected interests had
entered his life on the same day, and within half an hour of each other.
What he could not so readily explain, however, was that two words in his
friend's ridiculous letter, and in that kinky writing, stood out sharply
from the rest. As he slipped his envelope into the mouth of the red
pillar-box they shone vividly in his mind. These two words were "Chinese
Magic."
2
It was the warmth of his friend's invitation as much as his own state of
inward excitement that decided him suddenly to anticipate his visit by
twenty-four hours. It would clear his judgment and help his mind, if he
spent the evening at Hampstead rather than alone with his own thoughts.
"A dose of China," he thought, with a smile, "will do me good. Edward
won't mind. I'll telephone."
He left the Park soon after six o'clock and acted upon his impulse. The
connexion was bad, the wire buzzed and popped and crackled; talk was
difficult; he did not hear properly. The Professor had not yet come in,
apparently. Francis said he would come up anyhow on the chance.
"Velly pleased," said the voice in his ear, as he rang off.
Going into his study, he drafted the note that should result in the
introduction that was now, it appeared, the chief object of his life.
The way this woman with the black, twinkling eyes obsessed him was--he
admitted it with joy--extraordinary. The draft he put in his pocket,
intending to re-write it next morning, and all the way up to Hampstead
Heath the gracious figure glided silently beside him, the eyes were ever
present, his cheek still glowed where the feather boa had touched his
skin. Edward Farque remained in the background. In fact, it was on the
very door-step, having rung the bell, that Francis realized he must pull
himself together. "I've come to see old Farque," he reminded himself,
with a smile. "I've got to be interested in him and his, and, probably,
for an hour or two, to talk Chinese----" when the door opened
noiselessly, and he saw facing him, with a grin of celestial welcome on
his yellow face, a China-man.
"Oh!" he said, with a start. He had not expected a Chinese servant.
"Velly pleased," the man bowed him in.
Dr. Francis stared round him with astonishment he could not conceal. A
great golden idol faced him in the hall, its gleaming visage blazing out
of a sort of miniature golden palanquin, with a grin, half dignified,
half cruel. Fully double human size, it blocked the way, looking so
life-like that it might have moved to meet him without too great a shock
to what seemed possible. It rested on a throne with four massive legs,
carved, the doctor saw, with serpents, dragons, and mythical monsters
generally. Round it on every side were other things in keeping. Name
them he could not, describe them he did not try. He summed them up in
one word--China: pictures, weapons, cloths and tapestries, bells, gongs,
and figures of every sort and kind imaginable.
Being ignorant of Chinese matters, Dr. Francis stood and looked about
him in a mental state of some confusion. He had the feeling that he had
entered a Chinese temple, for there was a faint smell of incense hanging
about the house that was, to say the least, un-English. Nothing English,
in fact, was visible at all. The matting on the floor, the swinging
curtains of bamboo beads that replaced the customary doors, the silk
draperies and pictured cushions, the bronze and ivory, the screens hung
with fantastic embroideries, everything was Chinese. Hampstead vanished
from his thoughts. The very lamps were in keeping, the ancient lacquered
furniture as well. The value of what he saw, an expert could have told
him, was considerable.
"You likee?" queried the voice at his side.
He had forgotten the servant. He turned sharply.
"Very much; it's wonderfully done," he said. "Makes you feel at home,
John, eh?" he added tactfully, with a smile, and was going to ask how
long all this preparation had taken, when a voice sounded on the stairs
beyond. It was a voice he knew, a note of hearty welcome in its deep
notes.
"The coming of a friend from a far-off land, even from Harley Street--is
not this true joy?" he heard, and the next minute was shaking the hand
of his old and valued friend. The intimacy between them had always been
of the truest.
"I almost expected a pigtail," observed Francis, looking him
affectionately up and down, "but, really--why, you've hardly changed at
all!"
"Outwardly, not as much, perhaps, as Time expects," was the happy
reply, "but inwardly----!" He scanned appreciatively the burly figure of
the doctor in his turn. "And I can say the same of you," he declared,
still holding his hand tight. "This is a real pleasure, Owen," he went
on in his deep voice, "to see you again is a joy to me. Old friends
meeting again--there's nothing like it in life, I believe, nothing." He
gave the hand another squeeze before he let it go. "And we," he added,
leading the way into a room across the hall, "neither of us is a
fugitive from life. We take what we can, I mean."
The doctor smiled as he noted the un-English turn of language, and
together they entered a sitting-room that was, again, more like some
inner chamber of a Chinese temple than a back room in a rented Hampstead
house.
"I only knew ten minutes ago that you were coming, my dear fellow,"
the scholar was saying, as his friend gazed round him with increased
astonishment, "or I would have prepared more suitably for your
reception. I was out till late. All this"--he waved his hand--"surprises
you, of course, but the fact is I have been home some days already, and
most of what you see was arranged for me in advance of my arrival. Hence
its apparent completion. I say 'apparent,' because, actually, it is far
from faithfully carried out. Yet to exceed," he added, "is as bad as to
fall short."
The doctor watched him while he listened to a somewhat lengthy
explanation of the various articles surrounding them. The speaker--he
confirmed his first impression--had changed little during the long
interval; the same enthusiasm was in him as before, the same fire and
dreaminess alternately in the fine grey eyes, the same humour and
passion about the mouth, the same free gestures, and the same big voice.
Only the lines had deepened on the forehead, and on the fine face the
air of thoughtfulness was also deeper. It was Edward Farque as of old,
scholar, poet, dreamer and enthusiast, despiser of western civilization,
contemptuous of money, generous and upright, a type of value, an
individual.
"You've done well, done splendidly, Edward, old man," said his friend
presently, after hearing of Chinese wonders that took him somewhat
beyond his depth perhaps. "No one is more pleased than I. I've watched
your books. You haven't regretted England, I'll be bound?" he asked.
"The philosopher has no country, in any case," was the reply, steadily
given. "But out there, I confess, I've found my home." He leaned
forward, a deeper earnestness in his tone and expression. And into his
face, as he spoke, came a glow of happiness. "My heart," he said, "is in
China."
"I see it is, I see it is," put in the other, conscious that he could
not honestly share his friend's enthusiasm. "And you're fortunate to be
free to live where your treasure is," he added after a moment's pause.
"You must be a happy man. Your passion amounts to nostalgia, I suspect.
Already yearning to get back there, probably?"
Farque gazed at him for some seconds with shining eyes. "You remember
the Persian saying, I'm sure," he said. "'You see a man drink, but you
do not see his thirst.' Well," he added, laughing happily, "you may see
me off in six months' time, but you will not see my happiness."
While he went on talking, the doctor glanced round the room, marvelling
still at the exquisite taste of everything, the neat arrangement, the
perfect matching of form and colour. A woman might have done this thing,
occurred to him, as the haunting figure shifted deliciously into the
foreground of his mind again. The thought of her had been momentarily
replaced by all he heard and saw. She now returned, filling him with
joy, anticipation and enthusiasm. Presently, when it was his turn to
talk, he would tell his friend about this new, unimagined happiness that
had burst upon him like a sunrise. Presently, but not just yet. He
remembered, too, with a passing twinge of possible boredom to come, that
there must be some delay before his own heart could unburden itself in
its turn. Farque wanted to ask some professional questions, of course.
He had for the moment forgotten that part of the letter in his general
interest and astonishment.
"Happiness, yes...." he murmured, aware that his thoughts had wandered,
and catching at the last word he remembered hearing. "As you said just
now in your own queer way--you haven't changed a bit, let me tell you,
in your picturesqueness of quotation, Edward--one must not be fugitive
from life; one must seize happiness when and where it offers."
He said it lightly enough, hugging internally his own sweet secret; but
he was a little surprised at the earnestness of his friend's rejoinder:
"Both of us, I see," came the deep voice, backed by the flash of the
far-seeing grey eyes, "have made some progress in the doctrine of life
and death." He paused, gazing at the other with sight that was obviously
turned inwards upon his own thoughts. "Beauty," he went on presently,
his tone even more serious, "has been my lure; yours, Reality...."
"You don't flatter either of us, Edward. That's too exclusive a
statement," put in the doctor. He was becoming every minute more and
more interested in the workings of his friend's mind. Something about
the signs offered eluded his understanding. "Explain yourself, old
scholar-poet. I'm a dull, practical mind, remember, and can't keep pace
with Chinese subtleties."
"_You've_ left out Beauty," was the quiet rejoinder, "while _I_ left out
Reality. That's neither Chinese nor subtle. It is simply true."
"A bit wholesale, isn't it?" laughed Francis. "A big generalization,
rather."
A bright light seemed to illuminate the scholar's face. It was as though
an inner lamp was suddenly lit. At the same moment the sound of a soft
gong floated in from the hall outside, so soft that the actual strokes
were not distinguishable in the wave of musical vibration that reached
the ear.
Farque rose to lead the way in to dinner.
"What if I----" he whispered, "have combined the two?" And upon his face
was a look of joy that reached down into the other's own full heart with
its unexpectedness and wonder. It was the last remark in the world he
had looked for. He wondered for a moment whether he interpreted it
correctly.
"By Jove...!" he exclaimed. "Edward, what d'you mean?"
"You shall hear--after dinner," said Farque, his voice mysterious, his
eyes still shining with his inner joy. "I told you I have some questions
to ask you--professionally." And they took their seats round an ancient,
marvellous table, lit by two swinging lamps of soft green jade, while
the Chinese servant waited on them with the silent movements and deft
neatness of his imperturbable celestial race.
3
To say that he was bored during the meal were an over-statement of Dr.
Francis's mental condition, but to say that he was half-bored seemed the
literal truth; for one-half of him, while he ate his steak and savoury
and watched Farque manipulating _chou chop suey_ and _chou om dong_ most
cleverly with chop-sticks, was too pre-occupied with his own romance to
allow the other half to give its full attention to the conversation.
He had entered the room, however, with a distinct quickening of what may
be termed his instinctive and infallible sense of diagnosis. That last
remark of his friend's had stimulated him. He was aware of surprise,
curiosity, and impatience. Willy-nilly, he began automatically to study
him with a profounder interest. Something, he gathered, was not quite as
it should be in Edward Farque's mental composition. There was what might
be called an elusive emotional disturbance. He began to wonder and to
watch.
They talked, naturally, of China and of things Chinese, for the scholar
responded to little else, and Francis listened with what sympathy and
patience he could muster. Of art and beauty he had hitherto known
little, his mind was practical and utilitarian. He now learned that all
art was derived from China, where a high, fine, subtle culture had
reigned since time immemorial. Older than Egypt was their wisdom. When
the western races were eating one another, before Greece was even heard
of, the Chinese had reached a level of knowledge and achievement that
few realized. Never had they, even in earliest times, been deluded by
anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity, but perceived in everything
the expressions of a single whole whose giant activities they reverently
worshipped. Their contempt for the western scurry after knowledge,
wealth, machinery, was justified, if Farque was worthy of belief. He
seemed saturated with Chinese thought, art, philosophy, and his natural
bias towards the celestial race had hardened into an attitude to life
that had now become ineradicable.
"They deal, as it were, in essences," he declared; "they discern the
essence of everything, leaving out the superfluous, the unessential, the
trivial. Their pictures alone prove it. Come with me," he concluded,
"and see the 'Earthly Paradise,' now in the British Museum. It is like
Botticelli, but better than anything Botticelli ever did. It was
painted"--he paused for emphasis--"600 years B.C."
The wonder of this quiet, ancient civilization, a sense of its depth,
its wisdom, grew upon his listener as the enthusiastic poet described
its charm and influence upon himself. He willingly allowed the
enchantment of the other's Paradise to steal upon his own awakened
heart. There was a good deal Francis might have offered by way of
criticism and objection, but he preferred on the whole to keep his own
views to himself, and to let his friend wander unhindered through the
mazes of his passionate evocation. All men, he well knew, needed a dream
to carry them through life's disappointments, a dream that they could
enter at will and find peace, contentment, happiness. Farque's dream was
China. Why not? It was as good as another, and a man like Farque was
entitled to what dream he pleased.
"And their women?" he inquired at last, letting both halves of his mind
speak together for the first time.
But he was not prepared for the expression that leaped upon his friend's
face at the simple question. Nor for his method of reply. It was no
reply, in point of fact. It was simply an attack upon all other types of
woman, and upon the white, the English, in particular--their emptiness,
their triviality, their want of intuitive imagination, of spiritual
grace, of everything, in a word, that should constitute woman a meet
companion for man, and a little higher than the angels into the bargain.
The doctor listened spellbound. Too humorous to be shocked, he was, at
any rate, disturbed by what he heard, displeased a little, too. It
threatened too directly his own new tender dream.
Only with the utmost self-restraint did he keep his temper under, and
prevent hot words he would have regretted later from tearing his
friend's absurd claim into ragged shreds. He was wounded personally as
well. Never now could he bring himself to tell his own secret to him.
The outburst chilled and disappointed him. But it had another effect--it
cooled his judgment. His sense of diagnosis quickened. He divined an
_idée fixe_, a mania possibly. His interest deepened abruptly. He
watched. He began to look about him with more wary eyes, and a sense of
uneasiness, once the anger passed, stirred in his friendly and
affectionate heart.
They had been sitting alone over their port for some considerable time,
the servant having long since left the room. The doctor had sought to
change the subject many times without much success, when suddenly
Farque changed it for him.
"Now," he announced, "I'll tell you something," and Francis guessed that
the professional questions were on the way at last. "We must pity the
living, remember, and part with the dead. Have you forgotten old
Shan-Yu?"
The forgotten name came back to him, the picturesque East End dealer of
many years ago. "The old merchant who taught you your first Chinese? I
do recall him dimly; now you mention it. You made quite a friend of him,
didn't you? He thought very highly of you--ah, it comes back to me
now--he offered something or other very wonderful in his gratitude,
unless my memory fails me?"
"His most valuable possession," Farque went on, a strange look deepening
on his face, an expression of mysterious rapture, as it were, and one
that Francis recognized and swiftly pigeon-holed in his now attentive
mind.
"Which was?" he asked sympathetically. "You told me once, but so long
ago that really it's slipped my mind. Something magical, wasn't it?" He
watched closely for his friend's reply.
Farque lowered his voice to a whisper almost devotional:
"The Perfume of the Garden of Happiness," he murmured, with an
expression in his eyes as though the mere recollection gave him joy.
"'Burn it,' he told me, 'in a brazier; then inhale. You will enter the
Valley of a Thousand Temples wherein lies the Garden of Happiness, and
there you will meet your Love. You will have seven years of happiness
with your Love before the Waters of Separation flow between you. I give
this to you who alone of men here have appreciated the wisdom of my
land. Follow my body towards the Sunrise. You, an eastern soul in a
barbarian body, will meet your Destiny.'"
The doctor's attention, such is the power of self-interest, quickened
amazingly as he heard. His own romance flamed up with power. His
friend--it dawned upon him suddenly--loved a woman.
"Come," said Farque, rising quietly, "we will go into the other room,
and I will show you what I have shown to but one other in the world
before. You are a doctor," he continued, as he led the way to the
silk-covered divan where golden dragons swallowed crimson suns, and
wonderful jade horses hovered near. "You understand the mind and nerves.
States of consciousness you also can explain, and the effect of drugs
is, doubtless, known to you." He swung to the heavy curtains that took
the place of door, handed a lacquered box of cigarettes to his friend,
and lit one himself. "Perfumes, too," he added, "you probably have
studied, with their extraordinary evocative power." He stood in the
middle of the room, the green light falling on his interesting and
thoughtful face, and for a passing second Francis, watching keenly,
observed a change flit over it and vanish. The eyes grew narrow and slid
tilted upwards, the skin wore a shade of yellow underneath the green
from the lamp of jade, the nose slipped back a little, the cheek-bones
forward.
"Perfumes," said the doctor, "no. Of perfumes I know nothing, beyond
their interesting effect upon the memory. I cannot help you there.
But, you, I suspect," and he looked up with an inviting sympathy that
concealed the close observation underneath, "you yourself, I feel sure,
can tell me something of value about them?"
"Perhaps," was the calm reply, "perhaps, for I have smelt the perfume of
the Garden of Happiness, and I have been in the Valley of a Thousand
Temples." He spoke with a glow of joy and reverence almost devotional.
The doctor waited in some suspense, while his friend moved towards an
inlaid cabinet across the room. More than broad-minded, he was that much
rarer thing, an open-minded man, ready at a moment's notice to discard
all preconceived ideas, provided new knowledge that necessitated the
holocaust were shown to him. At present, none the less, he held very
definite views of his own. "Please ask me any questions you like," he
added. "All I know is entirely yours, as always." He was aware of
suppressed excitement in his friend that betrayed itself in every word
and look and gesture, an excitement intense, and not as yet explained by
anything he had seen or heard.
The scholar, meanwhile, had opened a drawer in the cabinet and taken
from it a neat little packet tied up with purple silk. He held it with
tender, almost loving care, as he came and sat down on the divan beside
his friend.
"This," he said, in a tone, again, of something between reverence and
worship, "contains what I have to show you first." He slowly unrolled
it, disclosing a yet smaller silken bag within, coloured a deep rich
orange. There were two vertical columns of writing on it, painted in
Chinese characters. The doctor leaned forward to examine them. His
friend translated:
"The Perfume of the Garden of Happiness," he read aloud, tracing
the letters of the first column with his finger. "The Destroyer of
Honourable Homes," he finished, passing to the second, and then
proceeded to unwrap the little silken bag. Before it was actually open,
however, and the pale shredded material resembling coloured chaff
visible to the eyes, the doctor's nostrils had recognized the strange
aroma he had first noticed about his friend's letter received earlier
in the day. The same soft, penetrating odour, sharply piercing, sweet
and delicate, rose to his brain. It stirred at once a deep emotional
pleasure in him. Having come to him first when he was aglow with his own
unexpected romance, his mind and heart full of the woman he had just
left, that delicious, torturing state revived in him quite naturally.
The evocative power of perfume with regard to memory is compelling. A
livelier sympathy towards his friend, and towards what he was about to
hear, awoke in him spontaneously.
He did not mention the letter, however. He merely leaned over to smell
the fragrant perfume more easily.
Farque drew back the open packet instantly, at the same time holding
out a warning hand. "Careful," he said gravely, "be careful, my old
friend--unless you desire to share the rapture and the risk that have
been mine. To enjoy its full effect, true, this dust must be burned in a
brazier and its smoke inhaled; but even sniffed, as you now would sniff
it, and you are in danger----"
"Of what?" asked Francis, impressed by the other's extraordinary
intensity of voice and manner.
"Of Heaven; but, possibly, of Heaven before your time."
4
The tale that Farque unfolded then had certainly a strange celestial
flavour, a glory not of this dull world; and as his friend listened, his
interest deepened with every minute, while his bewilderment increased.
He watched closely, expert that he was, for clues that might guide his
deductions aright, but for all his keen observation and experience he
could detect no inconsistency, no weakness, nothing that betrayed the
smallest mental aberration. The origin and nature of what he already
decided was an _idée fixe_, a mania, evaded him entirely. This evasion
piqued and vexed him; he had heard a thousand tales of similar type
before; that this one in particular should baffle his unusual skill
touched his pride. Yet he faced the position honestly, he confessed
himself baffled until the end of the evening. When he went away,
however, he went away satisfied, even forgetful--because a new problem
of yet more poignant interest had replaced the first.
"It was after three years out there," said Farque, "that a sense of my
loneliness first came upon me. It came upon me bitterly. My work had
not then been recognized; obstacles and difficulties had increased; I
felt a failure; I had accomplished nothing. And it seemed to me I had
misjudged my capacities, taken a wrong direction, and wasted my life
accordingly. For my move to China, remember, was a radical move, and my
boats were burnt behind me. This sense of loneliness was really
devastating."
Francis, already fidgeting, put up his hand.
"One question, if I may," he said, "and I'll not interrupt again."
"By all means," said the other patiently, "what is it?"
"Were you--we are such old friends"--he apologized--"were you still
celibate as ever?"
Farque looked surprised, then smiled. "My habits had not changed," he
replied, "I was, as always, celibate."
"Ah!" murmured the doctor, and settled down to listen.
"And I think now," his friend went on, "that it was the lack of
companionship that first turned my thoughts towards conscious
disappointment. However that may be, it was one evening, as I walked
homewards to my little house, that I caught my imagination lingering
upon English memories, though chiefly, I admit, upon my old Chinese
tutor, the dead Shan-Yu.
"It was dusk, the stars were coming out in the pale evening air, and the
orchards, as I passed them, stood like wavering ghosts of unbelievable
beauty. The effect of thousands upon thousands of these trees, flooding
the twilight of a spring evening with their sea of blossom, is almost
unearthly. They seem transparencies, their colour hangs sheets upon the
very sky. I crossed a small wooden bridge that joined two of these
orchards above a stream, and in the dark water I watched a moment the
mingled reflection of stars and flowering branches on the quiet surface.
It seemed too exquisite to belong to earth, this fairy garden of stars
and blossoms, shining faintly in the crystal depths, and my thought, as
I gazed, dived suddenly down the little avenue that memory opened into
former days. I remembered Shan-Yu's present, given to me when he died.
His very words came back to me: The Garden of Happiness in the Valley
of the Thousand Temples, with its promise of love, of seven years of
happiness, and the prophecy that I should follow his body towards the
Sunrise and meet my destiny.
"This memory I took home with me into my lonely little one-storey house
upon the hill. My servants did not sleep there. There was no one near. I
sat by the open window with my thoughts, and you may easily guess that
before very long I had unearthed the long-forgotten packet from among my
things, spread a portion of its contents on a metal tray above a lighted
brazier, and was comfortably seated before it, inhaling the light blue
smoke with its exquisite and fragrant perfume.
"A light air entered through the window, the distant orchards below me
trembled, rose and floated through the dusk, and I found myself, almost
at once, in a pavilion of flowers; a blue river lay shining in the sun
before me, as it wandered through a lovely valley where I saw groves of
flowering trees among a thousand scattered temples. Drenched in light
and colour, the Valley lay dreaming amid a peaceful loveliness that woke
what seemed impossible, unrealizable, longings in my heart. I yearned
towards its groves and temples, I would bathe my soul in that flood of
tender light, and my body in the blue coolness of that winding river.
In a thousand temples must I worship. Yet these impossible yearnings
instantly were satisfied. I found myself there at once ... and the time
that passed over my head you may reckon in centuries, if not in ages. I
was in the Garden of Happiness and its marvellous perfume banished time
and sorrow, there was no end to chill the soul, nor any beginning, which
is its foolish counterpart.
"Nor was there loneliness." The speaker clasped his thin hands, and
closed his eyes a moment in what was evidently an ecstasy of the
sweetest memory man may ever know. A slight trembling ran through his
frame, communicating itself to his friend upon the divan beside
him--this understanding, listening, sympathetic friend, whose eyes had
never once yet withdrawn their attentive gaze from the narrator's face.
"I was not alone," the scholar resumed, opening his eyes again, and
smiling out of some deep inner joy. "Shan-Yu came down the steps of the
first temple and took my hand, while the great golden figures in the dim
interior turned their splendid shining heads to watch. Then, breathing
the soul of his ancient wisdom in my ear, he led me through all the
perfumed ways of that enchanted garden, worshipping with me at a hundred
deathless shrines, led me, I tell you, to the sound of soft gongs and
gentle bells, by fragrant groves and sparkling streams, mid a million
gorgeous flowers, until, beneath that unsetting sun, we reached the
heart of the Valley, where the source of the river gushed forth beneath
the lighted mountains. He stopped and pointed across the narrow waters.
I saw the woman----"
"_The_ woman," his listener murmured beneath his breath, though Farque
seemed unaware of interruption.
"She smiled at me and held her hands out, and while she did so, even
before I could express my joy and wonder in response, Shan-Yu, I saw,
had crossed the narrow stream and stood beside her. I made to follow
then, my heart burning with inexpressible delight. But Shan-Yu held up
his hand, as they began to move down the flowered bank together, making
a sign that I should keep pace with them, though on my own side.
"Thus, side by side, yet with the blue sparkling stream between us,
we followed back along its winding course, through the heart of that
enchanted valley, my hands stretched out towards the radiant figure of
my Love, and hers stretched out towards me. They did not touch, but our
eyes, our smiles, our thoughts, these met and mingled in a sweet union
of unimagined bliss, so that the absence of physical contact was
unnoticed and laid no injury on our marvellous joy. It was a spirit
union, and our kiss a spirit kiss. Therein lay the subtlety and glory of
the Chinese wonder, for it was our _essences_ that met, and for such
union there is no satiety and, equally, no possible end. The Perfume of
the Garden of Happiness is an essence. We were in Eternity.
"The stream, meanwhile, widened between us, and as it widened, my Love
grew farther from me in space, smaller, less visibly defined, yet ever
essentially more perfect, and never once with a sense of distance that
made our union less divinely close. Across the widening reaches of blue,
sunlit water I still knew her smile, her eyes, the gestures of her
radiant being; I saw her exquisite reflection in the stream; and, mid
the music of those soft gongs and gentle bells, the voice of Shan-Yu
came like a melody to my ears:
"'You have followed me into the sunrise, and have found your destiny.
Behold now your Love. In this Valley of a Thousand Temples you have
known the Garden of Happiness, and its Perfume your soul now inhales.'
"'I am bathed,' I answered, 'in a happiness divine. It is forever.'
"'The Waters of Separation,' his answer floated like a bell, 'lie
widening between you.'
"I moved nearer to the bank, impelled by the pain in his words to take
my Love and hold her to my breast.
"'But I would cross to her,' I cried, and saw that, as I moved, Shan-Yu
and my Love came likewise closer to the water's edge across the widening
river. They both obeyed, I was aware, my slightest wish.
"'Seven years of Happiness you may know,' sang his gentle tones across
the brimming flood, 'if you would cross to her. Yet the Destroyer of
Honourable Homes lies in the shadows that you must cast outside.'
"I heard his words, I noticed for the first time that in the blaze of
this radiant sunshine we cast no shadows on the sea of flowers at our
feet, and--I stretched out my arms towards my Love across the river.
"'I accept my destiny,' I cried, 'I will have my seven years of bliss,'
and stepped forward into the running flood. As the cool water took my
feet, my Love's hands stretched out both to hold me and to bid me stay.
There was acceptance in her gesture, but there was warning too.
"I did not falter. I advanced until the water bathed my knees, and my
Love, too, came to meet me, the stream already to her waist, while our
arms stretched forth above the running flood towards each other.
"The change came suddenly. Shan-Yu first faded behind her advancing
figure into air; there stole a chill upon the sunlight; a cool mist rose
from the water, hiding the Garden and the hills beyond; our fingers
touched, I gazed into her eyes, our lips lay level with the water--and
the room was dark and cold about me. The brazier stood extinguished at
my side. The dust had burnt out, and no smoke rose. I slowly left my
chair and closed the window, for the air was chill."
5
It was difficult at first to return to Hampstead and the details of
ordinary life about him. Francis looked round him slowly, freeing
himself gradually from the spell his friend's words had laid even upon
his analytical temperament. The transition was helped, however, by the
details that everywhere met his eye. The Chinese atmosphere remained.
More, its effect had gained, if anything. The embroideries of yellow
gold, the pictures, the lacquered stools and inlaid cabinets, above all,
the exquisite figures in green jade upon the shelf beside him, all this,
in the shimmering pale olive light the lamps shed everywhere, helped his
puzzled mind to bridge the gulf from the Garden of Happiness into the
decorated villa upon Hampstead Heath.
There was silence between the two men for several minutes. Far was it
from the doctor's desire to injure his old friend's delightful fantasy.
For he called it fantasy, although something in him trembled. He
remained, therefore, silent. Truth to tell, perhaps, he knew not exactly
what to say.
Farque broke the silence himself. He had not moved since the story
ended; he sat motionless, his hands tightly clasped, his eyes alight
with the memory of his strange imagined joy, his face rapt and almost
luminous, as though he still wandered through the groves of the
Enchanted Garden and inhaled the perfume of its perfect happiness in the
Valley of the Thousand Temples.
"It was two days later," he went on suddenly in his quiet voice, "only
two days afterwards, that I met her."
"You met her? You met the woman of your dream?" Francis's eyes opened
very wide.
"In that little harbour town," repeated Farque calmly, "I met her in the
flesh. She had just landed in a steamer from up the coast. The details
are of no particular interest. She knew me, of course, at once. And,
naturally, I knew her."
The doctor's tongue refused to act as he heard. It dawned upon him
suddenly that his friend was married. He remembered the woman's touch
about the house; he recalled, too, for the first time that the letter of
invitation to dinner had said "come to _us_." He was full of a
bewildered astonishment.
The reaction upon himself was odd, perhaps, yet wholly natural. His
heart warmed towards his imaginative friend. He could now tell him his
own new strange romance. The woman who haunted him crept back into the
room and sat between them. He found his tongue.
"You married her, Edward?" he exclaimed.
"She is my wife," was the reply, in a gentle, happy voice.
"A Ch----" he could not bring himself to say the word. "A foreigner?"
"My wife is a Chinese woman," Farque helped him easily, with a delighted
smile.
So great was the other's absorption in the actual moment, that he had
not heard the step in the passage that his host had heard. The latter
stood up suddenly.
"I hear her now," he said. "I'm glad she's come back before you left."
He stepped towards the door.
But before he reached it, the door was opened and in came the woman
herself. Francis tried to rise, but something had happened to him. His
heart missed a beat. Something, it seemed, broke in him. He faced
a tall, graceful young English woman with black eyes of sparkling
happiness, the woman of his own romance. She still wore the feather boa
round her neck. She was no more Chinese than he was.
"My wife," he heard Farque introducing them, as he struggled to his
feet, searching feverishly for words of congratulation, normal, everyday
words he ought to use, "I'm so pleased, oh, so pleased," Farque was
saying--he heard the sound from a distance, his sight was blurred as
well--"my two best friends in the world, my English comrade and my
Chinese wife." His voice was absolutely sincere with conviction and
belief.
"But we have already met," came the woman's delightful voice, her eyes
full upon his face with smiling pleasure, "I saw you at Mrs. Malleson's
tea only this afternoon."
And Francis remembered suddenly that the Mallesons were old
acquaintances of Farque's as well as of himself. "And I even dared to
ask who you were," the voice went on, floating from some other space, it
seemed, to his ears, "I had you pointed out to me. I had heard of you
from Edward, of course. But you vanished before I could be introduced."
The doctor mumbled something or other polite and, he hoped, adequate.
But the truth had flashed upon him with remorseless suddenness. She had
"heard of" him--the famous mental specialist. Her interest in him was
cruelly explained, cruelly both for himself and for his friend. Farque's
delusion lay clear before his eyes. An awakening to reality might
involve dislocation of the mind. _She_, too, moreover, knew the truth.
She was involved as well. And her interest in himself was--consultation.
"Seven years we've been married, just seven years to-day," Farque was
saying thoughtfully, as he looked at them. "Curious, rather, isn't it?"
"Very," said Francis, turning his regard from the black eyes to the
grey.
Thus it was that Owen Francis left the house a little later with a mind
in a measure satisfied, yet in a measure forgetful too--forgetful of his
own deep problem, because another of even greater interest had replaced
it.
"Why undeceive him?" ran his thought. "He need never know. It's harmless
anyhow--I can tell her that."
But, side by side with this reflection, ran another that was oddly
haunting, considering his type of mind: "Destroyer of Honourable Homes,"
was the form of words it took. And with a sigh he added "Chinese
Magic."
III
RUNNING WOLF
The man who enjoys an adventure outside the general experience of the
race, and imparts it to others, must not be surprised if he is taken for
either a liar or a fool, as Malcolm Hyde, hotel clerk on a holiday,
discovered in due course. Nor is "enjoy" the right word to use in
describing his emotions; the word he chose was probably "survive."
When he first set eyes on Medicine Lake he was struck by its still,
sparkling beauty, lying there in the vast Canadian backwoods; next, by
its extreme loneliness; and, lastly--a good deal later, this--by its
combination of beauty, loneliness, and singular atmosphere, due to the
fact that it was the scene of his adventure.
"It's fairly stiff with big fish," said Morton of the Montreal Sporting
Club. "Spend your holiday there--up Mattawa way, some fifteen miles west
of Stony Creek. You'll have it all to yourself except for an old Indian
who's got a shack there. Camp on the east side--if you'll take a tip
from me." He then talked for half an hour about the wonderful sport; yet
he was not otherwise very communicative, and did not suffer questions
gladly, Hyde noticed. Nor had he stayed there very long himself. If it
was such a paradise as Morton, its discoverer and the most experienced
rod in the province, claimed, why had he himself spent only three days
there?
"Ran short of grub," was the explanation offered; but to another
friend he had mentioned briefly, "flies," and to a third, so Hyde
learned later, he gave the excuse that his half-breed "took sick,"
necessitating a quick return to civilization.
Hyde, however, cared little for the explanations; his interest in these
came later. "Stiff with fish" was the phrase he liked. He took the
Canadian Pacific train to Mattawa, laid in his outfit at Stony Creek,
and set off thence for the fifteen-mile canoe-trip without a care in the
world.
Travelling light, the portages did not trouble him; the water was swift
and easy, the rapids negotiable; everything came his way, as the saying
is. Occasionally he saw big fish making for the deeper pools, and was
sorely tempted to stop; but he resisted. He pushed on between the
immense world of forests that stretched for hundreds of miles, known to
deer, bear, moose, and wolf, but strange to any echo of human tread, a
deserted and primeval wilderness. The autumn day was calm, the water
sang and sparkled, the blue sky hung cloudless over all, ablaze with
light. Toward evening he passed an old beaver-dam, rounded a little
point, and had his first sight of Medicine Lake. He lifted his dripping
paddle; the canoe shot with silent glide into calm water. He gave an
exclamation of delight, for the loveliness caught his breath away.
Though primarily a sportsman, he was not insensible to beauty. The lake
formed a crescent, perhaps four miles long, its width between a mile and
half a mile. The slanting gold of sunset flooded it. No wind stirred its
crystal surface. Here it had lain since the redskin's god first made
it; here it would lie until he dried it up again. Towering spruce and
hemlock trooped to its very edge, majestic cedars leaned down as if to
drink, crimson sumachs shone in fiery patches, and maples gleamed orange
and red beyond belief. The air was like wine, with the silence of a
dream.
It was here the red men formerly "made medicine," with all the wild
ritual and tribal ceremony of an ancient day. But it was of Morton,
rather than of Indians, that Hyde thought. If this lonely, hidden
paradise was really stiff with big fish, he owed a lot to Morton for the
information. Peace invaded him, but the excitement of the hunter lay
below.
He looked about him with quick, practised eye for a camping-place before
the sun sank below the forests and the half-lights came. The Indian's
shack, lying in full sunshine on the eastern shore, he found at once;
but the trees lay too thick about it for comfort, nor did he wish to be
so close to its inhabitant. Upon the opposite side, however, an ideal
clearing offered. This lay already in shadow, the huge forest darkening
it toward evening; but the open space attracted. He paddled over quickly
and examined it. The ground was hard and dry, he found, and a little
brook ran tinkling down one side of it into the lake. This outfall, too,
would be a good fishing spot. Also it was sheltered. A few low willows
marked the mouth.
An experienced camper soon makes up his mind. It was a perfect site,
and some charred logs, with traces of former fires, proved that he
was not the first to think so. Hyde was delighted. Then, suddenly,
disappointment came to tinge his pleasure. His kit was landed, and
preparations for putting up the tent were begun, when he recalled
a detail that excitement had so far kept in the background of his
mind--Morton's advice. But not Morton's only, for the storekeeper
at Stony Creek had reinforced it. The big fellow with straggling
moustache and stooping shoulders, dressed in shirt and trousers, had
handed him out a final sentence with the bacon, flour, condensed milk,
and sugar. He had repeated Morton's half-forgotten words:
"Put yer tent on the east shore. I should," he had said at parting.
He remembered Morton, too, apparently. "A shortish fellow, brown as an
Indian and fairly smelling of the woods. Travelling with Jake, the
half-breed." That assuredly was Morton. "Didn't stay long, now, did
he?" he added in a reflective tone.
"Going Windy Lake way, are yer? Or Ten Mile Water, maybe?" he had first
inquired of Hyde.
"Medicine Lake."
"Is that so?" the man said, as though he doubted it for some obscure
reason. He pulled at his ragged moustache a moment. "Is that so, now?"
he repeated. And the final words followed him down-stream after a
considerable pause--the advice about the best shore on which to put his
tent.
All this now suddenly flashed back upon Hyde's mind with a tinge of
disappointment and annoyance, for when two experienced men agreed, their
opinion was not to be lightly disregarded. He wished he had asked the
storekeeper for more details. He looked about him, he reflected, he
hesitated. His ideal camping-ground lay certainly on the forbidden
shore. What in the world, he pondered, could be the objection to it?
But the light was fading; he must decide quickly one way or the other.
After staring at his unpacked dunnage and the tent, already half
erected, he made up his mind with a muttered expression that consigned
both Morton and the storekeeper to less pleasant places. "They must have
_some_ reason," he growled to himself; "fellows like that usually know
what they're talking about. I guess I'd better shift over to the other
side--for to-night, at any rate."
He glanced across the water before actually reloading. No smoke rose
from the Indian's shack. He had seen no sign of a canoe. The man, he
decided, was away. Reluctantly, then, he left the good camping-ground
and paddled across the lake, and half an hour later his tent was up,
firewood collected, and two small trout were already caught for supper.
But the bigger fish, he knew, lay waiting for him on the other side by
the little outfall, and he fell asleep at length on his bed of balsam
boughs, annoyed and disappointed, yet wondering how a mere sentence
could have persuaded him so easily against his own better judgment. He
slept like the dead; the sun was well up before he stirred.
But his morning mood was a very different one. The brilliant light, the
peace, the intoxicating air, all this was too exhilarating for the mind
to harbour foolish fancies, and he marvelled that he could have been so
weak the night before. No hesitation lay in him anywhere. He struck camp
immediately after breakfast, paddled back across the strip of shining
water, and quickly settled in upon the forbidden shore, as he now called
it, with a contemptuous grin. And the more he saw of the spot, the
better he liked it. There was plenty of wood, running water to drink,
an open space about the tent, and there were no flies. The fishing,
moreover, was magnificent. Morton's description was fully justified, and
"stiff with big fish" for once was not an exaggeration.
The useless hours of the early afternoon he passed dozing in the sun, or
wandering through the underbrush beyond the camp. He found no sign of
anything unusual. He bathed in a cool, deep pool; he revelled in the
lonely little paradise. Lonely it certainly was, but the loneliness was
part of its charm; the stillness, the peace, the isolation of this
beautiful backwoods lake delighted him. The silence was divine. He was
entirely satisfied.
After a brew of tea, he strolled toward evening along the shore, looking
for the first sign of a rising fish. A faint ripple on the water, with
the lengthening shadows, made good conditions. _Plop_ followed _plop_,
as the big fellows rose, snatched at their food, and vanished into the
depths. He hurried back. Ten minutes later he had taken his rods and was
gliding cautiously in the canoe through the quiet water.
So good was the sport, indeed, and so quickly did the big trout pile up
in the bottom of the canoe that, despite the growing lateness, he found
it hard to tear himself away. "One more," he said, "and then I really
will go." He landed that "one more," and was in act of taking it off the
hook, when the deep silence of the evening was curiously disturbed. He
became abruptly aware that someone watched him. A pair of eyes, it
seemed, were fixed upon him from some point in the surrounding shadows.
Thus, at least, he interpreted the odd disturbance in his happy mood;
for thus he felt it. The feeling stole over him without the slightest
warning. He was not alone. The slippery big trout dropped from his
fingers. He sat motionless, and stared about him.
Nothing stirred; the ripple on the lake had died away; there was no
wind; the forest lay a single purple mass of shadow; the yellow sky,
fast fading, threw reflections that troubled the eye and made distances
uncertain. But there was no sound, no movement; he saw no figure
anywhere. Yet he knew that someone watched him, and a wave of quite
unreasoning terror gripped him. The nose of the canoe was against the
bank. In a moment, and instinctively, he shoved it off and paddled into
deeper water. The watcher, it came to him also instinctively, was quite
close to him upon that bank. But where? And who? Was it the Indian?
Here, in deeper water, and some twenty yards from the shore, he paused
and strained both sight and hearing to find some possible clue. He felt
half ashamed, now that the first strange feeling passed a little. But
the certainty remained. Absurd as it was, he felt positive that someone
watched him with concentrated and intent regard. Every fibre in his
being told him so; and though he could discover no figure, no new
outline on the shore, he could even have sworn in which clump of willow
bushes the hidden person crouched and stared. His attention seemed drawn
to that particular clump.
The water dripped slowly from his paddle, now lying across the thwarts.
There was no other sound. The canvas of his tent gleamed dimly. A star
or two were out. He waited. Nothing happened.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed, and he knew that
the person who had been watching him intently had gone. It was as if a
current had been turned off; the normal world flowed back; the landscape
emptied as if someone had left a room. The disagreeable feeling left him
at the same time, so that he instantly turned the canoe in to the shore
again, landed, and, paddle in hand, went over to examine the clump of
willows he had singled out as the place of concealment. There was no one
there, of course, nor any trace of recent human occupancy. No leaves,
no branches stirred, nor was a single twig displaced; his keen and
practised sight detected no sign of tracks upon the ground. Yet, for all
that, he felt positive that a little time ago someone had crouched among
these very leaves and watched him. He remained absolutely convinced of
it. The watcher, whether Indian, hunter, stray lumberman, or wandering
half-breed, had now withdrawn, a search was useless, and dusk was
falling. He returned to his little camp, more disturbed perhaps than he
cared to acknowledge. He cooked his supper, hung up his catch on a
string, so that no prowling animal could get at it during the night, and
prepared to make himself comfortable until bedtime. Unconsciously, he
built a bigger fire than usual, and found himself peering over his pipe
into the deep shadows beyond the firelight, straining his ears to catch
the slightest sound. He remained generally on the alert in a way that
was new to him.
A man under such conditions and in such a place need not know discomfort
until the sense of loneliness strikes him as too vivid a reality.
Loneliness in a backwoods camp brings charm, pleasure, and a happy sense
of calm until, and unless, it comes too near. It should remain an
ingredient only among other conditions; it should not be directly,
vividly noticed. Once it has crept within short range, however, it may
easily cross the narrow line between comfort and discomfort, and
darkness is an undesirable time for the transition. A curious dread may
easily follow--the dread lest the loneliness suddenly be disturbed, and
the solitary human feel himself open to attack.
For Hyde, now, this transition had been already accomplished; the too
intimate sense of his loneliness had shifted abruptly into the worse
condition of no longer being quite alone. It was an awkward moment, and
the hotel clerk realized his position exactly. He did not quite like it.
He sat there, with his back to the blazing logs, a very visible object
in the light, while all about him the darkness of the forest lay like an
impenetrable wall. He could not see a foot beyond the small circle of
his camp-fire; the silence about him was like the silence of the dead.
No leaf rustled, no wave lapped; he himself sat motionless as a log.
Then again he became suddenly aware that the person who watched him had
returned, and that same intent and concentrated gaze as before was fixed
upon him where he lay. There was no warning; he heard no stealthy tread
or snapping of dry twigs, yet the owner of those steady eyes was very
close to him, probably not a dozen feet away. This sense of proximity
was overwhelming.
It is unquestionable that a shiver ran down his spine. This time,
moreover, he felt positive that the man crouched just beyond the
firelight, the distance he himself could see being nicely calculated,
and straight in front of him. For some minutes he sat without stirring a
single muscle, yet with each muscle ready and alert, straining his eyes
in vain to pierce the darkness, but only succeeding in dazzling his
sight with the reflected light. Then, as he shifted his position slowly,
cautiously, to obtain another angle of vision, his heart gave two big
thumps against his ribs and the hair seemed to rise on his scalp with
the sense of cold that shot horribly up his spine. In the darkness
facing him he saw two small and greenish circles that were certainly
a pair of eyes, yet not the eyes of Indian, hunter, or of any human
being. It was a pair of animal eyes that stared so fixedly at him out of
the night. And this certainly had an immediate and natural effect upon
him.
For, at the menace of those eyes, the fears of millions of long dead
hunters since the dawn of time woke in him. Hotel clerk though he was,
heredity surged through him in an automatic wave of instinct. His hand
groped for a weapon. His fingers fell on the iron head of his small camp
axe, and at once he was himself again. Confidence returned; the vague,
superstitious dread was gone. This was a bear or wolf that smelt
his catch and came to steal it. With beings of that sort he knew
instinctively how to deal, yet admitting, by this very instinct, that
his original dread had been of quite another kind.
"I'll damned quick find out what it is," he exclaimed aloud, and
snatching a burning brand from the fire, he hurled it with good aim
straight at the eyes of the beast before him.
The bit of pitch-pine fell in a shower of sparks that lit the dry grass
this side of the animal, flared up a moment, then died quickly down
again. But in that instant of bright illumination he saw clearly what
his unwelcome visitor was. A big timber wolf sat on its hindquarters,
staring steadily at him through the firelight. He saw its legs and
shoulders, he saw its hair, he saw also the big hemlock trunks lit up
behind it, and the willow scrub on each side. It formed a vivid,
clear-cut picture shown in clear detail by the momentary blaze. To his
amazement, however, the wolf did not turn and bolt away from the burning
log, but withdrew a few yards only, and sat there again on its haunches,
staring, staring as before. Heavens, how it stared! He "shoo-ed" it, but
without effect; it did not budge. He did not waste another good log on
it, for his fear was dissipated now; a timber wolf was a timber wolf,
and it might sit there as long as it pleased, provided it did not try to
steal his catch. No alarm was in him any more. He knew that wolves were
harmless in the summer and autumn, and even when "packed" in the winter,
they would attack a man only when suffering desperate hunger. So he lay
and watched the beast, threw bits of stick in its direction, even talked
to it, wondering only that it never moved. "You can stay there for ever,
if you like," he remarked to it aloud, "for you cannot get at my fish,
and the rest of the grub I shall take into the tent with me!"
The creature blinked its bright green eyes, but made no move.
Why, then, if his fear was gone, did he think of certain things as he
rolled himself in the Hudson Bay blankets before going to sleep? The
immobility of the animal was strange, its refusal to turn and bolt was
still stranger. Never before had he known a wild creature that was not
afraid of fire. Why did it sit and watch him, as with purpose in its
dreadful eyes? How had he felt its presence earlier and instantly? A
timber wolf, especially a solitary timber wolf, was a timid thing, yet
this one feared neither man nor fire. Now, as he lay there wrapped in
his blankets inside the cosy tent, it sat outside beneath the stars,
beside the fading embers, the wind chilly in its fur, the ground cooling
beneath its planted paws, watching him, steadily watching him, perhaps
until the dawn.
It was unusual, it was strange. Having neither imagination nor
tradition, he called upon no store of racial visions. Matter of fact, a
hotel clerk on a fishing holiday, he lay there in his blankets, merely
wondering and puzzled. A timber wolf was a timber wolf and nothing more.
Yet this timber wolf--the idea haunted him--was different. In a word,
the deeper part of his original uneasiness remained. He tossed about, he
shivered sometimes in his broken sleep; he did not go out to see, but he
woke early and unrefreshed.
Again, with the sunshine and the morning wind, however, the incident of
the night before was forgotten, almost unreal. His hunting zeal was
uppermost. The tea and fish were delicious, his pipe had never tasted so
good, the glory of this lonely lake amid primeval forests went to his
head a little; he was a hunter before the Lord, and nothing else. He
tried the edge of the lake, and in the excitement of playing a big fish,
knew suddenly that _it_, the wolf, was there. He paused with the rod,
exactly as if struck. He looked about him, he looked in a definite
direction. The brilliant sunshine made every smallest detail clear and
sharp--boulders of granite, burned stems, crimson sumach, pebbles along
the shore in neat, separate detail--without revealing where the watcher
hid. Then, his sight wandering farther inshore among the tangled
undergrowth, he suddenly picked up the familiar, half-expected outline.
The wolf was lying behind a granite boulder, so that only the head, the
muzzle, and the eyes were visible. It merged in its background. Had he
not known it was a wolf, he could never have separated it from the
landscape. The eyes shone in the sunlight.
There it lay. He looked straight at it. Their eyes, in fact, actually
met full and square. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed aloud, "why, it's like
looking at a human being!" From that moment, unwittingly, he established
a singular personal relation with the beast. And what followed confirmed
this undesirable impression, for the animal rose instantly and came down
in leisurely fashion to the shore, where it stood looking back at him.
It stood and stared into his eyes like some great wild dog, so that he
was aware of a new and almost incredible sensation--that it courted
recognition.
"Well! well!" he exclaimed again, relieving his feelings by addressing
it aloud, "if this doesn't beat everything I ever saw! What d'you want,
anyway?"
He examined it now more carefully. He had never seen a wolf so big
before; it was a tremendous beast, a nasty customer to tackle, he
reflected, if it ever came to that. It stood there absolutely fearless
and full of confidence. In the clear sunlight he took in every detail of
it--a huge, shaggy, lean-flanked timber wolf, its wicked eyes staring
straight into his own, almost with a kind of purpose in them. He saw its
great jaws, its teeth, and its tongue, hung out, dropping saliva a
little. And yet the idea of its savagery, its fierceness, was very
little in him.
He was amazed and puzzled beyond belief. He wished the Indian would come
back. He did not understand this strange behaviour in an animal. Its
eyes, the odd expression in them, gave him a queer, unusual, difficult
feeling. Had his nerves gone wrong, he almost wondered.
The beast stood on the shore and looked at him. He wished for the first
time that he had brought a rifle. With a resounding smack he brought his
paddle down flat upon the water, using all his strength, till the echoes
rang as from a pistol-shot that was audible from one end of the lake to
the other. The wolf never stirred. He shouted, but the beast remained
unmoved. He blinked his eyes, speaking as to a dog, a domestic animal,
a creature accustomed to human ways. It blinked its eyes in return.
At length, increasing his distance from the shore, he continued fishing,
and the excitement of the marvellous sport held his attention--his
surface attention, at any rate. At times he almost forgot the attendant
beast; yet whenever he looked up, he saw it there. And worse; when he
slowly paddled home again, he observed it trotting along the shore as
though to keep him company. Crossing a little bay, he spurted, hoping to
reach the other point before his undesired and undesirable attendant.
Instantly the brute broke into that rapid, tireless lope that, except on
ice, can run down anything on four legs in the woods. When he reached
the distant point, the wolf was waiting for him. He raised his paddle
from the water, pausing a moment for reflection; for this very close
attention--there were dusk and night yet to come--he certainly did not
relish. His camp was near; he had to land; he felt uncomfortable even
in the sunshine of broad day, when, to his keen relief, about half a
mile from the tent, he saw the creature suddenly stop and sit down in
the open. He waited a moment, then paddled on. It did not follow. There
was no attempt to move; it merely sat and watched him. After a few
hundred yards, he looked back. It was still sitting where he left it.
And the absurd, yet significant, feeling came to him that the beast
divined his thought, his anxiety, his dread, and was now showing him, as
well as it could, that it entertained no hostile feeling and did not
meditate attack.
He turned the canoe toward the shore; he landed; he cooked his supper in
the dusk; the animal made no sign. Not far away it certainly lay and
watched, but it did not advance. And to Hyde, observant now in a new
way, came one sharp, vivid reminder of the strange atmosphere into which
his commonplace personality had strayed: he suddenly recalled that his
relations with the beast, already established, had progressed distinctly
a stage further. This startled him, yet without the accompanying
alarm he must certainly have felt twenty-four hours before. He had an
understanding with the wolf. He was aware of friendly thoughts toward
it. He even went so far as to set out a few big fish on the spot where
he had first seen it sitting the previous night. "If he comes," he
thought, "he is welcome to them. I've got plenty, anyway." He thought of
it now as "he."
Yet the wolf made no appearance until he was in the act of entering
his tent a good deal later. It was close on ten o'clock, whereas nine
was his hour, and late at that, for turning in. He had, therefore,
unconsciously been waiting for him. Then, as he was closing the flap, he
saw the eyes close to where he had placed the fish. He waited, hiding
himself, and expecting to hear sounds of munching jaws; but all was
silence. Only the eyes glowed steadily out of the background of pitch
darkness. He closed the flap. He had no slightest fear. In ten minutes
he was sound asleep.
He could not have slept very long, for when he woke up he could see the
shine of a faint red light through the canvas, and the fire had not died
down completely. He rose and cautiously peeped out. The air was very
cold; he saw his breath. But he also saw the wolf, for it had come in,
and was sitting by the dying embers, not two yards away from where he
crouched behind the flap. And this time, at these very close quarters,
there was something in the attitude of the big wild thing that caught
his attention with a vivid thrill of startled surprise and a sudden
shock of cold that held him spellbound. He stared, unable to believe his
eyes; for the wolf's attitude conveyed to him something familiar that at
first he was unable to explain. Its pose reached him in the terms of
another thing with which he was entirely at home. What was it? Did his
senses betray him? Was he still asleep and dreaming?
Then, suddenly, with a start of uncanny recognition, he knew. Its
attitude was that of a dog. Having found the clue, his mind then made
an awful leap. For it was, after all, no dog its appearance aped, but
something nearer to himself, and more familiar still. Good heavens!
It sat there with the pose, the attitude, the gesture in repose of
something almost human. And then, with a second shock of biting wonder,
it came to him like a revelation. The wolf sat beside that camp-fire as
a man might sit.
Before he could weigh his extraordinary discovery, before he could
examine it in detail or with care, the animal, sitting in this ghastly
fashion, seemed to feel his eyes fixed on it. It slowly turned and
looked him in the face, and for the first time Hyde felt a full-blooded,
superstitious fear flood through his entire being. He seemed transfixed
with that nameless terror that is said to attack human beings who
suddenly face the dead, finding themselves bereft of speech and
movement. This moment of paralysis certainly occurred. Its passing,
however, was as singular as its advent. For almost at once he was aware
of something beyond and above this mockery of human attitude and pose,
something that ran along unaccustomed nerves and reached his feeling,
even perhaps his heart. The revulsion was extraordinary, its result
still more extraordinary and unexpected. Yet the fact remains. He was
aware of another thing that had the effect of stilling his terror as
soon as it was born. He was aware of appeal, silent, half expressed,
yet vastly pathetic. He saw in the savage eyes a beseeching, even a
yearning, expression that changed his mood as by magic from dread to
natural sympathy. The great grey brute, symbol of cruel ferocity, sat
there beside his dying fire and appealed for help.
This gulf betwixt animal and human seemed in that instant bridged. It
was, of course, incredible. Hyde, sleep still possibly clinging to his
inner being with the shades and half shapes of dream yet about his
soul, acknowledged, how he knew not, the amazing fact. He found himself
nodding to the brute in half consent, and instantly, without more ado,
the lean grey shape rose like a wraith and trotted off swiftly, but with
stealthy tread, into the background of the night.
When Hyde woke in the morning his first impression was that he must have
dreamed the entire incident. His practical nature asserted itself. There
was a bite in the fresh autumn air; the bright sun allowed no half
lights anywhere; he felt brisk in mind and body. Reviewing what had
happened, he came to the conclusion that it was utterly vain to
speculate; no possible explanation of the animal's behaviour occurred to
him; he was dealing with something entirely outside his experience. His
fear, however, had completely left him. The odd sense of friendliness
remained. The beast had a definite purpose, and he himself was included
in that purpose. His sympathy held good.
But with the sympathy there was also an intense curiosity. "If it shows
itself again," he told himself, "I'll go up close and find out what it
wants." The fish laid out the night before had not been touched.
It must have been a full hour after breakfast when he next saw the
brute; it was standing on the edge of the clearing, looking at him in
the way now become familiar. Hyde immediately picked up his axe and
advanced toward it boldly, keeping his eyes fixed straight upon its own.
There was nervousness in him, but kept well under; nothing betrayed it;
step by step he drew nearer until some ten yards separated them. The
wolf had not stirred a muscle as yet. Its jaws hung open, its eyes
observed him intently; it allowed him to approach without a sign of what
its mood might be. Then, with these ten yards between them, it turned
abruptly and moved slowly off, looking back first over one shoulder and
then over the other, exactly as a dog might do, to see if he was
following.
A singular journey it was they then made together, animal and man. The
trees surrounded them at once, for they left the lake behind them,
entering the tangled bush beyond. The beast, Hyde noticed, obviously
picked the easiest track for him to follow; for obstacles that meant
nothing to the four-legged expert, yet were difficult for a man, were
carefully avoided with an almost uncanny skill, while yet the general
direction was accurately kept. Occasionally there were windfalls to be
surmounted; but though the wolf bounded over these with ease, it was
always waiting for the man on the other side after he had laboriously
climbed over. Deeper and deeper into the heart of the lonely forest
they penetrated in this singular fashion, cutting across the arc of the
lake's crescent, it seemed to Hyde; for after two miles or so, he
recognized the big rocky bluff that overhung the water at its northern
end. This outstanding bluff he had seen from his camp, one side of it
falling sheer into the water; it was probably the spot, he imagined,
where the Indians held their medicine-making ceremonies, for it stood
out in isolated fashion, and its top formed a private plateau not easy
of access. And it was here, close to a big spruce at the foot of the
bluff upon the forest side, that the wolf stopped suddenly and for the
first time since its appearance gave audible expression to its feelings.
It sat down on its haunches, lifted its muzzle with open jaws, and gave
vent to a subdued and long-drawn howl that was more like the wail of a
dog than the fierce barking cry associated with a wolf.
By this time Hyde had lost not only fear, but caution too; nor, oddly
enough, did this warning howl revive a sign of unwelcome emotion in
him. In that curious sound he detected the same message that the eyes
conveyed--appeal for help. He paused, nevertheless, a little startled,
and while the wolf sat waiting for him, he looked about him quickly.
There was young timber here; it had once been a small clearing,
evidently. Axe and fire had done their work, but there was evidence to
an experienced eye that it was Indians and not white men who had once
been busy here. Some part of the medicine ritual, doubtless, took place
in the little clearing, thought the man, as he advanced again towards
his patient leader. The end of their queer journey, he felt, was close
at hand.
He had not taken two steps before the animal got up and moved very
slowly in the direction of some low bushes that formed a clump just
beyond. It entered these, first looking back to make sure that its
companion watched. The bushes hid it; a moment later it emerged again.
Twice it performed this pantomime, each time, as it reappeared, standing
still and staring at the man with as distinct an expression of appeal in
the eyes as an animal may compass, probably. Its excitement, meanwhile,
certainly increased, and this excitement was, with equal certainty,
communicated to the man. Hyde made up his mind quickly. Gripping his axe
tightly, and ready to use it at the first hint of malice, he moved
slowly nearer to the bushes, wondering with something of a tremor what
would happen.
If he expected to be startled, his expectation was at once fulfilled;
but it was the behaviour of the beast that made him jump. It positively
frisked about him like a happy dog. It frisked for joy. Its excitement
was intense, yet from its open mouth no sound was audible. With a sudden
leap, then, it bounded past him into the clump of bushes, against whose
very edge he stood, and began scraping vigorously at the ground. Hyde
stood and stared, amazement and interest now banishing all his
nervousness, even when the beast, in its violent scraping, actually
touched his body with its own. He had, perhaps, the feeling that he was
in a dream, one of those fantastic dreams in which things may happen
without involving an adequate surprise; for otherwise the manner of
scraping and scratching at the ground must have seemed an impossible
phenomenon. No wolf, no dog certainly, used its paws in the way those
paws were working. Hyde had the odd, distressing sensation that it was
hands, not paws, he watched. And yet, somehow, the natural, adequate
surprise he should have felt was absent. The strange action seemed not
entirely unnatural. In his heart some deep hidden spring of sympathy and
pity stirred instead. He was aware of pathos.
The wolf stopped in its task and looked up into his face. Hyde acted
without hesitation then. Afterwards he was wholly at a loss to explain
his own conduct. It seemed he knew what to do, divined what was asked,
expected of him. Between his mind and the dumb desire yearning through
the savage animal there was intelligent and intelligible communication.
He cut a stake and sharpened it, for the stones would blunt his
axe-edge. He entered the clump of bushes to complete the digging his
four-legged companion had begun. And while he worked, though he did not
forget the close proximity of the wolf, he paid no attention to it;
often his back was turned as he stooped over the laborious clearing
away of the hard earth; no uneasiness or sense of danger was in him any
more. The wolf sat outside the clump and watched the operations. Its
concentrated attention, its patience, its intense eagerness, the
gentleness and docility of the grey, fierce, and probably hungry brute,
its obvious pleasure and satisfaction, too, at having won the human to
its mysterious purpose--these were colours in the strange picture that
Hyde thought of later when dealing with the human herd in his hotel
again. At the moment he was aware chiefly of pathos and affection. The
whole business was, of course, not to be believed, but that discovery
came later, too, when telling it to others.
The digging continued for fully half an hour before his labour was
rewarded by the discovery of a small whitish object. He picked it up and
examined it--the finger-bone of a man. Other discoveries then followed
quickly and in quantity. The _cache_ was laid bare. He collected nearly
the complete skeleton. The skull, however, he found last, and might not
have found at all but for the guidance of his strangely alert companion.
It lay some few yards away from the central hole now dug, and the wolf
stood nuzzling the ground with its nose before Hyde understood that he
was meant to dig exactly in that spot for it. Between the beast's very
paws his stake struck hard upon it. He scraped the earth from the bone
and examined it carefully. It was perfect, save for the fact that some
wild animal had gnawed it, the teeth-marks being still plainly visible.
Close beside it lay the rusty iron head of a tomahawk. This and the
smallness of the bones confirmed him in his judgment that it was the
skeleton not of a white man, but of an Indian.
During the excitement of the discovery of the bones one by one, and
finally of the skull, but, more especially, during the period of intense
interest while Hyde was examining them, he had paid little, if any,
attention to the wolf. He was aware that it sat and watched him, never
moving its keen eyes for a single moment from the actual operations, but
of sign or movement it made none at all. He knew that it was pleased and
satisfied, he knew also that he had now fulfilled its purpose in a great
measure. The further intuition that now came to him, derived, he felt
positive, from his companion's dumb desire, was perhaps the cream of the
entire experience to him. Gathering the bones together in his coat, he
carried them, together with the tomahawk, to the foot of the big spruce
where the animal had first stopped. His leg actually touched the
creature's muzzle as he passed. It turned its head to watch, but did not
follow, nor did it move a muscle while he prepared the platform of
boughs upon which he then laid the poor worn bones of an Indian who had
been killed, doubtless, in sudden attack or ambush, and to whose remains
had been denied the last grace of proper tribal burial. He wrapped the
bones in bark; he laid the tomahawk beside the skull; he lit the
circular fire round the pyre, and the blue smoke rose upward into the
clear bright sunshine of the Canadian autumn morning till it was lost
among the mighty trees far overhead.
In the moment before actually lighting the little fire he had turned to
note what his companion did. It sat five yards away, he saw, gazing
intently, and one of its front paws was raised a little from the ground.
It made no sign of any kind. He finished the work, becoming so absorbed
in it that he had eyes for nothing but the tending and guarding of his
careful ceremonial fire. It was only when the platform of boughs
collapsed, laying their charred burden gently on the fragrant earth
among the soft wood ashes, that he turned again, as though to show the
wolf what he had done, and seek, perhaps, some look of satisfaction in
its curiously expressive eyes. But the place he searched was empty. The
wolf had gone.
He did not see it again; it gave no sign of its presence anywhere; he
was not watched. He fished as before, wandered through the bush about
his camp, sat smoking round his fire after dark, and slept peacefully
in his cosy little tent. He was not disturbed. No howl was ever audible
in the distant forest, no twig snapped beneath a stealthy tread, he saw
no eyes. The wolf that behaved like a man had gone for ever.
It was the day before he left that Hyde, noticing smoke rising from the
shack across the lake, paddled over to exchange a word or two with the
Indian, who had evidently now returned. The Redskin came down to meet
him as he landed, but it was soon plain that he spoke very little
English. He emitted the familiar grunts at first; then bit by bit Hyde
stirred his limited vocabulary into action. The net result, however, was
slight enough, though it was certainly direct:
"You camp there?" the man asked, pointing to the other side.
"Yes."
"Wolf come?"
"Yes."
"You see wolf?"
"Yes."
The Indian stared at him fixedly a moment, a keen, wondering look upon
his coppery, creased face.
"You 'fraid wolf?" he asked after a moment's pause.
"No," replied Hyde, truthfully. He knew it was useless to ask questions
of his own, though he was eager for information. The other would have
told him nothing. It was sheer luck that the man had touched on the
subject at all, and Hyde realized that his own best rôle was merely to
answer, but to ask no questions. Then, suddenly, the Indian became
comparatively voluble. There was awe in his voice and manner.
"Him no wolf. Him big medicine wolf. Him spirit wolf."
Whereupon he drank the tea the other had brewed for him, closed his lips
tightly, and said no more. His outline was discernible on the shore,
rigid and motionless, an hour later, when Hyde's canoe turned the
corner of the lake three miles away, and landed to make the portages up
the first rapid of his homeward stream.
It was Morton who, after some persuasion, supplied further details
of what he called the legend. Some hundred years before, the tribe
that lived in the territory beyond the lake began their annual
medicine-making ceremonies on the big rocky bluff at the northern end;
but no medicine could be made. The spirits, declared the chief medicine
man, would not answer. They were offended. An investigation followed. It
was discovered that a young brave had recently killed a wolf, a thing
strictly forbidden, since the wolf was the totem animal of the tribe. To
make matters worse, the name of the guilty man was Running Wolf. The
offence being unpardonable, the man was cursed and driven from the
tribe:
"Go out. Wander alone among the woods, and if we see you we slay you.
Your bones shall be scattered in the forest, and your spirit shall not
enter the Happy Hunting Grounds till one of another race shall find and
bury them."
"Which meant," explained Morton laconically, his only comment on the
story, "probably for ever."
IV
FIRST HATE
They had been shooting all day; the weather had been perfect and the
powder straight, so that when they assembled in the smoking-room after
dinner they were well pleased with themselves. From discussing the day's
sport and the weather outlook, the conversation drifted to other, though
still cognate, fields. Lawson, the crack shot of the party, mentioned
the instinctive recognition all animals feel for their natural enemies,
and gave several instances in which he had tested it--tame rats with a
ferret, birds with a snake, and so forth.
"Even after being domesticated for generations," he said, "they
recognize their natural enemy at once by instinct, an enemy they can
never even have seen before. It's infallible. They know instantly."
"Undoubtedly," said a voice from the corner chair; "and so do we."
The speaker was Ericssen, their host, a great hunter before the Lord,
generally uncommunicative but a good listener, leaving the talk to
others. For this latter reason, as well as for a certain note of
challenge in his voice, his abrupt statement gained attention.
"What do you mean exactly by 'so do we'?" asked three men together,
after waiting some seconds to see whether he meant to elaborate, which
he evidently did not.
"We belong to the animal kingdom, of course," put in a fourth, for
behind the challenge there obviously lay a story, though a story that
might be difficult to drag out of him. It was.
Ericssen, who had leaned forward a moment so that his strong, humorous
face was in clear light, now sank back again into his chair, his
expression concealed by the red lampshade at his side. The light played
tricks, obliterating the humorous, almost tender lines, while
emphasizing the strength of the jaw and nose. The red glare lent to the
whole a rather grim expression.
Lawson, man of authority among them, broke the little pause.
"You're dead right," he observed, "but how do you know it?"--for John
Ericssen never made a positive statement without a good reason for it.
That good reason, he felt sure, involved a personal proof, but a story
Ericssen would never tell before a general audience. He would tell it
later, however, when the others had left. "There's such a thing as
instinctive antipathy, of course," he added, with a laugh, looking
around him. "That's what you mean probably."
"I meant exactly what I said," replied the host bluntly. "There's first
love. There's first hate, too."
"Hate's a strong word," remarked Lawson.
"So is love," put in another.
"Hate's strongest," said Ericssen grimly. "In the animal kingdom, at
least," he added suggestively, and then kept his lips closed, except to
sip his liquor, for the rest of the evening--until the party at length
broke up, leaving Lawson and one other man, both old trusted friends of
many years' standing.
"It's not a tale I'd tell to everybody," he began, when they were alone.
"It's true, for one thing; for another, you see, some of those good
fellows"--he indicated the empty chairs with an expressive nod of his
great head--"some of 'em knew him. You both knew him too, probably."
"The man you hated," said the understanding Lawson.
"And who hated me," came the quiet confirmation. "My other reason," he
went on, "for keeping quiet was that the tale involves my wife."
The two listeners said nothing, but each remembered the curiously long
courtship that had been the prelude to his marriage. No engagement had
been announced, the pair were devoted to one another, there was no known
rival on either side; yet the courtship continued without coming to its
expected conclusion. Many stories were afloat in consequence. It was a
social mystery that intrigued the gossips.
"I may tell you two," Ericssen continued, "the reason my wife refused
for so long to marry me. It is hard to believe, perhaps, but it is true.
Another man wished to make her his wife, and she would not consent to
marry me until that other man was dead. Quixotic, absurd, unreasonable?
If you like. I'll tell you what she said." He looked up with a
significant expression in his face which proved that he, at least, did
not now judge her reason foolish. "'Because it would be murder,' she
told me. 'Another man who wants to marry me would kill you.'"
"She had some proof for the assertion, no doubt?" suggested Lawson.
"None whatever," was the reply. "Merely her woman's instinct. Moreover,
_I_ did not know who the other man was, nor would she ever tell me."
"Otherwise you might have murdered him instead?" said Baynes, the second
listener.
"I did," said Ericssen grimly. "But without knowing he was the man." He
sipped his whisky and relit his pipe. The others waited.
"Our marriage took place two months later--just after Hazel's
disappearance."
"Hazel?" exclaimed Lawson and Baynes in a single breath. "Hazel! Member
of the Hunters!" His mysterious disappearance had been a nine days'
wonder some ten years ago. It had never been explained. They had all
been members of the Hunters' Club together.
"That's the chap," Ericssen said. "Now I'll tell you the tale, if you
care to hear it." They settled back in their chairs to listen, and
Ericssen, who had evidently never told the affair to another living soul
except his own wife, doubtless, seemed glad this time to tell it to two
men.
"It began some dozen years ago when my brother Jack and I came home from
a shooting trip in China. I've often told you about our adventures
there, and you see the heads hanging up here in the smoking-room--some
of 'em." He glanced round proudly at the walls. "We were glad to be in
town again after two years' roughing it, and we looked forward to our
first good dinner at the club, to make up for the rotten cooking we had
endured so long. We had ordered that dinner in anticipatory detail many
a time together. Well, we had it and enjoyed it up to a point--the point
of the _entrée_, to be exact.
"Up to that point it was delicious, and we let ourselves go, I can tell
you. We had ordered the very wine we had planned months before when we
were snow-bound and half starving in the mountains." He smacked his lips
as he mentioned it. "I was just starting on a beautifully cooked
grouse," he went on, "when a figure went by our table, and Jack looked
up and nodded. The two exchanged a brief word of greeting and
explanation, and the other man passed on. Evidently they knew each other
just enough to make a word or two necessary, but enough.
"'Who's that?' I asked.
"'A new member, named Hazel,' Jack told me. 'A great shot.' He knew him
slightly, he explained; he had once been a client of his--Jack was a
barrister, you remember--and had defended him in some financial case or
other. Rather an unpleasant case, he added. Jack did not 'care about'
the fellow, he told me, as he went on with his tender wing of grouse."
Ericssen paused to relight his pipe a moment.
"Not care about him!" he continued. "It didn't surprise me, for my own
feeling, the instant I set eyes on the fellow, was one of violent,
instinctive dislike that amounted to loathing. Loathing! No. I'll give
it the right word--hatred. I simply couldn't help myself; I hated the
man from the very first go off. A wave of repulsion swept over me as I
followed him down the room a moment with my eyes, till he took his seat
at a distant table and was out of sight. Ugh! He was a big, fat-faced
man, with an eyeglass glued into one of his pale-blue cod-like eyes--out
of condition, ugly as a toad, with a smug expression of intense
self-satisfaction on his jowl that made me long to----
"I leave it to you to guess what I would have liked to do to him. But
the instinctive loathing he inspired in me had another aspect, too. Jack
had not introduced us during the momentary pause beside our table, but
as I looked up I caught the fellow's eye on mine--he was glaring at
me instead of at Jack, to whom he was talking--with an expression of
malignant dislike, as keen evidently as my own. That's the other aspect
I meant. He hated me as violently as I hated him. We were instinctive
enemies, just as the rat and ferret are instinctive enemies. Each
recognized a mortal foe. It was a case--I swear it--of whoever got first
chance."
"Bad as that!" exclaimed Baynes. "I knew him by sight. He wasn't pretty,
I'll admit."
"I knew him to nod to," Lawson mentioned. "I never heard anything
particular against him." He shrugged his shoulders.
Ericssen went on. "It was not his character or qualities I hated," he
said. "I didn't even know them. That's the whole point. There's no
reason you fellows should have disliked him. _My_ hatred--our mutual
hatred--was instinctive, as instinctive as first love. A man knows his
natural mate; also he knows his natural enemy. I did, at any rate, both
with him and with my wife. Given the chance, Hazel would have done me
in; just as surely, given the chance, I would have done him in. No
blame to either of us, what's more, in my opinion."
"I've felt dislike, but never hatred like that," Baynes mentioned. "I
came across it in a book once, though. The writer did not mention the
instinctive fear of the human animal for its natural enemy, or anything
of that sort. He thought it was a continuance of a bitter feud begun in
an earlier existence. He called it memory."
"Possibly," said Ericssen briefly. "My mind is not speculative. But I'm
glad you spoke of fear. I left that out. The truth is, I feared the
fellow, too, in a way; and had we ever met face to face in some wild
country without witnesses I should have felt justified in drawing on him
at sight, and he would have felt the same. Murder? If you like. I should
call it self-defence. Anyhow, the fellow polluted the room for me. He
spoilt the enjoyment of that dinner we had ordered months before in
China."
"But you saw him again, of course, later?"
"Lots of times. Not that night, because we went on to a theatre. But in
the club we were always running across one another--in the houses of
friends at lunch or dinner; at race meetings; all over the place; in
fact, I even had some trouble to avoid being introduced to him. And
every time we met our eyes betrayed us. He felt in his heart what I felt
in mine. Ugh! He was as loathsome to me as leprosy, and as dangerous.
Odd, isn't it? The most intense feeling, except love, I've ever known. I
remember"--he laughed gruffly--"I used to feel quite sorry for him. If
he felt what I felt, and I'm convinced he did, he must have suffered.
His one object--to get me out of the way for good--was so impossible.
Then Fate played a hand in the game. I'll tell you how.
"My brother died a year or two later, and I went abroad to try and
forget it. I went salmon fishing in Canada. But, though the sport was
good, it was not like the old times with Jack. The camp never felt the
same without him. I missed him badly. But I forgot Hazel for the time;
hating did not seem worth while, somehow.
"When the best of the fishing was over on the Atlantic side, I took a
run back to Vancouver and fished there for a bit. I went up the Campbell
River, which was not so crowded then as it is now, and had some rattling
sport. Then I grew tired of the rod and decided to go after wapiti for a
change. I came back to Victoria and learned what I could about the best
places, and decided finally to go up the west coast of the island. By
luck I happened to pick up a good guide, who was in the town at the
moment on business, and we started off together in one of the little
Canadian Pacific Railway boats that ply along that coast.
"Outfitting two days later at a small place the steamer stopped at, the
guide said we needed another man to help pack our kit over portages,
and so forth, but the only fellow available was a Siwash of whom he
disapproved. My guide would not have him at any price; he was lazy, a
drunkard, a liar, and even worse, for on one occasion he came back
without the sportsman he had taken up country on a shooting trip, and
his story was not convincing, to say the least. These disappearances are
always awkward, of course, as you both know. We preferred, anyhow, to go
without the Siwash, and off we started.
"At first our luck was bad. I saw many wapiti, but no good heads; only
after a fortnight's hunting did I manage to get a decent head, though
even that was not so good as I should have liked.
"We were then near the head waters of a little river that ran down into
the Inlet; heavy rains had made the river rise; running downstream was a
risky job, what with old log-jams shifting and new ones forming; and,
after many narrow escapes, we upset one afternoon and had the misfortune
to lose a lot of our kit, amongst it most of our cartridges. We could
only muster a few between us. The guide had a dozen; I had two--just
enough, we considered, to take us out all right. Still, it was an
infernal nuisance. We camped at once to dry out our soaked things in
front of a big fire, and while this laundry work was going on, the guide
suggested my filling in the time by taking a look at the next little
valley, which ran parallel to ours. He had seen some good heads over
there a few weeks ago. Possibly I might come upon the herd. I started at
once, taking my two cartridges with me.
"It was the devil of a job getting over the divide, for it was a badly
bushed-up place, and where there were no bushes there were boulders and
fallen trees, and the going was slow and tiring. But I got across at
last and came out upon another stream at the bottom of the new valley.
Signs of wapiti were plentiful, though I never came up with a single
beast all the afternoon. Blacktail deer were everywhere, but the wapiti
remained invisible. Providence, or whatever you like to call that which
there is no escaping in our lives, made me save my two cartridges."
Ericssen stopped a minute then. It was not to light his pipe or sip his
whisky. Nor was it because the remainder of his story failed in the
recollection of any vivid detail. He paused a moment to think.
"Tell us the lot," pleaded Lawson. "Don't leave out anything."
Ericssen looked up. His friend's remark had helped him to make up his
mind apparently. He _had_ hesitated about something or other, but the
hesitation passed. He glanced at both his listeners.
"Right," he said. "I'll tell you everything. I'm not imaginative, as you
know, and my amount of superstition, I should judge, is microscopic." He
took a longer breath, then lowered his voice a trifle. "Anyhow," he went
on, "it's true, so I don't see why I should feel shy about admitting
it--but as I stood there in that lonely valley, where only the noises of
wind and water were audible, and no human being, except my guide, some
miles away, was within reach, a curious feeling came over me I find
difficult to describe. I felt"--obviously he made an effort to get the
word out--"I felt creepy."
"You," murmured Lawson, with an incredulous smile--"you creepy?" he
repeated under his breath.
"I felt creepy and afraid," continued the other, with conviction. "I
had the sensation of being seen by someone--as if someone, I mean,
was watching me. It was so unlikely that anyone was near me in that
God-forsaken bit of wilderness, that I simply couldn't believe it at
first. But the feeling persisted. I felt absolutely positive somebody
was not far away among the red maples, behind a boulder, across the
little stream, perhaps, somewhere, at any rate, so near that I was
plainly visible to him. It was not an animal. It was human. Also, it
was hostile.
"I was in danger.
"You may laugh, both of you, but I assure you the feeling was so
positive that I crouched down instinctively to hide myself behind a
rock. My first thought, that the guide had followed me for some reason
or other, I at once discarded. It was not the guide. It was an enemy.
"No, no, I thought of no one in particular. No name, no face occurred to
me. Merely that an enemy was on my trail, that he saw me, and I did not
see him, and that he was near enough to me to--well, to take instant
action. This deep instinctive feeling of danger, of fear, of anything
you like to call it, was simply overwhelming.
"Another curious detail I must also mention. About half an hour before,
having given up all hope of seeing wapiti, I had decided to kill a
blacktail deer for meat. A good shot offered itself, not thirty yards
away. I aimed. But just as I was going to pull the trigger a queer
emotion touched me, and I lowered the rifle. It was exactly as though a
voice said, 'Don't!' I heard no voice, mind you; it was an emotion only,
a feeling, a sudden inexplicable change of mind--a warning, if you
like. I didn't fire, anyhow.
"But now, as I crouched behind that rock, I remembered this curious
little incident, and was glad I had not used up my last two cartridges.
More than that I cannot tell you. Things of that kind are new to me.
They're difficult enough to tell, let alone to explain. But they were
_real_.
"I crouched there, wondering what on earth was happening to me, and,
feeling a bit of a fool, if you want to know, when suddenly, over the
top of the boulder, I saw something moving. It was a man's hat. I peered
cautiously. Some sixty yards away the bushes parted, and two men came
out on to the river's bank, and I knew them both. One was the Siwash I
had seen at the store. The other was Hazel. Before I had time to think
I cocked my rifle."
"Hazel. Good Lord!" exclaimed the listeners.
"For a moment I was too surprised to do anything but cock that rifle. I
waited, for what puzzled me was that, after all, Hazel had _not_ seen
me. It was only the feeling of his beastly proximity that had made me
feel I was seen and watched by him. There was something else, too, that
made me pause before--er--doing anything. Two other things, in fact. One
was that I was so intensely interested in watching the fellow's actions.
Obviously he had the same uneasy sensation that I had. He shared with me
the nasty feeling that danger was about. His rifle, I saw, was cocked
and ready; he kept looking behind him, over his shoulder, peering this
way and that, and sometimes addressing a remark to the Siwash at his
side. I caught the laughter of the latter. The Siwash evidently did not
think there was danger anywhere. It was, of course, unlikely enough----"
"And the other thing that stopped you?" urged Lawson, impatiently
interrupting.
Ericssen turned with a look of grim humour on his face.
"Some confounded or perverted sense of chivalry in me, I suppose," he
said, "that made it impossible to shoot him down in cold blood, or,
rather, without letting him have a chance. For my blood, as a matter of
fact, was far from cold at the moment. Perhaps, too, I wanted the added
satisfaction of letting him know who fired the shot that was to end his
vile existence."
He laughed again. "It was rat and ferret in the human kingdom," he went
on, "but I wanted my rat to have a chance, I suppose. Anyhow, though I
had a perfect shot in front of me at easy distance, I did not fire.
Instead I got up, holding my cocked rifle ready, finger on trigger, and
came out of my hiding place. I called to him. 'Hazel, you beast! So
there you are--at last!'
"He turned, but turned away from me, offering his horrid back. The
direction of the voice he misjudged. He pointed down stream, and the
Siwash turned to look. Neither of them had seen me yet. There was a big
log-jam below them. The roar of the water in their ears concealed my
footsteps. I was, perhaps, twenty paces from them when Hazel, with a
jerk of his whole body, abruptly turned clean round and faced me. We
stared into each other's eyes.
"The amazement on his face changed instantly to hatred and resolve. He
acted with incredible rapidity. I think the unexpected suddenness of his
turn made me lose a precious second or two. Anyhow he was ahead of me.
He flung his rifle to his shoulder. 'You devil!' I heard his voice.
'I've got you at last!' His rifle cracked, for he let drive the same
instant. The hair stirred just above my ear.
"He had missed!
"Before he could draw back his bolt for another shot I had acted.
"'You're not fit to live!' I shouted, as my bullet crashed into his
temple. I had the satisfaction, too, of knowing that he heard my words.
I saw the swift expression of frustrated loathing in his eyes.
"He fell like an ox, his face splashing in the stream. I shoved the body
out. I saw it sucked beneath the log-jam instantly. It disappeared.
There could be no inquest on him, I reflected comfortably. Hazel was
gone--gone from this earth, from my life, our mutual hatred over at
last."
The speaker paused a moment. "Odd," he continued presently--"very odd
indeed." He turned to the others. "I felt quite sorry for him suddenly.
I suppose," he added, "the philosophers are right when they gas about
hate being very close to love."
His friends contributed no remark.
"Then I came away," he resumed shortly. "My wife--well, you know the
rest, don't you? I told her the whole thing. She--she said nothing. But
she married me, you see."
There was a moment's silence. Baynes was the first to break it.
"But--the Siwash?" he asked. "The witness?"
Lawson turned upon him with something of contemptuous impatience.
"He told you he had _two_ cartridges."
Ericssen, smiling grimly, said nothing at all.
V
THE TARN OF SACRIFICE
John Holt, a vague excitement in him, stood at the door of the little
inn, listening to the landlord's directions as to the best way of
reaching Scarsdale. He was on a walking tour through the Lake District,
exploring the smaller dales that lie away from the beaten track and are
accessible only on foot.
The landlord, a hard-featured north countryman, half innkeeper, half
sheep farmer, pointed up the valley. His deep voice had a friendly burr
in it.
"You go straight on till you reach the head," he said, "then take to the
fell. Follow the 'sheep-trod' past the Crag. Directly you're over the
top you'll strike the road."
"A road up there!" exclaimed his customer incredulously.
"Aye," was the steady reply. "The old Roman road. The same road," he
added, "the savages came down when they burst through the Wall and burnt
everything right up to Lancaster----"
"They were held--weren't they--at Lancaster?" asked the other, yet not
knowing quite why he asked it.
"I don't rightly know," came the answer slowly. "Some say they were. But
the old town has been that built over since, it's hard to tell." He
paused a moment. "At Ambleside," he went on presently, "you can still
see the marks of the burning, and at the little fort on the way to
Ravenglass."
Holt strained his eyes into the sunlit distance, for he would soon have
to walk that road and he was anxious to be off. But the landlord was
communicative and interesting. "You can't miss it," he told him. "It
runs straight as a spear along the fell top till it meets the Wall. You
must hold to it for about eight miles. Then you'll come to the Standing
Stone on the left of the track----"
"The Standing Stone, yes?" broke in the other a little eagerly.
"You'll see the Stone right enough. It was where the Romans came. Then
bear to the left down another 'trod' that comes into the road there.
They say it was the war-trail of the folk that set up the Stone."
"And what did they use the Stone for?" Holt inquired, more as though he
asked it of himself than of his companion.
The old man paused to reflect. He spoke at length.
"I mind an old fellow who seemed to know about such things called it a
Sighting Stone. He reckoned the sun shone over it at dawn on the longest
day right on to the little holm in Blood Tarn. He said they held
sacrifices in a stone circle there." He stopped a moment to puff at his
black pipe. "Maybe he was right. I have seen stones lying about that may
well be that."
The man was pleased and willing to talk to so good a listener. Either he
had not noticed the curious gesture the other made, or he read it as a
sign of eagerness to start. The sun was warm, but a sharp wind from the
bare hills went between them with a sighing sound. Holt buttoned his
coat about him. "An odd name for a mountain lake--Blood Tarn," he
remarked, watching the landlord's face expectantly.
"Aye, but a good one," was the measured reply. "When I was a boy the old
folk had a tale that the savages flung three Roman captives from that
crag into the water. There's a book been written about it; they say it
was a sacrifice, but most likely they were tired of dragging them along,
_I_ say. Anyway, that's what the writer said. One, I mind, now you ask
me, was a priest of some heathen temple that stood near the Wall, and
the other two were his daughter and her lover." He guffawed. At least he
made a strange noise in his throat. Evidently, thought Holt, he was
sceptical yet superstitious. "It's just an old tale handed down,
whatever the learned folk may say," the old man added.
"A lonely place," began Holt, aware that a fleeting touch of awe was
added suddenly to his interest.
"Aye," said the other, "and a bad spot too. Every year the Crag takes
its toll of sheep, and sometimes a man goes over in the mist. It's right
beside the track and very slippery. Ninety foot of a drop before you hit
the water. Best keep round the tarn and leave the Crag alone if there's
any mist about. Fishing? Yes, there's some quite fair trout in the tarn,
but it's not much fished. Happen one of the shepherd lads from Tyson's
farm may give it a turn with an 'otter,'" he went on, "once in a while,
but he won't stay for the evening. He'll clear out before sunset."
"Ah! Superstitious, I suppose?"
"It's a gloomy, chancy spot--and with the dusk falling," agreed the
innkeeper eventually. "None of our folk care to be caught up there with
night coming on. Most handy for a shepherd, too--but Tyson can't get
a man to bide there." He paused again, then added significantly:
"Strangers don't seem to mind it though. It's only our own folk----"
"Strangers!" repeated the other sharply, as though he had been waiting
all along for this special bit of information. "You don't mean to say
there are people living up there?" A curious thrill ran over him.
"Aye," replied the landlord, "but they're daft folk--a man and his
daughter. They come every spring. It's early in the year yet, but I mind
Jim Backhouse, one of Tyson's men, talking about them last week." He
stopped to think. "So they've come back," he went on decidedly. "They
get milk from the farm."
"And what on earth are they doing up there?" Holt asked.
He asked many other questions as well, but the answers were poor, the
information not forthcoming. The landlord would talk for hours about
the Crag, the tarn, the legends and the Romans, but concerning the two
strangers he was uncommunicative. Either he knew little, or he did not
want to discuss them; Holt felt it was probably the former. They were
educated town-folk, he gathered with difficulty, rich apparently, and
they spent their time wandering about the fell, or fishing. The man was
often seen upon the Crag, his girl beside him, bare-legged, dressed as
a peasant. "Happen they come for their health, happen the father is a
learned man studying the Wall"--exact information was not forthcoming.
The landlord "minded his own business," and inhabitants were too few and
far between for gossip. All Holt could extract amounted to this: the
couple had been in a motor accident some years before, and as a result
they came every spring to spend a month or two in absolute solitude,
away from cities and the excitement of modern life. They troubled no one
and no one troubled them.
"Perhaps I may see them as I go by the tarn," remarked the walker
finally, making ready to go. He gave up questioning in despair. The
morning hours were passing.
"Happen you may," was the reply, "for your track goes past their door
and leads straight down to Scarsdale. The other way over the Crag saves
half a mile, but it's rough going along the scree." He stopped dead.
Then he added, in reply to Holt's good-bye: "In my opinion it's not
worth it," yet what he meant exactly by "it" was not quite clear.
* * * * *
The walker shouldered his knapsack. Instinctively he gave the little
hitch to settle it on his shoulders--much as he used to give to his pack
in France. The pain that shot through him as he did so was another
reminder of France. The bullet he had stopped on the Somme still made
its presence felt at times.... Yet he knew, as he walked off briskly,
that he was one of the lucky ones. How many of his old pals would never
walk again, condemned to hobble on crutches for the rest of their lives!
How many, again, would never even hobble! More terrible still, he
remembered, were the blind.... The dead, it seemed to him, had been more
fortunate....
He swung up the narrowing valley at a good pace and was soon climbing
the fell. It proved far steeper than it had appeared from the door of
the inn, and he was glad enough to reach the top and fling himself down
on the coarse springy turf to admire the view below.
The spring day was delicious. It stirred his blood. The world beneath
looked young and stainless. Emotion rose through him in a wave of
optimistic happiness. The bare hills were half hidden by a soft blue
haze that made them look bigger, vaster, less earthly than they really
were. He saw silver streaks in the valleys that he knew were distant
streams and lakes. Birds soared between. The dazzling air seemed painted
with exhilarating light and colour. The very clouds were floating
gossamer that he could touch. There were bees and dragon-flies and
fluttering thistle-down. Heat vibrated. His body, his physical
sensations, so-called, retired into almost nothing. He felt himself,
like his surroundings, made of air and sunlight. A delicious sense of
resignation poured upon him. He, too, like his surroundings, was
composed of air and sunshine, of insect wings, of soft, fluttering
vibrations that the gorgeous spring day produced.... It seemed that he
renounced the heavy dues of bodily life, and enjoyed the delights,
momentarily at any rate, of a more ethereal consciousness.
Near at hand, the hills were covered with the faded gold of last year's
bracken, which ran down in a brimming flood till it was lost in the
fresh green of the familiar woods below. Far in the hazy distance swam
the sea of ash and hazel. The silver birch sprinkled that lower world
with fairy light.
Yes, it was all natural enough. He could see the road quite clearly now,
only a hundred yards away from where he lay. How straight it ran along
the top of the hill! The landlord's expression recurred to him:
"Straight as a spear." Somehow, the phrase seemed to describe exactly
the Romans and all their works.... The Romans, yes, and all their
works....
He became aware of a sudden sympathy with these long dead conquerors of
the world. With them, he felt sure, there had been no useless, foolish
talk. They had known no empty words, no bandying of foolish phrases.
"War to end war," and "Regeneration of the race"--no hypocritical
nonsense of that sort had troubled their minds and purposes. They had
not attempted to cover up the horrible in words. With them had been no
childish, vain pretence. They had gone straight to their ends.
Other thoughts, too, stole over him, as he sat gazing down upon the
track of that ancient road; strange thoughts, not wholly welcome. New,
yet old, emotions rose in a tide upon him. He began to wonder.... Had
he, after all, become brutalized by the War? He knew quite well that the
little "Christianity" he inherited had soon fallen from him like a
garment in France. In his attitude to Life and Death he had become,
frankly, pagan. He now realized, abruptly, another thing as well: in
reality he had never been a "Christian" at any time. Given to him with
his mother's milk, he had never accepted, felt at home with Christian
dogmas. To him they had always been an alien creed. Christianity met
none of his requirements....
But what were his "requirements"? He found it difficult to answer.
Something, at any rate, different and more primitive, he thought....
Even up here, alone on the mountain-top, it was hard to be absolutely
frank with himself. With a kind of savage, honest determination, he bent
himself to the task. It became suddenly important for him. He must know
exactly where he stood. It seemed he had reached a turning point in his
life. The War, in the objective world, had been one such turning point;
now he had reached another, in the subjective life, and it was more
important than the first.
As he lay there in the pleasant sunshine, his thoughts went back to
the fighting. A friend, he recalled, had divided people into those who
enjoyed the War and those who didn't. He was obliged to admit that he
had been one of the former--he had thoroughly enjoyed it. Brought up
from a youth as an engineer, he had taken to a soldier's life as a
duck takes to water. There had been plenty of misery, discomfort,
wretchedness; but there had been compensations that, for him, outweighed
them. The fierce excitement, the primitive, naked passions, the wild
fury, the reckless indifference to pain and death, with the loss of the
normal, cautious, pettifogging little daily self all these involved, had
satisfied him. Even the actual killing....
He started. A slight shudder ran down his back as the cool wind from the
open moorlands came sighing across the soft spring sunshine. Sitting up
straight, he looked behind him a moment, as with an effort to turn away
from something he disliked and dreaded because it was, he knew, too
strong for him. But the same instant he turned round again. He faced the
vile and dreadful thing in himself he had hitherto sought to deny,
evade. Pretence fell away. He could not disguise from himself, that he
had thoroughly enjoyed the killing; or, at any rate, had not been
shocked by it as by an unnatural and ghastly duty. The shooting and
bombing he performed with an effort always, but the rarer moments when
he had been able to use the bayonet ... the joy of feeling the steel go
home....
He started again, hiding his face a moment in his hands, but he did not
try to evade the hideous memories that surged. At times, he knew, he had
gone quite mad with the lust of slaughter; he had gone on long after he
should have stopped. Once an officer had pulled him up sharply for it,
but the next instant had been killed by a bullet. He thought he had gone
on killing, but he did not know. It was all a red mist before his eyes
and he could only remember the sticky feeling of the blood on his hands
when he gripped his rifle....
And now, at this moment of painful honesty with himself, he realized
that his creed, whatever it was, must cover all that; it must provide
some sort of a philosophy for it; must neither apologize nor ignore it.
The heaven that it promised must be a man's heaven. The Christian heaven
made no appeal to him, he could not believe in it. The ritual must be
simple and direct. He felt that in some dim way he understood why those
old people had thrown their captives from the Crag. The sacrifice of an
animal victim that could be eaten afterwards with due ceremonial did not
shock him. Such methods seemed simple, natural, effective. Yet would it
not have been better--the horrid thought rose unbidden in his inmost
mind--better to have cut their throats with a flint knife ... slowly?
Horror-stricken, he sprang to his feet. These terrible thoughts he could
not recognize as his own. Had he slept a moment in the sunlight,
dreaming them? Was it some hideous nightmare flash that touched him as
he dozed a second? Something of fear and awe stole over him. He stared
round for some minutes into the emptiness of the desolate landscape,
then hurriedly ran down to the road, hoping to exorcize the strange
sudden horror by vigorous movement. Yet when he reached the track he
knew that he had not succeeded. The awful pictures were gone perhaps,
but the mood remained. It was as though some new attitude began to take
definite form and harden within him.
He walked on, trying to pretend to himself that he was some forgotten
legionary marching up with his fellows to defend the Wall. Half
unconsciously he fell into the steady tramping pace of his old regiment:
the words of the ribald songs they had sung going to the front came
pouring into his mind. Steadily and almost mechanically he swung along
till he saw the Stone as a black speck on the left of the track, and the
instant he saw it there rose in him the feeling that he stood upon the
edge of an adventure that he feared yet longed for. He approached the
great granite monolith with a curious thrill of anticipatory excitement,
born he knew not whence.
But, of course, there was nothing. Common sense, still operating
strongly, had warned him there would be, could be, nothing. In the waste
the great Stone stood upright, solitary, forbidding, as it had stood for
thousands of years. It dominated the landscape somewhat ominously. The
sheep and cattle had used it as a rubbing-stone, and bits of hair and
wool clung to its rough, weather-eaten edges; the feet of generations
had worn a cup-shaped hollow at its base. The wind sighed round it
plaintively. Its bulk glistened as it took the sun.
A short mile away the Blood Tarn was now plainly visible; he could
see the little holm lying in a direct line with the Stone, while,
overhanging the water as a dark shadow on one side, rose the cliff-like
rock they called "the Crag." Of the house the landlord had mentioned,
however, he could see no trace, as he relieved his shoulders of the
knapsack and sat down to enjoy his lunch. The tarn, he reflected,
was certainly a gloomy place; he could understand that the simple
superstitious shepherds did not dare to live there, for even on this
bright spring day it wore a dismal and forbidding look. With failing
light, when the Crag sprawled its big lengthening shadow across the
water, he could well imagine they would give it the widest possible
berth. He strolled down to the shore after lunch, smoking his pipe
lazily--then suddenly stood still. At the far end, hidden hitherto by
a fold in the ground, he saw the little house, a faint column of blue
smoke rising from the chimney, and at the same moment a woman came out
of the low door and began to walk towards the tarn. She had seen him,
she was moving evidently in his direction; a few minutes later she
stopped and stood waiting on the path--waiting, he well knew, for him.
And his earlier mood, the mood he dreaded yet had forced himself to
recognize, came back upon him with sudden redoubled power. As in some
vivid dream that dominates and paralyses the will, or as in the first
stages of an imposed hypnotic spell, all question, hesitation, refusal
sank away. He felt a pleasurable resignation steal upon him with soft,
numbing effect. Denial and criticism ceased to operate, and common sense
died with them. He yielded his being automatically to the deeps of an
adventure he did not understand. He began to walk towards the woman.
It was, he saw as he drew nearer, the figure of a young girl, nineteen
or twenty years of age, who stood there motionless with her eyes fixed
steadily on his own. She looked as wild and picturesque as the scene
that framed her. Thick black hair hung loose over her back and
shoulders; about her head was bound a green ribbon; her clothes
consisted of a jersey and a very short skirt which showed her bare legs
browned by exposure to the sun and wind. A pair of rough sandals covered
her feet. Whether the face was beautiful or not he could not tell; he
only knew that it attracted him immensely and with a strength of appeal
that he at once felt curiously irresistible. She remained motionless
against the boulder, staring fixedly at him till he was close before
her. Then she spoke:
"I am glad that you have come at last," she said in a clear, strong
voice that yet was soft and even tender. "We have been expecting you."
"You have been expecting me!" he repeated, astonished beyond words, yet
finding the language natural, right and true. A stream of sweet feeling
invaded him, his heart beat faster, he felt happy and at home in some
extraordinary way he could not understand yet did not question.
"Of course," she answered, looking straight into his eyes with welcome
unashamed. Her next words thrilled him to the core of his being. "I have
made the room ready for you."
Quick upon her own, however, flashed back the landlord's words, while
common sense made a last faint effort in his thought. He was the victim
of some absurd mistake evidently. The lonely life, the forbidding
surroundings, the associations of the desolate hills had affected her
mind. He remembered the accident.
"I am afraid," he offered, lamely enough, "there is some mistake. I am
not the friend you were expecting. I----" He stopped. A thin slight
sound as of distant laughter seemed to echo behind the unconvincing
words.
"There is no mistake," the girl answered firmly, with a quiet smile,
moving a step nearer to him, so that he caught the subtle perfume of her
vigorous youth. "I saw you clearly in the Mystery Stone. I recognized
you at once."
"The Mystery Stone," he heard himself saying, bewilderment increasing, a
sense of wild happiness growing with it.
Laughing, she took his hand in hers. "Come," she said, drawing him along
with her, "come home with me. My father will be waiting for us; he will
tell you everything, and better far than I can."
He went with her, feeling that he was made of sunlight and that he
walked on air, for at her touch his own hand responded as with a sudden
fierceness of pleasure that he failed utterly to understand, yet did not
question for an instant. Wildly, absurdly, madly it flashed across his
mind: "This is the woman I shall marry--_my_ woman. I am her man."
They walked in silence for a little, for no words of any sort offered
themselves to his mind, nor did the girl attempt to speak. The total
absence of embarrassment between them occurred to him once or twice
as curious, though the very idea of embarrassment then disappeared
entirely. It all seemed natural and unforced, the sudden intercourse as
familiar and effortless as though they had known one another always.
"The Mystery Stone," he heard himself saying presently, as the idea rose
again to the surface of his mind. "I should like to know more about it.
Tell me, dear."
"I bought it with the other things," she replied softly.
"What other things?"
She turned and looked up into his face with a slight expression of
surprise; their shoulders touched as they swung along; her hair blew in
the wind across his coat. "The bronze collar," she answered in the low
voice that pleased him so, "and this ornament that I wear in my hair."
He glanced down to examine it. Instead of a ribbon, as he had first
supposed, he saw that it was a circlet of bronze, covered with a
beautiful green patina and evidently very old. In front, above the
forehead, was a small disk bearing an inscription he could not decipher
at the moment. He bent down and kissed her hair, the girl smiling with
happy contentment, but offering no sign of resistance or annoyance.
"And," she added suddenly, "the dagger."
Holt started visibly. This time there was a thrill in her voice that
seemed to pierce down straight into his heart. He said nothing, however.
The unexpectedness of the word she used, together with the note in her
voice that moved him so strangely, had a disconcerting effect that kept
him silent for a time. He did not ask about the dagger. Something
prevented his curiosity finding expression in speech, though the word,
with the marked accent she placed upon it, had struck into him like the
shock of sudden steel itself, causing him an indecipherable emotion of
both joy and pain. He asked instead, presently, another question, and a
very commonplace one: he asked where she and her father had lived before
they came to these lonely hills. And the form of his question--his voice
shook a little as he said it--was, again, an effort of his normal self
to maintain its already precarious balance.
The effect of his simple query, the girl's reply above all, increased in
him the mingled sensations of sweetness and menace, of joy and dread,
that half alarmed, half satisfied him. For a moment she wore a puzzled
expression, as though making an effort to remember.
"Down by the sea," she answered slowly, thoughtfully, her voice very
low. "Somewhere by a big harbour with great ships coming in and out.
It was there we had the break--the shock--an accident that broke us,
shattering the dream we share To-day." Her face cleared a little. "We
were in a chariot," she went on more easily and rapidly, "and father--my
father was injured, so that I went with him to a palace beyond the Wall
till he grew well."
"You were in a chariot?" Holt repeated. "Surely not."
"Did I say chariot?" the girl replied. "How foolish of me!" She shook
her hair back as though the gesture helped to clear her mind and memory.
"That belongs, of course, to the other dream. No, not a chariot; it was
a car. But it had wheels like a chariot--the old war-chariots. You
know."
"Disk-wheels," thought Holt to himself. He did not ask about the palace.
He asked instead where she had bought the Mystery Stone, as she called
it, and the other things. Her reply bemused and enticed him farther,
for he could not unravel it. His whole inner attitude was shifting
with uncanny rapidity and completeness. They walked together, he now
realized, with linked arms, moving slowly in step, their bodies
touching. He felt the blood run hot and almost savage in his veins. He
was aware how amazingly precious she was to him, how deeply, absolutely
necessary to his life and happiness. Her words went past him in the
mountain wind like flying birds.
"My father was fishing," she went on, "and I was on my way to join him,
when the old woman called me into her dwelling and showed me the things.
She wished to give them to me, but I refused the present and paid for
them in gold. I put the fillet on my head to see if it would fit, and
took the Mystery Stone in my hand. Then, as I looked deep into the
stone, this present dream died all away. It faded out. I saw the older
dreams again--_our_ dreams."
"The older dreams!" interrupted Holt. "Ours!" But instead of saying the
words aloud, they issued from his lips in a quiet whisper, as though
control of his voice had passed a little from him. The sweetness in him
became more wonderful, unmanageable; his astonishment had vanished; he
walked and talked with his old familiar happy Love, the woman he had
sought so long and waited for, the woman who was his mate, as he was
hers, she who alone could satisfy his inmost soul.
"The old dream," she replied, "the very old--the oldest of all
perhaps--when we committed the terrible sacrilege. I saw the High Priest
lying dead--whom my father slew--and the other whom _you_ destroyed. I
saw you prise out the jewel from the image of the god--with your short
bloody spear. I saw, too, our flight to the galley through the hot,
awful night beneath the stars--and our escape...."
Her voice died away and she fell silent.
"Tell me more," he whispered, drawing her closer against his side. "What
had _you_ done?" His heart was racing now. Some fighting blood surged
uppermost. He felt that he could kill, and the joy of violence and
slaughter rose in him.
"Have you forgotten so completely?" she asked very low, as he pressed
her more tightly still against his heart. And almost beneath her breath
she whispered into his ear, which he bent to catch the little sound: "I
had broken my vows with you."
"What else, my lovely one--my best beloved--what more did you see?" he
whispered in return, yet wondering why the fierce pain and anger that he
felt behind still lay hidden from betrayal.
"Dream after dream, and always we were punished. But the last time was
the clearest, for it was here--here where we now walk together in the
sunlight and the wind--it was here the savages hurled us from the rock."
A shiver ran through him, making him tremble with an unaccountable touch
of cold that communicated itself to her as well. Her arm went instantly
about his shoulder, as he stooped and kissed her passionately. "Fasten
your coat about you," she said tenderly, but with troubled breath,
when he released her, "for this wind is chill although the sun shines
brightly. We were glad, you remember, when they stopped to kill us, for
we were tired and our feet were cut to pieces by the long, rough journey
from the Wall." Then suddenly her voice grew louder again and the
smile of happy confidence came back into her eyes. There was the deep
earnestness of love in it, of love that cannot end or die. She looked up
into his face. "But soon now," she said, "we shall be free. For you have
come, and it is nearly finished--this weary little present dream."
"How," he asked, "shall we get free?" A red mist swam momentarily before
his eyes.
"My father," she replied at once, "will tell you all. It is quite easy."
"Your father, too, remembers?"
"The moment the collar touches him," she said, "he is a priest again.
See! Here he comes forth already to meet us, and to bid you welcome."
Holt looked up, startled. He had hardly noticed, so absorbed had he been
in the words that half intoxicated him, the distance they had covered.
The cottage was now close at hand, and a tall, powerfully built man,
wearing a shepherd's rough clothing, stood a few feet in front of
him. His stature, breadth of shoulder and thick black beard made up a
striking figure. The dark eyes, with fire in them, gazed straight into
his own, and a kindly smile played round the stern and vigorous mouth.
"Greeting, my son," said a deep, booming voice, "for I shall call you my
son as I did of old. The bond of the spirit is stronger than that of the
flesh, and with us three the tie is indeed of triple strength. You come,
too, at an auspicious hour, for the omens are favourable and the time of
our liberation is at hand." He took the other's hand in a grip that
might have killed an ox and yet was warm with gentle kindliness, while
Holt, now caught wholly into the spirit of some deep reality he could
not master yet accepted, saw that the wrist was small, the fingers
shapely, the gesture itself one of dignity and refinement.
"Greeting, my father," he replied, as naturally as though he said more
modern words.
"Come in with me, I pray," pursued the other, leading the way, "and let
me show you the poor accommodation we have provided, yet the best that
we can offer."
He stooped to pass the threshold, and as Holt stooped likewise the girl
took his hand and he knew that his bewitchment was complete. Entering
the low doorway, he passed through a kitchen, where only the roughest,
scantiest furniture was visible, into another room that was completely
bare. A heap of dried bracken had been spread on the floor in one corner
to form a bed. Beside it lay two cheap, coloured blankets. There was
nothing else.
"Our place is poor," said the man, smiling courteously, but with that
dignity and air of welcome which made the hovel seem a palace. "Yet it
may serve, perhaps, for the short time that you will need it. Our little
dream here is wellnigh over, now that you have come. The long weary
pilgrimage at last draws to a close." The girl had left them alone a
moment, and the man stepped closer to his guest. His face grew solemn,
his voice deeper and more earnest suddenly, the light in his eyes seemed
actually to flame with the enthusiasm of a great belief. "Why have you
tarried thus so long, and where?" he asked in a lowered tone that
vibrated in the little space. "We have sought you with prayer and
fasting, and she has spent her nights for you in tears. You lost the
way, it must be. The lesser dreams entangled your feet, I see." A touch
of sadness entered the voice, the eyes held pity in them. "It is, alas,
too easy, I well know," he murmured. "It is too easy."
"I lost the way," the other replied. It seemed suddenly that his heart
was filled with fire. "But now," he cried aloud, "now that I have found
her, I will never, never let her go again. My feet are steady and my way
is sure."
"For ever and ever, my son," boomed the happy, yet almost solemn answer,
"she is yours. Our freedom is at hand."
He turned and crossed the little kitchen again, making a sign that his
guest should follow him. They stood together by the door, looking out
across the tarn in silence. The afternoon sunshine fell in a golden
blaze across the bare hills that seemed to smoke with the glory of the
fiery light. But the Crag loomed dark in shadow overhead, and the little
lake lay deep and black beneath it.
"Acella, Acella!" called the man, the name breaking upon his companion
as with a shock of sweet delicious fire that filled his entire being, as
the girl came the same instant from behind the cottage. "The Gods call
me," said her father. "I go now to the hill. Protect our guest and
comfort him in my absence."
Without another word, he strode away up the hillside and presently was
visible standing on the summit of the Crag, his arms stretched out above
his head to heaven, his great head thrown back, his bearded face turned
upwards. An impressive, even a majestic figure he looked, as his bulk
and stature rose in dark silhouette against the brilliant evening sky.
Holt stood motionless, watching him for several minutes, his heart
swelling in his breast, his pulses thumping before some great nameless
pressure that rose from the depths of his being. That inner attitude
which seemed a new and yet more satisfying attitude to life than he had
known hitherto, had crystallized. Define it he could not, he only knew
that he accepted it as natural. It satisfied him. The sight of that
dignified, gaunt figure worshipping upon the hill-top enflamed him....
"I have brought the stone," a voice interrupted his reflections, and
turning, he saw the girl beside him. She held out for his inspection a
dark square object that looked to him at first like a black stone lying
against the brown skin of her hand. "The Mystery Stone," the girl added,
as their faces bent down together to examine it. "It is there I see the
dreams I told you of."
He took it from her and found that it was heavy, composed apparently
of something like black quartz, with a brilliant polished surface that
revealed clear depths within. Once, evidently, it had been set in a
stand or frame, for the marks where it had been attached still showed,
and it was obviously of great age. He felt confused, the mind in him
troubled yet excited, as he gazed. The effect upon him was as though a
wind rose suddenly and passed across his inmost subjective life, setting
its entire contents in rushing motion.
"And here," the girl said, "is the dagger."
He took from her the short bronze weapon, feeling at once instinctively
its ragged edge, its keen point, sharp and effective still. The handle
had long since rotted away, but the bronze tongue, and the holes where
the rivets had been, remained, and, as he touched it, the confusion and
trouble in his mind increased to a kind of turmoil, in which violence,
linked to something tameless, wild and almost savage, was the dominating
emotion. He turned to seize the girl and crush her to him in a
passionate embrace, but she held away, throwing back her lovely head,
her eyes shining, her lips parted, yet one hand stretched out to stop
him.
"First look into it with me," she said quietly. "Let us see together."
She sat down on the turf beside the cottage door, and Holt, obeying,
took his place beside her. She remained very still for some minutes,
covering the stone with both hands as though to warm it. Her lips moved.
She seemed to be repeating some kind of invocation beneath her breath,
though no actual words were audible. Presently her hands parted. They
sat together gazing at the polished surface. They looked within.
"There comes a white mist in the heart of the stone," the girl
whispered. "It will soon open. The pictures will then grow. Look!" she
exclaimed after a brief pause, "they are forming now."
"I see only mist," her companion murmured, gazing intently. "Only mist
I see."
She took his hand and instantly the mist parted. He found himself
peering into another landscape which opened before his eyes as though it
were a photograph. Hills covered with heather stretched away on every
side.
"Hills, I see," he whispered. "The ancient hills----"
"Watch closely," she replied, holding his hand firmly.
At first the landscape was devoid of any sign of life; then suddenly it
surged and swarmed with moving figures. Torrents of men poured over the
hill-crests and down their heathery sides in columns. He could see them
clearly--great hairy men, clad in skins, with thick shields on their
left arms or slung over their backs, and short stabbing spears in their
hands. Thousands upon thousands poured over in an endless stream. In the
distance he could see other columns sweeping in a turning movement. A
few of the men rode rough ponies and seemed to be directing the march,
and these, he knew, were the chiefs....
The scene grew dimmer, faded, died away completely. Another took its
place:
By the faint light he knew that it was dawn. The undulating country,
less hilly than before, was still wild and uncultivated. A great wall,
with towers at intervals, stretched away till it was lost in shadowy
distance. On the nearest of these towers he saw a sentinel clad in
armour, gazing out across the rolling country. The armour gleamed
faintly in the pale glimmering light, as the man suddenly snatched up a
bugle and blew upon it. From a brazier burning beside him he next seized
a brand and fired a great heap of brushwood. The smoke rose in a dense
column into the air almost immediately, and from all directions, with
incredible rapidity, figures came pouring up to man the wall. Hurriedly
they strung their bows, and laid spare arrows close beside them on the
coping. The light grew brighter. The whole country was alive with
savages; like the waves of the sea they came rolling in enormous
numbers. For several minutes the wall held. Then, in an impetuous,
fearful torrent, they poured over....
It faded, died away, was gone again, and a moment later yet another took
its place:
But this time the landscape was familiar, and he recognized the tarn. He
saw the savages upon the ledge that flanked the dominating Crag; they
had three captives with them. He saw two men. The other was a woman. But
the woman had fallen exhausted to the ground, and a chief on a rough
pony rode back to see what had delayed the march. Glancing at the
captives, he made a fierce gesture with his arm towards the water far
below. Instantly the woman was jerked cruelly to her feet and forced
onwards till the summit of the Crag was reached. A man snatched
something from her hand. A second later she was hurled over the brink.
The two men were next dragged on to the dizzy spot where she had stood.
Dead with fatigue, bleeding from numerous wounds, yet at this awful
moment they straightened themselves, casting contemptuous glances at the
fierce savages surrounding them. They were Romans and would die like
Romans. Holt saw their faces clearly for the first time.
He sprang up with a cry of anguished fury.
"The second man!" he exclaimed. "You saw the second man!"
The girl, releasing his hand, turned her eyes slowly up to his, so that
he met the flame of her ancient and undying love shining like stars upon
him out of the night of time.
"Ever since that moment," she said in a low voice that trembled, "I have
been looking, waiting for you----"
He took her in his arms and smothered her words with kisses, holding her
fiercely to him as though he would never let her go. "I, too," he said,
his whole being burning with his love, "I have been looking, waiting for
you. Now I have found you. We have found each other...!"
The dusk fell slowly, imperceptibly. As twilight slowly draped the gaunt
hills, blotting out familiar details, so the strong dream, veil upon
veil, drew closer over the soul of the wanderer, obliterating finally
the last reminder of To-day. The little wind had dropped and the
desolate moors lay silent, but for the hum of distant water falling to
its valley bed. His life, too, and the life of the girl, he knew, were
similarly falling, falling into some deep shadowed bed where rest would
come at last. No details troubled him, he asked himself no questions. A
profound sense of happy peace numbed every nerve and stilled his
beating heart.
He felt no fear, no anxiety, no hint of alarm or uneasiness vexed his
singular contentment. He realized one thing only--that the girl lay in
his arms, he held her fast, her breath mingled with his own. They had
found each other. What else mattered?
From time to time, as the daylight faded and the sun went down behind
the moors, she spoke. She uttered words he vaguely heard, listening,
though with a certain curious effort, before he closed the thing she
said with kisses. Even the fierceness of his blood was gone. The world
lay still, life almost ceased to flow. Lapped in the deeps of his great
love, he was redeemed, perhaps, of violence and savagery....
"Three dark birds," she whispered, "pass across the sky ... they fall
beyond the ridge. The omens are favourable. A hawk now follows them,
cleaving the sky with pointed wings."
"A hawk," he murmured. "The badge of my old Legion."
"My father will perform the sacrifice," he heard again, though it seemed
a long interval had passed, and the man's figure was now invisible on
the Crag amid the gathering darkness. "Already he prepares the fire.
Look, the sacred island is alight. He has the black cock ready for the
knife."
Holt roused himself with difficulty, lifting his face from the garden of
her hair. A faint light, he saw, gleamed fitfully on the holm within the
tarn. Her father, then, had descended from the Crag, and had lit the
sacrificial fire upon the stones. But what did the doings of the father
matter now to him?
"The dark bird," he repeated dully, "the black victim the Gods of the
Underworld alone accept. It is good, Acella, it is good!" He was about
to sink back again, taking her against his breast as before, when she
resisted and sat up suddenly.
"It is time," she said aloud. "The hour has come. My father climbs, and
we must join him on the summit. Come!"
She took his hand and raised him to his feet, and together they began
the rough ascent towards the Crag. As they passed along the shore of the
Tarn of Blood, he saw the fire reflected in the ink-black waters; he
made out, too, though dimly, a rough circle of big stones, with a larger
flag-stone lying in the centre. Three small fires of bracken and wood,
placed in a triangle with its apex towards the Standing Stone on the
distant hill, burned briskly, the crackling material sending out sparks
that pierced the columns of thick smoke. And in this smoke, peering,
shifting, appearing and disappearing, it seemed he saw great faces
moving. The flickering light and twirling smoke made clear sight
difficult. His bliss, his lethargy were very deep. They left the tarn
below them and hand in hand began to climb the final slope.
Whether the physical effort of climbing disturbed the deep pressure of
the mood that numbed his senses, or whether the cold draught of wind
they met upon the ridge restored some vital detail of To-day, Holt does
not know. Something, at any rate, in him wavered suddenly, as though
a centre of gravity had shifted slightly. There was a perceptible
alteration in the balance of thought and feeling that had held
invariable now for many hours. It seemed to him that something heavy
lifted, or rather, began to lift--a weight, a shadow, something
oppressive that obstructed light. A ray of light, as it were, struggled
through the thick darkness that enveloped him. To him, as he paused on
the ridge to recover his breath, came this vague suggestion of faint
light breaking across the blackness. It was objective.
"See," said the girl in a low voice, "the moon is rising. It lights the
sacred island. The blood-red waters turn to silver."
He saw, indeed, that a huge three-quarter moon now drove with almost
visible movement above the distant line of hills; the little tarn
gleamed as with silvery armour; the glow of the sacrificial fires showed
red across it. He looked down with a shudder into the sheer depth that
opened at his feet, then turned to look at his companion. He started and
shrank back. Her face, lit by the moon and by the fire, shone pale as
death; her black hair framed it with a terrible suggestiveness; the
eyes, though brilliant as ever, had a film upon them. She stood in an
attitude of both ecstasy and resignation, and one outstretched arm
pointed towards the summit where her father stood.
Her lips parted, a marvellous smile broke over her features, her voice
was suddenly unfamiliar: "He wears the collar," she uttered. "Come. Our
time is here at last, and we are ready. See, he waits for us!"
There rose for the first time struggle and opposition in him; he
resisted the pressure of her hand that had seized his own and drew him
forcibly along. Whence came the resistance and the opposition he could
not tell, but though he followed her, he was aware that the refusal in
him strengthened. The weight of darkness that oppressed him shifted a
little more, an inner light increased; The same moment they reached the
summit and stood beside--the priest. There was a curious sound of
fluttering. The figure, he saw, was naked, save for a rough blanket tied
loosely about the waist.
"The hour has come at last," cried his deep booming voice that woke
echoes from the dark hills about them. "We are alone now with our Gods."
And he broke then into a monotonous rhythmic chanting that rose and fell
upon the wind, yet in a tongue that sounded strange; his erect figure
swayed slightly with its cadences; his black beard swept his naked
chest; and his face, turned skywards, shone in the mingled light of moon
above and fire below, yet with an added light as well that burned
within him rather than without. He was a weird, magnificent figure, a
priest of ancient rites invoking his deathless deities upon the
unchanging hills.
But upon Holt, too, as he stared in awed amazement, an inner light
had broken suddenly. It came as with a dazzling blaze that at first
paralysed thought and action. His mind cleared, but too abruptly for
movement, either of tongue or hand, to be possible. Then, abruptly, the
inner darkness rolled away completely. The light in the wild eyes of the
great chanting, swaying figure, he now knew was the light of mania.
The faint fluttering sound increased, and the voice of the girl was
oddly mingled with it. The priest had ceased his invocation. Holt, aware
that he stood alone, saw the girl go past him carrying a big black bird
that struggled with vainly beating wings.
"Behold the sacrifice," she said, as she knelt before her father and
held up the victim. "May the Gods accept it as presently They shall
accept us too!"
The great figure stooped and took the offering, and with one blow of the
knife he held, its head was severed from its body. The blood spattered
on the white face of the kneeling girl. Holt was aware for the first
time that she, too, was now unclothed; but for a loose blanket, her
white body gleamed against the dark heather in the moonlight. At the
same moment she rose to her feet, stood upright, turned towards him so
that he saw the dark hair streaming across her naked shoulders, and,
with a face of ecstasy, yet ever that strange film upon her eyes, her
voice came to him on the wind:
"Farewell, yet not farewell! We shall meet, all three, in the
underworld. The Gods accept us!"
Turning her face away, she stepped towards the ominous figure behind,
and bared her ivory neck and breast to the knife. The eyes of the maniac
were upon her own; she was as helpless and obedient as a lamb before
his spell.
Then Holt's horrible paralysis, if only just in time, was lifted. The
priest had raised his arm, the bronze knife with its ragged edge gleamed
in the air, with the other hand he had already gathered up the thick
dark hair, so that the neck lay bare and open to the final blow. But it
was two other details, Holt thinks, that set his muscles suddenly
free, enabling him to act with the swift judgment which, being wholly
unexpected, disconcerted both maniac and victim and frustrated the awful
culmination. The dark spots of blood upon the face he loved, and the
sudden final fluttering of the dead bird's wings upon the ground--these
two things, life actually touching death, released the held-back
springs.
He leaped forward. He received the blow upon his left arm and hand. It
was his right fist that sent the High Priest to earth with a blow that,
luckily, felled him in the direction away from the dreadful brink, and
it was his right arm and hand, he became aware some time afterwards
only, that were chiefly of use in carrying the fainting girl and her
unconscious father back to the shelter of the cottage, and to the best
help and comfort he could provide....
It was several years afterwards, in a very different setting, that he
found himself spelling out slowly to a little boy the lettering cut into
a circlet of bronze the child found on his study table. To the child he
told a fairy tale, then dismissed him to play with his mother in the
garden. But, when alone, he rubbed away the verdigris with great care,
for the circlet was thin and frail with age, as he examined again the
little picture of a tripod from which smoke issued, incised neatly in
the metal. Below it, almost as sharp as when the Roman craftsman cut it
first, was the name Acella. He touched the letters tenderly with his
left hand, from which two fingers were missing, then placed it in a
drawer of his desk and turned the key.
"That curious name," said a low voice behind his chair. His wife had
come in and was looking over his shoulder. "You love it, and I dread
it." She sat on the desk beside him, her eyes troubled. "It was the name
father used to call me in his illness."
Her husband looked at her with passionate tenderness, but said no word.
"And this," she went on, taking the broken hand in both her own, "is the
price you paid to me for his life. I often wonder what strange good
deity brought you upon the lonely moor that night, and just in the very
nick of time. You remember...?"
"The deity who helps true lovers, of course," he said with a smile,
evading the question. The deeper memory, he knew, had closed absolutely
in her since the moment of the attempted double crime. He kissed her,
murmuring to himself as he did so, but too low for her to hear,
"Acella! _My_ Acella...!"
VI
THE VALLEY OF THE BEASTS
1
As they emerged suddenly from the dense forest the Indian halted, and
Grimwood, his employer, stood beside him, gazing into the beautiful
wooded valley that lay spread below them in the blaze of a golden
sunset. Both men leaned upon their rifles, caught by the enchantment of
the unexpected scene.
"We camp here," said Tooshalli abruptly, after a careful survey.
"To-morrow we make a plan."
He spoke excellent English. The note of decision, almost of authority,
in his voice was noticeable, but Grimwood set it down to the natural
excitement of the moment. Every track they had followed during the last
two days, but one track in particular as well, had headed straight for
this remote and hidden valley, and the sport promised to be unusual.
"That's so," he replied, in the tone of one giving an order. "You can
make camp ready at once." And he sat down on a fallen hemlock to take
off his moccasin boots and grease his feet that ached from the arduous
day now drawing to a close. Though under ordinary circumstances he would
have pushed on for another hour or two, he was not averse to a night
here, for exhaustion had come upon him during the last bit of rough
going, his eye and muscles were no longer steady, and it was doubtful if
he could have shot straight enough to kill. He did not mean to miss a
second time.
With his Canadian friend, Iredale, the latter's half-breed, and his own
Indian, Tooshalli, the party had set out three weeks ago to find the
"wonderful big moose" the Indians reported were travelling in the Snow
River country. They soon found that the tale was true; tracks were
abundant; they saw fine animals nearly every day, but though carrying
good heads, the hunters expected better still and left them alone.
Pushing up the river to a chain of small lakes near its source, they
then separated into two parties, each with its nine-foot bark canoe,
and packed in for three days after the yet bigger animals the Indians
agreed would be found in the deeper woods beyond. Excitement was keen,
expectation keener still. The day before they separated, Iredale shot
the biggest moose of his life, and its head, bigger even than the grand
Alaskan heads, hangs in his house to-day. Grimwood's hunting blood was
fairly up. His blood was of the fiery, not to say ferocious, quality. It
almost seemed he liked killing for its own sake.
Four days after the party broke into two he came upon a gigantic track,
whose measurements and length of stride keyed every nerve he possessed
to its highest tension.
Tooshalli examined the tracks for some minutes with care. "It is the
biggest moose in the world," he said at length, a new expression on his
inscrutable red visage.
Following it all that day, they yet got no sight of the big fellow that
seemed to be frequenting a little marshy dip of country, too small to be
called valley, where willow and undergrowth abounded. He had not yet
scented his pursuers. They were after him again at dawn. Towards the
evening of the second day Grimwood caught a sudden glimpse of the
monster among a thick clump of willows, and the sight of the magnificent
head that easily beat all records set his heart beating like a hammer
with excitement. He aimed and fired. But the moose, instead of crashing,
went thundering away through the further scrub and disappeared, the
sound of his plunging canter presently dying away. Grimwood had missed,
even if he had wounded.
They camped, and all next day, leaving the canoe behind, they followed
the huge track, but though finding signs of blood, these were not
plentiful, and the shot had evidently only grazed the animal. The
travelling was of the hardest. Towards evening, utterly exhausted, the
spoor led them to the ridge they now stood upon, gazing down into the
enchanting valley that opened at their feet. The giant moose had gone
down into this valley. He would consider himself safe there. Grimwood
agreed with the Indian's judgment. They would camp for the night and
continue at dawn the wild hunt after "the biggest moose in the world."
Supper was over, the small fire used for cooking dying down, with
Grimwood became first aware that the Indian was not behaving quite as
usual. What particular detail drew his attention is hard to say. He was
a slow-witted, heavy man, full-blooded, unobservant; a fact had to hurt
him through his comfort, through his pleasure, before he noticed it. Yet
anyone else must have observed the changed mood of the Redskin long ago.
Tooshalli had made the fire, fried the bacon, served the tea, and was
arranging the blankets, his own and his employer's, before the latter
remarked upon his--silence. Tooshalli had not uttered a word for over an
hour and a half, since he had first set eyes upon the new valley, to be
exact. And his employer now noticed the unaccustomed silence, because
after food he liked to listen to wood talk and hunting lore.
"Tired out, aren't you?" said big Grimwood, looking into the dark face
across the firelight. He resented the absence of conversation, now that
he noticed it. He was over-weary himself, he felt more irritable than
usual, though his temper was always vile.
"Lost your tongue, eh?" he went on with a growl, as the Indian returned
his stare with solemn, expressionless face. That dark inscrutable look
got on his nerves a bit. "Speak up, man!" he exclaimed sharply. "What's
it all about?"
The Englishman had at last realized that there was something to "speak
up" about. The discovery, in his present state, annoyed him further.
Tooshalli stared gravely, but made no reply. The silence was prolonged
almost into minutes. Presently the head turned sideways, as though the
man listened. The other watched him very closely, anger growing in him.
But it was the way the Redskin turned his head, keeping his body rigid,
that gave the jerk to Grimwood's nerves, providing him with a sensation
he had never known in his life before--it gave him what is generally
called "the goose-flesh." It seemed to jangle his entire system, yet at
the same time made him cautious. He did not like it, this combination of
emotions puzzled him.
"Say something, I tell you," he repeated in a harsher tone, raising his
voice. He sat up, drawing his great body closer to the fire. "Say
something, damn it!"
His voice fell dead against the surrounding trees, making the silence of
the forest unpleasantly noticeable. Very still the great woods stood
about them; there was no wind, no stir of branches; only the crackle of
a snapping twig was audible from time to time, as the night-life moved
unwarily sometimes watching the humans round their little fire. The
October air had a frosty touch that nipped.
The Redskin did not answer. No muscle of his neck nor of his stiffened
body moved. He seemed all ears.
"Well?" repeated the Englishman, lowering his voice this time
instinctively. "What d'you hear, God damn it!" The touch of odd
nervousness that made his anger grow betrayed itself in his language.
Tooshalli slowly turned his head back again to its normal position, the
body rigid as before.
"I hear nothing, Mr. Grimwood," he said, gazing with quiet dignity into
his employer's eyes.
This was too much for the other, a man of savage temper at the best of
times. He was the type of Englishman who held strong views as to the
right way of treating "inferior" races.
"That's a lie, Tooshalli, and I won't have you lie to me. Now what was
it? Tell me at once!"
"I hear nothing," repeated the other. "I only think."
"And what is it you're pleased to think?" Impatience made a nasty
expression round the mouth.
"I go not," was the abrupt reply, unalterable decision in the voice.
The man's rejoinder was so unexpected that Grimwood found nothing to say
at first. For a moment he did not take its meaning; his mind, always
slow, was confused by impatience, also by what he considered the
foolishness of the little scene. Then in a flash he understood; but he
also understood the immovable obstinacy of the race he had to deal with.
Tooshalli was informing him that he refused to go into the valley where
the big moose had vanished. And his astonishment was so great at first
that he merely sat and stared. No words came to him.
"It is----" said the Indian, but used a native term.
"What's that mean?" Grimwood found his tongue, but his quiet tone was
ominous.
"Mr. Grimwood, it mean the 'Valley of the Beasts,'" was the reply in a
tone quieter still.
The Englishman made a great, a genuine effort at self-control. He was
dealing, he forced himself to remember, with a superstitious Redskin. He
knew the stubbornness of the type. If the man left him his sport was
irretrievably spoilt, for he could not hunt in this wilderness alone,
and even if he got the coveted head, he could never, never get it out
alone. His native selfishness seconded his effort. Persuasion, if only
he could keep back his rising anger, was his rôle to play.
"The Valley of the Beasts," he said, a smile on his lips rather than in
his darkening eyes; "but that's just what we want. It's beasts we're
after, isn't it?" His voice had a false cheery ring that could not have
deceived a child. "But what d'you mean, anyhow--the Valley of the
Beasts?" He asked it with a dull attempt at sympathy.
"It belong to Ishtot, Mr. Grimwood." The man looked him full in the
face, no flinching in the eyes.
"My--our--big moose is there," said the other, who recognized the name
of the Indian Hunting God, and understanding better, felt confident
he would soon persuade his man. Tooshalli, he remembered, too, was
nominally a Christian. "We'll follow him at dawn and get the biggest
head the world has ever seen. You will be famous," he added, his temper
better in hand again. "Your tribe will honour you. And the white hunters
will pay you much money."
"He go there to save himself. I go not."
The other's anger revived with a leap at this stupid obstinacy. But, in
spite of it, he noticed the odd choice of words. He began to realize
that nothing now would move the man. At the same time he also realized
that violence on his part must prove worse than useless. Yet violence
was natural to his "dominant" type. "That brute Grimwood" was the way
most men spoke of him.
"Back at the settlement you're a Christian, remember," he tried, in his
clumsy way, another line. "And disobedience means hell-fire. You know
that!"
"I a Christian--at the post," was the reply, "but out here the Red God
rule. Ishtot keep that valley for himself. No Indian hunt there." It was
as though a granite boulder spoke.
The savage temper of the Englishman, enforced by the long difficult
suppression, rose wickedly into sudden flame. He stood up, kicking his
blankets aside. He strode across the dying fire to the Indian's side.
Tooshalli also rose. They faced each other, two humans alone in the
wilderness, watched by countless invisible forest eyes.
Tooshalli stood motionless, yet as though he expected violence from the
foolish, ignorant white-face. "You go alone, Mr. Grimwood." There was no
fear in him.
Grimwood choked with rage. His words came forth with difficulty, though
he roared them into the silence of the forest:
"I pay you, don't I? You'll do what _I_ say, not what _you_ say!" His
voice woke the echoes.
The Indian, arms hanging by his side, gave the old reply.
"I go not," he repeated firmly.
It stung the other into uncontrollable fury.
The beast then came uppermost; it came out. "You've said that once too
often, Tooshalli!" and he struck him brutally in the face. The Indian
fell, rose to his knees again, collapsed sideways beside the fire, then
struggled back into a sitting position. He never once took his eyes from
the white man's face.
Beside himself with anger, Grimwood stood over him. "Is that enough?
Will you obey me now?" he shouted.
"I go not," came the thick reply, blood streaming from his mouth. The
eyes had no flinching in them. "That valley Ishtot keep. Ishtot see us
now. _He see you._" The last words he uttered with strange, almost
uncanny emphasis.
Grimwood, arm raised, fist clenched, about to repeat his terrible
assault, paused suddenly. His arm sank to his side. What exactly
stopped him he could never say. For one thing, he feared his own
anger, feared that if he let himself go he would not stop till he had
killed--committed murder. He knew his own fearful temper and stood
afraid of it. Yet it was not only that. The calm firmness of the
Redskin, his courage under pain, and something in the fixed and
burning eyes arrested him. Was it also something in the words he had
used--"Ishtot see _you_"--that stung him into a queer caution midway in
his violence?
He could not say. He only knew that a momentary sense of awe came over
him. He became unpleasantly aware of the enveloping forest, so still,
listening in a kind of impenetrable, remorseless silence. This lonely
wilderness, looking silently upon what might easily prove murder, laid a
faint, inexplicable chill upon his raging blood. The hand dropped slowly
to his side again, the fist unclenched itself, his breath came more
evenly.
"Look you here," he said, adopting without knowing it the local way of
speech. "I ain't a bad man, though your going-on do make a man damned
tired. I'll give you another chance." His voice was sullen, but a new
note in it surprised even himself. "I'll do that. You can have the night
to think it over, Tooshalli--see? Talk it over with your----"
He did not finish the sentence. Somehow the name of the Redskin God
refused to pass his lips. He turned away, flung himself into his
blankets, and in less than ten minutes, exhausted as much by his anger
as by the day's hard going, he was sound asleep.
The Indian, crouching beside the dying fire, had said nothing.
Night held the woods, the sky was thick with stars, the life of the
forest went about its business quietly, with that wondrous skill which
millions of years have perfected. The Redskin, so close to this skill
that he instinctively used and borrowed from it, was silent, alert and
wise, his outline as inconspicuous as though he merged, like his
four-footed teachers, into the mass of the surrounding bush.
He moved perhaps, yet nothing knew he moved. His wisdom, derived from
that eternal, ancient mother who from infinite experience makes no
mistakes, did not fail him. His soft tread made no sound; his breathing,
as his weight, was calculated. The stars observed him, but they did not
tell; the light air knew his whereabouts, yet without betrayal....
The chill dawn gleamed at length between the trees, lighting the pale
ashes of an extinguished fire, also of a bulky, obvious form beneath a
blanket. The form moved clumsily. The cold was penetrating.
And that bulky form now moved because a dream had come to trouble it. A
dark figure stole across its confused field of vision. The form started,
but it did not wake. The figure spoke: "Take this," it whispered,
handing a little stick, curiously carved. "It is the totem of great
Ishtot. In the valley all memory of the White Gods will leave you. Call
upon Ishtot.... Call on Him if you dare"; and the dark figure glided
away out of the dream and out of all remembrance....
2
The first thing Grimwood noticed when he woke was that Tooshalli was not
there. No fire burned, no tea was ready. He felt exceedingly annoyed. He
glared about him, then got up with a curse to make the fire. His mind
seemed confused and troubled. At first he only realized one thing
clearly--his guide had left him in the night.
It was very cold. He lit the wood with difficulty and made his tea, and
the actual world came gradually back to him. The Red Indian had gone;
perhaps the blow, perhaps the superstitious terror, perhaps both, had
driven him away. He was alone, that was the outstanding fact. For
anything beyond outstanding facts, Grimwood felt little interest.
Imaginative speculation was beyond his compass. Close to the brute
creation, it seemed, his nature lay.
It was while packing his blankets--he did it automatically, a dull,
vicious resentment in him--that his fingers struck a bit of wood that
he was about to throw away when its unusual shape caught his attention
suddenly. His odd dream came back then. But was it a dream? The bit of
wood was undoubtedly a totem stick. He examined it. He paid it more
attention than he meant to, wished to. Yes, it was unquestionably a
totem stick. The dream, then, was not a dream. Tooshalli had quit, but,
following with Redskin faithfulness some code of his own, had left him
the means of safety. He chuckled sourly, but thrust the stick inside his
belt. "One never knows," he mumbled to himself.
He faced the situation squarely. He was alone in the wilderness. His
capable, experienced woodsman had deserted him. The situation was
serious. What should he do? A weakling would certainly retrace his
steps, following the track they had made, afraid to be left alone in
this vast hinterland of pathless forest. But Grimwood was of another
build. Alarmed he might be, but he would not give in. He had the defects
of his own qualities. The brutality of his nature argued force. He was
determined and a sportsman. He would go on. And ten minutes after
breakfast, having first made a _cache_ of what provisions were left
over, he was on his way--down across the ridge and into the mysterious
valley, the Valley of the Beasts.
It looked, in the morning sunlight, entrancing. The trees closed in
behind him, but he did not notice. It led him on....
He followed the track of the gigantic moose he meant to kill, and the
sweet, delicious sunshine helped him. The air was like wine, the
seductive spoor of the great beast, with here and there a faint splash
of blood on leaves or ground, lay forever just before his eyes. He found
the valley, though the actual word did not occur to him, enticing; more
and more he noticed the beauty, the desolate grandeur of the mighty
spruce and hemlock, the splendour of the granite bluffs which in places
rose above the forest and caught the sun.... The valley was deeper,
vaster than he had imagined. He felt safe, at home in it, though, again
these actual terms did not occur to him.... Here he could hide for
ever and find peace.... He became aware of a new quality in the deep
loneliness. The scenery for the first time in his life appealed to him,
and the form of the appeal was curious--he felt the comfort of it.
For a man of his habit, this was odd, yet the new sensations stole over
him so gently, their approach so gradual, that they were first
recognized by his consciousness indirectly. They had already established
themselves in him before he noticed them; and the indirectness took this
form--that the passion of the chase gave place to an interest in the
valley itself. The lust of the hunt, the fierce desire to find and kill,
the keen wish, in a word, to see his quarry within range, to aim, to
fire, to witness the natural consummation of the long expedition--these
had all become measurably less, while the effect of the valley upon him
had increased in strength. There was a welcome about it that he did not
understand.
The change was singular, yet, oddly enough, it did not occur to him as
singular; it was unnatural, yet it did not strike him so. To a dull mind
of his unobservant, unanalytical type, a change had to be marked and
dramatic before he noticed it; something in the nature of a shock must
accompany it for him to recognize it had happened. And there had been no
shock. The spoor of the great moose was much cleaner, now that he caught
up with the animal that made it; the blood more frequent; he had noticed
the spot where it had rested, its huge body leaving a marked imprint on
the soft ground; where it had reached up to eat the leaves of saplings
here and there was also visible; he had come undoubtedly very near to
it, and any minute now might see its great bulk within range of an easy
shot. Yet his ardour had somehow lessened.
He first realized this change in himself when it suddenly occurred to
him that the animal itself had grown less cautious. It must scent him
easily now, since a moose, its sight being indifferent, depends chiefly
for its safety upon its unusually keen sense of smell, and the wind
came from behind him. This now struck him as decidedly uncommon: the
moose itself was obviously careless of his close approach. It felt no
fear.
It was this inexplicable alteration in the animal's behaviour that made
him recognize, at last, the alteration in his own. He had followed it
now for a couple of hours and had descended some eight hundred to a
thousand feet; the trees were thinner and more sparsely placed; there
were open, park-like places where silver birch, sumach and maple
splashed their blazing colours; and a crystal stream, broken by many
waterfalls, foamed past towards the bed of the great valley, yet another
thousand feet below. By a quiet pool against some over-arching rocks,
the moose had evidently paused to drink, paused at its leisure,
moreover. Grimwood, rising from a close examination of the direction the
creature had taken after drinking--the hoof-marks were fresh and very
distinct in the marshy ground about the pool--looked suddenly straight
into the great creature's eyes. It was not twenty yards from where he
stood, yet he had been standing on that spot for at least ten minutes,
caught by the wonder and loneliness of the scene. The moose, therefore,
had been close beside him all this time. It had been calmly drinking,
undisturbed by his presence, unafraid.
The shock came now, the shock that woke his heavy nature into
realization. For some seconds, probably for minutes, he stood rooted to
the ground, motionless, hardly breathing. He stared as though he saw a
vision. The animal's head was lowered, but turned obliquely somewhat,
so that the eyes, placed sideways in its great head, could see him
properly; its immense proboscis hung as though stuffed upon an English
wall; he saw the fore-feet planted wide apart, the slope of the enormous
shoulders dropping back towards the fine hind-quarters and lean flanks.
It was a magnificent bull. The horns and head justified his wildest
expectations, they were superb, a record specimen, and a phrase--where
had he heard it?--ran vaguely, as from far distance, through his mind:
"the biggest moose in the world."
There was the extraordinary fact, however, that he did not shoot; nor
feel the wish to shoot. The familiar instinct, so strong hitherto in his
blood, made no sign; the desire to kill apparently had left him. To
raise his rifle, aim and fire had become suddenly an absolute
impossibility.
He did not move. The animal and the human stared into each other's eyes
for a length of time whose interval he could not measure. Then came a
soft noise close beside him: the rifle had slipped from his grasp and
fallen with a thud into the mossy earth at his feet. And the moose, for
the first time now, was moving. With slow, easy stride, its great weight
causing a squelching sound as the feet drew out of the moist ground, it
came towards him, the bulk of the shoulders giving it an appearance of
swaying like a ship at sea. It reached his side, it almost touched him,
the magnificent head bent low, the spread of the gigantic horns lay
beneath his very eyes. He could have patted, stroked it. He saw, with a
touch of pity, that blood trickled from a sore in its left shoulder,
matting the thick hair. It sniffed the fallen rifle.
Then, lifting its head and shoulders again, it sniffed the air, this
time with an audible sound that shook from Grimwood's mind the last
possibility that he witnessed a vision or dreamed a dream. One moment
it gazed into his face, its big brown eyes shining and unafraid, then
turned abruptly, and swung away at a speed ever rapidly increasing
across the park-like spaces till it was lost finally among the dark
tangle of undergrowth beyond. And the Englishman's muscles turned to
paper, his paralysis passed, his legs refused to support his weight, and
he sank heavily to the ground....
3
It seems he slept, slept long and heavily; he sat up, stretched himself,
yawned and rubbed his eyes. The sun had moved across the sky, for the
shadows, he saw, now ran from west to east, and they were long shadows.
He had slept evidently for hours, and evening was drawing in. He was
aware that he felt hungry. In his pouchlike pockets, he had dried meat,
sugar, matches, tea, and the little billy that never left him. He would
make a fire, boil some tea and eat.
But he took no steps to carry out his purpose, he felt disinclined to
move, he sat thinking, thinking.... What was he thinking about? He did
not know, he could not say exactly; it was more like fugitive pictures
that passed across his mind. Who, and where, was he? This was the Valley
of the Beasts, that he knew; he felt sure of nothing else. How long had
he been here, and where had he come from, and why? The questions did not
linger for their answers, almost as though his interest in them was
merely automatic. He felt happy, peaceful, unafraid.
He looked about him, and the spell of this virgin forest came upon
him like a charm; only the sound of falling water, the murmur of wind
sighing among innumerable branches, broke the enveloping silence.
Overhead, beyond the crests of the towering trees, a cloudless evening
sky was paling into transparent orange, opal, mother of pearl. He saw
buzzards soaring lazily. A scarlet tanager flashed by. Soon would the
owls begin to call and the darkness fall like a sweet black veil
and hide all detail, while the stars sparkled in their countless
thousands....
A glint of something that shone upon the ground caught his eye--a
smooth, polished strip of rounded metal: his rifle. And he started to
his feet impulsively, yet not knowing exactly what he meant to do. At
the sight of the weapon, something had leaped to life in him, then faded
out, died down, and was gone again.
"I'm--I'm----" he began muttering to himself, but could not finish what
he was about to say. His name had disappeared completely. "I'm in the
Valley of the Beasts," he repeated in place of what he sought but could
not find.
This fact, that he was in the Valley of the Beasts, seemed the only
positive item of knowledge that he had. About the name something known
and familiar clung, though the sequence that led up to it he could not
trace. Presently, nevertheless, he rose to his feet, advanced a few
steps, stooped and picked up the shining metal thing, his rifle. He
examined it a moment, a feeling of dread and loathing rising in him,
a sensation of almost horror that made him tremble, then, with a
convulsive movement that betrayed an intense reaction of some sort he
could not comprehend, he flung the thing far from him into the foaming
torrent. He saw the splash it made, he also saw that same instant a
large grizzly bear swing heavily along the bank not a dozen yards from
where he stood. It, too, heard the splash, for it started, turned,
paused a second, then changed its direction and came towards him. It
came up close. Its fur brushed his body. It examined him leisurely, as
the moose had done, sniffed, half rose upon its terrible hind legs,
opened its mouth so that red tongue and gleaming teeth were plainly
visible, then flopped back upon all fours again with a deep growling
that yet had no anger in it, and swung off at a quick trot back to the
bank of the torrent. He had felt its hot breath upon his face, but he
had felt no fear. The monster was puzzled but not hostile. It
disappeared.
"They know not----" he sought for the word "man," but could not find it.
"They have never been hunted."
The words ran through his mind, if perhaps he was not entirely certain
of their meaning; they rose, as it were, automatically; a familiar sound
lay in them somewhere. At the same time there rose feelings in him
that were equally, though in another way, familiar and quite natural,
feelings he had once known intimately but long since laid aside.
What were they? What was their origin? They seemed distant as the stars,
yet were actually in his body, in his blood and nerves, part and parcel
of his flesh. Long, long ago.... Oh, how long, how long?
Thinking was difficult; feeling was what he most easily and naturally
managed. He could not think for long; feeling rose up and drowned the
effort quickly.
That huge and awful bear--not a nerve, not a muscle quivered in him as
its acrid smell rose to his nostrils, its fur brushed down his legs. Yet
he was aware that somewhere there was danger, though not here. Somewhere
there was attack, hostility, wicked and calculated plans against him--as
against that splendid, roaming animal that had sniffed, examined, then
gone its own way, satisfied. Yes, active attack, hostility and careful,
cruel plans against his safety, but--not here. Here he was safe, secure,
at peace; here he was happy; here he could roam at will, no eye cast
sideways into forest depths, no ear pricked high to catch sounds not
explained, no nostrils quivering to scent alarm. He felt this, but he
did not think it. He felt hungry, thirsty too.
Something prompted him now at last to act. His billy lay at his feet,
and he picked it up; the matches--he carried them in a metal case whose
screw top kept out all moisture--were in his hand. Gathering a few dry
twigs, he stooped to light them, then suddenly drew back with the first
touch of fear he had yet known.
Fire! What _was_ fire? The idea was repugnant to him, it was impossible,
he was afraid of fire. He flung the metal case after the rifle and saw
it gleam in the last rays of sunset, then sink with a little splash
beneath the water. Glancing down at his billy, he realized next that he
could not make use of it either, nor of the dark dry dusty stuff he had
meant to boil in water. He felt no repugnance, certainly no fear, in
connexion with these things, only he could not handle them, he did not
need them, he had forgotten, yes, "forgotten," what they meant exactly.
This strange forgetfulness was increasing in him rapidly, becoming more
and more complete with every minute. Yet his thirst must be quenched.
The next moment he found himself at the water's edge; he stooped to fill
his billy; paused, hesitated, examined the rushing water, then abruptly
moved a few feet higher up the stream, leaving the metal can behind him.
His handling of it had been oddly clumsy, his gestures awkward, even
unnatural. He now flung himself down with an easy, simple motion of his
entire body, lowered his face to a quiet pool he had found, and drank
his fill of the cool, refreshing liquid. But, though unaware of the
fact, he did not drink. He lapped.
Then, crouching where he was, he ate the meat and sugar from his
pockets, lapped more water, moved back a short distance again into the
dry ground beneath the trees, but moved this time without rising to his
feet, curled his body into a comfortable position and closed his eyes
again to sleep.... No single question now raised its head in him. He
felt contentment, satisfaction only....
He stirred, shook himself, opened half an eye and saw, as he had felt
already in slumber, that he was not alone. In the park-like spaces in
front of him, as in the shadowed fringe of the trees at his back, there
was sound and movement, the sound of stealthy feet, the movement of
innumerable dark bodies. There was the pad and tread of animals, the
stir of backs, of smooth and shaggy beasts, in countless numbers. Upon
this host fell the light of a half moon sailing high in a cloudless sky;
the gleam of stars, sparkling in the clear night air like diamonds,
shone reflected in hundreds of ever-shifting eyes, most of them but a
few feet above the ground. The whole valley was alive.
He sat upon his haunches, staring, staring, but staring in wonder, not
in fear, though the foremost of the great host were so near that he
could have stretched an arm and touched them. It was an ever-moving,
ever-shifting throng he gazed at, spell-bound, in the pale light of moon
and stars, now fading slowly towards the approaching dawn. And the smell
of the forest itself was not sweeter to him in that moment than the
mingled perfume, raw, pungent, acrid, of this furry host of beautiful
wild animals that moved like a sea, with a strange murmuring, too, like
sea, as the myriad feet and bodies passed to and fro together. Nor was
the gleam of the starry, phosphorescent eyes less pleasantly friendly
than those happy lamps that light home-lost wanderers to cosy rooms and
safety. Through the wild army, in a word, poured to him the deep comfort
of the entire valley, a comfort which held both the sweetness of
invitation and the welcome of some magical home-coming.
No thoughts came to him, but feeling rose in a tide of wonder and
acceptance. He was in his rightful place. His nature had come home.
There was this dim, vague consciousness in him that after long, futile
straying in another place where uncongenial conditions had forced him to
be unnatural and therefore terrible, he had returned at last where he
belonged. Here, in the Valley of the Beasts, he had found peace,
security and happiness. He would be--he was at last--himself.
It was a marvellous, even a magical, scene he watched, his nerves at
highest tension yet quite steady, his senses exquisitely alert, yet no
uneasiness in the full, accurate reports they furnished. Strong as some
deep flood-tide, yet dim, as with untold time and distance, rose over
him the spell of long-forgotten memory of a state where he was content
and happy, where he was natural. The outlines, as it were, of mighty,
primitive pictures, flashed before him, yet were gone again before the
detail was filled in.
He watched the great army of the animals, they were all about him now;
he crouched upon his haunches in the centre of an ever-moving circle of
wild forest life. Great timber wolves he saw pass to and fro, loping
past him with long stride and graceful swing; their red tongues lolling
out; they swarmed in hundreds. Behind, yet mingling freely with them,
rolled the huge grizzlies, not clumsy as their uncouth bodies promised,
but swiftly, lightly, easily, their half tumbling gait masking agility
and speed. They gambolled, sometimes they rose and stood half upright,
they were comely in their mass and power, they rolled past him so close
that he could touch them. And the black bear and the brown went with
them, bears beyond counting, monsters and little ones, a splendid
multitude. Beyond them, yet only a little further back, where the
park-like spaces made free movement easier, rose a sea of horns and
antlers like a miniature forest in the silvery moonlight. The immense
tribe of deer gathered in vast throngs beneath the starlit sky. Moose
and caribou, he saw, the mighty wapiti, and the smaller deer in their
crowding thousands. He heard the sound of meeting horns, the tread of
innumerable hoofs, the occasional pawing of the ground as the bigger
creatures manoeuvred for more space about them. A wolf, he saw, was
licking gently at the shoulder of a great bull-moose that had been
injured. And the tide receded, advanced again, once more receded, rising
and falling like a living sea whose waves were animal shapes, the
inhabitants of the Valley of the Beasts.
Beneath the quiet moonlight they swayed to and fro before him. They
watched him, knew him, recognized him. They made him welcome.
He was aware, moreover, of a world of smaller life that formed an
under-sea, as it were, numerous under-currents rather, running in and
out between the great upright legs of the larger creatures. These,
though he could not see them clearly, covered the earth, he was aware,
in enormous numbers, darting hither and thither, now hiding, now
reappearing, too intent upon their busy purposes to pay him attention
like their huger comrades, yet ever and anon tumbling against his back,
cannoning from his sides, scampering across his legs even, then gone
again with a scuttering sound of rapid little feet, and rushing back
into the general host beyond. And with this smaller world also he felt
at home.
How long he sat gazing, happy in himself, secure, satisfied, contented,
natural, he could not say, but it was long enough for the desire to
mingle with what he saw, to know closer contact, to become one with them
all--long enough for this deep blind desire to assert itself, so that at
length he began to move from his mossy seat towards them, to move,
moreover, as they moved, and not upright on two feet.
The moon was lower now, just sinking behind a towering cedar whose
ragged crest broke its light into silvery spray. The stars were a little
paler too. A line of faint red was visible beyond the heights at the
valley's eastern end.
He paused and looked about him, as he advanced slowly, aware that the
host already made an opening in their ranks and that the bear even nosed
the earth in front, as though to show the way that was easiest for him
to follow. Then, suddenly, a lynx leaped past him into the low branches
of a hemlock, and he lifted his head to admire its perfect poise. He saw
in the same instant the arrival of the birds, the army of the eagles,
hawks and buzzards, birds of prey--the awakening flight that just
precedes the dawn. He saw the flocks and streaming lines, hiding the
whitening stars a moment as they passed with a prodigious whirr of
wings. There came the hooting of an owl from the tree immediately
overhead where the lynx now crouched, but not maliciously, along its
branch.
He started. He half rose to an upright position. He knew not why he did
so, knew not exactly why he started. But in the attempt to find his new,
and, as it now seemed, his unaccustomed balance, one hand fell against
his side and came in contact with a hard straight thing that projected
awkwardly from his clothing. He pulled it out, feeling it all over with
his fingers. It was a little stick. He raised it nearer to his eyes,
examined it in the light of dawn now growing swiftly, remembered, or
half remembered what it was--and stood stock still.
"The totem stick," he mumbled to himself, yet audibly, finding his
speech, and finding another thing--a glint of peering memory--for the
first time since entering the valley.
A shock like fire ran through his body; he straightened himself, aware
that a moment before he had been crawling upon his hands and knees; it
seemed that something broke in his brain, lifting a veil, flinging a
shutter free. And Memory peered dreadfully through the widening gap.
"I'm--I'm Grimwood," his voice uttered, though below his breath.
"Tooshalli's left me. I'm alone...!"
He was aware of a sudden change in the animals surrounding him. A big,
grey wolf sat three feet away, glaring into his face; at its side an
enormous grizzly swayed itself from one foot to the other; behind it, as
if looking over its shoulder, loomed a gigantic wapiti, its horns merged
in the shadows of the drooping cedar boughs. But the northern dawn was
nearer, the sun already close to the horizon. He saw details with sharp
distinctness now. The great bear rose, balancing a moment on its massive
hind-quarters, then took a step towards him, its front paws spread like
arms. Its wicked head lolled horribly, as a huge bull-moose, lowering
its horns as if about to charge, came up with a couple of long strides
and joined it. A sudden excitement ran quivering over the entire host;
the distant ranks moved in a new, unpleasant way; a thousand heads were
lifted, ears were pricked, a forest of ugly muzzles pointed up to the
wind.
And the Englishman, beside himself suddenly with a sense of ultimate
terror that saw no possible escape, stiffened and stood rigid. The
horror of his position petrified him. Motionless and silent he faced
the awful army of his enemies, while the white light of breaking day
added fresh ghastliness to the scene which was the setting for his cruel
death in the Valley of the Beasts.
Above him crouched the hideous lynx, ready to spring the instant he
sought safety in the tree; above it again, he was aware of a thousand
talons of steel, fierce hooked beaks of iron, and the angry beating of
prodigious wings.
He reeled, for the grizzly touched his body with its outstretched paw;
the wolf crouched just before its deadly spring; in another second
he would have been torn to pieces, crushed, devoured, when terror,
operating naturally as ever, released the muscles of his throat and
tongue. He shouted with what he believed was his last breath on earth.
He called aloud in his frenzy. It was a prayer to whatever gods there
be, it was an anguished cry for help to heaven.
"Ishtot! Great Ishtot, help me!" his voice rang out, while his hand
still clutched the forgotten totem stick.
And the Red Heaven heard him.
Grimwood that same instant was aware of a presence that, but for
his terror of the beasts, must have frightened him into sheer
unconsciousness. A gigantic Red Indian stood before him. Yet, while the
figure rose close in front of him, causing the birds to settle and the
wild animals to crouch quietly where they stood, it rose also from
a great distance, for it seemed to fill the entire valley with its
influence, its power, its amazing majesty. In some way, moreover, that
he could not understand, its vast appearance included the actual valley
itself with all its trees, its running streams, its open spaces and its
rocky bluffs. These marked its outline, as it were, the outline of a
superhuman shape. There was a mighty bow, there was a quiver of enormous
arrows, there was this Redskin figure to whom they belonged.
Yet the appearance, the outline, the face and figure too--these _were_
the valley; and when the voice became audible, it was the valley itself
that uttered the appalling words. It was the voice of trees and wind,
and of running, falling water that woke the echoes in the Valley of the
Beasts, as, in that same moment, the sun topped the ridge and filled the
scene, the outline of the majestic figure too, with a flood of dazzling
light:
"You have shed blood in this my valley.... _I will not save_...!"
The figure melted away into the sunlit forest, merging with the new-born
day. But Grimwood saw close against his face the shining teeth, hot
fetid breath passed over his cheeks, a power enveloped his whole body as
though a mountain crushed him. He closed his eyes. He fell. A sharp,
crackling sound passed through his brain, but already unconscious, he
did not hear it.
* * * * *
His eyes opened again, and the first thing they took in was--fire. He
shrank back instinctively.
"It's all right, old man. We'll bring you round. Nothing to be
frightened about." He saw the face of Iredale looking down into his own.
Behind Iredale stood Tooshalli. His face was swollen. Grimwood
remembered the blow. The big man began to cry.
"Painful still, is it?" Iredale said sympathetically. "Here, swallow a
little more of this. It'll set you right in no time."
Grimwood gulped down the spirit. He made a violent effort to control
himself, but was unable to keep the tears back. He felt no pain. It was
his heart that ached, though why or wherefore, he had no idea.
"I'm all to pieces," he mumbled, ashamed yet somehow not ashamed. "My
nerves are rotten. What's happened?" There was as yet no memory in him.
"You've been hugged by a bear, old man. But no bones broken. Tooshalli
saved you. He fired in the nick of time--a brave shot, for he might
easily have hit you instead of the brute."
"The other brute," whispered Grimwood, as the whisky worked in him and
memory came slowly back.
"Where are we?" he asked presently, looking about him.
He saw a lake, canoes drawn up on the shore, two tents, and figures
moving. Iredale explained matters briefly, then left him to sleep a bit.
Tooshalli, it appeared, travelling without rest, had reached Iredale's
camping ground twenty-four hours after leaving his employer. He found it
deserted, Iredale and his Indian being on the hunt. When they returned
at nightfall, he had explained his presence in his brief native fashion:
"He struck me and I quit. He hunt now alone in Ishtot's Valley of the
Beasts. He is dead, I think. I come to tell you."
Iredale and his guide, with Tooshalli as leader, started off then and
there, but Grimwood had covered a considerable distance, though leaving
an easy track to follow. It was the moose tracks and the blood that
chiefly guided them. They came up with him suddenly enough--in the grip
of an enormous bear.
It was Tooshalli that fired.
* * * * *
The Indian lives now in easy circumstances, all his needs cared for,
while Grimwood, his benefactor but no longer his employer, has given up
hunting. He is a quiet, easy-tempered, almost gentle sort of fellow,
and people wonder rather why he hasn't married. "Just the fellow to
make a good father," is what they say; "so kind, good-natured and
affectionate." Among his pipes, in a glass case over the mantlepiece,
hangs a totem stick. He declares it saved his soul, but what he means by
the expression he has never quite explained.
VII
THE CALL
The incident--story it never was, perhaps--began tamely, almost meanly;
it ended upon a note of strange, unearthly wonder that has haunted him
ever since. In Headley's memory, at any rate, it stands out as the
loveliest, the most amazing thing he ever witnessed. Other emotions,
too, contributed to the vividness of the picture. That he had felt
jealousy towards his old pal, Arthur Deane, shocked him in the first
place; it seemed impossible until it actually happened. But that the
jealousy was proved afterwards to have been without a cause shocked him
still more. He felt ashamed and miserable.
For him, the actual incident began when he received a note from Mrs.
Blondin asking him to the Priory for a week-end, or for longer, if he
could manage it.
Captain Arthur Deane, she mentioned, was staying with her at the moment,
and a warm welcome awaited him. Iris she did not mention--Iris Manning,
the interesting and beautiful girl for whom it was well known he had a
considerable weakness. He found a good-sized house party; there was
fishing in the little Sussex river, tennis, golf not far away, while two
motor cars brought the remoter country across the downs into easy reach.
Also there was a bit of duck shooting for those who cared to wake at
3 a. m. and paddle up-stream to the marshes where the birds were feeding.
"Have you brought your gun?" was the first thing Arthur said to him when
he arrived. "Like a fool, I left mine in town."
"I hope you haven't," put in Miss Manning; "because if you have I must
get up one fine morning at three o'clock." She laughed merrily, and
there was an undernote of excitement in the laugh.
Captain Headley showed his surprise. "That you were a Diana had escaped
my notice, I'm ashamed to say," he replied lightly. "Yet I've known you
some years, haven't I?" He looked straight at her, and the soft yet
searching eye, turning from his friend, met his own securely. She was
appraising him, for the hundreth time, and he, for the hundreth time,
was thinking how pretty she was, and wondering how long the prettiness
would last after marriage.
"I'm not," he heard her answer. "That's just it. But I've promised."
"Rather!" said Arthur gallantly. "And I shall hold you to it," he added
still more gallantly--too gallantly, Headley thought. "I couldn't
possibly get up at cockcrow without a very special inducement, could I,
now? You know me, Dick!"
"Well, anyhow, I've brought my gun," Headley replied evasively, "so
you've no excuse, either of you. You'll have to go." And while they were
laughing and chattering about it, Mrs. Blondin clinched the matter for
them. Provisions were hard to come by; the larder really needed a brace
or two of birds; it was the least they could do in return for what she
called amusingly her "Armistice hospitality."
"So I expect you to get up at three," she chaffed them, "and return with
your Victory birds."
It was from this preliminary skirmish over the tea-table on the law five
minutes after his arrival that Dick Headley realized easily enough the
little game in progress. As a man of experience, just on the wrong side
of forty, it was not difficult to see the cards each held. He sighed.
Had he guessed an intrigue was on foot he would not have come, yet he
might have known that wherever his hostess was, there were the vultures
gathered together. Matchmaker by choice and instinct, Mrs. Blondin
could not help herself. True to her name, she was always balancing on
matrimonial tightropes--for others.
_Her_ cards, at any rate, were obvious enough; she had laid them on the
table for him. He easily read her hand. The next twenty-four hours
confirmed this reading. Having made up her mind that Iris and Arthur
were destined for each other, she had grown impatient; they had been ten
days together, yet Iris was still free. They were good friends only.
With calculation, she, therefore, took a step that must bring things
further. She invited Dick Headley, whose weakness for the girl was
common knowledge. The card was indicated; she played it. Arthur must
come to the point or see another man carry her off. This, at least, she
planned, little dreaming that the dark King of Spades would interfere.
Miss Manning's hand also was fairly obvious, for both men were extremely
eligible _partis_. She was getting on; one or other was to become her
husband before the party broke up. This, in crude language, was
certainly in her cards, though, being a nice and charming girl, she
might camouflage it cleverly to herself and others. Her eyes, on each
man in turn when the shooting expedition was being discussed, revealed
her part in the little intrigue clearly enough. It was all, thus far, as
commonplace as could be.
But there were two more hands Headley had to read--his own and his
friend's; and these, he admitted honestly, were not so easy. To take his
own first. It was true he was fond of the girl and had often tried to
make up his mind to ask her. Without being conceited, he had good reason
to believe his affection was returned and that she would accept him.
There was no ecstatic love on either side, for he was no longer a boy of
twenty, nor was she unscathed by tempestuous love affairs that had
scorched the first bloom from her face and heart. But they understood
one another; they were an honest couple; she was tired of flirting;
both wanted to marry and settle down. Unless a better man turned up she
probably would say "Yes" without humbug or delay. It was this last
reflection that brought him to the final hand he had to read.
Here he was puzzled. Arthur Deane's rôle in the teacup strategy, for the
first time since they had known one another, seemed strange, uncertain.
Why? Because, though paying no attention to the girl openly, he met her
clandestinely, unknown to the rest of the house-party, and above all
without telling his intimate pal--at three o'clock in the morning.
The house-party was in full swing, with a touch of that wild, reckless
gaiety which followed the end of the war: "Let us be happy before a
worse thing comes upon us," was in many hearts. After a crowded day they
danced till early in the morning, while doubtful weather prevented the
early shooting expedition after duck. The third night Headley contrived
to disappear early to bed. He lay there thinking. He was puzzled over
his friend's rôle, over the clandestine meeting in particular. It was
the morning before, waking very early, he had been drawn to the window
by an unusual sound--the cry of a bird. Was it a bird? In all his
experience he had never heard such a curious, half-singing call before.
He listened a moment, thinking it must have been a dream, yet with the
odd cry still ringing in his ears. It was repeated close beneath his
open window, a long, low-pitched cry with three distinct following notes
in it.
He sat up in bed and listened hard. No bird that he knew could make such
sounds. But it was not repeated a third time, and out of sheer curiosity
he went to the window and looked out. Dawn was creeping over the distant
downs; he saw their outline in the grey pearly light; he saw the lawn
below, stretching down to the little river at the bottom, where a
curtain of faint mist hung in the air. And on this lawn he also saw
Arthur Deane--with Iris Manning.
Of course, he reflected, they were going after the duck. He turned to
look at his watch; it was three o'clock. The same glance, however,
showed him his gun standing in the corner. So they were going without a
gun. A sharp pang of unexpected jealousy shot through him. He was just
going to shout out something or other, wishing them good luck, or asking
if they had found another gun, perhaps, when a cold touch crept down his
spine. The same instant his heart contracted. Deane had followed the
girl into the summer-house, which stood on the right. It was _not_ the
shooting expedition at all. Arthur was meeting her for another purpose.
The blood flowed back, filling his head. He felt an eavesdropper, a
sneak, a detective; but, for all that, he felt also jealous. And his
jealousy seemed chiefly because Arthur had not told him.
Of this, then, he lay thinking in bed on the third night. The following
day he had said nothing, but had crossed the corridor and put the gun in
his friend's room. Arthur, for his part, had said nothing either. For
the first time in their long, long friendship, there lay a secret
between them. To Headley the unexpected revelation came with pain.
For something like a quarter of a century these two had been bosom
friends; they had camped together, been in the army together, taken
their pleasure together, each the full confidant of the other in all the
things that go to make up men's lives. Above all, Headley had been the
one and only recipient of Arthur's unhappy love story. He knew the girl,
knew his friend's deep passion, and also knew his terrible pain when she
was lost at sea. Arthur was burnt out, finished, out of the running, so
far as marriage was concerned. He was not a man to love a second time.
It was a great and poignant tragedy. Headley, as confidant, knew all.
But more than that--Arthur, on his side, knew his friend's weakness for
Iris Manning, knew that a marriage was still possible and likely between
them. They were true as steel to one another, and each man, oddly
enough, had once saved the other's life, thus adding to the strength of
a great natural tie.
Yet now one of them, feigning innocence by day, even indifference,
secretly met his friend's girl by night, and kept the matter to himself.
It seemed incredible. With his own eyes Headley had seen him on the
lawn, passing in the faint grey light through the mist into the
summer-house, where the girl had just preceded him. He had not seen her
face, but he had seen the skirt sweep round the corner of the wooden
pillar. He had not waited to see them come out again.
So he now lay wondering what rôle his old friend was playing in this
little intrigue that their hostess, Mrs. Blondin, helped to stage. And,
oddly enough, one minor detail stayed in his mind with a curious
vividness. As naturalist, hunter, nature-lover, the cry of that strange
bird, with its three mournful notes, perplexed him exceedingly.
A knock came at his door, and the door pushed open before he had time to
answer. Deane himself came in.
"Wise man," he exclaimed in an easy tone, "got off to bed. Iris was
asking where you were." He sat down on the edge of the mattress, where
Headley was lying with a cigarette and an open book he had not read. The
old sense of intimacy and comradeship rose in the latter's heart. Doubt
and suspicion faded. He prized his great friendship. He met the familiar
eyes. "Impossible," he said to himself, "absolutely impossible! He's not
playing a game; he's not a rotter!" He pushed over his cigarette case,
and Arthur lighted one.
"Done in," he remarked shortly, with the first puff. "Can't stand it any
more. I'm off to town to-morrow."
Headley stared in amazement. "Fed up already?" he asked. "Why, I rather
like it. It's quite amusing. What's wrong, old man?"
"This match-making," said Deane bluntly. "Always throwing that girl at
my head. If it's not the duck-shooting stunt at 3 a. m., it's something
else. She doesn't care for me and I don't care for her. Besides----"
He stopped, and the expression of his face changed suddenly. A sad,
quiet look of tender yearning came into his clear brown eyes.
"_You_ know, Dick," he went on in a low, half-reverent tone. "I don't
want to marry. I never can."
Dick's heart stirred within him. "Mary," he said, understandingly.
The other nodded, as though the memories were still too much for him.
"I'm still miserably lonely for her," he said. "Can't help it simply.
I feel utterly lost without her. Her memory to me is everything." He
looked deep into his pal's eyes. "I'm married to that," he added very
firmly.
They pulled their cigarettes a moment in silence. They belonged to the
male type that conceals emotion behind schoolboy language.
"It's hard luck," said Headley gently, "rotten luck, old man, I
understand." Arthur's head nodded several times in succession as he
smoked. He made no remark for some minutes. Then presently he said, as
though it had no particular importance--for thus old friends show
frankness to each other--"Besides, anyhow, it's you the girl's dying
for, not me. She's blind as a bat, old Blondin. Even when I'm with
her--thrust with her by that old matchmaker for my sins--it's you she
talks about. All the talk leads up to you and yours. She's devilish fond
of you." He paused a moment and looked searchingly into his friend's
face. "I say, old man--are you--I mean, do you mean business there?
Because--excuse me interfering--but you'd better be careful. She's a
good sort, you know, after all."
"Yes, Arthur, I do like her a bit," Dick told him frankly. "But I can't
make up my mind quite. You see, it's like this----"
And they talked the matter over as old friends will, until finally
Arthur chucked his cigarette into the grate and got up to go. "Dead to
the world," he said, with a yawn. "I'm off to bed. Give you a chance,
too," he added with a laugh. It was after midnight.
The other turned, as though something had suddenly occurred to him.
"By the bye, Arthur," he said abruptly, "what bird makes this sound? I
heard it the other morning. Most extraordinary cry. You know everything
that flies. What is it?" And, to the best of his ability, he imitated
the strange three-note cry he had heard in the dawn two mornings before.
To his amazement and keen distress, his friend, with a sound like a
stifled groan, sat down upon the bed without a word. He seemed startled.
His face was white. He stared. He passed a hand, as in pain, across his
forehead.
"Do it again," he whispered, in a hushed, nervous voice. "Once
again--for me."
And Headley, looking at him, repeated the queer notes, a sudden
revulsion of feeling rising through him. "He's fooling me after all,"
ran in his heart, "my old, old pal----"
There was silence for a full minute. Then Arthur, stammering a bit, said
lamely, a certain hush in his voice still: "Where in the world did you
hear that--and _when_?"
Dick Headley sat up in bed. He was not going to lose this friendship,
which, to him, was more than the love of woman. He must help. His pal
was in distress and difficulty. There were circumstances, he realized,
that might be too strong for the best man in the world--sometimes. No,
by God, he would play the game and help him out!
"Arthur, old chap," he said affectionately, almost tenderly. "I heard it
two mornings ago--on the lawn below my window here. It woke me up. I--I
went to look. Three in the morning, about."
Arthur amazed him then. He first took another cigarette and lit it
steadily. He looked round the room vaguely, avoiding, it seemed, the
other's eyes. Then he turned, pain in his face, and gazed straight at
him.
"You saw--nothing?" he asked in a louder voice, but a voice that had
something very real and true in it. It reminded Headley of the voice he
heard when he was fainting from exhaustion, and Arthur had said, "Take
it, I tell you. I'm all right," and had passed over the flask, though
his own throat and sight and heart were black with thirst. It was a
voice that had command in it, a voice that did not lie because it could
not--yet did lie and could lie--when occasion warranted.
Headley knew a second's awful struggle.
"Nothing," he answered quietly, after his little pause. "Why?"
For perhaps two minutes his friend hid his face. Then he looked up.
"Only," he whispered, "because that was our secret lover's cry. It
seems so strange you heard it and not I. I've felt her so close of
late--Mary!"
The white face held very steady, the firm lips did not tremble, but it
was evident that the heart knew anguish that was deep and poignant. "We
used it to call each other--in the old days. It was our private call. No
one else in the world knew it but Mary and myself."
Dick Headley was flabbergasted. He had no time to think, however.
"It's odd you should hear it and not I," his friend repeated. He looked
hurt, bewildered, wounded. Then suddenly his face brightened. "I know,"
he cried suddenly. "You and I are pretty good pals. There's a tie
between us and all that. Why, it's tel--telepathy, or whatever they call
it. That's what it is."
He got up abruptly. Dick could think of nothing to say but to repeat
the other's words. "Of course, of course. That's it," he said,
"telepathy." He stared--anywhere but at his pal.
"Night, night!" he heard from the door, and before he could do more than
reply in similar vein Arthur was gone.
He lay for a long time, thinking, thinking. He found it all very
strange. Arthur in this emotional state was new to him. He turned it
over and over. Well, he had known good men behave queerly when wrought
up. That recognition of the bird's cry was strange, of course, but--he
knew the cry of a bird when he heard it, though he might not know the
actual bird. That was no human whistle. Arthur was--inventing. No,
that was not possible. He was worked up, then, over something, a bit
hysterical perhaps. It had happened before, though in a milder way, when
his heart attacks came on. They affected his nerves and head a little,
it seemed. He was a deep sort, Dick remembered. Thought turned and
twisted in him, offering various solutions, some absurd, some likely. He
was a nervous, high-strung fellow underneath, Arthur was. He remembered
that. Also he remembered, anxiously again, that his heart was not quite
sound, though what that had to do with the present tangle he did not
see.
Yet it was hardly likely that he would bring in Mary as an invention, an
excuse--Mary, the most sacred memory in his life, the deepest, truest,
best. He had sworn, anyhow, that Iris Manning meant nothing to him.
Through all his speculations, behind every thought, ran this horrid
working jealousy. It poisoned him. It twisted truth. It moved like
a wicked snake through mind and heart. Arthur, gripped by his new,
absorbing love for Iris Manning, lied. He couldn't believe it, he didn't
believe it, he wouldn't believe it--yet jealousy persisted in keeping
the idea alive in him. It was a dreadful thought. He fell asleep on it.
But his sleep was uneasy with feverish, unpleasant dreams that rambled
on in fragments without coming to conclusion. Then, suddenly, the cry of
the strange bird came into his dream. He started, turned over, woke up.
The cry still continued. It was not a dream. He jumped out of bed.
The room was grey with early morning, the air fresh and a little chill.
The cry came floating over the lawn as before. He looked out, pain
clutching at his heart. Two figures stood below, a man and a girl, and
the man was Arthur Deane. Yet the light was so dim, the morning being
overcast, that had he not expected to see his friend, he would scarcely
have recognized the familiar form in that shadowy outline that stood
close beside the girl. Nor could he, perhaps, have recognized Iris
Manning. Their backs were to him. They moved away, disappearing
again into the little summer-house, and this time--he saw it beyond
question--the two were hand in hand. Vague and uncertain as the figures
were in the early twilight, he was sure of that.
The first disagreeable sensation of surprise, disgust, anger that
sickened him turned quickly, however, into one of another kind
altogether. A curious feeling of superstitious dread crept over him, and
a shiver ran again along his nerves.
"Hallo, Arthur!" he called from the window. There was no answer. His
voice was certainly audible in the summer-house. But no one came. He
repeated the call a little louder, waited in vain for thirty seconds,
then came, the same moment, to a decision that even surprised himself,
for the truth we he could no longer bear the suspense of waiting. He
must see his friend at once and have it out with him. He turned and went
deliberately down the corridor to Deane's bedroom. He would wait there
for his return and know the truth from his own lips. But also another
thought had come--the gun. He had quite forgotten it--the safety-catch
was out of order. He had not warned him.
He found the door closed but not locked; opening it cautiously, he went
in.
But the unexpectedness of what he saw gave him a genuine shock. He could
hardly suppress a cry. Everything in the room was neat and orderly, no
sign of disturbance anywhere, and it was not empty. There, in bed,
before his very eyes, was Arthur. The clothes were turned back a little;
he saw the pyjamas open at the throat; he lay sound asleep, deeply,
peacefully asleep.
So surprised, indeed, was Headley that, after staring a moment, almost
unable to believe his sight, he then put out a hand and touched him
gently, cautiously on the forehead. But Arthur did not stir or wake; his
breathing remained deep and regular. He lay sleeping like a baby.
Headley glanced round the room, noticed the gun in the corner where he
himself had put it the day before, and then went out, closing the door
behind him softly.
Arthur Deane, however, did not leave for London as he had intended,
because he felt unwell and kept to his room upstairs. It was only a
slight attack, apparently, but he must lie quiet. There was no need to
send for a doctor; he knew just what to do; these passing attacks were
common enough. He would be up and about again very shortly. Headley kept
him company, saying no single word of what had happened. He read aloud
to him, chatted and cheered him up. He had no other visitors. Within
twenty-four hours he was himself once more. He and his friend had
planned to leave the following day.
But Headley, that last night in the house, felt an odd uneasiness and
could not sleep. All night long he sat up reading, looking out of the
window, smoking in a chair where he could see the stars and hear the
wind and watch the huge shadow of the downs. The house lay very still
as the hours passed. He dozed once or twice. Why did he sit up in this
unnecessary way? Why did he leave his door ajar so that the slightest
sound of another door opening, or of steps passing along the corridor,
must reach him? Was he anxious for his friend? Was he suspicious? What
was his motive, what his secret purpose?
Headley did not know, and could not even explain it to himself. He felt
uneasy, that was all he knew. Not for worlds would he have let himself
go to sleep or lose full consciousness that night. It was very odd; he
could not understand himself. He merely obeyed a strange, deep instinct
that bade him wait and watch. His nerves were jumpy; in his heart lay
some unexplicable anxiety that was pain.
The dawn came slowly; the stars faded one by one; the line of the downs
showed their grand bare curves against the sky; cool and cloudless the
September morning broke above the little Sussex pleasure house. He sat
and watched the east grow bright. The early wind brought a scent of
marshes and the sea into his room. Then suddenly it brought a sound as
well--the haunting cry of the bird with its three following notes. And
this time there came an answer.
Headley knew then why he had sat up. A wave of emotion swept him as
he heard--an emotion he could not attempt to explain. Dread, wonder,
longing seized him. For some seconds he could not leave his chair
because he did not dare to. The low-pitched cries of call and answer
rang in his ears like some unearthly music. With an effort he started
up, went to the window and looked out.
This time the light was sharp and clear. No mist hung in the air. He saw
the crimsoning sky reflected like a band of shining metal in the reach
of river beyond the lawn. He saw dew on the grass, a sheet of pallid
silver. He saw the summer-house, empty of any passing figures. For this
time the two figures stood plainly in view before his eyes upon the
lawn. They stood there, hand in hand, sharply defined, unmistakable in
form and outline, their faces, moreover, turned upwards to the window
where he stood, staring down in pain and amazement at them--at Arthur
Deane and _Mary_.
They looked into his eyes. He tried to call, but no sound left his
throat. They began to move across the dew-soaked lawn. They went, he
saw, with a floating, undulating motion towards the river shining in the
dawn. Their feet left no marks upon the grass. They reached the bank,
but did not pause in their going. They rose a little, floating like
silent birds across the river. Turning in mid-stream, they smiled
towards him, waved their hands with a gesture of farewell, then, rising
still higher into the opal dawn, their figures passed into the distance
slowly, melting away against the sunlit marshes and the shadowing downs
beyond. They disappeared.
Headley never quite remembers actually leaving the window, crossing the
room, or going down the passage. Perhaps he went at once, perhaps he
stood gazing into the air above the downs for a considerable time,
unable to tear himself away. He was in some marvellous dream, it seemed.
The next thing he remembers, at any rate, was that he was standing
beside his friend's bed, trying, in his distraught anguish of heart, to
call him from that sleep which, on earth, knows no awakening.
VIII
EGYPTIAN SORCERY
1
Sanfield paused as he was about to leave the Underground station at
Victoria, and cursed the weather. When he left the City it was fine; now
it was pouring with rain, and he had neither overcoat nor umbrella. Not
a taxi was discoverable in the dripping gloom. He would get soaked
before he reached his rooms in Sloane Street.
He stood for some minutes, thinking how vile London was in February, and
how depressing life was in general. He stood also, in that moment,
though he knew it not, upon the edge of a singular adventure. Looking
back upon it in later years, he often remembered this particularly
wretched moment of a pouring wet February evening, when everything
seemed wrong, and Fate had loaded the dice against him, even in the
matter of weather and umbrellas.
Fate, however, without betraying her presence, was watching him through
the rain and murk; and Fate, that night, had strange, mysterious eyes.
Fantastic cards lay up her sleeve. The rain, his weariness and
depression, his physical fatigue especially, seemed the conditions she
required before she played these curious cards. Something new and
wonderful fluttered close. Romance flashed by him across the driving
rain and touched his cheek. He was too exasperated to be aware of it.
Things had gone badly that day at the office, where he was junior
partner in a small firm of engineers. Threatened trouble at the works
had come to a head. A strike seemed imminent. To add to his annoyance,
a new client, whose custom was of supreme importance, had just
complained bitterly of the delay in the delivery of his machinery. The
senior partners had left the matter in Sanfield's hands; he had not
succeeded. The angry customer swore he would hold the firm to its
contract. They could deliver or pay up--whichever suited them. The
junior partner had made a mess of things.
The final words on the telephone still rang in his ears as he stood
sheltering under the arcade, watching the downpour, and wondering
whether he should make a dash for it or wait on the chance of its
clearing up--when a further blow was dealt him as the rain-soaked poster
of an evening paper caught his eye: "Riots in Egypt. Heavy Fall in
Egyptian Securities," he read with blank dismay. Buying a paper
he turned feverishly to the City article--to find his worst fears
confirmed. Delta Lands, in which nearly all his small capital was
invested, had declined a quarter on the news, and would evidently
decline further still. The riots were going on in the towns nearest to
their property. Banks had been looted, crops destroyed; the trouble was
deep-seated.
So grave was the situation that mere weather seemed suddenly of no
account at all. He walked home doggedly in the drenching rain, paying
less attention to it than if it had been Scotch mist. The water streamed
from his hat, dripped down his back and neck, splashed him with mud and
grime from head to foot. He was soaked to the skin. He hardly noticed
it. His capital had depreciated by half, at least, and possibly was
altogether lost; his position at the office was insecure. How could mere
weather matter?
Sitting, eventually, before his fire in dry clothes, after an apology
for a dinner he had no heart to eat, he reviewed the situation. He faced
a possible total loss of his private capital. Next, the position of his
firm caused him grave uneasiness, since, apart from his own mishandling
of the new customer, the threatened strike might ruin it completely;
a long strain on its limited finances was out of the question. George
Sanfield certainly saw things at their worst. He was now thirty-five.
A fresh start--the mere idea of it made him shudder--occurred as a
possibility in the near future. Vitality, indeed, was at a low ebb, it
seemed. Mental depression, great physical fatigue, weariness of life in
general made his spirits droop alarmingly, so that almost he felt tired
of living. His tie with existence, at any rate, just then was
dangerously weak.
Thought turned next to the man on whose advice he had staked his all in
Delta Lands. Morris had important Egyptian interests in various big
companies and enterprises along the Nile. He had first come to the firm
with a letter of introduction upon some business matter, which the
junior partner had handled so successfully that acquaintance thus formed
had ripened into a more personal tie. The two men had much in common;
their temperaments were suited; understanding grew between them; they
felt at home and comfortable with one another. They became friends; they
felt a mutual confidence. When Morris paid his rare visits to England,
they spent much time together; and it was on one of these occasions that
the matter of the Egyptian shares was mentioned, Morris urgently
advising their purchase.
Sanfield explained his own position clearly enough, but his friend was
so confident and optimistic that the purchase eventually had been made.
There had been, moreover, Sanfield now remembered, the flavour of a
peculiarly intimate and personal kind about the deal. He had remarked
it, with a touch of surprise, at the moment, though really it seemed
natural enough. Morris was very earnest, holding his friend's interest
at heart; he was affectionate almost.
"I'd like to do you this good turn, old man," he said. "I have the
strong feeling, somehow, that I owe you this, though heaven alone knows
why!" After a pause he added, half shyly: "It may be one of those old
memories we hear about nowadays cropping up out of some previous life
together." Before the other could reply, he went on to explain that only
three men were in the parent syndicate, the shares being unobtainable.
"I'll set some of my own aside for you--four thousand or so, if you
like."
They laughed together; Sanfield thanked him warmly; the deal was carried
out. But the recipient of the favour had wondered a little at the sudden
increase of intimacy even while he liked it and responded.
Had he been a fool, he now asked himself, to swallow the advice, putting
all his eggs into a single basket? He knew very little about Morris
after all.... Yet, while reflection showed him that the advice was
honest, and the present riots no fault of the adviser's, he found his
thoughts turning in a steady stream towards the man. The affairs of the
firm took second place. It was Morris, with his deep-set eyes, his
curious ways, his dark skin burnt brick-red by a fierce Eastern sun; it
was Morris, looking almost like an Egyptian, who stood before him as he
sat thinking gloomily over his dying fire.
He longed to talk with him, to ask him questions, to seek advice. He saw
him very vividly against the screen of thought; Morris stood beside him
now, gazing out across the limitless expanse of tawny sand. He had in
his eyes the "distance" that sailors share with men whose life has been
spent amid great trackless wastes. Morris, moreover, now he came to
think of it, seemed always a little out of place in England. He had few
relatives and, apparently, no friends; he was always intensely pleased
when the time came to return to his beloved Nile. He had once mentioned
casually a sister who kept house for him when duty detained him in
Cairo, but, even here, he was something of an Oriental, rarely speaking
of his women folk. Egypt, however, plainly drew him like a magnet.
Resistance involved disturbance in his being, even ill-health. Egypt
was "home" to him, and his friend, though he had never been there, felt
himself its potent spell.
Another curious trait Sanfield remembered, too--his friend's childish
superstition; his belief, or half-belief, in magic and the supernatural.
Sanfield, amused, had ascribed it to the long sojourn in a land where
anything unusual is at once ascribed to spiritual agencies. Morris
owed his entire fortune, if his tale could be believed, to the
magical apparition of an unearthly kind in some lonely _wadi_ among
the Bedouins. A sand-diviner had influenced another successful
speculation.... He was a picturesque figure, whichever way one took him:
yet a successful business man into the bargain.
These reflections and memories, on the other hand, brought small comfort
to the man who had tempted Fate by following his advice. It was only a
little strange how Morris now dominated his thoughts, directing them
towards himself. Morris was in Egypt at the moment.
He went to bed at length, filled with uneasy misgivings, but for a long
time he could not sleep. He tossed restlessly, his mind still running on
the subject of his long reflections. He ached with tiredness. He dropped
off at last. Then came a nightmare dream, in which the firm's works were
sold for nearly nothing to an old Arab sheikh who wished to pay for
them--in goats. He woke up in a cold perspiration. He had uneasy
thoughts. His fancy was travelling. He could not rest.
To distract his mind, he turned on the light and tried to read, and,
eventually, towards morning, fell into a sleep of sheer exhaustion. And
his final thought--he knew not exactly why--was a sentence Morris had
made use of long ago: "I feel I owe you a good turn; I'd like to do
something for you...."
This was the memory in his mind as he slipped off into unconsciousness.
But what happens when the mind is unconscious and the tired body lies
submerged in deep sleep, no man, they say, can really tell.
2
The next thing he knew he was walking along a sun-baked street in some
foreign town that was familiar, although, at first, its name escaped
him. Colour, softness, and warmth pervaded it; there was sparkle and
lightness in the exhilarating air; it was an Eastern town.
Though early morning, a number of people were already stirring; strings
of camels passed him, loaded with clover, bales of merchandise, and
firewood. Gracefully-draped women went by silently, carrying water jars
of burnt clay upon their heads. Rude wooden shutters were being taken
down in the bazaars; the smoke of cooking-fires rose in the blue spirals
through the quiet air. He felt strangely at home and happy. The light,
the radiance stirred him. He passed a mosque from which the worshippers
came pouring in a stream of colour.
Yet, though an Eastern town, it was not wholly Oriental, for he saw that
many of the buildings were of semi-European design, and that the natives
sometimes wore European dress, except for the fez upon the head. Among
them were Europeans, too. Staring into the faces of the passers-by he
found, to his vexation, that he could not focus sight as usual, and that
the nearer he approached, the less clearly he discerned the features.
The faces, upon close attention, at once grew shadowy, merged into each
other, or, in some odd fashion, melted into the dazzling sunshine that
was their background. All his attempts in this direction failed;
impatience seized him; of surprise, however, he was not conscious. Yet
this mingled vagueness and intensity seemed perfectly natural.
Filled with a stirring curiosity, he made a strong effort to concentrate
his attention, only to discover that this vagueness, this difficulty of
focus, lay in his own being, too. He wandered on, unaware exactly where
he was going, yet not much perturbed, since there was an objective in
view, he knew, and this objective _must_ eventually be reached. Its
nature, however, for the moment entirely eluded him.
The sense of familiarity, meanwhile, increased; he had been in this town
before, although not quite within recoverable memory. It seemed,
perhaps, the general atmosphere, rather than the actual streets, he
knew; a certain perfume in the air, a tang of indefinable sweetness, a
vitality in the radiant sunshine. The dark faces that he could not
focus, he yet knew; the flowing garments of blue and red and yellow, the
softly-slippered feet, the slouching camels, the burning human eyes that
faded ere he fully caught them--the entire picture in this blazing
sunlight lay half-hidden, half-revealed. And an extraordinary sense of
happiness and well-being flooded him as he walked; he felt at home;
comfort and bliss stole over him. Almost he knew his way about. This was
a place he loved and knew.
The complete silence, moreover, did not strike him as peculiar until,
suddenly, it was broken in a startling fashion. He heard his own name
spoken. It sounded close beside his ear.
"George Sanfield!" The voice was familiar. Morris called him. He
realized then the truth. He was, of course, in Cairo.
Yet, instead of turning to discover the speaker at his side, he hurried
forward, as though he knew that the voice had come through distance. His
consciousness cleared and lightened; he felt more alive; his eyes now
focused the passers-by without difficulty. He was there to find Morris,
and Morris was directing him. All was explained and natural again. He
hastened. But, even while he hastened, he knew that his personal desire
to speak with his friend about Egyptian shares and Delta Lands was not
his single object. Behind it, further in among as yet unstirring
shadows, lay another deeper purpose. Yet he did not trouble about it,
nor make a conscious effort at discovery. Morris was doing him that
"good turn I feel I owe you." This conviction filled him overwhelmingly.
The question of how and why did not once occur to him. A strange, great
happiness rose in him.
Upon the outskirts of the town now, he found himself approaching a large
building in the European style, with wide verandas and a cultivated
garden filled with palm trees. A well-kept drive of yellow sand led to
its chief entrance, and the man in khaki drill and riding-breeches
walking along this drive, not ten yards in front of him, was--Morris.
He overtook him, but his cry of welcome recognition was not answered.
Morris, walking with bowed head and stooping shoulders, seemed intensely
preoccupied; he had not heard the call.
"Here I am, old fellow!" exclaimed his friend, holding out a hand. "I've
come, you see...!" then paused aghast before the altered face. Morris
paid no attention. He walked straight on as though he had not heard. It
was the distraught and anguished expression on the drawn and haggard
features that impressed the other most. The silence he took without
surprise.
It was the pain and suffering in his friend that occupied him. The dark
rims beneath heavy eyes, the evidence of sleepless nights, of long
anxiety and ceaseless dread, afflicted him with their too-plain story.
The man was overwhelmed with some great sorrow. Sanfield forgot his
personal trouble; this larger, deeper grief usurped its place entirely.
"Morris! Morris!" he cried yet more eagerly than before. "I've come, you
see. Tell me what's the matter. I believe--that I can--help you...!"
The other turned, looking past him through the air. He made no answer.
The eyes went through him. He walked straight on, and Sanfield walked at
his side in silence. Through the large door they passed together, Morris
paying as little attention to him as though he were not there, and in
the small chamber they now entered, evidently a waiting-room, an
Egyptian servant approached, uttered some inaudible words, and then
withdrew, leaving them alone together.
It seemed that time leaped forward, yet stood still; the passage of
minutes, that is to say, was irregular, almost fanciful. Whether the
interval was long or short, however, Morris spent it pacing up and down
the little room, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his mind
oblivious of all else but his absorbing anxiety and grief. To his
friend, who watched him by the wall with intense desire to help, he paid
no attention. The latter's spoken words went by him, entirely unnoticed;
he gave no sign of seeing him; his eyes, as he paced up and down,
muttering inaudibly to himself, were fixed every few seconds on an inner
door. Beyond that door, Sanfield now divined, lay someone who hesitated
on the narrow frontier between life and death.
It opened suddenly and a man, in overall and rubber gloves, came out,
his face grave yet with faint signs of hope about it--a doctor, clearly,
straight from the operating table. Morris, standing rigid in his tracks,
listened to something spoken, for the lips were in movement, though no
words were audible. The operation, Sanfield divined, had been
successful, though danger was still present. The two men passed out,
then, into the hall and climbed a wide staircase to the floor above,
Sanfield following noiselessly, though so close that he could touch
them. Entering a large, airy room where French windows, carefully shaded
with green blinds opened on to a veranda, they approached a bed. Two
nurses bent over it. The occupant was at first invisible.
Events had moved with curious rapidity. All this had happened, it
seemed, in a single moment, yet with the irregular effect already
mentioned which made Sanfield feel it might, equally, have lasted hours.
But, as he stood behind Morris and the surgeon at the bed, the deeps in
him opened suddenly, and he trembled under a shock of intense emotion
that he could not understand. As with a stroke of lightning some
heavenly fire set his heart aflame with yearning. The very soul in him
broke loose with passionate longing that _must_ find satisfaction. It
came to him in a single instant with the certain knowledge of an
unconquerable conviction. Hidden, yet ever waiting, among the broken
centuries, there now leaped upon him this flash of memory--the memory of
some sweet and ancient love Time might veil yet could not kill.
He ran forward, past the surgeon and the nurses, past Morris who bent
above the bed with a face ghastly from anxiety. He gazed down upon the
fair girl lying there, her unbound hair streaming over the pillow. He
saw, and he remembered. And an uncontrollable cry of recognition left
his lips....
The irregularity of the passing minutes became so marked then, that he
might well have passed outside their measure altogether, beyond what men
call Time; duration, interval, both escaped. Alone and free with his
eternal love, he was safe from all confinement, free, it seemed, either
of time or space. His friend, however, was vaguely with him during
the amazing instant. He felt acutely aware of the need each had,
respectively, for the other, born of a heritage the Past had hidden
over-long. Each, it was clear, could do the other a good turn....
Sanfield, though unable to describe or disentangle later, knew, while it
lasted, this joy of full, delicious understanding....
The strange, swift instant of recognition passed and disappeared. The
cry, Sanfield realized, on coming back to the Present, had been
soundless and inaudible as before. No one observed him; no one stirred.
The girl, on that bed beside the opened windows, lay evidently dying.
Her breath came in gasps, her chest heaved convulsively, each attempt
at recovery was slower and more painful than the one before. She was
unconscious. Sometimes her breathing seemed to stop. It grew weaker, as
the pulse grew fainter. And Sanfield, transfixed as with paralysis,
stood watching, waiting, an intolerable yearning in his heart to help.
It seemed to him that he waited with a purpose.
This purpose suddenly became clear. He knew why he waited. There was
help to be given. He was the one to give it.
The girl's vitality and ebbing nerves, her entire physical organism now
fading so quickly towards that final extinction which meant death--could
these but be stimulated by a new tide of life, the danger-point now fast
approaching might be passed, and recovery must follow. This impetus, he
knew suddenly, he could supply. How, he could not tell. It flashed upon
him from beyond the stars, as from ancient store of long-forgotten,
long-neglected knowledge. It was enough that he felt confident and sure.
His soul burned within him; the strength of an ancient and unconquerable
love rose through his being. He would try.
The doctor, he saw, was in the act of giving his last aid in the form of
a hypodermic injection, Morris and the nurses looking on. Sanfield
observed the sharp quick rally, only too faint, too slight; he saw the
collapse that followed. The doctor, shrugging his shoulders, turned with
a look that could not express itself in words, and Morris, burying his
face in his hands, knelt by the bed, shaken with convulsive sobbing. It
was the end.
In which moment, precisely, the strange paralysis that had bound
Sanfield momentarily, was lifted from his being, and an impelling force,
obeying his immense desire, invaded him. He knew how to act. His will,
taught long ago, yet long-forgotten, was set free.
"You have come back to me at last," he cried in his anguish and his
power, though the voice was, as ever, inaudible and soundless, "_I shall
not let you go!..._"
Drawn forward nearer and nearer to the bed, he leaned down, as if to
kiss the pale lips and streaming hair. But his knowledge operated
better than he knew. In the tremendous grip of that power which spins
the stars and suns, while drawing souls into manifestation upon a dozen
planets, he raced, he dived, he plunged, helpless, yet driven by the
creative stress of love and sacrifice towards some eternal purpose.
Caught in what seemed a vortex of amazing force, he sank away, as a
straw is caught and sunk within the suction of a mighty whirlpool. His
memory of Morris, of the doctor, of the girl herself, passed utterly.
His entire personality became merged, lost, obliterated. He was aware of
nothing; not even aware of nothingness. He lost consciousness....
3
The reappearance was as sudden as the obliteration. He emerged. There
had been interval, duration, time. He was not aware of them. A spasm of
blinding pain shot through him. He opened his eyes. His whole body was a
single devouring pain. He felt cramped, confined, uncomfortable. He must
escape. He thrashed about. Someone seized his arm and held it. With a
snarl he easily wrenched it free.
He was in bed. How had he come to this? An accident? He saw the faces of
nurse and doctor bending over him, eager, amazed, surprised, a trifle
frightened. Vague memories floated to him. Who was he? Where had he come
from? And where was ... where was ... someone ... who was dearer to him
than life itself? He looked about him: the room, the faces, the French
windows, the veranda, all seemed only half familiar. He looked, he
searched for ... someone ... but in vain....
A spasm of violent pain burned through his body like a fire, and he shut
his eyes. He groaned. A voice sounded just above him: "Take this, dear.
Try and swallow a little. It will relieve you. Your brother will be back
in a moment. You are much better already."
He looked up at the nurse; he drank what she gave him.
"My brother!" he murmured. "I don't understand. I have no brother."
Thirst came over him; he drained the glass. The nurse, wearing a
startled look, moved away. He watched her go. He pointed at her with his
hand, meaning to say something that he instantly forgot--as he saw his
own bare arm. Its dreadful thinness shocked him. He must have been ill
for months. The arm, wasted almost to nothing, showed the bone. He sank
back exhausted, the sleeping draught began to take effect. The nurse
returned quietly to a chair beside the bed, from which she watched him
without ceasing as the long minutes passed....
He found it difficult to collect his thoughts, to keep them in his mind
when caught. There floated before him a series of odd scenes like
coloured pictures in an endless flow. He was unable to catch them.
Morris was with him always. They were doing quite absurd, impossible
things. They rode together across the desert in the dawn, they wandered
through old massive temples, they saw the sun set behind mud villages
mid wavering palms, they drifted down a river in a sailing boat of
quaint design. It had an enormous single sail. Together they visited
tombs cut in the solid rock, hot airless corridors, and huge, dim,
vaulted chambers underground. There was an icy wind by night, fierce
burning sun by day. They watched vast troops of stars pass down a
stupendous sky.... They knew delight and tasted wonder. Strange memories
touched them....
"Nurse!" he called aloud, returning to himself again, and remembering
that he must speak with his friend about something--he failed to recall
exactly what. "Please ask Mr. Morris to come to me."
"At once, dear. He's only in the next room waiting for you to wake." She
went out quickly, and he heard her voice in the passage. It sank to a
whisper as she came back with Morris, yet every syllable reached him
distinctly:
"... and pay no attention if she wanders a little; just ignore it. She's
turned the corner, thank God, and that's the chief thing." Each word he
heard with wonder and perplexity, with increasing irritability too.
"I'm a hell of a wreck," he said, as Morris came, beaming, to the
bedside. "Have I been ill long? It's frightfully decent of you to come,
old man."
But Morris, staggered at this greeting, stopped abruptly, half turning
to the nurse for guidance. He seemed unable to find words. Sanfield
was extremely annoyed; he showed his feeling. "I'm _not_ balmy, you
old ass!" he shouted. "I'm all right again, though very weak. But I
wanted to ask you--oh, I remember now--I wanted to ask you about
my--er--_Deltas_."
"My poor dear Maggie," stammered Morris, fumbling with his voice. "Don't
worry about your few shares, darling. Deltas are all right--it's _you_
we----"
"Why, the devil, do you call me Maggie?" snapped the other viciously.
"And 'darling'!" He felt furious, exasperated. "Have _you_ gone balmy,
or have I? What in the world are you two up to?" His fury tired him. He
lay back upon his pillows, fuming. Morris took a chair beside the bed;
he put a hand gently on his wasted arm.
"My darling girl," he said, in what was intended to be a soothing
voice, though it stirred the sick man again to fury beyond expression,
"you must really keep quiet for a bit. You've had a very severe
operation"--his voice shook a little--"but, thank God, you've pulled
through and are now on the way to recovery. You are my sister Maggie. It
will all come back to you when you're rested----"
"Maggie, indeed!" interrupted the other, trying to sit up again, but too
weak to compass it. "Your sister! You bally idiot! Don't you know me? I
wish to God the nurse wouldn't 'dear' me in that senseless way. And
you, with your atrocious 'darling,' I'm not your precious sister
Maggie. I'm--I'm George San----"
But even as he said it, there passed over him some dim lost fragment of
a wild, delicious memory he could not seize. Intense pleasure lay in it,
could he but recover it. He knew a sweet, forgotten joy. His broken,
troubled mind lay searching frantically but without success. It dazzled
him. It shook him with an indescribable emotion--of joy, of wonder, of
deep sweet confusion. A rapt happiness rose in him, yet pain, like a
black awful shutter, closed in upon the happiness at once. He remembered
a girl. But he remembered, too, that he had seen her die. Who was she?
Had he lost her ... again...!
"My dear fellow," he faltered in a weaker voice to Morris, "my
brain's in a whirl. I'm sorry. I suppose I've had some blasted
concussion--haven't I?"
But the man beside his bed, he saw, was startled. An extraordinary look
came into his face, though he tried to hide it with a smile.
"My shares!" cried Sanfield, with a half scream. "Four thousand of
them!"
Whereupon Morris blanched. "George Sanfield!" he muttered, half to
himself, half to the nurse who hurried up. "That voice! The very number
too!" He looked white and terrified, as if he had seen a ghost. A
whispered colloquy ensued between him and the nurse. It was inaudible.
"Now, dearest Maggie," he said at length, making evidently a tremendous
effort, "do try and lie quiet for a bit. Don't bother about George
Sanfield, my London friend. His shares are quite safe. You've heard me
speak of him. It's all right, my darling, quite all right. Oh, believe
me! I'm your brother."
"Maggie...!" whispered the man to himself upon the bed, whereupon Morris
stooped, and, to his intense horror, kissed him on the cheek. But his
horror seemed merged at once in another personality that surged through
and over his entire being, drowning memory and recognition hopelessly.
"Darling," he murmured. He realized that he was mad, of course. It
seemed he fainted....
The momentary unconsciousness soon passed, at any rate. He opened his
eyes again. He saw a palm tree out of the window. He knew positively he
was _not_ mad, whatever else he might be. Dead perhaps? He felt the
sheets, the mattress, the skin upon his face. No, he was alive all
right. The dull pains where the tight bandages oppressed him were also
real. He was among substantial, earthly things. The nurse, he noticed,
regarded him anxiously. She was a pleasant-looking young woman. He
smiled; and, with an expression of affectionate, even tender pleasure,
she smiled back at him.
"You feel better now, a little stronger," she said softly. "You've had a
sleep, Miss Margaret." She said "Miss Margaret" with a conscious effort.
It was better, perhaps, than "dear"; but his anger rose at once. He was
too tired, however, to express his feelings. There stole over him,
besides, the afflicting consciousness of an alien personality that was
familiar, and yet not his. It strove to dominate him. Only by a great
effort could he continue to think his own thoughts. This other being
kept trying to intrude, to oust him, to take full possession. It
resented his presence with a kind of violence.
He sighed. So strong was the feeling of another personality trying to
foist itself upon his own, upon his mind, his body, even upon his very
face, that he turned instinctively to the nurse, though unaware exactly
what he meant to ask her for.
"My hand-glass, please," he heard himself saying--with horror. The
phrase was not his own. Glass or mirror were the words _he_ would have
used.
A moment later he was staring with acute and ghastly terror at a
reflection that was not his own. It was the face of the dead girl he
saw within the silver-handled, woman's hand-glass he held up.
* * * * *
The dream with its amazing, vivid detail haunted him for days, even
coming between him and his work. It seemed far more real, more vivid
than the commonplace events of life that followed. The occurrences of
the day were pale compared to its overpowering intensity. And a cable,
received the very next afternoon, increased this sense of actual
truth--of something that had really happened.
"Hold shares writing Morris."
Its brevity added a convincing touch. He was aware of Egypt even in
Throgmorton Street. Yet it was the face of the dead, or dying, girl that
chiefly haunted him. She remained in his thoughts, alive and sweet and
exquisite. Without her he felt incomplete, his life a failure. He
thought of nothing else.
The affairs at the office, meanwhile, went well; unexpected success
attended them; there was no strike; the angry customer was pacified. And
when the promised letter came from Morris, Sanfield's hands trembled so
violently that he could hardly tear it open. Nor could he read it
calmly. The assurance about his precious shares scarcely interested him.
It was the final paragraph that set his heart beating against his ribs
as though a hammer lay inside him:
"... I've had great trouble and anxiety, though, thank God, the
danger is over now. I forget if I ever mentioned my sister,
Margaret, to you. She keeps house for me in Cairo, when I'm there.
She is my only tie in life. Well, a severe operation she had to
undergo, all but finished her. To tell you the truth, she very
nearly died, for the doctor gave her up. You'll smile when I tell
you that odd things happened--at the very last moment. I can't
explain it, nor can the doctor. It rather terrified me. But at the
very moment when we thought her gone, something revived in her.
She became full of unexpected life and vigor. She was even
violent--whereas, a moment before, she had not the strength to
speak, much less to move. It was rather wonderful, but it was
terrible too.
"You don't believe in these things, I know, but I must tell you,
because, when she recovered consciousness, she began to babble about
yourself, using your name, though she has rarely, if ever, heard it,
and even speaking--you won't believe this, of course!--of your
shares in Deltas, giving the _exact_ number that you hold. When you
write, please tell me if you were very anxious about these? Also,
whether your thoughts were directed particularly to me? I thought a
good deal about you, knowing you might be uneasy, but my mind was
pretty full, as you will understand, of her operation at the time.
The climax, when all this happened, was about 11 a. m. on February
13th.
"Don't fail to tell me this, as I'm particularly interested in what
you may have to say."
"And, now, I want to ask a great favor of you. The doctor forbids
Margaret to stay here during the hot weather, so I'm sending her
home to some cousins in Yorkshire, as soon as she is fit to travel.
It would be most awfully kind--I know how women bore you--if you
could manage to meet the boat and help her on her way through
London. I'll let you know dates and particulars later, when I hear
that you will do this for me...."
Sanfield hardly read the remainder of the letter, which dealt with
shares and business matters. But a month later he stood on the dock-pier
at Tilbury, watching the approach of the tender from the _Egyptian
Mail_.
He saw it make fast; he saw the stream of passengers pour down the
gangway; and he saw among them the tall, fair woman of his dream. With a
beating heart he went to meet her....
IX
THE DECOY
It belonged to the category of unlovely houses about which an ugly
superstition clings, one reason being, perhaps, its inability to inspire
interest in itself without assistance. It seemed too ordinary to possess
individuality, much less to exert an influence. Solid and ungainly, its
huge bulk dwarfing the park timber, its best claim to notice was a
negative one--it was unpretentious.
From the little hill its expressionless windows stared across the
Kentish Weald, indifferent to weather, dreary in winter, bleak in
spring, unblessed in summer. Some colossal hand had tossed it down, then
let it starve to death, a country mansion that might well strain the
adjectives of advertisers and find inheritors with difficulty. Its soul
had fled, said some; it had committed suicide, thought others; and it
was an inheritor, before he killed himself in the library, who thought
this latter, yielding, apparently, to an hereditary taint in the family.
For two other inheritors followed suit, with an interval of twenty years
between them, and there was no clear reason to explain the three
disasters. Only the first owner, indeed, lived permanently in the house,
the others using it in the summer months and then deserting it with
relief. Hence, when John Burley, present inheritor, assumed possession,
he entered a house about which clung an ugly superstition, based,
nevertheless, upon a series of undeniably ugly facts.
This century deals harshly with superstitious folk, deeming them fools
or charlatans; but John Burley, robust, contemptuous of half lights, did
not deal harshly with them, because he did not deal with them at all.
He was hardly aware of their existence. He ignored them as he ignored,
say, the Esquimaux, poets, and other human aspects that did not touch
his scheme of life. A successful business man, he concentrated on what
was real; he dealt with business people. His philanthropy, on a big
scale, was also real; yet, though he would have denied it vehemently,
he had his superstition as well. No man exists without some taint of
superstition in his blood; the racial heritage is too rich to be escaped
entirely. Burley's took this form--that unless he gave his tithe to the
poor he would not prosper. This ugly mansion, he decided, would make an
ideal Convalescent Home.
"Only cowards or lunatics kill themselves," he declared flatly, when his
use of the house was criticized. "I'm neither one nor t'other." He let
out his gusty, boisterous laugh. In his invigorating atmosphere such
weakness seemed contemptible, just as superstition in his presence
seemed feeblest ignorance. Even its picturesqueness faded. "I can't
conceive," he boomed, "can't even imagine to myself," he added
emphatically, "the state of mind in which a man can think of suicide,
much less do it." He threw his chest out with a challenging air. "I tell
you, Nancy, it's either cowardice or mania. And I've no use for either."
Yet he was easy-going and good-humoured in his denunciation. He admitted
his limitations with a hearty laugh his wife called noisy. Thus he made
allowances for the fairy fears of sailorfolk, and had even been known to
mention haunted ships his companies owned. But he did so in the terms of
tonnage and £ s. d. His scope was big; details were made for clerks.
His consent to pass a night in the mansion was the consent of a
practical business man and philanthropist who dealt condescendingly with
foolish human nature. It was based on the common-sense of tonnage and
£ s. d. The local newspapers had revived the silly story of the suicides,
calling attention to the effect of the superstition upon the fortunes
of the house, and so, possibly, upon the fortunes of its present owner.
But the mansion, otherwise a white elephant, was precisely ideal for his
purpose, and so trivial a matter as spending a night in it should not
stand in the way. "We must take people as we find them, Nancy."
His young wife had her motive, of course, in making the proposal, and,
if she was amused by what she called "spook-hunting," he saw no reason
to refuse her the indulgence. He loved her, and took her as he found
her--late in life. To allay the superstitions of prospective staff and
patients and supporters, all, in fact, whose goodwill was necessary to
success, he faced this boredom of a night in the building before its
opening was announced. "You see, John, if you, the owner, do this, it
will nip damaging talk in the bud. If anything went wrong later it would
only be put down to this suicide idea, this haunting influence. The Home
will have a bad name from the start. There'll be endless trouble. It
will be a failure."
"You think my spending a night there will stop the nonsense?" he
inquired.
"According to the old legend it breaks the spell," she replied. "That's
the condition, anyhow."
"But somebody's sure to die there sooner or later," he objected. "We
can't prevent that."
"We can prevent people whispering that they died unnaturally." She
explained the working of the public mind.
"I see," he replied, his lip curling, yet quick to gauge the truth of
what she told him about collective instinct.
"Unless _you_ take poison in the hall," she added laughingly, "or elect
to hang yourself with your braces from the hat peg."
"I'll do it," he agreed, after a moment's thought. "I'll sit up
with you. It will be like a honeymoon over again, you and I on the
spree--eh?" He was even interested now; the boyish side of him was
touched perhaps; but his enthusiasm was less when she explained that
three was a better number than two on such an expedition.
"I've often done it before, John. We were always three."
"Who?" he asked bluntly. He looked wonderingly at her, but she answered
that if anything went wrong a party of three provided a better margin
for help. It was sufficiently obvious. He listened and agreed. "I'll get
young Mortimer," he suggested. "Will he do?"
She hesitated. "Well--he's cheery; he'll be interested, too. Yes, he's
as good as another." She seemed indifferent.
"And he'll make the time pass with his stories," added her husband.
So Captain Mortimer, late officer on a T.B.D., a "cheery lad," afraid
of nothing, cousin of Mrs. Burley, and now filling a good post in the
company's London offices, was engaged as third hand in the expedition.
But Captain Mortimer was young and ardent, and Mrs. Burley was young
and pretty and ill-mated, and John Burley was a neglectful, and
self-satisfied husband.
Fate laid the trap with cunning, and John Burley, blind-eyed, careless
of detail, floundered into it. He also floundered out again, though in a
fashion none could have expected of him.
The night agreed upon eventually was as near to the shortest in the year
as John Burley could contrive--June 18th--when the sun set at 8:18 and
rose about a quarter to four. There would be barely three hours of true
darkness. "You're the expert," he admitted, as she explained that
sitting through the actual darkness only was required, not necessarily
from sunset to sunrise. "We'll do the thing properly. Mortimer's not
very keen, he had a dance or something," he added, noticing the look of
annoyance that flashed swiftly in her eyes; "but he got out of it. He's
coming." The pouting expression of the spoilt woman amused him. "Oh, no,
he didn't need much persuading really," he assured her. "Some girl or
other, of course. He's young, remember." To which no comment was
forthcoming, though the implied comparison made her flush.
They motored from South Audley Street after an early tea, in due course
passing Sevenoaks and entering the Kentish Weald; and, in order that the
necessary advertisement should be given, the chauffeur, warned strictly
to keep their purpose quiet, was to put up at the country inn and fetch
them an hour after sunrise; they would breakfast in London. "He'll tell
everybody," said his practical and cynical master; "the local newspaper
will have it all next day. A few hours' discomfort is worth while if
it ends the nonsense. We'll read and smoke, and Mortimer shall tell
us yarns about the sea." He went with the driver into the house to
superintend the arrangement of the room, the lights, the hampers of
food, and so forth, leaving the pair upon the lawn.
"Four hours isn't much, but it's something," whispered Mortimer, alone
with her for the first time since they started. "It's simply ripping
of you to have got me in. You look divine to-night. You're the most
wonderful woman in the world." His blue eyes shone with the hungry
desire he mistook for love. He looked as if he had blown in from the
sea, for his skin was tanned and his light hair bleached a little by the
sun. He took her hand, drawing her out of the slanting sunlight towards
the rhododendrons.
"I didn't, you silly boy. It was John suggested your coming." She
released her hand with an affected effort. "Besides, you overdid
it--pretending you had a dance."
"You could have objected," he said eagerly, "and didn't. Oh, you're too
lovely, you're delicious!" He kissed her suddenly with passion. There
was a tiny struggle, in which she yielded too easily, he thought.
"Harry, you're an idiot!" she cried breathlessly, when he let her go.
"I really don't know how you dare! And John's your friend. Besides, you
know"--she glanced round quickly--"it isn't safe here." Her eyes shone
happily, her cheeks were flaming. She looked what she was, a pretty,
young, lustful animal, false to ideals, true to selfish passion only.
"Luckily," she added, "he trusts me too fully to think anything."
The young man, worship in his eyes, laughed gaily. "There's no harm in
a kiss," he said. "You're a child to him, he never thinks of you as a
woman. Anyhow, his head's full of ships and kings and sealing-wax," he
comforted her, while respecting her sudden instinct which warned him not
to touch her again, "and he never sees anything. Why, even at ten
yards----"
From twenty yards away a big voice interrupted him, as John Burley
came round a corner of the house and across the lawn towards them. The
chauffeur, he announced, had left the hampers in the room on the first
floor and gone back to the inn. "Let's take a walk round," he added,
joining them, "and see the garden. Five minutes before sunset we'll go
in and feed." He laughed. "We must do the thing faithfully, you know,
mustn't we, Nancy? Dark to dark, remember. Come on, Mortimer"--he
took the young man's arm--"a last look round before we go in and hang
ourselves from adjoining hooks in the matron's room!" He reached out his
free hand towards his wife.
"Oh, hush, John!" she said quickly. "I don't like--especially now the
dusk is coming." She shivered, as though it were a genuine little
shiver, pursing her lips deliciously as she did so; whereupon he drew
her forcibly to him, saying he was sorry, and kissed her exactly where
she had been kissed two minutes before, while young Mortimer looked on.
"We'll take care of you between us," he said. Behind a broad back the
pair exchanged a swift but meaning glance, for there was that in his
tone which enjoined wariness, and perhaps after all he was not so blind
as he appeared. They had their code, these two. "All's well," was
signalled; "but another time be more careful!"
There still remained some minutes' sunlight before the huge red ball of
fire would sink behind the wooded hills, and the trio, talking idly, a
flutter of excitement in two hearts certainly, walked among the roses.
It was a perfect evening, windless, perfumed, warm. Headless shadows
preceded them gigantically across the lawn as they moved, and one side
of the great building lay already dark; bats were flitting, moths darted
to and fro above the azalea and rhododendron clumps. The talk turned
chiefly on the uses of the mansion as a Convalescent Home, its probable
running cost, suitable staff, and so forth.
"Come along," John Burley said presently, breaking off and turning
abruptly, "we must be inside, actually inside, before the sun's gone. We
must fulfil the conditions faithfully," he repeated, as though fond of
the phrase. He was in earnest over everything in life, big or little,
once he set his hand to it.
They entered, this incongruous trio of ghost-hunters, no one of them
really intent upon the business in hand, and went slowly upstairs to the
great room where the hampers lay. Already in the hall it was dark enough
for three electric torches to flash usefully and help their steps as
they moved with caution, lighting one corner after another. The air
inside was chill and damp. "Like an unused museum," said Mortimer. "I
can smell the specimens." They looked about them, sniffing. "That's
humanity," declared his host, employer, friend, "with cement and
whitewash to flavour it"; and all three laughed as Mrs. Burley said she
wished they had picked some roses and brought them in. Her husband was
again in front on the broad staircase, Mortimer just behind him, when
she called out. "I don't like being last," she exclaimed. It's so black
behind me in the hall. I'll come between you two," and the sailor took
her outstretched hand, squeezing it, as he passed her up. "There's a
figure, remember," she said hurriedly, turning to gain her husband's
attention, as when she touched wood at home. "A figure is seen; that's
part of the story. The figure of a man." She gave a tiny shiver of
pleasurable, half-imagined alarm as she took his arm.
"I hope we shall see it," he mentioned prosaically.
"I hope we shan't," she replied with emphasis. "It's only seen
before--something happens." Her husband said nothing, while Mortimer
remarked facetiously that it would be a pity if they had their trouble
for nothing. "Something can hardly happen to all three of us," he said
lightly, as they entered a large room where the paper-hangers had
conveniently left a rough table of bare planks. Mrs. Burley, busy with
her own thoughts, began to unpack the sandwiches and wine. Her husband
strolled over to the window. He seemed restless.
"So this," his deep voice startled her, "is where one of us"--he looked
round him--"is to----"
"John!" She stopped him sharply, with impatience. "Several times already
I've begged you." Her voice rang rather shrill and querulous in the
empty room, a new note in it. She was beginning to feel the atmosphere
of the place, perhaps. On the sunny lawn it had not touched her, but
now, with the fall of night, she was aware of it, as shadow called to
shadow and the kingdom of darkness gathered power. Like a great
whispering gallery, the whole house listened.
"Upon my word, Nancy," he said with contrition, as he came and sat down
beside her, "I quite forgot again. Only I cannot take it seriously. It's
so utterly unthinkable to me that a man----"
"But why evoke the idea at all?" she insisted in a lowered voice, that
snapped despite its faintness. "Men, after all, don't do such things for
nothing."
"We don't know everything in the universe, do we?" Mortimer put in,
trying clumsily to support her. "All I know just now is that I'm
famished and this veal and ham pie is delicious." He was very busy with
his knife and fork. His foot rested lightly on her own beneath the
table; he could not keep his eyes off her face; he was continually
passing new edibles to her.
"No," agreed John Burley, "not everything. You're right there."
She kicked the younger man gently, flashing a warning with her eyes as
well, while her husband, emptying his glass, his head thrown back,
looked straight at them over the rim, apparently seeing nothing. They
smoked their cigarettes round the table, Burley lighting a big cigar.
"Tell us about the figure, Nancy?" he inquired. "At least there's no
harm in that. It's new to me. I hadn't heard about a figure." And
she did so willingly, turning her chair sideways from the dangerous,
reckless feet. Mortimer could now no longer touch her. "I know very
little," she confessed; "only what the paper said. It's a man.... And he
changes."
"How changes?" asked her husband. "Clothes, you mean, or what?"
Mrs. Burley laughed, as though she was glad to laugh. Then she answered:
"According to the story, he shows himself each time to the man----"
"The man who----?"
"Yes, yes, of course. He appears to the man who dies--as himself."
"H'm," grunted her husband, naturally puzzled. He stared at her.
"Each time the chap saw his own double"--Mortimer came this time
usefully to the rescue--"before he did it."
Considerable explanation followed, involving much psychic jargon from
Mrs. Burley, which fascinated and impressed the sailor, who thought her
as wonderful as she was lovely, showing it in his eyes for all to see.
John Burley's attention wandered. He moved over to the window, leaving
them to finish the discussion between them; he took no part in it, made
no comment even, merely listening idly and watching them with an air of
absent-mindedness through the cloud of cigar smoke round his head. He
moved from window to window, ensconcing himself in turn in each deep
embrasure, examining the fastenings, measuring the thickness of the
stonework with his handkerchief. He seemed restless, bored, obviously
out of place in this ridiculous expedition. On his big massive face lay
a quiet, resigned expression his wife had never seen before. She noticed
it now as, the discussion ended, the pair tidied away the _débris_ of
dinner, lit the spirit lamp for coffee and laid out a supper which would
be very welcome with the dawn. A draught passed through the room, making
the papers flutter on the table. Mortimer turned down the smoking lamps
with care.
"Wind's getting up a bit--from the south," observed Burley from his
niche, closing one-half of the casement window as he said it. To do
this, he turned his back a moment, fumbling for several seconds with the
latch, while Mortimer, noting it, seized his sudden opportunity with the
foolish abandon of his age and temperament. Neither he nor his victim
perceived that, against the outside darkness, the interior of the room
was plainly reflected in the window-pane. One reckless, the other
terrified, they snatched the fearful joy, which might, after all, have
been lengthened by another full half-minute, for the head they feared,
followed by the shoulders, pushed through the side of the casement still
open, and remained outside, taking in the night.
"A grand air," said his deep voice, as the head drew in again, "I'd like
to be at sea a night like this." He left the casement open and came
across the room towards them. "Now," he said cheerfully, arranging a
seat for himself, "let's get comfortable for the night. Mortimer, we
expect stories from you without ceasing, until dawn or the ghost
arrives. Horrible stories of chains and headless men, remember. Make it
a night we shan't forget in a hurry." He produced his gust of laughter.
They arranged their chairs, with other chairs to put their feet on, and
Mortimer contrived a footstool by means of a hamper for the smallest
feet; the air grew thick with tobacco smoke; eyes flashed and answered,
watched perhaps as well; ears listened and perhaps grew wise;
occasionally, as a window shook, they started and looked round; there
were sounds about the house from time to time, when the entering wind,
using broken or open windows, set loose objects rattling.
But Mrs. Burley vetoed horrible stories with decision. A big, empty
mansion, lonely in the country, and even with the comfort of John Burley
and a lover in it, has its atmosphere. Furnished rooms are far less
ghostly. This atmosphere now came creeping everywhere, through spacious
halls and sighing corridors, silent, invisible, but all-pervading, John
Burley alone impervious to it, unaware of its soft attack upon the
nerves. It entered possibly with the summer night wind, but possibly it
was always there.... And Mrs. Burley looked often at her husband,
sitting near her at an angle; the light fell on his fine strong face;
she felt that, though apparently so calm and quiet, he was really very
restless; something about him was a little different; she could not
define it; his mouth seemed set as with an effort; he looked, she
thought curiously to herself, patient and very dignified; he was rather
a dear after all. Why did she think the face inscrutable? Her thoughts
wandered vaguely, unease, discomfort among them somewhere, while the
heated blood--she had taken her share of wine--seethed in her.
Burley turned to the sailor for more stories. "Sea and wind in them,"
he asked. "No horrors, remember!" and Mortimer told a tale about the
shortage of rooms at a Welsh seaside place where spare rooms fetched
fabulous prices, and one man alone refused to let--a retired captain
of a South Seas trader, very poor, a bit crazy apparently. He had two
furnished rooms in his house worth twenty guineas a week. The rooms
faced south; he kept them full of flowers; but he would not let. An
explanation of his unworldly obstinacy was not forthcoming until
Mortimer--they fished together--gained his confidence. "The South Wind
lives in them," the old fellow told him. "I keep them free for her."
"For _her_?"
"It was on the South Wind my love came to me," said the
other softly; "and it was on the South Wind that she left----"
It was an odd tale to tell in such company, but he told it well.
"Beautiful," thought Mrs. Burley. Aloud she said a quiet, "Thank you. By
'left,' I suppose he meant she died or ran away?"
John Burley looked up with a certain surprise. "We ask for a story," he
said, "and you give us a poem." He laughed. "You're in love, Mortimer,"
he informed him, "and with my wife probably."
"Of course I am, sir," replied the young man gallantly. "A sailor's
heart, you know," while the face of the woman turned pink, then white.
She knew her husband more intimately than Mortimer did, and there was
something in his tone, his eyes, his words, she did not like. Harry was
an idiot to choose such a tale. An irritated annoyance stirred in her,
close upon dislike. "Anyhow, it's better than horrors," she said
hurriedly.
"Well," put in her husband, letting forth a minor gust of laughter,
"it's possible, at any rate. Though one's as crazy as the other." His
meaning was not wholly clear. "If a man really loved," he added in his
blunt fashion, "and was tricked by her, I could almost conceive his----"
"Oh, don't preach, John, for Heaven's sake. You're so dull in the
pulpit." But the interruption only served to emphasize the sentence
which, otherwise, might have been passed over.
"Could conceive his finding life so worthless," persisted the other,
"that----" He hesitated. "But there, now, I promised I wouldn't," he
went on, laughing good-humouredly. Then, suddenly, as though in spite of
himself, driven it seemed: "Still, under such conditions, he might show
his contempt for human nature and for life by----"
It was a tiny stifled scream that stopped him this time.
"John, I hate, I loathe you, when you talk like that. And you've broken
your word again." She was more than petulant; a nervous anger sounded in
her voice. It was the way he had said it, looking from them towards the
window, that made her quiver. She felt him suddenly as a man; she felt
afraid of him.
Her husband made no reply; he rose and looked at his watch, leaning
sideways towards the lamp, so that the expression of his face was
shaded. "Two o'clock," he remarked. "I think I'll take a turn through
the house. I may find a workman asleep or something. Anyhow, the light
will soon come now." He laughed; the expression of his face, his tone of
voice, relieved her momentarily. He went out. They heard his heavy tread
echoing down the carpetless long corridor.
Mortimer began at once. "Did he mean anything?" he asked breathlessly.
"He doesn't love you the least little bit, anyhow. He never did. I do.
You're wasted on him. You belong to me." The words poured out. He
covered her face with kisses. "Oh, I didn't mean _that_," he caught
between the kisses.
The sailor released her, staring. "What then?" he whispered. "Do you
think he saw us on the lawn?" He paused a moment, as she made no reply.
The steps were audible in the distance still. "I know!" he exclaimed
suddenly. "It's the blessed house he feels. That's what it is. He
doesn't like it."
A wind sighed through the room, making the papers flutter; something
rattled; and Mrs. Burley started. A loose end of rope swinging from the
paperhanger's ladder caught her eye. She shivered slightly.
"He's different," she replied in a low voice, nestling very close again,
"and so restless. Didn't you notice what he said just now--that under
certain conditions he could understand a man"--she hesitated--"doing
it," she concluded, a sudden drop in her voice. "Harry," she looked full
into his eyes, "that's not like him. He didn't say that for nothing."
"Nonsense! He's bored to tears, that's all. And the house is getting on
your nerves, too." He kissed her tenderly. Then, as she responded, he
drew her nearer still and held her passionately, mumbling incoherent
words, among which "nothing to be afraid of" was distinguishable.
Meanwhile, the steps were coming nearer. She pushed him away. "You must
behave yourself. I insist. You shall, Harry," then buried herself in his
arms, her face hidden against his neck--only to disentangle herself the
next instant and stand clear of him. "I hate you, Harry," she exclaimed
sharply, a look of angry annoyance flashing across her face. "And I
_hate_ myself. Why do you treat me----?" She broke off as the steps came
closer, patted her hair straight, and stalked over to the open window.
"I believe after all you're only playing with me," he said viciously. He
stared in surprised disappointment, watching her. "It's him you really
love," he added jealously. He looked and spoke like a petulant spoilt
boy.
She did not turn her head. "He's always been fair to me, kind and
generous. He never blames me for anything. Give me a cigarette and don't
play the stage hero. My nerves are on edge, to tell you the truth." Her
voice jarred harshly, and as he lit her cigarette he noticed that her
lips were trembling; his own hand trembled too. He was still holding the
match, standing beside her at the window-sill, when the steps crossed
the threshold and John Burley came into the room. He went straight up to
the table and turned the lamp down. "It was smoking," he remarked.
"Didn't you see?"
"I'm sorry, sir," and Mortimer sprang forward, too late to help him. "It
was the draught as you pushed the door open." The big man said, "Ah!"
and drew a chair over, facing them. "It's just _the_ very house," he
told them. "I've been through every room on this floor. It will make a
splendid Home, with very little alteration, too." He turned round in his
creaking wicker chair and looked up at his wife, who sat swinging her
legs and smoking in the window embrasure. "Lives will be saved inside
these old walls. It's a good investment," he went on, talking rather to
himself it seemed. "People will die here, too----"
"Hark!" Mrs. Burley interrupted him. "That noise--what is it?" A faint
thudding sound in the corridor or in the adjoining room was audible,
making all three look round quickly, listening for a repetition, which
did not come. The papers fluttered on the table, the lamps smoked an
instant.
"Wind," observed Burley calmly, "our little friend, the South Wind.
Something blown over again, that's all." But, curiously, the three of
them stood up. "I'll go and see," he continued. "Doors and windows are
all open to let the paint dry." Yet he did not move; he stood there
watching a white moth that dashed round and round the lamp, flopping
heavily now and again upon the bare deal table.
"Let me go, sir," put in Mortimer eagerly. He was glad of the chance;
for the first time he, too, felt uncomfortable. But there was another
who, apparently, suffered a discomfort greater than his own and was
accordingly even more glad to get away. "I'll go," Mrs. Burley
announced, with decision. "I'd like to. I haven't been out of this room
since we came. I'm not an atom afraid."
It was strange that for a moment she did not make a move either; it
seemed as if she waited for something. For perhaps fifteen seconds no
one stirred or spoke. She knew by the look in her lover's eyes that he
had now become aware of the slight, indefinite change in her husband's
manner, and was alarmed by it. The fear in him woke her contempt; she
suddenly despised the youth, and was conscious of a new, strange
yearning towards her husband; against her worked nameless pressures,
troubling her being. There was an alteration in the room, she thought;
something had come in. The trio stood listening to the gentle wind
outside, waiting for the sound to be repeated; two careless, passionate
young lovers and a man stood waiting, listening, watching in that room;
yet it seemed there were five persons altogether and not three, for two
guilty consciences stood apart and separate from their owners. John
Burley broke the silence.
"Yes, you go, Nancy. Nothing to be afraid of--there. It's only wind." He
spoke as though he meant it.
Mortimer bit his lips. "I'll come with you," he said instantly. He was
confused. "Let's all three go. I don't think we ought to be separated."
But Mrs. Burley was already at the door. "I insist," she said, with a
forced laugh. "I'll call if I'm frightened," while her husband, saying
nothing, watched her from the table.
"Take this," said the sailor, flashing his electric torch as he went
over to her. "Two are better than one." He saw her figure exquisitely
silhouetted against the black corridor beyond; it was clear she wanted
to go; any nervousness in her was mastered by a stronger emotion still;
she was glad to be out of their presence for a bit. He had hoped to
snatch a word of explanation in the corridor, but her manner stopped
him. Something else stopped him, too.
"First door on the left," he called out, his voice echoing down the
empty length. "That's the room where the noise came from. Shout if you
want us."
He watched her moving away, the light held steadily in front of her, but
she made no answer, and he turned back to see John Burley lighting his
cigar at the lamp chimney, his face thrust forward as he did so. He
stood a second, watching him, as the lips sucked hard at the cigar to
make it draw; the strength of the features was emphasized to sternness.
He had meant to stand by the door and listen for the least sound from
the adjoining room, but now found his whole attention focused on the
face above the lamp. In that minute he realized that Burley had
wished--had meant--his wife to go. In that minute also he forgot his
love, his shameless, selfish little mistress, his worthless, caddish
little self. For John Burley looked up. He straightened slowly, puffing
hard and quickly to make sure his cigar was lit, and faced him. Mortimer
moved forward into the room, self-conscious, embarrassed, cold.
"Of course it was only wind," he said lightly, his one desire being to
fill the interval while they were alone with commonplaces. He did not
wish the other to speak, "Dawn wind, probably." He glanced at his
wrist-watch. "It's half-past two already, and the sun gets up at a
quarter to four. It's light by now, I expect. The shortest night is
never quite dark." He rambled on confusedly, for the other's steady,
silent stare embarrassed him. A faint sound of Mrs. Burley moving in the
next room made him stop a moment. He turned instinctively to the door,
eager for an excuse to go.
"That's nothing," said Burley, speaking at last and in a firm quiet
voice. "Only my wife, glad to be alone--my young and pretty wife. She's
all right. I know her better than you do. Come in and shut the door."
Mortimer obeyed. He closed the door and came close to the table, facing
the other, who at once continued.
"If I thought," he said, in that quiet deep voice, "that you two were
serious"--he uttered his words very slowly, with emphasis, with intense
severity--"do you know what I should do? I will tell you, Mortimer. I
should like one of us two--you or myself--to remain in this house,
dead."
His teeth gripped his cigar tightly; his hands were clenched; he went on
through a half-closed mouth. His eyes blazed steadily.
"I trust her so absolutely--understand me?--that my belief in women, in
human beings, would go. And with it the desire to live. Understand me?"
Each word to the young careless fool was a blow in the face, yet it was
the softest blow, the flash of a big deep heart, that hurt the most. A
dozen answers--denial, explanation, confession, taking all guilt upon
himself--crowded his mind, only to be dismissed. He stood motionless and
silent, staring hard into the other's eyes. No word passed his lips;
there was no time in any case. It was in this position that Mrs. Burley,
entering at that moment, found them. She saw her husband's face; the
other man stood with his back to her. She came in with a little nervous
laugh. "A bell-rope swinging in the wind and hitting a sheet of metal
before the fireplace," she informed them. And all three laughed together
then, though each laugh had a different sound. "But I hate this house,"
she added. "I wish we had never come."
"The moment there's light in the sky," remarked her husband quietly, "we
can leave. That's the contract; let's see it through. Another half-hour
will do it. Sit down, Nancy, and have a bite of something." He got up
and placed a chair for her. "I think I'll take another look round." He
moved slowly to the door. "I may go out on to the lawn a bit and see
what the sky is doing."
It did not take half a minute to say the words, yet to Mortimer it
seemed as though the voice would never end. His mind was confused and
troubled. He loathed himself, he loathed the woman through whom he had
got into this awkward mess.
The situation had suddenly become extremely painful; he had never
imagined such a thing; the man he had thought blind had after all seen
everything--known it all along, watched them, waited. And the woman, he
was now certain, loved her husband; she had fooled him, Mortimer, all
along, amusing herself.
"I'll come with you, sir. Do let me," he said suddenly. Mrs. Burley
stood pale and uncertain between them. She looked scared. What has
happened, she was clearly wondering.
"No, no, Harry"--he called him "Harry" for the first time--"I'll be back
in five minutes at most. My wife mustn't be alone either." And he went
out.
The young man waited till the footsteps sounded some distance down the
corridor, then turned, but he did not move forward; for the first time
he let pass unused what he called "an opportunity." His passion had left
him; his love, as he once thought it, was gone. He looked at the pretty
woman near him, wondering blankly what he had ever seen there to attract
him so wildly. He wished to Heaven he was out of it all. He wished he
were dead. John Burley's words suddenly appalled him.
One thing he saw plainly--she was frightened. This opened his lips.
"What's the matter?" he asked, and his hushed voice shirked the familiar
Christian name. "Did you see anything?" He nodded his head in the
direction of the adjoining room. It was the sound of his own voice
addressing her coldly that made him abruptly see himself as he really
was, but it was her reply, honestly given, in a faint even voice, that
told him she saw her own self too with similar clarity. God, he thought,
how revealing a tone, a single word can be!
"I saw--nothing. Only I feel uneasy--dear." That "dear" was a call for
help.
"Look here," he cried, so loud that she held up a warning finger,
"I'm--I've been a damned fool, a cad! I'm most frightfully ashamed. I'll
do anything--_anything_ to get it right." He felt cold, naked, his
worthlessness laid bare; she felt, he knew, the same. Each revolted
suddenly from the other. Yet he knew not quite how or wherefore this
great change had thus abruptly come about, especially on her side. He
felt that a bigger, deeper emotion than he could understand was working
on them, making mere physical relationships seem empty, trivial, cheap
and vulgar. His cold increased in face of this utter ignorance.
"Uneasy?" he repeated, perhaps hardly knowing exactly why he said it.
"Good Lord, but he can take care of himself----"
"Oh, _he_ is a man," she interrupted; "yes."
Steps were heard, firm, heavy steps, coming back along the corridor. It
seemed to Mortimer that he had listened to this sound of steps all
night, and would listen to them till he died. He crossed to the lamp and
lit a cigarette, carefully this time, turning the wick down afterwards.
Mrs. Burley also rose, moving over towards the door, away from him. They
listened a moment to these firm and heavy steps, the tread of a man,
John Burley. A man ... and a philanderer, flashed across Mortimer's
brain like fire, contrasting the two with fierce contempt for himself.
The tread became less audible. There was distance in it. It had turned
in somewhere.
"There!" she exclaimed in a hushed tone. "He's gone in."
"Nonsense! It passed us. He's going out on to the lawn."
The pair listened breathlessly for a moment, when the sound of steps
came distinctly from the adjoining room, walking across the boards,
apparently towards the window.
"There!" she repeated. "He did go in." Silence of perhaps a minute
followed, in which they heard each other's breathing. "I don't like his
being alone--in there," Mrs. Burley said in a thin faltering voice, and
moved as though to go out. Her hand was already on the knob of the door,
when Mortimer stopped her with a violent gesture.
"Don't! For God's sake, don't!" he cried, before she could turn it.
He darted forward. As he laid a hand upon her arm a thud was audible
through the wall. It was a heavy sound, and this time there was no wind
to cause it.
"It's only that loose swinging thing," he whispered thickly, a dreadful
confusion blotting out clear thought and speech.
"There was no loose swaying thing at all," she said in a failing voice,
then reeled and swayed against him. "I invented that. There was
nothing." As he caught her, staring helplessly, it seemed to him that a
face with lifted lids rushed up at him. He saw two terrified eyes in a
patch of ghastly white. Her whisper followed, as she sank into his arms.
"It's John. He's----"
At which instant, with terror at its climax, the sound of steps suddenly
became audible once more--the firm and heavy tread of John Burley coming
out again into the corridor. Such was their amazement and relief that
they neither moved nor spoke. The steps drew nearer. The pair seemed
petrified; Mortimer did not remove his arms, nor did Mrs. Burley attempt
to release herself. They stared at the door and waited. It was pushed
wider the next second, and John Burley stood beside them. He was so
close he almost touched them--there in each other's arms.
"Jack, dear!" cried his wife, with a searching tenderness that made her
voice seem strange.
He gazed a second at each in turn. "I'm going out on to the lawn for a
moment," he said quietly. There was no expression on his face; he did
not smile, he did not frown; he showed no feeling, no emotion--just
looked into their eyes, and then withdrew round the edge of the door
before either could utter a word in answer. The door swung to behind
him. He was gone.
"He's going to the lawn. He said so." It was Mortimer speaking, but his
voice shook and stammered. Mrs. Burley had released herself. She stood
now by the table, silent, gazing with fixed eyes at nothing, her lips
parted, her expression vacant. Again she was aware of an alteration in
the room; something had gone out.... He watched her a second, uncertain
what to say or do. It was the face of a drowned person, occurred to
him. Something intangible, yet almost visible stood between them in that
narrow space. Something had ended, there before his eyes, definitely
ended. The barrier between them rose higher, denser. Through this
barrier her words came to him with an odd whispering remoteness.
"Harry.... You saw? You noticed?"
"What d'you mean?" he said gruffly. He tried to feel angry,
contemptuous, but his breath caught absurdly.
"Harry--he was different. The eyes, the hair, the"--her face grew like
death--"the twist in his face----"
"What on earth are you saying? Pull yourself together." He saw that she
was trembling down the whole length of her body, as she leaned against
the table for support. His own legs shook. He stared hard at her.
"Altered, Harry ... altered." Her horrified whisper came at him like
a knife. For it was true. He, too, had noticed something about the
husband's appearance that was not quite normal. Yet, even while they
talked, they heard him going down the carpetless stairs; the sounds
ceased as he crossed the hall; then came the noise of the front door
banging, the reverberation even shaking the room a little where they
stood.
Mortimer went over to her side. He walked unevenly.
"My dear! For God's sake--this is sheer nonsense. Don't let yourself go
like this. I'll put it straight with him--it's all my fault." He saw by
her face that she did not understand his words; he was saying the wrong
thing altogether; her mind was utterly elsewhere. "He's all right," he
went on hurriedly. "He's out on the lawn now----"
He broke off at the sight of her. The horror that fastened on her brain
plastered her face with deathly whiteness.
"That was not John at all!" she cried, a wail of misery and terror in
her voice. She rushed to the window and he followed. To his immense
relief a figure moving below was plainly visible. It was John Burley.
They saw him in the faint grey of the dawn, as he crossed the lawn,
going away from the house. He disappeared.
"There you are! See?" whispered Mortimer reassuringly. "He'll be back
in----" when a sound in the adjoining room, heavier, louder than before,
cut appallingly across his words, and Mrs. Burley, with that wailing
scream, fell back into his arms. He caught her only just in time, for
she stiffened into ice, daft with the uncomprehended terror of it all,
and helpless as a child.
"Darling, my darling--oh, God!" He bent, kissing her face wildly. He was
utterly distraught.
"Harry! Jack--oh, oh!" she wailed in her anguish. "It took on his
likeness. It deceived us ... to give him time. He's done it."
She sat up suddenly. "Go," she said, pointing to the room beyond, then
sank fainting, a dead weight in his arms.
He carried her unconscious body to a chair, then entering the adjoining
room he flashed his torch upon the body of her husband hanging from a
bracket in the wall. He cut it down five minutes too late.
X
THE MAN WHO FOUND OUT (A NIGHTMARE)
1
Professor Mark Ebor, the scientist, led a double life, and the only
persons who knew it were his assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, and his publishers.
But a double life need not always be a bad one, and, as Dr. Laidlaw
and the gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of this
particular man were equally good, and indefinitely produced would
certainly have ended in a heaven somewhere that can suitably contain
such strangely opposite characteristics as his remarkable personality
combined.
For Mark Ebor, F.R.S., etc., etc., was that unique combination hardly
ever met with in actual life, a man of science and a mystic.
As the first, his name stood in the gallery of the great, and as the
second--but there came the mystery! For under the pseudonym of "Pilgrim"
(the author of that brilliant series of books that appealed to so many),
his identity was as well concealed as that of the anonymous writer of
the weather reports in a daily newspaper. Thousands read the sanguine,
optimistic, stimulating little books that issued annually from the pen
of "Pilgrim," and thousands bore their daily burdens better for having
read; while the Press generally agreed that the author, besides being an
incorrigible enthusiast and optimist, was also--a woman; but no one ever
succeeded in penetrating the veil of anonymity and discovering that
"Pilgrim" and the biologist were one and the same person.
Mark Ebor, as Dr. Laidlaw knew him in his laboratory, was one man; but
Mark Ebor, as he sometimes saw him after work was over, with rapt eyes
and ecstatic face, discussing the possibilities of "union with God" and
the future of the human race, was quite another.
"I have always held, as you know," he was saying one evening as he sat
in the little study beyond the laboratory with his assistant and
intimate, "that Vision should play a large part in the life of the
awakened man--not to be regarded as infallible, of course, but to be
observed and made use of as a guide-post to possibilities----"
"I am aware of your peculiar views, sir," the young doctor put in
deferentially, yet with a certain impatience.
"For Visions come from a region of the consciousness where observation
and experiment are out of the question," pursued the other with
enthusiasm, not noticing the interruption, "and, while they should be
checked by reason afterwards, they should not be laughed at or ignored.
All inspiration, I hold, is of the nature of interior Vision, and all
our best knowledge has come--such is my confirmed belief--as a sudden
revelation to the brain prepared to receive it----"
"Prepared by hard work first, by concentration, by the closest possible
study of ordinary phenomena," Dr. Laidlaw allowed himself to observe.
"Perhaps," sighed the other; "but by a process, none the less, of
spiritual illumination. The best match in the world will not light a
candle unless the wick be first suitably prepared."
It was Laidlaw's turn to sigh. He knew so well the impossibility of
arguing with his chief when he was in the regions of the mystic, but at
the same time the respect he felt for his tremendous attainments was so
sincere that he always listened with attention and deference, wondering
how far the great man would go and to what end this curious combination
of logic and "illumination" would eventually lead him.
"Only last night," continued the elder man, a sort of light coming into
his rugged features, "the vision came to me again--the one that has
haunted me at intervals ever since my youth, and that will not be
denied."
Dr. Laidlaw fidgeted in his chair.
"About the Tablets of the Gods, you mean--and that they lie somewhere
hidden in the sands," he said patiently. A sudden gleam of interest came
into his face as he turned to catch the professor's reply.
"And that I am to be the one to find them, to decipher them, and to give
the great knowledge to the world----"
"Who will not believe," laughed Laidlaw shortly, yet interested in spite
of his thinly-veiled contempt.
"Because even the keenest minds, in the right sense of the word, are
hopelessly--unscientific," replied the other gently, his face positively
aglow with the memory of his vision. "Yet what is more likely," he
continued after a moment's pause, peering into space with rapt eyes that
saw things too wonderful for exact language to describe, "than that
there should have been given to man in the first ages of the world some
record of the purpose and problem that had been set him to solve? In a
word," he cried, fixing his shining eyes upon the face of his perplexed
assistant, "that God's messengers in the far-off ages should have given
to His creatures some full statement of the secret of the world, of the
secret of the soul, of the meaning of life and death--the explanation of
our being here, and to what great end we are destined in the ultimate
fullness of things?"
Dr. Laidlaw sat speechless. These outbursts of mystical enthusiasm he
had witnessed before. With any other man he would not have listened to
a single sentence, but to Professor Ebor, man of knowledge and profound
investigator, he listened with respect, because he regarded this
condition as temporary and pathological, and in some sense a reaction
from the intense strain of the prolonged mental concentration of many
days.
He smiled, with something between sympathy and resignation as he met the
other's rapt gaze.
"But you have said, sir, at other times, that you consider the ultimate
secrets to be screened from all possible----"
"The _ultimate_ secrets, yes," came the unperturbed reply; "but that
there lies buried somewhere an indestructible record of the secret
meaning of life, originally known to men in the days of their pristine
innocence, I am convinced. And, by this strange vision so often
vouchsafed to me, I am equally sure that one day it shall be given to
me to announce to a weary world this glorious and terrific message."
And he continued at great length and in glowing language to describe the
species of vivid dream that had come to him at intervals since earliest
childhood, showing in detail how he discovered these very Tablets of the
Gods, and proclaimed their splendid contents--whose precise nature was
always, however, withheld from him in the vision--to a patient and
suffering humanity.
"The _Scrutator_, sir, well described 'Pilgrim' as the Apostle of Hope,"
said the young doctor gently, when he had finished; "and now, if that
reviewer could hear you speak and realize from what strange depths comes
your simple faith----"
The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a little child broke
over his face like sunshine in the morning.
"Half the good my books do would be instantly destroyed," he said
sadly; "they would say that I wrote with my tongue in my cheek. But
wait," he added significantly; "wait till I find these Tablets of the
Gods! Wait till I hold the solutions of the old world-problems in my
hands! Wait till the light of this new revelation breaks upon confused
humanity, and it wakes to find its bravest hopes justified! Ah, then, my
dear Laidlaw----"
He broke off suddenly; but the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought in
his mind, caught him up immediately.
"Perhaps this very summer," he said, trying hard to make the suggestion
keep pace with honesty; "in your explorations in Assyria--your digging
in the remote civilization of what was once Chaldea, you may find--what
you dream of----"
The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a fine old face.
"Perhaps," he murmured softly, "perhaps!"
And the young doctor, thanking the gods of science that his leader's
aberrations were of so harmless a character, went home strong in the
certitude of his knowledge of externals, proud that he was able to refer
his visions to self-suggestion, and wondering complaisantly whether in
his old age he might not after all suffer himself from visitations of
the very kind that afflicted his respected chief.
And as he got into bed and thought again of his master's rugged face,
and finely shaped head, and the deep lines traced by years of work and
self-discipline, he turned over on his pillow and fell asleep with a
sigh that was half of wonder, half of regret.
2
It was in February, nine months later, when Dr. Laidlaw made his way to
Charing Cross to meet his chief after his long absence of travel and
exploration. The vision about the so-called Tablets of the Gods had
meanwhile passed almost entirely from his memory.
There were few people in the train, for the stream of traffic was now
running the other way, and he had no difficulty in finding the man he
had come to meet. The shock of white hair beneath the low-crowned felt
hat was alone enough to distinguish him by easily.
"Here I am at last!" exclaimed the professor, somewhat wearily, clasping
his friend's hand as he listened to the young doctor's warm greetings
and questions. "Here I am--a little older, and _much_ dirtier than when
you last saw me!" He glanced down laughingly at his travel-stained
garments.
"And _much_ wiser," said Laidlaw, with a smile, as he bustled about the
platform for porters and gave his chief the latest scientific news.
At last they came down to practical considerations.
"And your luggage--where is that? You must have tons of it, I suppose?"
said Laidlaw.
"Hardly anything," Professor Ebor answered. "Nothing, in fact, but what
you see."
"Nothing but this hand-bag?" laughed the other, thinking he was joking.
"And a small portmanteau in the van," was the quiet reply. "I have no
other luggage."
"You have no other luggage?" repeated Laidlaw, turning sharply to see if
he were in earnest.
"Why should I need more?" the professor added simply.
Something in the man's face, or voice, or manner--the doctor hardly knew
which--suddenly struck him as strange. There was a change in him, a
change so profound--so little on the surface, that is--that at first he
had not become aware of it. For a moment it was as though an utterly
alien personality stood before him in that noisy, bustling throng. Here,
in all the homely, friendly turmoil of a Charing Cross crowd, a curious
feeling of cold passed over his heart, touching his life with icy
finger, so that he actually trembled and felt afraid.
He looked up quickly at his friend, his mind working with startled and
unwelcome thoughts.
"Only this?" he repeated, indicating the bag. "But where's all the stuff
you went away with? And--have you brought nothing home--no treasures?"
"This is all I have," the other said briefly. The pale smile that went
with the words caused the doctor a second indescribable sensation of
uneasiness. Something was very wrong, something was very queer; he
wondered now that he had not noticed it sooner.
"The rest follows, of course, by slow freight," he added tactfully, and
as naturally as possible. "But come, sir, you must be tired and in want
of food after your long journey. I'll get a taxi at once, and we can see
about the other luggage afterwards."
It seemed to him he hardly knew quite what he was saying; the change
in his friend had come upon him so suddenly and now grew upon him more
and more distressingly. Yet he could not make out exactly in what it
consisted. A terrible suspicion began to take shape in his mind,
troubling him dreadfully.
"I am neither very tired, nor in need of food, thank you," the professor
said quietly. "And this is all I have. There is no luggage to follow. I
have brought home nothing--nothing but what you see."
His words conveyed finality. They got into a taxi, tipped the porter,
who had been staring in amazement at the venerable figure of the
scientist, and were conveyed slowly and noisily to the house in the
north of London where the laboratory was, the scene of their labours of
years.
And the whole way Professor Ebor uttered no word, nor did Dr. Laidlaw
find the courage to ask a single question.
It was only late that night, before he took his departure, as the two
men were standing before the fire in the study--that study where they
had discussed so many problems of vital and absorbing interest--that
Dr. Laidlaw at last found strength to come to the point with direct
questions. The professor had been giving him a superficial and desultory
account of his travels, of his journeys by camel, of his encampments
among the mountains and in the desert, and of his explorations among the
buried temples, and, deeper, into the waste of the pre-historic sands,
when suddenly the doctor came to the desired point with a kind of
nervous rush, almost like a frightened boy.
"And you found----" he began stammering, looking hard at the other's
dreadfully altered face, from which every line of hope and cheerfulness
seemed to have been obliterated as a sponge wipes markings from a
slate--"you found----"
"I found," replied the other, in a solemn voice, and it was the voice of
the mystic rather than the man of science--"I found what I went to seek.
The vision never once failed me. It led me straight to the place like a
star in the heavens. I found--the Tablets of the Gods."
Dr. Laidlaw caught his breath, and steadied himself on the back of a
chair. The words fell like particles of ice upon his heart. For the
first time the professor had uttered the well-known phrase without the
glow of light and wonder in his face that always accompanied it.
"You have--brought them?" he faltered.
"I have brought them home," said the other, in a voice with a ring like
iron; "and I have--deciphered them."
Profound despair, the bloom of outer darkness, the dead sound of a
hopeless soul freezing in the utter cold of space seemed to fill in the
pauses between the brief sentences. A silence followed, during which Dr.
Laidlaw saw nothing but the white face before him alternately fade and
return. And it was like the face of a dead man.
"They are, alas, indestructible," he heard the voice continue, with its
even, metallic ring.
"Indestructible," Laidlaw repeated mechanically, hardly knowing what he
was saying.
Again a silence of several minutes passed, during which, with a creeping
cold about his heart, he stood and stared into the eyes of the man he
had known and loved so long--aye, and worshipped, too; the man who had
first opened his own eyes when they were blind, and had led him to the
gates of knowledge, and no little distance along the difficult path
beyond; the man who, in another direction, had passed on the strength
of his faith into the hearts of thousands by his books.
"I may see them?" he asked at last, in a low voice he hardly recognized
as his own. "You will let me know--their message?"
Professor Ebor kept his eyes fixedly upon his assistant's face as he
answered, with a smile that was more like the grin of death than a
living human smile.
"When I am gone," he whispered; "when I have passed away. Then you
shall find them and read the translation I have made. And then, too,
in your turn, you must try, with the latest resources of science at
your disposal to aid you, to compass their utter destruction." He
paused a moment, and his face grew pale as the face of a corpse.
"Until that time," he added presently, without looking up, "I must ask
you not to refer to the subject again--and to keep my confidence
meanwhile--_ab--so--lute--ly_."
3
A year passed slowly by, and at the end of it Dr. Laidlaw had found it
necessary to sever his working connexion with his friend and one-time
leader. Professor Ebor was no longer the same man. The light had gone
out of his life; the laboratory was closed; he no longer put pen to
paper or applied his mind to a single problem. In the short space of a
few months he had passed from a hale and hearty man of late middle life
to the condition of old age--a man collapsed and on the edge of
dissolution. Death, it was plain, lay waiting for him in the shadows of
any day--and he knew it.
To describe faithfully the nature of this profound alteration in his
character and temperament is not easy, but Dr. Laidlaw summed it up
to himself in three words: _Loss of Hope_. The splendid mental powers
remained indeed undimmed, but the incentive to use them--to use them for
the help of others--had gone. The character still held to its fine and
unselfish habits of years, but the far goal to which they had been the
leading strings had faded away. The desire for knowledge--knowledge for
its own sake--had died, and the passionate hope which hitherto had
animated with tireless energy the heart and brain of this splendidly
equipped intellect had suffered total eclipse. The central fires had
gone out. Nothing was worth doing, thinking, working for. There _was_
nothing to work for any longer!
The professor's first step was to recall as many of his books as
possible; his second to close his laboratory and stop all research. He
gave no explanation, he invited no questions. His whole personality
crumbled away, so to speak, till his daily life became a mere mechanical
process of clothing the body, feeding the body, keeping it in good
health so as to avoid physical discomfort, and, above all, doing nothing
that could interfere with sleep. The professor did everything he could
to lengthen the hours of sleep, and therefore of forgetfulness.
It was all clear enough to Dr. Laidlaw. A weaker man, he knew, would
have sought to lose himself in one form or another of sensual
indulgence--sleeping-draughts, drink, the first pleasures that came to
hand. Self-destruction would have been the method of a little bolder
type; and deliberate evil-doing, poisoning with his awful knowledge all
he could, the means of still another kind of man. Mark Ebor was none of
these. He held himself under fine control, facing silently and without
complaint the terrible facts he honestly believed himself to have
been unfortunate enough to discover. Even to his intimate friend and
assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, he vouchsafed no word of true explanation or
lament. He went straight forward to the end, knowing well that the end
was not very far away.
And death came very quietly one day to him, as he was sitting in the
arm-chair of the study, directly facing the doors of the laboratory--the
doors that no longer opened. Dr. Laidlaw, by happy chance, was with him
at the time, and just able to reach his side in response to the sudden
painful efforts for breath; just in time, too, to catch the murmured
words that fell from the pallid lips like a message from the other side
of the grave.
"Read them, if you must; and, if you can--destroy. But"--his
voice sank so low that Dr. Laidlaw only just caught the dying
syllables--"but--never, never--give them to the world."
And like a grey bundle of dust loosely gathered up in an old garment the
professor sank back into his chair and expired.
But this was only the death of the body. His spirit had died two years
before.
4
The estate of the dead man was small and uncomplicated, and Dr. Laidlaw,
as sole executor and residuary legatee, had no difficulty in settling it
up. A month after the funeral he was sitting alone in his upstairs
library, the last sad duties completed, and his mind full of poignant
memories and regrets for the loss of a friend he had revered and loved,
and to whom his debt was so incalculably great. The last two years,
indeed, had been for him terrible. To watch the swift decay of the
greatest combination of heart and brain he had ever known, and to
realize he was powerless to help, was a source of profound grief to him
that would remain to the end of his days.
At the same time an insatiable curiosity possessed him. The study of
dementia was, of course, outside his special province as a specialist,
but he knew enough of it to understand how small a matter might be the
actual cause of how great an illusion, and he had been devoured from the
very beginning by a ceaseless and increasing anxiety to know what the
professor had found in the sands of "Chaldea," what these precious
Tablets of the Gods might be, and particularly--for this was the real
cause that had sapped the man's sanity and hope--what the inscription
was that he had believed to have deciphered thereon.
The curious feature of it all to his own mind was, that whereas his
friend had dreamed of finding a message of glorious hope and comfort, he
had apparently found (so far as he had found anything intelligible at
all, and not invented the whole thing in his dementia) that the secret
of the world, and the meaning of life and death, was of so terrible a
nature that it robbed the heart of courage and the soul of hope. What,
then, could be the contents of the little brown parcel the professor had
bequeathed to him with his pregnant dying sentences?
Actually his hand was trembling as he turned to the writing-table and
began slowly to unfasten a small old-fashioned desk on which the small
gilt initials "M.E." stood forth as a melancholy memento. He put the key
into the lock and half turned it. Then, suddenly, he stopped and looked
about him. Was that a sound at the back of the room? It was just as
though someone had laughed and then tried to smother the laugh with a
cough. A slight shiver ran over him as he stood listening.
"This is absurd," he said aloud; "too absurd for belief--that I should
be so nervous! It's the effect of curiosity unduly prolonged." He smiled
a little sadly and his eyes wandered to the blue summer sky and the
plane trees swaying in the wind below his window. "It's the reaction,"
he continued. "The curiosity of two years to be quenched in a single
moment! The nervous tension, of course, must be considerable."
He turned back to the brown desk and opened it without further delay.
His hand was firm now, and he took out the paper parcel that lay inside
without a tremor. It was heavy. A moment later there lay on the table
before him a couple of weather-worn plaques of grey stone--they looked
like stone, although they felt like metal--on which he saw markings of
a curious character that might have been the mere tracings of natural
forces through the ages, or, equally well, the half-obliterated
hieroglyphics cut upon their surface in past centuries by the more or
less untutored hand of a common scribe.
He lifted each stone in turn and examined it carefully. It seemed to him
that a faint glow of heat passed from the substance into his skin, and
he put them down again suddenly, as with a gesture of uneasiness.
"A very clever, or a very imaginative man," he said to himself, "who
could squeeze the secrets of life and death from such broken lines as
those!"
Then he turned to a yellow envelope lying beside them in the desk, with
the single word on the outside in the writing of the professor--the word
_Translation_.
"Now," he thought, taking it up with a sudden violence to conceal his
nervousness, "now for the great solution. Now to learn the meaning of
the worlds, and why mankind was made, and why discipline is worth while,
and sacrifice and pain the true law of advancement."
There was the shadow of a sneer in his voice, and yet something in him
shivered at the same time. He held the envelope as though weighing it in
his hand, his mind pondering many things. Then curiosity won the day,
and he suddenly tore it open with the gesture of an actor who tears open
a letter on the stage, knowing there is no real writing inside at all.
A page of finely written script in the late scientist's handwriting lay
before him. He read it through from beginning to end, missing no word,
uttering each syllable distinctly under his breath as he read.
The pallor of his face grew ghastly as he neared the end. He began to
shake all over as with ague. His breath came heavily in gasps. He still
gripped the sheet of paper, however, and deliberately, as by an intense
effort of will, read it through a second time from beginning to end. And
this time, as the last syllable dropped from his lips, the whole face of
the man flamed with a sudden and terrible anger. His skin became deep,
deep red, and he clenched his teeth. With all the strength of his
vigorous soul he was struggling to keep control of himself.
For perhaps five minutes he stood there beside the table without
stirring a muscle. He might have been carved out of stone. His eyes were
shut, and only the heaving of the chest betrayed the fact that he was a
living being. Then, with a strange quietness, he lit a match and applied
it to the sheet of paper he held in his hand. The ashes fell slowly
about him, piece by piece, and he blew them from the window-sill into
the air, his eyes following them as they floated away on the summer wind
that breathed so warmly over the world.
He turned back slowly into the room. Although his actions and movements
were absolutely steady and controlled, it was clear that he was on the
edge of violent action. A hurricane might burst upon the still room any
moment. His muscles were tense and rigid. Then, suddenly, he whitened,
collapsed, and sank backwards into a chair, like a tumbled bundle of
inert matter. He had fainted.
In less than half an hour he recovered consciousness and sat up. As
before, he made no sound. Not a syllable passed his lips. He rose
quietly and looked about the room.
Then he did a curious thing.
Taking a heavy stick from the rack in the corner he approached the
mantlepiece, and with a heavy shattering blow he smashed the clock to
pieces. The glass fell in shivering atoms.
"Cease your lying voice for ever," he said, in a curiously still, even
tone. "There is no such thing as _time_!"
He took the watch from his pocket, swung it round several times by the
long gold chain, smashed it into smithereens against the wall with a
single blow, and then walked into his laboratory next door, and hung its
broken body on the bones of the skeleton in the corner of the room.
"Let one damned mockery hang upon another," he said smiling oddly.
"Delusions, both of you, and cruel as false!"
He slowly moved back to the front room. He stopped opposite the bookcase
where stood in a row the "Scriptures of the World," choicely bound and
exquisitely printed, the late professor's most treasured possession, and
next to them several books signed "Pilgrim."
One by one he took them from the shelf and hurled them through the open
window.
"A devil's dreams! A devil's foolish dreams!" he cried, with a vicious
laugh.
Presently he stopped from sheer exhaustion. He turned his eyes slowly
to the wall opposite, where hung a weird array of Eastern swords and
daggers, scimitars and spears, the collections of many journeys. He
crossed the room and ran his finger along the edge. His mind seemed to
waver.
"No," he muttered presently; "not that way. There are easier and better
ways than that."
He took his hat and passed downstairs into the street.
5
It was five o'clock, and the June sun lay hot upon the pavement. He felt
the metal door-knob burn the palm of his hand.
"Ah, Laidlaw, this is well met," cried a voice at his elbow; "I was in
the act of coming to see you. I've a case that will interest you, and
besides, I remembered that you flavoured your tea with orange
leaves!--and I admit----"
It was Alexis Stephen, the great hypnotic doctor.
"I've had no tea to-day," Laidlaw said, in a dazed manner, after staring
for a moment as though the other had struck him in the face. A new idea
had entered his mind.
"What's the matter?" asked Dr. Stephen quickly. "Something's wrong with
you. It's this sudden heat, or overwork. Come, man, let's go inside."
A sudden light broke upon the face of the younger man, the light of a
heaven-sent inspiration. He looked into his friend's face, and told a
direct lie.
"Odd," he said, "I myself was just coming to see you. I have something
of great importance to test your confidence with. But in _your_ house,
please," as Stephen urged him towards his own door--"in your house. It's
only round the corner, and I--I cannot go back there--to my rooms--till
I have told you."
"I'm your patient--for the moment," he added stammeringly as soon as
they were seated in the privacy of the hypnotist's sanctum, "and I
want--er----"
"My dear Laidlaw," interrupted the other, in that soothing voice of
command which had suggested to many a suffering soul that the cure for
its pain lay in the powers of its own reawakened will, "I am always at
your service, as you know. You have only to tell me what I can do for
you, and I will do it." He showed every desire to help him out. His
manner was indescribably tactful and direct.
Dr. Laidlaw looked up into his face.
"I surrender my will to you," he said, already calmed by the other's
healing presence, "and I want you to treat me hypnotically--and at once.
I want you to suggest to me"--his voice became very tense--"that I shall
forget--forget till I die--everything that has occurred to me during the
last two hours; till I die, mind," he added, with solemn emphasis, "till
I die."
He floundered and stammered like a frightened boy. Alexis Stephen looked
at him fixedly without speaking.
"And further," Laidlaw continued, "I want you to ask me no questions. I
wish to forget for ever something I have recently discovered--something
so terrible and yet so obvious that I can hardly understand why it is
not patent to every mind in the world--for I have had a moment of
absolute _clear vision_--of merciless clairvoyance. But I want no one
else in the whole world to know what it is--least of all, old friend,
yourself."
He talked in utter confusion, and hardly knew what he was saying. But
the pain on his face and the anguish in his voice were an instant
passport to the other's heart.
"Nothing is easier," replied Dr. Stephen, after a hesitation so slight
that the other probably did not even notice it. "Come into my other room
where we shall not be disturbed. I can heal you. Your memory of the last
two hours shall be wiped out as though it had never been. You can trust
me absolutely."
"I know I can," Laidlaw said simply, as he followed him in.
6
An hour later they passed back into the front room again. The sun was
already behind the houses opposite, and the shadows began to gather.
"I went off easily?" Laidlaw asked.
"You were a little obstinate at first. But though you came in like a
lion, you went out like a lamb. I let you sleep a bit afterwards."
Dr. Stephen kept his eyes rather steadily upon his friend's face.
"What were you doing by the fire before you came here?" he asked,
pausing, in a casual tone, as he lit a cigarette and handed the case to
his patient.
"I? Let me see. Oh, I know; I was worrying my way through poor old
Ebor's papers and things. I'm his executor, you know. Then I got weary
and came out for a whiff of air." He spoke lightly and with perfect
naturalness. Obviously he was telling the truth. "I prefer specimens to
papers," he laughed cheerily.
"I know, I know," said Dr. Stephen, holding a lighted match for the
cigarette. His face wore an expression of content. The experiment had
been a complete success. The memory of the last two hours was wiped out
utterly. Laidlaw was already chatting gaily and easily about a dozen
other things that interested him. Together they went out into the
street, and at his door Dr. Stephen left him with a joke and a wry face
that made his friend laugh heartily.
"Don't dine on the professor's old papers by mistake," he cried, as he
vanished down the street.
Dr. Laidlaw went up to his study at the top of the house. Half way down
he met his housekeeper, Mrs. Fewings. She was flustered and excited, and
her face was very red and perspiring.
"There've been burglars here," she cried excitedly, "or something funny!
All your things is just anyhow, sir. I found everything all about
everywhere!" She was very confused. In this orderly and very precise
establishment it was unusual to find a thing out of place.
"Oh, my specimens!" cried the doctor, dashing up the rest of the stairs
at top speed. "Have they been touched or----"
He flew to the door of the laboratory. Mrs. Fewings panted up heavily
behind him.
"The labatry ain't been touched," she explained, breathlessly, "but they
smashed the libry clock and they've 'ung your gold watch, sir, on the
skelinton's hands. And the books that weren't no value they flung out er
the window just like so much rubbish. They must have been wild drunk,
Dr. Laidlaw, sir!"
The young scientist made a hurried examination of the rooms. Nothing of
value was missing. He began to wonder what kind of burglars they were.
He looked up sharply at Mrs. Fewings standing in the doorway. For a
moment he seemed to cast about in his mind for something.
"Odd," he said at length. "I only left here an hour ago and everything
was all right then."
"Was it, sir? Yes, sir." She glanced sharply at him. Her room looked
out upon the courtyard, and she must have seen the books come crashing
down, and also have heard her master leave the house a few minutes
later.
"And what's this rubbish the brutes have left?" he cried, taking up two
slabs of worn gray stone, on the writing-table. "Bath brick, or
something, I do declare."
He looked very sharply again at the confused and troubled housekeeper.
"Throw them on the dust heap, Mrs. Fewings, and--and let me know if
anything is missing in the house, and I will notify the police this
evening."
When she left the room he went into the laboratory and took his watch
off the skeleton's fingers. His face wore a troubled expression, but
after a moment's thought it cleared again. His memory was a complete
blank.
"I suppose I left it on the writing-table when I went out to take the
air," he said. And there was no one present to contradict him.
He crossed to the window and blew carelessly some ashes of burned paper
from the sill, and stood watching them as they floated away lazily over
the tops of the trees.
XI
THE EMPTY SLEEVE
1
The Gilmer brothers were a couple of fussy and pernickety old bachelors
of a rather retiring, not to say timid, disposition. There was grey in
the pointed beard of John, the elder, and if any hair had remained to
William it would also certainly have been of the same shade. They
had private means. Their main interest in life was the collection
of violins, for which they had the instinctive _flair_ of true
connoisseurs. Neither John nor William, however, could play a single
note. They could only pluck the open strings. The production of tone,
so necessary before purchase, was done vicariously for them by another.
The only objection they had to the big building in which they occupied
the roomy top floor was that Morgan, liftman and caretaker, insisted on
wearing a billycock with his uniform after six o'clock in the evening,
with a result disastrous to the beauty of the universe. For "Mr.
Morgan," as they called him between themselves, had a round and pasty
face on the top of a round and conical body. In view, however, of the
man's other rare qualities--including his devotion to themselves--this
objection was not serious.
He had another peculiarity that amused them. On being found fault with,
he explained nothing, but merely repeated the words of the complaint.
"Water in the bath wasn't really hot this morning, Morgan!"
"Water in the bath not reely 'ot, wasn't it, sir?"
Or, from William, who was something of a faddist:
"My jar of sour milk came up late yesterday, Morgan."
"Your jar sour milk come up late, sir, yesterday?"
Since, however, the statement of a complaint invariably resulted in its
remedy, the brothers had learned to look for no further explanation.
Next morning the bath _was_ hot, the sour milk _was_ "brortup"
punctually. The uniform and billycock hat, though, remained an eyesore
and source of oppression.
On this particular night John Gilmer, the elder, returning from a
Masonic rehearsal, stepped into the lift and found Mr. Morgan with his
hand ready on the iron rope.
"Fog's very thick outside," said Mr. John pleasantly; and the lift
was a third of the way up before Morgan had completed his customary
repetition: "Fog very thick outside, yes, sir." And Gilmer then asked
casually if his brother were alone, and received the reply that Mr.
Hyman had called and had not yet gone away.
Now this Mr. Hyman was a Hebrew, and, like themselves, a connoisseur in
violins, but, unlike themselves, who only kept their specimens to look
at, he was a skilful and exquisite player. He was the only person they
ever permitted to handle their pedigree instruments, to take them from
the glass cases where they reposed in silent splendour, and to draw
the sound out of their wondrous painted hearts of golden varnish. The
brothers loathed to see his fingers touch them, yet loved to hear
their singing voices in the room, for the latter confirmed their sound
judgment as collectors, and made them certain their money had been well
spent. Hyman, however, made no attempt to conceal his contempt and
hatred for the mere collector. The atmosphere of the room fairly pulsed
with these opposing forces of silent emotion when Hyman played and the
Gilmers, alternately writhing and admiring, listened. The occasions,
however, were not frequent. The Hebrew only came by invitation,
and both brothers made a point of being in. It was a very formal
proceeding--something of a sacred rite almost.
John Gilmer, therefore, was considerably surprised by the information
Morgan had supplied. For one thing, Hyman, he had understood, was away
on the Continent.
"Still in there, you say?" he repeated, after a moment's reflection.
"Still in there, Mr. John, sir." Then, concealing his surprise from the
liftman, he fell back upon his usual mild habit of complaining about the
billycock hat and the uniform.
"You really should try and remember, Morgan," he said, though kindly.
"That hat does _not_ go well with that uniform!"
Morgan's pasty countenance betrayed no vestige of expression. "'At
don't go well with the yewniform, sir," he repeated, hanging up the
disreputable bowler and replacing it with a gold-braided cap from the
peg. "No, sir, it don't, do it?" he added cryptically, smiling at the
transformation thus effected.
And the lift then halted with an abrupt jerk at the top floor. By
somebody's carelessness the landing was in darkness, and, to make things
worse, Morgan, clumsily pulling the iron rope, happened to knock the
billycock from its peg so that his sleeve, as he stooped to catch it,
struck the switch and plunged the scene in a moment's complete
obscurity.
And it was then, in the act of stepping out before the light was turned
on again, that John Gilmer stumbled against something that shot along
the landing past the open door. First he thought it must be a child,
then a man, then--an animal. Its movement was rapid yet stealthy.
Starting backwards instinctively to allow it room to pass, Gilmer
collided in the darkness with Morgan, and Morgan incontinently screamed.
There was a moment of stupid confusion. The heavy framework of the lift
shook a little, as though something had stepped into it and then as
quickly jumped out again. A rushing sound followed that resembled
footsteps, yet at the same time was more like gliding--someone in soft
slippers or stockinged feet, greatly hurrying. Then came silence again.
Morgan sprang to the landing and turned up the electric light. Mr.
Gilmer, at the same moment, did likewise to the switch in the lift.
Light flooded the scene. Nothing was visible.
"Dog or cat, or something, I suppose, wasn't it?" exclaimed Gilmer,
following the man out and looking round with bewildered amazement upon
a deserted landing. He knew quite well, even while he spoke, that the
words were foolish.
"Dog or cat, yes, sir, or--something," echoed Morgan, his eyes narrowed
to pin-points, then growing large, but his face stolid.
"The light should have been on." Mr. Gilmer spoke with a touch of
severity. The little occurrence had curiously disturbed his equanimity.
He felt annoyed, upset, uneasy.
For a perceptible pause the liftman made no reply, and his employer,
looking up, saw that, besides being flustered, he was white about the
jaws. His voice, when he spoke, was without its normal assurance. This
time he did not merely repeat. He explained.
"The light _was_ on, sir, when last _I_ come up!" he said, with
emphasis, obviously speaking the truth. "Only a moment ago," he added.
Mr. Gilmer, for some reason, felt disinclined to press for explanations.
He decided to ignore the matter.
Then the lift plunged down again into the depths like a diving-bell into
water; and John Gilmer, pausing a moment first to reflect, let himself
in softly with his latch-key, and, after hanging up hat and coat in the
hall, entered the big sitting-room he and his brother shared in common.
The December fog that covered London like a dirty blanket had
penetrated, he saw, into the room. The objects in it were half shrouded
in the familiar yellowish haze.
2
In dressing-gown and slippers, William Gilmer, almost invisible in his
armchair by the gas-stove across the room, spoke at once. Through the
thick atmosphere his face gleamed, showing an extinguished pipe hanging
from his lips. His tone of voice conveyed emotion, an emotion he sought
to suppress, of a quality, however, not easy to define.
"Hyman's been here," he announced abruptly. "You must have met him. He's
this very instant gone out."
It was quite easy to see that something had happened, for "scenes" leave
disturbance behind them in the atmosphere. But John made no immediate
reference to this. He replied that he had seen no one--which was
strictly true--and his brother thereupon, sitting bolt upright in the
chair, turned quickly and faced him. His skin, in the foggy air, seemed
paler than before.
"That's odd," he said nervously.
"What's odd?" asked John.
"That you didn't see--anything. You ought to have run into one another
on the doorstep." His eyes went peering about the room. He was
distinctly ill at ease. "You're positive you saw no one? Did Morgan
take him down before you came? Did Morgan see him?" He asked several
questions at once.
"On the contrary, Morgan told me he was still here with you. Hyman
probably walked down, and didn't take the lift at all," he replied.
"That accounts for neither of us seeing him." He decided to say nothing
about the occurrence in the lift, for his brother's nerves, he saw
plainly, were on edge.
William then stood up out of his chair, and the skin of his face changed
its hue, for whereas a moment ago it was merely pale, it had now
altered to a tint that lay somewhere between white and a livid grey. The
man was fighting internal terror. For a moment these two brothers of
middle age looked each other straight in the eye. Then John spoke:
"What's wrong, Billy?" he asked quietly. "Something's upset you. What
brought Hyman in this way--unexpectedly? I thought he was still in
Germany."
The brothers, affectionate and sympathetic, understood one another
perfectly. They had no secrets. Yet for several minutes the younger one
made no reply. It seemed difficult to choose his words apparently.
"Hyman played, I suppose--on the fiddles?" John helped him, wondering
uneasily what was coming. He did not care much for the individual in
question, though his talent was of such great use to them.
The other nodded in the affirmative, then plunged into rapid speech,
talking under his breath as though he feared someone might overhear.
Glancing over his shoulder down the foggy room, he drew his brother
close.
"Hyman came," he began, "unexpectedly. He hadn't written, and I hadn't
asked him. You hadn't either, I suppose?"
John shook his head.
"When I came in from the dining-room I found him in the passage. The
servant was taking away the dishes, and he had let himself in while the
front door was ajar. Pretty cool, wasn't it?"
"He's an original," said John, shrugging his shoulders. "And you
welcomed him?" he asked.
"I asked him in, of course. He explained he had something glorious for
me to hear. Silenski had played it in the afternoon, and he had bought
the music since. But Silenski's 'Strad' hadn't the power--it's thin
on the upper strings, you remember, unequal, patchy--and he said no
instrument in the world could do it justice but our 'Joseph'-the small
Guarnerius, you know, which he swears is the most perfect in the world."
"And what was it? Did he play it?" asked John, growing more uneasy as he
grew more interested. With relief he glanced round and saw the matchless
little instrument lying there safe and sound in its glass case near the
door.
"He played it--divinely: a Zigeuner Lullaby, a fine, passionate, rushing
bit of inspiration, oddly misnamed 'lullaby.' And, fancy, the fellow had
memorized it already! He walked about the room on tiptoe while he played
it, complaining of the light----"
"Complaining of the light?"
"Said the thing was crepuscular, and needed dusk for its full effect. I
turned the lights out one by one, till finally there was only the glow
of the gas logs. He insisted. You know that way he has with him? And
then he got over me in another matter: insisted on using some special
strings he had brought with him, and put them on, too, himself--thicker
than the A and E _we_ use."
For though neither Gilmer could produce a note, it was their pride that
they kept their precious instruments in perfect condition for playing,
choosing the exact thickness and quality of strings that suited the
temperament of each violin; and the little Guarnerius in question always
"sang" best, they held, with thin strings.
"Infernal insolence," exclaimed the listening brother, wondering what
was coming next. "Played it well, though, didn't he, this Lullaby
thing?" he added, seeing that William hesitated. As he spoke he went
nearer, sitting down close beside him in a leather chair.
"Magnificent! Pure fire of genius!" was the reply with enthusiasm, the
voice at the same time dropping lower. "Staccato like a silver hammer;
harmonics like flutes, clear, soft, ringing; and the tone--well, the G
string was a baritone, and the upper registers creamy and mellow as a
boy's voice. John," he added, "that Guarnerius is the very pick of the
period and"--again he hesitated--"Hyman loves it. He'd give his soul to
have it."
The more John heard, the more uncomfortable it made him. He had always
disliked this gifted Hebrew, for in his secret heart he knew that he had
always feared and distrusted him. Sometimes he had felt half afraid
of him; the man's very forcible personality was too insistent to be
pleasant. His type was of the dark and sinister kind, and he possessed
a violent will that rarely failed of accomplishing its desire.
"Wish I'd heard the fellow play," he said at length, ignoring his
brother's last remark, and going on to speak of the most matter-of-fact
details he could think of. "Did he use the Dodd bow, or the Tourte? That
Dodd I picked up last month, you know, is the most perfectly balanced I
have ever----"
He stopped abruptly, for William had suddenly got upon his feet and was
standing there, searching the room with his eyes. A chill ran down
John's spine as he watched him.
"What is it, Billy?" he asked sharply. "Hear anything?"
William continued to peer about him through the thick air.
"Oh, nothing, probably," he said, an odd catch in his voice; "only---- I
keep feeling as if there was somebody listening. Do you think,
perhaps"--he glanced over his shoulder--"there is someone at the door?
I wish--I wish you'd have a look, John."
John obeyed, though without great eagerness. Crossing the room slowly,
he opened the door, then switched on the light. The passage leading past
the bathroom towards the bedrooms beyond was empty. The coats hung
motionless from their pegs.
"No one, of course," he said, as he closed the door and came back to the
stove. He left the light burning in the passage. It was curious the way
both brothers had this impression that they were not alone, though only
one of them spoke of it.
"Used the Dodd or the Tourte, Billy--which?" continued John in the most
natural voice he could assume.
But at that very same instant the water started to his eyes. His
brother, he saw, was close upon the thing he really had to tell. But he
had stuck fast.
3
By a great effort John Gilmer composed himself and remained in his
chair. With detailed elaboration he lit a cigarette, staring hard at his
brother over the flaring match while he did so. There he sat in his
dressing-gown and slippers by the fireplace, eyes downcast, fingers
playing idly with the red tassel. The electric light cast heavy shadows
across the face. In a flash then, since emotion may sometimes express
itself in attitude even better than in speech, the elder brother
understood that Billy was about to tell him an unutterable thing.
By instinct he moved over to his side so that the same view of the room
confronted him.
"Out with it, old man," he said, with an effort to be natural. "Tell me
what you saw."
Billy shuffled slowly round and the two sat side by side, facing the
fog-draped chamber.
"It was like this," he began softly, "only I was standing instead of
sitting, looking over to that door as you and I do now. Hyman moved to
and fro in the faint glow of the gas logs against the far wall, playing
that 'crepuscular' thing in his most inspired sort of way, so that the
music seemed to issue from himself rather than from the shining bit
of wood under his chin, when--I noticed something coming over me that
was"--he hesitated, searching for words--"that wasn't _all_ due to the
music," he finished abruptly.
"His personality put a bit of hypnotism on you, eh?"
William shrugged his shoulders.
"The air was thickish with fog and the light was dim, cast upwards upon
him from the stove," he continued. "I admit all that. But there wasn't
light enough to throw shadows, you see, and----"
"Hyman looked queer?" the other helped him quickly.
Billy nodded his head without turning.
"Changed there before my very eyes"--he whispered it--"turned
animal----"
"Animal?" John felt his hair rising.
"That's the only way I can put it. His face and hands and body turned
otherwise than usual. I lost the sound of his feet. When the bow-hand or
the fingers on the strings passed into the light, they were"--he uttered
a soft, shuddering little laugh--"furry, oddly divided, the fingers
massed together. And he paced stealthily. I thought every instant the
fiddle would drop with a crash and he would spring at me across the
room."
"My dear chap----"
"He moved with those big, lithe, striding steps one sees"--John held his
breath in the little pause, listening keenly--"one sees those big brutes
make in the cages when their desire is aflame for food or escape, or--or
fierce, passionate desire for anything they want with their whole
nature----"
"The big felines!" John whistled softly.
"And every minute getting nearer and nearer to the door, as though he
meant to make a sudden rush for it and get out."
"With the violin! Of course you stopped him?"
"In the end. But for a long time, I swear to you, I found it difficult
to know what to do, even to move. I couldn't get my voice for words of
any kind; it was like a spell."
"It _was_ a spell," suggested John firmly.
"Then, as he moved, still playing," continued the other, "he seemed to
grow smaller; to shrink down below the line of the gas. I thought I
should lose sight of him altogether. I turned the light up suddenly.
There he was over by the door--crouching."
"Playing on his knees, you mean?"
William closed his eyes in an effort to visualize it again.
"Crouching," he repeated, at length, "close to the floor. At least, I
think so. It all happened so quickly, and I felt so bewildered, it was
hard to see straight. But at first I could have sworn he was half his
natural size. I called to him, I think I swore at him--I forget exactly,
but I know he straightened up at once and stood before me down there in
the light"--he pointed across the room to the door--"eyes gleaming, face
white as chalk, perspiring like midsummer, and gradually filling out,
straightening up, whatever you like to call it, to his natural size and
appearance again. It was the most horrid thing I've ever seen."
"As an--animal, you saw him still?"
"No; human again. Only much smaller."
"What did he say?"
Billy reflected a moment.
"Nothing that I can remember," he replied. "You see, it was all over in
a few seconds. In the full light, I felt so foolish, and nonplussed at
first. To see him normal again baffled me. And, before I could collect
myself, he had let himself out into the passage, and I heard the front
door slam. A minute later--the same second almost, it seemed--you came
in. I only remember grabbing the violin and getting it back safely under
the glass case. The strings were still vibrating."
The account was over. John asked no further questions. Nor did he say a
single word about the lift, Morgan, or the extinguished light on the
landing. There fell a longish silence between the two men; and then,
while they helped themselves to a generous supply of whisky-and-soda
before going to bed, John looked up and spoke:
"If you agree, Billy," he said quietly, "I think I might write and
suggest to Hyman that we shall no longer have need for his services."
And Billy, acquiescing, added a sentence that expressed something of the
singular dread lying but half concealed in the atmosphere of the room,
if not in their minds as well:
"Putting it, however, in a way that need not offend him."
"Of course. There's no need to be rude, is there?"
Accordingly, next morning the letter was written; and John, saying
nothing to his brother, took it round himself by hand to the Hebrew's
rooms near Euston. The answer he dreaded was forthcoming:
"Mr. Hyman's still away abroad," he was told. "But we're forwarding
letters; yes. Or I can give you 'is address if you'll prefer it." The
letter went, therefore, to the number in Königstrasse, Munich, thus
obtained.
Then, on his way back from the insurance company where he went to
increase the sum that protected the small Guarnerius from loss by fire,
accident, or theft, John Gilmer called at the offices of certain musical
agents and ascertained that Silenski, the violinist, was performing at
the time in Munich. It was only some days later, though, by diligent
inquiry, he made certain that at a concert on a certain date the famous
virtuoso had played a Zigeuner Lullaby of his own composition--the very
date, it turned out, on which he himself had been to the Masonic
rehearsal at Mark Masons' Hall.
John, however, said nothing of these discoveries to his brother William.
4
It was about a week later when a reply to the letter came from Munich--a
letter couched in somewhat offensive terms, though it contained neither
words nor phrases that could actually be found fault with. Isidore Hyman
was hurt and angry. On his return to London a month or so later, he
proposed to call and talk the matter over. The offensive part of the
letter lay, perhaps, in his definite assumption that he could persuade
the brothers to resume the old relations. John, however, wrote a brief
reply to the effect that they had decided to buy no new fiddles; their
collection being complete, there would be no occasion for them to invite
his services as a performer. This was final. No answer came, and the
matter seemed to drop. Never for one moment, though, did it leave the
consciousness of John Gilmer. Hyman had said that he would come, and
come assuredly he would. He secretly gave Morgan instructions that he
and his brother for the future were always "out" when the Hebrew
presented himself.
"He must have gone back to Germany, you see, almost at once after his
visit here that night," observed William--John, however, making no
reply.
One night towards the middle of January the two brothers came home
together from a concert in Queen's Hall, and sat up later than usual in
their sitting-room discussing over their whisky and tobacco the merits
of the pieces and performers. It must have been past one o'clock when
they turned out the lights in the passage and retired to bed. The air
was still and frosty; moonlight over the roofs--one of those sharp and
dry winter nights that now seem to visit London rarely.
"Like the old-fashioned days when we were boys," remarked William,
pausing a moment by the passage window and looking out across the miles
of silvery, sparkling roofs.
"Yes," added John; "the ponds freezing hard in the fields, rime on the
nursery windows, and the sound of a horse's hoofs coming down the road
in the distance, eh?" They smiled at the memory, then said good night,
and separated. Their rooms were at opposite ends of the corridor; in
between were the bathroom, dining-room, and sitting-room. It was a long,
straggling flat. Half an hour later both brothers were sound asleep, the
flat silent, only a dull murmur rising from the great city outside, and
the moon sinking slowly to the level of the chimneys.
Perhaps two hours passed, perhaps three, when John Gilmer, sitting up
in bed with a start, wide-awake and frightened, knew that someone was
moving about in one of the three rooms that lay between him and his
brother. He had absolutely no idea why he should have been frightened,
for there was no dream or nightmare-memory that he brought over from
unconsciousness, and yet he realized plainly that the fear he felt was
by no means a foolish and unreasoning fear. It had a cause and a reason.
Also--which made it worse--it was fully warranted. Something in his
sleep, forgotten in the instant of waking, had happened that set
every nerve in his body on the watch. He was positive only of two
things--first, that it was the entrance of this person, moving so
quietly there in the flat, that sent the chills down his spine; and,
secondly, that this person was _not_ his brother William.
John Gilmer was a timid man. The sight of a burglar, his eyes
black-masked, suddenly confronting him in the passage, would most likely
have deprived him of all power of decision--until the burglar had either
shot him or escaped. But on this occasion some instinct told him that it
was no burglar, and that the acute distress he experienced was not due
to any message of ordinary physical fear. The thing that had gained
access to his flat while he slept had first come--he felt sure of
it--into his room, and had passed very close to his own bed, before
going on. It had then doubtless gone to his brother's room, visiting
them both stealthily to make sure they slept. And its mere passage
through his room had been enough to wake him and set these drops of cold
perspiration upon his skin. For it was--he felt it in every fibre of
his body--something hostile.
The thought that it might at that very moment be in the room of his
brother, however, brought him to his feet on the cold floor, and set him
moving with all the determination he could summon towards the door. He
looked cautiously down an utterly dark passage; then crept on tiptoe
along it. On the wall were old-fashioned weapons that had belonged to
his father; and feeling a curved, sheathless sword that had come from
some Turkish campaign of years gone by, his fingers closed tightly round
it, and lifted it silently from the three hooks whereon it lay. He
passed the doors of the bathroom and dining-room, making instinctively
for the big sitting-room where the violins were kept in their glass
cases. The cold nipped him. His eyes smarted with the effort to see in
the darkness. Outside the closed door he hesitated.
Putting his ear to the crack, he listened. From within came a faint
sound of someone moving. The same instant there rose the sharp, delicate
"ping" of a violin-string being plucked; and John Gilmer, with nerves
that shook like the vibrations of that very string, opened the door wide
with a fling and turned on the light at the same moment. The plucked
string still echoed faintly in the air.
The sensation that met him on the threshold was the well-known one
that things had been going on in the room which his unexpected arrival
had that instant put a stop to. A second earlier and he would have
discovered it all in the act. The atmosphere still held the feeling of
rushing, silent movement with which the things had raced back to their
normal, motionless positions. The immobility of the furniture was a mere
attitude hurriedly assumed, and the moment his back was turned the whole
business, whatever it might be, would begin again. With this presentment
of the room, however--a purely imaginative one--came another, swiftly on
its heels.
For one of the objects, less swift than the rest, had not quite regained
its "attitude" of repose. It still moved. Below the window curtains on
the right, not far from the shelf that bore the violins in their glass
cases, he made it out, slowly gliding along the floor. Then, even as his
eye caught it, it came to rest.
And, while the cold perspiration broke out all over him afresh, he knew
that this still moving item was the cause both of his waking and of his
terror. This was the disturbance whose presence he had divined in the
flat without actual hearing, and whose passage through his room, while
he yet slept, had touched every nerve in his body as with ice. Clutching
his Turkish sword tightly, he drew back with the utmost caution against
the wall and watched, for the singular impression came to him that
the movement was not that of a human being crouching, but rather of
something that pertained to the animal world. He remembered, flash-like,
the movements of reptiles, the stealth of the larger felines, the
undulating glide of great snakes. For the moment, however, it did not
move, and they faced one another.
The other side of the room was but dimly lighted, and the noise he made
clicking up another electric lamp brought the thing flying forward
again--towards himself. At such a moment it seemed absurd to think of
so small a detail, but he remembered his bare feet, and, genuinely
frightened, he leaped upon a chair and swished with his sword through
the air about him. From this better point of view, with the increased
light to aid him, he then saw two things--first, that the glass case
usually covering the Guarnerius violin had been shifted; and, secondly,
that the moving object was slowly elongating itself into an upright
position. Semi-erect, yet most oddly, too, like a creature on its hind
legs, it was coming swiftly towards him. It was making for the door--and
escape.
The confusion of ghostly fear was somehow upon him so that he was too
bewildered to see clearly, but he had sufficient self-control, it
seemed, to recover a certain power of action; for the moment the
advancing figure was near enough for him to strike, that curved scimitar
flashed and whirred about him, with such misdirected violence, however,
that he not only failed to strike it even once, but at the same
time lost his balance and fell forward from the chair whereon he
perched--straight into it.
And then came the most curious thing of all, for as he dropped, the
figure also dropped, stooped low down, crouched, dwindled amazingly in
size, and rushed past him close to the ground like an animal on all
fours. John Gilmer screamed, for he could no longer contain himself.
Stumbling over the chair as he turned to follow, cutting and slashing
wildly with his sword, he saw halfway down the darkened corridor beyond
the scuttling outline of, apparently, an enormous--cat!
The door into the outer landing was somehow ajar, and the next second
the beast was out, but not before the steel had fallen with a crashing
blow upon the front disappearing leg, almost severing it from the body.
It was dreadful. Turning up the lights as he went, he ran after it to
the outer landing. But the thing he followed was already well away, and
he heard, on the floor below him, the same oddly gliding, slithering,
stealthy sound, yet hurrying, that he had heard weeks before when
something had passed him in the lift and Morgan, in his terror, had
likewise cried aloud.
For a time he stood there on that dark landing, listening, thinking,
trembling; then turned into the flat and shut the door. In the
sitting-room he carefully replaced the glass case over the treasured
violin, puzzled to the point of foolishness, and strangely routed in his
mind. For the violin itself, he saw, had been dragged several inches
from its cushioned bed of plush.
Next morning, however, he made no allusion to the occurrence of the
night. His brother apparently had not been disturbed.
5
The only thing that called for explanation--an explanation not fully
forthcoming--was the curious aspect of Mr. Morgan's countenance. The
fact that this individual gave notice to the owners of the building, and
at the end of the month left for a new post, was, of course, known to
both brothers; whereas the story he told in explanation of his face was
known only to the one who questioned him about it--John. And John, for
reasons best known to himself, did not pass it on to the other. Also,
for reasons best known to himself, he did not cross-question the liftman
about those singular marks, or report the matter to the police.
Mr. Morgan's pasty visage was badly scratched, and there were red lines
running from the cheek into the neck that had the appearance of having
been produced by sharp points viciously applied--claws. He had been
disturbed by a noise in the hall, he said, about three in the morning, a
scuffle had ensued in the darkness, but the intruder had got clear
away....
"A cat or something of the kind, no doubt," suggested John Gilmer at the
end of the brief recital. And Morgan replied in his usual way: "A cat,
or something of the kind, Mr. John, no doubt."
All the same, he had not cared to risk a second encounter, but had
departed to wear his billycock and uniform in a building less haunted.
Hyman, meanwhile, made no attempt to call and talk over his dismissal.
The reason for this was only apparent, however, several months later
when, quite by chance, coming along Piccadilly in an omnibus, the
brothers found themselves seated opposite to a man with a thick black
beard and blue glasses. William Gilmer hastily rang the bell and got
out, saying something half intelligible about feeling faint. John
followed him.
"Did you see who it was?" he whispered to his brother the moment they
were safely on the pavement.
John nodded.
"Hyman, in spectacles. He's grown a beard, too."
"Yes, but did you also notice----"
"What?"
"He had an empty sleeve."
"An empty sleeve?"
"Yes," said William; "he's lost an arm."
There was a long pause before John spoke. At the door of their club the
elder brother added:
"Poor devil! He'll never again play on"--then, suddenly changing the
preposition--"_with_ a pedigree violin!"
And that night in the flat, after William had gone to bed, he looked up
a curious old volume he had once picked up on a second-hand bookstall,
and read therein quaint descriptions of how the "desire-body of a
violent man" may assume animal shape, operate on concrete matter even at
a distance; and, further, how a wound inflicted thereon can reproduce
itself upon its physical counterpart by means of the mysterious
so-called phenomenon of "re-percussion."
XII
WIRELESS CONFUSION
"Good night, Uncle," whispered the child, as she climbed on to his knee
and gave him a resounding kiss. "It's time for me to disappop into
bed--at least, so mother says."
"Disappop, then," he replied, returning her kiss, "although I doubt...."
He hesitated. He remembered the word was her father's invention,
descriptive of the way rabbits pop into their holes and disappear, and
the way _good_ children should leave the room the instant bed-time was
announced. The father--his twin brother--seemed to enter the room and
stand beside them. "Then give me another kiss, and disappop!" he said
quickly. The child obeyed the first part of his injunction, but had not
obeyed the second when the queer thing happened. She had not left his
knee; he was still holding her at the full stretch of both arms; he was
staring into her laughing eyes, when she suddenly went far away into an
extraordinary distance. She retired. Minute, tiny, but still in perfect
proportion and clear as before, she was withdrawn in space till she was
small as a doll. He saw his own hands holding her, and they too were
minute. Down this long corridor of space, as it were, he saw her
diminutive figure.
"Uncle!" she cried, yet her voice was loud as before, "but what a funny
face! You're pretending you've seen a ghost"--and she was gone from his
knee and from the room, the door closing quietly behind her. He saw her
cross the floor, a tiny figure. Then, just as she reached the door, she
became of normal size again, as if she crossed a line.
He felt dizzy. The loud voice close to his ear issuing from a diminutive
figure half a mile away had a distressing effect upon him. He knew a
curious qualm as he sat there in the dark. He heard the wind walking
round the house, trying the doors and windows. He was troubled by a
memory he could not seize.
Yet the emotion instantly resolved itself into one of personal anxiety:
something had gone wrong with his eyes. Sight, his most precious
possession as an artist, was of course affected. He was conscious of a
little trembling in him, as he at once began trying his sight at various
objects--his hands, the high ceiling, the trees dim in the twilight on
the lawn outside. He opened a book and read half a dozen lines, at
changing distances; finally he stared carefully at the second hand of
his watch. "Right as a trivet!" he exclaimed aloud. He emitted a long
sigh; he was immensely relieved. "Nothing wrong with my eyes."
He thought about the actual occurrence a great deal--he felt as puzzled
as any other normal person must have felt. While he held the child
actually in his arms, gripping her with both hands, he had seen her
suddenly half a mile away. "Half a mile!" he repeated under his breath,
"why it was even more, it was easily a mile." It had been exactly as
though he suddenly looked at her down the wrong end of a powerful
telescope. It had really happened; he could not explain it; there was no
more to be said.
This was the first time it happened to him.
At the theatre, a week later, when the phenomenon was repeated, the
stage he was watching fixedly at the moment went far away, as though he
saw it from a long way off. The distance, so far as he could judge, was
the same as before, about a mile. It was an Eastern scene, realistically
costumed and produced, that without an instant's warning withdrew. The
entire stage went with it, although he did not actually see it go. He
did not see movement, that is. It was suddenly remote, while yet the
actors' voices, the orchestra, the general hubbub retained their normal
volume. He experienced again the distressing dizziness; he closed his
eyes, covering them with his hand, then rubbing the eyeballs slightly;
and when he looked up the next minute, the world was as it should be, as
it had been, at any rate. Unwilling to experience a repetition of the
thing in a public place, however, and fortunately being alone, he left
the theatre at the end of the act.
Twice this happened to him, once with an individual, his brother's
child, and once with a landscape, an Eastern stage scene. Both
occurrences were within the week, during which time he had been
considering a visit to the oculist, though without putting his decision
into execution. He was the kind of man that dreaded doctors, dentists,
oculists, always postponing, always finding reasons for delay. He found
reasons now, the chief among them being an unwelcome one--that it was
perhaps a brain specialist, rather than an oculist, he ought to consult.
This particular notion hung unpleasantly about his mind, when, the day
after the theatre visit, the thing recurred, but with a startling
difference.
While idly watching a blue-bottle fly that climbed the window-pane with
remorseless industry, only to slip down again at the very instant when
escape into the open air was within its reach, the fly grew abruptly
into gigantic proportions, became blurred and indistinct as it did so,
covered the entire pane with its furry, dark, ugly mass, and frightened
him so that he stepped back with a cry and nearly lost his balance
altogether. He collapsed into a chair. He listened with closed eyes. The
metallic buzzing was audible, a small, exasperating sound, ordinarily
unable to stir any emotion beyond a mild annoyance. Yet it was terrible;
that so huge an insect should make so faint a sound seemed to him
terrible.
At length he cautiously opened his eyes. The fly was of normal size
once more. He hastily flicked it out of the window.
An hour later he was talking with the famous oculist in Harley Street
... about the advisability of starting reading-glasses. He found it
difficult to relate the rest. A curious shyness restrained him.
"Your optic nerves might belong to a man of twenty," was the verdict.
"Both are perfect. But at your age it is wise to save the sight as much
as possible. There is a slight astigmatism...." And a prescription for
the glasses was written out. It was only when paying the fee, and as a
means of drawing attention from the awkward moment, that his story found
expression. It seemed to come out in spite of himself. He made light of
it even then, telling it without conviction. It seemed foolish suddenly
as he told it. "How very odd," observed the oculist vaguely, "dear me,
yes, curious indeed. But that's nothing. H'm, h'm!" Either it was no
concern of his, or he deemed it negligible.... His only other confidant
was a friend of psychological tendencies who was interested and eager to
explain. It is on the instant plausible explanation of anything and
everything that the reputation of such folk depends; this one was true
to type: "A spontaneous invention, my dear fellow--a pictorial rendering
of your thought. You are a painter, aren't you? Well, this is merely a
rendering in picture-form of"--he paused for effect, the other hung upon
his words--"of the odd expression 'disappop.'"
"Ah!" exclaimed the painter.
"You see everything pictorially, of course, don't you?"
"Yes--as a rule."
"There you have it. Your painter's psychology saw the child
'disappopping.' That's all."
"And the fly?" but the fly was easily explained, since it was merely the
process reversed. "Once a process has established itself in your mind,
you see, it may act in either direction. When a madman says 'I'm afraid
Smith will do me an injury,' it means, 'I will do an injury to Smith,'"
And he repeated with finality, "That's it."
The explanations were not very satisfactory, the illustration even
tactless, but then the problem had not been stated quite fully. Neither
to the oculist nor to the other had _all_ the facts been given. The same
shyness had been a restraining influence in both cases; a detail had
been omitted, and this detail was that he connected the occurrences
somehow with his brother whom the war had taken.
The phenomenon made one more appearance--the last--before its character,
its field of action rather, altered. He was reading a book when the
print became now large, now small; it blurred, grew remote and tiny,
then so huge that a single word, a letter even, filled the whole page.
He felt as if someone were playing optical tricks with the mechanism of
his eyes, trying first one, then another focus.
More curious still, the meaning of the words themselves became
uncertain; he did not understand them any more; the sentences lost their
meaning, as though he read a strange language, or a language little
known. The flash came then--someone was using his eyes--someone else was
looking through them.
No, it was not his brother. The idea was preposterous in any case. Yet
he shivered again, as when he heard the walking wind, for an uncanny
conviction came over him that it was someone who did not understand eyes
but was manipulating their mechanism experimentally. With the conviction
came also this: that, while not his brother, it was someone connected
with his brother.
Here, moreover, was an explanation of sorts, for if the supernatural
existed--he had never troubled his head about it--he could accept this
odd business as a manifestation, and leave it at that. He did so, and
his mind was eased. This was his attitude: "The supernatural _may_
exist. Why not? We cannot know. But we can watch." His eyes and brain,
at any rate, were proved in good condition.
He watched. No change of focus, no magnifying or diminishing, came
again. For some weeks he noticed nothing unusual of any kind, except
that his mind often filled now with Eastern pictures. Their sudden
irruption caught his attention, but no more than that; they were
sometimes blurred and sometimes vivid; he had never been in the East;
he attributed them to his constant thinking of his brother, missing in
Mesopotamia these six months. Photographs in magazines and newspapers
explained the rest. Yet the persistence of the pictures puzzled him:
tents beneath hot cloudless skies, palms, a stretch of desert, dry
watercourses, camels, a mosque, a minaret--typical snatches of this kind
flashed into his mind with a sense of faint familiarity often. He knew,
again, the return of a fugitive memory he could not seize.... He kept
a note of the dates, all of them subsequent to the day he read his
brother's fate in the official Roll of Honour: "Believed missing; now
killed." Only when the original phenomenon returned, but in its altered
form, did he stop the practice. The change then affected his life too
fundamentally to trouble about mere dates and pictures.
For the phenomenon, shifting its field of action, abruptly became
mental, and the singular change of focus took place now in his mind.
Events magnified or contracted themselves out of all relation with their
intrinsic values, sense of proportion went hopelessly astray. Love, hate
and fear experienced sudden intensification, or abrupt dwindling into
nothing; the familiar everyday emotions, commonplace daily acts,
suffered exaggerated enlargement, or reduction into insignificance, that
threatened the stability of his personality. Fortunately, as stated,
they were of brief duration; to examine them in detail were to touch the
painful absurdities of incipient mania almost; that a lost collar stud
could block his exasperated mind for hours, filling an entire day with
emotion, while a deep affection of long standing could ebb towards
complete collapse suddenly without apparent cause...!
It was the unexpected suddenness of Turkey's spectacular defeat that
closed the painful symptoms. The Armistice saw them go. He knew a quick
relief he was unable to explain. The telegram that his brother was alive
and safe came _after_ his recovery of mental balance. It was a shock.
But the phenomena had ceased before the shock.
It was in the light of his brother's story that he reviewed the puzzling
phenomena described. The story was not more curious than many another,
perhaps, yet the details were queer enough. That a wounded Turk to whom
he gave water should have remembered gratitude was likely enough, for
all travellers know that these men are kindly gentlemen at times;
but that this Mohammedan peasant should have been later a member
of a prisoner's escort and have provided the means of escape and
concealment--weeks in a dry watercourse and months in a hut outside the
town--seemed an incredible stroke of good fortune. "He brought me food
and water three times a week. I had no money to give him, so I gave him
my Zeiss glasses. I taught him a bit of English too. But he liked the
glasses best. He was never tired of playing with 'em--making big and
little, as he called it. He learned precious little English...."
"My pair, weren't they?" interrupted his brother. "My old climbing
glasses."
"Your present to me when I went out, yes. So really you helped me to
save my life. I told the old Turk that. I was always thinking about
you."
"And the Turk?"
"No doubt.... Through _my_ mind, that is. At any rate, he asked a lot of
questions about you. I showed him your photo. He died, poor chap--at
least they told me so. Probably they shot him."
XIII
CONFESSION
The fog swirled slowly round him, driven by a heavy movement of its own,
for of course there was no wind. It hung in poisonous thick coils and
loops; it rose and sank; no light penetrated it directly from street
lamp or motor-car, though here and there some big shop-window shed a
glimmering patch upon its ever-shifting curtain.
O'Reilly's eyes ached and smarted with the incessant effort to see
a foot beyond his face. The optic nerve grew tired, and sight,
accordingly, less accurate. He coughed as he shuffled forward cautiously
through the choking gloom. Only the stifled rumble of crawling traffic
persuaded him he was in a crowded city at all--this, and the vague
outlines of groping figures, hugely magnified, emerging suddenly and
disappearing again, as they fumbled along inch by inch towards uncertain
destinations.
The figures, however were human beings; they were real. That much he
knew. He heard their muffled voices, now close, now distant, strangely
smothered always. He also heard the tapping of innumerable sticks,
feeling for iron railings or the kerb. These phantom outlines
represented living people. He was not alone.
It was the dread of finding himself _quite_ alone that haunted him, for
he was still unable to cross an open space without assistance. He had
the physical strength, it was the mind that failed him. Midway the
panic terror might descend upon him, he would shake all over, his will
dissolve, he would shriek for help, run wildly--into the traffic
probably--or, as they called it in his North Ontario home, "throw a
fit" in the street before advancing wheels. He was not yet entirely
cured, although under ordinary conditions he was safe enough, as Dr.
Henry had assured him.
When he left Regent's Park by Tube an hour ago the air was clear, the
November sun shone brightly, the pale blue sky was cloudless, and the
assumption that he could manage the journey across London Town alone was
justified. The following day he was to leave for Brighton for the week
of final convalescence: this little preliminary test of his powers on a
bright November afternoon was all to the good. Doctor Henry furnished
minute instructions: "You change at Piccadilly Circus--without leaving
the underground station, mind--and get out at South Kensington. You know
the address of your V.A.D. friend. Have your cup of tea with her, then
come back the same way to Regent's Park. Come back before dark--say six
o'clock at latest. It's better." He had described exactly what turns to
take after leaving the station, so many to the right, so many to the
left; it was a little confusing, but the distance was short. "You can
always ask. You can't possibly go wrong."
The unexpected fog, however, now blurred these instructions in a
confused jumble in his mind. The failure of outer sight reacted upon
memory. The V.A.D. besides had warned him her address was "not easy to
find the first time. The house lies in a backwater. But with your
'backwoods' instincts you'll probably manage it better than any
Londoner!" She, too, had not calculated upon the fog.
When O'Reilly came up the stairs at South Kensington Station, he emerged
into such murky darkness that he thought he was still underground. An
impenetrable world lay round him. Only a raw bite in the damp atmosphere
told him he stood beneath an open sky. For some little time he stood and
stared--a Canadian soldier, his home among clear brilliant spaces, now
face to face for the first time in his life with that thing he had so
often read about--a bad London fog. With keenest interest and surprise
he "enjoyed" the novel spectacle for perhaps ten minutes, watching the
people arrive and vanish, and wondering why the station lights stopped
dead the instant they touched the street--then, with a sense of
adventure--it cost an effort--he left the covered building and plunged
into the opaque sea beyond.
Repeating to himself the directions he had received--first to the right,
second to the left, once more to the left, and so forth--he checked each
turn, assuring himself it was impossible to go wrong. He made correct if
slow progress, until someone blundered into him with an abrupt and
startling question: "Is this right, do you know, for South Kensington
Station?"
It was the suddenness that startled him; one moment there was no one,
the next they were face to face, another, and the stranger had vanished
into the gloom with a courteous word of grateful thanks. But the little
shock of interruption had put memory out of gear. Had he already turned
twice to the right, or had he not? O'Reilly realized sharply he had
forgotten his memorized instructions. He stood still, making strenuous
efforts at recovery, but each effort left him more uncertain than
before. Five minutes later he was lost as hopelessly as any townsman who
leaves his tent in the backwoods without blazing the trees to ensure
finding his way back again. Even the sense of direction, so strong in
him among his native forests, was completely gone. There were no stars,
there was no wind, no smell, no sound of running water. There was
nothing anywhere to guide him, nothing but occasional dim outlines,
groping, shuffling, emerging and disappearing in the eddying fog, but
rarely coming within actual speaking, much less touching, distance. He
was lost utterly; more, he was alone.
Yet not _quite_ alone--the thing he dreaded most. There were figures
still in his immediate neighborhood. They emerged, vanished, reappeared,
dissolved. No, he was not quite alone. He saw these thickenings of the
fog, he heard their voices, the tapping of their cautious sticks, their
shuffling feet as well. They were real. They moved, it seemed, about him
in a circle, never coming very close.
"But they're real," he said to himself aloud, betraying the weak point
in his armour. "They're human beings right enough. I'm positive of
that."
He had never argued with Dr. Henry--he wanted to get well; he had obeyed
implicitly, believing everything the doctor told him--up to a point. But
he had always had his own idea about these "figures," because, among
them, were often enough his own pals from the Somme, Gallipoli, the
Mespot horror, too. And he ought to know his own pals when he saw them!
At the same time he knew quite well he had been "shocked," his being
dislocated; half dissolved as it were, his system pushed into some
lopsided condition that meant inaccurate registration. True. He grasped
that perfectly. But, in that shock and dislocation, had he not possibly
picked up another gear? Were there not gaps and broken edges, pieces
that no longer dovetailed, fitted as usual, interstices, in a word?
Yes, that was the word--interstices. Cracks, so to speak, between his
perception of the outside world and his inner interpretation of
these? Between memory and recognition? Between the various states of
consciousness that usually dovetailed so neatly that the joints were
normally imperceptible?
His state, he well knew, was abnormal, but were his symptoms on that
account unreal? Could not these "interstices" be used by--others? When
he saw his "figures," he used to ask himself: "Are not these the real
ones, and the others--the human beings--unreal?"
This question now revived in him with a new intensity. Were these
figures in the fog real or unreal? The man who had asked the way to the
station, was he not, after all, a shadow merely?
By the use of his cane and foot and what of sight was left to him he
knew that he was on an island. A lamppost stood up solid and straight
beside him, shedding its faint patch of glimmering light. Yet there were
railings, however, that puzzled him, for his stick hit the metal rods
distinctly in a series. And there should be no railings round an island.
Yet he had most certainly crossed a dreadful open space to get where he
was. His confusion and bewilderment increased with dangerous rapidity.
Panic was not far away.
He was no longer on an omnibus route. A rare taxi crawled past
occasionally, a whitish patch at the window indicating an anxious human
face; now and again came a van or cart, the driver holding a lantern as
he led the stumbling horse. These comforted him, rare though they were.
But it was the figures that drew his attention most. He was quite sure
they were real. They were human beings like himself.
For all that, he decided he might as well be positive on the point. He
tried one accordingly--a big man who rose suddenly before him out of the
very earth.
"Can you give me the trail to Morley Place?" he asked.
But his question was drowned by the other's simultaneous inquiry in a
voice much louder than his own.
"I say, is this right for the Tube station, d'you know? I'm utterly
lost. I want South Ken."
And by the time O'Reilly had pointed the direction whence he himself had
just come, the man was gone again, obliterated, swallowed up, not so
much as his footsteps audible, almost as if--it seemed again--he never
had been there at all.
This left an acute unpleasantness in him, a sense of bewilderment
greater than before. He waited five minutes, not daring to move a step,
then tried another figure, a woman this time who, luckily, knew the
immediate neighbourhood intimately. She gave him elaborate instructions
in the kindest possible way, then vanished with incredible swiftness
and ease into the sea of gloom beyond. The instantaneous way she
vanished was disheartening, upsetting; it was so uncannily abrupt and
sudden. Yet she comforted him. Morley Place, according to her version,
was not two hundred yards from where he stood. He felt his way forward,
step by step, using his cane, crossing a giddy open space kicking the
kerb with each boot alternately, coughing and choking all the time as he
did so.
"They were real, I guess, anyway," he said aloud. "They were both real
enough all right. And it may lift a bit soon!" He was making a great
effort to hold himself in hand. He was already fighting, that is. He
realized this perfectly. The only point was--the reality of the figures.
"It may lift now any minute," he repeated louder. In spite of the cold,
his skin was sweating profusely.
But, of course, it did not lift. The figures, too, became fewer. No
carts were audible. He had followed the woman's directions carefully,
but now found himself in some by-way, evidently, where pedestrians at
the best of times were rare. There was dull silence all about him. His
foot lost the kerb, his cane swept the empty air, striking nothing
solid, and panic rose upon him with its shuddering, icy grip. He was
alone, he knew himself alone, worse still--he was in another open space.
It took him fifteen minutes to cross that open space, most of the way
upon his hands and knees, oblivious of the icy slime that stained his
trousers, froze his fingers, intent only upon feeling solid support
against his back and spine again. It was an endless period. The moment
of collapse was close, the shriek already rising in his throat, the
shaking of the whole body uncontrollable, when--his outstretched fingers
struck a friendly kerb, and he saw a glimmering patch of diffused
radiance overhead. With a great, quick effort he stood upright, and an
instant later his stick rattled along an area railing. He leaned against
it, breathless, panting, his heart beating painfully while the street
lamp gave him the further comfort of its feeble gleam, the actual flame,
however, invisible. He looked this way and that; the pavement was
deserted. He was engulfed in the dark silence of the fog.
But Morley Place, he knew, must be very close by now. He thought of the
friendly little V.A.D. he had known in France, of a warm bright fire, a
cup of tea and a cigarette. One more effort, he reflected, and all these
would be his. He pluckily groped his way forward again, crawling slowly
by the area railings. If things got really bad again, he would ring a
bell and ask for help, much as he shrank from the idea. Provided he had
no more open spaces to cross, provided he saw no more figures emerging
and vanishing like creatures born of the fog and dwelling within it as
within their native element--it was the figures he now dreaded more than
anything else, more even than the loneliness--provided the panic
sense----
A faint darkening of the fog beneath the next lamp caught his eye and
made him start. He stopped. It was not a figure this time, it was the
shadow of the pole grotesquely magnified. No, it moved. It moved towards
him. A flame of fire followed by ice flowed through him. It was a
figure--close against his face. It was a woman.
The doctor's advice came suddenly back to him, the counsel that had
cured him of a hundred phantoms:
"Do not ignore them. Treat them as real. Speak and go with them. You
will soon prove their unreality then. And they will leave you...."
He made a brave, tremendous effort. He was shaking. One hand clutched
the damp and icy area railing.
"Lost your way like myself, haven't you, ma'am?" he said in a voice that
trembled. "Do you know where we are at all? Morley Place _I_'m looking
for----"
He stopped dead. The woman moved nearer and for the first time he saw
her face clearly. Its ghastly pallor, the bright, frightened eyes that
stared with a kind of dazed bewilderment into his own, the beauty above
all, arrested his speech midway. The woman was young, her tall figure
wrapped in a dark fur coat.
"Can I help you?" he asked impulsively, forgetting his own terror for
the moment. He was more than startled. Her air of distress and pain
stirred a peculiar anguish in him. For a moment she made no answer,
thrusting her white face closer as if examining him, so close, indeed,
that he controlled with difficulty his instinct to shrink back a little.
"Where am I?" she asked at length, searching his eyes intently. "I'm
lost--I've lost myself. I can't find my way back." Her voice was low, a
curious wailing in it that touched his pity oddly. He felt his own
distress merging in one that was greater.
"Same here," he replied more confidently. "I'm terrified of being alone,
too. I've had shell-shock, you know. Let's go together. We'll find a way
together----"
"Who are you!" the woman murmured, still staring at him with her big
bright eyes, their distress, however, no whit lessened. She gazed at him
as though aware suddenly of his presence.
He told her briefly. "And I'm going to tea with a V.A.D. friend in
Morley Place. What's your address? Do you know the name of the street?"
She appeared not to hear him, or not to understand exactly; it was as if
she was not listening again.
"I came out so suddenly, so unexpectedly," he heard the low voice with
pain in every syllable; "I can't find my home again. Just when I was
expecting him too----" She looked about her with a distraught expression
that made O'Reilly long to carry her in his arms to safety then and
there. "He may be there now--waiting for me at this very moment--and I
can't get back." And so sad was her voice that only by an effort did
O'Reilly prevent himself putting out his hand to touch her. More and
more he forgot himself in his desire to help her. Her beauty, the wonder
of her strange bright eyes in the pallid face, made an immense appeal.
He became calmer. This woman was real enough. He asked again the
address, the street and number, the distance she thought it was. "Have
you any idea of the direction, ma'am, any idea at all? We'll go together
and----"
She suddenly cut him short. She turned her head as if to listen, so that
he saw her profile a moment, the outline of the slender neck, a glimpse
of jewels just below the fur.
"Hark! I hear him calling! I remember...!" And she was gone from his
side into the swirling fog.
Without an instant's hesitation O'Reilly followed her, not only because
he wished to help, but because he dared not be left alone. The presence
of this strange, lost woman comforted him; he must not lose sight of
her, whatever happened. He had to run, she went so rapidly, ever just in
front, moving with confidence and certainty, turning right and left,
crossing the street, but never stopping, never hesitating, her companion
always at her heels in breathless haste, and with a growing terror that
he might lose her any minute. The way she found her direction through
the dense fog was marvellous enough, but O'Reilly's only thought was to
keep her in sight, lest his own panic redescend upon him with its
inevitable collapse in the dark and lonely street. It was a wild and
panting pursuit, and he kept her in view with difficulty, a dim fleeting
outline always a few yards ahead of him. She did not once turn her head,
she uttered no sound, no cry; she hurried forward with unfaltering
instinct. Nor did the chase occur to him once as singular; she was his
safety, and that was all he realized.
One thing, however, he remembered afterwards, though at the actual time
he no more than registered the detail, paying no attention to it--a
definite perfume she left upon the atmosphere, one, moreover, that he
knew, although he could not find its name as he ran. It was associated
vaguely, for him, with something unpleasant, something disagreeable. He
connected it with misery and pain. It gave him a feeling of uneasiness.
More than that he did not notice at the moment, nor could he
remember--he certainly did not try--where he had known this particular
scent before.
Then suddenly the woman stopped, opened a gate and passed into a small
private garden--so suddenly that O'Reilly, close upon her heels, only
just avoided tumbling into her. "You've found it?" he cried. "May I come
in a moment with you? Perhaps you'll let me telephone to the doctor."
She turned instantly. Her face close against his own, was livid.
"Doctor!" she repeated in an awful whisper. The word meant terror to
her. O'Reilly stood amazed. For a second or two neither of them moved.
The woman seemed petrified.
"Dr. Henry, you know," he stammered, finding his tongue again. "I'm in
his care. He's in Harley Street."
Her face cleared as suddenly as it had darkened, though the original
expression of bewilderment and pain still hung in her great eyes. But
the terror left them, as though she suddenly forgot some association
that had revived it.
"My home," she murmured. "My home is somewhere here. I'm near it. I must
get back--in time--for him. I must. He's coming to me." And with these
extraordinary words she turned, walked up the narrow path, and stood
upon the porch of a two-storey house before her companion had recovered
from his astonishment sufficiently to move or utter a syllable in reply.
The front door, he saw, was ajar. It had been left open.
For five seconds, perhaps for ten, he hesitated; it was the fear that
the door would close and shut him out that brought the decision to his
will and muscles. He ran up the steps and followed the woman into a dark
hall where she had already preceded him, and amid whose blackness she
now had finally vanished. He closed the door, not knowing exactly why
he did so, and knew at once by an instinctive feeling that the house he
now found himself in with this unknown woman was empty and unoccupied.
In a house, however, he felt safe. It was the open streets that were his
danger. He stood waiting, listening a moment before he spoke; and he
heard the woman moving down the passage from door to door, repeating to
herself in her low voice of unhappy wailing some words he could not
understand:
"Where is it? Oh, where is it? I must get back...."
O'Reilly then found himself abruptly stricken with dumbness, as though,
with these strange words, a haunting terror came up and breathed against
him in the darkness.
"Is she after all a figure?" ran in letters of fire across his numbed
brain. "Is she unreal--or real?"
Seeking relief in action of some kind, he put out a hand automatically,
feeling along the wall for an electric switch, and though he found it by
some miraculous chance, no answering glow responded to the click.
And the woman's voice from the darkness: "Ah! Ah! At last I've found it.
I'm home again--at last...!" He heard a door open and close upstairs. He
was on the ground-floor now--alone. Complete silence followed.
In the conflict of various emotions--fear for himself lest his panic
should return, fear for the woman who had led him into this empty
house and now deserted him upon some mysterious errand of her own that
made him think of madness--in this conflict that held him a moment
spell-bound, there was a yet bigger ingredient demanding instant
explanation, but an explanation that he could not find. Was the woman
real or was she unreal? Was she a human being or a "figure"? The horror
of doubt obsessed him with an acute uneasiness that betrayed itself in a
return of that unwelcome inner trembling he knew was dangerous.
What saved him from a _crise_ that must have had most dangerous results
for his mind and nervous system generally, seems to have been the
outstanding fact that he felt more for the woman than for himself. His
sympathy and pity had been deeply moved; her voice, her beauty, her
anguish and bewilderment, all uncommon, inexplicable, mysterious, formed
together a claim that drove self into the background. Added to this was
the detail that she had left him, gone to another floor without a word,
and now, behind a closed door in a room upstairs, found herself face to
face at last with the unknown object of her frantic search--with "it,"
whatever "it" might be. Real or unreal, figure or human being, the
overmastering impulse of his being was that he must go to her.
It was this clear impulse that gave him decision and energy to do what
he then did. He struck a match, he found a stump of candle, he made his
way by means of this flickering light along the passage and up the
carpetless stairs. He moved cautiously, stealthily, though not knowing
why he did so. The house, he now saw, was indeed untenanted; dust-sheets
covered the piled-up furniture; he glimpsed through doors ajar, pictures
were screened upon the walls, brackets draped to look like hooded heads.
He went on slowly, steadily, moving on tiptoe as though conscious of
being watched, noting the well of darkness in the hall below, the
grotesque shadows that his movements cast on walls and ceiling. The
silence was unpleasant, yet, remembering that the woman was "expecting"
someone, he did not wish it broken. He reached the landing and stood
still. Closed doors on both sides of a corridor met his sight, as he
shaded the candle to examine the scene. Behind which of these doors, he
asked himself, was the woman, figure or human being, now alone with
"it"?
There was nothing to guide him, but an instinct that he must not delay
sent him forward again upon his search. He tried a door on the right--an
empty room, with the furniture hidden by dust-sheets, and the mattress
rolled up on the bed. He tried a second door, leaving the first one
open behind him, and it was, similarly, an empty bedroom. Coming out
into the corridor again he stood a moment waiting, then called aloud in
a low voice that yet woke echoes unpleasantly in the hall below: "Where
are you? I want to help--which room are you in?"
There was no answer; he was almost glad he heard no sound, for he knew
quite well that he was waiting really for another sound--the steps of
him who was "expected." And the idea of meeting with this unknown
third sent a shudder through him, as though related to an interview he
dreaded with his whole heart, and must at all costs avoid. Waiting
another moment or two, he noted that his candle-stump was burning low,
then crossed the landing with a feeling, at once of hesitation and
determination, towards a door opposite to him. He opened it; he did
not halt on the threshold. Holding the candle at arm's length, he went
boldly in.
And instantly his nostrils told him he was right at last, for a whiff
of the strange perfume, though this time much stronger than before,
greeted him, sending a new quiver along his nerves. He knew now why it
was associated with unpleasantness, with pain, with misery, for he
recognized it--the odour of a hospital. In this room a powerful
anæsthetic had been used--and recently.
Simultaneously with smell, sight brought its message too. On the large
double bed behind the door on his right lay, to his amazement, the woman
in the dark fur coat. He saw the jewels on the slender neck; but the
eyes he did not see, for they were closed--closed, too, he grasped at
once, in death. The body lay stretched at full length, quite motionless.
He approached. A dark thin streak that came from the parted lips and
passed downwards over the chin, losing itself then in the fur collar,
was a trickle of blood. It was hardly dry. It glistened.
Strange it was perhaps that, while imaginary fears had the power to
paralyse him, mind and body, this sight of something real had the effect
of restoring confidence. The sight of blood and death, amid conditions
often ghastly and even monstrous, was no new thing to him. He went up
quietly, and with steady hand he felt the woman's cheek, the warmth of
recent life still in its softness. The final cold had not yet mastered
this empty form whose beauty, in its perfect stillness, had taken on the
new strange sweetness of an unearthly bloom. Pallid, silent, untenanted,
it lay before him, lit by the flicker of his guttering candle. He lifted
the fur coat to feel for the unbeating heart. A couple of hours ago at
most, he judged, this heart was working busily, the breath came through
those parted lips, the eyes were shining in full beauty. His hand
encountered a hard knob--the head of a long steel hat-pin driven through
the heart up to its hilt.
He knew then which was the figure--which was the real and which the
unreal. He knew also what had been meant by "it."
But before he could think or reflect what action he must take, before he
could straighten himself even from his bent position over the body on
the bed, there sounded through the empty house below the loud clang of
the front door being closed. And instantly rushed over him that other
fear he had so long forgotten--fear for himself. The panic of his own
shaken nerves descended with irresistible onslaught. He turned,
extinguishing the candle in the violent trembling of his hand, and tore
headlong from the room.
The following ten minutes seemed a nightmare in which he was not master
of himself and knew not exactly what he did. All he realized was that
steps already sounded on the stairs, coming quickly nearer. The flicker
of an electric torch played on the banisters, whose shadows ran swiftly
sideways along the wall as the hand that held the light ascended. He
thought in a frenzied second of police, of his presence in the house, of
the murdered woman. It was a sinister combination. Whatever happened, he
must escape without being so much as even seen. His heart raced madly.
He darted across the landing into the room opposite, whose door he had
luckily left open. And by some incredible chance, apparently, he was
neither seen nor heard by the man who, a moment later, reached the
landing, entered the room where the body of the woman lay, and closed
the door carefully behind him.
Shaking, scarcely daring to breathe lest his breath be audible,
O'Reilly, in the grip of his own personal terror, remnant of his uncured
shock of war, had no thought of what duty might demand or not demand of
him. He thought only of himself. He realized one clear issue--that he
must get out of the house without being heard or seen. Who the new-comer
was he did not know, beyond an uncanny assurance that it was _not_ him
whom the woman had "expected," but the murderer himself, and that it was
the murderer, in his turn, who was expecting this third person. In that
room with death at his elbow, a death he had himself brought about but
an hour or two ago, the murderer now hid in waiting for his second
victim. And the door was closed.
Yet any minute it might open again, cutting off retreat.
O'Reilly crept out, stole across the landing, reached the head of the
stairs, and began, with the utmost caution, the perilous descent.
Each time the bare boards creaked beneath his weight, no matter how
stealthily this weight was adjusted, his heart missed a beat. He tested
each step before he pressed upon it, distributing as much of his weight
as he dared upon the banisters. It was a little more than half-way down
that, to his horror, his foot caught in a projecting carpet tack; he
slipped on the polished wood, and only saved himself from falling
headlong by a wild clutch at the railing, making an uproar that seemed
to him like the explosion of a hand-grenade in the forgotten trenches.
His nerves gave way then, and panic seized him. In the silence that
followed the resounding echoes he heard the bedroom door opening on the
floor above.
Concealment was now useless. It was impossible, too. He took the last
flight of stairs in a series of leaps, four steps at a time, reached the
hall, flew across it, and opened the front door, just as his pursuer,
electric torch in hand, covered half the stairs behind him. Slamming the
door, he plunged headlong into the welcome, all-obscuring fog outside.
The fog had now no terrors for him, he welcomed its concealing mantle;
nor did it matter in which direction he ran so long as he put distance
between him and the house of death. The pursuer had, of course, not
followed him into the street. He crossed open spaces without a tremor.
He ran in a circle nevertheless, though without being aware he did so.
No people were about, no single groping shadow passed him; no boom of
traffic reached his ears, when he paused for breath at length against an
area railing. Then for the first time he made the discovery that he had
no hat. He remembered now. In examining the body, partly out of respect,
partly perhaps unconsciously, he had taken it off and laid it--on the
very bed.
It was there, a tell-tale bit of damning evidence, in the house of
death. And a series of probable consequences flashed through his mind
like lightning. It was a new hat fortunately; more fortunate still, he
had not yet written name or initials in it; but the maker's mark was
there for all to read, and the police would go immediately to the shop
where he had bought it only two days before. Would the shop-people
remember his appearance? Would his visit, the date, the conversation be
recalled? He thought it was unlikely; he resembled dozens of men; he had
no outstanding peculiarity. He tried to think, but his mind was confused
and troubled, his heart was beating dreadfully, he felt desperately ill.
He sought vainly for some story to account for his being out in the fog
and far from home without a hat. No single idea presented itself. He
clung to the icy railings, hardly able to keep upright, collapse very
near--when suddenly a figure emerged from the fog, paused a moment to
stare at him, put out a hand and caught him, and then spoke:
"You're ill, my dear sir," said a man's kindly voice. "Can I be of any
assistance? Come, let me help you." He had seen at once that it was not
a case of drunkenness. "Come, take my arm, won't you? I'm a physician.
Luckily, too, you are just outside my very house. Come in." And he half
dragged, half pushed O'Reilly, now bordering on collapse, up the steps
and opened the door with his latch-key.
"Felt ill suddenly--lost in the fog ... terrified, but be all right
soon, thanks awfully----" the Canadian stammered his gratitude, but
already feeling better. He sank into a chair in the hall, while the
other put down a paper parcel he had been carrying, and led him
presently into a comfortable room; a fire burned brightly; the electric
lamps were pleasantly shaded; a decanter of whisky and a siphon stood on
a small table beside a big arm-chair; and before O'Reilly could find
another word to say the other had poured him out a glass and bade him
sip it slowly, without troubling to talk till he felt better.
"That will revive you. Better drink it slowly. You should never have
been out a night like this. If you've far to go, better let me put you
up----"
"Very kind, very kind, indeed," mumbled O'Reilly, recovering rapidly in
the comfort of a presence he already liked and felt even drawn to.
"No trouble at all," returned the doctor. "I've been at the front, you
know. I can see what your trouble is--shell-shock, I'll be bound."
The Canadian, much impressed by the other's quick diagnosis, noted also
his tact and kindness. He had made no reference to the absence of a hat,
for instance.
"Quite true," he said. "I'm with Dr. Henry, in Harley Street," and he
added a few words about his case. The whisky worked its effect, he
revived more and more, feeling better every minute. The other handed
him a cigarette; they began to talk about his symptoms and recovery;
confidence returned in a measure, though he still felt badly frightened.
The doctor's manner and personality did much to help, for there was
strength and gentleness in the face, though the features showed unusual
determination, softened occasionally by a sudden hint as of suffering in
the bright, compelling eyes. It was the face, thought O'Reilly, of a
man who had seen much and probably been through hell, but of a man who
was simple, good, sincere. Yet not a man to trifle with; behind his
gentleness lay something very stern. This effect of character and
personality woke the other's respect in addition to his gratitude. His
sympathy was stirred.
"You encourage me to make another guess," the man was saying, after a
successful reading of the impromptu patient's state, "that you have had,
namely, a severe shock quite recently, and"--he hesitated for the merest
fraction of a second--"that it would be a relief to you," he went on,
the skilful suggestion in the voice unnoticed by his companion, "it
would be wise as well, if you could unburden yourself to--someone--who
would understand." He looked at O'Reilly with a kindly and very pleasant
smile. "Am I not right, perhaps?" he asked in his gentle tone.
"Someone who would understand," repeated the Canadian. "That's my
trouble exactly. You've hit it. It's all so incredible."
The other smiled. "The more incredible," he suggested, "the greater your
need for expression. Suppression, as you may know, is dangerous in cases
like this. You think you have hidden it, but it bides its time and comes
up later, causing a lot of trouble. Confession, you know"--he emphasized
the word--"confession is good for the soul!"
"You're dead right," agreed the other.
"Now if you can, bring yourself to tell it to someone who will listen
and believe--to myself, for instance. I am a doctor, familiar with such
things. I shall regard all you say as a professional confidence, of
course; and, as we are strangers, my belief or disbelief is of no
particular consequence. I may tell you in advance of your story,
however--I think I can promise it--that I shall believe all you have to
say."
O'Reilly told his story without more ado, for the suggestion of the
skilled physician had found easy soil to work in. During the recital his
host's eyes never once left his own. He moved no single muscle of his
body. His interest seemed intense.
"A bit tall, isn't it?" said the Canadian, when his tale was finished.
"And the question is----" he continued with a threat of volubility which
the other checked instantly.
"Strange, yes, but incredible, no," the doctor interrupted. "I see no
reason to disbelieve a single detail of what you have just told me.
Things equally remarkable, equally incredible, happen in all large
towns, as I know from personal experience. I could give you instances."
He paused a moment, but his companion, staring into his eyes with
interest and curiosity, made no comment. "Some years ago, in fact,"
continued the other, "I knew of a very similar case--strangely similar."
"Really! I should be immensely interested----"
"So similar that it seems almost a coincidence. _You_ may find it hard,
in your turn, to credit it." He paused again, while O'Reilly sat forward
in his chair to listen. "Yes," pursued the doctor slowly, "I think
everyone connected with it is now dead. There is no reason why I should
not tell it, for one confidence deserves another, you know. It happened
during the Boer War--as long ago as that," he added with emphasis. "It
is really a very commonplace story in one way, though very dreadful in
another, but a man who has served at the front will understand and--I'm
sure--will sympathize."
"I'm sure of that," offered the other readily.
"A colleague of mine, now dead, as I mentioned--a surgeon, with a big
practice, married a young and charming girl. They lived happily
together for several years. His wealth made her very comfortable. His
consulting-room, I must tell you, was some distance from his house--just
as this might be--so that she was never bothered with any of his
cases. Then came the war. Like many others, though much over age, he
volunteered. He gave up his lucrative practice and went to South Africa.
His income, of course, stopped; the big house was closed; his wife found
her life of enjoyment considerably curtailed. This she considered a
great hardship, it seems. She felt a bitter grievance against him.
Devoid of imagination, without any power of sacrifice, a selfish type,
she was yet a beautiful, attractive woman--and young. The inevitable
lover came upon the scene to console her. They planned to run away
together. He was rich. Japan they thought would suit them. Only, by some
ill luck, the husband got wind of it and arrived in London just in the
nick of time."
"Well rid of her," put in O'Reilly, "_I_ think."
The doctor waited a moment. He sipped his glass. Then his eyes fixed
upon his companion's face somewhat sternly.
"Well rid of her, yes," he continued, "only he determined to make that
riddance final. He decided to kill her--and her lover. You see, he loved
her."
O'Reilly made no comment. In his own country this method with a
faithless woman was not unknown. His interest was very concentrated. But
he was thinking, too, as he listened, thinking hard.
"He planned the time and place with care," resumed the other in a lower
voice, as though he might possibly be overheard. "They met, he knew, in
the big house, now closed, the house where he and his young wife had
passed such happy years during their prosperity. The plan failed,
however, in an important detail--the woman came at the appointed hour,
but without her lover. She found death waiting for her--it was a
painless death. Then her lover, who was to arrive half an hour later,
did not come at all. The door had been left open for him purposely. The
house was dark, its rooms shut up, deserted; there was no caretaker
even. It was a foggy night, just like this."
"And the other?" asked O'Reilly in a failing voice. "The lover----"
"A man did come in," the doctor went on calmly, "but it was not the
lover. It was a stranger."
"A stranger?" the other whispered. "And the surgeon--where was he all
this time?"
"Waiting outside to see him enter--concealed in the fog. He saw the man
go in. Five minutes later he followed, meaning to complete his
vengeance, his act of justice, whatever you like to call it. But the man
who had come in was a stranger--he came in by chance--just as you might
have done--to shelter from the fog--or----"
O'Reilly, though with a great effort, rose abruptly to his feet. He had
an appalling feeling that the man facing him was mad. He had a keen
desire to get outside, fog or no fog, to leave this room, to escape from
the calm accents of this insistent voice. The effect of the whisky was
still in his blood. He felt no lack of confidence. But words came to him
with difficulty.
"I think I'd better be pushing off now, doctor," he said clumsily. "But
I feel I must thank you very much for all your kindness and help." He
turned and looked hard into the keen eyes facing him. "Your friend," he
asked in a whisper, "the surgeon--I hope--I mean, was he ever caught?"
"No," was the grave reply, the doctor standing up in front of him, "he
was never caught."
O'Reilly waited a moment before he made another remark. "Well," he said
at length, but in a louder tone than before, "I think--I'm glad." He
went to the door without shaking hands.
"You have no hat," mentioned the voice behind him. "If you'll wait a
moment I'll get you one of mine. You need not trouble to return it." And
the doctor passed him, going into the hall. There was a sound of tearing
paper, O'Reilly left the house a moment later with a hat upon his head,
but it was not till he reached the Tube station half an hour afterwards
that he realized it was his own.
XIV
THE LANE THAT RAN EAST AND WEST
I
The curving strip of lane, fading into invisibility east and west, had
always symbolized life to her. In some minds life pictures itself a
straight line, uphill, downhill, flat, as the case may be; in hers it
had been, since childhood, this sweep of country lane that ran past her
cottage door. In thick white summer dust, she invariably visualized it,
blue and yellow flowers along its untidy banks of green. It flowed, it
glided, sometimes it rushed. Without a sound it ran along past the nut
trees and the branches where honeysuckle and wild roses shone. With
every year now its silent speed increased.
From either end she imagined, as a child, that she looked over into
outer space--from the eastern end into the infinity before birth, from
the western into the infinity that follows death. It was to her of real
importance.
From the veranda the entire stretch was visible, not more than five
hundred yards at most; from the platform in her mind, whence she viewed
existence, she saw her own life, similarly, as a white curve of
flowering lane, arising she knew not whence, gliding whither she could
not tell. At eighteen she had paraphrased the quatrain with a smile upon
her red lips, her chin tilted, her strong grey eyes rather wistful with
yearning--
_Into this little lane, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing,
And out again--like dust along the waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing._
At thirty she now repeated it, the smile still there, but the lips not
quite so red, the chin a trifle firmer, the grey eyes stronger, clearer,
but charged with a more wistful and a deeper yearning.
It was her turn of mind, imaginative, introspective, querulous perhaps,
that made the bit of running lane significant. Food with the butcher's
and baker's carts came to her from its eastern, its arriving end, as she
called it; news with the postman, adventure with rare callers. Youth,
hope, excitement, all these came from the sunrise. Thence came likewise
spring and summer, flowers, butterflies, the swallows. The fairies, in
her childhood, had come that way too, their silver feet and gossamer
wings brightening the summer dawns; and it was but a year ago that Dick
Messenger, his car stirring a cloud of thick white dust, had also come
into her life from the space beyond the sunrise.
She sat thinking about him now--how he had suddenly appeared out of
nothing that warm June morning, asked her permission about some
engineering business on the neighbouring big estate over the hill, given
her a dog-rose and a bit of fern-leaf, and eventually gone away with her
promise when he left. Out of the eastern end he appeared; into the
western end he vanished.
For there was this departing end as well, where the lane curved out of
sight into the space behind the yellow sunset. In this direction went
all that left her life. Her parents, each in turn, had taken that way to
the churchyard. Spring, summer, the fading butterflies, the restless
swallows, all left her round that western curve. Later the fairies
followed them, her dreams one by one, the vanishing years as well--and
now her youth, swifter, ever swifter, into the region where the sun
dipped nightly among pale rising stars, leaving her brief strip of life
colder, more and more unlit.
Just beyond this end she imagined shadows.
She saw Dick's car whirling towards her, whirling away again, making for
distant Mexico, where his treasure lay. In the interval he had found
that treasure and realized it. He was now coming back again. He had
landed in England yesterday.
Seated in her deck-chair on the veranda, she watched the sun sink to the
level of the hazel trees. The last swallows already flashed their dark
wings against the fading gold. Over that western end to-morrow or the
next day, amid a cloud of whirling white dust, would emerge, again out
of nothingness, the noisy car that brought Dick Messenger back to her,
back from the Mexican expedition that ensured his great new riches, back
into her heart and life. In the other direction she would depart a week
or so later, her life in his keeping, and his in hers ... and the feet
of their children, in due course, would run up and down the mysterious
lane in search of flowers, butterflies, excitement, in search of life.
She wondered ... and as the light faded her wondering grew deeper.
Questions that had lain dormant for twelve months became audible
suddenly. Would Dick be satisfied with this humble cottage which meant
so much to her that she felt she could never, never leave it? Would not
his money, his new position, demand palaces elsewhere? He was ambitious.
Could his ambitions set an altar of sacrifice to his love? And
she--could she, on the other hand, walk happy and satisfied along the
western curve, leaving her lane finally behind her, lost, untravelled,
forgotten? Could she face this sacrifice for him? Was he, in a word,
_the_ man whose appearance out of the sunrise she had been watching and
waiting for all these hurrying, swift years?
She wondered. Now that the decisive moment was so near, unhappy doubts
assailed her. Her wondering grew deeper, spread, enveloped, penetrated
her being like a gathering darkness. And the sun sank lower, dusk crept
along the hedgerows, the flowers closed their little burning eyes.
Shadows passed hand in hand along the familiar bend that was so short,
so soon travelled over and left behind that a mistake must ruin all its
sweetest joy. To wander down it with a companion to whom its flowers,
its butterflies, its shadows brought no full message, must turn it
chill, dark, lonely, colourless.... Her thoughts slipped on thus into a
soft inner reverie born of that scented twilight hour of honeysuckle and
wild roses, born too of her deep self-questioning, of wonder, of
yearning unsatisfied.
The lane, meanwhile, produced its customary few figures, moving
homewards through the dusk. She knew them well, these familiar figures
of the countryside, had known them from childhood onwards--labourers,
hedgers, ditchers and the like, with whom now, even in her reverie, she
exchanged the usual friendly greetings across the wicket-gate. This
time, however, she gave but her mind to them, her heart absorbed with
its own personal and immediate problem.
Melancey had come and gone; old Averill, carrying his hedger's
sickle-knife, had followed; and she was vaguely looking for Hezekiah
Purdy, bent with years and rheumatism, his tea-pail always rattling, his
shuffling feet making a sorry dust, when the figure she did not quite
recognize came into view, emerging unexpectedly from the sunrise end.
Was it Purdy? Yes--no--yet, if not, who was it? Of course it must be
Purdy. Yet while the others, being homeward bound, came naturally from
west to east, with this new figure it was otherwise, so that he was
half-way down the curve before she fully realized him. Out of the
eastern end the man drew nearer, a stranger therefore; out of the
unknown regions where the sun rose, and where no shadows were, he moved
towards her down the deserted lane, perhaps a trespasser, an intruder
possibly, but certainly an unfamiliar figure.
Without particular attention or interest, she watched him drift nearer
down her little semi-private lane of dream, passing leisurely from east
to west, the mere fact that he was there establishing an intimacy that
remained at first unsuspected. It was her eye that watched him, not her
mind. What was he doing here, where going, whither come, she wondered
vaguely, the lane both his background and his starting-point? A little
by-way, after all, this haunted lane. The real world, she knew, swept
down the big high-road beyond, unconscious of the humble folk its
unimportant tributary served. Suddenly the burden of the years assailed
her. Had she, then, missed life by living here?
Then, with a little shock, her heart contracted as she became aware of
two eyes fixed upon her in the dusk. The stranger had already reached
the wicket-gate and now stood leaning against it, staring at her over
its spiked wooden top. It was certainly not old Purdy. The blood rushed
back into her heart again as she returned the gaze. He was watching her
with a curious intentness, with an odd sense of authority almost, with
something that persuaded her instantly of a definite purpose in his
being there. He was waiting for her--expecting her to come down and
speak with him, as she had spoken with the others. Of this, her little
habit, he made use, she felt. Shyly, half-nervously, she left her
deck-chair and went slowly down the short gravel path between the
flowers, noticing meanwhile that his clothes were ragged, his hair
unkempt, his face worn and ravaged as by want and suffering, yet that
his eyes were curiously young. His eyes, indeed, were full brown smiling
eyes, and it was the surprise of his youth that impressed her chiefly.
That he could be tramp or trespasser left her. She felt no fear.
She wished him "Good evening" in her calm, quiet voice, adding with
sympathy, "And who are you, I wonder? You want to ask me something?" It
flashed across her that his shabby clothing was somehow a disguise. Over
his shoulder hung a faded sack. "I can do something for you?" she
pursued inquiringly, as was her kindly custom. "If you are hungry,
thirsty, or----"
It was the expression of vigour leaping into the deep eyes that stopped
her. "If you need clothes," she had been going to add. She was not
frightened, but suddenly she paused, gripped by a wonder she could not
understand.
And his first words justified her wonder. "_I_ have something for you,"
he said, his voice faint, a kind of stillness in it as though it came
through distance. Also, though this she did not notice, it was an
educated voice, and it was the absence of surprise that made this detail
too natural to claim attention. She had expected it. "Something to give
you. I have brought it for you," the man concluded.
"Yes," she replied, aware, again without comprehension, that her courage
and her patience were both summoned to support her. "Yes," she repeated
more faintly, as though this was all natural, inevitable, expected. She
saw that the sack was now lifted from his shoulder and that his hand
plunged into it, as it hung apparently loose and empty against the gate.
His eyes, however, never for one instant left her own. Alarm, she was
able to remind herself, she did not feel. She only recognized that this
ragged figure laid something upon her spirit she could not fathom, yet
was compelled to face.
His next words startled her. She drew, if unconsciously, upon her
courage:
"A dream."
The voice was deep, yet still with the faintness as of distance in it.
His hand, she saw, was moving slowly from the empty sack. A strange
attraction, mingled with pity, with yearning too, stirred deeply in her.
The face, it seemed, turned soft, the eyes glowed with some inner fire
of feeling. Her heart now beat unevenly.
"Something--to--sell to me," she faltered, aware that his glowing eyes
upon her made her tremble. The same instant she was ashamed of the
words, knowing they were uttered by a portion of her that resisted, and
this was not the language he deserved.
He smiled, and she knew her resistance a vain make-believe he pierced
too easily, though he let it pass in silence.
"There is, I mean, a price--for every dream," she tried to save herself,
conscious delightfully that her heart was smiling in return.
The dusk enveloped them, the corncrakes were calling from the fields,
the scent of honeysuckle and wild roses lay round her in a warm wave of
air, yet at the same time she felt as if her naked soul stood side by
side with this figure in the infinitude of space beyond the sunrise end.
The golden stars hung calm and motionless above them. "That price"--his
answer fell like a summons she had actually expected--"you pay to
another, not to me." The voice grew fainter, farther away, dropping
through empty space behind her. "All dreams are but a single dream. You
pay that price to----"
Her interruption slipped spontaneously from her lips, its inevitable
truth a prophecy:
"To myself!"
He smiled again, but this time he did not answer. His hand, instead, now
moved across the gate towards her.
And before she quite realized what had happened, she was holding a
little object he had passed across to her. She had taken it, obeying,
it seemed, an inner compulsion and authority which were inevitable,
fore-ordained. Lowering her face she examined it in the dusk--a small
green leaf of fern--fingered it with tender caution as it lay in her
palm, gazed for some seconds closely at the tiny thing.... When she
looked up again the stranger, the seller of dreams, as she now imagined
him, had moved some yards away from the gate, and was moving still, a
leisurely quiet tread that stirred no dust, a shadowy outline soft with
dusk and starlight, moving towards the sunrise end, whence he had first
appeared.
Her heart gave a sudden leap, as once again the burden of the years
assailed her. Her words seemed driven out:
"Who are you? Before you go--your name! What is your name?"
His voice, now faint with distance as he melted from sight against the
dark fringe of hazel trees, reached her but indistinctly, though its
meaning was somehow clear:
"The dream," she heard like a breath of wind against her ear, "shall
bring its own name with it. I wait...." Both sound and figure trailed
off into the unknown space beyond the eastern end, and, leaning against
the wicket-gate as usual, the white dust settling about his heavy boots,
the tea-pail but just ceased from rattling, was--old Purdy.
Unless the mind can fix the reality of an event in the actual instant of
its happening, judgment soon dwindles into a confusion between memory
and argument. Five minutes later, when old Purdy had gone his way again,
she found herself already wondering, reflecting, questioning. Yearning
had perhaps conjured with emotion to fashion both voice and figure out
of imagination, out of this perfumed dusk, out of the troubled heart's
desire. Confusion in time had further helped to metamorphose old Purdy
into some legendary shape that had stolen upon her mood of reverie from
the shadows of her beloved lane.... Yet the dream she had accepted from
a stranger hand, a little fern leaf, remained at any rate to shape a
delightful certainty her brain might criticize while her heart believed.
The fern leaf assuredly was real. A fairy gift! Those who eat of this
fern-seed, she remembered as she sank into sleep that night, shall see
the fairies! And, indeed, a few hours later she walked in dream along
the familiar curve between the hedges, her own childhood taking her
by the hand as she played with the flowers, the butterflies, the glad
swallows beckoning while they flashed. Without the smallest sense of
surprise or unexpectedness, too, she met at the eastern end--two
figures. They stood, as she with her childhood stood, hand in hand, the
seller of dreams and her lover, waiting since time began, she realized,
waiting with some great unuttered question on their lips. Neither
addressed her, neither spoke a word. Dick looked at her, ambition, hard
and restless, shining in his eyes; in the eyes of the other--dark,
gentle, piercing, but extraordinarily young for all the ragged hair
about the face the shabby clothes, the ravaged and unkempt appearance--a
brightness as of the coming dawn.
A choice, she understood, was offered to her; there was a decision she
must make. She realized, as though some great wind blew it into her
from outer space, another, a new standard to which her judgment must
inevitably conform, or admit the purpose of her life evaded finally. The
same moment she knew what her decision was. No hesitation touched her.
Calm, yet trembling, her courage and her patience faced the decision and
accepted it. The hands then instantly fell apart, unclasped. One figure
turned and vanished down the lane towards the departing end, but with
the other, now hand in hand, she rose floating, gliding without effort,
a strange bliss in her heart, to meet the sunrise.
"He has awakened ... so he cannot stay," she heard, like a breath of
wind that whispered into her ear. "I, who bring you this dream--I wait."
She did not wake at once when the dream was ended, but slept on long
beyond her accustomed hour, missing thereby Melancey, Averill, old Purdy
as they passed the wicket-gate in the early hours. She woke, however,
with a new clear knowledge of herself, of her mind and heart, to all of
which in simple truth to her own soul she must conform. The fern-seed
she placed in a locket attached to a fine gold chain about her neck.
During the long, lonely, expectant yet unsatisfied years that followed
she wore it day and night.
2
She had the curious feeling that she remained young. Others grew older,
but not she. She watched her contemporaries slowly give the signs,
while she herself held stationary. Even those younger than herself went
past her, growing older in the ordinary way, whereas her heart, her
mind, even her appearance, she felt certain, hardly aged at all. In a
room full of people she felt pity often as she read the signs in their
faces knowing her own unchanged. Their eyes were burning out, but hers
burned on. It was neither vanity nor delusion, but an inner conviction
she could not alter.
The age she held to was the year she had received the fern-seed from
old Purdy, or rather, from an imaginary figure her reverie had set
momentarily in old Purdy's place. That figure of her reverie, the dream
that followed, the subsequent confession to Dick Messenger, meeting his
own half-way--these marked the year when she stopped growing older. To
that year she seemed chained, gazing into the sunrise end--waiting, ever
waiting.
Whether in her absent-minded reverie she had actually plucked the bit
of fern herself, or whether, after all, old Purdy had handed it to
her, was not a point that troubled her. It was in her locket about her
neck still, day and night. The seller of dreams was an established
imaginative reality in her life. Her heart assured her she would meet
him again one day. She waited. It was very curious, it was rather
pathetic. Men came and went, she saw her chances pass; her answer was
invariably "No."
The break came suddenly, and with devastating effect. As she was
dressing carefully for the party, full of excited anticipation like some
young girl still, she saw looking out upon her from the long mirror a
face of plain middle-age. A blackness rose about her. It seemed the
mirror shattered. The long, long dream, at any rate, fell in a thousand
broken pieces at her feet. It was perhaps the ball dress, perhaps the
flowers in her hair; it may have been the low-cut gown that betrayed the
neck and throat, or the one brilliant jewel that proved her eyes now
dimmed beside it--but most probably it was the tell-tale hands, whose
ageing no artifice ever can conceal. The middle-aged woman, at any rate,
rushed from the glass and claimed her.
It was a long time, too, before the signs of tears had been carefully
obliterated again, and the battle with herself--to go or not to go--was
decided by clear courage. She would not send a hurried excuse of
illness, but would take the place where she now belonged. She saw
herself, a fading figure, more than half-way now towards the sunset end,
within sight even of the shadowed emptiness that lay beyond the sun's
dipping edge. She had lingered over-long, expecting a dream to confirm a
dream; she had been oblivious of the truth that the lane went rushing
just the same. It was now too late. The speed increased. She had waited,
waited for nothing. The seller of dreams was a myth. No man could need
her as she now was.
Yet the chief ingredient in her decision was, oddly enough, itself a
sign of youth. A party, a ball, is ever an adventure. Fate, with her
destined eyes aglow, may be bidden too, waiting among the throng,
waiting for that very one who hesitates whether to go or not to go. Who
knows what the evening may bring forth? It was this anticipation,
faintly beckoning, its voice the merest echo of her shadowy youth, that
tipped the scales between an evening of sleepless regrets at home and
hours of neglected loneliness, watching the young fulfil the happy
night. This and her courage weighed the balance down against the
afflicting weariness of her sudden disillusion.
Therefore she went, her aunt, in whose house she was a visitor,
accompanying her. They arrived late, walking under the awning alone into
the great mansion. Music, flowers, lovely dresses, and bright happy
faces filled the air about them. The dancing feet, the flashing eyes,
the swing of the music, the throng of graceful figures expressed one
word--pleasure. Pleasure, of course, meant youth. Beneath the calm
summer stars youth realized itself prodigally, reckless of years to
follow. Under the same calm stars, some fifty miles away in Kent, her
stretch of deserted lane flowed peacefully, never pausing, passing
relentlessly out into unknown space beyond the edge of the world. A girl
and a middle-aged woman bravely watched both scenes.
"Dreadfully overcrowded," remarked her prosaic aunt. "When I was a young
thing there was more taste--always room to dance, at any rate."
"It is a rabble rather," replied the middle-aged woman, while the girl
added, "but I enjoy it." She had enjoyed one duty-dance with an elderly
man to whom her aunt had introduced her. She now sat watching the rabble
whirl and laugh. Her friend, behind unabashed lorgnettes, made
occasional comments.
"There's Mabel. Look at her frock, will you--the naked back. The way he
holds her, too!"
She looked at Mabel Messenger, exactly her own age, wife of the
successful engineer, yet bearing herself almost like a girl.
"_He's_ away in Mexico, as usual," went on her aunt, "with somebody
else, also as usual."
"I don't envy her," mentioned the middle-aged woman, while the girl
added, "but she did well for herself, anyhow."
"It's a mistake to wait too long," was a suggestion she did not comment
on.
The host's brother came up and carried off her aunt. She was left alone.
An old gentleman dropped into the vacated chair. Only in the centre of
the brilliantly lit room was there dancing now; people stood and talked
in animated throngs, every seat along the walls, every chair and sofa in
alcove corners occupied. The landing outside the great flung doors was
packed; some, going on elsewhere, were already leaving, but others
arriving late still poured up the staircase. Her loneliness remained
unnoticed; with many other women, similarly stationed behind the
whirling, moving dancers, she sat looking on, an artificial smile of
enjoyment upon her face, but the eyes empty and unlit.
Two pictures she watched simultaneously--the gay ballroom and the lane
that ran east and west.
Midnight was past and supper over, though she had not noticed it. Her
aunt had disappeared finally, it seemed. The two pictures filled her
mind, absorbed her. What she was feeling was not clear, for there was
confusion in her between the two scenes somewhere--as though the
brilliant ballroom lay set against the dark background of the lane
beneath the quiet stars. The contrast struck her. How calm and lovely
the night lane seemed against this feverish gaiety, this heat, this
artificial perfume, these exaggerated clothes. Like a small, rapid
cinema-picture the dazzling ballroom passed along the dark throat of
the deserted lane. A patch of light, alive with whirling animalculæ,
it shone a moment against the velvet background of the midnight
country-side. It grew smaller and smaller. It vanished over the edge
of the departing end. It was gone.
Night and the stars enveloped her, and her eyes became accustomed to the
change, so that she saw the sandy strip of lane, the hazel bushes, the
dim outline of the cottage. Her naked soul, it seemed again, stood
facing an infinitude. Yet the scent of roses, of dew-soaked grass came
to her. A blackbird was whistling in the hedge. The eastern end showed
itself now more plainly. The tops of the trees defined themselves. There
came a glimmer in the sky, an early swallow flashed past against a
streak of pale sweet gold. Old Purdy, his tea-pail faintly rattling, a
stir of thick white dust about his feet, came slowly round the curve. It
was the sunrise.
A deep, passionate thrill ran through her body from head to feet. There
was a clap beside her--in the air it seemed--as though the wings of the
early swallow had flashed past her very ear, or the approaching sunrise
called aloud. She turned her head--along the brightening lane, but also
across the gay ballroom. Old Purdy, straightening up his bent shoulders,
was gazing over the wicket-gate into her eyes.
Something quivered. A shimmer ran fluttering before her sight. She
trembled. Over the crowd of intervening heads, as over the spiked top of
the little gate, a man was gazing at her.
Old Purdy, however, did not fade, nor did his outline wholly pass. There
was this confusion between two pictures. Yet this man who gazed at her
was in the London ballroom. He was so tall and straight. The same moment
her aunt's face appeared below his shoulder, only just visible, and he
turned his head, but did not turn his eyes, to listen to her. Both
looked her way; they moved, threading their way towards her. It meant an
introduction coming. He had asked for it.
She did not catch his name, so quickly, yet so easily and naturally the
little formalities were managed, and she was dancing. The same sweet,
dim confusion was about her. His touch, his voice, his eyes combined
extraordinarily in a sense of complete possession to which she yielded
utterly. The two pictures, moreover, still held their place. Behind the
glaring lights ran the pale sweet gold of a country dawn; woven like a
silver thread among the strings she heard the blackbirds whistling; in
the stale, heated air lay the subtle freshness of a summer sunrise.
Their dancing feet bore them along in a flowing motion that curved from
east to west.
They danced without speaking; one rhythm took them; like a single person
they glided over the smooth, perfect floor, and, more and more to her,
it was as if the floor flowed with them, bearing them along. Such
dancing she had never known. The strange sweetness of the confusion
that half-entranced her increased--almost as though she lay upon her
partner's arms and that he bore her through the air. Both the sense of
weight and the touch of her feet on solid ground were gone delightfully.
The London room grew hazy, too; the other figures faded; the ceiling,
half transparent, let through a filtering glimmer of the dawn. Her
thoughts--surely he shared them with her--went out floating beneath this
brightening sky. There was a sound of wakening birds, a smell of
flowers.
They had danced perhaps five minutes when both stopped abruptly as with
one accord.
"Shall we sit it out--if you've no objection?" he suggested in the very
instant that the same thought occurred to her. "The conservatory, among
the flowers," he added, leading her to the corner among scented blooms
and plants, exactly as she herself desired. There were leaves and ferns
about them in the warm air. The light was dim. A streak of gold in the
sky showed through the glass. But for one other couple they were alone.
"I have something to say to you," he began. "You must have thought it
curious--I've been staring at you so. The whole evening I've been
watching you."
"I--hadn't noticed," she said truthfully, her voice, as it were, not
quite her own. "I've not been dancing--only once, that is."
But her heart was dancing as she said it. For the first time she became
aware of her partner more distinctly--of his deep, resonant voice, his
soldierly tall figure, his deferential, almost protective manner. She
turned suddenly and looked into his face. The clear, rather penetrating
eyes reminded her of someone she had known.
At the same instant he used her thought, turning it in his own
direction. "I can't remember, for the life of me," he said quietly,
"where I have seen you before. Your face is familiar to me, oddly
familiar--years ago--in my first youth somewhere."
It was as though he broke something to her gently--something he was sure
of and knew positively, that yet might shock and startle her.
The blood rushed from her heart as she quickly turned her gaze away. The
wave of deep feeling that rose with a sensation of glowing warmth
troubled her voice. "I find in you, too, a faint resemblance to--someone
I have met," she murmured. Without meaning it she let slip the added
words, "when I was a girl."
She felt him start, but he saved the situation, making it ordinary again
by obtaining her permission to smoke, then slowly lighting his cigarette
before he spoke.
"You must forgive me," he put in with a smile, "but your name, when you
were kind enough to let me be introduced, escaped me. I did not catch
it."
She told him her surname, but he asked in his persuasive yet somehow
masterful way for the Christian name as well. He turned round instantly
as she gave it, staring hard at her with meaning, with an examining
intentness, with open curiosity. There was a question on his lips, but
she interrupted, delaying it by a question of her own. Without looking
at him she knew and feared his question. Her voice just concealed a
trembling that was in her throat.
"My aunt," she agreed lightly, "is incorrigible. Do you know I didn't
catch yours either? Oh--I meant your surname," she added, confusion
gaining upon her when he mentioned his first name only.
He became suddenly more earnest, his voice deepened, his whole manner
took on the guise of deliberate intention backed by some profound
emotion that he could no longer hide. The music, which had momentarily
ceased, began again, and a couple, who had been sitting out diagonally
across from them, rose and went out. They were now quite alone. The sky
was brighter.
"I must tell you," he went on in a way that compelled her to look up and
meet his intent gaze. "You really must allow me. I feel sure somehow
you'll understand. At any rate," he added like a boy, "you won't laugh."
She believes she gave the permission and assurance. Memory fails her a
little here, for as she returned his gaze, it seemed a curious change
came stealing over him, yet at first so imperceptibly, so vaguely, that
she could not say when it began, nor how it happened.
"Yes," she murmured, "please----" The change defined itself. She stopped
dead.
"I know now where I've seen you before. I remember." His voice vibrated
like a wind in big trees. It enveloped her.
"Yes," she repeated in a whisper, for the hammering of her heart made
both a louder tone or further words impossible. She knew not what he was
going to say, yet at the same time she knew with accuracy. Her eyes
gazed helplessly into his. The change absorbed her. Within his outline
she watched another outline grow. Behind the immaculate evening clothes
a ragged, unkempt figure rose. A worn, ravaged face with young burning
eyes peered through his own. "Please, please," she whispered again very
faintly. He took her hand in his.
His voice came from very far away, yet drawing nearer, and the scene
about them faded, vanished. The lane that curved east and west now
stretched behind him, and she sat gazing towards the sunrise end, as
years ago when the girl passed into the woman first.
"I knew--a friend of yours--Dick Messenger," he was saying in this
distant voice that yet was close beside her, "knew him at school, at
Cambridge, and later in Mexico. We worked in the same mines together,
only he was contractor and I was--in difficulties. That made no
difference. He--he told me about a girl--of his love and admiration, an
admiration that remained, but a love that had already faded."
She saw only the ragged outline within the well-groomed figure of the
man who spoke. The young eyes that gazed so piercingly into hers
belonged to him, the seller of her dream of years before. It was to this
ragged stranger in her lane she made her answer:
"I, too, now remember," she said softly. "Please go on."
"He gave me his confidence, asking me where his duty lay, and I told him
that the real love comes once only; it knows no doubt, no fading. I told
him this----"
"We both discovered it in time," she said to herself, so low it was
scarcely audible, yet not resisting as he laid his other hand upon the
one he already held.
"I also told him there was only one true dream," the voice continued,
the inner face drawing nearer to the outer that contained it. "I asked
him, and he told me--everything. I knew all about this girl. Her
picture, too, he showed me."
The voice broke off. The flood of love and pity, of sympathy and
understanding that rose in her like a power long suppressed, threatened
tears, yet happy, yearning tears like those of a girl, which only the
quick, strong pressure of his hands prevented.
"The--little painting--yes, I know it," she faltered.
"It saved me," he said simply. "It changed my life. From that moment I
began--living decently again--living for an ideal." Without knowing that
she did so, the pressure of her hand upon his own came instantly.
"He--he gave it to me," the voice went on, "to keep. He said he could
neither keep it himself nor destroy it. It was the day before he sailed.
I remember it as yesterday. I said I must give him something in return,
or it would cut friendship. But I had nothing in the world to give. We
were in the hills. I picked a leaf of fern instead. 'Fern-seed,' I told
him, 'it will make you see the fairies and find your true dream.' I
remember his laugh to this day--a sad, uneasy laugh. 'I shall give it to
her,' he told me, 'when I give her my difficult explanation.' But I
said, 'Give it with my love, and tell her that I wait.' He looked at me
with surprise, incredulous. Then he said slowly, 'Why not? If--if only
you hadn't let yourself go to pieces like this!'"
An immensity of clear emotion she could not understand passed over her
in a wave. Involuntarily she moved closer against him. With her eyes
unflinchingly upon his own, she whispered: "You were hungry, thirsty,
you had no clothes.... You waited!"
"You're reading my thoughts, as I knew one day you would." It seemed as
if their minds, their bodies too, were one, as he said the words. "You,
too--you waited." His voice was low.
There came a glow between them as of hidden fire; their faces shone;
there was a brightening as of dawn upon their skins, within their eyes,
lighting their very hair. Out of this happy sky his voice floated to her
with the blackbird's song:
"And that night I dreamed of you. I dreamed I met you in an English
country lane."
"We did," she murmured, as though it were quite natural.
"I dreamed I gave you the fern leaf--across a wicket-gate--and in front
of a little house that was our home. In my dream--I handed to you--a
dream----"
"You did." And as she whispered it the two figures merged into one
before her very eyes. "See," she added softly, "I have it still. It is
in my locket at this moment, for I have worn it day and night through
all these years of waiting." She began fumbling at her chain.
He smiled. "Such things," he said gently, "are beyond me rather. I have
found you. That's all that matters. That"--he smiled again--"is real at
any rate."
"A vision," she murmured, half to herself and half to him, "I can
understand. A dream, though wonderful, is a dream. But the little fern
you gave me," drawing the fine gold chain from her bosom, "the actual
leaf I have worn all these years in my locket!"
He smiled as she held the locket out to him, her fingers feeling for the
little spring. He shook his head, but so slightly she did not notice
it.
"I will prove it to you," she said. "I must. Look!" she cried, as with
trembling hand she pressed the hidden catch. "There! There!"
With heads close together they bent over. The tiny lid flew open. And as
he took her for one quick instant in his arms the sun flashed his first
golden shaft upon them, covering them with light. But her exclamation of
incredulous surprise he smothered with a kiss. For inside the little
locket there lay--nothing. It was quite empty.
XV
"VENGEANCE IS MINE"
1
An active, vigorous man in Holy orders, yet compelled by heart trouble
to resign a living in Kent before full middle age, he had found suitable
work with the Red Cross in France; and it rather pleased a strain of
innocent vanity in him that Rouen, whence he derived his Norman blood,
should be the scene of his activities.
He was a gentle-minded soul, a man deeply read and thoughtful, but
goodness perhaps his out-standing quality, believing no evil of others.
He had been slow, for instance, at first to credit the German
atrocities, until the evidence had compelled him to face the appalling
facts. With acceptance, then, he had experienced a revulsion which other
gentle minds have probably also experienced--a burning desire, namely,
that the perpetrators should be fitly punished.
This primitive instinct of revenge--he called it a lust--he sternly
repressed; it involved a descent to lower levels of conduct
irreconcilable with the progress of the race he so passionately believed
in. Revenge pertained to savage days. But, though he hid away the
instinct in his heart, afraid of its clamour and persistency, it revived
from time to time, as fresh horrors made it bleed anew. It remained
alive, unsatisfied; while, with its analysis, his mind strove
unconsciously. That an intellectual nation should deliberately include
frightfulness as a chief item in its creed perplexed him horribly; it
seemed to him conscious spiritual evil openly affirmed. Some genuine
worship of Odin, Wotan, Moloch lay still embedded in the German outlook,
and beneath the veneer of their pretentious culture. He often wondered,
too, what effect the recognition of these horrors must have upon gentle
minds in other men, and especially upon imaginative minds. How did they
deal with the fact that this appalling thing existed in human nature in
the twentieth century? Its survival, indeed, caused his belief in
civilization as a whole to waver. Was progress, his pet ideal and
cherished faith, after all a mockery? Had human nature not advanced...?
His work in the great hospitals and convalescent camps beyond the town
was tiring; he found little time for recreation, much less for rest; a
light dinner and bed by ten o'clock was the usual way of spending his
evenings. He had no social intercourse, for everyone else was as busy as
himself. The enforced solitude, not quite wholesome, was unavoidable.
He found no outlet for his thoughts. First-hand acquaintance with
suffering, physical and mental, was no new thing to him, but this close
familiarity, day by day, with maimed and broken humanity preyed
considerably on his mind, while the fortitude and cheerfulness shown by
the victims deepened the impression of respectful, yearning wonder made
upon him. They were so young, so fine and careless, these lads whom the
German lust for power had robbed of limbs, and eyes, of mind, of life
itself. The sense of horror grew in him with cumulative but unrelieved
effect.
With the lengthening of the days in February, and especially when March
saw the welcome change to summer time, the natural desire for open air
asserted itself. Instead of retiring early to his dingy bedroom, he
would stroll out after dinner through the ancient streets. When the air
was not too chilly, he would prolong these outings, starting at sunset
and coming home beneath the bright mysterious stars. He knew at length
every turn and winding of the old-world alleys, every gable, every
tower and spire, from the _Vieux Marché_, where Joan of Arc was burnt,
to the busy quays, thronged now with soldiers from half a dozen
countries. He wandered on past grey gateways of crumbling stone that
marked the former banks of the old tidal river. An English army, five
centuries ago, had camped here among reeds and swamps, besieging the
Norman capital, where now they brought in supplies of men and material
upon modern docks, a mighty invasion of a very different kind.
Imaginative reflection was his constant mood.
But it was the haunted streets that touched him most, stirring some
chord his ancestry had planted in him. The forest of spires thronged the
air with strange stone flowers, silvered by moonlight as though white
fire streamed from branch and petal; the old church towers soared; the
cathedral touched the stars. After dark the modern note, paramount in
the daylight, seemed hushed; with sunset it underwent a definite
night-change. Although the darkened streets kept alive in him the menace
of fire and death, the crowding soldiers, dipped to the face in shadow,
seemed somehow negligible; the leaning roofs and gables hid them in a
purple sea of mist that blurred their modern garb, steel weapons, and
the like. Shadows themselves, they entered the being of the town; their
feet moved silently; there was a hush and murmur; the brooding buildings
absorbed them easily.
Ancient and modern, that is, unable successfully to mingle, let fall
grotesque, incongruous shadows on his thoughts. The spirit of mediæval
days stole over him, exercising its inevitable sway upon a temperament
already predisposed to welcome it. Witchcraft and wonder, pagan
superstition and speculation, combined with an ancestral tendency to
weave a spell, half of acceptance, half of shrinking, about his
imaginative soul in which poetry and logic seemed otherwise fairly
balanced. Too weary for critical judgment to discern clear outlines, his
mind, during these magical twilight walks, became the playground of
opposing forces, some power of dreaming, it seems, too easily in the
ascendant. The soul of ancient Rouen, stealing beside his footsteps in
the dusk, put forth a shadowy hand and touched him.
This shadowy spell he denied as far as in him lay, though the resistance
offered by reason to instinct lacked true driving power. The dice were
loaded otherwise in such a soul. His own blood harked back unconsciously
to the days when men were tortured, broken on the wheel, walled up
alive, and burnt for small offences. This shadowy hand stirred faint
ancestral memories in him, part instinct, part desire. The next step, by
which he saw a similar attitude flowering full blown in the German
frightfulness, was too easily made to be rejected. The German horrors
made him believe that this ignorant cruelty of olden days threatened the
world now in a modern, organized shape that proved its survival in the
human heart. Shuddering, he fought against the natural desire for
adequate punishment, but forgot that repressed emotions sooner or later
must assert themselves. Essentially irrepressible, they may force an
outlet in distorted fashion. He hardly recognized, perhaps, their actual
claim, yet it was audible occasionally. For, owing to his loneliness,
the natural outlet, in talk and intercourse, was denied.
Then, with the softer winds, he yearned for country air. The sweet
spring days had come; morning and evening were divine; above the town
the orchards were in bloom. Birds blew their tiny bugles on the hills.
The midday sun began to burn.
It was the time of the final violence, when the German hordes flung
like driven cattle against the Western line where free men fought for
liberty. Fate hovered dreadfully in the balance that spring of 1918;
Amiens was threatened, and if Amiens fell, Rouen must be evacuated. The
town, already full, became now over-full. On his way home one evening he
passed the station, crowded with homeless new arrivals. "Got the wind
up, it seems, in Amiens!" cried a cheery voice, as an officer he knew
went by him hurriedly. And as he heard it the mood of the spring became
of a sudden uppermost. He reached a decision. The German horror came
abruptly closer. This further overcrowding of the narrow streets was
more than he could face.
It was a small, personal decision merely, but he _must_ get out among
woods and fields, among flowers and wholesome, growing things, taste
simple, innocent life again. The following evening he would pack his
haversack with food and tramp the four miles to the great _Forêt
Verte_--delicious name!--and spend the night with trees and stars,
breathing his full of sweetness, calm and peace. He was too accustomed
to the thunder of the guns to be disturbed by it. The song of a thrush,
the whistle of a blackbird, would easily drown that. He made his plan
accordingly.
The next two nights, however, a warm soft rain was falling; only on the
third evening could he put his little plan into execution. Anticipatory
enjoyment, meanwhile, lightened his heart; he did his daily work more
competently, the spell of the ancient city weakened somewhat. The
shadowy hand withdrew.
2
Meanwhile, a curious adventure intervened.
His good and simple heart, disciplined these many years in the way a man
should walk, received upon its imaginative side, a stimulus that, in his
case, amounted to a shock. That a strange and comely woman should make
eyes at him disturbed his equilibrium considerably; that he should enjoy
the attack, though without at first responding openly--even without full
comprehension of its meaning--disturbed it even more. It was, moreover,
no ordinary attack.
He saw her first the night after his decision when, in a mood of
disappointment due to the rain, he came down to his lonely dinner. The
room, he saw, was crowded with new arrivals, from Amiens, doubtless,
where they had "the wind up." The wealthier civilians had fled for
safety to Rouen. These interested and, in a measure, stimulated him. He
looked at them sympathetically, wondering what dear home-life they had
so hurriedly relinquished at the near thunder of the enemy guns, and, in
so doing, he noticed, sitting alone at a small table just in front of
his own--yet with her back to him--a woman.
She drew his attention instantly. The first glance told him that she was
young and well-to-do; the second, that she was unusual. What precisely
made her unusual he could not say, although he at once began to study
her intently. Dignity, atmosphere, personality, he perceived beyond all
question. She sat there with an air. The becoming little hat with its
challenging feather slightly tilted, the set of the shoulders, the neat
waist and slender outline; possibly, too, the hair about the neck, and
the faint perfume that was wafted towards him as the serving girl swept
past, combined in the persuasion. Yet he felt it as more than a
persuasion. She attracted him with a subtle vehemence he had never felt
before. The instant he set eyes upon her his blood ran faster. The
thought rose passionately in him, almost the words that phrased it: "I
wish I knew her."
This sudden flash of response his whole being certainly gave--to the
back of an unknown woman. It was both vehement and instinctive. He lay
stress upon its instinctive character; he was aware of it before reason
told him why. That it was "in response" he also noted, for although he
had not seen her face and she assuredly had made no sign, he felt that
attraction which involves also invitation. So vehement, moreover, was
this response in him that he felt shy and ashamed the same instant, for
it almost seemed he had expressed his thought in audible words. He
flushed, and the flush ran through his body; he was conscious of heated
blood as in a youth of twenty-five, and when a man past forty knows
this touch of fever he may also know, though he may not recognize it,
that the danger signal which means possible abandon has been lit.
Moreover, as though to prove his instinct justified, it was at this very
instant that the woman turned and stared at him deliberately. She looked
into his eyes, and he looked into hers. He knew a moment's keen
distress, a sharpest possible discomfort, that after all he _had_
expressed his desire audibly. Yet, though he blushed, he did not lower
his eyes. The embarrassment passed instantly, replaced by a thrill of
strangest pleasure and satisfaction. He knew a tinge of inexplicable
dismay as well. He felt for a second helpless before what seemed a
challenge in her eyes. The eyes were too compelling. They mastered him.
In order to meet his gaze she had to make a full turn in her chair, for
her table was placed directly in front of his own. She did so without
concealment. It was no mere attempt to see what lay behind by making a
half-turn and pretending to look elsewhere; no corner of the eye
business; but a full, straight, direct, significant stare. She looked
into his soul as though she called him, he looked into hers as though
he answered. Sitting there like a statue, motionless, without a bow,
without a smile, he returned her intense regard unflinchingly and yet
unwillingly. He made no sign. He shivered again.... It was perhaps ten
seconds before she turned away with an air as if she had delivered her
message and received his answer, but in those ten seconds a series of
singular ideas crowded his mind, leaving an impression that ten years
could never efface. The face and eyes produced a kind of intoxication in
him. There was almost recognition, as though she said: "Ah, there you
are! I was waiting; you'll have to come, of course. You must!" And just
before she turned away she smiled.
He felt confused and helpless.
The face he described as unusual; familiar, too, as with the atmosphere
of some long forgotten dream, and if beauty perhaps was absent,
character and individuality were supreme. Implacable resolution was
stamped upon the features, which yet were sweet and womanly, stirring an
emotion in him that he could not name and certainly did not recognize.
The eyes, slanting a little upwards, were full of fire, the mouth
voluptuous but very firm, the chin and jaw most delicately modelled,
yet with a masculine strength that told of inflexible resolve. The
resolution, as a whole, was the most relentless he had ever seen upon a
human countenance. It dominated him. "How vain to resist the will," he
thought, "that lies behind!" He was conscious of enslavement; she
conveyed a message that he must obey, admitting compliance with her
unknown purpose.
That some extraordinary wordless exchange was registered thus between
them seemed very clear; and it was just at this moment, as if to signify
her satisfaction, that she smiled. At his feeling of willing compliance
with some purpose in her mind, the smile appeared. It was faint, so
faint indeed that the eyes betrayed it rather than the mouth and lips;
but it was there; he saw it and he thrilled again to this added touch of
wonder and enchantment. Yet, strangest of all, he maintains that with
the smile there fluttered over the resolute face a sudden arresting
tenderness, as though some wild flower lit a granite surface with its
melting loveliness. He was aware in the clear strong eyes of unshed
tears, of sympathy, of self-sacrifice he called maternal, of clinging
love. It was this tenderness, as of a soft and gracious mother, and this
implacable resolution, as of a stern, relentless man, that left upon his
receptive soul the strange impression of sweetness yet of domination.
The brief ten seconds were over. She turned away as deliberately as she
had turned to look. He found himself trembling with confused emotions
he could not disentangle, could not even name; for, with the subtle
intoxication of compliance in his soul lay also a vigorous protest
that included refusal, even a violent refusal given with horror. This
unknown woman, without actual speech or definite gesture, had lit a
flame in him that linked on far away and out of sight with the magic of
the ancient city's mediæval spell. Both, he decided, were undesirable,
both to be resisted.
He was quite decided about this. She pertained to forgotten yet unburied
things, her modern aspect a mere disguise, a disguise that some deep
unsatisfied instinct in him pierced with ease.
He found himself equally decided, too, upon another thing which, in
spite of his momentary confusion, stood out clearly: the magic of the
city, the enchantment of the woman, both attacked a constitutional
weakness in his blood, a line of least resistance. It wore no physical
aspect, breathed no hint of ordinary romance; the mere male and female,
moral or immoral touch was wholly absent; yet passion lurked there,
tumultuous if hidden, and a tract of consciousness, long untravelled,
was lit by sudden ominous flares. His character, his temperament, his
calling in life as a former clergyman and now a Red Cross worker, being
what they were, he stood on the brink of an adventure not dangerous
alone but containing a challenge of fundamental kind that involved his
very soul.
No further thrill, however, awaited him immediately. He left his table
before she did, having intercepted no slightest hint of desired
acquaintanceship or intercourse. He, naturally, made no advances; she,
equally, made no smallest sign. Her face remained hidden, he caught no
flash of eyes, no gesture, no hint of possible invitation. He went
upstairs to his dingy room, and in due course fell asleep. The next day
he saw her not, her place in the dining-room was empty; but in the late
evening of the following day, as the soft spring sunshine found him
prepared for his postponed expedition, he met her suddenly on the
stairs. He was going down with haversack and in walking kit to an early
dinner, when he saw her coming up; she was perhaps a dozen steps below
him; they must meet. A wave of confused, embarrassed pleasure swept
him. He realized that this was no chance meeting. She meant to speak to
him.
Violent attraction and an equally violent repulsion seized him. There
was no escape, nor, had escape been possible, would he have attempted
it. He went down four steps, she mounted four towards him; then he took
one and she took one. They met. For a moment they stood level, while he
shrank against the wall to let her pass. He had the feeling that but for
the support of that wall he must have lost his balance and fallen into
her, for the sunlight from the landing window caught her face and lit
it, and she was younger, he saw, than he had thought, and far more
comely. Her atmosphere enveloped him, the sense of attraction and
repulsion became intense. She moved past him with the slightest possible
bow of recognition; then, having passed, she turned.
She stood a little higher than himself, a step at most, and she thus
looked down at him. Her eyes blazed into his. She smiled, and he was
aware again of the domination and the sweetness. The perfume of her near
presence drowned him; his head swam. "We count upon you," she said in a
low firm voice, as though giving a command; "I know ... we may. We do."
And, before he knew what he was saying, trembling a little between deep
pleasure and a contrary impulse that sought to choke the utterance, he
heard his own voice answering. "You can count upon me...." And she was
already half-way up the next flight of stairs ere he could move a
muscle, or attempt to thread a meaning into the singular exchange.
Yet meaning, he well knew, there was.
She was gone; her footsteps overhead had died away. He stood there
trembling like a boy of twenty, yet also like a man of forty in whom
fires, long dreaded, now blazed sullenly. She had opened the furnace
door, the draught rushed through. He felt again the old unwelcome spell;
he saw the twisted streets 'mid leaning gables and shadowy towers of a
day forgotten; he heard the ominous murmurs of a crowd that thirsted
for wheel and scaffold and fire; and, aware of vengeance, sweet and
terrible, aware, too, that he welcomed it, his heart was troubled and
afraid.
In a brief second the impression came and went; following it swiftly,
the sweetness of the woman swept him: he forgot his shrinking in a rush
of wild delicious pleasure. The intoxication in him deepened. She had
recognized him! She had bowed and even smiled; she had spoken, assuming
familiarity, intimacy, including him in her secret purposes! It was
this sweet intimacy cleverly injected, that overcame the repulsion he
acknowledged, winning complete obedience to the unknown meaning of her
words. This meaning, for the moment, lay in darkness; yet it was a
portion of his own self, he felt, that concealed it of set purpose. He
kept it hid, he looked deliberately another way; for, if he faced it
with full recognition, he knew that he must resist it to the death. He
allowed himself to ask vague questions--then let her dominating spell
confuse the answers so that he did not hear them. The challenge to his
soul, that is, he evaded.
What is commonly called sex lay only slightly in his troubled
emotions; her purpose had nothing that kept step with chance
acquaintanceship. There lay meaning, indeed, in her smile and voice,
but these were no hand-maids to a vulgar intrigue in a foreign hotel.
Her will breathed cleaner air; her purpose aimed at some graver,
mightier climax than the mere subjection of an elderly victim like
himself. That will, that purpose, he felt certain, were implacable as
death, the resolve in those bold eyes was not a common one. For, in
some strange way, he divined the strong maternity in her; the maternal
instinct was deeply, even predominantly, involved; he felt positive
that a divine tenderness, deeply outraged, was a chief ingredient too.
In some way, then, she needed him, yet not she alone, for the pronoun
"we" was used, and there were others with her; in some way, equally, a
part of him was already her and their accomplice, an unresisting
slave, a willing co-conspirator.
He knew one other thing, and it was this that he kept concealed so
carefully from himself. His recognition of it was sub-conscious
possibly, but for that very reason true: her purpose was consistent with
the satisfaction at last of a deep instinct in him that clamoured to
know gratification. It was for these odd, mingled reasons that he stood
trembling when she left him on the stairs, and finally went down to his
hurried meal with a heart that knew wonder, anticipation, and delight,
but also dread.
3
The table in front of him remained unoccupied; his dinner finished, he
went out hastily.
As he passed through the crowded streets, his chief desire was to be
quickly free of the old muffled buildings and airless alleys with their
clinging atmosphere of other days. He longed for the sweet taste of the
heights, the smells of the forest whither he was bound. This _Forêt
Verte_, he knew, rolled for leagues towards the north, empty of houses
as of human beings; it was the home of deer and birds and rabbits, of
wild boar too. There would be spring flowers among the brushwood,
anemones, celandine, oxslip, daffodils. The vapours of the town
oppressed him, the warm and heavy moisture stifled; he wanted space and
the sight of clean simple things that would stimulate his mind with
lighter thoughts.
He soon passed the Rampe, skirted the ugly villas of modern Bihorel and,
rising now with every step, entered the _Route Neuve_. He went unduly
fast; he was already above the Cathedral spire; below him the Seine
meandered round the chalky hills, laden with war-barges, and across a
dip, still pink in the afterglow, rose the blunt Down of Bonsecours with
its anti-aircraft batteries. Poetry and violent fact crashed everywhere;
he longed to top the hill and leave these unhappy reminders of death
behind him. In front the sweet woods already beckoned through the
twilight. He hastened. Yet while he deliberately fixed his imagination
on promised peace and beauty, an undercurrent ran sullenly in his mind,
busy with quite other thoughts. The unknown woman and her singular
words, the following mystery of the ancient city, the soft beating
wonder of the two together, these worked their incalculable magic
persistently about him. Repression merely added to their power. His mind
was a prey to some shadowy, remote anxiety that, intangible, invisible,
yet knocked with ghostly fingers upon some door of ancient memory.... He
watched the moon rise above the eastern ridge, in the west the afterglow
of sunset still hung red. But these did not hold his attention as they
normally must have done. Attention seemed elsewhere. The undercurrent
bore him down a siding, into a backwater, as it were, that clamoured for
discharge.
He thought suddenly, then, of weather, what he called "German
weather"--that combination of natural conditions which so oddly favoured
the enemy always. It had often occurred to him as strange; on sea and
land, mist, rain and wind, the fog and drying sun worked ever on _their_
side. The coincidence was odd, to say the least. And now this glimpse of
rising moon and sunset sky reminded him unpleasantly of the subject.
Legends of pagan weather-gods passed through his mind like hurrying
shadows. These shadows multiplied, changed form, vanished and returned.
They came and went with incoherence, a straggling stream, rushing from
one point to another, manoeuvring for position, but all unled, unguided
by his will. The physical exercise filled his brain with blood, and
thought danced undirected, picture upon picture driving by, so that soon
he slipped from German weather and pagan gods to the witchcraft of past
centuries, of its alleged association with the natural powers of the
elements, and thus, eventually, to his cherished beliefs that humanity
had advanced.
Such remnants of primitive days were grotesque superstition, of course.
But had humanity advanced? Had the individual progressed after all?
Civilization, was it not the merest artificial growth? And the old
perplexity rushed through his mind again--the German barbarity
and blood-lust, the savagery, the undoubted sadic impulses, the
frightfulness taught with cool calculation by their highest minds,
approved by their professors, endorsed by their clergy, applauded by
their women even--all the unwelcome, undesired thoughts came flocking
back upon him, escorted by the trooping shadows. They lay, these
questions, still unsolved within him; it was the undercurrent, flowing
more swiftly now, that bore them to the surface. It had acquired
momentum; it was leading somewhere.
They were a thoughtful, intellectual race, these Germans; their music,
literature, philosophy, their science--how reconcile the opposing
qualities? He had read that their herd-instinct was unusually developed,
though betraying the characteristics of a low wild savage type--the
lupine. It might be true. Fear and danger wakened this collective
instinct into terrific activity, making them blind and humourless; they
fought best, like wolves, in contact; they howled and whined and boasted
loudly all together to inspire terror; their Hymn of Hate was but an
elaboration of the wolf's fierce bark, giving them herd-courage; and a
savage discipline was necessary to their lupine type.
These reflections thronged his mind as the blood coursed in his veins
with the rapid climbing; yet one and all, the beauty of the evening, the
magic of the hidden town, the thoughts of German horror, German weather,
German gods, all these, even the odd detail that they revived a pagan
practice by hammering nails into effigies and idols--all led finally to
one blazing centre that nothing could dislodge nor anything conceal; a
woman's voice and eyes. To these he knew quite well, was due the
undesired intensification of the very mood, the very emotions, the very
thoughts he had come out on purpose to escape.
"It is the night of the vernal equinox," occurred to him suddenly, sharp
as a whispered voice beside him. He had no notion whence the idea was
born. It had no particular meaning, so far as he remembered.
"It had _then_ ..." said the voice imperiously, rising, it seemed,
directly out of the under-current in his soul.
It startled him. He increased his pace. He walked very quickly,
whistling softly as he went.
The dusk had fallen when at length he topped the long, slow hill, and
left the last of the atrocious straggling villas well behind him. The
ancient city lay far below in murky haze and smoke, but tinged now with
the silver of the growing moon.
4
He stood now on the open plateau. He was on the heights at last.
The night air met him freshly in the face, so that he forgot the fatigue
of the long climb uphill, taken too fast somewhat for his years. He drew
a deep draught into his lungs and stepped out briskly.
Far in the upper sky light flaky clouds raced through the reddened air,
but the wind kept to these higher strata, and the world about him lay
very still. Few lights showed in the farms and cottages, for this was
the direct route of the Gothas, and nothing that could help the German
hawks to find the river was visible.
His mind cleared pleasantly; this keen sweet air held no mystery; he put
his best foot foremost, whistling still, but a little more loudly than
before. Among the orchards he saw the daisies glimmer. Also, he heard
the guns, a thudding concussion in the direction of the coveted Amiens,
where, some sixty miles as the crow flies, they roared their terror into
the calm evening skies. He cursed the sound, in the town below it was
not audible. Thought jumped then to the men who fired them, and so to
the prisoners who worked on the roads outside the hospitals and camps he
visited daily. He passed them every morning and night, and the N.C.O.
invariably saluted his Red Cross uniform, a salute he returned, when he
could not avoid it, with embarrassment.
One man in particular stood out clearly in this memory; he had exchanged
glances with him, noted the expression of his face, the number of his
gang printed on coat and trousers--"82." The fellow had somehow managed
to establish a relationship; he would look up and smile or frown; if the
news, from his point of view, was good, he smiled; if it was bad, he
scowled; once, insolently enough--when the Germans had taken Albert,
Péronne, Bapaume--he grinned.
Something about the sullen, close-cropped face, typically Prussian, made
the other shudder. It was the visage of an animal, neither evil nor
malignant, even good-natured sometimes when it smiled, yet of an animal
that could be fierce with the lust of happiness, ferocious with delight.
The sullen savagery of a human wolf lay in it somewhere. He pictured its
owner impervious to shame, to normal human instinct as civilized people
know these. Doubtless he read his own feelings into it. He could imagine
the man doing anything and everything, regarding chivalry and sporting
instinct as proof of fear or weakness. He could picture this member of
the wolf-pack killing a woman or a child, mutilating, cutting off little
hands even, with the conscientious conviction that it was right and
sensible to destroy _any_ individual of an enemy tribe. It was, to him,
an atrocious and inhuman face.
It now cropped up with unpleasant vividness, as he listened to the
distant guns and thought of Amiens with its back against the wall, its
inhabitants flying----
Ah! Amiens...! He again saw the woman staring into his obedient eyes
across the narrow space between the tables. He smelt the delicious
perfume of her dress and person on the stairs. He heard her commanding
voice, her very words: "We count on you.... I know we can ... we do."
And her background was of twisted streets, dark alley-ways and leaning
gables....
He hurried, whistling loudly an air that he invented suddenly, using his
stick like a golf club at every loose stone his feet encountered, making
as much noise as possible. He told himself he was a parson and a Red
Cross worker. He looked up and saw that the stars were out. The pace
made him warm, and he shifted his haversack to the other shoulder. The
moon, he observed, now cast his shadow for a long distance on the sandy
road.
After another mile, while the air grew sharper and twilight surrendered
finally to the moon, the road began to curve and dip, the cottages lay
farther out in the dim fields, the farms and barns occurred at longer
intervals. A dog barked now and again; he saw cows lying down for the
night beneath shadowy fruit-trees. And then the scent in the air changed
slightly, and a darkening of the near horizon warned him that the forest
had come close.
This was an event. Its influence breathed already a new perfume; the
shadows from its myriad trees stole out and touched him. Ten minutes
later he reached its actual frontier cutting across the plateau like a
line of sentries at attention. He slowed down a little. Here, within
sight and touch of his long-desired objective, he hesitated. It
stretched, he knew from the map, for many leagues to the north,
uninhabited, lonely, the home of peace and silence; there were flowers
there, and cool sweet spaces where the moonlight fell. Yet here, within
scent and touch of it, he slowed down a moment to draw breath. A forest
on the map is one thing; visible before the eyes when night has fallen,
it is another. It is real.
The wind, not noticeable hitherto, now murmured towards him from the
serried trees that seemed to manufacture darkness out of nothing. This
murmur hummed about him. It enveloped him. Piercing it, another sound
that was not the guns just reached him, but so distant that he hardly
noticed it. He looked back. Dusk suddenly merged in night. He stopped.
"How practical the French are," he said to himself--aloud--as he looked
at the road running straight as a ruled line into the heart of the
trees. "They waste no energy, no space, no time. Admirable!"
It pierced the forest like a lance, tapering to a faint point in the
misty distance. The trees ate its undeviating straightness as though
they would smother it from sight, as though its rigid outline marred
their mystery. He admired the practical makers of the road, yet sided,
too, with the poetry of the trees. He stood there staring, waiting,
dawdling.... About him, save for this murmur of the wind, was silence.
Nothing living stirred. The world lay extraordinarily still. That other
distant sound had died away.
He lit his pipe, glad that the match blew out and the damp tobacco
needed several matches before the pipe drew properly. His puttees hurt
him a little, he stooped to loosen them. His haversack swung round in
front as he straightened up again, he shifted it laboriously to the
other shoulder. A tiny stone in his right boot caused irritation. Its
removal took a considerable time, for he had to sit down, and a log was
not at once forthcoming. Moreover, the laces gave him trouble, and his
fingers had grown thick with heat and the knots were difficult to
tie....
"There!" He said it aloud, standing up again. "Now at last, I'm ready!"
Then added a mild imprecation, for his pipe had gone out while he
stooped over the recalcitrant boot, and it had to be lighted once again.
"Ah!" he gasped finally with a sigh as, facing the forest for the third
time, he shuffled his tunic straight, altered his haversack once more,
changed his stick from the right hand to the left--and faced the foolish
truth without further pretence.
He mopped his forehead carefully, as though at the same time trying to
mop away from his mind a faint anxiety, a very faint uneasiness, that
gathered there. Was someone standing near him? Had somebody come close?
He listened intently. It was the blood singing in his ears, of course,
that curious distant noise. For, truth to tell, the loneliness bit just
below the surface of what he found enjoyable. It seemed to him that
somebody was coming, someone he could not see, so that he looked back
over his shoulder once again, glanced quickly right and left, then
peered down the long opening cut through the woods in front--when there
came suddenly a roar and a blaze of dazzling light from behind, so
instantaneously that he barely had time to obey the instinct of
self-preservation and step aside. He actually leapt. Pressed against the
hedge, he saw a motor-car rush past him like a whirlwind, flooding the
sandy road with fire; a second followed it; and, to his complete
amazement, then, a third.
They were powerful, private cars, so-called. This struck him instantly.
Two other things he noticed, as they dived down the throat of the long
white road--they showed no tail-lights. This made him wonder. And,
secondly, the drivers, clearly seen, were women. They were not even
in uniform--which made him wonder even more. The occupants, too,
were women. He caught the outline of toque and feather--or was it
flowers?--against the closed windows in the moonlight as the procession
rushed past him.
He felt bewildered and astonished. Private motors were rare, and
military regulations exceedingly strict; the danger of spies dressed in
French uniform was constant; cars armed with machine guns, he knew,
patrolled the countryside in all directions. Shaken and alarmed, he
thought of favoured persons fleeing stealthily by night, of treachery,
disguise and swift surprise; he thought of various things as he stood
peering down the road for ten minutes after all sight and sound of the
cars had died away. But no solution of the mystery occurred to him.
Down the white throat the motors vanished. His pipe had gone out; he lit
it, and puffed furiously.
His thoughts, at any rate, took temporarily a new direction now. The
road was not as lonely as he had imagined. A natural reaction set in at
once, and this proof of practical, modern life banished the shadows from
his mind effectually. He started off once more, oblivious of his former
hesitation. He even felt a trifle shamed and foolish, pretending that
the vanished mood had not existed. The tobacco had been damp. His boot
had really hurt him.
Yet bewilderment and surprise stayed with him. The swiftness of the
incident was disconcerting; the cars arrived and vanished with such
extraordinary rapidity; their noisy irruption into this peaceful spot
seemed incongruous; they roared, blazed, rushed and disappeared; silence
resumed its former sway.
But the silence persisted, whereas the noise was gone.
This touch of the incongruous remained with him as he now went ever
deeper into the heart of the quiet forest. This odd incongruity of
dreams remained.
5
The keen air stole from the woods, cooling his body and his mind;
anemones gleamed faintly among the brushwood, lit by the pallid
moonlight. There were beauty, calm and silence, the slow breathing of
the earth beneath the comforting sweet stars. War, in this haunt of
ancient peace, seemed an incredible anachronism. His thoughts turned to
gentle happy hopes of a day when the lion and the lamb would yet lie
down together, and a little child would lead them without fear. His soul
dwelt with peaceful longings and calm desires.
He walked on steadily, until the inflexible straightness of the endless
road began to afflict him, and he longed for a turning to the right or
left. He looked eagerly about him for a woodland path. Time mattered
little; he could wait for the sunrise and walk home "beneath the young
grey dawn"; he had food and matches, he could light a fire, and
sleep---- No!--after all, he would not light a fire, perhaps; he might
be accused of signalling to hostile aircraft, or a _garde forestière_
might catch him. He would not bother with a fire. The night was warm, he
could enjoy himself and pass the time quite happily without artificial
heat; probably he would need no sleep at all.... And just then he
noticed an opening on his right, where a seductive pathway led in among
the trees. The moon, now higher in the sky, lit this woodland trail
enticingly; it seemed the very opening he had looked for, and with a
thrill of pleasure he at once turned down it, leaving the ugly road
behind him with relief.
The sound of his footsteps hushed instantly on the leaves and moss; the
silence became noticeable; an unusual stillness followed; it seemed that
something in his mind was also hushed. His feet moved stealthily, as
though anxious to conceal his presence from surprise. His steps dragged
purposely; their rustling through the thick dead leaves, perhaps, was
pleasant to him. He was not sure.
The path opened presently into a clearing where the moonlight made a
pool of silver, the surrounding brushwood fell away; and in the centre
a gigantic outline rose. It was, he saw, a beech tree that dwarfed the
surrounding forest by its grandeur. Its bulk loomed very splendid
against the sky, a faint rustle just audible in its myriad tiny leaves.
Dipped in the moonlight, it had such majesty of proportion, such
symmetry, that he stopped in admiration. It was, he saw, a multiple
tree, five stems springing with attempted spirals out of an enormous
trunk; it was immense; it had a presence, the space framed it to
perfection. The clearing, evidently, was a favourite resting place for
summer picknickers, a playground, probably, for city children on holiday
afternoons; woodcutters, too, had been here recently, for he noticed
piled brushwood ready to be carted. It indicated admirably, he felt,
the limits of his night expedition. Here he would rest awhile, eat his
late supper, sleep perhaps round a small---- No! again--a fire he need
_not_ make; a spark might easily set the woods ablaze, it was against
both forest and military regulations. This idea of a fire, otherwise so
natural, was distasteful, even repugnant, to him. He wondered a little
why it recurred. He noticed this time, moreover, something unpleasant
connected with the suggestion of a fire, something that made him shrink;
almost a ghostly dread lay hidden in it.
This startled him. A dozen excellent reasons, supplied by his brain,
warned him that a fire was unwise; but the true reason, supplied by
another part of him, concealed itself with care, as though afraid that
reason might detect its nature and fix the label on. Disliking this
reminder of his earlier mood, he moved forward into the clearing,
swinging his stick aggressively and whistling. He approached the tree,
where a dozen thick roots dipped into the earth. Admiring, looking
up and down, he paced slowly round its prodigious girth, then stood
absolutely still. His heart stopped abruptly, his blood became
congealed. He saw something that filled him with a sudden emptiness of
terror. On this western side the shadow lay very black; it was between
the thick limbs, half stem, half root, where the dark hollows gave easy
hiding-places, that he was positive he detected movement. A portion of
the trunk had moved.
He stood stock still and stared--not three feet from the trunk--when
there came a second movement. Concealed in the shadows there crouched a
living form. The movement defined itself immediately. Half reclining,
half standing, a living being pressed itself close against the tree, yet
fitting so neatly into the wide scooped hollows, that it was scarcely
distinguishable from its ebony background. But for the chance movement
he must have passed it undetected. Equally, his outstretched fingers
might have touched it. The blood rushed from his heart, as he saw this
second movement.
Detaching itself from the obscure background, the figure rose and stood
before him. It swayed a little, then stepped out into the patch of
moonlight on his left. Three feet lay between them. The figure then bent
over. A pallid face with burning eyes thrust forward and peered straight
into his own.
The human being was a woman. The same instant he recognized the eyes
that had stared him out of countenance in the dining-room two nights
ago. He was petrified. She stared him out of countenance now.
And, as she did so, the under-current he had tried to ignore so long
swept to the surface in a tumultuous flood, obliterating his normal
self. Something elaborately built up in his soul by years of artificial
training collapsed like a house of cards, and he knew himself undone.
"They've got me...!" flashed dreadfully through his mind. It was, again,
like a message delivered in a dream where the significance of acts
performed and language uttered, concealed at the moment, is revealed
much later only.
"After all--they've got me...!"
6
The dialogue that followed seemed strange to him only when looking back
upon it. The element of surprise again was negligible if not wholly
absent, but the incongruity of dreams, almost of nightmare, became more
marked. Though the affair was unlikely, it was far from incredible. So
completely were this man and woman involved in some purpose common to
them both that their talk, their meeting, their instinctive sympathy at
the time seemed natural. The same stream bore them irresistibly towards
the same far sea. Only, as yet, this common purpose remained concealed.
Nor could he define the violent emotions that troubled him. Their exact
description was in him, but so deep that he could not draw it up.
Moonlight lay upon his thought, merging clear outlines.
Divided against himself, the cleavage left no authoritative self in
control; his desire to take an immediate decision resulted in a confused
struggle, where shame and pleasure, attraction and revulsion mingled
painfully. Incongruous details tumbled helter-skelter about his mind:
for no obvious reason, he remembered again his Red Cross uniform, his
former holy calling, his nationality too; he was a servant of mercy, a
teacher of the love of God; he was an English gentleman. Against which
rose other details, as in opposition, holding just beyond the reach of
words, yet rising, he recognized well enough, from the bed-rock of the
human animal, whereon a few centuries have imposed the thin crust of
refinement men call civilization. He was aware of joy and loathing.
In the first few seconds he knew the clash of a dreadful fundamental
struggle, while the spell of this woman's strange enchantment poured
over him, seeking the reconciliation he himself could not achieve. Yet
the reconciliation _she_ sought meant victory or defeat; no compromise
lay in it. Something imperious emanating from her already dominated
the warring elements towards a coherent whole. He stood before her,
quivering with emotions he dared not name. Her great womanhood he
recognized, acknowledging obedience to her undisclosed intentions. And
this idea of coming surrender terrified him. Whence came, too, that
queenly touch about her that made him feel he should have sunk upon his
knees?
The conflict resulted in a curious compromise. He raised his hand; he
saluted; he found very ordinary words.
"You passed me only a short time ago," he stammered, "in the motors.
There were others with you----"
"Knowing that you would find us and come after. We count on your
presence and your willing help." Her voice was firm as with unalterable
conviction. It was persuasive too. He nodded, as though acquiescence
seemed the only course.
"We need your sympathy; we must have your power too."
He bowed again. "My power!" Something exulted in him. But he murmured
only. It was natural, he felt; he gave consent without a question.
Strange words he both understood and did not understand. Her voice, low
and silvery, was that of a gentle, cultured woman, but command rang
through it with a clang of metal, terrible behind the sweetness. She
moved a little closer, standing erect before him in the moonlight, her
figure borrowing something of the great tree's majesty behind her. It
was incongruous, this gentle and yet sinister air she wore. Whence
came, in this calm peaceful spot, the suggestion of a wild and savage
background to her? Why were there tumult and oppression in his heart,
pain, horror, tenderness and mercy, mixed beyond disentanglement? Why
did he think already, but helplessly, of escape, yet at the same time
burn to stay? Whence came again, too, a certain queenly touch he felt
in her?
"The gods have brought you," broke across his turmoil in a half whisper
whose breath almost touched his face. "You belong to us."
The deeps rose in him. Seduced by the sweetness and the power, the
warring divisions in his being drew together. His under-self more and
more obtained the mastery she willed. Then something in the French she
used flickered across his mind with a faint reminder of normal things
again.
"Belgian----" he began, and then stopped short, as her instant rejoinder
broke in upon his halting speech and petrified him. In her voice sang
that triumphant tenderness that only the feminine powers of the Universe
may compass: it seemed the sky sang with her, the mating birds, wild
flowers, the south wind and the running streams. All these, even the
silver birches, lent their fluid, feminine undertones to the two
pregnant words with which she interrupted him and completed his own
unfinished sentence:
"---- and mother."
With the dreadful calm of an absolute assurance, she stood and watched
him.
His understanding already showed signs of clearing. She stretched her
hands out with a passionate appeal, a yearning gesture, the eloquence of
which should explain all that remained unspoken. He saw their grace and
symmetry, exquisite in the moonlight, then watched them fold together in
an attitude of prayer. Beautiful mother hands they were; hands made to
smooth the pillows of the world, to comfort, bless, caress, hands that
little children everywhere must lean upon and love-perfect symbol of
protective, self-forgetful motherhood.
This tenderness he noted; he noted next--the strength. In the folded
hands he divined the expression of another great world-power, fulfilling
the implacable resolution of the mouth and eyes. He was aware of
relentless purpose, more--of merciless revenge, as by a protective
motherhood outraged beyond endurance. Moreover, the gesture held appeal;
these hands, so close that their actual perfume reached him, sought his
own in help. The power in himself as man, as male, as father--this was
required of him in the fulfillment of the unknown purpose to which this
woman summoned him. His understanding cleared still more.
The couple faced one another, staring fixedly beneath the giant beech
that overarched them. In the dark of his eyes, he knew, lay growing
terror. He shivered, and the shiver passed down his spine, making his
whole body tremble. There stirred in him an excitement he loathed, yet
welcomed, as the primitive male in him, answering the summons, reared up
with instinctive, dreadful glee to shatter the bars that civilization
had so confidently set upon its freedom. A primal emotion of his
under-being, ancient lust that had too long gone hungry and unfed,
leaped towards some possible satisfaction. It was incredible; it was, of
course, a dream. But judgment wavered; increasing terror ate his will
away. Violence and sweetness, relief and degradation, fought in his
soul, as he trembled before a power that now slowly mastered him. This
glee and loathing formed their ghastly partnership. He could have
strangled the woman where she stood. Equally, he could have knelt and
kissed her feet.
The vehemence of the conflict paralysed him.
"A mother's hands ..." he murmured at length, the words escaping like
bubbles that rose to the surface of a seething cauldron and then burst.
And the woman smiled as though she read his mind and saw his little
trembling. The smile crept down from the eyes towards the mouth; he saw
her lips part slightly; he saw her teeth.
But her reply once more transfixed him. Two syllables she uttered in a
voice of iron:
"Louvain."
* * * * *
The sound acted upon him like a Word of Power in some Eastern fairy
tale. It knit the present to a past that he now recognized could never
die. Humanity had _not_ advanced. The hidden source of his secret joy
began to glow. For this woman focused in him passions that life had
hitherto denied, pretending they were atrophied, and the primitive male,
the naked savage rose up, with glee in its lustful eyes and blood upon
its lips. Acquired civilization, a pitiful mockery, split through its
thin veneer and fled.
"Belgian ... Louvain ... Mother ..." he whispered, yet astonished at the
volume of sound that now left his mouth. His voice had a sudden
fullness. It seemed a cave-man roared the words.
She touched his hand, and he knew a sudden intensification of life
within him; immense energy poured through his veins; a mediæval spirit
used his eyes; great pagan instincts strained and urged against his
heart, against his very muscles. He longed for action.
And he cried aloud: "I am with you, with you to the end!"
Her spell had vivified beyond all possible resistance that primitive
consciousness which is ever the bed-rock of the human animal.
A racial memory, inset against the forest scenery, flashed suddenly
through the depths laid bare. Below a sinking moon dark figures flew in
streaming lines and groups; tormented cries went down the wind; he saw
torn, blasted trees that swayed and rocked; there was a leaping fire, a
gleaming knife, an altar. He saw a sacrifice.
It flashed away and vanished. In its place the woman stood, with shining
eyes fixed on his face, one arm outstretched, one hand upon his flesh.
She shifted slightly, and her cloak swung open. He saw clinging skins
wound closely about her figure; leaves, flowers and trailing green hung
from her shoulders, fluttering down the lines of her triumphant physical
beauty. There was a perfume of wild roses, incense, ivy bloom, whose
subtle intoxication drowned his senses. He saw a sparkling girdle round
the waist, a knife thrust through it tight against the hip. And his
secret joy, the glee, the pleasure of some unlawful and unholy lust
leaped through his blood towards the abandonment of satisfaction.
The moon revealed a glimpse, no more. An instant he saw her thus, half
savage and half sweet, symbol of primitive justice entering the present
through the door of vanished centuries.
The cloak swung back again, the outstretched hand withdrew, but from a
world he knew had altered.
To-day sank out of sight. The moon shone pale with terror and delight on
Yesterday.
7
Across this altered world a faint new sound now reached his ears, as
though a human wail of anguished terror trembled and changed into the
cry of some captured helpless animal. He thought of a wolf apart from
the comfort of its pack, savage yet abject. The despair of a last appeal
was in the sound. It floated past, it died away. The woman moved closer
suddenly.
"All is prepared," she said, in the same low, silvery voice; "we must
not tarry. The equinox is come, the tide of power flows. The sacrifice
is here; we hold him fast. We only awaited you." Her shining eyes were
raised to his. "Your soul is with us now?" she whispered.
"My soul is with you."
"And midnight," she continued, "is at hand. We use, of course, their
methods. Henceforth the gods--their old-world gods--shall work on our
side. They demand a sacrifice, and justice has provided one."
His understanding cleared still more then; the last veil of confusion
was drawing from his mind. The old, old names went thundering through
his consciousness--Odin, Wotan, Moloch--accessible ever to invocation
and worship of the rightful kind. It seemed as natural as though he read
in his pulpit the prayer for rain, or gave out the hymn for those at
sea. That was merely an empty form, whereas this was real. Sea, storm
and earthquake, all natural activities, lay under the direction of those
elemental powers called the gods. Names changed, the principle remained.
"Their weather shall be ours," he cried, with sudden passion, as a
memory of unhallowed usages he had thought erased from life burned in
him; while, stranger still, resentment stirred--revolt--against the
system, against the very deity he had worshipped hitherto. For these had
never once interfered to help the cause of right; their feebleness was
now laid bare before his eyes. And a two-fold lust rose in him.
"Vengeance is ours!" he cried in a louder voice, through which this
sudden loathing of the cross poured hatred. "Vengeance and justice! Now
bind the victim! Bring on the sacrifice!"
"He is already bound." And as the woman moved a little, the curious
erection behind her caught his eye--the piled brushwood he had imagined
was the work of woodmen, picnickers, or playing children. He realized
its true meaning.
It now delighted and appalled him. Awe deepened in him, a wind of ice
passed over him. Civilization made one more fluttering effort. He
gasped, he shivered; he tried to speak. But no words came. A thin cry,
as of a frightened child, escaped him.
"It is the only way," the woman whispered softly. "We steal from them
the power of their own deities." Her head flung back with a marvellous
gesture of grace and power; she stood before him a figure of perfect
womanhood, gentle and tender, yet at the same time alive and cruel with
the passions of an ignorant and savage past. Her folded hands were
clasped, her face turned heavenwards. "I am a mother," she added, with
amazing passion, her eyes glistening in the moonlight with unshed tears.
"We all"--she glanced towards the forest, her voice rising to a wild and
poignant cry--"all, all of us are mothers!"
It was then the final clearing of his understanding happened, and he
realized his own part in what would follow. Yet before the realization
he felt himself not merely ineffective, but powerless. The struggling
forces in him were so evenly matched that paralysis of the will
resulted. His dry lips contrived merely a few words of confused and
feeble protest.
"Me!" he faltered. "My help----?"
"Justice," she answered; and though softly uttered, it was as though the
mediæval towers clanged their bells. That secret, ghastly joy again rose
in him; admiration, wonder, desire followed instantly. A fugitive memory
of Joan of Arc flashed by, as with armoured wings, upon the moonlight.
Some power similarly heroic, some purpose similarly inflexible, emanated
from this woman, the savour of whose physical enchantment, whose very
breath, rose to his brain like incense. Again he shuddered. The spasm of
secret pleasure shocked him. He sighed. He felt alert, yet stunned.
Her words went down the wind between them:
"You are so weak, you English," he heard her terrible whisper, "so nobly
forgiving, so fine, yet so forgetful. You refuse the weapon _they_ place
within your hands." Her face thrust closer, the great eyes blazed upon
him. "If we would save the children"--the voice rose and fell like
wind--"we must worship where they worship, we must sacrifice to their
savage deities...."
The stream of her words flowed over him with this nightmare magic that
seemed natural, without surprise. He listened, he trembled, and again he
sighed. Yet in his blood there was sudden roaring.
"... Louvain ... the hands of little children ... we have the proof," he
heard, oddly intermingled with another set of words that clamoured
vainly in his brain for utterance; "the diary in his own handwriting,
his gloating pleasure ... the little, innocent hands...."
"Justice is mine!" rang through some fading region of his now fainting
soul, but found no audible utterance.
"... Mist, rain and wind ... the gods of German Weather.... We all ...
are mothers...."
"I will repay," came forth in actual words, yet so low he hardly heard
the sound. But the woman heard.
"_We!_" she cried fiercely, "_we_ will repay!"...
"God!" The voice seemed torn from his throat. "Oh God--_my_ God!"
"_Our_ gods," she said steadily in that tone of iron, "are near. The
sacrifice is ready. And _you_--servant of mercy, priest of a younger
deity, and English--you bring the power that makes it effectual. The
circuit is complete."
It was perhaps the tears in her appealing eyes, perhaps it was her
words, her voice, the wonder of her presence; all combined possibly in
the spell that finally then struck down his will as with a single blow
that paralysed his last resistance. The monstrous, half-legendary spirit
of a primitive day recaptured him completely; he yielded to the spell of
this tender, cruel woman, mother and avenging angel, whom horror and
suffering had flung back upon the practices of uncivilized centuries. A
common desire, a common lust and purpose, degraded both of them. They
understood one another. Dropping back into a gulf of savage worship that
set up idols in the place of God, they prayed to Odin and his awful
crew....
It was again the touch of her hand that galvanized him. She raised him;
he had been kneeling in slavish wonder and admiration at her feet. He
leaped to do the bidding, however terrible, of this woman who was
priestess, queen indeed, of a long-forgotten orgy.
"Vengeance at last!" he cried, in an exultant voice that no longer
frightened him. "Now light the fire! Bring on the sacrifice!"
There was a rustling among the nearer branches, the forest stirred; the
leaves of last year brushed against advancing feet. Yet before he could
turn to see, before even the last words had wholly left his lips, the
woman, whose hand still touched his fingers, suddenly tossed her cloak
aside, and flinging her bare arms about his neck, drew him with
impetuous passion towards her face and kissed him, as with delighted
fury of exultant passion, full upon the mouth. Her body, in its clinging
skins, pressed close against his own; her heat poured into him. She held
him fiercely, savagely, and her burning kiss consumed his modern soul
away with the fire of a primal day.
"The gods have given you to us," she cried, releasing him. "Your soul is
ours!"
She turned--they turned together--to look for one upon whose last hour
the moon now shed her horrid silver.
8
This silvery moonlight fell upon the scene.
Incongruously he remembered the flowers that soon would know the
cuckoo's call; the soft mysterious stars shone down; the woods lay
silent underneath the sky.
An amazing fantasy of dream shot here and there. "I am a man, an
Englishman, a padre!" ran twisting through his mind, as though _she_
whispered them to emphasize the ghastly contrast of reality. A memory of
his own Kentish village with its Sunday school fled past, his dream of
the Lion and the Lamb close after it. He saw children playing on the
green.... He saw their happy little hands....
Justice, punishment, revenge--he could not disentangle them. No longer
did he wish to. The tide of violence was at his lips, quenching an
ancient thirst. He drank. It seemed he could drink forever. These tender
pictures only sweetened horror. That kiss had burned his modern soul
away.
The woman waved her hand; there swept from the underbrush a score of
figures dressed like herself in skins, with leaves and flowers entwined
among their flying hair. He was surrounded in a moment. Upon each face
he noted the same tenderness and terrible resolve that their commander
wore. They pressed about him, dancing with enchanting grace, yet with
full-blooded abandon, across the chequered light and shadow. It was the
brimming energy of their movements that swept him off his feet, waking
the desire for fierce rhythmical expression. His own muscles leaped and
ached; for this energy, it seemed, poured into him from the tossing arms
and legs, the shimmering bodies whence hair and skins flung loose,
setting the very air awhirl. It flowed over into inanimate objects even,
so that the trees waved their branches although no wind stirred--hair,
skins and hands, rushing leaves and flying fingers touched his face, his
neck, his arms and shoulders, catching him away into this orgy of an
ancient, sacrificial ritual. Faces with shining eyes peered into his,
then sped away; grew in a cloud upon the moonlight; sank back in shadow;
reappeared, touched him, whispered, vanished. Silvery limbs gleamed
everywhere. Chanting rose in a wave, to fall away again into forest
rustlings; there were smiles that flashed, then fainted into moonlight,
red lips and gleaming teeth that shone, then faded out. The secret
glade, picked from the heart of the forest by the moon, became a torrent
of tumultuous life, a whirlpool of passionate emotions Time had not
killed.
But it was the eyes that mastered him, for in their yearning, mating so
incongruously with the savage grace--in the eyes shone ever tears. He
was aware of gentle women, of womanhood, of accumulated feminine power
that nothing could withstand, but of feminine power in majesty, its
essential protective tenderness roused, as by tribal instinct, into a
collective fury of implacable revenge. He was, above all, aware of
motherhood--of mothers. And the man, the male, the father in him rose
like a storm to meet it.
From the torrent of voices certain sentences emerged; sometimes chanted,
sometimes driven into his whirling mind as though big whispers thrust
them down his ears. "You are with us to the end," he caught. "We have
the proof. And punishment is ours!"
It merged in wind, others took its place:
"We hold him fast. The old gods wait and listen."
The body of rushing whispers flowed like a storm-wind past.
A lovely face, fluttering close against his own, paused an instant, and
starry eyes gazed into his with a passion of gratitude, dimming a moment
their stern fury with a mother's tenderness: "For the little ones ... it
is necessary, it is the only way.... Our own children...." The face went
out in a gust of blackness, as the chorus rose with a new note of awe
and reverence, and a score of throats uttered in unison a single cry:
"The raven! The White Horses! His signs! Great Odin hears!"
He saw the great dark bird flap slowly across the clearing, and melt
against the shadow of the giant beech; he heard its hoarse, croaking
note; the crowds of heads bowed low before its passage. The White Horses
he did not see; only a sound as of considerable masses of air regularly
displaced was audible far overhead. But the veiled light, as though
great thunder-clouds had risen, he saw distinctly. The sky above the
clearing where he stood, panting and dishevelled, was blocked by a mass
that owned unusual outline. These clouds now topped the forest, hiding
the moon and stars. The flowers went out like nightlights blown. The
wind rose slowly, then with sudden violence. There was a roaring in the
tree-tops. The branches tossed and shook.
"The White Horses!" cried the voices, in a frenzy of adoration. "He is
here!"
It came swiftly, this collective mass; it was both apt and terrible.
There was an immense footstep. It was there.
Then panic seized him, he felt an answering tumult in himself, the Past
surged through him like a sea at flood. Some inner sight, peering across
the wreckage of To-day, perceived an outline that in its size dwarfed
mountains, a pair of monstrous shoulders, a face that rolled through
a full quarter of the heavens. Above the ruin of civilization, now
fulfilled in the microcosm of his own being, the menacing shadow of a
forgotten deity peered down upon the earth, yet upon one detail of it
chiefly--the human group that had been wildly dancing, but that now
chanted in solemn conclave about a forest altar.
For some minutes a dead silence reigned; the pouring winds left
emptiness in which no leaf stirred; there was a hush, a stillness that
could be felt. The kneeling figures stretched forth a level sea of
arms towards the altar; from the lowered heads the hair hung down in
torrents, against which the naked flesh shone white; the skins upon the
rows of backs gleamed yellow. The obscurity deepened overhead. It was
the time of adoration. He knelt as well, arms similarly outstretched,
while the lust of vengeance burned within him.
Then came, across the stillness, the stirring of big wings, a rustling
as the great bird settled in the higher branches of the beech. The
ominous note broke through the silence; and with one accord the shining
backs were straightened. The company rose, swayed, parting into groups
and lines. Two score voices resumed the solemn chant. The throng of
pallid faces passed to and fro like great fire-flies that shone and
vanished. He, too, heard his own voice in unison, while his feet, as
with instinctive knowledge, trod the same measure that the others trod.
Out of this tumult and clearly audible above the chorus and the rustling
feet rang out suddenly, in a sweetly fluting tone, the leader's voice:
"The Fire! But first the hands!"
A rush of figures set instantly towards a thicket where the underbrush
stood densest. Skins, trailing flowers, bare waving arms and tossing
hair swept past on a burst of perfume. It was as though the trees
themselves sped by. And the torrent of voices shook the very air in
answer:
"The Fire! But first--the hands!"
Across this roaring volume pierced then, once again, that wailing sound
which seemed both human and non-human--the anguished cry as of some
lonely wolf in metamorphosis, apart from the collective safety of the
pack, abjectly terrified, feeling the teeth of the final trap, and
knowing the helpless feet within the steel. There was a crash of rending
boughs and tearing branches. There was a tumult in the thicket, though
of brief duration--then silence.
He stood watching, listening, overmastered by a diabolical sensation of
expectancy he knew to be atrocious. Turning in the direction of the cry,
his straining eyes seemed filled with blood; in his temples the pulses
throbbed and hammered audibly. The next second he stiffened into a
stone-like rigidity, as a figure, struggling violently yet half
collapsed, was borne hurriedly past by a score of eager arms that swept
it towards the beech tree, and then proceeded to fasten it in an upright
position against the trunk. It was a man bound tight with thongs,
adorned with leaves and flowers and trailing green. The face was hidden,
for the head sagged forward on the breast, but he saw the arms forced
flat against the giant trunk, held helpless beyond all possible escape;
he saw the knife, poised and aimed by slender, graceful fingers above
the victim's wrists laid bare; he saw the--hands.
"An eye for an eye," he heard, "a tooth for a tooth!" It rose in awful
chorus. Yet this time, although the words roared close about him, they
seemed farther away, as if wind brought them through the crowding trees
from far off.
"Light the fire! Prepare the sacrifice!" came on a following wind; and,
while strange distance held the voices as before, a new faint sound now
audible was very close. There was a crackling. Some ten feet beyond the
tree a column of thick smoke rose in the air; he was aware of heat not
meant for modern purposes; of yellow light that was not the light of
stars.
The figure writhed, and the face swung suddenly sideways. Glaring with
panic hopelessness past the judge and past the hanging knife, the eyes
found his own. There was a pause of perhaps five seconds, but in these
five seconds centuries rolled by. The priest of To-day looked down into
the well of time. For five hundred years he gazed into those twin
eyeballs, glazed with the abject terror of a last appeal. They
recognized one another.
The centuries dragged appallingly. The drama of civilization, in a
sluggish stream, went slowly by, halting, meandering, losing itself,
then reappearing. Sharpest pains, as of a thousand knives, accompanied
its dreadful, endless lethargy. Its million hesitations made him suffer
a million deaths of agony. Terror, despair and anger, all futile and
without effect upon its progress, destroyed a thousand times his soul,
which yet some hope--a towering, indestructible hope--a thousand times
renewed. This despair and hope alternately broke his being, ever to
fashion it anew. His torture seemed not of this world. Yet hope
survived. The sluggish stream moved onward, forward....
There came an instant of sharpest, dislocating torture. The yellow light
grew slightly brighter. He saw the eyelids flicker.
It was at this moment he realized abruptly that he stood alone, apart
from the others, unnoticed apparently, perhaps forgotten; his feet held
steady; his voice no longer sang. And at this discovery a quivering
shock ran through his being, as though the will were suddenly loosened
into a new activity, yet an activity that halted between two terrifying
alternatives.
It was as though the flicker of those eyelids loosed a spring.
Two instincts, clashing in his being, fought furiously for the mastery.
One, ancient as this sacrifice, savage as the legendary figure brooding
in the heavens above him, battled fiercely with another, acquired
more recently in human evolution, that had not yet crystallized into
permanence. He saw a child, playing in a Kentish orchard with toys and
flowers the little innocent hands made living ... he saw a lowly manger,
figures kneeling round it, and one star shining overhead in piercing and
prophetic beauty.
Thought was impossible; he saw these symbols only, as the two contrary
instincts, alternately hidden and revealed, fought for permanent
possession of his soul. Each strove to dominate him; it seemed that
violent blows were struck that wounded physically; he was bruised, he
ached, he gasped for breath; his body swayed, held upright only, it
seemed, by the awful appeal in the fixed and staring eyes.
The challenge had come at last to final action; the conqueror, he well
knew, would remain an integral portion of his character, his soul.
It was the old, old battle, waged eternally in every human heart, in
every tribe, in every race, in every period, the essential principle
indeed, behind the great world-war. In the stress and confusion of
the fight, as the eyes of the victim, savage in victory, abject in
defeat--the appealing eyes of that animal face against the tree stared
with their awful blaze into his own, this flashed clearly over him.
It was the battle between might and right, between love and hate,
forgiveness and vengeance, Christ and the Devil. He heard the menacing
thunder of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," then above its
angry volume rose suddenly another small silvery voice that pierced with
sweetness:--"Vengeance is mine, I will repay ..." sang through him as
with unimaginable hope.
Something became incandescent in him then. He realized a singular
merging of powers in absolute opposition to each other. It was as though
they harmonized. Yet it was through this small, silvery voice the
apparent magic came. The words, of course, were his own in memory,
but they rose from his modern soul, now reawakening.... He started
painfully. He noted again that he stood apart, alone, perhaps forgotten
of the others. The woman, leading a dancing throng about the blazing
brushwood, was far from him. Her mind, too sure of his compliance, had
momentarily left him. The chain was weakened. The circuit knew a break.
But this sudden realization was not of spontaneous origin. His heart had
not produced it of its own accord. The unholy tumult of the orgy held
him too slavishly in its awful sway for the tiny point of his modern
soul to have pierced it thus unaided. The light flashed to him from an
outside, natural source of simple loveliness--the singing of a bird.
From the distance, faint and exquisite, there had reached him the
silvery notes of a happy thrush, awake in the night, and telling its
joy over and over again to itself. The innocent beauty of its song came
through the forest and fell into his soul....
The eyes, he became aware, had shifted, focusing now upon an object
nearer to them. The knife was moving. There was a convulsive wriggle of
the body, the head dropped loosely forward, no cry was audible. But, at
the same moment, the inner battle ceased and an unexpected climax came.
Did the soul of the bully faint with fear? Did the spirit leave him at
the actual touch of earthly vengeance? The watcher never knew. In that
appalling moment when the knife was about to begin the mission that the
fire would complete, the roar of inner battle ended abruptly, and
that small silvery voice drew the words of invincible power from his
reawakening soul. "Ye do it also unto me ..." pealed o'er the forest.
He reeled. He acted instantaneously. Yet before he had dashed the knife
from the hand of the executioner, scattered the pile of blazing wood,
plunged through the astonished worshippers with a violence of strength
that amazed even himself; before he had torn the thongs apart and
loosened the fainting victim from the tree; before he had uttered a
single word or cry, though it seemed to him he roared with a voice of
thousands--he witnessed a sight that came surely from the Heaven of his
earliest childhood days, from that Heaven whose God is love and whose
forgiveness was taught him at his mother's knee.
With superhuman rapidity it passed before him and was gone. Yet it was
no earthly figure that emerged from the forest, ran with this incredible
swiftness past the startled throng, and reached the tree. He saw the
shape; the same instant it was there; wrapped in light, as though a
flame from the sacrificial fire flashed past him over the ground. It was
of an incandescent brightness, yet brightest of all were the little
outstretched hands. These were of purest gold, of a brilliance
incredibly shining.
It was no earthly child that stretched forth these arms of generous
forgiveness and took the bewildered prisoner by the hand just as the
knife descended and touched the helpless wrists. The thongs were already
loosened, and the victim, fallen to his knees, looked wildly this way
and that for a way of possible escape, when the shining hands were laid
upon his own. The murderer rose. Another instant and the throng must
have been upon him, tearing him limb from limb. But the radiant little
face looked down into his own; she raised him to his feet; with
superhuman swiftness she led him through the infuriated concourse as
though he had become invisible, guiding him safely past the furies into
the cover of the trees. Close before his eyes, this happened; he saw the
waft of golden brilliance, he heard the final gulp of it, as wind took
the dazzling of its fiery appearance into space. They were gone....
9
He stood watching the disappearing motor-cars, wondering uneasily who
the occupants were and what their business, whither and why did they
hurry so swiftly through the night? He was still trying to light his
pipe, but the damp tobacco would not burn.
The air stole out of the forest, cooling his body and his mind; he saw
the anemones gleam; there was only peace and calm about him, the earth
lay waiting for the sweet, mysterious stars. The moon was higher; he
looked up; a late bird sang. Three strips of cloud, spaced far apart,
were the footsteps of the South Wind, as she flew to bring more birds
from Africa. His thoughts turned to gentle, happy hopes of a day when
the lion and the lamb should lie down together, and a little child
should lead them. War, in this haunt of ancient peace, seemed an
incredible anachronism.
He did not go farther; he did not enter the forest; he turned back along
the quiet road he had come, ate his food on a farmer's gate, and over
a pipe sat dreaming of his sure belief that humanity had advanced. He
went home to his hotel soon after midnight. He slept well, and next day
walked back the four miles from the hospitals, instead of using the car.
Another hospital searcher walked with him. They discussed the news.
"The weather's better anyhow," said his companion. "In our favour at
last!"
"That's something," he agreed, as they passed a gang of prisoners and
crossed the road to avoid saluting.
"Been another escape, I hear," the other mentioned. "He won't get far.
How on earth do they manage it? The M.O. had a yarn that he was helped
by a motor-car. I wonder what they'll do to him."
"Oh, nothing much. Bread and water and extra work, I suppose?"
The other laughed. "I'm not so sure," he said lightly. "Humanity hasn't
advanced very much in that kind of thing."
A fugitive memory flashed for an instant through the other's brain as he
listened. He had an odd feeling for a second that he had heard this
conversation before somewhere. A ghostly sense of familiarity brushed
his mind, then vanished. At dinner that night the table in front of him
was unoccupied. He did not, however, notice that it was unoccupied.
THE END
Transcriber's notes
Punctuation errors have been corrected. Also the following changes have
been made, on page
39 "pleasel" changed to "pleased" (to what dream he pleased.)
107 "peform" changed to "perform" (father will perform the sacrifice)
124 "morever" changed to "moreover" (leisure, moreover. Grimwood)
126 "be" changed to "he" (where had he come from)
182 "it" changed to "is" (the house is getting on)
190 "hanging" changed to "banging" (the front door banging)
195 "saidly" changed to "sadly" (he said sadly)
240 "implicity" changed to "implicitly" (had obeyed implicitly,
believing everything)
254 "additioin" changed to "addition" (respect in addition to his
gratitude.)
256 "yho" changed to "who" (but a man who has served)
262 "sunride" changed to "sunrise" (from the sunrise end.)
266 "has" changed to "his" (Purdy had gone his way again)
278 "incredudous" changed to "incredulous" (of incredulous surprise)
286 "deliberatelly" changed to "deliberately" (away as deliberately as
she had turned to look
307 "diety" changed to "deity" (against the very deity he had
worshipped).
Otherwise the original text has been preserved, including inconsistent
spelling and hyphenation.
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Algernon Blackwood and Wilfred Wilson
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