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diff --git a/35617-0.txt b/35617-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c98236 --- /dev/null +++ b/35617-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4080 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Terror, by Arthur Machen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Terror + A Mystery + +Author: Arthur Machen + +Release Date: March 20, 2011 [eBook #35617] +[Most recently updated: December 16, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Dave Haren and Marc D’Hooghe + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TERROR *** + + + + +THE TERROR +_A MYSTERY_ + +BY ARTHUR MACHEN + +AUTHOR OF "THE BOWMEN" + + +NEW YORK + +ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY + +UNION SQUARE, NORTH + +1917 + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER I. The Coming of the Terror + CHAPTER II. Death in the Village + CHAPTER III. The Doctor’s Theory + CHAPTER IV. The Spread of the Terror + CHAPTER V. The Incident of the Unknown Tree + CHAPTER VI. Mr. Remnant’s Z Ray + CHAPTER VII. The Case of the Hidden Germans + CHAPTER VIII. What Mr. Merritt Found + CHAPTER IX. The Light on the Water + CHAPTER X. The Child and the Moth + CHAPTER XI. At Treff Loyne Farm + CHAPTER XII. The Letter of Wrath + CHAPTER XIII. The Last Words of Mr. Secretan + CHAPTER XIV. The End of the Terror + + + + +CHAPTER I. +The Coming of the Terror + + +After two years we are turning once more to the morning’s news with a +sense of appetite and glad expectation. There were thrills at the +beginning of the war; the thrill of horror and of a doom that seemed at +once incredible and certain; this was when Namur fell and the German +host swelled like a flood over the French fields, and drew very near to +the walls of Paris. Then we felt the thrill of exultation when the good +news came that the awful tide had been turned back, that Paris and the +world were safe; for awhile at all events. + +Then for days we hoped for more news as good as this or better. Has Von +Kluck been surrounded? Not to-day, but perhaps he will be surrounded +to-morrow. But the days became weeks, the weeks drew out to months; the +battle in the West seemed frozen. Now and again things were done that +seemed hopeful, with promise of events still better. But Neuve Chapelle +and Loos dwindled into disappointments as their tale was told fully; +the lines in the West remained, for all practical purposes of victory, +immobile. Nothing seemed to happen; there was nothing to read save the +record of operations that were clearly trifling and insignificant. +People speculated as to the reason of this inaction; the hopeful said +that Joffre had a plan, that he was “nibbling,” others declared that we +were short of munitions, others again that the new levies were not yet +ripe for battle. So the months went by, and almost two years of war had +been completed before the motionless English line began to stir and +quiver as if it awoke from a long sleep, and began to roll onward, +overwhelming the enemy. + +The secret of the long inaction of the British Armies has been well +kept. On the one hand it was rigorously protected by the censorship, +which severe, and sometimes severe to the point of absurdity—“the +captains and the ... depart,” for instance—became in this particular +matter ferocious. As soon as the real significance of that which was +happening, or beginning to happen, was perceived by the authorities, an +underlined circular was issued to the newspaper proprietors of Great +Britain and Ireland. It warned each proprietor that he might impart the +contents of this circular to one other person only, such person being +the responsible editor of his paper, who was to keep the communication +secret under the severest penalties. The circular forbade any mention +of certain events that had taken place, that might take place; it +forbade any kind of allusion to these events or any hint of their +existence, or of the possibility of their existence, not only in the +Press, but in any form whatever. The subject was not to be alluded to +in conversation, it was not to be hinted at, however obscurely, in +letters; the very existence of the circular, its subject apart, was to +be a dead secret. + +These measures were successful. A wealthy newspaper proprietor of the +North, warmed a little at the end of the Throwsters’ Feast (which was +held as usual, it will be remembered), ventured to say to the man next +to him: “How awful it would be, wouldn’t it, if....” His words were +repeated, as proof, one regrets to say, that it was time for “old +Arnold” to “pull himself together”; and he was fined a thousand pounds. +Then, there was the case of an obscure weekly paper published in the +county town of an agricultural district in Wales. The _Meiros Observer_ +(we will call it) was issued from a stationer’s back premises, and +filled its four pages with accounts of local flower shows, fancy fairs +at vicarages, reports of parish councils, and rare bathing fatalities. +It also issued a visitors’ list, which has been known to contain six +names. + +This enlightened organ printed a paragraph, which nobody noticed, which +was very like paragraphs that small country newspapers have long been +in the habit of printing, which could hardly give so much as a hint to +any one—to any one, that is, who was not fully instructed in the +secret. As a matter of fact, this piece of intelligence got into the +paper because the proprietor, who was also the editor, incautiously +left the last processes of this particular issue to the staff, who was +the Lord-High-Everything-Else of the establishment; and the staff put +in a bit of gossip he had heard in the market to fill up two inches on +the back page. But the result was that the _Meiros Observer_ ceased to +appear, owing to “untoward circumstances” as the proprietor said; and +he would say no more. No more, that is, by way of explanation, but a +great deal more by way of execration of “damned, prying busybodies.” + + +Now a censorship that is sufficiently minute and utterly remorseless +can do amazing things in the way of hiding ... what it wants to hide. +Before the war, one would have thought otherwise; one would have said +that, censor or no censor, the fact of the murder at X or the fact of +the bank robbery at Y would certainly become known; if not through the +Press, at all events through rumor and the passage of the news from +mouth to mouth. And this would be true—of England three hundred years +ago, and of savage tribelands of to-day. But we have grown of late to +such a reverence for the printed word and such a reliance on it, that +the old faculty of disseminating news by word of mouth has become +atrophied. Forbid the Press to mention the fact that Jones has been +murdered, and it is marvelous how few people will hear of it, and of +those who hear how few will credit the story that they have heard. You +meet a man in the train who remarks that he has been told something +about a murder in Southwark; there is all the difference in the world +between the impression you receive from such a chance communication and +that given by half a dozen lines of print with name, and street and +date and all the facts of the case. People in trains repeat all sorts +of tales, many of them false; newspapers do not print accounts of +murders that have not been committed. + +Then another consideration that has made for secrecy. I may have seemed +to say that the old office of rumor no longer exists; I shall be +reminded of the strange legend of “the Russians” and the mythology of +the “Angels of Mons.” But let me point out, in the first place, that +both these absurdities depended on the papers for their wide +dissemination. If there had been no newspapers or magazines Russians +and Angels would have made but a brief, vague appearance of the most +shadowy kind—a few would have heard of them, fewer still would have +believed in them, they would have been gossiped about for a bare week +or two, and so they would have vanished away. + +And, then, again, the very fact of these vain rumors and fantastic +tales having been so widely believed for a time was fatal to the credit +of any stray mutterings that may have got abroad. People had been taken +in twice; they had seen how grave persons, men of credit, had preached +and lectured about the shining forms that had saved the British Army at +Mons, or had testified to the trains, packed with gray-coated +Muscovites, rushing through the land at dead of night: and now there +was a hint of something more amazing than either of the discredited +legends. But this time there was no word of confirmation to be found in +daily paper, or weekly review, or parish magazine, and so the few that +heard either laughed, or, being serious, went home and jotted down +notes for essays on “War-time Psychology: Collective Delusions.” + + +I followed neither of these courses. For before the secret circular had +been issued my curiosity had somehow been aroused by certain paragraphs +concerning a “Fatal Accident to Well-known Airman.” The propeller of +the airplane had been shattered, apparently by a collision with a +flight of pigeons; the blades had been broken and the machine had +fallen like lead to the earth. And soon after I had seen this account, +I heard of some very odd circumstances relating to an explosion in a +great munition factory in the Midlands. I thought I saw the possibility +of a connection between two very different events. + + +It has been pointed out to me by friends who have been good enough to +read this record, that certain phrases I have used may give the +impression that I ascribe all the delays of the war on the Western +front to the extraordinary circumstances which occasioned the issue of +the Secret Circular. Of course this is not the case, there were many +reasons for the immobility of our lines from October 1914 to July 1916. +These causes have been evident enough and have been openly discussed +and deplored. But behind them was something of infinitely greater +moment. We lacked men, but men were pouring into the new army; we were +short of shells, but when the shortage was proclaimed the nation set +itself to mend this matter with all its energy. We could undertake to +supply the defects of our army both in men and munitions—_if_ the new +and incredible danger could be overcome. It has been overcome; rather, +perhaps, it has ceased to exist; and the secret may now be told. + +I have said my attention was attracted by an account of the death of a +well-known airman. I have not the habit of preserving cuttings, I am +sorry to say, so that I cannot be precise as to the date of this event. +To the best of my belief it was either towards the end of May or the +beginning of June 1915. The newspaper paragraph announcing the death of +Flight-Lieutenant Western-Reynolds was brief enough; accidents, and +fatal accidents, to the men who are storming the air for us are, +unfortunately, by no means so rare as to demand an elaborated notice. +But the manner in which Western-Reynolds met his death struck me as +extraordinary, inasmuch as it revealed a new danger in the element that +we have lately conquered. He was brought down, as I said, by a flight +of birds; of pigeons, as appeared by what was found on the bloodstained +and shattered blades of the propeller. An eye-witness of the accident, +a fellow-officer, described how Western-Reynolds set out from the +aerodrome on a fine afternoon, there being hardly any wind. He was +going to France; he had made the journey to and fro half a dozen times +or more, and felt perfectly secure and at ease. + +“‘Wester’ rose to a great height at once, and we could scarcely see the +machine. I was turning to go when one of the fellows called out, ‘I +say! What’s this?’ He pointed up, and we saw what looked like a black +cloud coming from the south at a tremendous rate. I saw at once it +wasn’t a cloud; it came with a swirl and a rush quite different from +any cloud I’ve ever seen. But for a second I couldn’t make out exactly +what it was. It altered its shape and turned into a great crescent, and +wheeled and veered about as if it was looking for something. The man +who had called out had got his glasses, and was staring for all he was +worth. Then he shouted that it was a tremendous flight of birds, +‘thousands of them.’ They went on wheeling and beating about high up in +the air, and we were watching them, thinking it was interesting, but +not supposing that they would make any difference to ‘Wester,’ who was +just about out of sight. His machine was just a speck. Then the two +arms of the crescent drew in as quick as lightning, and these thousands +of birds shot in a solid mass right up there across the sky, and flew +away somewhere about nor’-nor’-by-west. Then Henley, the man with the +glasses, called out, ‘He’s down!’ and started running, and I went after +him. We got a car and as we were going along Henley told me that he’d +seen the machine drop dead, as if it came out of that cloud of birds. +He thought then that they must have mucked up the propeller somehow. +That turned out to be the case. We found the propeller blades all +broken and covered with blood and pigeon feathers, and carcasses of the +birds had got wedged in between the blades, and were sticking to them.” + +This was the story that the young airman told one evening in a small +company. He did not speak “in confidence,” so I have no hesitation in +reproducing what he said. Naturally, I did not take a verbatim note of +his conversation, but I have something of a knack of remembering talk +that interests me, and I think my reproduction is very near to the tale +that I heard. And let it be noted that the flying man told his story +without any sense or indication of a sense that the incredible, or all +but the incredible, had happened. So far as he knew, he said, it was +the first accident of the kind. Airmen in France had been bothered once +or twice by birds—he thought they were eagles—flying viciously at them, +but poor old “Wester” had been the first man to come up against a +flight of some thousands of pigeons. + +“And perhaps I shall be the next,” he added, “but why look for trouble? +Anyhow, I’m going to see _Toodle-oo_ to-morrow afternoon.” + + +Well, I heard the story, as one hears all the varied marvels and +terrors of the air; as one heard some years ago of “air pockets,” +strange gulfs or voids in the atmosphere into which airmen fell with +great peril; or as one heard of the experience of the airman who flew +over the Cumberland mountains in the burning summer of 1911, and as he +swam far above the heights was suddenly and vehemently blown upwards, +the hot air from the rocks striking his plane as if it had been a blast +from a furnace chimney. We have just begun to navigate a strange +region; we must expect to encounter strange adventures, strange perils. +And here a new chapter in the chronicles of these perils and adventures +had been opened by the death of Western-Reynolds; and no doubt +invention and contrivance would presently hit on some way of countering +the new danger. + +It was, I think, about a week or ten days after the airman’s death that +my business called me to a northern town, the name of which, perhaps, +had better remain unknown. My mission was to inquire into certain +charges of extravagance which had been laid against the working people, +that is, the munition workers of this especial town. It was said that +the men who used to earn £2 10s. a week were now getting from seven to +eight pounds, that “bits of girls” were being paid two pounds instead +of seven or eight shillings, and that, in consequence, there was an +orgy of foolish extravagance. The girls, I was told, were eating +chocolates at four, five, and six shillings a pound, the women were +ordering thirty-pound pianos which they couldn’t play, and the men +bought gold chains at ten and twenty guineas apiece. + +I dived into the town in question and found, as usual, that there was a +mixture of truth and exaggeration in the stories that I had heard. +Gramophones, for example: they cannot be called in strictness +necessaries, but they were undoubtedly finding a ready sale, even in +the more expensive brands. And I thought that there were a great many +very spick and span perambulators to be seen on the pavement; smart +perambulators, painted in tender shades of color and expensively +fitted. + +“And how can you be surprised if people will have a bit of a fling?” a +worker said to me. “We’re seeing money for the first time in our lives, +and it’s bright. And we work hard for it, and we risk our lives to get +it. You’ve heard of explosion yonder?” + +He mentioned certain works on the outskirts of the town. Of course, +neither the name of the works nor of the town had been printed; there +had been a brief notice of “Explosion at Munition Works in the Northern +District: Many Fatalities.” The working man told me about it, and added +some dreadful details. + +“They wouldn’t let their folks see bodies; screwed them up in coffins +as they found them in shop. The gas had done it.” + +“Turned their faces black, you mean?” + +“Nay. They were all as if they had been bitten to pieces.” + +This was a strange gas. + +I asked the man in the northern town all sorts of questions about the +extraordinary explosion of which he had spoken to me. But he had very +little more to say. As I have noted already, secrets that may not be +printed are often deeply kept; last summer there were very few people +outside high official circles who knew anything about the “Tanks,” of +which we have all been talking lately, though these strange instruments +of war were being exercised and tested in a park not far from London. +So the man who told me of the explosion in the munition factory was +most likely genuine in his profession that he knew nothing more of the +disaster. I found out that he was a smelter employed at a furnace on +the other side of the town to the ruined factory; he didn’t know even +what they had been making there; some very dangerous high explosive, he +supposed. His information was really nothing more than a bit of +gruesome gossip, which he had heard probably at third or fourth or +fifth hand. The horrible detail of faces “as if they had been bitten to +pieces” had made its violent impression on him, that was all. + +I gave him up and took a tram to the district of the disaster; a sort +of industrial suburb, five miles from the center of the town. When I +asked for the factory, I was told that it was no good my going to it as +there was nobody there. But I found it; a raw and hideous shed with a +walled yard about it, and a shut gate. I looked for signs of +destruction, but there was nothing. The roof was quite undamaged; and +again it struck me that this had been a strange accident. There had +been an explosion of sufficient violence to kill workpeople in the +building, but the building itself showed no wounds or scars. + +A man came out of the gate and locked it behind him. I began to ask him +some sort of question, or rather, I began to “open” for a question with +“A terrible business here, they tell me,” or some such phrase of +convention. I got no farther. The man asked me if I saw a policeman +walking down the street. I said I did, and I was given the choice of +getting about my business forthwith or of being instantly given in +charge as a spy. “Th’ast better be gone and quick about it,” was, I +think, his final advice, and I took it. + +Well, I had come literally up against a brick wall. Thinking the +problem over, I could only suppose that the smelter or his informant +had twisted the phrases of the story. The smelter had said the dead +men’s faces were “bitten to pieces”; this might be an unconscious +perversion of “eaten away.” That phrase might describe well enough the +effect of strong acids, and, for all I knew of the processes of +munition-making, such acids might be used and might explode with +horrible results in some perilous stage of their admixture. + +It was a day or two later that the accident to the airman, +Western-Reynolds, came into my mind. For one of those instants which +are far shorter than any measure of time there flashed out the +possibility of a link between the two disasters. But here was a wild +impossibility, and I drove it away. And yet I think that the thought, +mad as it seemed, never left me; it was the secret light that at last +guided me through a somber grove of enigmas. + + +It was about this time, so far as the date can be fixed, that a whole +district, one might say a whole county, was visited by a series of +extraordinary and terrible calamities, which were the more terrible +inasmuch as they continued for some time to be inscrutable mysteries. +It is, indeed, doubtful whether these awful events do not still remain +mysteries to many of those concerned; for before the inhabitants of +this part of the country had time to join one link of evidence to +another the circular was issued, and thenceforth no one knew how to +distinguish undoubted fact from wild and extravagant surmise. + +The district in question is in the far west of Wales; I shall call it, +for convenience, Meirion. In it there is one seaside town of some +repute with holiday-makers for five or six weeks in the summer, and +dotted about the county there are three or four small old towns that +seem drooping in a slow decay, sleepy and gray with age and +forgetfulness. They remind me of what I have read of towns in the west +of Ireland. Grass grows between the uneven stones of the pavements, the +signs above the shop windows decline, half the letters of these signs +are missing, here and there a house has been pulled down, or has been +allowed to slide into ruin, and wild greenery springs up through the +fallen stones, and there is silence in all the streets. And, it is to +be noted, these are not places that were once magnificent. The Celts +have never had the art of building, and so far as I can see, such towns +as Towy and Merthyr Tegveth and Meiros must have been always much as +they are now, clusters of poorish, meanly-built houses, ill-kept and +down at heel. + +And these few towns are thinly scattered over a wild country where +north is divided from south by a wilder mountain range. One of these +places is sixteen miles from any station; the others are doubtfully and +deviously connected by single-line railways served by rare trains that +pause and stagger and hesitate on their slow journey up mountain +passes, or stop for half an hour or more at lonely sheds called +stations, situated in the midst of desolate marshes. A few years ago I +traveled with an Irishman on one of these queer lines, and he looked to +right and saw the bog with its yellow and blue grasses and stagnant +pools, and he looked to left and saw a ragged hillside, set with gray +stone walls. “I can hardly believe,” he said, “that I’m not still in +the wilds of Ireland.” + +Here, then, one sees a wild and divided and scattered region a land of +outland hills and secret and hidden valleys. I know white farms on this +coast which must be separate by two hours of hard, rough walking from +any other habitation, which are invisible from any other house. And +inland, again, the farms are often ringed about by thick groves of ash, +planted by men of old days to shelter their roof-trees from rude winds +of the mountain and stormy winds of the sea; so that these places, too, +are hidden away, to be surmised only by the wood smoke that rises from +the green surrounding leaves. A Londoner must see them to believe in +them; and even then he can scarcely credit their utter isolation. + +Such, then in the main is Meirion, and on this land in the early summer +of last year terror descended—a terror without shape, such as no man +there had ever known. + +It began with the tale of a little child who wandered out into the +lanes to pick flowers one sunny afternoon, and never came back to the +cottage on the hill. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +Death in the Village + + +The child who was lost came from a lonely cottage that stands on the +slope of a steep hillside called the Allt, or the height. The land +about it is wild and ragged; here the growth of gorse and bracken, here +a marshy hollow of reeds and rushes, marking the course of the stream +from some hidden well, here thickets of dense and tangled undergrowth, +the outposts of the wood. Down through this broken and uneven ground a +path leads to the lane at the bottom of the valley; then the land rises +again and swells up to the cliffs over the sea, about a quarter of a +mile away. The little girl, Gertrude Morgan, asked her mother if she +might go down to the lane and pick the purple flowers—these were +orchids—that grew there, and her mother gave her leave, telling her she +must be sure to be back by tea-time, as there was apple-tart for tea. + +She never came back. It was supposed that she must have crossed the +road and gone to the cliff’s edge, possibly in order to pick the +sea-pinks that were then in full blossom. She must have slipped, they +said, and fallen into the sea, two hundred feet below. And, it may be +said at once, that there was no doubt some truth in this conjecture, +though it stopped very far short of the whole truth. The child’s body +must have been carried out by the tide, for it was never found. + +The conjecture of a false step or of a fatal slide on the slippery turf +that slopes down to the rocks was accepted as being the only +explanation possible. People thought the accident a strange one +because, as a rule, country children living by the cliffs and the sea +become wary at an early age, and Gertrude Morgan was almost ten years +old. Still, as the neighbors said, “that’s how it must have happened, +and it’s a great pity, to be sure.” But this would not do when in a +week’s time a strong young laborer failed to come to his cottage after +the day’s work. His body was found on the rocks six or seven miles from +the cliffs where the child was supposed to have fallen; he was going +home by a path that he had used every night of his life for eight or +nine years, that he used of dark nights in perfect security, knowing +every inch of it. The police asked if he drank, but he was a +teetotaler; if he were subject to fits, but he wasn’t. And he was not +murdered for his wealth, since agricultural laborers are not wealthy. +It was only possible again to talk of slippery turf and a false step; +but people began to be frightened. Then a woman was found with her neck +broken at the bottom of a disused quarry near Llanfihangel, in the +middle of the county. The “false step” theory was eliminated here, for +the quarry was guarded with a natural hedge of gorse bushes. One would +have to struggle and fight through sharp thorns to destruction in such +a place as this; and indeed the gorse bushes were broken as if some one +had rushed furiously through them, just above the place where the +woman’s body was found. And this was strange: there was a dead sheep +lying beside her in the pit, as if the woman and the sheep together had +been chased over the brim of the quarry. But chased by whom, or by +what? And then there was a new form of terror. + +This was in the region of the marshes under the mountain. A man and his +son, a lad of fourteen or fifteen, set out early one morning to work +and never reached the farm where they were bound. Their way skirted the +marsh, but it was broad, firm and well metalled, and it had been raised +about two feet above the bog. But when search was made in the evening +of the same day Phillips and his son were found dead in the marsh, +covered with black slime and pondweed. And they lay some ten yards from +the path, which, it would seem, they must have left deliberately. It +was useless of course, to look for tracks in the black ooze, for if one +threw a big stone into it a few seconds removed all marks of the +disturbance. The men who found the two bodies beat about the verges and +purlieus of the marsh in hope of finding some trace of the murderers; +they went to and fro over the rising ground where the black cattle were +grazing, they searched the alder thickets by the brook; but they +discovered nothing. + + +Most horrible of all these horrors, perhaps, was the affair of the +Highway, a lonely and unfrequented by-road that winds for many miles on +high and lonely land. Here, a mile from any other dwelling, stands a +cottage on the edge of a dark wood. It was inhabited by a laborer named +Williams, his wife, and their three children. One hot summer’s evening, +a man who had been doing a day’s gardening at a rectory three or four +miles away, passed the cottage, and stopped for a few minutes to chat +with Williams, the laborer, who was pottering about his garden, while +the children were playing on the path by the door. The two talked of +their neighbors and of the potatoes till Mrs. Williams appeared at the +doorway and said supper was ready, and Williams turned to go into the +house. This was about eight o’clock, and in the ordinary course the +family would have their supper and be in bed by nine, or by half-past +nine at latest. At ten o’clock that night the local doctor was driving +home along the Highway. His horse shied violently and then stopped dead +just opposite the gate to the cottage. The doctor got down, frightened +at what he saw; and there on the roadway lay Williams, his wife, and +the three children, stone dead, all of them. Their skulls were battered +in as if by some heavy iron instrument; their faces were beaten into a +pulp. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +The Doctor’s Theory + + +It is not easy to make any picture of the horror that lay dark on the +hearts of the people of Meirion. It was no longer possible to believe +or to pretend to believe that these men and women and children had met +their deaths through strange accidents. The little girl and the young +laborer might have slipped and fallen over the cliffs, but the woman +who lay dead with the dead sheep at the bottom of the quarry, the two +men who had been lured into the ooze of the marsh, the family who were +found murdered on the Highway before their own cottage door; in these +cases there could be no room for the supposition of accident. It seemed +as if it were impossible to frame any conjecture or outline of a +conjecture that would account for these hideous and, as it seemed, +utterly purposeless crimes. For a time people said that there must be a +madman at large, a sort of country variant of Jack the Ripper, some +horrible pervert who was possessed by the passion of death, who prowled +darkling about that lonely land, hiding in woods and in wild places, +always watching and seeking for the victims of his desire. + +Indeed, Dr. Lewis, who found poor Williams, his wife and children +miserably slaughtered on the Highway, was convinced at first that the +presence of a concealed madman in the countryside offered the only +possible solution to the difficulty. + +“I felt sure,” he said to me afterwards, “that the Williams’s had been +killed by a homicidal maniac. It was the nature of the poor creatures’ +injuries that convinced me that this was the case. Some years +ago—thirty-seven or thirty-eight years ago as a matter of fact—I had +something to do with a case which on the face of it had a strong +likeness to the Highway murder. At that time I had a practice at Usk, +in Monmouthshire. A whole family living in a cottage by the roadside +were murdered one evening; it was called, I think, the Llangibby +murder; the cottage was near the village of that name. The murderer was +caught in Newport; he was a Spanish sailor, named Garcia, and it +appeared that he had killed father, mother, and the three children for +the sake of the brass works of an old Dutch clock, which were found on +him when he was arrested. + +“Garcia had been serving a month’s imprisonment in Usk Jail for some +small theft, and on his release he set out to walk to Newport, nine or +ten miles away; no doubt to get another ship. He passed the cottage and +saw the man working in his garden. Garcia stabbed him with his sailor’s +knife. The wife rushed out; he stabbed her. Then he went into the +cottage and stabbed the three children, tried to set the place on fire, +and made off with the clockworks. That looked like the deed of a +madman, but Garcia wasn’t mad—they hanged him, I may say—he was merely +a man of a very low type, a degenerate who hadn’t the slightest value +for human life. I am not sure, but I think he came from one of the +Spanish islands, where the people are said to be degenerates, very +likely from too much inter-breeding. + +“But my point is that Garcia stabbed to kill and did kill, with one +blow in each case. There was no senseless hacking and slashing. Now +those poor people on the Highway had their heads smashed to pieces by +what must have been a storm of blows. Any one of them would have been +fatal, but the murderer must have gone on raining blows with his iron +hammer on people who were already stone dead. And _that_ sort of thing +is the work of a madman, and nothing but a madman. That’s how I argued +the matter out to myself just after the event. + +“I was utterly wrong, monstrously wrong. But who could have suspected +the truth?” + +Thus Dr. Lewis, and I quote him, or the substance of him, as +representative of most of the educated opinion of the district at the +beginnings of the terror. People seized on this theory largely because +it offered at least the comfort of an explanation, and any explanation, +even the poorest, is better than an intolerable and terrible mystery. +Besides, Dr. Lewis’s theory was plausible; it explained the lack of +purpose that seemed to characterize the murders. And yet—there were +difficulties even from the first. It was hardly possible that a strange +madman should be able to keep hidden in a countryside where any +stranger is instantly noted and noticed; sooner or later he would be +seen as he prowled along the lanes or across the wild places. Indeed, a +drunken, cheerful, and altogether harmless tramp was arrested by a +farmer and his man in the fact and act of sleeping off beer under a +hedge; but the vagrant was able to prove complete and undoubted alibis, +and was soon allowed to go on his wandering way. + +Then another theory, or rather a variant of Dr. Lewis’s theory, was +started. This was to the effect that the person responsible for the +outrages was, indeed, a madman; but a madman only at intervals. It was +one of the members of the Porth Club, a certain Mr. Remnant, who was +supposed to have originated this more subtle explanation. Mr. Remnant +was a middle-aged man, who, having nothing particular to do, read a +great many books by way of conquering the hours. He talked to the +club—doctors, retired colonels, parsons, lawyers—about “personality,” +quoted various psychological textbooks in support of his contention +that personality was sometimes fluid and unstable, went back to “Dr. +Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” as good evidence of this proposition, and laid +stress on Dr. Jekyll’s speculation that the human soul, so far from +being one and indivisible, might possibly turn out to be a mere polity, +a state in which dwelt many strange and incongruous citizens, whose +characters were not merely unknown but altogether unsurmised by that +form of consciousness which so rashly assumed that it was not only the +president of the republic but also its sole citizen. + +“The long and the short of it is,” Mr. Remnant concluded, “that any one +of us may be the murderer, though he hasn’t the faintest notion of the +fact. Take Llewelyn there.” + +Mr. Payne Llewelyn was an elderly lawyer, a rural Tulkinghorn. He was +the hereditary solicitor to the Morgans of Pentwyn. This does not sound +anything tremendous to the Saxons of London; but the style is far more +than noble to the Celts of West Wales; it is immemorial; Teilo Sant was +of the collaterals of the first known chief of the race. And Mr. Payne +Llewelyn did his best to look like the legal adviser of this ancient +house. He was weighty, he was cautious, he was sound, he was secure. I +have compared him to Mr. Tulkinghorn of Lincoln’s Inn Fields; but Mr. +Llewelyn would most certainly never have dreamed of employing his +leisure in peering into the cupboards where the family skeletons were +hidden. Supposing such cupboards to have existed, Mr. Payne Llewelyn +would have risked large out-of-pocket expenses to furnish them with +double, triple, impregnable locks. He was a new man, an _advena_, +certainly; for he was partly of the Conquest, being descended on one +side from Sir Payne Turberville; but he meant to stand by the old +stock. + +“Take Llewelyn now,” said Mr. Remnant. “Look here, Llewelyn, can you +produce evidence to show where you were on the night those people were +murdered on the Highway? I thought not.” + +Mr. Llewelyn, an elderly man, as I have said, hesitated before +speaking. + +“I thought not,” Remnant went on. “Now I say that it is perfectly +possible that Llewelyn may be dealing death throughout Meirion, +although in his present personality he may not have the faintest +suspicion that there is another Llewelyn within him, a Llewelyn who +follows murder as a fine art.” + + +Mr. Payne Llewelyn did not at all relish Mr. Remnant’s suggestion that +he might well be a secret murderer, ravening for blood, remorseless as +a wild beast. He thought the phrase about his following murder as a +fine art was both nonsensical and in the worst taste, and his opinion +was not changed when Remnant pointed out that it was used by De Quincey +in the title of one of his most famous essays. + +“If you had allowed me to speak,” he said with some coldness of manner, +“I would have told you that on Tuesday last, the night on which those +unfortunate people were murdered on the Highway I was staying at the +Angel Hotel, Cardiff. I had business in Cardiff, and I was detained +till Wednesday afternoon.” + +Having given this satisfactory alibi, Mr. Payne Llewelyn left the club, +and did not go near it for the rest of the week. + +Remnant explained to those who stayed in the smoking room that, of +course, he had merely used Mr. Llewelyn as a concrete example of his +theory, which, he persisted, had the support of a considerable body of +evidence. + +“There are several cases of double personality on record,” he declared. +“And I say again that it is quite possible that these murders may have +been committed by one of us in his secondary personality. Why, I may be +the murderer in my Remnant B. state, though Remnant A. knows nothing +whatever about it, and is perfectly convinced that he could not kill a +fowl, much less a whole family. Isn’t it so, Lewis?” + +Dr. Lewis said it was so, in theory, but he thought not in fact. + +“Most of the cases of double or multiple personality that have been +investigated,” he said, “have been in connection with the very dubious +experiments of hypnotism, or the still more dubious experiments of +spiritualism. All that sort of thing, in my opinion, is like tinkering +with the works of a clock—amateur tinkering, I mean. You fumble about +with the wheels and cogs and bits of mechanism that you don’t really +know anything about; and then you find your clock going backwards or +striking 240 at tea-time. And I believe it’s just the same thing with +these psychical research experiments; the secondary personality is very +likely the result of the tinkering and fumbling with a very delicate +apparatus that we know nothing about. Mind, I can’t say that it’s +impossible for one of us to be the Highway murderer in his B. state, as +Remnant puts it. But I think it’s extremely improbable. Probability is +the guide of life, you know, Remnant,” said Dr. Lewis, smiling at that +gentleman, as if to say that he also had done a little reading in his +day. “And it follows, therefore, that improbability is also the guide +of life. When you get a very high degree of probability, that is, you +are justified in taking it as a certainty; and on the other hand, if a +supposition is highly improbable, you are justified in treating it as +an impossible one. That is, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out +of a thousand.” + +“How about the thousandth case?” said Remnant. “Supposing these +extraordinary crimes constitute the thousandth case?” + +The doctor smiled and shrugged his shoulders, being tired of the +subject. But for some little time highly respectable members of Porth +society would look suspiciously at one another wondering whether, after +all, there mightn’t be “something in it.” However, both Mr. Remnant’s +somewhat crazy theory and Dr. Lewis’s plausible theory became untenable +when two more victims of an awful and mysterious death were offered up +in sacrifice, for a man was found dead in the Llanfihangel quarry, +where the woman had been discovered. And on the same day a girl of +fifteen was found broken on the jagged rocks under the cliffs near +Porth. Now, it appeared that these two deaths must have occurred at +about the same time, within an hour of one another, certainly; and the +distance between the quarry and the cliffs by Black Rock is certainly +twenty miles. + +“A motor could do it,” one man said. + +But it was pointed out that there was no high road between the two +places; indeed, it might be said that there was no road at all between +them. There was a network of deep, narrow, and tortuous lanes that +wandered into one another at all manner of queer angles for, say, +seventeen miles; this in the middle, as it were, between Black Rock and +the quarry at Llanfihangel. But to get to the high land of the cliffs +one had to take a path that went through two miles of fields; and the +quarry lay a mile away from the nearest by-road in the midst of gorse +and bracken and broken land. And, finally, there was no track of +motor-car or motor-bicycle in the lanes which must have been followed +to pass from one place to the other. + +“What about an airplane, then?” said the man of the motor-car theory. +Well, there was certainly an aerodrome not far from one of the two +places of death; but somehow, nobody believed that the Flying Corps +harbored a homicidal maniac. It seemed clear, therefore, that there +must be more than one person concerned in the terror of Meirion. And +Dr. Lewis himself abandoned his own theory. + +“As I said to Remnant at the Club,” he remarked, “improbability is the +guide of life. I can’t believe that there are a pack of madmen or even +two madmen at large in the country. I give it up.” + +And now a fresh circumstance or set of circumstances became manifest to +confound judgment and to awaken new and wild surmises. For at about +this time people realized that none of the dreadful events that were +happening all about them was so much as mentioned in the Press. I have +already spoken of the fate of the _Meiros Observer._ This paper was +suppressed by the authorities because it had inserted a brief paragraph +about some person who had been “found dead under mysterious +circumstances”; I think that paragraph referred to the first death of +Llanfihangel quarry. Thenceforth, horror followed on horror, but no +word was printed in any of the local journals. The curious went to the +newspaper offices—there were two left in the county—but found nothing +save a firm refusal to discuss the matter. And the Cardiff papers were +drawn and found blank; and the London Press was apparently ignorant of +the fact that crimes that had no parallel were terrorizing a whole +countryside. Everybody wondered what could have happened, what was +happening; and then it was whispered that the coroner would allow no +inquiry to be made as to these deaths of darkness. + +“In consequence of instructions received from the Home Office,” one +coroner was understood to have said, “I have to tell the jury that +their business will be to hear the medical evidence and to bring in a +verdict immediately in accordance with that evidence. I shall disallow +all questions.” + +One jury protested. The foreman refused to bring in any verdict at all. + +“Very good,” said the coroner. “Then I beg to inform you, Mr. Foreman +and gentlemen of the jury, that under the Defense of the Realm Act, I +have power to supersede your functions, and to enter a verdict +according to the evidence which has been laid before the Court as if it +had been the verdict of you all.” + +The foreman and jury collapsed and accepted what they could not avoid. +But the rumors that got abroad of all this, added to the known fact +that the terror was ignored in the Press, no doubt by official command, +increased the panic that was now arising, and gave it a new direction. +Clearly, people reasoned, these Government restrictions and +prohibitions could only refer to the war, to some great danger in +connection with the war. And that being so, it followed that the +outrages which must be kept so secret were the work of the enemy, that +is of concealed German agents. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +The Spread of the Terror + + +It is time, I think, for me to make one point clear. I began this +history with certain references to an extraordinary accident to an +airman whose machine fell to the ground after collision with a huge +flock of pigeons; and then to an explosion in a northern munition +factory, an explosion, as I noted, of a very singular kind. Then I +deserted the neighborhood of London, and the northern district, and +dwelt on a mysterious and terrible series of events which occurred in +the summer of 1915 in a Welsh county, which I have named, for +convenience, Meirion. + +Well, let it be understood at once that all this detail that I have +given about the occurrences in Meirion does not imply that the county +in the far west was alone or especially afflicted by the terror that +was over the land. They tell me that in the villages about Dartmoor the +stout Devonshire hearts sank as men’s hearts used to sink in the time +of plague and pestilence. There was horror, too, about the Norfolk +Broads, and far up by Perth no one would venture on the path that leads +by Scone to the wooded heights above the Tay. And in the industrial +districts: I met a man by chance one day in an odd London corner who +spoke with horror of what a friend had told him. + +“‘Ask no questions, Ned,’ he says to me, ‘but I tell yow a’ was in +Bairnigan t’other day, and a’ met a pal who’d seen three hundred +coffins going out of a works not far from there.’” + +And then the ship that hovered outside the mouth of the Thames with all +sails set and beat to and fro in the wind, and never answered any hail, +and showed no light! The forts shot at her and brought down one of the +masts, but she went suddenly about with a change of wind under what +sail still stood, and then veered down Channel, and drove ashore at +last on the sandbanks and pinewoods of Arcachon, and not a man alive on +her, but only rattling heaps of bones! That last voyage of the +_Semiramis_ would be something horribly worth telling; but I only heard +it at a distance as a yarn, and only believed it because it squared +with other things that I knew for certain. + +This, then, is my point; I have written of the terror as it fell on +Meirion, simply because I have had opportunities of getting close there +to what really happened. Third or fourth or fifth hand in the other +places; but round about Porth and Merthyr Tegveth I have spoken with +people who have seen the tracks of the terror with their own eyes. + +Well, I have said that the people of that far western county realized, +not only that death was abroad in their quiet lanes and on their +peaceful hills, but that for some reason it was to be kept all secret. +Newspapers might not print any news of it, the very juries summoned to +investigate it were allowed to investigate nothing. And so they +concluded that this veil of secrecy must somehow be connected with the +war; and from this position it was not a long way to a further +inference: that the murderers of innocent men and women and children +were either Germans or agents of Germany. It would be just like the +Huns, everybody agreed, to think out such a devilish scheme as this; +and they always thought out their schemes beforehand. They hoped to +seize Paris in a few weeks, but when they were beaten on the Marne they +had their trenches on the Aisne ready to fall back on: it had all been +prepared years before the war. And so, no doubt, they had devised this +terrible plan against England in case they could not beat us in open +fight: there were people ready, very likely, all over the country, who +were prepared to murder and destroy everywhere as soon as they got the +word. In this way the Germans intended to sow terror throughout England +and fill our hearts with panic and dismay, hoping so to weaken their +enemy at home that he would lose all heart over the war abroad. It was +the Zeppelin notion, in another form; they were committing these +horrible and mysterious outrages thinking that we should be frightened +out of our wits. + +It all seemed plausible enough; Germany had by this time perpetrated so +many horrors and had so excelled in devilish ingenuities that no +abomination seemed too abominable to be probable, or too ingeniously +wicked to be beyond the tortuous malice of the Hun. But then came the +questions as to who the agents of this terrible design were, as to +where they lived, as to how they contrived to move unseen from field to +field, from lane to lane. All sorts of fantastic attempts were made to +answer these questions; but it was felt that they remained unanswered. +Some suggested that the murderers landed from submarines, or flew from +hiding places on the West Coast of Ireland, coming and going by night; +but there were seen to be flagrant impossibilities in both these +suggestions. Everybody agreed that the evil work was no doubt the work +of Germany; but nobody could begin to guess how it was done. Somebody +at the Club asked Remnant for his theory. + +“My theory,” said that ingenious person, “is that human progress is +simply a long march from one inconceivable to another. Look at that +airship of ours that came over Porth yesterday: ten years ago that +would have been an inconceivable sight. Take the steam engine, stake +printing, take the theory of gravitation: they were all inconceivable +till somebody thought of them. So it is, no doubt, with this infernal +dodgery that we’re talking about: the Huns have found it out, and we +haven’t; and there you are. We can’t conceive how these poor people +have been murdered, because the method’s inconceivable to us.” + +The club listened with some awe to this high argument. After Remnant +had gone, one member said: + +“Wonderful man, that.” “Yes,” said Dr. Lewis. “He was asked whether he +knew something. And his reply really amounted to ‘No, I don’t.’ But I +have never heard it better put.” + + +It was, I suppose, at about this time when the people were puzzling +their heads as to the secret methods used by the Germans or their +agents to accomplish their crimes that a very singular circumstance +became known to a few of the Porth people. It related to the murder of +the Williams family on the Highway in front of their cottage door. I do +not know that I have made it plain that the old Roman road called the +Highway follows the course of a long, steep hill that goes steadily +westward till it slants down and droops towards the sea. On either side +of the road the ground falls away, here into deep shadowy woods, here +to high pastures, now and again into a field of corn, but for the most +part into the wild and broken land that is characteristic of Arfon. The +fields are long and narrow, stretching up the steep hillside; they fall +into sudden dips and hollows, a well springs up in the midst of one and +a grove of ash and thorn bends over it, shading it; and beneath it the +ground is thick with reeds and rushes. And then may come on either side +of such a field territories glistening with the deep growth of bracken, +and rough with gorse and rugged with thickets of blackthorn, green +lichen hanging strangely from the branches; such are the lands on +either side of the Highway. + +Now on the lower slopes of it, beneath the Williams’s cottage, some +three or four fields down the hill, there is a military camp. The place +has been used as a camp for many years, and lately the site has been +extended and huts have been erected. But a considerable number of the +men were under canvas here in the summer of 1915. + +On the night of the Highway murder this camp, as it appeared +afterwards, was the scene of the extraordinary panic of the horses. + + +A good many men in the camp were asleep in their tents soon after 9:30, +when the Last Post was sounded. They woke up in panic. There was a +thundering sound on the steep hillside above them, and down upon the +tents came half a dozen horses, mad with fright, trampling the canvas, +trampling the men, bruising dozens of them and killing two. + +Everything was in wild confusion, men groaning and screaming in the +darkness, struggling with the canvas and the twisted ropes, shouting +out, some of them, raw lads enough, that the Germans had landed, others +wiping the blood from their eyes, a few, roused suddenly from heavy +sleep, hitting out at one another, officers coming up at the double +roaring out orders to the sergeants, a party of soldiers who were just +returning to camp from the village seized with fright at what they +could scarcely see or distinguish, at the wildness of the shouting and +cursing and groaning that they could not understand, bolting out of the +camp again and racing for their lives back to the village: everything +in the maddest confusion of wild disorder. + +Some of the men had seen the horses galloping down the hill as if +terror itself was driving them. They scattered off into the darkness, +and somehow or another found their way back in the night to their +pasture above the camp. They were grazing there peacefully in the +morning, and the only sign of the panic of the night before was the mud +they had scattered all over themselves as they pelted through a patch +of wet ground. The farmer said they were as quiet a lot as any in +Meirion; he could make nothing of it. + +“Indeed,” he said, “I believe they must have seen the devil himself to +be in such a fright as that: save the people!” + +Now all this was kept as quiet as might be at the time when it +happened; it became known to the men of the Porth Club in the days when +they were discussing the difficult question of the German outrages, as +the murders were commonly called. And this wild stampede of the farm +horses was held by some to be evidence of the extraordinary and unheard +of character of the dreadful agency that was at work. One of the +members of the club had been told by an officer who was in the camp at +the time of the panic that the horses that came charging down were in a +perfect fury of fright, that he had never seen horses in such a state, +and so there was endless speculation as to the nature of the sight or +the sound that had driven half a dozen quiet beasts into raging +madness. + +Then, in the middle of this talk, two or three other incidents, quite +as odd and incomprehensible, came to be known, borne on chance trickles +of gossip that came into the towns from outland farms, or were carried +by cottagers tramping into Porth on market day with a fowl or two and +eggs and garden stuff; scraps and fragments of talk gathered by +servants from the country folk and repeated—to their mistresses. And in +such ways it came out that up at Plas Newydd there had been a terrible +business over swarming the bees; they had turned as wild as wasps and +much more savage. They had come about the people who were taking the +swarms like a cloud. They settled on one man’s face so that you could +not see the flesh for the bees crawling all over it, and they had stung +him so badly that the doctor did not know whether he would get over it, +and they had chased a girl who had come out to see the swarming, and +settled on her and stung her to death. Then they had gone off to a +brake below the farm and got into a hollow tree there, and it was not +safe to go near it, for they would come out at you by day or by night. + +And much the same thing had happened, it seemed, at three or four farms +and cottages where bees were kept. And there were stories, hardly so +clear or so credible, of sheep dogs, mild and trusted beasts, turning +as savage as wolves and injuring the farm boys in a horrible manner—in +one case it was said with fatal results. It was certainly true that old +Mrs. Owen’s favorite Brahma-Dorking cock had gone mad; she came into +Porth one Saturday morning with her face and her neck all bound up and +plastered. She had gone out to her bit of a field to feed the poultry +the night before, and the bird had flown at her and attacked her most +savagely, inflicting some very nasty wounds before she could beat it +off. + +“There was a stake handy, lucky for me,” she said, “and I did beat him +and beat him till the life was out of him. But what is come to the +world, whatever?” + + +Now Remnant, the man of theories, was also a man of extreme leisure. It +was understood that he had succeeded to ample means when he was quite a +young man, and after tasting the savors of the law, as it were, for +half a dozen terms at the board of the Middle Temple, he had decided +that it would be senseless to bother himself with passing examinations +for a profession which he had not the faintest intention of practising. +So he turned a deaf ear to the call of “Manger” ringing through the +Temple Courts, and set himself out to potter amiably through the world. +He had pottered all over Europe, he had looked at Africa, and had even +put his head in at the door of the East, on a trip which included the +Greek isles and Constantinople. Now getting into the middle fifties, he +had settled at Porth for the sake, as he said, of the Gulf Stream and +the fuchsia hedges, and pottered over his books and his theories and +the local gossip. He was no more brutal than the general public, which +revels in the details of mysterious crime; but it must be said that the +terror, black though it was, was a boon to him. He peered and +investigated and poked about with the relish of a man to whose life a +new zest has been added. He listened attentively to the strange tales +of bees and dogs and poultry that came into Porth with the country +baskets of butter, rabbits, and green peas; and he evolved at last a +most extraordinary theory. + +Full of this discovery, as he thought it, he went one night to see Dr. +Lewis and take his view of the matter. + +“I want to talk to you,” said Remnant to the doctor, “about what I have +called provisionally, the Z Ray.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +The Incident of the Unknown Tree + + +Dr. Lewis, smiling indulgently, and quite prepared for some monstrous +piece of theorizing, led Remnant into the room that overlooked the +terraced garden and the sea. + +The doctor’s house, though it was only a ten minutes’ walk from the +center of the town, seemed remote from all other habitations. The drive +to it from the road came through a deep grove of trees and a dense +shrubbery, trees were about the house on either side, mingling with +neighboring groves, and below, the garden fell down, terrace by green +terrace, to wild growth, a twisted path amongst red rocks, and at last +to the yellow sand of a little cove. The room to which the doctor took +Remnant looked over these terraces and across the water to the dim +boundaries of the bay. It had French windows that were thrown wide +open, and the two men sat in the soft light of the lamp—this was before +the days of severe lighting regulations in the Far West—and enjoyed the +sweet odors and the sweet vision of the summer evening. Then Remnant +began: + +“I suppose, Lewis, you’ve heard these extraordinary stories of bees and +dogs and things that have been going about lately?” + +“Certainly I have heard them. I was called in at Plas Newydd, and +treated Thomas Trevor, who’s only just out of danger, by the way. I +certified for the poor child, Mary Trevor. She was dying when I got to +the place. There was no doubt she was stung to death by bees, and I +believe there were other very similar cases at Llantarnam and Morwen; +none fatal, I think. What about them?” + +“Well: then there are the stories of good-tempered old sheepdogs +turning wicked and ‘savaging’ children?” + +“Quite so. I haven’t seen any of these cases professionally; but I +believe the stories are accurate enough.” + +“And the old woman assaulted by her own poultry?” + +“That’s perfectly true. Her daughter put some stuff of their own +concoction on her face and neck, and then she came to me. The wounds +seemed going all right, so I told her to continue the treatment, +whatever it might be.” + +“Very good,” said Mr. Remnant. He spoke now with an italic +impressiveness. “_Don’t you see the link between all this and the +horrible things that have been happening about here for the last +month?_” + +Lewis stared at Remnant in amazement. He lifted his red eyebrows and +lowered them in a kind of scowl. His speech showed traces of his native +accent. + +“Great burning!” he exclaimed. “What on earth are you getting at now? +It is madness. Do you mean to tell me that you think there is some +connection between a swarm or two of bees that have turned nasty, a +cross dog, and a wicked old barn-door cock and these poor people that +have been pitched over the cliffs and hammered to death on the road? +There’s no sense in it, you know.” + +“I am strongly inclined to believe that there is a great deal of sense +in it,” replied Remnant, with extreme calmness. “Look here, Lewis, I +saw you grinning the other day at the club when I was telling the +fellows that in my opinion all these outrages had been committed, +certainly by the Germans, but by some method of which we have no +conception. But what I meant to say when I talked about inconceivables +was just this: that the Williams’s and the rest of them have been +killed in some way that’s not in theory at all, not in our theory, at +all events, some way we’ve not contemplated, not thought of for an +instant. Do you see my point?” + +“Well, in a sort of way. You mean there’s an absolute originality in +the method? I suppose that is so. But what next?” + +Remnant seemed to hesitate, partly from a sense of the portentous +nature of what he was about to say, partly from a sort of +half-unwillingness to part with so profound a secret. + +“Well,” he said, “you will allow that we have two sets of phenomena of +a very extraordinary kind occurring at the same time. Don’t you think +that it’s only reasonable to connect the two sets with one another.” + +“So the philosopher of Tenterden steeple and the Goodwin Sands thought, +certainly,” said Lewis. “But what is the connection? Those poor folks +on the Highway weren’t stung by bees or worried by a dog. And horses +don’t throw people over cliffs or stifle them in marshes.” + +“No; I never meant to suggest anything so absurd. It is evident to me +that in all these cases of animals turning suddenly savage the cause +has been terror, panic, fear. The horses that went charging into the +camp were mad with fright, we know. And I say that in the other +instances we have been discussing the cause was the same. The creatures +were exposed to an infection of fear, and a frightened beast or bird or +insect uses its weapons, whatever they may be. If, for example, there +had been anybody with those horses when they took their panic they +would have lashed out at him with their heels.” + +“Yes, I dare say that that is so. Well.” + +“Well; my belief is that the Germans have made an extraordinary +discovery. I have called it the Z Ray. You know that the ether is +merely an hypothesis; we have to suppose that it’s there to account for +the passage of the Marconi current from one place to another. Now, +suppose that there is a psychic ether as well as a material ether, +suppose that it is possible to direct irresistible impulses across this +medium, suppose that these impulses are towards murder or suicide; then +I think that you have an explanation of the terrible series of events +that have been happening in Meirion for the last few weeks. And it is +quite clear to my mind that the horses and the other creatures have +been exposed to this Z Ray, and that it has produced on them the effect +of terror, with ferocity as the result of terror. Now what do you say +to that? Telepathy, you know, is well established; so is hypnotic +suggestion. You have only to look in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ to +see that, and suggestion is so strong in some cases as to be an +irresistible imperative. Now don’t you feel that putting telepathy and +suggestion together, as it were, you have more than the elements of +what I call the Z Ray? I feel myself that I have more to go on in +making my hypothesis than the inventor of the steam engine had in +making his hypothesis when he saw the lid of the kettle bobbing up and +down. What do you say?” + +Dr. Lewis made no answer. He was watching the growth of a new, unknown +tree in his garden. + + +The doctor made no answer to Remnant’s question. For one thing, Remnant +was profuse in his eloquence—he has been rigidly condensed in this +history—and Lewis was tired of the sound of his voice. For another +thing, he found the Z Ray theory almost too extravagant to be bearable, +wild enough to tear patience to tatters. And then as the tedious +argument continued Lewis became conscious that there was something +strange about the night. + +It was a dark summer night. The moon was old and faint, above the +Dragon’s Head across the bay, and the air was very still. It was so +still that Lewis had noted that not a leaf stirred on the very tip of a +high tree that stood out against the sky; and yet he knew that he was +listening to some sound that he could not determine or define. It was +not the wind in the leaves, it was not the gentle wash of the water of +the sea against the rocks; that latter sound he could distinguish quite +easily. But there was something else. It was scarcely a sound; it was +as if the air itself trembled and fluttered, as the air trembles in a +church when they open the great pedal pipes of the organ. + +The doctor listened intently. It was not an illusion, the sound was not +in his own head, as he had suspected for a moment; but for the life of +him he could not make out whence it came or what it was. He gazed down +into the night over the terraces of his garden, now sweet with the +scent of the flowers of the night; tried to peer over the tree-tops +across the sea towards the Dragon’s Head. It struck him suddenly that +this strange fluttering vibration of the air might be the noise of a +distant aeroplane or airship; there was not the usual droning hum, but +this sound might be caused by a new type of engine. A new type of +engine? Possibly it was an enemy airship; their range, it had been +said, was getting longer; and Lewis was just going to call Remnant’s +attention to the sound, to its possible cause, and to the possible +danger that might be hovering over them, when he saw something that +caught his breath and his heart with wild amazement and a touch of +terror. + +He had been staring upward into the sky, and, about to speak to +Remnant, he had let his eyes drop for an instant. He looked down +towards the trees in the garden, and saw with utter astonishment that +one had changed its shape in the few hours that had passed since the +setting of the sun. There was a thick grove of ilexes bordering the +lowest terrace, and above them rose one tall pine, spreading its head +of sparse, dark branches dark against the sky. + +As Lewis glanced down over the terraces he saw that the tall pine tree +was no longer there. In its place there rose above the ilexes what +might have been a greater ilex; there was the blackness of a dense +growth of foliage rising like a broad and far-spreading and rounded +cloud over the lesser trees. + +Here, then was a sight wholly incredible, impossible. It is doubtful +whether the process of the human mind in such a case has ever been +analyzed and registered; it is doubtful whether it ever can be +registered. It is hardly fair to bring in the mathematician, since he +deals with absolute truth (so far as mortality can conceive absolute +truth); but how would a mathematician feel if he were suddenly +confronted with a two-sided triangle? I suppose he would instantly +become a raging madman; and Lewis, staring wide-eyed and wild-eyed at a +dark and spreading tree which his own experience informed him was not +there, felt for an instant that shock which should affront us all when +we first realize the intolerable antinomy of Achilles and the Tortoise. +Common sense tells us that Achilles will flash past the tortoise almost +with the speed of the lightning; the inflexible truth of mathematics +assures us that till the earth boils and the heavens cease to endure +the Tortoise must still be in advance; and thereupon we should, in +common decency, go mad. We do not go mad, because, by special grace, we +are certified that, in the final court of appeal, all science is a lie, +even the highest science of all; and so we simply grin at Achilles and +the Tortoise, as we grin at Darwin, deride Huxley, and laugh at Herbert +Spencer. + +Dr. Lewis did not grin. He glared into the dimness of the night, at the +great spreading tree that he knew could not be there. And as he gazed +he saw that what at first appeared the dense blackness of foliage was +fretted and starred with wonderful appearances of lights and colors. + +Afterwards he said to me: “I remember thinking to myself: ‘Look here, I +am not delirious; my temperature is perfectly normal. I am not drunk; I +only had a pint of Graves with my dinner, over three hours ago. I have +not eaten any poisonous fungus; I have not taken _Anhelonium Lewinii_ +experimentally. So, now then! What is happening?’” + +The night had gloomed over; clouds obscured the faint moon and the +misty stars. Lewis rose, with some kind of warning and inhibiting +gesture to Remnant, who, he was conscious was gaping at him in +astonishment. He walked to the open French window, and took a pace +forward on to the path outside, and looked, very intently, at the dark +shape of the tree, down below the sloping garden, above the washing of +the waves. He shaded the light of the lamp behind him by holding his +hands on each side of his eyes. + +The mass of the tree—the tree that couldn’t be there—stood out against +the sky, but not so clearly, now that the clouds had rolled up. Its +edges, the limits of its leafage, were not so distinct. Lewis thought +that he could detect some sort of quivering movement in it; though the +air was at a dead calm. It was a night on which one might hold up a +lighted match and watch it burn without any wavering or inclination of +the flame. + +“You know,” said Lewis, “how a bit of burnt paper will sometimes hang +over the coals before it goes up the chimney, and little worms of fire +will shoot through it. It was like that, if you should be standing some +distance away. Just threads and hairs of yellow light I saw, and specks +and sparks of fire, and then a twinkling of a ruby no bigger than a pin +point, and a green wandering in the black, as if an emerald were +crawling, and then little veins of deep blue. ‘Woe is me!’ I said to +myself in Welsh, ‘What is all this color and burning?’ + +“And, then, at that very moment there came a thundering rap at the door +of the room inside, and there was my man telling me that I was wanted +directly up at the Garth, as old Mr. Trevor Williams had been taken +very bad. I knew his heart was not worth much, so I had to go off +directly, and leave Remnant to make what he could of it all.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +Mr. Remnant’s Z Ray + + +Dr. Lewis was kept some time at the Garth. It was past twelve when he +got back to his house. + +He went quickly to the room that overlooked the garden and the sea and +threw open the French window and peered into the darkness. There, dim +indeed against the dim sky but unmistakable, was the tall pine with its +sparse branches, high above the dense growth of the ilex trees. The +strange boughs which had amazed him had vanished; there was no +appearance now of colors or of fires. + +He drew his chair up to the open window and sat there gazing and +wondering far into the night, till brightness came upon the sea and +sky, and the forms of the trees in the garden grew clear and evident. +He went up to his bed at last filled with a great perplexity, still +asking questions to which there was no answer. + +The doctor did not say anything about the strange tree to Remnant. When +they next met, Lewis said that he had thought there was a man hiding +amongst the bushes—this in explanation of that warning gesture he had +used, and of his going out into the garden and staring into the night. +He concealed the truth because he dreaded the Remnant doctrine that +would undoubtedly be produced; indeed, he hoped that he had heard the +last of the theory of the Z Ray. But Remnant firmly reopened this +subject. + +“We were interrupted just as I was putting my case to you,” he said. +“And to sum it all up, it amounts to this: that the Huns have made one +of the great leaps of science. They are sending ‘suggestions’ (which +amount to irresistible commands) over here, and the persons affected +are seized with suicidal or homicidal mania. The people who were killed +by falling over the cliffs or into the quarry probably committed +suicide; and so with the man and boy who were found in the bog. As to +the Highway case, you remember that Thomas Evans said that he stopped +and talked to Williams on the night of the murder. In my opinion Evans +was the murderer. He came under the influence of the Ray, became a +homicidal maniac in an instant, snatched Williams’s spade from his hand +and killed him and the others.” + +“The bodies were found by me on the road.” + +“It is possible that the first impact of the Ray produces violent +nervous excitement, which would manifest itself externally. Williams +might have called to his wife to come and see what was the matter with +Evans. The children would naturally follow their mother. It seems to me +simple. And as for the animals—the horses, dogs, and so forth, they as +I say, were no doubt panic stricken by the Ray, and hence driven to +frenzy.” + +“Why should Evans have murdered Williams instead of Williams murdering +Evans? Why should the impact of the Ray affect one and not the other?” + +“Why does one man react violently to a certain drug, while it makes no +impression on another man? Why is A able to drink a bottle of whisky +and remain sober, while B is turned into something very like a lunatic +after he has drunk three glasses?” + +“It is a question of idiosyncrasy,” said the doctor. + +“Is idiosyncrasy Greek for ‘I don’t know’?” asked Remnant. + +“Not at all,” said Lewis, smiling blandly. “I mean that in some +diatheses whisky—as you have mentioned whisky—appears not to be +pathogenic, or at all events not immediately pathogenic. In other +cases, as you very justly observed, there seems to be a very marked +cachexia associated with the exhibition of the spirit in question, even +in comparatively small doses.” + +Under this cloud of professional verbiage Lewis escaped from the Club +and from Remnant. He did not want to hear any more about that Dreadful +Ray, because he felt sure that the Ray was all nonsense. But asking +himself why he felt this certitude in the matter he had to confess that +he didn’t know. An aeroplane, he reflected, was all nonsense before it +was made; and he remembered talking in the early nineties to a friend +of his about the newly discovered X Rays. The friend laughed +incredulously, evidently didn’t believe a word of it, till Lewis told +him that there was an article on the subject in the current number of +the _Saturday Review_; whereupon the unbeliever said, “Oh, is that so? +Oh, really. I _see_,” and was converted on the X Ray faith on the spot. +Lewis, remembering this talk, marveled at the strange processes of the +human mind, its illogical and yet all-compelling _ergos_, and wondered +whether he himself was only waiting for an article on the Z Ray in the +_Saturday Review_ to become a devout believer in the doctrine of +Remnant. + +But he wondered with far more fervor as to the extraordinary thing he +had seen in his own garden with his own eyes. The tree that changed all +its shape for an hour or two of the night, the growth of strange +boughs, the apparition of secret fires among them, the sparkling of +emerald and ruby lights: how could one fail to be afraid with great +amazement at the thought of such a mystery? + + +Dr. Lewis’s thoughts were distracted from the incredible adventure of +the tree by the visit of his sister and her husband. Mr. and Mrs. +Merritt lived in a well-known manufacturing town of the Midlands, which +was now, of course, a center of munition work. On the day of their +arrival at Porth, Mrs. Merritt, who was tired after the long, hot +journey, went to bed early, and Merritt and Lewis went into the room by +the garden for their talk and tobacco. They spoke of the year that had +passed since their last meeting, of the weary dragging of the war, of +friends that had perished in it, of the hopelessness of an early ending +of all this misery. Lewis said nothing of the terror that was on the +land. One does not greet a tired man who is come to a quiet, sunny +place for relief from black smoke and work and worry with a tale of +horror. Indeed, the doctor saw that his brother-in-law looked far from +well. And he seemed “jumpy”; there was an occasional twitch of his +mouth that Lewis did not like at all. + +“Well,” said the doctor, after an interval of silence and port wine, “I +am glad to see you here again. Porth always suits you. I don’t think +you’re looking quite up to your usual form. But three weeks of Meirion +air will do wonders.” + +“Well, I hope it will,” said the other. “I am not up to the mark. +Things are not going well at Midlingham.” + +“Business is all right, isn’t it?” + +“Yes. Business is all right. But there are other things that are all +wrong. We are living under a reign of terror. It comes to that.” + +“What on earth do you mean?” + +“Well, I suppose I may tell you what I know. It’s not much. I didn’t +dare write it. But do you know that at every one of the munition works +in Midlingham and all about it there’s a guard of soldiers with drawn +bayonets and loaded rifles day and night? Men with bombs, too. And +machine-guns at the big factories.” + +“German spies?” + +“You don’t want Lewis guns to fight spies with. Nor bombs. Nor a +platoon of men. I woke up last night. It was the machine-gun at +Benington’s Army Motor Works. Firing like fury. And then bang! bang! +bang! That was the hand bombs.” + +“But what against?” + +“Nobody knows.” + +“Nobody knows what is happening,” Merritt repeated, and he went on to +describe the bewilderment and terror that hung like a cloud over the +great industrial city in the Midlands, how the feeling of concealment, +of some intolerable secret danger that must not be named, was worst of +all. + +“A young fellow I know,” he said, “was on short leave the other day +from the front, and he spent it with his people at Belmont—that’s about +four miles out of Midlingham, you know. ‘Thank God,’ he said to me, ‘I +am going back to-morrow. It’s no good saying that the Wipers salient is +nice, because it isn’t. But it’s a damned sight better than this. At +the front you know what you’re up against anyhow.’ At Midlingham +everybody has the feeling that we’re up against something awful and we +don’t know what; it’s that that makes people inclined to whisper. +There’s terror in the air.” + +Merritt made a sort of picture of the great town cowering in its fear +of an unknown danger. + +“People are afraid to go about alone at nights in the outskirts. They +make up parties at the stations to go home together if it’s anything +like dark, or if there are any lonely bits on their way.” + +“But why? I don’t understand. What are they afraid of?” + +“Well, I told you about my being awakened up the other night with the +machine-guns at the motor works rattling away, and the bombs exploding +and making the most terrible noise. That sort of thing alarms one, you +know. It’s only natural.” + +“Indeed, it must be very terrifying. You mean, then, there is a general +nervousness about, a vague sort of apprehension that makes people +inclined to herd together?” + +“There’s that, and there’s more. People have gone out that have never +come back. There were a couple of men in the train to Holme, arguing +about the quickest way to get to Northend, a sort of outlying part of +Holme where they both lived. They argued all the way out of Midlingham, +one saying that the high road was the quickest though it was the +longest way. ‘It’s the quickest going because it’s the cleanest going,’ +he said.” + +“The other chap fancied a short cut across the fields, by the canal. +‘It’s half the distance,’ he kept on. ‘Yes, if you don’t lose your +way,’ said the other. Well, it appears they put an even half-crown on +it, and each was to try his own way when they got out of the train. It +was arranged that they were to meet at the ‘Wagon’ in Northend. ‘I +shall be at the “Wagon” first,’ said the man who believed in the short +cut, and with that he climbed over the stile and made off across the +fields. It wasn’t late enough to be really dark, and a lot of them +thought he might win the stakes. But he never turned up at the Wagon—or +anywhere else for the matter of that.” + +“What happened to him?” + +“He was found lying on his back in the middle of a field—some way from +the path. He was dead. The doctors said he’d been suffocated. Nobody +knows how. Then there have been other cases. We whisper about them at +Midlingham, but we’re afraid to speak out.” + +Lewis was ruminating all this profoundly. Terror in Meirion and terror +far away in the heart of England; but at Midlingham, so far as he could +gather from these stories of soldiers on guard, of crackling +machine-guns, it was a case of an organized attack on the munitioning +of the army. He felt that he did not know enough to warrant his +deciding that the terror of Meirion and of Stratfordshire were one. + +Then Merritt began again: + +“There’s a queer story going about, when the door’s shut and the +curtain’s drawn, that is, as to a place right out in the country over +the other side of Midlingham; on the opposite side to Dunwich. They’ve +built one of the new factories out there, a great red brick town of +sheds they tell me it is, with a tremendous chimney. It’s not been +finished more than a month or six weeks. They plumped it down right in +the middle of the fields, by the line, and they’re building huts for +the workers as fast as they can but up to the present the men are +billeted all about, up and down the line. + +“About two hundred yards from this place there’s an old footpath, +leading from the station and the main road up to a small hamlet on the +hillside. Part of the way this path goes by a pretty large wood, most +of it thick undergrowth. I should think there must be twenty acres of +wood, more or less. As it happens, I used this path once long ago; and +I can tell you it’s a black place of nights. + +“A man had to go this way one night. He got along all right till he +came to the wood. And then he said his heart dropped out of his body. +It was awful to hear the noises in that wood. Thousands of men were in +it, he swears that. It was full of rustling, and pattering of feet +trying to go dainty, and the crack of dead boughs lying on the ground +as some one trod on them, and swishing of the grass, and some sort of +chattering speech going on, that sounded, so he said, as if the dead +sat in their bones and talked! He ran for his life, anyhow; across +fields, over hedges, through brooks. He must have run, by his tale, ten +miles out of his way before he got home to his wife, and beat at the +door, and broke in, and bolted it behind him.”. + +“There is something rather alarming about any wood at night,” said Dr. +Lewis. + +Merritt shrugged his shoulders. + +“People say that the Germans have landed, and that they are hiding in +underground places all over the country.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +The Case of the Hidden Germans + + +Lewis gasped for a moment, silent in contemplation of the magnificence +of rumor. The Germans already landed, hiding underground, striking by +night, secretly, terribly, at the power of England! Here was a +conception which made the myth of “The Russians” a paltry fable; before +which the Legend of Mons was an ineffectual thing. + +It was monstrous. And yet— + +He looked steadily at Merritt; a square-headed, black-haired, solid +sort of man. He had symptoms of nerves about him for the moment, +certainly, but one could not wonder at that, whether the tales he told +were true, or whether he merely believed them to be true. Lewis had +known his brother-in-law for twenty years or more, and had always found +him a sure man in his own small world. “But then,” said the doctor to +himself, “those men, if they once get out of the ring of that little +world of theirs, they are lost. Those are the men that believed in +Madame Blavatsky.” + +“Well,” he said, “what do you think yourself? The Germans landed and +hiding somewhere about the country: there’s something extravagant in +the notion, isn’t there?” + +“I don’t know what to think. You can’t get over the facts. There are +the soldiers with their rifles and their guns at the works all over +Stratfordshire, and those guns go off. I told you I’d heard them. Then +who are the soldiers shooting at? That’s what we ask ourselves at +Midlingham.” + +“Quite so; I quite understand. It’s an extraordinary state of things.” + +“It’s more than extraordinary; it’s an awful state of things. It’s +terror in the dark, and there’s nothing worse than that. As that young +fellow I was telling you about said, ‘At the front you do know what +you’re up against.’” + +“And people really believe that a number of Germans have somehow got +over to England and have hid themselves underground?” + +“People say they’ve got a new kind of poison-gas. Some think that they +dig underground places and make the gas there, and lead it by secret +pipes into the shops; others say that they throw gas bombs into the +factories. It must be worse than anything they’ve used in France, from +what the authorities say.” + +“The authorities? Do _they_ admit that there are Germans in hiding +about Midlingham?” + +“No. They call it ‘explosions.’ But we know it isn’t explosions. We +know in the Midlands what an explosion sounds like and looks like. And +we know that the people killed in these ‘explosions’ are put into their +coffins in the works. Their own relations are not allowed to see them.” + +“And so you believe in the German theory?” + +“If I do, it’s because one must believe in something. Some say they’ve +seen the gas. I heard that a man living in Dunwich saw it one night +like a black cloud with sparks of fire in it floating over the tops of +the trees by Dunwich Common.” + +The light of an ineffable amazement came into Lewis’s eyes. The night +of Remnant’s visit, the trembling vibration of the air, the dark tree +that had grown in his garden since the setting of the sun, the strange +leafage that was starred with burning, with emerald and ruby fires, and +all vanished away when he returned from his visit to the Garth; and +such a leafage had appeared as a burning cloud far in the heart of +England: what intolerable mystery, what tremendous doom was signified +in this? But one thing was clear and certain: that the terror of +Meirion was also the terror of the Midlands. + +Lewis made up his mind most firmly that if possible all this should be +kept from his brother-in-law. Merritt had come to Porth as to a city of +refuge from the horrors of Midlingham; if it could be managed he should +be spared the knowledge that the cloud of terror had gone before him +and hung black over the western land. Lewis passed the port and said in +an even voice: + +“Very strange, indeed; a black cloud with sparks of fire?” + +“I can’t answer for it, you know; it’s only a rumor.” + +“Just so; and you think or you’re inclined to think that this and all +the rest you’ve told me is to be put down to the hidden Germans?” + +“As I say; because one must think something.” + +“I quite see your point. No doubt, if it’s true, it’s the most awful +blow that has ever been dealt at any nation in the whole history of +man. The enemy established in our vitals! But is it possible, after +all? How could it have been worked?” + +Merritt told Lewis how it had been worked, or rather, how people said +it had been worked. The idea, he said, was that this was a part, and a +most important part, of the great German plot to destroy England and +the British Empire. + +The scheme had been prepared years ago, some thought soon after the +Franco-Prussian War. Moltke had seen that the invasion of England (in +the ordinary sense of the term invasion) presented very great +difficulties. The matter was constantly in discussion in the inner +military and high political circles, and the general trend of opinion +in these quarters was that at the best, the invasion of England would +involve Germany in the gravest difficulties, and leave France in the +position of the _tertius gaudens_. This was the state of affairs when a +very high Prussian personage was approached by the Swedish professor, +Huvelius. + +Thus Merritt, and here I would say in parenthesis that this Huvelius +was by all accounts an extraordinary man. Considered personally and +apart from his writings he would appear to have been a most amiable +individual. He was richer than the generality of Swedes, certainly far +richer than the average university professor in Sweden. But his shabby, +green frock-coat, and his battered, furry hat were notorious in the +university town where he lived. No one laughed, because it was well +known that Professor Huvelius spent every penny of his private means +and a large portion of his official stipend on works of kindness and +charity. He hid his head in a garret, some one said, in order that +others might be able to swell on the first floor. It was told of him +that he restricted himself to a diet of dry bread and coffee for a +month in order that a poor woman of the streets, dying of consumption, +might enjoy luxuries in hospital. + +And this was the man who wrote the treatise “De Facinore Humano”; to +prove the infinite corruption of the human race. + +Oddly enough, Professor Huvelius wrote the most cynical book in the +world—Hobbes preaches rosy sentimentalism in comparison—with the very +highest motives. He held that a very large part of human misery, +misadventure, and sorrow was due to the false convention that the heart +of man was naturally and in the main well disposed and kindly, if not +exactly righteous. “Murderers, thieves, assassins, violators, and all +the host of the abominable,” he says in one passage, “are created by +the false pretense and foolish credence of human virtue. A lion in a +cage is a fierce beast, indeed; but what will he be if we declare him +to be a lamb and open the doors of his den? Who will be guilty of the +deaths of the men, women and children whom he will surely devour, save +those who unlocked the cage?” And he goes on to show that kings and the +rulers of the peoples could decrease the sum of human misery to a vast +extent by acting on the doctrine of human wickedness. “War,” he +declares, “which is one of the worst of evils, will always continue to +exist. But a wise king will desire a brief war rather than a lengthy +one, a short evil rather than a long evil. And this not from the +benignity of his heart towards his enemies, for we have seen that the +human heart is naturally malignant, but because he desires to conquer, +and to conquer easily, without a great expenditure of men or of +treasure, knowing that if he can accomplish this feat his people will +love him and his crown will be secure. So he will wage brief victorious +wars, and not only spare his own nation, but the nation of the enemy, +since in a short war the loss is less on both sides than in a long war. +And so from evil will come good.” + +And how, asks Huvelius, are such wars to be waged? The wise prince, he +replies, will begin by assuming the enemy to be infinitely corruptible +and infinitely stupid, since stupidity and corruption are the chief +characteristics of man. So the prince will make himself friends in the +very councils of his enemy, and also amongst the populace, bribing the +wealthy by proffering to them the opportunity of still greater wealth, +and winning the poor by swelling words. “For, contrary to the common +opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace +are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their unknown god. +And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such +like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they +have, dismiss them with a hearty kick, and win their hearts and their +votes for ever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which +they have received is called liberty.” + +Guided by these principles, says Huvelius, the wise prince will +entrench himself in the country that he desires to conquer; “nay, with +but little trouble, he may actually and literally throw his garrisons +into the heart of the enemy country before war has begun.” + + +This is a long and tiresome parenthesis; but it is necessary as +explaining the long tale which Merritt told his brother-in-law, he +having received it from some magnate of the Midlands, who had traveled +in Germany. It is probable that the story was suggested in the first +place by the passage from Huvelius which I have just quoted. + +Merritt knew nothing of the real Huvelius, who was all but a saint; he +thought of the Swedish professor as a monster of iniquity, “worse,” as +he said, “than Neech”—meaning, no doubt, Nietzsche. + +So he told the story of how Huvelius had sold his plan to the Germans; +a plan for filling England with German soldiers. Land was to be bought +in certain suitable and well-considered places, Englishmen were to be +bought as the apparent owners of such land, and secret excavations were +to be made, till the country was literally undermined. A subterranean +Germany, in fact, was to be dug under selected districts of England; +there were to be great caverns, underground cities, well drained, well +ventilated, supplied with water, and in these places vast stores both +of food and of munitions were to be accumulated, year after year, till +“the Day” dawned. And then, warned in time, the secret garrison would +leave shops, hotels, offices, villas, and vanish underground, ready to +begin their work of bleeding England at the heart. + +“That’s what Henson told me,” said Merritt at the end of his long +story. “Henson, head of the Buckley Iron and Steel Syndicate. He has +been a lot in Germany.” + +“Well,” said Lewis, “of course, it may be so. If it is so, it is +terrible beyond words.” + +Indeed, he found something horribly plausible in the story. It was an +extraordinary plan, of course; an unheard of scheme; but it did not +seem impossible. It was the Trojan Horse on a gigantic scale; indeed, +he reflected, the story of the horse with the warriors concealed within +it which was dragged into the heart of Troy by the deluded Trojans +themselves might be taken as a prophetic parable of what had happened +to England—if Henson’s theory were well founded. And this theory +certainly squared with what one had heard of German preparations in +Belgium and in France: emplacements for guns ready for the invader, +German manufactories which were really German forts on Belgian soil, +the caverns by the Aisne made ready for the cannon; indeed, Lewis +thought he remembered something about suspicious concrete tennis-courts +on the heights commanding London. But a German army hidden under +English ground! It was a thought to chill the stoutest heart. + +And it seemed from that wonder of the burning tree, that the enemy +mysteriously and terribly present at Midlingham, was present also in +Meirion. Lewis, thinking of the country as he knew it, of its wild and +desolate hillsides, its deep woods, its wastes and solitary places, +could not but confess that no more fit region could be found for the +deadly enterprise of secret men. Yet, he thought again, there was but +little harm to be done in Meirion to the armies of England or to their +munitionment. They were working for panic terror? Possibly that might +be so; but the camp under the Highway? That should be their first +object, and no harm had been done there. + +Lewis did not know that since the panic of the horses men had died +terribly in that camp; that it was now a fortified place, with a deep, +broad trench, a thick tangle of savage barbed wire about it, and a +machine-gun planted at each corner. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +What Mr. Merritt Found + + +Mr. Merritt began to pick up his health and spirits a good deal. For +the first morning or two of his stay at the doctor’s he contented +himself with a very comfortable deck chair close to the house, where he +sat under the shade of an old mulberry tree beside his wife and watched +the bright sunshine on the green lawns, on the creamy crests of the +waves, on the headlands of that glorious coast, purple even from afar +with the imperial glow of the heather, on the white farmhouses gleaming +in the sunlight, high over the sea, far from any turmoil, from any +troubling of men. + +The sun was hot, but the wind breathed all the while gently, +incessantly, from the east, and Merritt, who had come to this quiet +place, not only from dismay, but from the stifling and oily airs of the +smoky Midland town, said that that east wind, pure and clear and like +well water from the rock, was new life to him. He ate a capital dinner, +at the end of his first day at Porth and took rosy views. As to what +they had been talking about the night before, he said to Lewis, no +doubt there must be trouble of some sort, and perhaps bad trouble; +still, Kitchener would soon put it all right. + +So things went on very well. Merritt began to stroll about the garden, +which was full of the comfortable spaces, groves, and surprises that +only country gardens know. To the right of one of the terraces he found +an arbor or summer-house covered with white roses, and he was as +pleased as if he had discovered the Pole. He spent a whole day there, +smoking and lounging and reading a rubbishy sensational story, and +declared that the Devonshire roses had taken many years off his age. +Then on the other side of the garden there was a filbert grove that he +had never explored on any of his former visits; and again there was a +find. Deep in the shadow of the filberts was a bubbling well, issuing +from rocks, and all manner of green, dewy ferns growing about it and +above it, and an angelica springing beside it. Merritt knelt on his +knees, and hollowed his hand and drank the well water. He said (over +his port) that night that if all water were like the water of the +filbert well the world would turn to teetotalism. It takes a townsman +to relish the manifold and exquisite joys of the country. + +It was not till he began to venture abroad that Merritt found that +something was lacking of the old rich peace that used to dwell in +Meirion. He had a favorite walk which he never neglected, year after +year. This walk led along the cliffs towards Meiros, and then one could +turn inland and return to Porth by deep winding lanes that went over +the Allt. So Merritt set out early one morning and got as far as a +sentry-box at the foot of the path that led up to the cliff. There was +a sentry pacing up and down in front of the box, and he called on +Merritt to produce his pass, or to turn back to the main road. Merritt +was a good deal put out, and asked the doctor about this strict guard. +And the doctor was surprised. + +“I didn’t know they had put their bar up there,” he said. “I suppose +it’s wise. We are certainly in the far West here; still, the Germans +might slip round and raid us and do a lot of damage just because +Meirion is the last place we should expect them to go for.” + +“But there are no fortifications, surely, on the cliff?” + +“Oh, no; I never heard of anything of the kind there.” + +“Well, what’s the point of forbidding the public to go on the cliff, +then? I can quite understand putting a sentry on the top to keep a +look-out for the enemy. What I don’t understand is a sentry at the +bottom who can’t keep a look-out for anything, as he can’t see the sea. +And why warn the public off the cliffs? I couldn’t facilitate a German +landing by standing on Pengareg, even if I wanted to.” + +“It is curious,” the doctor agreed. “Some military reasons, I suppose.” + +He let the matter drop, perhaps because the matter did not affect him. +People who live in the country all the year round, country doctors +certainly, are little given to desultory walking in search of the +picturesque. + +Lewis had no suspicion that sentries whose object was equally obscure +were being dotted all over the country. There was a sentry, for +example, by the quarry at Llanfihangel, where the dead woman and the +dead sheep had been found some weeks before. The path by the quarry was +used a good deal, and its closing would have inconvenienced the people +of the neighborhood very considerably. But the sentry had his box by +the side of the track and had his orders to keep everybody strictly to +the path, as if the quarry were a secret fort. + +It was not known till a month or two ago that one of these sentries was +himself a victim of the terror. The men on duty at this place were +given certain very strict orders, which from the nature of the case, +must have seemed to them unreasonable. For old soldiers, orders are +orders; but here was a young bank clerk, scarcely in training for a +couple of months, who had not begun to appreciate the necessity of +hard, literal obedience to an order which seemed to him meaningless. He +found himself on a remote and lonely hillside, he had not the faintest +notion that his every movement was watched; and he disobeyed a certain +instruction that had been given him. The post was found deserted by the +relief; the sentry’s dead body was found at the bottom of the quarry. + +This by the way; but Mr. Merritt discovered again and again that things +happened to hamper his walks and his wanderings. Two or three miles +from Porth there is a great marsh made by the Afon river before it +falls into the sea, and here Merritt had been accustomed to botanize +mildly. He had learned pretty accurately the causeways of solid ground +that lead through the sea of swamp and ooze and soft yielding soil, and +he set out one hot afternoon determined to make a thorough exploration +of the marsh, and this time to find that rare Bog Bean, that he felt +sure, must grow somewhere in its wide extent. + +He got into the by-road that skirts the marsh, and to the gate which he +had always used for entrance. + +There was the scene as he had known it always, the rich growth of reeds +and flags and rushes, the mild black cattle grazing on the “islands” of +firm turf, the scented procession of the meadowsweet, the royal glory +of the loosestrife, flaming pennons, crimson and golden, of the giant +dock. + +But they were bringing out a dead man’s body through the gate. + +A laboring man was holding open the gate on the marsh. Merritt, +horrified, spoke to him and asked who it was, and how it had happened. + +“They do say he was a visitor at Porth. Somehow he has been drowned in +the marsh, whatever.” + +“But it’s perfectly safe. I’ve been all over it a dozen times.” + +“Well, indeed, we did always think so. If you did slip by accident, +like, and fall into the water, it was not so deep; it was easy enough +to climb out again. And this gentleman was quite young, to look at him, +poor man; and he has come to Meirion for his pleasure and holiday and +found his death in it!” + +“Did he do it on purpose? Is it suicide?” + +“They say he had no reasons to do that.” + +Here the sergeant of police in charge of the party interposed, +according to orders, which he himself did not understand. + +“A terrible thing, sir, to be sure, and a sad pity; and I am sure this +is not the sort of sight you have come to see down in Meirion this +beautiful summer. So don’t you think, sir, that it would be more +pleasant like, if you would leave us to this sad business of ours? I +have heard many gentlemen staying in Porth say that there is nothing to +beat the view from the hill over there, not in the whole of Wales.” + +Every one is polite in Meirion, but somehow Merritt understood that, in +English, this speech meant “move on.” + + +Merritt moved back to Porth—he was not in the humor for any idle, +pleasurable strolling after so dreadful a meeting with death. He made +some inquiries in the town about the dead man, but nothing seemed known +of him. It was said that he had been on his honeymoon, that he had been +staying at the Porth Castle Hotel; but the people of the hotel declared +that they had never heard of such a person. Merritt got the local paper +at the end of the week; there was not a word in it of any fatal +accident in the marsh. He met the sergeant of police in the street. +That officer touched his helmet with the utmost politeness and a “hope +you are enjoying yourself, sir; indeed you do look a lot better +already”; but as to the poor man who was found drowned or stifled in +the marsh, he knew nothing. + +The next day Merritt made up his mind to go to the marsh to see whether +he could find anything to account for so strange a death. What he found +was a man with an armlet standing by the gate. The armlet had the +letters “C.W.” on it, which are understood to mean Coast Watcher. The +Watcher said he had strict instructions to keep everybody away from the +marsh. Why? He didn’t know, but some said that the river was changing +its course since the new railway embankment was built, and the marsh +had become dangerous to people who didn’t know it thoroughly. + +“Indeed, sir,” he added, “it is part of my orders not to set foot on +the other side of that gate myself, not for one scrag-end of a minute.” + +Merritt glanced over the gate incredulously. The marsh looked as it had +always looked; there was plenty of sound, hard ground to walk on; he +could see the track that he used to follow as firm as ever. He did not +believe in the story of the changing course of the river, and Lewis +said he had never heard of anything of the kind. But Merritt had put +the question in the middle of general conversation; he had not led up +to it from any discussion of the death in the marsh, and so the doctor +was taken unawares. If he had known of the connection in Merritt’s mind +between the alleged changing of the Afon’s course and the tragical +event in the marsh, no doubt he would have confirmed the official +explanation. He was, above all things, anxious to prevent his sister +and her husband from finding out that the invisible hand of terror that +ruled at Midlingham was ruling also in Meirion. + +Lewis himself had little doubt that the man who was found dead in the +marsh had been struck down by the secret agency, whatever it was, that +had already accomplished so much of evil; but it was a chief part of +the terror that no one knew for certain that this or that particular +event was to be ascribed to it. People do occasionally fall over cliffs +through their own carelessness, and as the case of Garcia, the Spanish +sailor, showed, cottagers and their wives and children are now and then +the victims of savage and purposeless violence. Lewis had never +wandered about the marsh himself; but Remnant had pottered round it and +about it, and declared that the man who met his death there—his name +was never known, in Porth at all events—must either have committed +suicide by deliberately lying prone in the ooze and stifling himself, +or else must have been held down in it. There were no details +available, so it was clear that the authorities had classified this +death with the others; still, the man might have committed suicide, or +he might have had a sudden seizure and fallen in the slimy water +face-downwards. And so on: it was possible to believe that case A _or_ +B _or_ C was in the category of ordinary accidents or ordinary crimes. +But it was not possible to believe that A _and_ B _and_ C were all in +that category. And thus it was to the end, and thus it is now. We know +that the terror reigned, and how it reigned, but there were many +dreadful events ascribed to its rule about which there must always be +room for doubt. + +For example, there was the case of the _Mary Ann_, the rowing-boat +which came to grief in so strange a manner, almost under Merritt’s +eyes. In my opinion he was quite wrong in associating the sorry fate of +the boat and her occupants with a system of signaling by flashlights +which he detected or thought that he detected, on the afternoon in +which the _Mary Ann_ was capsized. I believe his signaling theory to be +all nonsense, in spite of the naturalized German governess who was +lodging with her employers in the suspected house. But, on the other +hand, there is no doubt in my own mind that the boat was overturned and +those in it drowned by the work of the terror. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +The Light on the Water + + +Let it be noted carefully that so far Merritt had not the slightest +suspicion that the terror of Midlingham was quick over Meirion. Lewis +had watched and shepherded him carefully. He had let out no suspicion +of what had happened in Meirion, and before taking his brother-in-law +to the club he had passed round a hint among the members. He did not +tell the truth about Midlingham—and here again is a point of interest, +that as the terror deepened the general public cooperated voluntarily, +and, one would say, almost subconsciously, with the authorities in +concealing what they knew from one another—but he gave out a desirable +portion of the truth: that his brother-in-law was “nervy,” not by any +means up to the mark, and that it was therefore desirable that he +should be spared the knowledge of the intolerable and tragic mysteries +which were being enacted all about them. + +“He knows about that poor fellow who was found in the marsh,” said +Lewis, “and he has a kind of vague suspicion that there is something +out of the common about the case; but no more than that.” + +“A clear case of suggested, or rather commanded suicide,” said Remnant. +“I regard it as a strong confirmation of my theory.” + +“Perhaps so,” said the doctor, dreading lest he might have to hear +about the Z Ray all over again. “But please don’t let anything out to +him; I want him to get built up thoroughly before he goes back to +Midlingham.” + +Then, on the other hand, Merritt was as still as death about the doings +of the Midlands; he hated to think of them, much more to speak of them; +and thus, as I say, he and the men at the Porth Club kept their secrets +from one another; and thus, from the beginning to the end of the +terror, the links were not drawn together. In many cases, no doubt, A +and B met every day and talked familiarly, it may be confidentially, on +other matters of all sorts, each having in his possession half of the +truth, which he concealed from the other. So the two halves were never +put together to make a whole. + +Merritt, as the doctor guessed, had a kind of uneasy feeling—it +scarcely amounted to a suspicion—as to the business of the marsh; +chiefly because he thought the official talk about the railway +embankment and the course of the river rank nonsense. But finding that +nothing more happened, he let the matter drop from his mind, and +settled himself down to enjoy his holiday. + +He found to his delight that there were no sentries or watchers to +hinder him from the approach to Larnac Bay, a delicious cove, a place +where the ashgrove and the green meadow and the glistening bracken +sloped gently down to red rocks and firm yellow sands. Merritt +remembered a rock that formed a comfortable seat, and here he +established himself of a golden afternoon, and gazed at the blue of the +sea and the crimson bastions and bays of the coast as it bent inward to +Sarnau and swept out again southward to the odd-shaped promontory +called the Dragon’s Head. Merritt gazed on, amused by the antics of the +porpoises who were tumbling and splashing and gamboling a little way +out at sea, charmed by the pure and radiant air that was so different +from the oily smoke that often stood for heaven at Midlingham, and +charmed, too, by the white farmhouses dotted here and there on the +heights of the curving coast. + +Then he noticed a little row-boat at about two hundred yards from the +shore. There were two or three people aboard, he could not quite make +out how many, and they seemed to be doing something with a line; they +were no doubt fishing, and Merritt (who disliked fish) wondered how +people could spoil such an afternoon, such a sea, such pellucid and +radiant air by trying to catch white, flabby, offensive, evil-smelling +creatures that would be excessively nasty when cooked. He puzzled over +this problem and turned away from it to the contemplation of the +crimson headlands. And then he says that he noticed that signaling was +going on. Flashing lights of intense brilliance, he declares, were +coming from one of those farms on the heights of the coast; it was as +if white fire was spouting from it. Merritt was certain, as the light +appeared and disappeared, that some message was being sent, and he +regretted that he knew nothing of heliography. Three short flashes, a +long and very brilliant flash, then two short flashes. Merritt fumbled +in his pocket for pencil and paper so that he might record these +signals, and, bringing his eyes down to the sea level, he became aware, +with amazement and horror, that the boat had disappeared. All that he +could see was some vague, dark object far to westward, running out with +the tide. + +Now it is certain, unfortunately, that the _Mary Ann_ was capsized and +that two schoolboys and the sailor in charge were drowned. The bones of +the boat were found amongst the rocks far along the coast, and the +three bodies were also washed ashore. The sailor could not swim at all, +the boys only a little, and it needs an exceptionally fine swimmer to +fight against the outward suck of the tide as it rushes past Pengareg +Point. + +But I have no belief whatever in Merritt’s theory. He held (and still +holds, for all I know), that the flashes of light which he saw coming +from Penyrhaul, the farmhouse on the height, had some connection with +the disaster to the _Mary Ann_. When it was ascertained that a family +were spending their summer at the farm, and that the governess was a +German, though a long naturalized German, Merritt could not see that +there was anything left to argue about, though there might be many +details to discover. But, in my opinion, all this was a mere mare’s +nest; the flashes of brilliant light were caused, no doubt, by the sun +lighting up one window of the farmhouse after the other. + +Still, Merritt was convinced from the very first, even before the +damning circumstance of the German governess was brought to light; and +on the evening of the disaster, as Lewis and he sat together after +dinner, he was endeavoring to put what he called the common sense of +the matter to the doctor. + +“If you hear a shot,” said Merritt, “and you see a man fall, you know +pretty well what killed him.” + +There was a flutter of wild wings in the room. A great moth beat to and +fro and dashed itself madly against the ceiling, the walls, the glass +bookcase. Then a sputtering sound, a momentary dimming of the lamp. The +moth had succeeded in its mysterious quest. + +“Can you tell me,” said Lewis as if he were answering Merritt, “why +moths rush into the flame?” + + +Lewis had put his question as to the strange habits of the common moth +to Merritt with the deliberate intent of closing the debate on death by +heliograph. The query was suggested, of course, by the incident of the +moth in the lamp, and Lewis thought that he had said, “Oh, shut up!” in +a somewhat elegant manner. And, in fact Merritt looked dignified, +remained silent, and helped himself to port. + +That was the end that the doctor had desired. He had no doubt in his +own mind that the affair of the _Mary Ann_ was but one more item in the +long account of horrors that grew larger almost with every day; and he +was in no humor to listen to wild and futile theories as to the manner +in which the disaster had been accomplished. Here was a proof that the +terror that was upon them was mighty not only on the land but on the +waters; for Lewis could not see that the boat could have been attacked +by any ordinary means of destruction. From Merritt’s story, it must +have been in shallow water. The shore of Larnac Bay shelves very +gradually, and the Admiralty charts showed the depth of water two +hundred yards out to be only two fathoms; this would be too shallow for +a submarine. And it could not have been shelled, and it could not have +been torpedoed; there was no explosion. The disaster might have been +due to carelessness; boys, he considered, will play the fool anywhere, +even in a boat; but he did not think so; the sailor would have stopped +them. And, it may be mentioned, that the two boys were as a matter of +fact extremely steady, sensible young fellows, not in the least likely +to play foolish tricks of any kind. + +Lewis was immersed in these reflections, having successfully silenced +his brother-in-law; he was trying in vain to find some clue to the +horrible enigma. The Midlingham theory of a concealed German force, +hiding in places under the earth, was extravagant enough, and yet it +seemed the only solution that approached plausibility; but then again +even a subterranean German host would hardly account for this wreckage +of a boat, floating on a calm sea. And then what of the tree with the +burning in it that had appeared in the garden there a few weeks ago, +and the cloud with a burning in it that had shown over the trees of the +Midland village? + +I think I have, already written something of the probable emotions of +the mathematician confronted suddenly with an undoubted two-sided +triangle. I said, if I remember, that he would be forced, in decency, +to go mad; and I believe that Lewis was very near to this point. He +felt himself confronted with an intolerable problem that most instantly +demanded solution, and yet, with the same breath, as it were, denied +the possibility of there being any solution. People were being killed +in an inscrutable manner by some inscrutable means, day after day, and +one asked “why” and “how”; and there seemed no answer. In the Midlands, +where every kind of munitionment was manufactured, the explanation of +German agency was plausible; and even if the subterranean notion was to +be rejected as savoring altogether too much of the fairytale, or rather +of the sensational romance, yet it was possible that the backbone of +the theory was true; the Germans might have planted their agents in +some way or another in the midst of our factories. But here in Meirion, +what serious effect could be produced by the casual and indiscriminate +slaughter of a couple of schoolboys in a boat, of a harmless +holiday-maker in a marsh? The creation of an atmosphere of terror and +dismay? It was possible, of course, but it hardly seemed tolerable, in +spite of the enormities of Louvain and of the _Lusitania_. + +Into these meditations, and into the still dignified silence of Merritt +broke the rap on the door of Lewis’s man, and those words which harass +the ease of the country doctor when he tries to take any ease: “You’re +wanted in the surgery, if you please, sir.” Lewis bustled out, and +appeared no more that night. + +The doctor had been summoned to a little hamlet on the outskirts of +Porth, separated from it by half a mile or three-quarters of road. One +dignifies, indeed, this settlement without a name in calling it a +hamlet; it was a mere row of four cottages, built about a hundred years +ago for the accommodation of the workers in a quarry long since +disused. In one of these cottages the doctor found a father and mother +weeping and crying out to “doctor bach, doctor bach,” and two +frightened children, and one little body, still and dead. It was the +youngest of the three, little Johnnie, and he was dead. + +The doctor found that the child had been asphyxiated. He felt the +clothes; they were dry; it was not a case of drowning. He looked at the +neck; there was no mark of strangling. He asked the father how it had +happened, and father and mother, weeping most lamentably, declared they +had no knowledge of how their child had been killed: “unless it was the +People that had done it.” The Celtic fairies are still malignant. Lewis +asked what had happened that evening; where had the child been? + +“Was he with his brother and sister? Don’t they know anything about +it?” + +Reduced into some sort of order from its original piteous confusion, +this is the story that the doctor gathered. + +All three children had been well and happy through the day. They had +walked in with the mother, Mrs. Roberts, to Porth on a marketing +expedition in the afternoon; they had returned to the cottage, had had +their tea, and afterwards played about on the road in front of the +house. John Roberts had come home somewhat late from his work, and it +was after dusk when the family sat down to supper. Supper over, the +three children went out again to play with other children from the +cottage next door, Mrs. Roberts telling them that they might have half +an hour before going to bed. + +The two mothers came to the cottage gates at the same moment and called +out to their children to come along and be quick about it. The two +small families had been playing on the strip of turf across the road, +just by the stile into the fields. The children ran across the road; +all of them except Johnnie Roberts. His brother Willie said that just +as their mother called them he heard Johnnie cry out: + +“Oh, what is that beautiful shiny thing over the stile?” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +The Child and the Moth + + +The little Roberts’s ran across the road, up the path, and into the +lighted room. Then they noticed that Johnnie had not followed them. +Mrs. Roberts was doing something in the back kitchen, and Mr. Roberts +had gone out to the shed to bring in some sticks for the next morning’s +fire. Mrs. Roberts heard the children run in and went on with her work. +The children whispered to one another that Johnnie would “catch it” +when their mother came out of the back room and found him missing; but +they expected he would run in through the open door any minute. But six +or seven, perhaps ten, minutes passed, and there was no Johnnie. Then +the father and mother came into the kitchen together, and saw that +their little boy was not there. + +They thought it was some small piece of mischief—that the two other +children had hidden the boy somewhere in the room: in the big cupboard +perhaps. + +“What have you done with him then?” said Mrs. Roberts. “Come out, you +little rascal, directly in a minute.” + +There was no little rascal to come out, and Margaret Roberts, the girl, +said that Johnnie had not come across the road with them: he must be +still playing all by himself by the hedge. + +“What did you let him stay like that for?” said Mrs. Roberts. “Can’t I +trust you for two minutes together? Indeed to goodness, you are all of +you more trouble than you are worth.” She went to the open door: + +“Johnnie! Come you in directly, or you will be sorry for it. Johnnie!” + +The poor woman called at the door. She went out to the gate and called +there: + +“Come you, little Johnnie. Come you, bachgen, there’s a good boy. I do +see you hiding there.” + +She thought he must be hiding in the shadow of the hedge, and that he +would come running and laughing—“he was always such a happy little +fellow”—to her across the road. But no little merry figure danced out +of the gloom of the still, dark night; it was all silence. + +It was then, as the mother’s heart began to chill, though she still +called cheerfully to the missing child, that the elder boy told how +Johnnie had said there was something beautiful by the stile: “and +perhaps he did climb over, and he is running now about the meadow, and +has lost his way.” + +The father got his lantern then, and the whole family went crying and +calling about the meadow, promising cakes and sweets and a fine toy to +poor Johnnie if he would come to them. + +They found the little body, under the ashgrove in the middle of the +field. He was quite still and dead, so still that a great moth had +settled on his forehead, fluttering away when they lifted him up. + +Dr. Lewis heard this story. There was nothing to be done; little to be +said to these most unhappy people. + +“Take care of the two that you have left to you,” said the doctor as he +went away. “Don’t let them out of your sight if you can help it. It is +dreadful times that we are living in.” + +It is curious to record, that all through these dreadful times the +simple little “season” went through its accustomed course at Porth. The +war and its consequences had somewhat thinned the numbers of the summer +visitors; still a very fair contingent of them occupied the hotels and +boarding-houses and lodging-houses and bathed from the old-fashioned +machines on one beach, or from the new-fashioned tents on the other, +and sauntered in the sun, or lay stretched out in the shade under the +trees that grow down almost to the water’s edge. Porth never tolerated +Ethiopians or shows of any kind on its sands, but “The Rockets” did +very well during that summer in their garden entertainment, given in +the castle grounds, and the fit-up companies that came to the Assembly +Rooms are said to have paid their bills to a woman and to a man. + +Porth depends very largely on its midland and northern custom, custom +of a prosperous, well-established sort. People who think Llandudno +overcrowded and Colwyn Bay too raw and red and new, come year after +year to the placid old town in the southwest and delight in its peace; +and as I say, they enjoyed themselves much as usual there in the summer +of 1915. Now and then they became conscious, as Mr. Merritt became +conscious, that they could not wander about quite in the old way; but +they accepted sentries and coast-watchers and people who politely +pointed out the advantages of seeing the view from this point rather +than from that as very necessary consequences of the dreadful war that +was being waged; nay, as a Manchester man said, after having been +turned back from his favorite walk to Castell Coch, it was gratifying +to think that they were so well looked after. + +“So far as I can see,” he added, “there’s nothing to prevent a +submarine from standing out there by Ynys Sant and landing half a dozen +men in a collapsible boat in any of these little coves. And pretty +fools we should look, shouldn’t we, with our throats cut on the sands; +or carried back to Germany in the submarine?” He tipped the +coast-watcher half-a-crown. + +“That’s right, lad,” he said, “you give us the tip.” + +Now here was a strange thing. The north-countryman had his thoughts on +elusive submarines and German raiders; the watcher had simply received +instructions to keep people off the Castell Coch fields, without reason +assigned. And there can be no doubt that the authorities themselves, +while they marked out the fields as in the “terror zone,” gave their +orders in the dark and were themselves profoundly in the dark as to the +manner of the slaughter that had been done there; for if they had +understood what had happened, they would have understood also that +their restrictions were useless. + +The Manchester man was warned off his walk about ten days after Johnnie +Roberts’s death. The Watcher had been placed at his post because, the +night before, a young farmer had been found by his wife lying in the +grass close to the Castle, with no scar on him, nor any mark of +violence, but stone dead. + +The wife of the dead man, Joseph Cradock, finding her husband lying +motionless on the dewy turf, went white and stricken up the path to the +village and got two men who bore the body to the farm. Lewis was sent +for, and knew, at once when he saw the dead man that he had perished in +the way that the little Roberts boy had perished—whatever that awful +way might be. Cradock had been asphyxiated; and here again there was no +mark of a grip on the throat. It might have been a piece of work by +Burke and Hare, the doctor reflected; a pitch plaster might have been +clapped over the man’s mouth and nostrils and held there. + +Then a thought struck him; his brother-in-law had talked of a new kind +of poison gas that was said to be used against the munition workers in +the Midlands: was it possible that the deaths of the man and the boy +were due to some such instrument? He applied his tests but could find +no trace of any gas having been employed. Carbonic acid gas? A man +could not be killed with that in the open air; to be fatal that +required a confined space, such a position as the bottom of a huge vat +or of a well. + +He did not know how Cradock had been killed; he confessed it to +himself. He had been suffocated; that was all he could say. + +It seemed that the man had gone out at about half-past nine to look +after some beasts. The field in which they were was about five minutes’ +walk from the house. He told his wife he would be back in a quarter of +an hour or twenty minutes. He did not return, and when he had been gone +for three-quarters of an hour Mrs. Cradock went out to look for him. +She went into the field where the beasts were, and everything seemed +all right, but there was no trace of Cradock. She called out; there was +no answer. + +Now the meadow in which the cattle were pastured is high ground; a +hedge divides it from the fields which fall gently down to the castle +and the sea. Mrs. Cradock hardly seemed able to say why, having failed +to find her husband among his beasts, she turned to the path which led +to Castell Coch. She said at first that she had thought that one of the +oxen might have broken through the hedge and strayed, and that Cradock +had perhaps gone after it. And then, correcting herself, she said: + +“There was that; and then there was something else that I could not +make out at all. It seemed to me that the hedge did look different from +usual. To be sure, things do look different at night, and there was a +bit of sea mist about, but somehow it did look odd to me, and I said to +myself, ‘have I lost my way, then?’” + +She declared that the shape of the trees in the hedge appeared to have +changed, and besides, it had a look “as if it was lighted up, somehow,” +and so she went on towards the stile to see what all this could be, and +when she came near everything was as usual. She looked over the stile +and called and hoped to see her husband coming towards her or to hear +his voice; but there was no answer, and glancing down the path she saw, +or thought she saw, some sort of brightness on the ground, “a dim sort +of light like a bunch of glow-worms in a hedge-bank. + +“And so I climbed over the stile and went down the path, and the light +seemed to melt away; and there was my poor husband lying on his back, +saying not a word to me when I spoke to him and touched him.” + + +So for Lewis the terror blackened and became altogether intolerable, +and others, he perceived, felt as he did. He did not know, he never +asked whether the men at the club had heard of these deaths of the +child and the young farmer; but no one spoke of them. Indeed, the +change was evident; at the beginning of the terror men spoke of nothing +else; now it had become all too awful for ingenious chatter or labored +and grotesque theories. And Lewis had received a letter from his +brother-in-law at Midlingham; it contained the sentence, “I am afraid +Fanny’s health has not greatly benefited by her visit to Porth; there +are still several symptoms I don’t at all like.” And this told him, in +a phraseology that the doctor and Merritt had agreed upon, that the +terror remained heavy in the Midland town. + + +It was soon after the death of Cradock that people began to tell +strange tales of a sound that was to be heard of nights about the hills +and valleys to the northward of Porth. A man who had missed the last +train from Meiros and had been forced to tramp the ten miles between +Meiros and Porth seems to have been the first to hear it. He said he +had got to the top of the hill by Tredonoc, somewhere between half-past +ten and eleven, when he first noticed an odd noise that he could not +make out at all; it was like a shout, a long, drawn-out, dismal wail +coming from a great way off, faint with distance. He stopped to listen, +thinking at first that it might be owls hooting in the woods; but it +was different, he said, from that: it was a long cry, and then there +was silence and then it began over again. He could make nothing of it, +and feeling frightened, he did not quite know of what, he walked on +briskly and was glad to see the lights of Porth station. + +He told his wife of this dismal sound that night, and she told the +neighbors, and most of them thought that it was “all fancy”—or drink, +or the owls after all. But the night after, two or three people, who +had been to some small merrymaking in a cottage just off the Meiros +road, heard the sound as they were going home, soon after ten. They, +too, described it as a long, wailing cry, indescribably dismal in the +stillness of the autumn night; “like the ghost of a voice,” said one; +“as if it came up from the bottom of the earth,” said another. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +At Treff Loyne Farm + + +Let it be remembered, again and again, that, all the while that the +terror lasted, there was no common stock of information as to the +dreadful things that were being done. The press had not said one word +upon it, there was no criterion by which the mass of the people could +separate fact from mere vague rumor, no test by which ordinary +misadventure or disaster could be distinguished from the achievements +of the secret and awful force that was at work. + +And so with every event of the passing day. A harmless commercial +traveler might show himself in the course of his business in the +tumbledown main street of Meiros and find himself regarded with looks +of fear and suspicion as a possible worker of murder, while it is +likely enough that the true agents of the terror went quite unnoticed. +And since the real nature of all this mystery of death was unknown, it +followed easily that the signs and warnings and omens of it were all +the more unknown. Here was horror, there was horror; but there was no +links to join one horror with another; no common basis of knowledge +from which the connection between this horror and that horror might be +inferred. + +So there was no one who suspected at all that this dismal and hollow +sound that was now heard of nights in the region to the north of Porth, +had any relation at all to the case of the little girl who went out one +afternoon to pick purple flowers and never returned, or to the case of +the man whose body was taken out of the peaty slime of the marsh, or to +the case of Cradock, dead in his fields, with a strange glimmering of +light about his body, as his wife reported. And it is a question as to +how far the rumor of this melancholy, nocturnal summons got abroad at +all. Lewis heard of it, as a country doctor hears of most things, +driving up and down the lanes, but he heard of it without much +interest, with no sense that it was in any sort of relation to the +terror. Remnant had been given the story of the hollow and echoing +voice of the darkness in a colored and picturesque form; he employed a +Tredonoc man to work in his garden once a week. The gardener had not +heard the summons himself, but he knew a man who had done so. + +“Thomas Jenkins, Pentoppin, he did put his head out late last night to +see what the weather was like, as he was cutting a field of corn the +next day, and he did tell me that when he was with the Methodists in +Cardigan he did never hear no singing eloquence in the chapels that was +like to it. He did declare it was like a wailing of Judgment Day.” + +Remnant considered the matter, and was inclined to think that the sound +must be caused by a subterranean inlet of the sea; there might be, he +supposed, an imperfect or half-opened or tortuous blow-hole in the +Tredonoc woods, and the noise of the tide, surging up below, might very +well produce that effect of a hollow wailing, far away. But neither he +nor any one else paid much attention to the matter; save the few who +heard the call at dead of night, as it echoed awfully over the black +hills. + +The sound had been heard for three or perhaps four nights, when the +people coming out of Tredonoc church after morning service on Sunday +noticed that there was a big yellow sheepdog in the churchyard. The +dog, it appeared, had been waiting for the congregation; for it at once +attached itself to them, at first to the whole body, and then to a +group of half a dozen who took the turning to the right. Two of these +presently went off over the fields to their respective houses, and four +strolled on in the leisurely Sunday-morning manner of the country, and +these the dog followed, keeping to heel all the time. The men were +talking hay, corn and markets and paid no attention to the animal, and +so they strolled along the autumn lane till they came to a gate in the +hedge, whence a roughly made farm road went through the fields, and +dipped down into the woods and to Treff Loyne farm. + +Then the dog became like a possessed creature. He barked furiously. He +ran up to one of the men and looked up at him, “as if he were begging +for his life,” as the man said, and then rushed to the gate and stood +by it, wagging his tail and barking at intervals. The men stared and +laughed. + +“Whose dog will that be?” said one of them. + +“It will be Thomas Griffith’s, Treff Loyne,” said another. + +“Well, then, why doesn’t he go home? Go home then!” He went through the +gesture of picking up a stone from the road and throwing it at the dog. +“Go home, then! Over the gate with you.” + +But the dog never stirred. He barked and whined and ran up to the men +and then back to the gate. At last he came to one of them, and crawled +and abased himself on the ground and then took hold of the man’s coat +and tried to pull him in the direction of the gate. The farmer shook +the dog off, and the four went on their way; and the dog stood in the +road and watched them and then put up its head and uttered a long and +dismal howl that was despair. + +The four farmers thought nothing of it; sheepdogs in the country are +dogs to look after sheep, and their whims and fancies are not studied. +But the yellow dog—he was a kind of degenerate collie—haunted the +Tredonoc lanes from that day. He came to a cottage door one night and +scratched at it, and when it was opened lay down, and then, barking, +ran to the garden gate and waited, entreating, as it seemed, the +cottager to follow him. They drove him away and again he gave that long +howl of anguish. It was almost as bad, they said, as the noise that +they had heard a few nights before. And then it occurred to somebody, +so far as I can make out with no particular reference to the odd +conduct of the Treff Loyne sheepdog, that Thomas Griffith had not been +seen for some time past. He had missed market day at Porth, he had not +been at Tredonoc church, where he was a pretty regular attendant on +Sunday; and then, as heads were put together, it appeared that nobody +had seen any of the Griffith family for days and days. + +Now in a town, even in a small town, this process of putting heads +together is a pretty quick business. In the country, especially in a +countryside of wild lands and scattered and lonely farms and cottages, +the affair takes time. Harvest was going on, everybody was busy in his +own fields, and after the long day’s hard work neither the farmer nor +his men felt inclined to stroll about in search of news or gossip. A +harvester at the day’s end is ready for supper and sleep and for +nothing else. + +And so it was late in that week when it was discovered that Thomas +Griffith and all his house had vanished from this world. + +I have often been reproached for my curiosity over questions which are +apparently of slight importance, or of no importance at all. I love to +inquire, for instance, into the question of the visibility of a lighted +candle at a distance. Suppose, that is, a candle lighted on a still, +dark night in the country; what is the greatest distance at which you +can see that there is a light at all? And then as to the human voice; +what is its carrying distance, under good conditions, as a mere sound, +apart from any matter of making out words that may be uttered? + +They are trivial questions, no doubt, but they have always interested +me, and the latter point has its application to the strange business of +Treff Loyne. That melancholy and hollow sound, that wailing summons +that appalled the hearts of those who heard it was, indeed, a human +voice, produced in a very exceptional manner; and it seems to have been +heard at points varying from a mile and a half to two miles from the +farm. I do not know whether this is anything extraordinary; I do not +know whether the peculiar method of production was calculated to +increase or to diminish the carrying power of the sound. + +Again and again I have laid emphasis in this story of the terror on the +strange isolation of many of the farms and cottages in Meirion. I have +done so in the effort to convince the townsman of something that he has +never known. To the Londoner a house a quarter of a mile from the +outlying suburban lamp, with no other dwelling within two hundred +yards, is a lonely house, a place to fit with ghosts and mysteries and +terrors. How can he understand then, the true loneliness of the white +farmhouses of Meirion, dotted here and there, for the most part not +even on the little lanes and deep winding byways, but set in the very +heart of the fields, or alone on huge bastioned headlands facing the +sea, and whether on the high verge of the sea or on the hills or in the +hollows of the inner country, hidden from the sight of men, far from +the sound of any common call. There is Penyrhaul, for example, the farm +from which the foolish Merritt thought he saw signals of light being +made: from seaward it is of course, widely visible; but from landward, +owing partly to the curving and indented configuration of the bay, I +doubt whether any other habitation views it from a nearer distance than +three miles. + +And of all these hidden and remote places, I doubt if any is so deeply +buried as Treff Loyne. I have little or no Welsh, I am sorry to say, +but I suppose that the name is corrupted from Trellwyn, or +Tref-y-llwyn, “the place in the grove,” and, indeed, it lies in the +very heart of dark, overhanging woods. A deep, narrow valley runs down +from the high lands of the Allt, through these woods, through steep +hillsides of bracken and gorse, right down to the great marsh, whence +Merritt saw the dead man being carried. The valley lies away from any +road, even from that by-road, little better than a bridlepath, where +the four farmers, returning from church were perplexed by the strange +antics of the sheepdog. One cannot say that the valley is overlooked, +even from a distance, for so narrow is it that the ashgroves that rim +it on either side seem to meet and shut it in. I, at all events, have +never found any high place from which Treff Loyne is visible; though, +looking down from the Allt, I have seen blue wood-smoke rising from its +hidden chimneys. + +Such was the place, then, to which one September afternoon a party went +up to discover what had happened to Griffith and his family. There were +half a dozen farmers, a couple of policemen, and four soldiers, +carrying their arms; those last had been lent by the officer commanding +at the camp. Lewis, too, was of the party; he had heard by chance that +no one knew what had become of Griffith and his family; and he was +anxious about a young fellow, a painter, of his acquaintance, who had +been lodging at Treff Loyne all the summer. + +They all met by the gate of Tredonoc churchyard, and tramped solemnly +along the narrow lane; all of them, I think, with some vague discomfort +of mind, with a certain shadowy fear, as of men who do not quite know +what they may encounter. Lewis heard the corporal and the three +soldiers arguing over their orders. + +“The Captain says to me,” muttered the corporal, “‘Don’t hesitate to +shoot if there’s any trouble.’ ‘Shoot what, sir,’ I says. ‘The +trouble,’ says he, and that’s all I could get out of him.” + +The men grumbled in reply; Lewis thought he heard some obscure +reference to rat-poison, and wondered what they were talking about. + +They came to the gate in the hedge, where the farm road led down to +Treff Loyne. They followed this track, roughly made, with grass growing +up between its loosely laid stones, down by the hedge from field to +wood, till at last they came to the sudden walls of the valley, and the +sheltering groves of the ash trees. Here the way curved down the steep +hillside, and bent southward, and followed henceforward the hidden +hollow of the valley, under the shadow of the trees. + +Here was the farm enclosure; the outlying walls of the yard and the +barns and sheds and outhouses. One of the farmers threw open the gate +and walked into the yard, and forthwith began bellowing at the top of +his voice: + +“Thomas Griffith! Thomas Griffith! Where be you, Thomas Griffith?” + +The rest followed him. The corporal snapped out an order over his +shoulder, and there was a rattling metallic noise as the men fixed +their bayonets and became in an instant dreadful dealers out of death, +in place of harmless fellows with a feeling for beer. + +“Thomas Griffith!” again bellowed the farmer. + +There was no answer to this summons. But they found poor Griffith lying +on his face at the edge of the pond in the middle of the yard. There +was a ghastly wound in his side, as if a sharp stake had been driven +into his body. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +The Letter of Wrath + + +It was a still September afternoon. No wind stirred in the hanging +woods that were dark all about the ancient house of Treff Loyne; the +only sound in the dim air was the lowing of the cattle; they had +wandered, it seemed, from the fields and had come in by the gate of the +farmyard and stood there melancholy, as if they mourned for their dead +master. And the horses; four great, heavy, patient-looking beasts they +were there too, and in the lower field the sheep were standing, as if +they waited to be fed. + +“You would think they all knew there was something wrong,” one of the +soldiers muttered to another. A pale sun showed for a moment and +glittered on their bayonets. They were standing about the body of poor, +dead Griffith, with a certain grimness growing on their faces and +hardening there. Their corporal snapped something at them again; they +were quite ready. Lewis knelt down by the dead man and looked closely +at the great gaping wound in his side. + +“He’s been dead a long time,” he said. “A week, two weeks, perhaps. He +was killed by some sharp pointed weapon. How about the family? How many +are there of them? I never attended them.” + +“There was Griffith, and his wife, and his son Thomas and Mary +Griffith, his daughter. And I do think there was a gentleman lodging +with them this summer.” + +That was from one of the farmers. They all looked at one another, this +party of rescue, who knew nothing of the danger that had smitten this +house of quiet people, nothing of the peril which had brought them to +this pass of a farmyard with a dead man in it, and his beasts standing +patiently about him, as if they waited for the farmer to rise up and +give them their food. Then the party turned to the house. It was an +old, sixteenth century building, with the singular round, “Flemish” +chimney that is characteristic of Meirion. The walls were snowy with +whitewash, the windows were deeply set and stone mullioned, and a +solid, stone-tiled porch sheltered the doorway from any winds that +might penetrate to the hollow of that hidden valley. The windows were +shut tight. There was no sign of any life or movement about the place. +The party of men looked at one another, and the churchwarden amongst +the farmers, the sergeant of police, Lewis, and the corporal drew +together. + +“What is it to goodness, doctor?” said the churchwarden. + +“I can tell you nothing at all—except that that poor man there has been +pierced to the heart,” said Lewis. + +“Do you think they are inside and they will shoot us?” said another +farmer. He had no notion of what he meant by “they,” and no one of them +knew better than he. They did not know what the danger was, or where it +might strike them, or whether it was from without or from within. They +stared at the murdered man, and gazed dismally at one another. + +“Come!” said Lewis, “we must do something. We must get into the house +and see what is wrong.” + +“Yes, but suppose they are at us while we are getting in,” said the +sergeant. “Where shall we be then, Doctor Lewis?” + +The corporal put one of his men by the gate at the top of the farmyard, +another at the gate by the bottom of the farmyard, and told them to +challenge and shoot. The doctor and the rest opened the little gate of +the front garden and went up to the porch and stood listening by the +door. It was all dead silence. Lewis took an ash stick from one of the +farmers and beat heavily three times on the old, black, oaken door +studded with antique nails. + +He struck three thundering blows, and then they all waited. There was +no answer from within. He beat again, and still silence. He shouted to +the people within, but there was no answer. They all turned and looked +at one another, that party of quest and rescue who knew not what they +sought, what enemy they were to encounter. There was an iron ring on +the door. Lewis turned it but the door stood fast; it was evidently +barred and bolted. The sergeant of police called out to open, but again +there was no answer. + +They consulted together. There was nothing for it but to blow the door +open, and some one of them called in a loud voice to anybody that might +be within to stand away from the door, or they would be killed. And at +this very moment the yellow sheepdog came bounding up the yard from the +woods and licked their hands and fawned on them and barked joyfully. + +“Indeed now,” said one of the farmers; “he did know that there was +something amiss. A pity it was, Thomas Williams, that we did not follow +him when he implored us last Sunday.” + +The corporal motioned the rest of the party back, and they stood +looking fearfully about them at the entrance to the porch. The corporal +disengaged his bayonet and shot into the keyhole, calling out once more +before he fired. He shot and shot again; so heavy and firm was the +ancient door, so stout its bolts and fastenings. At last he had to fire +at the massive hinges, and then they all pushed together and the door +lurched open and fell forward. The corporal raised his left hand and +stepped back a few paces. He hailed his two men at the top and bottom +of the farmyard. They were all right, they said. And so the party +climbed and struggled over the fallen door into the passage, and into +the kitchen of the farmhouse. + +Young Griffith was lying dead before the hearth, before a dead fire of +white wood ashes. They went on towards the “parlor,” and in the doorway +of the room was the body of the artist, Secretan, as if he had fallen +in trying to get to the kitchen. Upstairs the two women, Mrs. Griffith +and her daughter, a girl of eighteen, were lying together on the bed in +the big bedroom, clasped in each others’ arms. + +They went about the house, searched the pantries, the back kitchen and +the cellars; there was no life in it. + +“Look!” said Dr. Lewis, when they came back to the big kitchen, “look! +It is as if they had been besieged. Do you see that piece of bacon, +half gnawed through?” + +Then they found these pieces of bacon, cut from the sides on the +kitchen wall, here and there about the house. There was no bread in the +place, no milk, no water. + +“And,” said one of the farmers, “they had the best water here in all +Meirion. The well is down there in the wood; it is most famous water. +The old people did use to call it Ffynnon Teilo; it was Saint Teilo’s +Well, they did say.” + +“They must have died of thirst,” said Lewis. “They have been dead for +days and days.” + +The group of men stood in the big kitchen and stared at one another, a +dreadful perplexity in their eyes. The dead were all about them, within +the house and without it; and it was in vain to ask why they had died +thus. The old man had been killed with the piercing thrust of some +sharp weapon; the rest had perished, it seemed probable, of thirst; but +what possible enemy was this that besieged the farm and shut in its +inhabitants? There was no answer. + +The sergeant of police spoke of getting a cart and taking the bodies +into Porth, and Dr. Lewis went into the parlor that Secretan had used +as a sitting-room, intending to gather any possessions or effects of +the dead artist that he might find there. Half a dozen portfolios were +piled up in one corner, there were some books on a side table, a +fishing-rod and basket behind the door—that seemed all. No doubt there +would be clothes and such matters upstairs, and Lewis was about to +rejoin the rest of the party in the kitchen, when he looked down at +some scattered papers lying with the books on the side table. On one of +the sheets he read to his astonishment the words: “Dr. James Lewis, +Porth.” This was written in a staggering trembling scrawl, and +examining the other leaves he saw that they were covered with writing. + +The table stood in a dark corner of the room, and Lewis gathered up the +sheets of paper and took them to the window-ledge and began to read, +amazed at certain phrases that had caught his eye. But the manuscript +was in disorder; as if the dead man who had written it had not been +equal to the task of gathering the leaves into their proper sequence; +it was some time before the doctor had each page in its place. This was +the statement that he read, with ever-growing wonder, while a couple of +the farmers were harnessing one of the horses in the yard to a cart, +and the others were bringing down the dead women. + + +“I do not think that I can last much longer. We shared out the last +drops of water a long time ago. I do not know how many days ago. We +fall asleep and dream and walk about the house in our dreams, and I am +often not sure whether I am awake or still dreaming, and so the days +and nights are confused in my mind. I awoke not long ago, at least I +suppose I awoke and found I was lying in the passage. I had a confused +feeling that I had had an awful dream which seemed horribly real, and I +thought for a moment what a relief it was to know that it wasn’t true, +whatever it might have been. I made up my mind to have a good long walk +to freshen myself up, and then I looked round and found that I had been +lying on the stones of the passage; and it all came back to me. There +was no walk for me. + +“I have not seen Mrs. Griffith or her daughter for a long while. They +said they were going upstairs to have a rest. I heard them moving about +the room at first, now I can hear nothing. Young Griffith is lying in +the kitchen, before the hearth. He was talking to himself about the +harvest and the weather when I last went into the kitchen. He didn’t +seem to know I was there, as he went gabbling on in a low voice very +fast, and then he began to call the dog, Tiger. + +“There seems no hope for any of us. We are in the dream of death....” + +Here the manuscript became unintelligible for half a dozen lines. +Secretan had written the words “dream of death” three or four times +over. He had begun a fresh word and had scratched it out and then +followed strange, unmeaning characters, the script, as Lewis thought, +of a terrible language. And then the writing became clear, clearer than +it was at the beginning of the manuscript, and the sentences flowed +more easily, as if the cloud on Secretan’s mind had lifted for a while. +There was a fresh start, as it were, and the writer began again, in +ordinary letter-form: + +“DEAR LEWIS, + +“I hope you will excuse all this confusion and wandering. I intended to +begin a proper letter to you, and now I find all that stuff that you +have been reading—if this ever gets into your hands. I have not the +energy even to tear it up. If you read it you will know to what a sad +pass I had come when it was written. It looks like delirium or a bad +dream, and even now, though my mind seems to have cleared up a good +deal, I have to hold myself in tightly to be sure that the experiences +of the last days in this awful place are true, real things, not a long +nightmare from which I shall wake up presently and find myself in my +rooms at Chelsea. + +“I have said of what I am writing, ‘if it ever gets into your hands,’ +and I am not at all sure that it ever will. If what is happening here +is happening everywhere else, then I suppose, the world is coming to an +end. I cannot understand it, even now I can hardly believe it. I know +that I dream such wild dreams and walk in such mad fancies that I have +to look out and look about me to make sure that I am not still +dreaming. + +“Do you remember that talk we had about two months ago when I dined +with you? We got on, somehow or other, to space and time, and I think +we agreed that as soon as one tried to reason about space and time one +was landed in a maze of contradictions. You said something to the +effect that it was very curious but this was just like a dream. ‘A man +will sometimes wake himself from his crazy dream,’ you said, ‘by +realizing that he is thinking nonsense.’ And we both wondered whether +these contradictions that one can’t avoid if one begins to think of +time and space may not really be proofs that the whole of life is a +dream, and the moon and the stars bits of nightmare. I have often +thought over that lately. I kick at the walls as Dr. Johnson kicked at +the stone, to make sure that the things about me are there. And then +that other question gets into my mind—is the world really coming to an +end, the world as we have always known it; and what on earth will this +new world be like? I can’t imagine it; it’s a story like Noah’s Ark and +the Flood. People used to talk about the end of the world and fire, but +no one ever thought of anything like this. + +“And then there’s another thing that bothers me. Now and then I wonder +whether we are not all mad together in this house. In spite of what I +see and know, or, perhaps, I should say, because what I see and know is +so impossible, I wonder whether we are not all suffering from a +delusion. Perhaps we are our own gaolers, and we are really free to go +out and live. Perhaps what we think we see is not there at all. I +believe I have heard of whole families going mad together, and I may +have come under the influence of the house, having lived in it for the +last four months. I know there have been people who have been kept +alive by their keepers forcing food down their throats, because they +are quite sure that their throats are closed, so that they feel they +are unable to swallow a morsel. I wonder now and then whether we are +all like this in Treff Loyne; yet in my heart I feel sure that it is +not so. + +“Still, I do not want to leave a madman’s letter behind me, and so I +will not tell you the full story of what I have seen, or believe I have +seen. If I am a sane man you will be able to fill in the blanks for +yourself from your own knowledge. If I am mad, burn the letter and say +nothing about it. Or perhaps—and indeed, I am not quite sure—I may wake +up and hear Mary Griffith calling to me in her cheerful sing-song that +breakfast will be ready ‘directly, in a minute,’ and I shall enjoy it +and walk over to Porth and tell you the queerest, most horrible dream +that a man ever had, and ask what I had better take. + +“I think that it was on a Tuesday that we first noticed that there was +something queer about, only at the time we didn’t know that there was +anything really queer in what we noticed. I had been out since nine +o’clock in the morning trying to paint the marsh, and I found it a very +tough job. I came home about five or six o’clock and found the family +at Treff Loyne laughing at old Tiger, the sheepdog. He was making short +runs from the farmyard to the door of the house, barking, with quick, +short yelps. Mrs. Griffith and Miss Griffith were standing by the +porch, and the dog would go to them, look in their faces, and then run +up the farmyard to the gate, and then look back with that eager yelping +bark, as if he were waiting for the women to follow him. Then, again +and again, he ran up to them and tugged at their skirts as if he would +pull them by main force away from the house. + +“Then the men came home from the fields and he repeated this +performance. The dog was running all up and down the farmyard, in and +out of the barn and sheds yelping, barking; and always with that eager +run to the person he addressed, and running away directly, and looking +back as, if to see whether we were following him. When the house door +was shut and they all sat down to supper, he would give them no peace, +till at last they turned him out of doors. And then he sat in the porch +and scratched at the door with his claws, barking all the while. When +the daughter brought in my meal, she said: ‘We can’t think what is come +to old Tiger, and indeed, he has always been a good dog, too.’ + +“The dog barked and yelped and whined and scratched at the door all +through the evening. They let him in once, but he seemed to have become +quite frantic. He ran up to one member of the family after another; his +eyes were bloodshot and his mouth was foaming, and he tore at their +clothes till they drove him out again into the darkness. Then he broke +into a long, lamentable howl of anguish, and we heard no more of him.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +The Last Words of Mr. Secretan + + +“I slept ill that night. I awoke again and again from uneasy dreams, +and I seemed in my sleep to hear strange calls and noises and a sound +of murmurs and beatings on the door. There were deep, hollow voices, +too, that echoed in my sleep, and when I woke I could hear the autumn +wind, mournful, on the hills above us. I started up once with a +dreadful scream in my ears; but then the house was all still, and I +fell again into uneasy sleep. + +“It was soon after dawn when I finally roused myself. The people in the +house were talking to each other in high voices, arguing about +something that I did not understand. + +“‘It is those damned gipsies, I tell you,’ said old Griffith. + +“‘What would they do a thing like that for?’ asked Mrs. Griffith. ‘If +it was stealing now—’ + +“‘It is more likely that John Jenkins has done it out of spite,’ said +the son. ‘He said that he would remember you when we did catch him +poaching.’ + +“They seemed puzzled and angry, so far as I could make out, but not at +all frightened. I got up and began to dress. I don’t think I looked out +of the window. The glass on my dressing-table is high and broad, and +the window is small; one would have to poke one’s head round the glass +to see anything. + +“The voices were still arguing downstairs. I heard the old man say, +‘Well, here’s for a beginning anyhow,’ and then the door slammed. + +“A minute later the old man shouted, I think, to his son. Then there +was a great noise which I will not describe more particularly, and a +dreadful screaming and crying inside the house and a sound of rushing +feet. They all cried out at once to each other. I heard the daughter +crying, ‘it is no good, mother, he is dead, indeed they have killed +him,’ and Mrs. Griffith screaming to the girl to let her go. And then +one of them rushed out of the kitchen and shot the great bolts of oak +across the door, just as something beat against it with a thundering +crash. + +“I ran downstairs. I found them all in wild confusion, in an agony of +grief and horror and amazement. They were like people who had seen +something so awful that they had gone mad. + +“I went to the window looking out on the farmyard. I won’t tell you all +that I saw. But I saw poor old Griffith lying by the pond, with the +blood pouring out of his side. + +“I wanted to go out to him and bring him in. But they told me that he +must be stone dead, and such things also that it was quite plain that +any one who went out of the house would not live more than a moment. We +could not believe it, even as we gazed at the body of the dead man; but +it was there. I used to wonder sometimes what one would feel like if +one saw an apple drop from the tree and shoot up into the air and +disappear. I think I know now how one would feel. + +“Even then we couldn’t believe that it would last. We were not +seriously afraid for ourselves. We spoke of getting out in an hour or +two, before dinner anyhow. It couldn’t last, because it was impossible. +Indeed, at twelve o’clock young Griffith said he would go down to the +well by the back way and draw another pail of water. I went to the door +and stood by it. He had not gone a dozen yards before they were on him. +He ran for his life, and we had all we could do to bar the door in +time. And then I began to get frightened. + +“Still we could not believe in it. Somebody would come along shouting +in an hour or two and it would all melt away and vanish. There could +not be any real danger. There was plenty of bacon in the house, and +half the weekly baking of loaves and some beer in the cellar and a +pound or so of tea, and a whole pitcher of water that had been drawn +from the well the night before. We could do all right for the day and +in the morning it would have all gone away. + +“But day followed day and it was still there. I knew Treff Loyne was a +lonely place—that was why I had gone there, to have a long rest from +all the jangle and rattle and turmoil of London, that makes a man alive +and kills him too. I went to Treff Loyne because it was buried in the +narrow valley under the ash trees, far away from any track. There was +not so much as a footpath that was near it; no one ever came that way. +Young Griffith had told me that it was a mile and a half to the nearest +house, and the thought of the silent peace and retirement of the farm +used to be a delight to me. + +“And now this thought came back without delight, with terror. Griffith +thought that a shout might be heard on a still night up away on the +Allt, ‘if a man was listening for it,’ he added, doubtfully. My voice +was clearer and stronger than his, and on the second night I said I +would go up to my bedroom and call for help through the open window. I +waited till it was all dark and still, and looked out through the +window before opening it. And then I saw over the ridge of the long +barn across the yard what looked like a tree, though I knew there was +no tree there. It was a dark mass against the sky, with wide-spread +boughs, a tree of thick, dense growth. I wondered what this could be, +and I threw open the window, not only because I was going to call for +help, but because I wanted to see more clearly what the dark growth +over the barn really was. + +“I saw in the depth of the dark of it points of fire, and colors in +light, all glowing and moving, and the air trembled. I stared out into +the night, and the dark tree lifted over the roof of the barn and rose +up in the air and floated towards me. I did not move till at the last +moment when it was close to the house; and then I saw what it was and +banged the window down only just in time. I had to fight, and I saw the +tree that was like a burning cloud rise up in the night and sink again +and settle over the barn. + +“I told them downstairs of this. They sat with white faces, and Mrs. +Griffith said that ancient devils were let loose and had come out of +the trees and out of the old hills because of the wickedness that was +on the earth. She began to murmur something to herself, something that +sounded to me like broken-down Latin. + +“I went up to my room again an hour later, but the dark tree swelled +over the barn. Another day went by, and at dusk I looked out, but the +eyes of fire were watching me. I dared not open the window. + +“And then I thought of another plan. There was the great old fireplace, +with the round Flemish chimney going high above the house. If I stood +beneath it and shouted I thought perhaps the sound might be carried +better than if I called out of the window; for all I knew the round +chimney might act as a sort of megaphone. Night after night, then, I +stood in the hearth and called for help from nine o’clock to eleven. I +thought of the lonely place, deep in the valley of the ashtrees, of the +lonely hills and lands about it. I thought of the little cottages far +away and hoped that my voice might reach to those within them. I +thought of the winding lane high on the Allt, and of the few men that +came there of nights; but I hoped that my cry might come to one of +them. + +“But we had drunk up the beer, and we would only let ourselves have +water by little drops, and on the fourth night my throat was dry, and I +began to feel strange and weak; I knew that all the voice I had in my +lungs would hardly reach the length of the field by the farm. + +“It was then we began to dream of wells and fountains, and water coming +very cold, in little drops, out of rocky places in the middle of a cool +wood. We had given up all meals; now and then one would cut a lump from +the sides of bacon on the kitchen wall and chew a bit of it, but the +saltness was like fire. + +“There was a great shower of rain one night. The girl said we might +open a window and hold out bowls and basins and catch the rain. I spoke +of the cloud with burning eyes. She said ‘we will go to the window in +the dairy at the back, and one of us can get some water at all events.’ +She stood up with her basin on the stone slab in the dairy and looked +out and heard the plashing of the rain, falling very fast. And she +unfastened the catch of the window and had just opened it gently with +one hand, for about an inch, and had her basin in the other hand. ‘And +then,’ said she, ‘there was something that began to tremble and shudder +and shake as it did when we went to the Choral Festival at St. Teilo’s, +and the organ played, and there was the cloud and the burning close +before me.’ + +“And then we began to dream, as I say. I woke up in my sitting-room one +hot afternoon when the sun was shining, and I had been looking and +searching in my dream all through the house, and I had gone down to the +old cellar that wasn’t used, the cellar with the pillars and the +vaulted room, with an iron pike in my hand. Something said to me that +there was water there, and in my dream I went to a heavy stone by the +middle pillar and raised it up, and there beneath was a bubbling well +of cold, clear water, and I had just hollowed my hand to drink it when +I woke. I went into the kitchen and told young Griffith. I said I was +sure there was water there. He shook his head, but he took up the great +kitchen poker and we went down to the old cellar. I showed him the +stone by the pillar, and he raised it up. But there was no well. + +“Do you know, I reminded myself of many people whom I have met in life? +I would not be convinced. I was sure that, after all, there was a well +there. They had a butcher’s cleaver in the kitchen and I took it down +to the old cellar and hacked at the ground with it. The others didn’t +interfere with me. We were getting past that. We hardly ever spoke to +one another. Each one would be wandering about the house, upstairs and +downstairs, each one of us, I suppose, bent on his own foolish plan and +mad design, but we hardly ever spoke. Years ago, I was an actor for a +bit, and I remember how it was on first nights; the actors treading +softly up and down the wings, by their entrance, their lips moving and +muttering over the words of their parts, but without a word for one +another. So it was with us. I came upon young Griffith one evening +evidently trying to make a subterranean passage under one of the walls +of the house. I knew he was mad, as he knew I was mad when he saw me +digging for a well in the cellar; but neither said anything to the +other. + +“Now we are past all this. We are too weak. We dream when we are awake +and when we dream we think we wake. Night and day come and go and we +mistake one for another; I hear Griffith murmuring to himself about the +stars when the sun is high at noonday, and at midnight I have found +myself thinking that I walked in bright sunlit meadows beside cold, +rushing streams that flowed from high rocks. + +“Then at the dawn figures in black robes, carrying lighted tapers in +their hands pass slowly about and about; and I hear great rolling organ +music that sounds as if some tremendous rite were to begin, and voices +crying in an ancient song shrill from the depths of the earth. + +“Only a little while ago I heard a voice which sounded as if it were at +my very ears, but rang and echoed and resounded as if it were rolling +and reverberated from the vault of some cathedral, chanting in terrible +modulations. I heard the words quite clearly. + + +“_Incipit liber iræ Domini Dei nostri._ (Here beginneth The Book of the +Wrath of the Lord our God.) + +“And then the voice sang the word _Aleph,_ prolonging it, it seemed +through ages, and a light was extinguished as it began the chapter: + +“_In that day, saith the Lord, there shall be a cloud over the land, +and in the cloud a burning and a shape of fire, and out of the cloud +shall issue forth my messengers; they shall run all together, they +shall not turn aside; this shall be a day of exceeding bitterness, +without salvation. And on every high hill, saith the Lord of Hosts, I +will set my sentinels, and my armies shall encamp in the place of every +valley; in the house that is amongst rushes I will execute judgment, +and in vain shall they fly for refuge to the munitions of the rocks. In +the groves of the woods, in the places where the leaves are as a tent +above them, they shall find the sword of the slayer; and they that put +their trust in walled cities shall be confounded. Woe unto the armed +man, woe unto him that taketh pleasure in the strength of his +artillery, for a little thing shall smite him, and by one that hath no +might shall he be brought down into the dust. That which is low shall +be set on high; I will make the lamb and the young sheep to be as the +lion from the swellings of Jordan; they shall not spare, saith the +Lord, and the doves shall be as eagles on the hill Engedi; none shall +be found that may abide the onset of their battle._ + +“Even now I can hear the voice rolling far away, as if it came from the +altar of a great church and I stood at the door. There are lights very +far away in the hollow of a vast darkness, and one by one they are put +out. I hear a voice chanting again with that endless modulation that +climbs and aspires to the stars, and shines there, and rushes down to +the dark depths of the earth, again to ascend; the word is _Zain._” + +Here the manuscript lapsed again, and finally into utter, lamentable +confusion. There were scrawled lines wavering across the page on which +Secretan seemed to have been trying to note the unearthly music that +swelled in his dying ears. As the scrapes and scratches of ink showed, +he had tried hard to begin a new sentence. The pen had dropped at last +out of his hand upon the paper, leaving a blot and a smear upon it. + +Lewis heard the tramp of feet along the passage; they were carrying out +the dead to the cart. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +The End of the Terror + + +Dr. Lewis maintained that we should never begin to understand the real +significance of life until we began to study just those aspects of it +which we now dismiss and overlook as utterly inexplicable, and +therefore, unimportant. + +We were discussing a few months ago the awful shadow of the terror +which at length had passed away from the land. I had formed my opinion, +partly from observation, partly from certain facts which had been +communicated to me, and the passwords having been exchanged, I found +that Lewis had come by very different ways to the same end. + +“And yet,” he said, “it is not a true end, or rather, it is like all +the ends of human inquiry, it leads one to a great mystery. We must +confess that what has happened might have happened at any time in the +history of the world. It did not happen till a year ago as a matter of +fact, and therefore we made up our minds that it never could happen; +or, one would better say, it was outside the range even of imagination. +But this is our way. Most people are quite sure that the Black +Death—otherwise the Plague—will never invade Europe again. They have +made up their complacent minds that it was due to dirt and bad +drainage. As a matter of fact the Plague had nothing to do with dirt or +with drains; and there is nothing to prevent its ravaging England +to-morrow. But if you tell people so, they won’t believe you. They +won’t believe in anything that isn’t there at the particular moment +when you are talking to them. As with the Plague, so with the Terror. +We could not believe that such a thing could ever happen. Remnant said, +truly enough, that whatever it was, it was outside theory, outside our +theory. Flatland cannot believe in the cube or the sphere.” + +I agreed with all this. I added that sometimes the world was incapable +of seeing, much less believing, that which was before its own eyes. + +“Look,” I said, “at any eighteenth century print of a Gothic cathedral. +You will find that the trained artistic eye even could not behold in +any true sense the building that was before it. I have seen an old +print of Peterborough Cathedral that looks as if the artist had drawn +it from a clumsy model, constructed of bent wire and children’s +bricks.” + +“Exactly; because Gothic was outside the æsthetic theory (and therefore +vision) of the time. You can’t believe what you don’t see: rather, you +can’t see what you don’t believe. It was so during the time of the +Terror. All this bears out what Coleridge said as to the necessity of +having the idea before the facts could be of any service to one. Of +course, he was right; mere facts, without the correlating idea, are +nothing and lead to no conclusion. We had plenty of facts, but we could +make nothing of them. I went home at the tail of that dreadful +procession from Treff Loyne in a state of mind very near to madness. I +heard one of the soldiers saying to the other: ‘There’s no rat that’ll +spike a man to the heart, Bill.’ I don’t know why, but I felt that if I +heard any more of such talk as that I should go crazy; it seemed to me +that the anchors of reason were parting. I left the party and took the +short cut across the fields into Porth. I looked up Davies in the High +Street and arranged with him that he should take on any cases I might +have that evening, and then I went home and gave my man his +instructions to send people on. And then I shut myself up to think it +all out—if I could. + +“You must not suppose that my experiences of that afternoon had +afforded me the slightest illumination. Indeed, if it had not been that +I had seen poor old Griffith’s body lying pierced in his own farmyard, +I think I should have been inclined to accept one of Secretan’s hints, +and to believe that the whole family had fallen a victim to a +collective delusion or hallucination, and had shut themselves up and +died of thirst through sheer madness. I think there have been such +cases. It’s the insanity of inhibition, the belief that you can’t do +something which you are really perfectly capable of doing. But; I had +seen the body of the murdered man and the wound that had killed him. + +“Did the manuscript left by Secretan give me no hint? Well, it seemed +to me to make confusion worse confounded. You have seen it; you know +that in certain places it is evidently mere delirium, the wanderings of +a dying mind. How was I to separate the facts from the +phantasms—lacking the key to the whole enigma. Delirium is often a sort +of cloud-castle, a sort of magnified and distorted shadow of +actualities, but it is a very difficult thing, almost an impossible +thing, to reconstruct the real house from the distortion of it, thrown +on the clouds of the patient’s brain. You see, Secretan in writing that +extraordinary document almost insisted on the fact that he was not in +his proper sense; that for days he had been part asleep, part awake, +part delirious. How was one to judge his statement, to separate +delirium from fact? In one thing he stood confirmed; you remember he +speaks of calling for help up the old chimney of Treff Loyne; that did +seem to fit in with the tales of a hollow, moaning cry that had been +heard upon the Allt: so far one could take him as a recorder of actual +experiences. And I looked in the old cellars of the farm and found a +frantic sort of rabbit-hole dug by one of the pillars; again he was +confirmed. But what was one to make of that story of the chanting +voice, and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the chapter out of +some unknown Minor Prophet? When one has the key it is easy enough to +sort out the facts, or the hints of facts from the delusions; but I +hadn’t the key on that September evening. I was forgetting the ‘tree’ +with lights and fires in it; that, I think, impressed me more than +anything with the feeling that Secretan’s story was, in the main, a +true story. I had seen a like appearance down there in my own garden; +but what was it? + +“Now, I was saying that, paradoxically, it is only by the inexplicable +things that life can be explained. We are apt to say, you know, ‘a very +odd coincidence’ and pass the matter by, as if there were no more to be +said, or as if that were the end of it. Well, I believe that the only +real path lies through the blind alleys.” + +“How do you mean?” + +“Well, this is an instance of what I mean. I told you about Merritt, my +brother-in-law, and the capsizing of that boat, the _Mary Ann_. He had +seen, he said, signal lights flashing from one of the farms on the +coast, and he was quite certain that the two things were intimately +connected as cause and effect. I thought it all nonsense, and I was +wondering how I was going to shut him up when a big moth flew into the +room through that window, fluttered about, and succeeded in burning +itself alive in the lamp. That gave me my cue; I asked Merritt if he +knew why moths made for lamps or something of the kind; I thought it +would be a hint to him that I was sick of his flashlights and his +half-baked theories. So it was—he looked sulky and held his tongue. + +“But a few minutes later I was called out by a man who had found his +little boy dead in a field near his cottage about an hour before. The +child was so still, they said, that a great moth had settled on his +forehead and only fluttered away when they lifted up the body. It was +absolutely illogical; but it was this odd ‘coincidence’ of the moth in +my lamp and the moth on the dead boy’s forehead that first set me on +the track. I can’t say that it guided me in any real sense; it was more +like a great flare of red paint on a wall; it rang up my attention, if +I may say so; it was a sort of shock like a bang on the big drum. No +doubt Merritt was talking great nonsense that evening so far as his +particular instance went; the flashes of light from the farm had +nothing to do with the wreck of the boat. But his general principle was +sound; when you hear a gun go off and see a man fall it is idle to talk +of ‘a mere coincidence.’ I think a very interesting book might be +written on this question: I would call it ‘A Grammar of Coincidence.’ + +“But as you will remember, from having read my notes on the matter, I +was called in about ten days later to see a man named Cradock, who had +been found in a field near his farm quite dead. This also was at night. +His wife found him, and there were some very queer things in her story. +She said that the hedge of the field looked as if it were changed; she +began to be afraid that she had lost her way and got into the wrong +field. Then she said the hedge was lighted up as if there were a lot of +glow-worms in it, and when she peered over the stile there seemed to be +some kind of glimmering upon the ground, and then the glimmering melted +away, and she found her husband’s body near where this light had been. +Now this man Cradock had been suffocated just as the little boy Roberts +had been suffocated, and as that man in the Midlands who took a short +cut one night had been suffocated. Then I remembered that poor Johnnie +Roberts had called out about ‘something shiny’ over the stile just +before he played truant. Then, on my part, I had to contribute the very +remarkable sight I witnessed here, as I looked down over the garden; +the appearance as of a spreading tree where I knew there was no such +tree, and then the shining and burning of lights and moving colors. +Like the poor child and Mrs. Cradock, I had seen something shiny, just +as some man in Stratfordshire had seen a dark cloud with points of fire +in it floating over the trees. And Mrs. Cradock thought that the shape +of the trees in the hedge had changed. + +“My mind almost uttered the word that was wanted; but you see the +difficulties. This set of circumstances could not, so far as I could +see, have any relation with the other circumstances of the Terror. How +could I connect all this with the bombs and machine-guns of the +Midlands, with the armed men who kept watch about the munition shops by +day and night. Then there was the long list of people here who had +fallen over the cliffs or into the quarry; there were the cases of the +men stifled in the slime of the marshes; there was the affair of the +family murdered in front of their cottage on the Highway; there was the +capsized _Mary Ann_. I could not see any thread that could bring all +these incidents together; they seemed to me to be hopelessly +disconnected. I could not make out any relation between the agency that +beat out the brains of the Williams’s and the agency that overturned +the boat. I don’t know, but I think it’s very likely if nothing more +had happened that I should have put the whole thing down as an +unaccountable series of crimes and accidents which chanced to occur in +Meirion in the summer of 1915. Well, of course, that would have been an +impossible standpoint in view of certain incidents in Merritt’s story. +Still, if one is confronted by the insoluble, one lets it go at last. +If the mystery is inexplicable, one pretends that there isn’t any +mystery. That is the justification for what is called free thinking. + +“Then came that extraordinary business of Treff Loyne. I couldn’t put +that on one side. I couldn’t pretend that nothing strange or out of the +way had happened. There was no getting over it or getting round it. I +had seen with my eyes that there was a mystery, and a most horrible +mystery. I have forgotten my logic, but one might say that Treff Loyne +demonstrated the existence of a mystery in the figure of Death. + +“I took it all home, as I have told you, and sat down for the evening +before it. It appalled me, not only by its horror, but here again by +the discrepancy between its terms. Old Griffith, so far as I could +judge, had been killed by the thrust of a pike or perhaps of a +sharpened stake: how could one relate this to the burning tree that had +floated over the ridge of the barn. It was as if I said to you: ‘here +is a man drowned, and here is a man burned alive: show that each death +was caused by the same agency!’ And the moment that I left this +particular case of Treff Loyne, and tried to get some light on it from +other instances of the Terror, I would think of the man in the midlands +who heard the feet of a thousand men rustling in the wood, and their +voices as if dead men sat up in their bones and talked. And then I +would say to myself, ‘and how about that boat overturned in a calm +sea?’ There seemed no end to it, no hope of any solution. + +“It was, I believe, a sudden leap of the mind that liberated me from +the tangle. It was quite beyond logic. I went back to that evening when +Merritt was boring me with his flashlights, to the moth in the candle, +and to the moth on the forehead of poor Johnnie Roberts. There was no +sense in it; but I suddenly determined that the child and Joseph +Cradock the farmer, and that unnamed Stratfordshire man, all found at +night, all asphyxiated, had been choked by vast swarms of moths. I +don’t pretend even now that this is demonstrated, but I’m sure it’s +true. + +“Now suppose you encounter a swarm of these creatures in the dark. +Suppose the smaller ones fly up your nostrils. You will gasp for breath +and open your mouth. Then, suppose some hundreds of them fly into your +mouth, into your gullet, into your windpipe, what will happen to you? +You will be dead in a very short time, choked, asphyxiated.” + +“But the moths would be dead too. They would be found in the bodies.” + +“The moths? Do you know that it is extremely difficult to kill a moth +with cyanide of potassium? Take a frog, kill it, open its stomach. +There you will find its dinner of moths and small beetles, and the +‘dinner’ will shake itself and walk off cheerily, to resume an entirely +active existence. No; that is no difficulty. + +“Well, now I came to this. I was shutting out all the other cases. I +was confining myself to those that came under the one formula. I got to +the assumption or conclusion, whichever you like, that certain people +had been asphyxiated by the action of moths. I had accounted for that +extraordinary appearance of burning or colored lights that I had +witnessed myself, when I saw the growth of that strange tree in my +garden. That was clearly the cloud with points of fire in it that the +Stratfordshire man took for a new and terrible kind of poison gas, that +was the shiny something that poor little Johnnie Roberts had seen over +the stile, that was the glimmering light that had led Mrs. Cradock to +her husband’s dead body, that was the assemblage of terrible eyes that +had watched over Treff Loyne by night. Once on the right track I +understood all this, for coming into this room in the dark, I have been +amazed by the wonderful burning and the strange fiery colors of the +eyes of a single moth, as it crept up the pane of glass, outside. +Imagine the effect of myriads of such eyes, of the movement of these +lights and fires in a vast swarm of moths, each insect being in +constant motion while it kept its place in the mass: I felt that all +this was clear and certain. + +“Then the next step. Of course, we know nothing really about moths; +rather, we know nothing of moth reality. For all I know there may be +hundreds of books which treat of moth and nothing but moth. But these +are scientific books, and science only deals with surfaces; it has +nothing to do with realities—it is impertinent if it attempts to do +with realities. To take a very minor matter; we don’t even know why the +moth desires the flame. But we do know what the moth does not do; it +does not gather itself into swarms with the object of destroying human +life. But here, by the hypothesis, were cases in which the moth had +done this very thing; the moth race had entered, it seemed, into a +malignant conspiracy against the human race. It was quite impossible, +no doubt—that is to say, it had never happened before—but I could see +no escape from this conclusion. + +“These insects, then, were definitely hostile to man; and then I +stopped, for I could not see the next step, obvious though it seems to +me now. I believe that the soldiers’ scraps of talk on the way to Treff +Loyne and back flung the next plank over the gulf. They had spoken of +‘rat poison,’ of no rat being able to spike a man through the heart; +and then, suddenly, I saw my way clear. If the moths were infected with +hatred of men, and possessed the design and the power of combining +against him; why not suppose this hatred, this design, this power +shared by other non-human creatures. + +“The secret of the Terror might be condensed into a sentence: the +animals had revolted against men. + +“Now, the puzzle became easy enough; one had only to classify. Take the +cases of the people who met their deaths by falling over cliffs or over +the edge of quarries. We think of sheep as timid creatures, who always +ran away. But suppose sheep that don’t run away; and, after all, in +reason why should they run away? Quarry or no quarry, cliff or no +cliff; what would happen to you if a hundred sheep ran after you +instead of running from you? There would be no help for it; they would +have you down and beat you to death or stifle you. Then suppose man, +woman, or child near a cliff’s edge or a quarry-side, and a sudden rush +of sheep. Clearly there is no help; there is nothing for it but to go +over. There can be no doubt that that is what happened in all these +cases. + +“And again; you know the country and you know how a herd of cattle will +sometimes pursue people through the fields in a solemn, stolid sort of +way. They behave as if they wanted to close in on you. Townspeople +sometimes get frightened and scream and run; you or I would take no +notice, or at the utmost, wave our sticks at the herd, which will stop +dead or lumber off. But suppose they don’t lumber off. The mildest old +cow, remember, is stronger than any man. What can one man or half a +dozen men do against half a hundred of these beasts no longer +restrained by that mysterious inhibition, which has made for ages the +strong the humble slaves of the weak? But if you are botanizing in the +marsh, like that poor fellow who was staying at Porth, and forty or +fifty young cattle gradually close round you, and refuse to move when +you shout and wave your stick, but get closer and closer instead, and +get you into the slime. Again, where is your help? If you haven’t got +an automatic pistol, you must go down and stay down, while the beasts +lie quietly on you for five minutes. It was a quicker death for poor +Griffith of Treff Loyne—one of his own beasts gored him to death with +one sharp thrust of its horn into his heart. And from that morning +those within the house were closely besieged by their own cattle and +horses and sheep; and when those unhappy people within opened a window +to call for help or to catch a few drops of rain water to relieve their +burning thirst, the cloud waited for them with its myriad eyes of fire. +Can you wonder that Secretan’s statement reads in places like mania? +You perceive the horrible position of those people in Treff Loyne; not +only did they see death advancing on them, but advancing with +incredible steps, as if one were to die not only in nightmare but by +nightmare. But no one in his wildest, most fiery dreams had ever +imagined such a fate. I am not astonished that Secretan at one moment +suspected the evidence of his own senses, at another surmised that the +world’s end had come.” + +“And how about the Williams’s who were murdered on the Highway near +here?” + +“The horses were the murderers; the horses that afterwards stampeded +the camp below. By some means which is still obscure to me they lured +that family into the road and beat their brains out; their shod hoofs +were the instruments of execution. And, as for the _Mary Ann_, the boat +that was capsized, I have no doubt that it was overturned by a sudden +rush of the porpoises that were gamboling about in the water of Larnac +Bay. A porpoise is a heavy beast—half a dozen of them could easily +upset a light rowing-boat. The munition works? Their enemy was rats. I +believe that it has been calculated that in ‘greater London’ the number +of rats is about equal to the number of human beings, that is, there +are about seven millions of them. The proportion would be about the +same in all the great centers of population; and the rat, moreover, is, +on occasion, migratory in its habits. You can understand now that story +of the _Semiramis_, beating about the mouth of the Thames, and at last +cast away by Arcachon, her only crew dry heaps of bones. The rat is an +expert boarder of ships. And so one can understand the tale told by the +frightened man who took the path by the wood that led up from the new +munition works. He thought he heard a thousand men treading softly +through the wood and chattering to one another in some horrible tongue; +what he did hear was the marshaling of an army of rats—their array +before the battle. + +“And conceive the terror of such an attack. Even one rat in a fury is +said to be an ugly customer to meet; conceive then, the irruption of +these terrible, swarming myriads, rushing upon the helpless, +unprepared, astonished workers in the munition shops.” + + +There can be no doubt, I think, that Dr. Lewis was entirely justified +in these extraordinary conclusions. As I say, I had arrived at pretty +much the same end, by different ways; but this rather as to the general +situation, while Lewis had made his own particular study of those +circumstances of the Terror that were within his immediate purview, as +a physician in large practice in the southern part of Meirion. Of some +of the cases which he reviewed he had, no doubt, no immediate or +first-hand knowledge; but he judged these instances by their similarity +to the facts which had come under his personal notice. He spoke of the +affairs of the quarry at Llanfihangel on the analogy of the people who +were found dead at the bottom of the cliffs near Porth, and he was no +doubt justified in doing so. He told me that, thinking the whole matter +over, he was hardly more astonished by the Terror in itself than by the +strange way in which he had arrived at his conclusions. + +“You know,” he said, “those certain evidences of animal malevolence +which we knew of, the bees that stung the child to death, the trusted +sheepdog’s turning savage, and so forth. Well, I got no light whatever +from all this; it suggested nothing to me—simply because I had not got +that ‘idea’ which Coleridge rightly holds necessary in all inquiry; +facts _qua_ facts, as we said, mean nothing and come to nothing. You do +not believe, therefore you cannot see. + +“And then, when the truth at last appeared it was through the whimsical +‘coincidence,’ as we call such signs, of the moth in my lamp and the +moth on the dead child’s forehead. This, I think, is very +extraordinary.” + +“And there seems to have been one beast that remained faithful; the dog +at Treff Loyne. That is strange.” + +“That remains a mystery.” + + +It would not be wise, even now, to describe too closely the terrible +scenes that were to be seen in the munition areas of the north and the +midlands during the black months of the Terror. Out of the factories +issued at black midnight the shrouded dead in their coffins, and their +very kinsfolk did not know how they had come by their deaths. All the +towns were full of houses of mourning, were full of dark and terrible +rumors; incredible, as the incredible reality. There were things done +and suffered that perhaps never will be brought to light, memories and +secret traditions of these things will be whispered in families, +delivered from father to son, growing wilder with the passage of the +years, but never growing wilder than the truth. + +It is enough to say that the cause of the Allies was for awhile in +deadly peril. The men at the front called in their extremity for guns +and shells. No one told them what was happening in the places where +these munitions were made. + +At first the position was nothing less than desperate; men in high +places were almost ready to cry “mercy” to the enemy. But, after the +first panic, measures were taken such as those described by Merritt in +his account of the matter. The workers were armed with special weapons, +guards were mounted, machine-guns were placed in position, bombs and +liquid flame were ready against the obscene hordes of the enemy, and +the “burning clouds” found a fire fiercer than their own. Many deaths +occurred amongst the airmen; but they, too, were given special guns, +arms that scattered shot broadcast, and so drove away the dark flights +that threatened the airplanes. + +And, then, in the winter of 1915-16, the Terror ended suddenly as it +had begun. Once more a sheep was a frightened beast that ran +instinctively from a little child; the cattle were again solemn, stupid +creatures, void of harm; the spirit and the convention of malignant +design passed out of the hearts of all the animals. The chains that +they had cast off for awhile were thrown again about them. + +And, finally, there comes the inevitable “why?” Why did the beasts who +had been humbly and patiently subject to man, or affrighted by his +presence, suddenly know their strength and learn how to league +together, and declare bitter war against their ancient master? + +It is a most difficult and obscure question. I give what explanation I +have to give with very great diffidence, and an eminent disposition to +be corrected, if a clearer light can be found. + +Some friends of mine, for whose judgment I have very great respect, are +inclined to think that there was a certain contagion of hate. They hold +that the fury of the whole world at war, the great passion of death +that seems driving all humanity to destruction, infected at last these +lower creatures, and in place of their native instinct of submission, +gave them rage and wrath and ravening. + +This may be the explanation. I cannot say that it is not so, because I +do not profess to understand the working of the universe. But I confess +that the theory strikes me as fanciful. There may be a contagion of +hate as there is a contagion of smallpox; I do not know, but I hardly +believe it. + +In my opinion, and it is only an opinion, the source of the great +revolt of the beasts is to be sought in a much subtler region of +inquiry. I believe that the subjects revolted because the king +abdicated. Man has dominated the beasts throughout the ages, the +spiritual has reigned over the rational through the peculiar quality +and grace of spirituality that men possess, that makes a man to be that +which he is. And when he maintained this power and grace, I think it is +pretty clear that between him and the animals there was a certain +treaty and alliance. There was supremacy on the one hand, and +submission on the other; but at the same time there was between the two +that cordiality which exists between lords and subjects in a +well-organized state. I know a socialist who maintains that Chaucer’s +“Canterbury Tales” give a picture of true democracy. I do not know +about that, but I see that knight and miller were able to get on quite +pleasantly together, just because the knight knew that he was a knight +and the miller knew that he was a miller. If the knight had had +conscientious objections to his knightly grade, while the miller saw no +reason why he should not be a knight, I am sure that their intercourse +would have been difficult, unpleasant, and perhaps murderous. + +So with man. I believe in the strength and truth of tradition. A +learned man said to me a few weeks ago: “When I have to choose between +the evidence of tradition and the evidence of a document, I always +believe the evidence of tradition. Documents may be falsified, and +often are falsified; tradition is never falsified.” This is true; and, +therefore, I think, one may put trust in the vast body of folklore +which asserts that there was once a worthy and friendly alliance +between man and the beasts. Our popular tale of Dick Whittington and +his Cat no doubt represents the adaptation of a very ancient legend to +a comparatively modern personage, but we may go back into the ages and +find the popular tradition asserting that not only are the animals the +subjects, but also the friends of man. + +All that was in virtue of that singular spiritual element in man which +the rational animals do not possess. Spiritual does not mean +respectable, it does not even mean moral, it does not mean “good” in +the ordinary acceptation of the word. It signifies the royal +prerogative of man, differentiating him from the beasts. + +For long ages he has been putting off this royal robe, he has been +wiping the balm of consecration from his own breast. He has declared, +again and again, that he is not spiritual, but rational, that is, the +equal of the beasts over whom he was once sovereign. He has vowed that +he is not Orpheus but Caliban. + +But the beasts also have within them something which corresponds to the +spiritual quality in men—we are content to call it instinct. They +perceived that the throne was vacant—not even friendship was possible +between them and the self-deposed monarch. If he were not king he was a +sham, an imposter, a thing to be destroyed. + +Hence, I think, the Terror. They have risen once—they may rise again. + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TERROR *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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