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diff --git a/old/36281.txt b/old/36281.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31166f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/36281.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9625 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slayer Of souls, by Robert Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: The Slayer Of souls + +Author: Robert Chambers + +Release Date: May 30, 2011 [EBook #36281] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLAYER OF SOULS *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Michael, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE SLAYER OF SOULS + + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +AUTHOR OF "IN SECRET," "THE COMMON LAW," "THE RECKONING," "LORRAINE," +ETC. + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + _Copyright, 1920, + By Robert W. Chambers_ + + _Copyright, 1919, 1920, by International Magazine Company_ + + _Printed in the United States of America_ + + TO + MY FRIEND + GEORGE ARMSBY + + + + + I + + Mirror of Fashion, + Admiral of Finance, + Don't, in a passion, + Denounce this poor Romance; + For, while I dare not hope it might + Enthuse you, + Perhaps it will, some rainy night, + Amuse you. + + + II + + So, your attention, + In poetry polite, + To my invention + I bashfully invite. + Don't hurl the book at Eddie's head + Deep laden, + Or Messmore's; you might hit instead + Will Braden. + + + III + + Kahn among Canners, + And Grand Vizier of style, + Emir of Manners, + Accept--and place on file-- + This tribute, which I proffer while + I grovel, + And honor with thy matchless Smile + My novel. + + R. W. C. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + +I THE YEZIDEE + +II THE YELLOW SNAKE + +III GREY MAGIC + +IV BODY AND SOUL + +V THE ASSASSINS + +VI IN BATTLE + +VII THE BRIDAL + +VIII THE MAN IN WHITE + +IX THE WEST WIND + +X AT THE RITZ + +XI YULUN THE BELOVED + +XII HIS EXCELLENCY + +XIII SA-N'SA + +XIV A DEATH-TRAIL + +XV IN THE FIRELIGHT + +XVI THE PLACE OF PRAYER + +XVII THE SLAYER OF SOULS + + + + +THE SLAYER OF SOULS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE YEZIDEE + + +Only when the _Nan-yang Maru_ sailed from Yuen-San did her terrible +sense of foreboding begin to subside. + +For four years, waking or sleeping, the awful subconsciousness of +supreme evil had never left her. + +But now, as the Korean shore, receding into darkness, grew dimmer and +dimmer, fear subsided and grew vague as the half-forgotten memory of +horror in a dream. + +She stood near the steamer's stern apart from other passengers, a +slender, lonely figure in her silver-fox furs, her ulster and smart +little hat, watching the lights of Yuen-San grow paler and smaller along +the horizon until they looked like a level row of stars. + +Under her haunted eyes Asia was slowly dissolving to a streak of vapour +in the misty lustre of the moon. + +Suddenly the ancient continent disappeared, washed out by a wave against +the sky; and with it vanished the last shreds of that accursed nightmare +which had possessed her for four endless years. But whether during those +unreal years her soul had only been held in bondage, or whether, as she +had been taught, it had been irrevocably destroyed, she still remained +uncertain, knowing nothing about the death of souls or how it was +accomplished. + +As she stood there, her sad eyes fixed on the misty East, a passenger +passing--an Englishwoman--paused to say something kind to the young +American; and added, "if there is anything my husband and I can do it +would give us much pleasure." The girl had turned her head as though not +comprehending. The other woman hesitated. + +"This is Doctor Norne's daughter, is it not?" she inquired in a pleasant +voice. + +"Yes, I am Tressa Norne.... I ask your pardon.... Thank you, madam:--I +am--I seem to be--a trifle dazed----" + +"What wonder, you poor child! Come to us if you feel need of +companionship." + +"You are very kind.... I seem to wish to be alone, somehow." + +"I understand.... Good-night, my dear." + +Late the next morning Tressa Norne awoke, conscious for the first time +in four years that it was at last her own familiar self stretched out +there on the pillows where sunshine streamed through the porthole. All +that day she lay in her bamboo steamer chair on deck. Sun and wind +conspired to dry every tear that wet her closed lashes. Her dark, glossy +hair blew about her face; scarlet tinted her full lips again; the tense +hands relaxed. Peace came at sundown. + +That evening she took her Yu-kin from her cabin and found a chair on the +deserted hurricane deck. + +And here, in the brilliant moonlight of the China Sea, she curled up +cross-legged on the deck, all alone, and sounded the four futile strings +of her moon-lute, and hummed to herself, in a still voice, old songs she +had sung in Yian before the tragedy. She sang the tent-song called +_Tchinguiz_. She sang _Camel Bells_ and _The Blue Bazaar_,--children's +songs of the Yiort. She sang the ancient Khiounnou song called "The +Saghalien": + + + _I_ + + _In the month of Saffar + Among the river-reeds + I saw two horsemen + Sitting on their steeds. + Tulugum! + Heitulum! + By the river-reeds_ + + + _II_ + + _In the month of Saffar + A demon guards the ford. + Tokhta, my Lover! + Draw your shining sword! + Tulugum! + Heitulum! + Slay him with your sword!_ + + + _III_ + + _In the month of Saffar + Among the water-weeds + I saw two horsemen + Fighting on their steeds. + Tulugum! + Heitulum! + How my lover bleeds!_ + + + _IV_ + + _In the month of Saffar, + The Year I should have wed-- + The Year of The Panther-- + My lover lay dead,-- + Tulugum! + Heitulum! + Dead without a head._ + +And songs like these--the one called "Keuke Mongol," and an ancient air +of the Tchortchas called "The Thirty Thousand Calamities," and some +Chinese boatmen's songs which she had heard in Yian before the tragedy; +these she hummed to herself there in the moonlight playing on her +round-faced, short-necked lute of four strings. + +Terror indeed seemed ended for her, and in her heart a great +overwhelming joy was welling up which seemed to overflow across the +entire moonlit world. + + * * * * * + +She had no longer any fear; no premonition of further evil. Among the +few Americans and English aboard, something of her story was already +known. People were kind; and they were also considerate enough to subdue +their sympathetic curiosity when they discovered that this young +American girl shrank from any mention of what had happened to her during +the last four years of the Great World War. + +It was evident, also, that she preferred to remain aloof; and this +inclination, when finally understood, was respected by her fellow +passengers. The clever, efficient and polite Japanese officers and crew +of the _Nan-yang Maru_ were invariably considerate and courteous to her, +and they remained nicely reticent, although they also knew the main +outline of her story and very much desired to know more. And so, +surrounded now by the friendly security of civilised humanity, Tressa +Norne, reborn to light out of hell's own shadows, awoke from four years +of nightmare which, after all, perhaps, never had seemed entirely +actual. + +And now God's real sun warmed her by day; His real moon bathed her in +creamy coolness by night; sky and wind and wave thrilled her with their +blessed assurance that this was once more the real world which stretched +illimitably on every side from horizon to horizon; and the fair faces +and pleasant voices of her own countrymen made the past seem only a +ghastly dream that never again could enmesh her soul with its web of +sorcery. + + * * * * * + +And now the days at sea fled very swiftly; and when at last the Golden +Gate was not far away she had finally managed to persuade herself that +nothing really can harm the human soul; that the monstrous devil-years +were ended, never again to return; that in this vast, clean Western +Continent there could be no occult threat to dread, no gigantic menace +to destroy her body, no secret power that could consign her soul to the +dreadful abysm of spiritual annihilation. + + * * * * * + +Very early that morning she came on deck. The November day was +delightfully warm, the air clear save for a belt of mist low on the +water to the southward. + +She had been told that land would not be sighted for twenty-four hours, +but she went forward and stood beside the starboard rail, searching the +horizon with the enchanted eyes of hope. + +As she stood there a Japanese ship's officer crossing the deck, forward, +halted abruptly and stood staring at something to the southward. + +At the same moment, above the belt of mist on the water, and perfectly +clear against the blue sky above, the girl saw a fountain of gold fire +rise from the fog, drift upward in the daylight, slowly assume the +incandescent outline of a serpentine creature which leisurely uncoiled +and hung there floating, its lizard-tail undulating, its feet with their +five stumpy claws closing, relaxing, like those of a living reptile. For +a full minute this amazing shape of fire floated there in the sky, +brilliant in the morning light, then the reptilian form faded, died out, +and the last spark vanished in the sunshine. + +When the Japanese officer at last turned to resume his promenade, he +noticed a white-faced girl gripping a stanchion behind him as though she +were on the point of swooning. He crossed the deck quickly. Tressa +Norne's eyes opened. + +"Are you ill, Miss Norne?" he asked. + +"The--the Dragon," she whispered. + +The officer laughed. "Why, that was nothing but Chinese day-fireworks," +he explained. "The crew of some fishing boat yonder in the fog is +amusing itself." He looked at her narrowly, then with a nice little bow +and smile he offered his arm: "If you are indisposed, perhaps you might +wish to go below to your stateroom, Miss Norne?" + +She thanked him, managed to pull herself together and force a ghost of a +smile. + +He lingered a moment, said something cheerful about being nearly home, +then made her a punctilious salute and went his way. + +Tressa Norne leaned back against the stanchion and closed her eyes. Her +pallor became deathly. She bent over and laid her white face in her +folded arms. + +After a while she lifted her head, and, turning very slowly, stared at +the fog-belt out of frightened eyes. + +And saw, rising out of the fog, a pearl-tinted sphere which gradually +mounted into the clear daylight above like the full moon's phantom in +the sky. + +Higher, higher rose the spectral moon until at last it swam in the very +zenith. Then it slowly evaporated in the blue vault above. + +A great wave of despair swept her; she clung to the stanchion, staring +with half-blinded eyes at the flat fog-bank in the south. + +But no more "Chinese day-fireworks" rose out of it. And at length she +summoned sufficient strength to go below to her cabin and lie there, +half senseless, huddled on her bed. + + * * * * * + +When land was sighted, the following morning, Tressa Norne had lived a +century in twenty-four hours. And in that space of time her agonised +soul had touched all depths. + +But now as the Golden Gate loomed up in the morning light, rage, terror, +despair had burned themselves out. From their ashes within her mind +arose the cool wrath of desperation armed for anything, wary, alert, +passionately determined to survive at whatever cost, recklessly ready to +fight for bodily existence. + +That was her sole instinct now, to go on living, to survive, no matter +at what price. And if it were indeed true that her soul had been slain, +she defied its murderers to slay her body also. + + * * * * * + +That night, at her hotel in San Francisco, she double-locked her door +and lay down without undressing, leaving all lights burning and an +automatic pistol underneath her pillow. + +Toward morning she fell asleep, slept for an hour, started up in awful +fear. And saw the double-locked door opposite the foot of her bed slowly +opening of its own accord. + +Into the brightly illuminated room stepped a graceful young man in full +evening dress carrying over his left arm an overcoat, and in his other +hand a top hat and silver tipped walking-stick. + +With one bound the girl swung herself from the bed to the carpet and +clutched at the pistol under her pillow. + +"Sanang!" she cried in a terrible voice. + +"Keuke Mongol!" he said, smilingly. + +For a moment they confronted each other in the brightly lighted bedroom, +then, partly turning, he cast a calm glance at the open door behind him; +and, as though moved by a wind, the door slowly closed. And she heard +the key turn of itself in the lock, and saw the bolt slide smoothly into +place again. + +Her power of speech came back to her presently--only a broken whisper at +first: "Do you think I am afraid of your accursed magic?" she managed to +gasp. "Do you think I am afraid of you, Sanang?" + +"You are afraid," he said serenely. + +"You lie!" + +"No, I do not lie. To one another the Yezidees never lie." + +"You lie again, assassin! I am no Yezidee!" + +He smiled gently. His features were pleasing, smooth, and regular; his +cheek-bones high, his skin fine and of a pale and delicate ivory colour. +Once his black, beautifully shaped eyes wandered to the levelled pistol +which she now held clutched desperately close to her right hip, and a +slightly ironical expression veiled his gaze for an instant. + +"Bullets?" he murmured. "But you and I are of the Hassanis." + +"The third lie, Sanang!" Her voice had regained its strength. Tense, +alert, blue eyes ablaze, every faculty concentrated on the terrible +business before her, the girl now seemed like some supple leopardess +poised on the swift verge of murder. + +"Tokhta!"[1] She spat the word. "Any movement toward a hidden weapon, +any gesture suggesting recourse to magic--and I kill you, Sanang, +exactly where you stand!" + +[Footnote 1: "Look out!" Nomad-Mongol dialect.] + +"With a pistol?" He laughed. Then his smooth features altered subtly. He +said: "Keuke Mongol, who call yourself Tressa Norne,--Keuke--heavenly +azure-blue,--named so in the temple because of the colour of your +eyes--listen attentively, for this is the Yarlig which I bring to you by +word of mouth from Yian, as from Yezidee to Yezidee: + +"Here, in this land called the United States of America, the Temple +girl, Keuke Mongol, who has witnessed the mysteries of Erlik and who +understands the magic of the Sheiks-el-Djebel, and who has seen Mount +Alamout and the eight castles and the fifty thousand Hassanis in white +turbans and in robes of white;--_you_--Azure-blue eyes--heed the +Yarlig!--or may thirty thousand calamities overtake you!" + +There was a dead silence; then he went on seriously: "It is decreed: You +shall cease to remember that you are a Yezidee, that you are of the +Hassanis, that you ever have laid eyes on Yian the Beautiful, that you +ever set naked foot upon Mount Alamout. It is decreed that you remember +nothing of what you have seen and heard, of what has been told and +taught during the last four years reckoned as the Christians reckon from +our Year of the Bull. Otherwise--my Master sends you this for +your--_convenience_." + +Leisurely, from under his folded overcoat, the young man produced a roll +of white cloth and dropped it at her feet and the girl shrank aside, +shuddering, knowing that the roll of white cloth was meant for her +winding-sheet. + +Then the colour came back to lip and cheek; and, glancing up from the +soft white shroud, she smiled at the young man: "Have you ended your +Oriental mummery?" she asked calmly. "Listen very seriously in your +turn, Sanang, Sheik-el-Djebel, Prince of the Hassanis who, God knows +when and how, have come out into the sunshine of this clean and decent +country, out of a filthy darkness where devils and sorcerers make earth +a hell. + +"If you, or yours, threaten me, annoy me, interfere with me, I shall go +to our civilised police and tell all I know concerning the Yezidees. I +mean to live. Do you understand? You know what you have done to me and +mine. I come back to my own country alone, without any living kin, poor, +homeless, friendless,--and, perhaps, damned. I intend, nevertheless, to +survive. I shall not relax my clutch on bodily existence whatever the +Yezidees may pretend to have done to my soul. I am determined to live in +the body, anyway." + +He nodded gravely. + +She said: "Out at sea, over the fog, I saw the sign of Yu-lao in fire +floating in the day-sky. I saw his spectral moon rise and vanish in +mid-heaven. I understood. But----" And here she suddenly showed an edge +of teeth under the full scarlet upper lip: "Keep your signs and your +shrouds to yourself, dog of a Yezidee!--toad!--tortoise-egg!--he-goat +with three legs! Keep your threats and your messages to yourself! Keep +your accursed magic to yourself! Do you think to frighten me with your +sorcery by showing me the Moons of Yu-lao?--by opening a bolted door? I +know more of such magic than do you, Sanang--Death Adder of Alamout!" + +Suddenly she laughed aloud at him--laughed insultingly in his +expressionless face: + +"I saw you and Gutchlug Khan and your cowardly Tchortchas in +red-lacquered jackets slink out of the Temple of Erlik where the bronze +gong thundered and a cloud settled down raining little yellow snakes all +over the marble steps--all over you, Prince Sanang! You were _afraid_, +my Tougtchi!--you and Gutchlug and your red Tchortchas with their +halberds all dripping with human entrails! And I saw you mount and +gallop off into the woods while in the depths of the magic cloud which +rained little yellow snakes all around you, we temple girls laughed and +mocked at you--at you and your cowardly Tchortcha horsemen." + +A slight tinge of pink came into the young man's pale face. Tressa Norne +stepped nearer, her levelled pistol resting on her hip. + +"Why did you not complain of us to your Master, the Old Man of the +Mountain?" she asked jeeringly. "And where, also, was your Yezidee magic +when it rained little snakes?--What frightened you away--who had boldly +come to seize a temple girl--you who had screwed up your courage +sufficiently to defy Erlik in his very shrine and snatch from his temple +a young thing whose naked body wrapped in gold was worth the chance of +death to you?" + +The young man's top-hat dropped to the floor. He bent over to pick it +up. His face was quite expressionless, quite colourless, now. + +"I went on no such errand," he said with an effort. "I went with a +thousand prayers on scarlet paper made in----" + +"A lie, Yezidee! You came to seize _me_!" + +He turned still paler. "By Abu, Omar, Otman, and Ali, it is not true!" + +"You lie!--by the Lion of God, Hassini!" + +She stepped closer. "And I'll tell you another thing you fear--you +Yezidee of Alamout--you robber of Yian--you sorcerer of Sabbah Khan, and +chief of his sect of Assassins! You fear this native land of mine, +America; and its laws and customs, and its clear, clean sunshine; and +its cities and people; and its police! Take that message back. We +Americans fear nobody save the true God!--nobody--neither Yezidee nor +Hassani nor Russ nor German nor that sexless monster born of hell and +called the Bolshevik!" + +"Tokhta!" he cried sharply. + +"Damn you!" retorted the girl; "get out of my room! Get out of my sight! +Get out of my path! Get out of my life! Take that to your Master of +Mount Alamout! I do what I please; I go where I please; I live as I +please. And if I please, _I turn against him_!" + +"In that event," he said hoarsely, "there lies your winding-sheet on the +floor at your feet! Take up your shroud; and make Erlik seize you!" + +"Sanang," she said very seriously. + +"I hear you, Keuke-Mongol." + +"Listen attentively. I wish to live. I have had enough of death in life. +I desire to remain a living, breathing thing--even if it be true--as you +Yezidees tell me, that you have caught my soul in a net and that your +sorcerers really control its destiny. + +"But damned or not, I passionately desire to live. And I am coward +enough to hold my peace for the sake of living. So--I remain silent. I +have no stomach to defy the Yezidees; because, if I do, sooner or later +I shall be killed. I know it. I have no desire to die for others--to +perish for the sake of the common good. I am young. I have suffered too +much; I am determined to live--and let my soul take its chances between +God and Erlik." + +She came close to him, looked curiously into his pale face. + +"I laughed at you out of the temple cloud," she said. "I know how to +open bolted doors as well as you do. And I know _other things_. And if +you ever again come to me in this life I shall first torture you, then +slay you. Then I shall tell all!... and unroll my shroud." + +"I keep your word of promise until you break it," he interrupted +hastily. "Yarlig! It is decreed!" And then he slowly turned as though to +glance over his shoulder at the locked and bolted door. + +"Permit me to open it for you, Prince Sanang," said the girl scornfully. +And she gazed steadily at the door. + +Presently, all by itself, the key turned in the lock, the bolt slid +back, the door gently opened. + +Toward it, white as a corpse, his overcoat on his left arm, his stick +and top-hat in the other hand, crept the young man in his faultless +evening garb. + +Then, as he reached the threshold, he suddenly sprang aside. A small +yellow snake lay coiled there on the door sill. For a full throbbing +minute the young man stared at the yellow reptile in unfeigned horror. +Then, very cautiously, he moved his fascinated eyes sideways and gazed +in silence at Tressa Norne. + +The girl laughed. + +"Sorceress!" he burst out hoarsely. "Take that accursed thing from my +path!" + +"What thing, Sanang?" At that his dark, frightened eyes stole toward the +threshold again, seeking the little snake. But there was no snake there. +And when he was certain of this he went, twitching and trembling all +over. + +Behind him the door closed softly, locking and bolting itself. + +And behind the bolted door in the brightly lighted bedroom Tressa Norne +fell on both knees, her pistol still clutched in her right hand, calling +passionately upon Christ to forgive her for the dreadful ability she had +dared to use, and begging Him to save her body from death and her soul +from the snare of the Yezidee. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE YELLOW SNAKE + + +When the young man named Sanang left the bed-chamber of Tressa Norne he +turned to the right in the carpeted corridor outside and hurried toward +the hotel elevator. But he did not ring for the lift; instead he took +the spiral iron stairway which circled it, and mounted hastily to the +floor above. + +Here was his own apartment and he entered it with a key bearing the +hotel tag. A dusky-skinned powerful old man wearing a grizzled beard and +a greasy broadcloth coat of old-fashioned cut known to provincials as a +"Prince Albert" looked up from where he was seated cross-legged upon the +sofa, sharpening a curved knife on a whetstone. + +"Gutchlug," stammered Sanang, "I am afraid of her! What happened two +years ago at the temple happened again a moment since, there in her very +bedroom! She made a yellow death-adder out of nothing and placed it upon +the threshold, and mocked me with laughter. May Thirty Thousand +Calamities overtake her! May Erlik seize her! May her eyes rot out and +her limbs fester! May the seven score and three principal devils----" + +"You chatter like a temple ape," said Gutchlug tranquilly. "Does Keuke +Mongol die or live? That alone interests me." + +"Gutchlug," faltered the young man, "thou knowest that m-my heart is +inclined to mercy toward this young Yezidee----" + +"I know that it is inclined to lust," said the other bluntly. + +Sanang's pale face flamed. + +"Listen," he said. "If I had not loved her better than life had I dared +go that day to the temple to take her for my own?" + +"You loved life better," said Gutchlug. "You fled when it rained snakes +on the temple steps--you and your Tchortcha horsemen! Kai! I also ran. +But I gave every soldier thirty blows with a stick before I slept that +night. And you should have had your thirty, also, conforming to the +Yarlig, my Tougtchi." + +Sanang, still holding his hat and cane and carrying his overcoat over +his left arm, looked down at the heavy, brutal features of Gutchlug +Khan--at the cruel mouth with its crooked smile under the grizzled +beard; at the huge hands--the powerful hands of a murderer--now deftly +honing to a razor-edge the Kalmuck knife held so firmly yet lightly in +his great blunt fingers. + +"Listen attentively, Prince Sanang," growled Gutchlug, pausing in his +monotonous task to test the blade's edge on his thumb--"Does the Yezidee +Keuke Mongol live? Yes or no?" + +Sanang hesitated, moistened his pallid lips. "She dares not betray us." + +"By what pledge?" + +"Fear." + +"That is no pledge. You also were afraid, yet you went to the temple!" + +"She has listened to the Yarlig. She has looked upon her shroud. She has +admitted that she desires to live. Therein lies her pledge to us." + +"And she placed a yellow snake at your feet!" sneered Gutchlug. "Prince +Sanang, tell me, what man or what devil in all the chronicles of the +past has ever tamed a Snow-Leopard?" And he continued to hone his +yataghan. + +"Gutchlug----" + +"No, she dies," said the other tranquilly. + +"Not yet!" + +"When, then?" + +"Gutchlug, thou knowest me. Hear my pledge! At her first gesture toward +treachery--her first thought of betrayal--I myself will end it all." + +"You promise to slay this young snow-leopardess?" + +"By the four companions, I swear to kill her with my own hands!" + +Gutchlug sneered. "Kill her--yes--with the kiss that has burned thy lips +to ashes for all these months. I know thee, Sanang. Leave her to me. +Dead she will no longer trouble thee." + +"Gutchlug!" + +"I hear, Prince Sanang." + +"Strike when I nod. Not until then." + +"I hear, Tougtchi. I understand thee, my Banneret. I whet my knife. +Kai!" + +Sanang looked at him, put on his top-hat and overcoat, pulled on a pair +of white evening gloves. + +"I go forth," he said more pleasantly. + +"I remain here to talk to my seven ancestors and sharpen my knife," +remarked Gutchlug. + +"When the white world and the yellow world and the brown world and the +black world finally fall before the Hassanis," said Sanang with a quick +smile, "I shall bring thee to her. Gutchlug--once--before she is veiled, +thou shalt behold what is lovelier than Eve." + +The other stolidly whetted his knife. + +Sanang pulled out a gold cigarette case, lighted a cigarette with an +air. + +"I go among Germans," he volunteered amiably. "The huns swam across two +oceans, but, like the unclean swine, it is their own throats they cut +when they swim! Well, there is only one God. And not very many angels. +Erlik is greater. And there are many million devils to do his bidding. +Adieu. There is rice and there is koumiss in the frozen closet. When I +return you shall have been asleep for hours." + +When Sanang left the hotel one of two young men seated in the hotel +lobby got up and strolled out after him. + +A few minutes later the other man went to the elevator, ascended to the +fourth floor, and entered an apartment next to the one occupied by +Sanang. + +There was another man there, lying on the lounge and smoking a cigar. +Without a word, they both went leisurely about the matter of disrobing +for the night. + +When the shorter man who had been in the apartment when the other +entered, and who was dark and curly-headed, had attired himself in +pyjamas, he sat down on one of the twin beds to enjoy his cigar to the +bitter end. + +"Has Sanang gone out?" he inquired in a low voice. + +"Yes. Benton went after him." + +The other man nodded. "Cleves," he said, "I guess it looks as though +this Norne girl is in it, too." + +"What happened?" + +"As soon as she arrived, Sanang made straight for her apartment. He +remained inside for half an hour. Then he came out in a hurry and went +to his own rooms, where that surly servant of his squats all day, +shining up his arsenal, and drinking koumiss." + +"Did you get their conversation?" + +"I've got a record of the gibberish. It requires an interpreter, of +course." + +"I suppose so. I'll take the records east with me to-morrow, and by the +same token I'd better notify New York that I'm leaving." + +He went, half-undressed, to the telephone, got the telegraph office, and +sent the following message: + + "RECKLOW, _New York_: + + "Leaving to-morrow for N. Y. with samples. Retain expert in + Oriental fabrics. + + "VICTOR CLEVES." + +"Report for me, too," said the dark young man, who was still enjoying +his cigar on his pillows. + +So Cleves sent another telegram, directed also to + + "RECKLOW, _New York_: + + "Benton and I are watching the market. Chinese importations + fluctuate. Recent consignment per _Nan-yang Maru_ will be + carefully inspected and details forwarded. + + "ALEK SELDEN." + +In the next room Gutchlug could hear the voice of Cleves at the +telephone, but he merely shrugged his heavy shoulders in contempt. For +he had other things to do beside eavesdropping. + +Also, for the last hour--in fact, ever since Sanang's +departure--something had been happening to him--something that happens +to a Hassani only once in a lifetime. And now this unique thing had +happened to him--to him, Gutchlug Khan--to him before whose Khiounnou +ancestors eighty-one thousand nations had bowed the knee. + +It had come to him at last, this dread thing, unheralded, totally +unexpected, a few minutes after Sanang had departed. + +And he suddenly knew he was going to die. + +And, when, presently, he comprehended it, he bent his grizzled head and +listened seriously. And, after a little silence, he heard his soul +bidding him farewell. + +So the chatter of white men at a telephone in the next apartment had no +longer any significance for him. Whether or not they had been spying on +him; whether they were plotting, made no difference to him now. + +He tested his knife's edge with his thumb and listened gravely to his +soul bidding him farewell. + +But, for a Yezidee, there was still a little detail to attend to before +his soul departed;--two matters to regulate. One was to select his +shroud. The other was to cut the white throat of this young +snow-leopardess called Keuke Mongol, the Yezidee temple girl. + +And he could steal down to her bedroom and finish that matter in five +minutes. + +But first he must choose his shroud, as is the custom of the Yezidee. + +That office, however, was quickly accomplished in a country where fine +white sheets of linen are to be found on every hotel bed. + +So, on his way to the door, his naked knife in his right hand, he paused +to fumble under the bed-covers and draw out a white linen sheet. + +Something hurt his hand like a needle. He moved it, felt the thing +squirm under his fingers and pierce his palm again and again. With a +shriek, he tore the bedclothes from the bed. + +A little yellow snake lay coiled there. + +He got as far as the telephone, but could not use it. And there he fell +heavily, shaking the room and dragging the instrument down with him. + + * * * * * + +There was some excitement. Cleves and Selden in their bathrobes went in +to look at the body. The hotel physician diagnosed it as heart-trouble. +Or, possibly, poison. Some gazed significantly at the naked knife still +clutched in the dead man's hands. + +Around the wrist of the other hand was twisted a pliable gold bracelet +representing a little snake. It had real emeralds for eyes. + +It had not been there when Gutchlug died. + +But nobody except Sanang could know that. And later when Sanang came +back and found Gutchlug very dead on the bed and a policeman sitting +outside, he offered no information concerning the new bracelet shaped +like a snake with real emeralds for eyes, which adorned the dead man's +left wrist. + +Toward evening, however, after an autopsy had confirmed the house +physician's diagnosis that heart-disease had finished Gutchlug, Sanang +mustered enough courage to go to the desk in the lobby and send up his +card to Miss Norne. + + * * * * * + +It appeared, however, that Miss Norne had left for Chicago about noon. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +GREY MAGIC + + +To Victor Cleves came the following telegram in code: + + "_Washington_, + "_April 14th, 1919._ + +"_Investigation ordered by the State Department as the result of +frequent mention in despatches of Chinese troops operating with the +Russian Bolsheviki forces has disclosed that the Bolsheviki are actually +raising a Chinese division of 30,000 men recruited in Central Asia. This +division has been guilty of the greatest cruelties. A strange rumour +prevails among the Allied forces at Archangel that this Chinese division +is led by Yezidee and Hassani officers belonging to the sect of +devil-worshipers and that they employ black arts and magic in battle._ + +"_From information so far gathered by the several branches of the United +States Secret Service operating throughout the world, it appears +possible that the various revolutionary forces of disorder, in Europe +and Asia, which now are violently threatening the peace and security, of +all established civilisation on earth, may have had a common origin. +This origin, it is now suspected, may date back to a very remote epoch; +the wide-spread forces of violence and merciless destruction may have +had their beginning among some ancient and predatory race whose +existence was maintained solely by robbery and murder._ + +"_Anarchists, terrorists, Bolshevists, Reds of all shades and degrees, +are now believed to represent in modern times what perhaps once was a +tribe of Assassins--a sect whose religion was founded upon a common +predilection for crimes of violence._ + +"_On this theory then, for the present, the United States Government +will proceed with this investigation of Bolshevism; and the Secret +Service will continue to pay particular attention to all Orientals in +the United States and other countries. You personally are formally +instructed to keep in touch with XLY-371 (Alek Selden) and ZB-303 (James +Benton), and to employ every possible means to become friendly with the +girl Tressa Norne, win her confidence, and, if possible, enlist her +actively in the Government Service as your particular aid and comrade._ + +"_It is equally important that the movements of the Oriental, called +Sanang, be carefully observed in order to discover the identity and +whereabouts of his companions. However, until further instructions he is +not to be taken into custody. M. H. 2479._ + + "_(Signed)_ + "(John Recklow.)" + +The long despatch from John Recklow made Cleves's duty plain enough. + +For months, now, Selden and Benton had been watching Tressa Norne. And +they had learned practically nothing about her. + +And now the girl had come within Cleves's sphere of operation. She had +been in New York for two weeks. Telegrams from Benton in Chicago, and +from Selden in Buffalo, had prepared him for her arrival. + +He had his men watching her boarding-house on West Twenty-eighth Street, +men to follow her, men to keep their eyes on her at the theatre, where +every evening, at 10:45, her _entr' acte_ was staged. He knew where to +get her. But he, himself, had been on the watch for the man Sanang; and +had failed to find the slightest trace of him in New York, although +warned that he had arrived. + +So, for that evening, he left the hunt for Sanang to others, put on his +evening clothes, and dined with fashionable friends at the Patroons' +Club, who never for an instant suspected that young Victor Cleves was in +the Service of the United States Government. About half-past nine he +strolled around to the theatre, desiring to miss as much as possible of +the popular show without being too late to see the curious little _entr' +acte_ in which this girl, Tressa Norne, appeared alone. + +He had secured an aisle seat near the stage at an outrageous price; the +main show was still thundering and fizzing and glittering as he entered +the theatre; so he stood in the rear behind the orchestra until the +descending curtain extinguished the outrageous glare and din. + +Then he went down the aisle, and as he seated himself Tressa Norne +stepped from the wings and stood before the lowered curtain facing an +expectant but oddly undemonstrative audience. + +The girl worked rapidly, seriously, and in silence. She seemed a mere +child there behind the footlights, not more than sixteen anyway--her +winsome eyes and wistful lips unspoiled by the world's wisdom. + +Yet once or twice the mouth drooped for a second and the winning eyes +darkened to a remoter blue--the brooding iris hue of far horizons. + +She wore the characteristic tabard of stiff golden tissue and the gold +pagoda-shaped headpiece of a Yezidee temple girl. Her flat, +slipper-shaped foot-gear was of stiff gold, too, and curled upward at +the toes. + +All this accentuated her apparent youth. For in face and throat no +firmer contours had as yet modified the soft fullness of immaturity; her +limbs were boyish and frail, and her bosom more undecided still, so that +the embroidered breadth of gold fell flat and straight from her chest to +a few inches above the ankles. + +She seemed to have no stock of paraphernalia with which to aid the +performance; no assistant, no orchestral diversion, nor did she serve +herself with any magician's patter. She did her work close to the +footlights. + +Behind her loomed a black curtain; the strip of stage in front was bare +even of carpet; the orchestra remained mute. + +But when she needed anything--a little table, for example--well, it was +suddenly there where she required it--a tripod, for instance, evidently +fitted to hold the big iridescent bubble of glass in which swarmed +little tropical fishes--and which arrived neatly from nowhere. She +merely placed her hands before her as though ready to support something +weighty which she expected and--suddenly, the huge crystal bubble was +visible, resting between her hands. And when she tired of holding it, +she set it upon the empty air and let go of it; and instead of crashing +to the stage with its finny rainbow swarm of swimmers, out of thin air +appeared a tripod to support it. + +Applause followed, not very enthusiastic, for the sort of audience which +sustains the shows of which her performance was merely an _entr' acte_ +is an audience responsive only to the obvious. + +Nobody ever before had seen that sort of magic in America. People +scarcely knew whether or not they quite liked it. The lightning of +innovation stupefies the dull; ignorance is always suspicious of +innovation--always afraid to put itself on record until its mind is made +up by somebody else. + +So in this typical New York audience approbation was cautious, but every +fascinated eye remained focused on this young girl who continued to do +incredible things, which seemed to resemble "putting something over" on +them; a thing which no uneducated American conglomeration ever quite +forgives. + +The girl's silence, too, perplexed them; they were accustomed to gabble, +to noise, to jazz, vocal and instrumental, to that incessant +metropolitan clamour which fills every second with sound in a city whose +only distinction is its din. Stage, press, art, letters, social +existence unless noisy mean nothing in Gotham; reticence, leisure, +repose are the three lost arts. The megaphone is the city's symbol; its +chiefest crime, silence. + +The girl having finished with the big glass bubble full of tiny fish, +picked it up and tossed it aside. For a moment it apparently floated +there in space like a soap-bubble. Changing rainbow tints waxed and +waned on the surface, growing deeper and more gorgeous until the +floating globe glowed scarlet, then suddenly burst into flame and +vanished. And only a strange, sweet perfume lingered in the air. + +But she gave her perplexed audience no time to wonder; she had seated +herself on the stage and was already swiftly busy unfolding a white veil +with which she presently covered herself, draping it over her like a +tent. + +The veil seemed to be translucent; she was apparently visible seated +beneath it. But the veil turned into smoke, rising into the air in a +thin white cloud; and there, where she had been seated, was a statue of +white stone the image of herself!--in all the frail springtide of early +adolescence--a white statue, cold, opaque, exquisite in its sculptured +immobility. + +There came, the next moment, a sound of distant thunder; flashes lighted +the blank curtain; and suddenly a vein of lightning and a sharper peal +shattered the statue to fragments. + +There they lay, broken bits of her own sculptured body, glistening in a +heap behind the footlights. Then each fragment began to shimmer with a +rosy internal light of its own, until the pile of broken marble glowed +like living coals under thickening and reddening vapours. And, +presently, dimly perceptible, there she was in the flesh again, seated +in the fiery centre of the conflagration, stretching her arms +luxuriously, yawning, seemingly awakening from refreshing slumber, her +eyes unclosing to rest with a sort of confused apology upon her +astounded audience. + +As she rose to her feet nothing except herself remained on the stage--no +debris, not a shred of smoke, not a spark. + +She came down, then, across an inclined plank into the orchestra among +the audience. + +In the aisle seat nearest her sat Victor Cleves. His business was to be +there that evening. But she didn't know that, knew nothing about +him--had never before set eyes on him. + +At her gesture of invitation he made a cup of both his hands. Into these +she poured a double handful of unset diamonds--or what appeared to be +diamonds--pressed her own hands above his for a second--and the diamonds +in his palms had become pearls. + +These were passed around to people in the vicinity, and finally returned +to Mr. Cleves, who, at her request, covered the heap of pearls with both +his hands, hiding them entirely from view. + +At her nod he uncovered them. The pearls had become emeralds. Again, +while he held them, and without even touching him, she changed them into +rubies. Then she turned away from him, apparently forgetting that he +still held the gems, and he sat very still, one cupped hand over the +other, while she poured silver coins into a woman's gloved hands, turned +them into gold coins, then flung each coin into the air, where it +changed to a living, fragrant rose and fell among the audience. + +Presently she seemed to remember Cleve, came back down the aisle, and +under his close and intent gaze drew from his cupped hands, one by one, +a score of brilliant little living birds, which continually flew about +her and finally perched, twittering, on her golden headdress--a +rainbow-crest of living jewels. + +As she drew the last warm, breathing little feathered miracle from +Cleves's hands and released it, he said rapidly under his breath: "I +want a word with you later. Where?" + +She let her clear eyes rest on him for a moment, then with a shrug so +slight that it was perceptible, perhaps, only to him, she moved on along +the inclined way, stepped daintily over the footlights, caught fire, +apparently, nodded to a badly rattled audience, and sauntered off, +burning from head to foot. + +What applause there was became merged in a dissonant instrumental +outburst from the orchestra; the great god Jazz resumed direction, the +mindless audience breathed freely again as the curtain rose upon a +familiar, yelling turbulence, including all that Gotham really +understands and cares for--legs and noise. + +Victor Cleves glanced up at the stage, then continued to study the name +of the girl on the programme. It was featured in rather pathetic +solitude under "_Entr' acte_." And he read further: "During the +_entr' acte_ Miss Tressa Norne will entertain you with several phases of +Black Magic. This strange knowledge was acquired by Miss Norne from the +Yezidees, among which almost unknown people still remain descendants of +that notorious and formidable historic personage known in the twelfth +century as The Old Man of the Mountain--or The Old Man of Mount Alamout. + +"The pleasant profession of this historic individual was assassination; +and some historians now believe that genuine occult power played a part +in his dreadful record--a record which terminated only when the infantry +of Genghis Khan took Mount Alamout by storm and hanged the Old Man of +the Mountain and burned his body under a boulder of You-Stone. + +"For Miss Norne's performance there appears to be no plausible, +practical or scientific explanation. + +"During her performance the curtain will remain lowered for fifteen +minutes and will then rise on the last act of 'You Betcha Life.'" + +The noisy show continued while Cleves, paying it scant attention, +brooded over the programme. And ever his keen, grey eyes reverted to her +name, Tressa Norne. + +Then, for a little while, he settled back and let his absent gaze wander +over the galloping battalions of painted girls and the slapstick +principals whose perpetual motion evoked screams of approbation from the +audience amid the din of the great god Jazz. + +He had an aisle seat; he disturbed nobody when he went out and around to +the stage door. + +The aged man on duty took his card, called a boy and sent it off. The +boy returned with the card, saying that Miss Norne had already dressed +and departed. + +Cleves tipped him and then tipped the doorman heavily. + +"Where does she live?" he asked. + +"Say," said the old man, "I dunno, and that's straight. But them ladies +mostly goes up to the roof for a look in at the 'Moonlight Masque' and a +dance afterward. Was you ever up there?" + +"Yes." + +"Seen the new show?" + +"No." + +"Well, g'wan up while you can get a table. And I bet the little girl +will be somewheres around." + +"The little girl" _was_ "somewheres around." He secured a table, turned +and looked about at the vast cabaret into which only a few people had +yet filtered, and saw her at a distance in the carpeted corridor buying +violets from one of the flower-girls. + +A waiter placed a reserve card on his table; he continued on around the +outer edge of the auditorium. + +Miss Norne had already seated herself at a small table in the rear, and +a waiter was serving her with iced orange juice and little French cakes. + +When the waiter returned Cleves went up and took off his hat. + +"May I talk with you for a moment, Miss Norne?" he said. + +The girl looked up, the wheat-straw still between her scarlet lips. +Then, apparently recognising in him the young man in the audience who +had spoken to her, she resumed her business of imbibing orange juice. + +The girl seemed even frailer and younger in her hat and street gown. A +silver-fox stole hung from her shoulders; a gold bag lay on the table +under the bunch of violets. + +She paid no attention whatever to him. Presently her wheat-straw +buckled, and she selected a better one. + +He said: "There's something rather serious I'd like to speak to you +about if you'll let me. I'm not the sort you evidently suppose. I'm not +trying to annoy you." + +At that she looked around and upward once more. + +Very, very young, but already spoiled, he thought, for the dark-blue +eyes were coolly appraising him, and the droop of the mouth had become +almost sullen. Besides, traces of paint still remained to incarnadine +lip and cheek and there was a hint of hardness in the youthful plumpness +of the features. + +"Are you a professional?" she asked without curiosity. + +"A theatrical man? No." + +"Then if you haven't anything to offer me, what is it you wish?" + +"I have a job to offer if you care for it and if you are up to it," he +said. + +Her eyes became slightly hostile: + +"What kind of job do you mean?" + +"I want to learn something about you first. Will you come over to my +table and talk it over?" + +"No." + +"What sort do you suppose me to be?" he inquired, amused. + +"The usual sort, I suppose." + +"You mean a Johnny?" + +"Yes--of sorts." + +She let her insolent eyes sweep him once more, from head to foot. + +He was a well-built young man and in his evening dress he had that +something about him which placed him very definitely where he really +belonged. + +"Would you mind looking at my card?" he asked. + +He drew it out and laid it beside her, and without stirring she scanned +it sideways. + +"That's my name and address," he continued. "I'm not contemplating +mischief. I've enough excitement in life without seeking adventure. +Besides, I'm not the sort who goes about annoying women." + +She glanced up at him again: + +"You are annoying me!" + +"I'm sorry. I was quite honest. Good-night." + +He took his _conge_ with unhurried amiability; had already turned away +when she said: + +"Please ... what do you desire to say to me?" He came back to her table: + +"I couldn't tell you until I know a little more about you." + +"What--do you wish to know?" + +"Several things. I could scarcely ask you--go over such matters with +you--standing here." + +There was a pause; the girl juggled with the straw on the table for a +few moments, then, partly turning, she summoned a waiter, paid him, +adjusted her stole, picked up her gold bag and her violets and stood up. +Then she turned to Cleves and gave him a direct look, which had in it +the impersonal and searching gaze of a child. + +When they were seated at the table reserved for him the place already +was filling rapidly--backwash from the theatres slopped through every +aisle--people not yet surfeited with noise, not yet sufficiently sodden +by their worship of the great god Jazz. + +"Jazz," said Cleves, glancing across his dinner-card at Tressa +Norne--"what's the meaning of the word? Do you happen to know?" + +"Doesn't it come from the French '_jaser_'?" + +He smiled. "Possibly. I'm rather hungry. Are you?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you indicate your preferences?" + +She studied her card, and presently he gave the order. + +"I'd like some champagne," she said, "unless you think it's too +expensive." + +He smiled at that, too, and gave the order. + +"I didn't suggest any wine because you seem so young," he said. + +"How old do I seem?" + +"Sixteen perhaps." + +"I am twenty-one." + +"Then you've had no troubles." + +"I don't know what you call trouble," she remarked, indifferently, +watching the arriving throngs. + +The orchestra, too, had taken its place. + +"Well," she said, "now that you've picked me up, what do you really want +of me?" There was no mitigating smile to soften what she said. She +dropped her elbows on the table, rested her chin between her palms and +looked at him with the same searching, undisturbed expression that is so +disconcerting in children. As he made no reply: "May I have a cocktail?" +she inquired. + +He gave the order. And his mind registered pessimism. "There is nothing +doing with this girl," he thought. "She's already on the toboggan." But +he said aloud: "That was beautiful work you did down in the theatre, +Miss Norne." + +"Did you think so?" + +"Of course. It was astounding work." + +"Thank you. But managers and audiences differ with you." + +"Then they are very stupid," he said. + +"Possibly. But that does not help me pay my board." + +"Do you mean you have trouble in securing theatrical engagements?" + +"Yes, I am through here to-night, and there's nothing else in view, so +far." + +"That's incredible!" he exclaimed. + +She lifted her glass, slowly drained it. + +For a few moments she caressed the stem of the empty glass, her gaze +remote. + +"Yes, it's that way," she said. "From the beginning I felt that my +audiences were not in sympathy with me. Sometimes it even amounts to +hostility. Americans do not like what I do, even if it holds their +attention. I don't quite understand why they don't like it, but I'm +always conscious they don't. And of course that settles it--to-night has +settled the whole thing, once and for all." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"What others do, I presume." + +"What do others do?" he inquired, watching the lovely sullen eyes. + +"Oh, they do what I'm doing now, don't they?--let some man pick them up +and feed them." She lifted her indifferent eyes. "I'm not criticising +you. I meant to do it some day--when I had courage. That's why I just +asked you if I might have some champagne--finding myself a little scared +at my first step.... But you _did_ say you might have a job for me. +Didn't you?" + +"Suppose I haven't. What are you going to do?" + +The curtain was rising. She nodded toward the bespangled chorus. +"Probably that sort of thing. They've asked me." + +Supper was served. They both were hungry and thirsty; the music made +conversation difficult, so they supped in silence and watched the +imbecile show conceived by vulgarians, produced by vulgarians and served +up to mental degenerates of the same species--the average metropolitan +audience. + +For ten minutes a pair of comedians fell up and down a flight of steps, +and the audience shrieked approval. + +"Miss Norne?" + +The girl who had been watching the show turned in her chair and looked +back at him. + +"Your magic is by far the most wonderful I have ever seen or heard of. +Even in India such things are not done." + +"No, not in India," she said, indifferently. + +"Where then?" + +"In China." + +"You learned to do such things there?" + +"Yes." + +"Where, in China, did you learn such amazing magic?" + +"In Yian." + +"I never heard of it. Is it a province?" + +"A city." + +"And you lived there?" + +"Fourteen years." + +"When?" + +"From 1904 to 1918." + +"During the great war," he remarked, "you were in China?" + +"Yes." + +"Then you arrived here very recently." + +"In November, from the Coast." + +"I see. You played the theatres from the Coast eastward." + +"And went to pieces in New York," she added calmly, finishing her glass +of champagne. + +"Have you any family?" he asked. + +"No." + +"Do you care to say anything further?" he inquired, pleasantly. + +"About my family? Yes, if you wish. My father was in the spice trade in +Yian. The Yezidees took Yian in 1910, threw him into a well in his own +compound and filled it up with dead imperial troops. I was thirteen +years old.... The Hassani did that. They held Yian nearly eight years, +and I lived with my mother, in a garden pagoda, until 1914. In January +of that year Germans got through from Kiaou-Chou. They had been six +months on the way. I think they were Hassanis. Anyway, they persuaded +the Hassanis to massacre every English-speaking prisoner. And so--my +mother died in the garden pagoda of Yian.... I was not told for four +years." + +"Why did they spare you?" he asked, astonished at her story so quietly +told, so utterly destitute of emotion. + +"I was seventeen. A certain person had placed me among the temple girls +in the temple of Erlik. It pleased this person to make of me a Mongol +temple girl as a mockery at Christ. They gave me the name Keuke Mongol. +I asked to serve the shrine of Kwann-an--she being like to our Madonna. +But this person gave me the choice between the halberds of the +Tchortchas and the sorcery of Erlik." + +She lifted her sombre eyes. "So I learned how to do the things you saw. +But--what I did there on the stage is not--respectable." + +An odd shiver passed over him. For a second he took her literally, +suddenly convinced that her magic was not white but black as the demon +at whose shrine she had learned it. Then he smiled and asked her +pleasantly, whether indeed she employed hypnosis in her miraculous +exhibitions. + +But her eyes became more sombre still, and, "I don't care to talk about +it," she said. "I have already said too much." + +"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry into professional secrets----" + +"I can't talk about it," she repeated. "... Please--my glass is quite +empty." + +When he had refilled it: + +"How did you get away from Yian?" he asked. + +"The Japanese." + +"What luck!" + +"Yes. One battle was fought at Buldak. The Hassanis and Blue Flags were +terribly cut up. Then, outside the walls of Yian, Prince Sanang's +Tchortcha infantry made a stand. He was there with his Yezidee horsemen, +all in leather and silk armour with casques and corselets of black +Indian steel. + +"I could see them from the temple--saw the Japanese gunners open fire. +The Tchortchas were blown to shreds in the blast of the Japanese +guns.... Sanang got away with some of his Yezidee horsemen." + +"Where was that battle?" + +"I told you, outside the walls of Yian." + +"The newspapers never mentioned any such trouble in China," he said, +suspiciously. + +"Nobody knows about it except the Germans and the Japanese." + +"Who is this Sanang?" he demanded. + +"A Yezidee-Mongol. He is one of the Sheiks-el-Djebel--a servant of The +Old Man of Mount Alamout." + +"What is _he_?" + +"A sorcerer--assassin." + +"What!" exclaimed Cleves incredulously. + +"Why, yes," she said, calmly. "Have you never heard of The Old Man of +Mount Alamout?" + +"Well, yes----" + +"The succession has been unbroken since 1090 B.C.A Hassan Sabbah is +still the present Old Man of the Mountain. His Yezidees worship Erlik. +They are sorcerers. But you would not believe that." + +Cleves said with a smile, "Who is Erlik?" + +"The Mongols' Satan." + +"Oh! So these Yezidees are devil-worshipers!" + +"They are more. They _are_ actually devils." + +"You don't really believe that even in unexplored China there exists +such a creature as a real sorcerer, do you?" he inquired, smilingly. + +"I don't wish to talk of it." + +To his surprise her face had flushed, and he thought her sensitive mouth +quivered a little. + +He watched her in silence for a moment; then, leaning a little way +across the table: + +"Where are you going when the show here closes?" + +"To my boarding-house." + +"And then?" + +"To bed," she said, sullenly. + +"And to-morrow what do you mean to do?" + +"Go out to the agencies and ask for work." + +"And if there is none?" + +"The chorus," she said, indifferently. + +"What salary have you been getting?" + +She told him. + +"Will you take three times that amount and work with me?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +BODY AND SOUL + + +The girl's direct gaze met his with that merciless searching intentness +he already knew. + +"What do you wish me to do?" + +"Enter the service of the United States." + +"Wh-what?" + +"Work for the Government." + +She was too taken aback to answer. + +"Where were you born?" he demanded abruptly. + +"In Albany, New York," she replied in a dazed way. + +"You are loyal to your country?" + +"Yes--certainly." + +"You would not betray her?" + +"No." + +"I don't mean for money; I mean from fear." + +After a moment, and, avoiding his gaze: "I am afraid of death," she said +very simply. + +He waited. + +"I--I don't know what I might do--being afraid," she added in a troubled +voice. "I desire to--live." + +He still waited. + +She lifted her eyes: "I'd try not to betray my country," she murmured. + +"Try to face death for your country's honour?" + +"Yes." + +"And for your own?" + +"Yes; and for my own." + +He leaned nearer: "Yet you're taking a chance on your own honour +to-night." + +She blushed brightly: "I didn't think I was taking a very great chance +with you." + +He said: "You have found life too hard. And when you faced failure in +New York you began to let go of life--real life, I mean. And you came up +here to-night wondering whether you had courage to let yourself go. When +I spoke to you it scared you. You found you hadn't the courage. But +perhaps to-morrow you might find it--or next week--if sufficiently +scared by hunger--you might venture to take the first step along the +path that you say others usually take sooner or later." + +The girl flushed scarlet, sat looking at him out of eyes grown dark with +anger. + +He said: "You told me an untruth. You _have_ been tempted to betray your +country. You have resisted. You _have_ been threatened with death. You +_have_ had courage to defy threats and temptations where your country's +honour was concerned!" + +"How do you know?" she demanded. + +He continued, ignoring the question: "From the time you landed in San +Francisco you have been threatened. You tried to earn a living by your +magician's tricks, but in city after city, as you came East, your +uneasiness grew into fear, and your fear into terror, because every day +more terribly confirmed your belief that people were following you +determined either to use you to their own purposes or to murder you----" + +The girl turned quite white and half rose in her chair, then sank back, +staring at him out of dilated eyes. Then Cleves smiled: "So you've got +the nerve to do Government work," he said, "and you've got the +intelligence, and the knowledge, and something else--I don't know +exactly what to call it--Skill? Dexterity? Sorcery?" he smiled--"I mean +your professional ability. That's what I want--that bewildering +dexterity of yours, to help your own country in the fight of its life. +Will you enlist for service?" + +"W-what fight?" she asked faintly. + +"The fight with the Red Spectre." + +"Anarchy?" + +"Yes.... Are you ready to leave this place? I want to talk to you." + +"Where?" + +"In my own rooms." + +After a moment she rose. + +"I'll go to your rooms with you," she said. She added very calmly that +she was glad it was to be his rooms and not some other man's. + +Out of countenance, he demanded what she meant, and she said quite +candidly that she'd made up her mind to live at any cost, and that if +she couldn't make an honest living she'd make a living anyway. + +He offered no reply to this until they had reached the street and he had +called a taxi. + +On their way to his apartment he re-opened the subject rather bluntly, +remarking that life was not worth living at the price she had mentioned. + +"That is the accepted Christian theory," she replied coolly, "but +circumstances alter things." + +"Not such things." + +"Oh, yes, they do. If one is already damned, what difference does +anything else make?" + +He asked, sarcastically, whether she considered herself already damned. + +She did not reply for a few moments, then she said, in a quick, +breathless way, that souls have been entrapped through ignorance of +evil. And asked him if he did not believe it. + +"No," he said, "I don't." + +She shook her head. "You couldn't understand," she said. "But I've made +up my mind to one thing; even if my soul has perished, my body shall not +die for a long, long time. I mean to live," she added. "I shall not let +my body be slain! They shall not steal life from me, whatever they have +done to my soul----" + +"What in heaven's name are you talking about?" he exclaimed. "Do you +actually believe in soul-snatchers and life-stealers?" + +She seemed sullen, her profile turned to him, her eyes on the +brilliantly lighted avenue up which they were speeding. After a while: +"I'd rather live decently and respectably if I can," she said. "That is +the natural desire of any girl, I suppose. But if I can't, nevertheless +I shall beat off death at any cost. And whatever the price of life is, I +shall pay it. Because I am absolutely determined to go on living. And if +I can't provide the means I'll have to let some man do it, I suppose." + +"It's a good thing it was I who found you when you were out of a job," +he remarked coldly. + +"I hope so," she said. "Even in the beginning I didn't really believe +you meant to be impertinent"--a tragic smile touched her lips--"and I +was almost sorry----" + +"Are you quite crazy?" he demanded. + +"No, my mind is untouched. It's my soul that's gone.... Do you know I +was very hungry when you spoke to me? The management wouldn't advance +anything, and my last money went for my room.... Last Monday I had three +dollars to face the future--and no job. I spent the last of it to-night +on violets, orange juice and cakes. My furs and my gold bag remain. I +can go two months more on them. Then it's a job or----." She shrugged +and buried her nose in her violets. + +"Suppose I advance you a month's salary?" he said. + +"What am I to do for it?" + +The taxi stopped at a florist's on the corner of Madison Avenue and 58th +Street. Overhead were apartments. There was no elevator--merely the +street door to unlock and four dim flights of stairs rising steeply to +the top. + +He lived on the top floor. As they paused before his door in the dim +corridor: + +"Are you afraid?" he asked. + +She came nearer, laid a hand on his arm: + +"Are _you_ afraid?" + +He stood silent, the latch-key in his hand. + +"I'm not afraid of myself--if that is what you mean," he said. + +"That is partly what I mean ... you'll have to mount guard over your +soul." + +"I'll look out for my soul," he retorted dryly. + +"Do so. I lost mine. I--I would not wish any harm to yours through our +companionship." + +"Don't you worry about my soul," he remarked, fitting the key to the +lock. But again her hand fell on his wrist: + +"Wait. I can't--can't help warning you. Neither your soul nor your body +are safe if--if you ever do make of me a companion. I've _got_ to tell +you this!" + +"What are you talking about?" he demanded bluntly. + +"Because you have been courteous--considerate--and you _don't_ know--oh, +you don't realise what spiritual peril is!--What your soul and body have +to fear if you--if you win me over--if you ever manage to make of me a +friend!" + +He said: "People follow and threaten you. We know that. I understand +also that association with you involves me, and that I shall no doubt be +menaced with bodily harm." + +He laid his hand on hers where it still rested on his sleeves: + +"But that's my business, Miss Norne," he added with a smile. "So, +otherwise, it being merely a plain business affair between you and me, I +think I may also venture my immortal soul alone with you in my room." + +The girl flushed darkly. + +"You have misunderstood," she said. + +He looked at her coolly, intently; and arrived at no conclusion. Young, +very lovely, confessedly without moral principle, he still could not +believe her actually depraved. "What did you mean?" he said bluntly. + +"In companionship with the lost, one might lose one's way--unawares.... +Do you know that there is an Evil loose in the world which is bent upon +conquest by _obtaining control of men's minds_?" + +"No," he replied, amused. + +"And that, through the capture of men's minds and souls the destruction +of civilisation is being planned?" + +"Is that what you learned in your captivity, Miss Norne?" + +"You do not believe me." + +"I believe your terrible experiences in China have shaken you to your +tragic little soul. Horror and grief and loneliness have left scars on +tender, impressionable youth. They would have slain maturity--broken it, +crushed it. But youth is flexible, pliable, and bends--gives way under +pressure. Scars become slowly effaced. It shall be so with you. You will +learn to understand that nothing really can harm the soul." + +For a few moments' silence they stood facing each other on the dim +landing outside his locked door. + +"Nothing can slay our souls," he repeated in a grave voice. "I do not +believe you really ever have done anything to wound even your +self-respect. I do not believe you are capable of it, or ever have been, +or ever will be. But somebody has deeply wounded you, spiritually, and +has wounded your mind to persuade you that your soul is no longer in +God's keeping. For that is a lie!" + +He saw her features working with poignant emotions as though struggling +to believe him. + +"Souls are never lost," he said. "Ungoverned passions of every sort +merely cripple them for a space. God always heals them in the end." + +He laid his hand on the door-knob once more and lifted the latch-key. + +"Don't!" she whispered, catching his hand again, "if there should be +somebody in there waiting for us!" + +"There is not a soul in my rooms. My servant sleeps out." + +"There _is_ somebody there!" she said, trembling. + +"Nobody, Miss Norne. Will you come in with me?" + +"I don't dare----" + +"Why?" + +"You and I alone together--no! oh, please--please! I am afraid!" + +"Of what?" + +"Of--giving you--my c-confidence--and trust--and--and f-friendship." + +"I want you to." + +"I must not! It would destroy us both, soul and body!" + +"I tell you," he said, impatiently, "that there is no destruction of the +soul--and it's a clean comradeship anyway--a fighting friendship I ask +of you--_all_ I ask; all I offer! Wherein, then, lies this peril in +being alone together?" + +"Because I am finding it in my heart to believe in you, trust you, hold +fast to your strength and protection. And if I give way--yield--and if I +make you a promise--and _if there is anybody in that room to see us and +hear us--then_ we shall be destroyed, both of us, soul and body----" + +He took her hands, held them until their trembling ceased. + +"I'll answer for our bodies. Let God look after the rest. Will you trust +Him?" + +She nodded. + +"And me?" + +"Yes." + +But her face blanched as he turned the latch-key, switched on the +electric light, and preceded her into the room beyond. + +The place was one of those accentless, typical bachelor apartments made +comfortable for anything masculine, but quite unlivable otherwise. + +Live coals still glowed in the hob grate; he placed a lump of cannel +coal on the embers, used a bellows vigorously and the flame caught with +a greasy crackle. + +The girl stood motionless until he pulled up an easy chair for her, then +he found another for himself. She let slip her furs, folded her hands +around the bunch of violets and waited. + +"Now," he said, "I'll come to the point. In 1916 I was at Plattsburg, +expecting a commission. The Department of Justice sent for me. I went to +Washington where I was made to understand that I had been selected to +serve my country in what is vaguely known as the Secret Service--and +which includes government agents attached to several departments. + +"The great war is over; but I am still retained in the service. Because +something more sinister than a hun victory over civilisation threatens +this Republic. And threatens the civilised world." + +"Anarchy," she said. + +"Bolshevism." + +She did not stir in her chair. + +She had become very white. She said nothing. He looked at her with his +quiet, reassuring smile. + +"That's what I want of you," he repeated. + +"I want your help," he went on, "I want your valuable knowledge of the +Orient. I want whatever secret information you possess. I want your +rather amazing gifts, your unprecedented experience among almost unknown +people, your familiarity with occult things, your astounding +powers--whatever they are--hypnotic, psychic, material. + +"Because, to-day, civilisation is engaged in a secret battle for +existence against gathering powers of violence, the force and limit of +which are still unguessed. + +"It is a battle between righteousness and evil, between sanity and +insanity, light and darkness, God and Satan! And if civilisation does +not win, then the world perishes." + +She raised her still eyes to his, but made no other movement. + +"Miss Norne," he said, "we in the International Service know enough +about you to desire to know more. + +"We already knew the story you have told to me. Agents in the +International Secret Service kept in touch with you from the time that +the Japanese escorted you out of China. + +"From the day you landed, and all across the Continent to New York, you +have been kept in view by agents of this government. + +"Here, in New York, my men have kept in touch with you. And now, +to-night, the moment has come for a personal understanding between you +and me." + +The girl's pale lips moved--became stiffly articulate: "I--I wish to +live," she stammered, "I fear death." + +"I know it. I know what I ask when I ask your help." + +She said in the ghost of a voice: "If I turn against _them_--they will +kill me." + +"They'll try," he said quietly. + +"They will not fail, Mr. Cleves." + +"That is in God's hands." + +She became deathly white at that. + +"No," she burst out in an agonised voice, "it is not in God's hands! If +it were, I should not be afraid! It is in the hands of those who stole +my soul!" + +She covered her face with both arms, fairly writhing on her chair. + +"If the Yezidees have actually made you believe any such nonsense"--he +began; but she dropped her arms and stared at him out of terrible blue +eyes: + +"I don't want to die, I tell you! I am afraid!--_afraid_! If I reveal to +you what I know they'll kill me. If I turn against them and aid you, +they'll slay my body, and send it after my soul!" + +She was trembling so violently that he sprang up and went to her. After +a moment he passed one arm around her shoulders and held her firmly, +close to him. + +"Come," he said, "do your duty. Those who enlist under the banner of +Christ have nothing to dread in this world or the next." + +"If--if I could believe I were safe there." + +"I tell you that you are. So is every human soul! What mad nonsense have +the Yezidees made you believe? Is there any surer salvation for the soul +than to die in Christ's service?" + +He slipped his arm from her quivering shoulders and grasped both her +hands, crushing them as though to steady every fibre in her tortured +body. + +"I want you to live. I want to live, too. But I tell you it's in God's +hands, and we soldiers of civilisation have nothing to fear except +failure to do our duty. Now, then, are we comrades under the United +States Government?" + +"O God--I--dare not!" + +"_Are_ we?" + +Perhaps she felt the physical pain of his crushing grip for she turned +and looked him in the eyes. + +"I don't want to die," she whispered. "Don't make me!" + +"Will you help your country?" + +The terrible directness of her child's gaze became almost unendurable to +him. + +"Will you offer your country your soul and body?" he insisted in a low, +tense voice. + +Her stiff lips formed a word. + +"Yes!" he exclaimed. + +"Yes." + +For a moment she rested against his shoulder, deathly white, then in a +flash she had straightened, was on her feet in one bound and so swiftly +that he scarcely followed her movement--was unaware that she had risen +until he saw her standing there with a pistol glittering in her hand, +her eyes fixed on the portieres that hung across the corridor leading to +his bedroom. + +"What on earth," he began, but she interrupted him, keeping her gaze +focused on the curtains, and the pistol resting level on her hip. + +"I'll answer you if I die for it!" she cried. "I'll tell you everything +I know! You wish to learn what is this monstrous evil that threatens the +world with destruction--what you call anarchy and Bolshevism? It is an +Evil that was born before Christ came! It is an Evil which not only +destroys cities and empires and men but which is more terrible still for +it obtains control of the human mind, and uses it at will; and it +obtains sovereignty over the soul, and makes it prisoner. Its aim is to +dominate first, then to destroy. It was conceived in the beginning by +Erlik and by Sorcerers and devils.... Always, from the first, there have +been sorcerers and living devils. + +"And when human history began to be remembered and chronicled, devils +were living who worshiped Erlik and practised sorcery. + +"They have been called by many names. A thousand years before Christ +Hassan Sabbah founded his sect called Hassanis or Assassins. The +Yezidees are of them. Their Chief is still called Sabbah; their creed is +the annihilation of civilisation!" + +Cleves had risen. The girl spoke in a clear, accentless monotone, not +looking at him, her eyes and pistol centred on the motionless curtains. + +"Look out!" she cried sharply. + +"What is the matter?" he demanded. "Do you suppose anybody is hidden +behind that curtain in the passageway?" + +"If there is," she replied in her excited but distinct voice, "here is a +tale to entertain him: + +"The Hassanis are a sect of assassins which has spread out of Asia all +over the world, and they are determined upon the annihilation of +everything and everybody in it except themselves! + +"In Germany is a branch of the sect. The hun is the lineal descendant of +the ancient Yezidee; the gods of the hun are the old demons under other +names; the desire and object of the hun is the same desire--to rule the +minds and bodies and souls of men and use them to their own purposes!" + +She lifted her pistol a little, came a pace forward: + +"Anarchist, Yezidee, Hassani, Boche, Bolshevik--all are the same--all +are secretly swarming in the hidden places for the same purpose!" + +The girl's blue eyes were aflame, now, and the pistol was lifting slowly +in her hand to a deadly level. + +"Sanang!" she cried in a terrible voice. + +"Sanang!" she cried again in her terrifying young voice--"Toad! Tortoise +egg! Spittle of Erlik! May the Thirty Thousand Calamities overtake you! +Sheik-el-Djebel!--cowardly Khan whom I laughed at from the temple when +it rained yellow snakes on the marble steps when all the gongs in Yian +sounded in your frightened ears!" + +She waited. + +"What! You won't step out? _Tokhta!_" she exclaimed in a ringing tone, +and made a swift motion with her left hand. Apparently out of her empty +open palm, like a missile hurled, a thin, blinding beam of light struck +the curtains, making them suddenly transparent. + +_A man stood there._ + +He came out, moving very slowly as though partly stupefied. He wore +evening dress under his overcoat, and had a long knife in his right +hand. + +Nobody spoke. + +"So--I really was to die then, if I came here," said the girl in a +wondering way. + +Sanang's stealthy gaze rested on her, stole toward Cleves. He moistened +his lips with his tongue. "You deliver me to this government agent?" he +asked hoarsely. + +"I deliver nobody by treachery. You may go, Sanang." + +He hesitated, a graceful, faultless, metropolitan figure in top-hat and +evening attire. Then, as he started to move, Cleves covered him with his +weapon. + +"I can't let that man go free!" cried Cleves angrily. + +"Very well!" she retorted in a passionate voice--"then take him if you +are able! _Tokhta!_ Look out for yourself!" + +Something swift as lightning struck the pistol from his grasp,--blinded +him, half stunned him, set him reeling in a drenching blaze of light +that blotted out all else. + +He heard the door slam; he stumbled, caught at the back of a chair while +his senses and sight were clearing. + +"By heavens!" he whispered with ashen lips, "you--you _are_ a +sorceress--or something. What--what, are you doing to me?" + +There was no answer. And when his vision cleared a little more he saw +her crouched on the floor, her head against the locked door, listening, +perhaps--or sobbing--he scarcely understood which until the quiver of +her shoulders made it plainer. + +When at last Cleves went to her and bent over and touched her she looked +up at him out of wet eyes, and her grief-drawn mouth quivered. + +"I--I don't know," she sobbed, "if he truly stole away my +soul--there--there in the temple dusk of Yian. But he--he stole my +heart--for all his wickedness--Sanang, Prince of the Yezidees--and I +have been fighting him for it all these years--all these long +years--fighting for what he stole in the temple dusk!... And now--now I +have it back--my heart--all broken to pieces--here on the floor behind +your--your bolted door." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ASSASSINS + + +On the wall hung a map of Mongolia, that indefinite region a million and +a half square miles in area, vast sections of which have never been +explored. + +Turkestan and China border it on the south, and Tibet almost touches it, +not quite. + +Even in the twelfth century, when the wild Mongols broke loose and +nearly overran the world, the Tibet infantry under Genghis, the +Tchortcha horsemen drafted out of Black China, and a great cloud of +Mongol cavalry under the Prince of the Vanguard commanding half a +hundred Hezars, never penetrated that grisly and unknown waste. The +"Eight Towers of the Assassins" guarded it--still guard it, possibly. + +The vice-regent of Erlik, Prince of Darkness, dwelt within this unknown +land. And dwells there still, perhaps. + +In front of this wall-map stood Tressa Norne. + +Behind her, facing the map, four men were seated--three of them under +thirty. + +These three were volunteers in the service of the United States +Government--men of independent means, of position, who had volunteered +for military duty at the outbreak of the great war. However, they had +been assigned by the Government to a very different sort of duty no less +exciting than service on the fighting line, but far less conspicuous, +for they had been drafted into the United States Department of Justice. + +The names of these three were Victor Cleves, a professor of ornithology +at Harvard University before the war; Alexander Selden, junior partner +in the banking firm of Milwyn, Selden, and Co., and James Benton, a New +York architect. + +The fourth man's name was John Recklow. He might have been over fifty, +or under. He was well-built, in a square, athletic way, clear-skinned +and ruddy, grey-eyed, quiet in voice and manner. His hair and moustache +had turned silvery. He had been employed by the Government for many +years. He seemed to be enormously interested in what Miss Norne was +saying. + +Also he was the only man who interrupted her narrative to ask questions. +And his questions revealed a knowledge which was making the girl more +sensitive and uneasy every moment. + +Finally, when she spoke of the Scarlet Desert, he asked if the Scarlet +Lake were there and if the Xin was still supposed to inhabit its +vermilion depths. And at that she turned and looked at him, her +forefinger still resting on the map. + +"Where have you ever heard of the Scarlet Lake and the Xin?" she asked +as though frightened. + +Recklow said quietly that as a boy he had served under Gordon and Sir +Robert. + +"If, as a boy, you served under Chinese Gordon, you already know much of +what I have told you, Mr. Recklow. Is it not true?" she demanded +nervously. + +"That makes no difference," he replied with a smile. "It is all very new +to these three young gentlemen. And as for myself, I am checking up what +you say and comparing it with what I heard many, many years ago when my +comrade Barres and I were in Yian." + +"Did you really know Sir Robert Hart?" + +"Yes." + +"Then why do you not explain to these gentlemen?" + +"Dear child," he interrupted gently, "what did Chinese Gordon or Sir +Robert Hart, or even my comrade Barres, or I myself know about occult +Asia in comparison to what you know?--a girl who has actually served the +mysteries of Erlik for four amazing years!" + +She paled a trifle, came slowly across the room to where Recklow was +seated, laid a timid hand on his sleeve. + +"Do you believe there are sorcerers in Asia?" she asked with that +child-like directness which her wonderful blue eyes corroborated. + +Recklow remained silent. + +"Because," she went on, "if, in your heart, you do not believe this to +be an accursed fact, then what I have to say will mean nothing to any of +you." + +Recklow touched his short, silvery moustache, hesitating. Then: + +"The worship of Erlik is devil worship," he said. "Also I am entirely +prepared to believe that there are, among the Yezidees, adepts who +employ scientific weapons against civilisation--who have probably +obtained a rather terrifying knowledge of psychic laws which they use +scientifically, and which to ordinary, God-fearing folk appear to be the +black magic of sorcerers." + +Cleves said: "The employment by the huns of poison gases and long-range +cannon is a parallel case. Before the war we could not believe in the +possibility of a cannon that threw shells a distance of seventy miles." + +The girl still addressed herself to Recklow: "Then you do not believe +there are real sorcerers in Asia, Mr. Recklow?" + +"Not sorcerers with supernatural powers for evil. Only degenerate human +beings who, somehow, have managed to tap invisible psychic currents, and +have learned how to use terrific forces about which, so far, we know +practically nothing." + +She spoke again in the same uneasy voice: "Then you do not believe that +either God or Satan is involved?" + +"No," he replied smilingly, "and you must not so believe." + +"Nor the--the destruction of human souls," she persisted; "you do not +believe it is being accomplished to-day?" + +"Not in the slightest, dear young lady," he said cheerfully. + +"Do you not believe that to have been instructed in such unlawful +knowledge is damning? Do you not believe that ability to employ unknown +forces is forbidden of God, and that to disobey His law means death to +the soul?" + +"No!" + +"That it is the price one pays to Satan for occult power over people's +minds?" she insisted. + +"Hypnotic suggestion is not one of the cardinal sins," explained +Recklow, still smiling--"unless wickedly employed. The Yezidee +priesthood is a band of so-called sorcerers only because of their wicked +employment of whatever hypnotic and psychic knowledge they may have +obtained. + +"There was nothing intrinsically wicked in the huns' discovery of +phosgene. But the use they made of it made devils out of them. My +ability to manufacture phosgene gas is no crime. But if I manufacture it +and use it to poison innocent human beings, then, in that sense, I am, +perhaps, a sort of modern sorcerer." + +Tressa Norne turned paler: + +"I had better tell you that I _have_ used--forbidden knowledge--which +the Yezidees taught me in the temple of Erlik." + +"Used it how?" demanded Cleves. + +"To--to earn a living.... And once or twice to defend myself." + +There was the slightest scepticism in Recklow's bland smile. "You did +quite right, Miss Norne." + +She had become very white now. She stood beside Recklow, her back toward +the suspended map, and looked in a scared sort of way from one to the +other of the men seated before her, turning finally to Cleves, and +coming toward him. + +"I--I once killed a man," she said with a catch in her breath. + +Cleves reddened with astonishment. "Why did you do that?" he asked. + +"He was already on his way to kill me in bed." + +"You were perfectly right," remarked Recklow coolly. + +"I don't know ... I was in bed.... And then, on the edge of sleep, I +felt his mind groping to get hold of mine--feeling about in the darkness +to get hold of my brain and seize it and paralyse it." + +All colour had left her face. Cleves gripped the arm of his chair and +watched her intently. + +"I--I had only a moment's mental freedom," she went on in a ghost of a +voice. "I was just able to rouse myself, fight off those murderous +brain-fingers--let loose a clear mental ray.... And then, O God! I saw +him in his room with his Kalmuck knife--saw him already on his way to +murder me--Gutchlug Khan, the Yezidee--looking about in his bedroom for +a shroud.... And when--when he reached for the bed to draw forth a fine, +white sheet for the shroud without which no Yezidee dares journey +deathward--then--_then_ I became frightened.... And I killed him--I slew +him there in his hotel bedroom on the floor above mine!" + +Selden moistened his lips: "That Oriental, Gutchlug, died from +heart-failure in a San Francisco hotel," he said. "I was there at the +time." + +"He died by the fangs of a little yellow snake," whispered the girl. + +"There was no snake in his room," retorted Cleves. + +"And no wound on his body," added Selden. "I attended the autopsy." + +She said, faintly: "There was no snake, and no wound, as you say.... Yet +Gutchlug died of both there in his bedroom.... And before he died he +heard his soul bidding him farewell; and he saw the death-adder coiled +in the sheet he clutched--saw the thing strike him again and again--saw +and felt the tiny wounds on his left hand; felt the fangs pricking deep, +deep into the veins; died of it there within the minute--died of the +swiftest poison known. And yet----" + +She turned her dead-white face to Cleves--"And yet _there was no snake +there_!... And never had been.... And so I--I ask you, gentlemen, if +souls do not die when minds learn to fight death with death--and deal it +so swiftly, so silently, while one's body lies, unstirring on a bed--in +a locked room on the floor below----" + +She swayed a little, put out one hand rather blindly. + +Recklow rose and passed a muscular arm around her; Cleves, beside her, +held her left hand, crushing it, without intention, until she opened her +eyes with a cry of pain. + +"Are you all right?" asked Recklow bluntly. + +"Yes." She turned and looked at Cleves and he caressed her bruised hand +as though dazed. + +"Tell me," she said to Cleves--"you who know--know more about my mind +than anybody living----" a painful colour surged into her face--but she +went on steadily, forcing herself to meet his gaze: "tell me, Mr. +Cleves--do you still believe that nothing can really destroy my soul? +And that it shall yet win through to safety?" + +He said: "Your soul is in God's keeping, and always shall be.... And if +the Yezidees have made you believe otherwise, they lie." + +Recklow added in a slow, perplexed way: "I have no personal knowledge of +psychic power. I am not psychic, not susceptible. But if you actually +possess such ability, Miss Norne, and if you have employed such +knowledge to defend your life, then you have done absolutely right." + +"No guilt touches you," added Selden with an involuntary shiver, "if by +hypnosis or psychic ability you really did put an end to that would-be +murderer, Gutchlug." + +Selden said: "If Gutchlug died by the fangs of a yellow death-adder +which existed only in his own mind, and if you actually had anything to +do with it you acted purely in self-defence." + +"You did your full duty," added Benton--"but--good God!--it seems +incredible to me, that such power can actually be available in the +world!" + +Recklow spoke again in his pleasant, undisturbed voice: "Go back to the +map, Miss Norne, and tell us a little more about this rather terrifying +thing which you believe menaces the civilised world with destruction." + +Tressa Norne laid a slim finger on the map. Her voice had become steady. +She said: + +"The devil-worship, of which one of the modern developments is +Bolshevism, and another the terrorism of the hun, began in Asia long +before Christ's advent: At least so it was taught us in the temple of +Erlik. + +"It has always existed, its aim always has been the annihilation of good +and the elevation of evil; the subjection of right by might, and the +worldwide triumph of wrong. + +"Perhaps it is as old as the first battle between God and Satan. I have +wondered about it, sometimes. There in the dusk of the temple when the +Eight Assassins came--the eight Sheiks-el-Djebel, all in white--chanting +the Yakase of Sabbah--always that dirge when they came and spread their +eight white shrouds on the temple steps----" + +Her voice caught; she waited to recover her composure. Then went on: + +"The ambition of Genghis was to conquer the world by force of arms. It +was merely of physical subjection that he dreamed. But the Slayer of +Souls----" + +"Who?" asked Recklow sharply. + +"The Slayer of Souls--Erlik's vice-regent on earth--Hassan Sabbah. The +Old Man of the Mountain. It is of him I am speaking," exclaimed Tressa +Norne--with quiet resolution. "Genghis sought only physical conquest of +man; the Yezidee's ambition is more awful, _for he is attempting to +surprise and seize the very minds of men_!" + +There was a dead silence. Tressa looked palely upon the four. + +"The Yezidees--who you tell me are not sorcerers--are using power--which +you tell me is not magic accursed by God--to waylay, capture, enslave, +and destroy _the minds and souls of mankind_. + +"It may be that what they employ is hypnotic ability and psychic power +and can be, some day, explained on a scientific basis when we learn more +about the occult laws which govern these phenomena. + +"But could anything render the threat less awful? For there have existed +for centuries--perhaps always--a sect of Satanists determined upon the +destruction of everything that is pure and holy and good on earth; and +they are resolved to substitute for righteousness the dreadful reign of +hell. + +"In the beginning there were comparatively few of these human demons. +Gradually, through the eras, they have increased. In the twelfth century +there were fifty thousand of the Sect of Assassins. + +"Beside the castle of the Slayer of Souls on Mount Alamout----" she laid +her finger on the map--"eight other towers were erected for the Eight +Chief Assassins, called Sheiks-el-Djebel. + +"In the temple we were taught where these eight towers stood." She +picked up a pencil, and on eight blank spaces of unexplored and unmapped +Mongolia she made eight crosses. Then she turned to the men behind her. + +"It was taught to us in the temple that from these eight _foci_ of +infection the disease of evil has been spreading throughout the world; +from these eight towers have gone forth every year the emissaries of +evil--perverted missionaries--to spread the poisonous propaganda, to +teach it, to tamper stealthily with the minds of men, dominate them, +pervert them, instruct them in the creed of the Assassin of Souls. + +"All over the world are people, already contaminated, whose minds are +already enslaved and poisoned, and who are infecting the still healthy +brains of others--stealthily possessing themselves of the minds of +mankind--teaching them evil, inviting them to mock the precepts of +Christ. + +"Of such lost minds are the degraded brains of the Germans--the pastors +and philosophers who teach that might is right. + +"Of such crippled minds are the Bolsheviki, poisoned long, long ago by +close contact with Asia which, before that, had infected and enslaved +the minds of the ruling classes with ferocious philosophy. + +"Of such minds are all anarchists of every shade and stripe--all +terrorists, all disciples of violence,--the murderously envious, the +slothful slinking brotherhood which prowls through the world taking +every opportunity to set it afire; those mentally dulled by reason of +excesses; those weak intellects become unsound through futile +gabble,--parlour socialists, amateur revolutionists, theoretical +incapables excited by discussion fit only for healthy minds." + +She left the map and came over to where the four men were seated +terribly intent upon her every word. + +"In the temple of Erlik, where my girlhood was passed after the murder +of my parents, I learned what I am repeating to you," she said. + +"I learned this, also, that the Eight Towers still exist--still stand +to-day,--at least theoretically--and that from the Eight Towers pours +forth across the world a stream of poison. + +"I was told that, to every country, eight Yezidees were allotted--eight +sorcerers--or adepts in scientific psychology if you prefer it--whose +mission is to teach the gospel of hell and gradually but surely to win +the minds of men to the service of the Slayer of Souls. + +"That is what was taught us in the temple. We were educated in the +development of occult powers--for it seems all human beings possess this +psychic power latent within them--only few, even when instructed, +acquire any ability to control and use this force.... + +"I--I learned--rapidly. I even thought, sometimes, that the Yezidees +were beginning to be a little afraid of me,--even the Hassani +priests.... And the Sheiks-el-Djebel, spreading their shrouds on the +temple steps, looked at me with unquiet eyes, where I stood like a +corpse amid the incense clouds----" + +She passed her fingers over her eyelids, then framed her face between +both hands for a moment's thought lost in tragic retrospection. + +"Kai!" she whispered dreamily as though to herself--"what Erlik awoke +within my body that was asleep, God knows, but it was as though a twin +comrade arose within me and looked out through my eyes upon a world +which never before had been visible." + +Utter silence reigned in the room: Cleves's breathing seemed almost +painful to him so intently was he listening and watching this girl; +Benton's hands whitened with his grip on the chair-arms; Selden, tense, +absorbed, kept his keen gaze of a business man fastened on her face. +Recklow slowly caressed the cold bowl of his pipe with both thumbs. + +Tressa Norne's strange and remote eyes subtly altered, and she lifted +her head and looked calmly at the men before her. + +"I think that there is nothing more for me to add," she said. "The Red +Spectre of Anarchy, called Bolshevism at present, threatens our country. +Our Government is now awake to this menace and the Secret Service is +moving everywhere. + +"Great damage already has been done to the minds of many people in this +Republic; poison has spread; is spreading. The Eight Towers still stand. +The Eight Assassins are in America. + +"But these eight Assassins know me to be their enemy.... They will +surely attempt to kill me.... I don't believe I can avoid--death--very +long.... But I want to serve my country and--and mankind." + +"They'll have to get me first," said Cleves, bluntly. "I shall not +permit you out of my sight." + +Recklow said in a musing voice: "And these eight gentlemen, who are very +likely to hurt us, also, are the first people we ought to hunt." + +"To get them," added Selden, "we ought to choke the stream at its +source." + +"To find out who they are is what is going to worry us," added Benton. +Cleves had stood holding a chair for Tressa Norne. Finally she noticed +it and seated herself as though tired. + +"Is Sanang one of these eight?" he asked her. The girl turned and looked +up at him, and he saw the flush mounting in her face. + +"Sometimes," she said steadily, "I have almost believed he was Erlik's +own vice-regent on earth--the Slayer of Souls himself." + + * * * * * + +Benton and Selden had gone. Recklow left a little later. Cleves +accompanied him out to the landing. + +"Are you going to keep Miss Norne here with you for the present?" +inquired the older man. + +"Yes. I dare not let her out of my sight, Recklow. What else can I do?" + +"I don't know. Is she prepared for the consequences?" + +"Gossip? Slander?" + +"Of course." + +"I can get a housekeeper." + +"That only makes it look worse." + +Cleves reddened. "Well, do you want to find her in some hotel or +apartment with her throat cut?" + +"No," replied Recklow, gently, "I do not." + +"Then what else is there to do but keep her here in my own apartment and +never let her out of my sight until we can find and lock up the eight +gentlemen who are undoubtedly bent on murdering her?" + +"Isn't there some woman in the Service who could help out? I could +mention several." + +"I tell you I can't trust Tressa Norne to anybody except myself," +insisted Cleves. "I got her into this; I am responsible if she is +murdered; I dare not entrust her safety to anybody else. And, Recklow, +it's a ghastly responsibility for a man to induce a young girl to face +death, even in the service of her country." + +"If she remains here alone with you she'll face social destruction," +remarked Recklow. + +Cleves was silent for a moment, then he burst out: "Well, what am I to +do? What is there left for me to do except to watch over her and see her +through this devilish business? What other way have I to protect her, +Recklow?" + +"You could offer her the protection of your name," suggested the other, +carelessly. + +"What? You mean--marry her?" + +"Well, nobody else would be inclined to, Cleves, if it ever becomes +known she has lived here quite alone with you." + +Cleves stared at the elder man. + +"This is nonsense," he said in a harsh voice. "That young girl doesn't +want to marry anybody. Neither do I. She doesn't wish to have her throat +cut, that's all. And I'm determined she shan't." + +"There are stealthier assassins, Cleves,--the slayers of reputations. It +goes badly with their victim. It does indeed." + +"Well, hang it, what do you think I ought to do?" + +"I think you ought to marry her if you're going to keep her here." + +"Suppose she doesn't mind the unconventionality of it?" + +"All women mind. No woman, at heart, is unconventional, Cleves." + +"She--she seems to agree with me that she ought to stay here.... +Besides, she has no money, no relatives, no friends in America----" + +"All the more tragic. If you really believe it to be your duty to keep +her here where you can look after her bodily safety, then the other +obligation is still heavier. And there may come a day when Miss Norne +will wish that you had been less conscientious concerning the safety of +her pretty throat.... For the knife of the Yezidee is swifter and less +cruel than the tongue that slays with a smile.... And this young girl +has many years to live, after this business of Bolshevism is dead and +forgotten in our Republic." + +"Recklow!" + +"Yes?" + +"You think I might dare try to find a room somewhere else for her and +let her take her chances? _Do_ you?" + +"It's your affair." + +"I know--hang it! I know it's my affair. I've unintentionally made it +so. But can't you tell me what I ought to do?" + +"I can't." + +"What would _you_ do?" + +"Don't ask me," returned Recklow, sharply. "If you're not man enough to +come to a decision you may turn her over to me." + +Cleves flushed brightly. "Do you think _you_ are old enough to take my +job and avoid scandal?" + +Recklow's cold eyes rested on him: "If you like," he said, "I'll assume +your various kinds of personal responsibility toward Miss Norne." + +Cleve's visage burned. "I'll shoulder my own burdens," he retorted. + +"Sure. I knew you would." And Recklow smiled and held out his hand. +Cleves took it without cordiality. Standing so, Recklow, still smiling, +said: "What a rotten deal that child has had--is having. Her father and +mother were fine people. Did you ever hear of Dr. Norne?" + +"She mentioned him once." + +"They were up-State people of most excellent antecedents and no money. + +"Dr. Norne was our Vice-Consul at Yarkand in the province of Sin Kiang. +All he had was his salary, and he lost that and his post when the +administration changed. Then he went into the spice trade. + +"Some Jew syndicate here sent him up the Yarkand River to see what could +be done about jade and gold concessions. He was on that business when +the tragedy happened. The Kalmuks and Khirghiz were responsible, under +Yezidee instigation. And there you are:--and here is his child, +Cleves--back, by some miracle, from that flowering hell called Yian, +believing in her heart that she really lost her soul there in the +temple. And now, here in her own native land, she is exposed to actual +and hourly danger of assassination.... Poor kid!... Did you ever hear of +a rottener deal, Cleves?" + +Their hands had remained clasped while Recklow was speaking. He spoke +again, clearly, amiably: + +"To lay down one's life for a friend is fine. I'm not sure that it's +finer to offer one's honour in behalf of a girl whose honour is at +stake." + +After a moment Cleves's grip tightened. + +"All right," he said. + +Recklow went downstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN BATTLE + + +Cleves went back into the apartment; he noticed that Miss Norne's door +was ajar. + +To get to his own room he had to pass that way; and he saw her, seated +before the mirror, partly undressed, her dark, lustrous hair being +combed out and twisted up for the night. + +Whether this carelessness was born of innocence or of indifference +mattered little; he suddenly realised that these conditions wouldn't do. +And his first feeling was of anger. + +"If you'll put on your robe and slippers," he said in an unpleasant +voice, "I'd like to talk to you for a few moments." + +She turned her head on its charming neck and looked around and up at him +over one naked shoulder. + +"Shall I come into your room?" she inquired. + +"No!... when you've got some clothes on, call me." + +"I'm quite ready now," she said calmly, and drew the Chinese slippers +over her bare feet and passed a silken loop over the silver bell buttons +on her right shoulder. Then, undisturbed, she continued to twist up her +hair, following his movements in the mirror with unconcerned blue eyes. + +He entered and seated himself, the impatient expression still creasing +his forehead and altering his rather agreeable features. + +"Miss Norne," he said, "you're absolutely convinced that these people +mean to do you harm. Isn't that true?" + +"Of course," she said simply. + +"Then, until we get them, you're running a serious risk. In fact, you +live in hourly peril. That is your belief, isn't it?" + +She put the last peg into her thick, curly hair, lowered her arms, +turned, dropped one knee over the other, and let her candid gaze rest on +him in silence. + +"What I mean to explain," he said coldly, "is that as long as I induced +you to go into this affair I'm responsible for you. If I let you out of +my sight here in New York and if anything happens to you, I'll be as +guilty as the dirty beast who takes your life. What is your opinion? +It's up to me to stand by you now, isn't it?" + +"I had rather be near you--for a while," she said timidly. + +"Certainly. But, Miss Norne, our living here together, in my +apartment--or living together anywhere else--is never going to be +understood by other people. You know that, don't you?" + +After a silence, still looking at him out of clear unembarrassed eyes: + +"I know.... But ... I don't want to die." + +"I told you," he said sharply, "they'll have to kill me first. So that's +all right. But how about what I am doing to your reputation?" + +"I understand." + +"I suppose you do. You're very young. Once out of this blooming mess, +you will have all your life before you. But if I kill your reputation +for you while saving your body from death, you'll find no happiness in +living. Do you realise that?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then? Have you any solution for this problem that confronts you?" + +"No." + +"Haven't you any idea to suggest?" + +"I don't--don't want to die," she repeated in an unsteady voice. + +He bit his lip; and after a moment's scowling silence under the +merciless scrutiny of her eyes: "Then you had better marry me," he said. + +It was some time before she spoke. For a second or two he sustained the +searching quality of her gaze, but it became unendurable. + +Presently she said: "I don't ask it of you. I can shoulder my own +burdens." And he remembered what he had just said to Recklow. + +"You've shouldered more than your share," he blurted out. "You are +deliberately risking death to serve your country. I enlisted you. The +least I can do is to say my affections are not engaged; so naturally the +idea of--of marrying anybody never entered my head." + +"Then you do not care for anybody else?" + +Her candour amazed and disconcerted him. + +"No." He looked at her, curiously. "Do you care for anybody in that +way?" + +A light blush tinted her face. She said gravely: "If we really are going +to marry each other I had better tell you that I did care for Prince +Sanang." + +"What!" he cried, astounded. + +"It seems incredible, doesn't it? Yet it is quite true. I fought him; I +fought myself; I stood guard over my mind and senses there in the +temple; I knew what he was and I detested him and I mocked him there in +the temple.... And I loved him." + +"Sanang!" he repeated, not only amazed but also oddly incensed at the +naive confession. + +"Yes, Sanang.... If we are to marry, I thought I ought to tell you. +Don't you think so?" + +"Certainly," he replied in an absent-minded way, his mind still grasping +at the thing. Then, looking up: "Do you still care for this fellow?" + +She shook her head. + +"Are you perfectly sure, Miss Norne?" + +"As sure as that I am alive when I awake from a nightmare. My hatred for +Sanang is very bitter," she added frankly, "and yet somehow it is not my +wish to see him harmed." + +"You still care for him a little?" + +"Oh, no. But--can't you understand that it is not in me to wish him +harm?... No girl feels that way--once having cared. To become +indifferent to a familiar thing is perhaps natural; but to desire to +harm it is not in my character." + +"You have plenty of character," he said, staring; at her. + +"You don't think so. Do you?" + +"Why not?" + +"Because of what I said to you on the roof-garden that night. It was +shameful, wasn't it?" + +"You behaved like many a thoroughbred," he returned bluntly; "you were +scared, bewildered, ready to bolt to any shelter offered." + +"It's quite true I didn't know what to do to keep alive. And that was +all that interested me--to keep on living--having lost my soul and being +afraid to die and find myself in hell with Erlik." + +He said: "Isn't that absurd notion out of your head yet?" + +"I don't know ... I can't suddenly believe myself safe after all those +years. It is not easy to root out what was planted in childhood and what +grew to be part of one during the tender and formative period.... You +can't understand, Mr. Cleves--you can't ever feel or visualise what +became my daily life in a region which was half paradise and half +hell----" + +She bent her head and took her face between her fingers, and sat so, +brooding. + +After a little while: "Well," he said, "there's only one way to manage +this affair--if you are willing, Miss Norne." + +She merely lifted her eyes. + +"I think," he said, "there's only that one way out of it. But you +understand"--he turned pink--"it will be quite all right--your +liberty--privacy--I shan't bother you--annoy----" + +She merely looked at him. + +"After this Bolshevistic flurry is settled--in a year or two--or +three--then you can very easily get your freedom; and you'll have all +life before you" ... he rose: "--and a jolly good friend in me--a good +comrade, Miss Norne. And that means you can count on me when you go into +business--or whatever you decide to do." + +She also had risen, standing slim and calm in her exquisite Chinese +robe, the sleeves of which covered her finger tips. + +"Are you going to marry me?" she asked. + +"If you'll let me." + +"Yes--I will ... it's so generous and considerate of you. I--I don't ask +it; I really don't----" + +"But _I_ do." + +"--And I never dreamed of such a thing." + +He forced a smile. "Nor I. It's rather a crazy thing to do. But I know +of no saner alternative.... So we had better get our license +to-morrow.... And that settles it." + +He turned to go; and, on her threshold, his feet caught in something on +the floor and he stumbled, trying to free his feet from a roll of soft +white cloth lying there on the carpet. And when he picked it up, it +unrolled, and a knife fell out of the folds of cloth and struck his +foot. + +Still perplexed, not comprehending, he stooped to recover the knife. +Then, straightening up, he found himself looking into the colourless +face of Tressa Norne. + +"What's all this?" he asked--"this sheet and knife here on the floor +outside your door?" + +She answered with difficulty: "They have sent you your shroud, I think." + +"Are not those things yours? Were they not already here in your +baggage?" he demanded incredulously. Then, realising that they had not +been there on the door-sill when he entered her room a few moments +since, a rough chill passed over him--the icy caress of fear. + +"Where did that thing come from?" he said hoarsely. "How could it get +here when my door is locked and bolted? Unless there's somebody hidden +here!" + +Hot anger suddenly flooded him; he drew his pistol and sprang into the +passageway. + +"What the devil is all this!" he repeated furiously, flinging open his +bedroom door and switching on the light. + +He searched his room in a rage, went on and searched the dining-room, +smoking-room, and kitchen, and every clothes-press and closet, always +aware of Tressa's presence close behind him. And when there remained no +tiniest nook or cranny in the place unsearched, he stood in the centre +of the carpet glaring at the locked and bolted door. + +He heard her say under her breath: "This is going to be a sleepless +night. And a dangerous one." And, turning to stare at her, saw no fear +in her face, only excitement. + +He still held clutched in his left hand the sheet and the knife. Now he +thrust these toward her. + +"What's this damned foolery, anyway?" he demanded harshly. She took the +knife with a slight shudder. "There is something engraved on the silver +hilt," she said. + +He bent over her shoulder. + +"Eighur," she added calmly, "not Arabic. The Mongols had no written +characters of their own." + +She bent closer, studying the inscription. After a moment, still +studying the Eighur characters, she rested her left hand on his +shoulder--an impulsive, unstudied movement that might have meant either +confidence or protection. + +"Look," she said, "it is not addressed to you after all, but to a +symbol--a series of numbers, 53-6-26." + +"That is my designation in the Federal Service," he said, sharply. + +"Oh!" she nodded slowly. "Then this is what is written in the +Mongol-Yezidee dialect, traced out in Eighur characters: 'To 53-6-26! By +one of the Eight Assassins the Slayer of Souls sends this shroud and +this knife from Mount Alamout. Such a blade shall divide your heart. +This sheet is for your corpse.'" + +After a grim silence he flung the soft white cloth on the floor. + +"There's no use my pretending I'm not surprised and worried," he said; +"I don't know how that cloth got here. Do you?" + +"It was sent." + +"How?" + +She shook her head and gave him a grave, confused look. + +"There are ways. You could not understand.... This is going to be a +sleepless night for us." + +"You can go to bed, Tressa. I'll sit up and read and keep an eye on that +door." + +"I can't let you remain alone here. I'm afraid to do that." + +He gave a laugh, not quite pleasant, as he suddenly comprehended that +the girl now considered their _roles_ to be reversed. + +"Are _you_ planning to sit up in order to protect _me_?" he asked, +grimly amused. + +"Do you mind?" + +"Why, you blessed little thing, I can take care of myself. How funny of +you, when I am trying to plan how best to look out for _you_!" + +But her face remained pale and concerned, and she rested her left hand +more firmly on his shoulder. + +"I wish to remain awake with you," she said. "Because I myself don't +fully understand this"--she looked at the knife in her palm, then down +at the shroud. "It is going to be a strange night for us," she sighed. +"Let us sit together here on the lounge where I can face _that bolted +door_. And if you are willing, I am going to turn out the lights----" +She suddenly bent forward and switched them off--"because I must keep my +mind on guard." + +"Why do you do that?" he asked, "you can't see the door, now." + +"Let me help you in my own way," she whispered. "I--I am very deeply +disturbed, and very, very angry. I do not understand this new menace. +Yezidee that I am, I do not understand what kind of danger threatens you +through your loyalty to me." + +She drew him forward, and he opened his mouth to remonstrate, to laugh; +but as he turned, his foot touched the shroud, and an uncontrollable +shiver passed over him. + +They went close together, across the dim room to the lounge, and seated +themselves. Enough light from Madison Avenue made objects in the room +barely discernible. + + * * * * * + +Sounds from the street below became rarer as the hours wore away. The +iron jar of trams, the rattle of vehicles, the harsh warning of taxicabs +broke the stillness at longer and longer intervals, until, save only for +that immense and ceaseless vibration of the monstrous iron city under +the foggy stars, scarcely a sound stirred the silence. + +The half-hour had struck long ago on the bell of the little clock. Now +the clear bell sounded three times. + +Cleves stirred on the lounge beside Tressa. Again and again he had +thought that she was asleep for her head had fallen back against the +cushions, and she lay very still. But always, when he leaned nearer to +peer down at her, he saw her eyes open, and fixed intently upon the +bolted door. + +His pistol, which still rested on his knee, was pointed across the room, +toward the door. Once he reminded her in a whisper that she was unarmed +and that it might be as well for her to go and get her pistol. But she +murmured that she was sufficiently equipped; and, in spite of himself, +he shivered as he glanced down at her frail and empty hands. + +It was some time between three and half-past, he judged, when a sudden +movement of the girl brought him upright on his seat, quivering with +excitement. + +"Mr. Cleves!" + +"Yes?" + +"The Sorcerers!" + +"Where? Outside the door?" + +"Oh, my God," she murmured, "_they are after my mind again_! Their +fingers are groping to seize my brain and get possession of it!" + +"What!" he stammered, horrified. + +"Here--in the dark," she whispered--"and I feel their fingers +caressing me--searching--moving stealthily to surprise and grasp my +thoughts.... I know what they are doing.... I am resisting.... I am +fighting--fighting!" + +She sat bolt upright with clenched hands at her breast, her face palely +aglow in the dimness as though illumined by some vivid inward light--or, +as he thought--from the azure blaze in her wide-open eyes. + +"Is--is this what you call--what you believe to be magic?" he asked +unsteadily. "Is there some hostile psychic influence threatening you?" + +"Yes. I'm resisting. I'm fighting--fighting. They shall not trap me. +They shall not harm you!... I know how to defend myself and you!... And +_you_!" + +Suddenly she flung her left arm around his neck and the delicate +clenched hand brushed his cheek. + +"They shall not have you," she breathed. "I am fighting. I am holding my +own. There are eight of them--eight Assassins! My mind is in battle with +theirs--fiercely in battle.... I hold my own! I am armed and waiting!" + +With a convulsive movement she drew his head closer to her shoulder. +"Eight of them!" she whispered,--"trying to entrap and seize my brain. +But my thoughts are free! My mind is defending you--you, here in my +arms!" + +After a breathless silence: "Look out!" she whispered with terrible +energy; "they are after _your_ mind at last. Fix your thoughts on me! +Keep your mind clear of their net! Don't let their ghostly fingers touch +it. Look at me!" She drew him closer. "Look at _me_! Believe in _me_! I +can resist. I can defend you. Does your head feel confused?" + +"Yes--numb." + +"_Don't sleep!_ Don't close your eyes! Keep them open and look at me!" + +"I can scarcely see you----" + +"You _must_ see me!" + +"My eyes are heavy," he said drowsily. "I can't see you, Tressa----" + +"Wake! Look at me! Keep your mind clear. Oh, I beg you--I beg you! +They're after our minds and souls, I tell you! Oh, believe in me," she +beseeched him in an agonised whisper--"Can't you believe in me for a +moment,--as if you loved me!" + +His heavy lids lifted and he tried to look at her. + +"Can you see me? _Can_ you?" + +He muttered something in a confused voice. + +"Victor!" + +At the sound of his own name, he opened his eyes again and tried to +straighten up, but his pistol fell to the carpet. + +"Victor!" she gasped, "clear your mind in the name of God!" + +"I can not----" + +"I tell you hell is opening beyond that door!--outside your bolted door, +there! Can't you believe me! Can't you hear me! Oh, what will hold you +if the love of God can not!" she burst out. "I'd crucify myself for you +if you'd look at me--if you'd only fight hard enough to believe in +me--as though you loved me!" + +His eyes unclosed but he sank back against her shoulder. + +"Victor!" she cried in a terrible voice. + +There was no answer. + +"If the love of God could only hold you for a moment more!"--she +stammered with her mouth against his ear, "just for a moment, Victor! +Can't you hear me?" + +"Yes--very far away." + +"Fight for me! Try to care for me! Don't let Sanang have me!" + +He shuddered in her arms, reached out and resting heavily on her +shoulder, staggered to his feet and stood swaying like a drunken man. + +"No, by God," he said thickly, "Sanang shall not touch you." + +The girl was on her feet now, holding him upright with an arm around his +shoulders. + +"They can't--can't harm us together," she stammered. "Hark! Listen! Can +you hear? Oh, can you hear?" + +"Give me my pistol," he tried to say, but his tongue seemed twisted. +"No--by God--Sanang shall not touch you." + +She stooped lithely and recovered the weapon. "Hush," she said close to +his burning face. "Listen. Our minds are safe! I can hear somebody's +soul bidding its body farewell!" + +White-lipped she burst out laughing, kicked the shroud out of the way, +thrust the pistol into his right hand, went forward, forcing him along +beside her, and drew the bolts from the door. + +Suddenly he spoke distinctly: + +"Is there anything outside that door on the landing?" + +"Yes.... I don't know what. Are you ready?" She laid her hand on lock +and knob. + +He nodded. At the same instant she jerked open the door; and a hunchback +who had been picking at the lock fell headlong into the room, his pistol +exploding on the carpet in a streak of fire. + +It was a horrible struggle to secure the powerful misshapen creature, +for he clawed and squealed and bounced about on the floor, striking +blindly with ape-like arms. But at last Cleves held him down, throttled +and twitching, and Tressa ripped strips from the shroud to truss up the +writhing thing. + +Then Cleves switched on the light. + +"Why--why--you rat!" he exclaimed in hysterical relief at seeing a +living man whom he recognised there at his feet. "What are you doing +here?" + +The hunchback's red eyes blazed up at him from the floor. + +"Who--who is he?" faltered the girl. + +"He's a German tailor named Albert Feke--one of the Chicago +Bolsheviki--the most dangerous sort we harbour--one of their vile +leaders who preaches that might is right and tells his disciples to go +ahead and take what they want." + +He looked down at the malignant cripple. + +"You're wanted for the I. W. W. bomb murder, Albert. Did you know it?" + +The hunchback licked his bloody lips. Then he kicked himself to a +sitting position, squatted there like a toad and looked steadily at +Tressa Norne out of small red-rimmed eyes. Blood dripped on his beard; +his huge hairy fists, tied and crossed behind his back, made odd, +spasmodic movements. + +Cleves went to the telephone. Presently Tressa heard his voice, calm and +distinct as usual: + +"We've caught Albert Feke. He's here at my rooms. I'd like to have you +come over, Recklow.... Oh, yes, he kicked and scuffled and scratched +like a cat.... What?... No, I hadn't heard that he'd been in China.... +Who?... Albert Feke? You say he was one of the Germans who escaped from +Shantung four years ago?... You think he's a Yezidee! You mean one of +the Eight Assassins?" + +The hunchback, staring at Tressa out of red-rimmed eyes, suddenly +snarled and lurched his misshapen body at her. + +"Teufelstuck!" he screamed, "ain't I tell efferybody in Yian +already it iss safer if we cut your throat! Devil-slut of +Erlik--snow-leopardess!--cat of the Yezidees who has made of Sanang a +fool!--it iss I who haf said always, always, that you know too damn +much!... Kai!... I hear my soul bidding me farewell. Gif me my shroud!" + +Cleves came back from the telephone. With the toe of his left foot he +lifted the shroud and kicked it across the hunchback's knees. + +"So you were one of the huns who instigated the massacre in Yian," he +said, curiously. At that Tressa turned very white and a cry escaped her. + +But the hunchback's features were all twisted into ferocious laughter, +and he beat on the carpet with the heels of his great splay feet. + +"Ja! Ja!" he shrieked, "in Yian it vas a goot hunting! English and +Yankee men und vimmens ve haff dropped into dose deep wells down. Py +Gott in Himmel, how dey schream up out of dose deep wells in Yian!" He +began to cackle and shriek in his frenzy. "Ach Gott ja! It iss not you +either--you there, Keuke Mongol, who shall escape from the +Sheiks-el-Djebel! It iss dot Old Man of the Mountain who shall tell your +soul it iss time to say farewell! Ja! Ja! Ach Gott!--it iss my only +regret that I shall not see the world when it is all afire! Ja! Ja!--all +on fire like hell! But you shall see it, slut-leopard of the snows! You +shall see it und you shall burn! Kai! Kai! My soul it iss bidding my +body farewell. Kai! May Erlik curse you, Keuke Mongol--Heavenly +Azure--Sorceress of the temple!--" + +He spat at her and rolled over in his shroud. + +The girl looking down on him closed her eyes for a moment, and Cleves +saw her bloodless lips move, and bent nearer, listening. And he heard +her whispering to herself: + +"Preserve us all, O God, from the wrath of Satan who was stoned." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE BRIDAL + + +Over the United States stretched an unseen network of secret +intrigue woven tirelessly night and day by the busy enemies of +civilisation--Reds, parlour-socialists, enemy-aliens, terrorists, +Bolsheviki, pseudo-intellectuals, I. W. W.'s, social faddists, and +amateur meddlers of every nuance--all the various varieties of the +vicious, witless, and mentally unhinged--brought together through the +"cohesive power of plunder" and the degeneration of cranial tissue. + +All over the United States the various departmental divisions of the +Secret Service were busily following up these threads of intrigue +leading everywhere through the obscurity of this vast and secret maze. + +To meet the constantly increasing danger of physical violence and to +uncover secret plots threatening sabotage and revolution, there were +capable agents in every branch of the Secret Service, both Federal and +State. + +But in the first months of 1919 something more terrifying than physical +violence suddenly threatened civilised America,--a wild, grotesque, +incredible threat of a _war on human minds_! + +And, little by little, the United States Government became convinced +that this ghastly menace was no dream of a disordered imagination, but +that it was real: that among the enemies of civilisation there actually +existed a few powerful but perverted minds capable of wielding psychic +forces as terrific weapons: that by the sinister use of psychic +knowledge controlling these mighty forces the very minds of mankind +could be stealthily approached, seized, controlled and turned upon +civilisation to aid in the world's destruction. + +In terrible alarm the Government turned to England for advice. But Sir +William Crookes was dead. + +However, in England, Sir Conan Doyle immediately took up the matter, and +in America Professor Hyslop was called into consultation. + +And then, when the Government was beginning to realise what this awful +menace meant, and that there were actually in the United States possibly +half a dozen people who already had begun to carry on a diabolical +warfare by means of psychic power, for the purpose of enslaving and +controlling the very minds of men,--then, in the terrible moment of +discovery, a young girl landed in America after fourteen years' absence +in Asia. + +And this was the amazing girl that Victor Cleves had just married, at +Recklow's suggestion, and in the line of professional duty,--and moral +duty, perhaps. + +It had been a brief, matter-of-fact ceremony. John Recklow, of the +Secret Service, was there; also Benton and Selden of the same service. + +The bride's lips were unresponsive; cold as the touch of the groom's +unsteady hand. + +She looked down at her new ring in a blank sort of way, gave her hand +listlessly to Recklow and to the others in turn, whispered a timidly +comprehensive "Thank you," and walked away beside Cleves as though +dazed. + +There was a taxicab waiting. Tressa entered. Recklow came out and spoke +to Cleves in a low voice. + +"Don't worry," replied Cleves dryly. "That's why I married her." + +"Where are you going now?" inquired Recklow. + +"Back to my apartment." + +"Why don't you take her away for a month?" + +Cleves flushed with annoyance: "This is no occasion for a wedding trip. +You understand that, Recklow." + +"I understand. But we ought to give her a breathing space. She's had +nothing but trouble. She's worn out." + +Cleves hesitated: "I can guard her better in the apartment. Isn't it +safer to go back there, where your people are always watching the street +and house day and night?" + +"In a way it might be safer, perhaps. But that girl is nearly exhausted. +And her value to us is unlimited. She may be the vital factor in this +fight with anarchy. Her weapon is her mind. And it's got to have a +chance to rest." + +Cleves, with one hand on the cab door, looked around impatiently. + +"Do _you_, also, conclude that the psychic factor is actually part of +this damned problem of Bolshevism?" + +Recklow's cool eyes measured him: "Do _you_?" + +"My God, Recklow, I don't know--after what my own eyes have seen." + +"I don't know either," said the other calmly, "but I am taking +no chances. I don't attempt to explain certain things that have +occurred. But if it be true that a misuse of psychic ability by +foreigners--Asiatics--among the anarchists is responsible for some of +the devilish things being done in the United States, then your wife's +unparalleled knowledge of the occult East is absolutely vital to us. And +so I say, better take her away somewhere and give her mind a chance to +recover from the incessant strain of these tragic years." + +The two men stood silent for a moment, then Recklow went to the window +of the taxicab. + +"I have been suggesting a trip into the country, Mrs. Cleves," he said +pleasantly, "--into the real country, somewhere,--a month's quiet in the +woods, perhaps. Wouldn't it appeal to you?" + +Cleves turned to catch her low-voiced answer. + +"I should like it very much," she said in that odd, hushed way of +speaking, which seemed to have altered her own voice and manner since +the ceremony a little while before. + +Driving back to his apartment beside her, he strove to realise that this +girl was his wife. + +One of her gloves lay across her lap, and on it rested a slender hand. +And on one finger was his ring. + +But Victor Cleves could not bring himself to believe that this brand-new +ring really signified anything to him,--that it had altered his own life +in any way. But always his incredulous eyes returned to that slim finger +resting there, unstirring, banded with a narrow circlet of virgin gold. + +In the apartment they did not seem to know exactly what to do or +say--what attitude to assume--what effort to make. + +Tressa went into her own room, removed her hat and furs, and came slowly +back into the living-room, where Cleves still stood gazing absently out +of the window. + +A fine rain was falling. + +They seated themselves. There seemed nothing better to do. + +He said, politely: "In regard to going away for a rest, you wouldn't +care for the North Woods, I fancy, unless you like winter sports. Do +you?" + +"I like sunlight and green leaves," she said in that odd, still voice. + +"Then, if it would please you to go South for a few weeks' rest----" + +"Would it inconvenience you?" + +Her manner touched him. + +"My dear Miss Norne," he began, and checked himself, flushing painfully. +The girl blushed, too; then, when he began to laugh, her lovely, bashful +smile glimmered for the first time. + +"I really can't bring myself to realise that you and I are married," he +explained, still embarrassed, though smiling. + +Her smile became an endeavour. "I can't believe it either, Mr. Cleves," +she said. "I feel rather stunned." + +"Hadn't you better call me Victor--under the circumstances?" he +suggested, striving to speak lightly. + +"Yes.... It will not be very easy to say it--not for some time, I +think." + +"Tressa?" + +"Yes." + +"Yes--_what_?" + +"Yes--Victor." + +"That's the idea," he insisted with forced gaiety. + +"The thing to do is to face this rather funny situation and take it +amiably and with good humour. You'll have your freedom some day, you +know." + +"Yes--I--know." + +"And we're already on very good terms. We find each other interesting, +don't we?" + +"Yes." + +"It even seems to me," he ventured, "it certainly seems to me, at times, +as though we are approaching a common basis of--of mutual--er--esteem." + +"Yes. I--I do esteem you, Mr. Cleves." + +"In point of fact," he concluded, surprised, "we _are_ friends--in a +way. Wouldn't you call it--friendship?" + +"I think so, I think I'd call it that," she admitted. + +"I think so, too. And that is lucky for us. That makes this crazy +situation more comfortable--less--well, perhaps less ponderous." + +The girl assented with a vague smile, but her eyes remained lowered. + +"You see," he went on, "when two people are as oddly situated as we are, +they're likely to be afraid of being in each other's way. But they ought +to get on without being unhappy as long as they are quite confident of +each other's friendly consideration. Don't you think so, Tressa?" + +Her lowered eyes rested steadily on her ring-finger. "Yes," she said. +"And I am not--unhappy, or--afraid." + +She lifted her blue gaze to his; and, somehow, he thought of her +barbaric name, Keuke,--and its Yezidee significance, "heavenly--azure." + +"Are we really going away together?" she asked timidly. + +"Certainly, if you wish." + +"If you, also, wish it, Mr. Cleves." + +He found himself saying with emphasis that he always wished to do what +she desired. And he added, more gently: + +"You _are_ tired, Tressa--tired and lonely and unhappy." + +"Tired, but not the--others." + +"Not unhappy?" + +"No." + +"Aren't you lonely?" + +"Not with you." + +The answer came so naturally, so calmly, that the slight sensation of +pleasure it gave him arrived only as an agreeable afterglow. + +"We'll go South," he said.... "I'm so glad that you don't feel lonely +with me." + +"Will it be warmer where we are going, Mr. Cleves?" + +"Yes--you poor child! You need warmth and sunshine, don't you? Was it +warm in Yian, where you lived so many years?" + +"It was always June in Yian," she said under her breath. + +She seemed to have fallen into a revery; he watched the sensitive face. +Almost imperceptibly it changed; became altered, younger, strangely +lovely. + +Presently she looked up--and it seemed to him that it was not Tressa +Norne at all he saw, but little Keuke--Heavenly Azure--of the Yezidee +temple, as she dropped one slim knee over the other and crossed her +hands above it. + +"It was very beautiful in Yian," she said, "--Yian of the thousand +bridges and scented gardens so full of lilies. Even after they took me +to the temple, and I thought the world was ending, God's skies still +remained soft overhead, and His weather fair and golden.... And when, in +the month of the Snake, the Eight Sheiks-el-Djebel came to the temple to +spread their shrouds on the rose-marble steps, then, after they had +departed, chanting the Prayers for the Dead, each to his Tower of +Silence, we temple girls were free for a week.... And once I went with +Tchagane--a girl--and with Yulun--another girl--and we took our keutch, +which is our luggage, and we went to the yailak, or summer pavilion on +the Lake of the Ghost. Oh, wonderful,--a silvery world of pale-gilt suns +and of moons so frail that the cloud-fleece at high-noon has more +substance!" + +Her voice died out; she sat gazing down at her spread fingers, on one of +which gleamed her wedding-ring. + +After a little, she went on dreamily: + +"On that week, each three months, we were free.... If a young man should +please us...." + +"Free?" he repeated. + +"To love," she explained coolly. + +"Oh." He nodded, but his face became rather grim. + +"There came to me at the yailak," she went on carelessly, "one Khassar +Noiane--Noiane means Prince--all in a surcoat of gold tissue with green +vines embroidered, and wearing a green cap trimmed with dormouse, and +green boots inlaid with stiff gold.... + +"He was so young ... a boy. I laughed. I said: 'Is this a Yacaoul? An +Urdu-envoy of Prince Erlik?'--mocking him as young and thoughtless girls +mock--not in unfriendly manner--though I would not endure the touch of +any man at all. + +"And when I laughed at him, this Eighur boy flew into such a rage! Kai! +I was amazed. + +"'Sou-sou! Squirrel!' he cried angrily at me. 'Learn the Yacaz, little +chatterer! Little mocker of men, it is ten blows with a stick you +require, not kisses!' + +"At that I whistled my two dogs, Bars and Alaga, for I did not think +what he said was funny. + +"I said to him: 'You had better go home, Khassar Noiane, for if no man +has ever pleased me where I am at liberty to please myself, here on the +Lake of the Ghost, then be very certain that no boy can please +Keuke-Mongol here or anywhere!' + +"And at that--kai! What did he say--that monkey?" She looked at her +husband, her splendid eyes ablaze with wrathful laughter, and made a +gesture full of angry grace: + +"'Squirrel!' he cries--'little malignant sorceress of Yian! May +everything high about you become a sandstorm, and everything long a +serpent, and everything broad a toad, and everything----' + +"But I had had enough, Victor," she added excitedly, "and I made a wild +bee bite him on the lip! WHAT do you think of such a courtship?" she +cried, laughing. But Cleves's face was a study in emotions. + +And then, suddenly, the laughing mask seemed to slip from the bewitching +features of Keuke Mongol; and there was Tressa Norne--Tressa +Cleves--disconcerted, paling a little as the memory of her impulsive +confidence in this man beside her began to dawn on her more clearly. + +"I--I'm sorry----" she faltered.... "You'll think me silly--think evil +of me, perhaps----" + +She looked into his troubled eyes, then suddenly she took her face into +both hands and covered it, sitting very still. + +"We'll go South together," he said in an uncertain voice.... "I hope you +will try to think of me as a friend.... I'm just troubled because I am +so anxious to understand you. That is all.... I'm--I'm troubled, too, +because I am anxious that you should think well of me. Will you try, +always?" + +She nodded. + +"I want to be your friend, always," he said. + +"Thank you, Mr. Cleves." + + * * * * * + +It was a strange spot he chose for Tressa--strange but lovely in its own +unreal and rather spectral fashion--where a pearl-tinted mist veiled the +St. Johns, and made exquisite ghosts of the palmettos, and softened the +sun to a silver-gilt wafer pasted on a nacre sky. + +It was a still country, where giant water-oaks towered, fantastic under +their misty camouflage of moss, and swarming with small birds. + +Among the trees the wood-ibis stole; without on the placid glass of the +stream the eared grebe floated. There was no wind, no stirring of +leaves, no sound save the muffled splash of silver mullet, the +breathless whirr of a humming-bird, or the hushed rustle of lizards in +the woods. + +For Tressa this was the blessed balm that heals,--the balm of silence. +And, for the first week, she slept most of the time, or lay in her +hammock watching the swarms of small birds creeping and flitting amid +the moss-draped labyrinths of the live-oaks at her very door. + +It had been a little club house before the war, this bungalow on the St. +Johns at Orchid Hammock. Its members had been few and wealthy; but some +were dead in France and Flanders, and some still remained overseas, and +others continued busy in the North. + +And these two young people were quite alone there, save for a negro cook +and a maid, and an aged negro kennel-master who wore a scarlet waistcoat +and cords too large for his shrunken body, and who pottered, pottered +through the fields all day, with his whip clasped behind his bent back +and the pointers ranging wide, or plodding in at heel with red tongues +lolling. + +Twice Cleves went a little way for quail, using Benton's dogs; but even +here in this remote spot he dared not move out of view of the little +house where Tressa lay asleep. + +So he picked up only a few brace of birds, and confined his sport to +impaling too-familiar scorpions on the blade of his knife. + +And all the while life remained unreal for him; his marriage seemed +utterly unbelievable; he could not realise it, could not reconcile +himself to conditions so incomprehensible. + +Also, ever latent in his mind, was knowledge that made him restless--the +knowledge that the young girl he had married had been in love with +another man: Sanang. + +And there were other thoughts--thoughts which had scarcely even taken +the shape of questions. + +One morning he came from his room and found Tressa on the veranda in her +hammock. She had her moon-lute in her lap. + +"You feel better--much better!" he said gaily, saluting her extended +hand. + +"Yes. Isn't this heavenly? I begin to believe it is life to me, this +pearl-tinted world, and the scent of orange bloom and the stillness of +paradise itself." + +She gazed out over the ghostly river. Not a wing stirred its glassy +surface. + +"Is this dull for you?" she asked in a low voice. + +"Not if you are contented, Tressa." + +"You're so nice about it. Don't you think you might venture a day's real +shooting?" + +"No, I think I won't," he replied. + +"On my account?" + +"Well--yes." + +"I'm so sorry." + +"It's all right as long as you're getting rested. What is that +instrument?" + +"My moon-lute." + +"Oh, is that what it's called?" + +She nodded, touched the strings. He watched her exquisite hands. + +"Shall I?" she inquired a little shyly. + +"Go ahead. I'd like to hear it!" + +"I haven't touched it in months--not since I was on the steamer." She +sat up in her hammock and began to swing there; and played and sang +while swinging in the flecked shadow of the orange bloom: + + "_Little Isle of Cispangou, + Isle of iris, isle of cherry, + Tell your tiny maidens merry + Clouds are looming over you! + La-[=e]-la! + La-[=e]-la! + All your ocean's but a ferry; + Ships are bringing death to you! + La-[=e]-lou! + La-[=e]-lou!_ + + "_Little Isle of Cispangou, + Half a thousand ships are sailing; + Captain Death commands each crew; + Lo! the ruddy moon is paling! + La-[=e]-la! + La-[=e]-la! + Clouds the dying moon are veiling, + Every cloud a shroud for you! + La-[=e]-lou! + La-[=e]-lou!_" + +"Cispangou," she explained, "is the very, very ancient name, among the +Mongols, for Japan." + +"It's not exactly a gay song," he said. "What's it about?" + +"Oh, it's a very ancient song about the Mongol invasion of Japan. I know +scores and scores of such songs." + +She sang some other songs. Afterward she descended from the hammock and +came and sat down beside him on the veranda steps. + +"I wish I could amuse you," she said wistfully. + +"Why do you think I'm bored, Tressa? I'm not at all." + +But she only sighed, lightly, and gathered her knees in both arms. + +"I don't know how young men in the Western world are entertained," she +remarked presently. + +"You don't have to entertain me," he said, smiling. + +"I should be happy to, if I knew how." + +"How are young men entertained in the Orient?" + +"Oh, they like songs and stories. But I don't think you do." + +He laughed in spite of himself. + +"Do you really wish to entertain me?" + +"I do," she said seriously. + +"Then please perform some of those tricks of magic which you can do so +amazingly well." + +Her dawning smile faded a trifle. "I don't--I haven't----" She +hesitated. + +"You haven't your professional paraphernalia with you," he suggested. + +"Oh--as for that----" + +"Don't you need it?" + +"For some things--some kinds of things.... I _could_ do--other +things----" + +He waited. She seemed disconcerted. "Don't do anything you don't wish to +do, Tressa," he said. + +"I was only--only afraid--that if I should do some little things to +amuse you, I might stir--stir up--interfere--encounter some sinister +current--and betray myself--betray my whereabouts----" + +"Well, for heaven's sake don't venture then!" he said with emphasis. +"Don't do anything to stir up any other wireless--any Yezidee----" + +"I am wondering," she reflected, "just what I dare venture to do to +amuse you." + +"Don't bother about me. I wouldn't have you try any psychic stunt down +here, and run the chance of stirring up some Asiatic devil somewhere!" + +She nodded absently, occupied with her own thoughts, sitting there, chin +on hand, her musing eyes intensely blue. + +"I think I can amuse you," she concluded, "without bringing any harm to +myself." + +"Don't try it, Tressa!----" + +"I'll be very careful. Now, sit quite still--closer to me, please." + +He edged closer; and became conscious of an indefinable freshness in the +air that enveloped him, like the scent of something young and growing. +But it was no magic odour,--merely the virginal scent of her hair and +skin that even clung to her summer gown. + +He heard her singing under her breath to herself: + + "La-[=e]-la! + La-[=e]-la!" + +and murmuring caressingly in an unknown tongue. + +Then, suddenly in the pale sunshine, scores of little birds came +hovering around them, alighting all over them. And he saw them swarming +out of the mossy festoons of the water-oaks--scores and scores of tiny +birds--Parula warblers, mostly--all flitting fearlessly down to alight +upon his shoulders and knees, all keeping up their sweet, dreamy little +twittering sound. + +"This is wonderful," he whispered. + +The girl laughed, took several birds on her forefinger. + +"This is nothing," she said. "If I only dared--wait a moment!----" And, +to the Parula warblers: + +"Go home, little friends of God!" + +The air was filled with the musical whisper of wings. She passed her +right arm around her husband's neck. + +"Look at the river," she said. + +"Good God!" he blurted out. And sat dumb. + +For, over the St. John's misty surface, there was the span of a +bridge--a strange, marble bridge humped up high in the centre. + +And over it were passing thousands of people--he could make them out +vaguely--see them passing in two never-ending streams--tinted shapes on +the marble bridge. + +And now, on the farther shore of the river, he was aware of a city--a +vast one, with spectral pagoda shapes against the sky---- + +Her arm tightened around his neck. + +He saw boats on the river--like the grotesque shapes that decorate +ancient lacquer. + +She rested her face lightly against his cheek. + +In his ears was a far confusion of voices--the stir and movement of +multitudes--noises on ships, boatmen's cries, the creak of oars. + +Then, far and sonorous, quavering across the water from the city, the +din of a temple gong. + +There were bells, too--very sweet and silvery--camel bells, bells from +the Buddhist temples. + +He strained his eyes, and thought, amid the pagodas, that there were +minarets, also. + +Suddenly, clear and ringing came the distant muezzin's cry: "There is no +other god but God!... It is noon. Mussulmans, pray!" + +The girl's arm slipped from his neck and she shuddered and pushed him +from her. + +There was nothing, now, on the river or beyond it but the curtain of +hanging mist; no sound except the cry of a gull, sharp and querulous in +the vapours overhead. + +"Have--have you been amused?" she asked. + +"What did you do to me!" he demanded harshly. + +She smiled and drew a light breath like a sigh. + +"God knows what we living do to one another,--or to ourselves," she +said. "I only tried to amuse you--after taking counsel with the birds." + +"What was that bridge I saw!" + +"The Bridge of Ten Thousand Felicities." + +"And the city?" + +"Yian." + +"You lived there?" + +"Yes." + +He moistened his dry lips and stole another glance at this very +commonplace Florida river. Sky and water were blank and still, and the +ghostly trees stood tall, reflected palely in the translucent tide. + +"You merely made me visualise what you were thinking about," he +concluded in a voice which still remained unsteady. + +"Did you _hear_ nothing?" + +He was silent, remembering the bells and the enormous murmur of a living +multitude. + +"And--there were the birds, too." She added, with an uncertain smile: "I +do not mean to worry you.... And you did ask me to amuse you." + +"I don't know how you did it," he said harshly. "And the details--those +thousands and thousands of people on the bridge!... And there was one, +quite near this end of the bridge, who looked back.... A young girl who +turned and laughed at us--" + +"That was Yulun." + +"Who?" + +"Yulun. I taught her English." + +"A temple girl?" + +"Yes. From Black China." + +"How could you make _me_ see _her_!" he demanded. + +"Why do you ask such things? I do not know how to tell you how I do it." + +"It's a dangerous, uncanny knowledge!" he blurted out; and suddenly +checked himself, for the girl's face went white. + +"I don't mean uncanny," he hastened to add. "Because it seems to me that +what you did by juggling with invisible currents to which, when attuned, +our five senses respond, is on the same lines as the wireless telegraph +and telephone." + +She said nothing, but her colour slowly returned. + +"You mustn't be so sensitive," he added. "I've no doubt that it's all +quite normal--quite explicable on a perfectly scientific basis. Probably +it's no more mysterious than a man in an airplane over midocean +conversing with people ashore on two continents." + + * * * * * + +For the remainder of the day and evening Tressa seemed subdued--not +restless, not nervous, but so quiet that, sometimes, glancing at her +askance, Cleves involuntarily was reminded of some lithe young creature +of the wilds, intensely alert and still, immersed in fixed and dangerous +meditation. + +About five in the afternoon they took their golf sticks, went down to +the river, and embarked in the canoe. + +The water was glassy and still. There was not a ripple ahead, save when +a sleeping gull awoke and leisurely steered out of their way. + +Tressa's arms and throat were bare and she wore no hat. She sat forward, +wielding the bow paddle and singing to herself in a low voice. + +"You feel all right, don't you?" he asked. + +"Oh, I am so well, physically, now! It's really wonderful, Victor--like +being a child again," she replied happily. + +"You're not much more," he muttered. + +She heard him: "Not very much more--in years," she said.... "Does +Scripture tell us how old Our Lord was when He descended into Hell?" + +"I don't know," he replied, startled. + +After a little while Tressa tranquilly resumed her paddling and singing: + + "_--And eight tall towers + Guard the route + Of human life, + Where at all hours + Death looks out, + Holding a knife + Rolled in a shroud._ + + _For every man, + Humble or proud, + Mighty or bowed, + Death has a shroud;--for every man,-- + Even for Tchingniz Khan! + Behold them pass!--lancer. + Baroulass, + Temple dancer + In tissue gold, + Khiounnou, + Karlik bold,_ + + _Christian, Jew,-- + Nations swarm to the great Urdu. + Yacaoul, with your kettledrum, + Warn your Khan that his hour is come! + Shroud and knife at his spurred feet throw, + And bid him stretch his neck for the blow!--_" + +"You know," remarked Cleves, "that some of those songs you sing are +devilish creepy." + +Tressa looked around at him over her shoulder, saw he was smiling, +smiled faintly in return. + +They were off Orchid Cove now. The hotel and cottages loomed dimly in +the silver mist. Voices came distinctly across the water. There were +people on the golf course paralleling the river; laughter sounded from +the club-house veranda. + +They went ashore. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MAN IN WHITE + + +It was at the sixth hole that they passed the man ahead who was playing +all alone--a courteous young fellow in white flannels, who smiled and +bowed them "through" in silence. + +They thanked him, drove from the tee, and left the polite and reticent +young man still apparently hunting for a lost ball. + +Like other things which depended upon dexterity and precision, Tressa +had taken most naturally to golf. Her supple muscles helped. + +At the ninth hole they looked back but did not see the young man in +white flannels. + +Hammock, set with pine and palmetto, and intervals of evil-looking +swamp, flanked the course. Rank wire-grass, bayberry and scrub palmetto +bounded the fairgreen. + +On every blossoming bush hung butterflies--Palomedes +swallowtails--drugged with sparkle-berry honey, their gold and black +velvet wings conspicuous in the sunny mist. + +"Like the ceremonial vestments of a Yezidee executioner," murmured the +girl. "The Tchortchas wear red when they robe to do a man to death." + +"I wish you could forget those things," said Cleves. + +"I am trying.... I wonder where that young man in white went." + +Cleves searched the links. "I don't see him. Perhaps he had to go back +for another ball." + +"I wonder who he was," she mused. + +"I don't remember seeing him before," said Cleves.... "Shall we start +back?" + +They walked slowly across the course toward the tenth hole. + +Tressa teed up, drove low and straight. Cleves sliced, and they walked +together into the scrub and towards the woods, where his ball had +bounded into a bunch of palm trees. + +Far in among the trees something white moved and vanished. + +"Probably a white egret," he remarked, knocking about in the scrub with +his midiron. + +"It was that young man in white flannels," said Tressa in a low voice. + +"What would he be doing in there?" he asked incredulously. "That's +merely a jungle, Tressa--swamp and cypress, thorn and creeper,--and no +man would go into that mess if he could. There is no bottom to those +swamps." + +"But I saw him in there," she said in a troubled voice. + +"But when I tell you that only a wild animal or a snake or a bird could +move in that jungle! The bog is one vast black quicksand. There's death +in those depths." + +"Victor." + +"Yes?" He looked around at her. She was pale. He came up and took her +hand inquiringly. + +"I don't feel--well," she murmured. "I'm not ill, you understand----" + +"What's the matter, Tressa?" + +She shook her head drearily: "I don't know.... I wonder whether I should +have tried to amuse you this morning----" + +"You don't think you've stirred up any of those Yezidee beasts, do you?" +he asked sharply. + +And as she did not answer, he asked again whether she was afraid that +what she had done that morning might have had any occult consequences. +And he reminded her that she had hesitated to venture anything on that +account. + +His voice, in spite of him, betrayed great nervousness now, and he saw +apprehension in her eyes, also. + +"Why should that man in white have followed us, keeping out of sight in +the woods?" he went on. "Did you notice about him anything to disturb +you, Tressa?" + +"Not at the time. But--it's odd--I can't put him out of my mind. Since +we passed him and left him apparently hunting a lost ball, I have not +been able to put him out of my mind." + +"He seemed civil and well bred. He was perfectly good-humoured--all +courtesy and smiles." + +"I think--perhaps--it was the way he smiled at us," murmured the girl. +"Everybody in the East smiles when they draw a knife...." + +He placed his arm through hers. "Aren't you a trifle morbid?" he said +pleasantly. + +She stooped for her golf ball, retaining a hold on his arm. He picked up +his ball, too, put away her clubs and his, and they started back +together in silence, evidently with no desire to make it eighteen holes. + +"It's a confounded shame," he muttered, "just as you were becoming so +rested and so delightfully well, to have anything--any unpleasant flash +of memory cut in to upset you----" + +"I brought it on myself. I should not have risked stirring up the +sinister minds that were asleep." + +"Hang it all!--and I asked you to amuse me." + +"It was not wise in me," she said under her breath. "It is easy to +disturb the unknown currents which enmesh the globe. I ought not to have +shown you Yian. I ought not to have shown you Yulun. It was my fault for +doing that. I was a little lonely, and I wanted to see Yulun." + +They came down the river back to the canoe, threw in their golf bags, +and embarked on the glassy stream. + +Over the calm flood, stained deep with crimson, the canoe glided in the +sanguine evening light. But Tressa sang no more and her head was bent +sideways as though listening--always listening--to something inaudible +to Cleves--something very, very far away which she seemed to hear +through the still drip of the paddles. + +They were not yet in sight of their landing when she spoke to him, +partly turning: + +"I think some of your men have arrived." + +"Where?" he asked, astonished. + +"At the house." + +"Why do you think so?" + +"I think so." + +They paddled a little faster. In a few minutes their dock came into +view. + +"It's funny," he said, "that you should think some of our men have +arrived from the North. I don't see anybody on the dock." + +"It's Mr. Recklow," she said in a low voice. "He is seated on our +veranda." + +As it was impossible to see the house, let alone the veranda, Cleves +made no reply. He beached the canoe; Tressa stepped out; he followed, +carrying the golf bags. + +A mousy light lingered in the shrubbery; bats were flying against a +salmon-tinted sky as they took the path homeward. + +With an impulse quite involuntary, Cleves encircled his young wife's +shoulders with his left arm. + +"Girl-comrade," he said lightly, "I'd kill any man who even looked as +though he'd harm you." + +He smiled, but she had not missed the ugly undertone in his words. + +They walked slowly, his arm around her shoulders. Suddenly he felt her +start. They halted. + +"What was it?" he whispered. + +"I thought there was something white in the woods." + +"Where, dear?" he asked coolly. + +"Over there beyond the lawn." + +What she called the "lawn" was only a vast sheet of pink and white +phlox, now all misty with the whirring wings of sphinx-moths and +Noctuidae. + +The oak grove beyond was dusky. Cleves could see nothing among the +trees. + +After a moment they went forward. His arm had fallen away from her +shoulders. + +There were no lights except in the kitchen when they came in sight of +the house. At first nobody was visible on the screened veranda under the +orange trees. But when he opened the swing door for her a shadowy figure +arose from a chair. + +It was John Recklow. He came forward, bent his strong white head, and +kissed Tressa's hand. + +"Is all well with you, Mrs. Cleves?" + +"Yes. I am glad you came." + +Cleves clasped the elder man's firm hand. + +"I'm glad too, Recklow. You'll stop with us, of course." + +"Do you really want me?" + +"Of course," said Cleves. + +"All right. I've a coon and a surrey behind your house." + +So Cleves went around in the dusk and sent the outfit back to the hotel, +and he himself carried in Recklow's suitcase. + +Then Tressa went away to give instructions, and the two men were left +together on the dusky veranda. + +"Well?" said Recklow quietly. + +Cleves went to him and rested both hands on his shoulders: + +"I'm playing absolutely square. She's a perfectly fine girl and she'll +have her chance some day, God willing." + +"Her chance?" repeated Recklow. + +"To marry whatever man she will some day care for." + +"I see," said Recklow drily. + +There was a silence, then: + +"She's simply a splendid specimen of womanhood," said Cleves earnestly. +"And intensely interesting to me. Why, Recklow, I haven't known a dull +moment--though I fear she has known many----" + +"Why?" + +"Why? Well, being married to a--a sort of temporary figurehead--shut up +here all day alone with a man of no particular interest to her----" + +"Don't you interest her?" + +"Well, how could I? She didn't choose me because she liked me +particularly." + +"Didn't she?" asked Recklow, still more drily. "Well, that does make it +a trifle dull for you both." + +"Not for me," said the younger man naively. "She is one of the most +interesting women I ever met. And good heavens!--what psychic knowledge +that child possesses! She did a thing to-day--merely to amuse me----" He +checked himself and looked at Recklow out of sombre eyes. + +"What did she do?" inquired the older man. + +"I think I'll let her tell you--if she wishes.... And that reminds me. +Why did you come down here, Recklow?" + +"I want to show you something, Cleves. May we step into the house?" + +They went into a little lamplit living-room. Recklow handed a newspaper +clipping to Cleves: the latter read it, standing: + + "HAD DEADLIEST GAS READY FOR GERMANS + + "_'Lewisite' Might Have Killed Millions_ + + "WASHINGTON, APRIL 24.--Guarded night and day and far out of + human reach on a pedestal at the Interior Department Exposition + here is a tiny vial. It contains a specimen of the deadliest + poison ever known, 'Lewisite,' the product of an American + scientist. + + "Germany escaped this poison by signing the armistice before + all the resources of the United States were turned upon her. + + "Ten airplanes carrying 'Lewisite' would have wiped out, it is + said, every vestige of life--animal and vegetable--in Berlin. A + single day's output would snuff out the millions of lives on + Manhattan Island. A drop poured in the palm of the hand would + penetrate to the blood, reach the heart and kill the victim in + agony. + + "What was coming to Germany may be imagined by the fact that + when the armistice was signed 'Lewisite' was being manufactured + at the rate of ten tons a day. Three thousand tons of this most + terrible instrument ever conceived for killing would have been + ready for business on the American front in France on November 1. + + "'Lewisite' is another of the big secrets of the war just + leaking out. It was developed in the Bureau of Mines by + Professor W. Lee Lewis, of Northwestern University, Evanston, + Ill., who took a commission as a captain in the army. + + "The poison was manufactured in a specially built plant near + Cleveland, called the 'Mouse Trap,' because every workman who + entered the stockade went under an agreement not to leave the + eleven-acre space until the war was won. The object of this, of + course, was to protect the secret. + + "Work on the plant was started eighteen days after the Bureau + of Mines had completed its experiments. + + "Experts are certain that no one will want to steal the sample. + Everybody at the Exposition, which shows what Secretary Lane's + department is doing, keeps as far away from it as possible." + +When Cleves had finished reading, he raised his eyes in silence. + +"That vial was stolen a week ago," said Recklow gravely, "by a young man +who killed one guard and fatally wounded the other." + +"Was there any ante-mortem statement?" + +"Yes. I've followed the man. I lost all trace of him at Palm Beach, but +I picked it up again at Ormond. _And now I'm here_, Cleves." + +"You don't mean you've traced him here!" exclaimed Cleves under his +breath. + +"He's here on the St. Johns River, somewhere. He came up in a +motor-boat, but left it east of Orchard Cove. Benton knows this country. +He's covering the motor-boat. And I--came here to see how you are +getting on." + +"And to warn us," added Cleves quietly. + +"Well--yes. He's got that stuff. It's deadlier than the newspaper +suspects. And I guess--I guess, Cleves, he's one of those damned Yezidee +witch-doctors--or sorcerers, as they call them;--one of that sect of +Assassins sent over here to work havoc on feeble minds and do murder on +the side." + +"Why do you think so?" + +"Because the dirty beast lugs his shroud around with him--a bed-sheet +stolen from the New Willard in Washington. + +"We were so close to him in Jacksonville that we got it, and his +luggage. But we didn't get him, the rat! God knows how he knew we were +waiting for him in his room. He never came back to get his luggage. + +"But he stole a bed-sheet from his hotel in St. Augustine, and that is +how we picked him up again. Then, at Palm Beach, we lost the beggar, but +somehow or other I felt it in my bones that he was after you--you and +your wife. So I sent Benton to Ormond and I went to Palatka. Benton +picked up his trail. It led toward you--toward the St. Johns. And the +reptile has been here forty-eight hours, trying to nose you out, I +suppose----" + +Tressa came into the room. Both men looked at her. + +Cleves said in a guarded voice: + +"To-day, on the golf links at Orchard Cove, there was a young man in +white flannels--very polite and courteous to us--but--Tressa thought she +saw him slinking through the woods as though following and watching us." + +"My man, probably," said Recklow. He turned quietly to Tressa and +sketched for her the substance of what he had just told Cleves. + +"The man in white flannels on the golf links," said Cleves, "was well +built and rather handsome, and not more than twenty-five. I thought he +was a Jew." + +"I thought so too," said Tressa, calmly, "until I saw him in the woods. +And then--and then--suddenly it came to me that his smile was the smile +of a treacherous Shaman sorcerer. + +"... And the idea haunts me--the memory of those smooth-faced, smiling +men in white--men who smile only when they slay--when they slay body and +soul under the iris skies of Yian!--O God, merciful, long suffering," +she whispered, staring into the East, "deliver our souls from Satan who +was stoned, and our bodies from the snare of the Yezidee!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE WEST WIND + + +The night grew sweet with the scent of orange bloom, and all the +perfumed darkness was vibrant with the feathery whirr of hawk-moths' +wings. + +Tressa had taken her moon-lute to the hammock, but her fingers rested +motionless on the strings. + +Cleves and Recklow, shoulder to shoulder, paced the moonlit path along +the hedges of oleander and hibiscus which divided garden from jungle. + +And they moved cautiously on the white-shell road, not too near the +shadow line. For in the cypress swamp the bloated grey death was awake +and watching under the moon; and in the scrub palmetto the +diamond-dotted death moved lithely. + +And somewhere within the dark evil of the jungle a man in white might be +watching. + +So Recklow's pistol swung lightly in his right hand and Cleves' weapon +lay in his side-pocket, and they strolled leisurely around the drive and +up and down the white-shell walks, passing Tressa at regular intervals, +where she sat in her hammock with the moon-lute across her knees. + +Once Cleves paused to place two pink hibiscus blossoms in her hair above +her ears; and the girl smiled gravely at him in the light. + +Again, pausing beside her hammock on one of their tours of the garden, +Recklow said in a low voice: "If the beast would only show himself, Mrs. +Cleves, we'd not miss him. Have you caught a glimpse of anything white +in the woods?" + +"Only the night mist rising from the branch and a white ibis stealing +through it." + +Cleves came nearer: "Do you think the Yezidee is in the woods watching +us, Tressa?" + +"Yes, he is there," she said calmly. + +"You _know_ it?" + +"Yes." + +Recklow stared at the woods. "We can't go in to hunt for him," he said. +"That fellow would get us with his Lewisite gas before we could discover +and destroy him." + +"Suppose he waits for a west wind and squirts his gas in this +direction?" whispered Cleves. + +"There is no wind," said Tressa tranquilly. "He has been waiting for it, +I think. The Yezidee is very patient. And he is a Shaman sorcerer." + +"My God!" breathed Recklow. "What sort of hellish things has the Old +World been dumping into America for the last fifty years? An ordinary +anarchist is bad enough, but this new breed of devil--these +Yezidees--this sect of Assassins----" + +"Hush!" whispered Tressa. + +All three listened to the great cat-owl howling from the jungle. But +Tressa had heard another sound--the vague stir of leaves in the +live-oaks. Was it a passing breeze? Was a night wind rising? She +listened. But heard no brittle clatter from the palm-fronds. + +"Victor," she said. + +"Yes, Tressa." + +"If a wind comes, we must hunt him. That will be necessary." + +"Either we hunt him and get him, or he kills us here with his gas," said +Recklow quietly. + +"If the night wind comes," said Tressa, "we must hunt the darkness for +the Yezidee." She spoke coolly. + +"If he'd only show himself," muttered Recklow, staring into the +darkness. + +The girl picked up her lute, caught Cleves' worried eyes fixed on her, +suddenly comprehended that his anxiety was on her account, and blushed +brightly in the moonlight. And he saw her teeth catch at her underlip; +saw her look up again at him, confused. + +"If I dared leave you," he said, "I'd go into the hammock and start that +reptile. This won't do--this standing pat while he comes to some deadly +decision in the woods there." + +"What else is there to do?" growled Recklow. + +"Watch," said the girl. "Out-watch the Yezidee. If there is no +night-wind he may tire of waiting. Then you must shoot fast--very, very +fast and straight. But if the night-wind comes, then we must hunt him in +darkness." + +Recklow, pistol in hand, stood straight and sturdy in the moonlight, +gazing fixedly at the forest. Cleves sat down at his wife's feet. + +She touched her moon-lute tranquilly and sang in her childish voice: + + "_Ring, ring, Buddha bells, + Gilded gods are listening. + Swing, swing, lily bells, + In my garden glistening. + Now I hear the Shaman drum; + Now the scarlet horsemen come; + Ding-dong! + Ding-dong! + Through the chanting of the throng + Thunders now the temple gong. + Boom-boom! + Ding-dong!_ + + "_Let the gold gods listen! + In my garden; what care I + Where my lily bells hang mute! + Snowy-sweet they glisten + Where I'm singing to my lute. + In my garden; what care I + Who is dead and who shall die? + Let the gold gods save or slay + Scented lilies bloom in May. + Boom, boom, temple gong! + Ding-dong! + Ding-dong!_" + +"What are you singing?" whispered Cleves. + +"'The Bells of Yian.'" + +"Is it old?" + +"Of the 13th century. There were few Buddhist bells in Yian then. It is +Lamaism that has destroyed the Mongols and that has permitted the creed +of the Assassins to spread--the devil worship of Erlik." + +He looked at her, not understanding. And she, pale, slim prophetess, in +the moonlight, gazed at him out of lost eyes--eyes which saw, perhaps, +the bloody age of men when mankind took the devil by the throat and all +Mount Alamout went up in smoking ruin; and the Eight Towers were dark as +death and as silent before the blast of the silver clarions of Ghenghis +Khan. + +"Something is stirring in the forest," whispered Tressa, her fingers on +her lips. + +"Damnation," muttered Recklow, "it's the wind!" + +They listened. Far in the forest they heard the clatter of palm-fronds. +They waited. The ominous warning grew faint, then rose again,--a long, +low rattle of palm-fronds which became a steady monotone. + +"We hunt," said Recklow bluntly. "Come on!" + +But the girl sprang from the hammock and caught her husband's arm and +drew Recklow back from the hibiscus hedge. + +"Use me," she said. "You could never find the Yezidee. Let me do the +hunting; and then shoot very, very fast." + +"We've got to take her," said Recklow. "We dare not leave her." + +"I can't let her lead the way into those black woods," muttered Cleves. + +"The wind is blowing in my face," insisted Recklow. "We'd better hurry." + +Tressa laid one hand on her husband's arm. + +"I can find the Yezidee, I think. You never could find him before he +finds you! Victor, let me use my own _knowledge_! Let me find the way. +Please let me lead! Please, Victor. Because, if you don't, I'm afraid +we'll all die here in the garden where we stand." + +Cleves cast a haggard glance at Recklow, then looked at his wife. + +"All right," he said. + +The girl opened the hedge gate. Both men followed with pistols lifted. + +The moon silvered the forest. There was no mist, but a night-wind blew +mournfully through palm and cypress, carrying with it the strange, +disturbing pungency of the jungle--wild, unfamiliar perfumes,--the acrid +aroma of swamp and rotting mould. + +"What about snakes?" muttered Recklow, knee deep in wild phlox. + +But there was a deadlier snake to find and destroy, somewhere in the +blotched shadows of the forest. + +The first sentinel trees were very near, now; and Tressa was running +across a ghostly tangle, where once had been an orange grove, and where +aged and dying citrus stumps rose stark amid the riot of encroaching +jungle. + +"She's circling to get the wind at our backs," breathed Recklow, running +forward beside Cleves. "That's our only chance to kill the dirty +rat--catch him with the wind at our backs!" + +Once, traversing a dry hammock where streaks of moonlight alternated +with velvet-black shadow a rattlesnake sprang his goblin alarm. + +They could not locate the reptile. They shrank together and moved +warily, chilled with fear. + +Once, too, clear in the moonlight, the Grey Death reared up from bloated +folds and stood swaying rhythmically in a horrible shadow dance before +them. And Cleves threw one arm around his wife and crept past, giving +death a wide berth there in the checkered moonlight. + +Now, under foot, the dry hammock lay everywhere and the night wind blew +on their backs. + +Then Tressa turned and halted the two men with a gesture. And went to +her husband where he stood in the palm forest, and laid her hands on his +shoulders, looking him very wistfully in the eyes. + +Under her searching gaze he seemed oddly to comprehend her appeal. + +"You are going to use--to use your _knowledge_," he said mechanically. +"You are going to find the man in white." + +"Yes." + +"You are going to find him in a way we don't understand," he continued, +dully. + +"Yes.... You will not hold me in--in horror--will you?" + +Recklow came up, making no sound on the spongy palm litter underfoot. + +"Can you find this devil?" he whispered. + +"I--think so." + +"Does your super-instinct--finer sense--knowledge--whatever it is--give +you any inkling as to his whereabouts, Mrs. Cleves?" + +"I think he is here in this hammock. Only----" she turned again, with +swift impulse, to her husband, "--only if you--if _you_ do not hold +me in--in horror--because of what I do----" + +There was a silence; then: + +"What are you about to do?" he asked hoarsely. + +"Slay this man." + +"We'll do that," said Cleves with a shudder. "Only show him to us and +we'll shoot the dirty reptile to slivers----" + +"Suppose we hit the jar of gas," said Recklow. + +After a silence, Tressa said: + +"I have got to give him back to Satan. There is no other way. I +understood that from the first. He can not die by your pistols, though +you shoot very fast and straight. No!" + +After another silence, Recklow said: + +"You had better find him before the wind changes. We hunt down wind +or--we die here together." + +She looked at her husband. + +"Show him to us in your own way," he said, "and deal with him as he must +be dealt with." + +A gleam passed across her pale face and she tried to smile at her +husband. + +Then, turning down the hammock to the east, she walked noiselessly +forward over the fibrous litter, the men on either side of her, their +pistols poised. + +They had halted on the edge of an open glade, ringed with young pines in +fullest plumage. + +Tressa was standing very straight and still in a strange, supple, +agonised attitude, her left forearm across her eyes, her right hand +clenched, her slender body slightly twisted to the left. + +The men gazed pallidly at her with tense, set faces, knowing that the +girl was in terrible mental conflict against another mind--a powerful, +sinister mind which was seeking to grasp her thoughts and control them. + +Minute after minute sped: the girl never moved, locked in her psychic +duel with this other brutal mind,--beating back its terrible +thought-waves which were attacking her, fighting for mental supremacy, +struggling in silence with an unseen adversary whose mental dominance +meant death. + +Suddenly her cry rang out sharply in the moonlight, and then, all at +once, a man in white stood there in the lustre of the moon--a young, +graceful man dressed in white flannels and carrying on his right arm +what seemed to be a long white cloak. + +Instantly the girl was transformed from a living statue into a lithe, +supple, lightly moving thing that passed swiftly to the west of the +glade, keeping the young man in white facing the wind, which was blowing +and tossing the plumy young pines. + +"So it is _you_, young man, with whom I have been wrestling here under +the moon of the only God!" she said in a strange little voice, all +vibrant and metallic with menacing laughter. + +"It is I, Keuke Mongol," replied the young man in white, tranquilly; yet +his words came as though he were tired and out of breath, and the hand +he raised to touch his small black moustache trembled as if from +physical exhaustion. + +"Yarghouz!" she exclaimed. "Why did I not know you there on the golf +links, Assassin of the Seventh Tower? And why do you come here with your +shroud over your arm and hidden under it, in your right hand, a flask +full of death?" + +He said, smiling: + +"I come because you are to die, Heavenly-Azure Eyes. I bring you your +shroud." And he moved warily westward around the open circle of young +pines. + +Instantly the girl flung her right arm straight upward. + +"Yarghouz!" + +"I hear thee, Heavenly Azure." + +"Another step to the west and I shatter thy flask of gas." + +"With what?" he demanded; but stood discreetly motionless. + +"With what I grasp in an empty palm. Thou knowest, Yarghouz." + +"I have heard," he said with smiling uncertainty, "but to hear of force +that can be hurled out of an empty palm is one thing, and to see it and +feel it is another. I think you lie, Heavenly Azure." + +"So thought Gutchlug. And died of a yellow snake." + +The young man seemed to reflect. Then he looked up at her in his frank, +smiling way. + +"Wilt thou listen, Heavenly Eyes?" + +"I hear thee, Yarghouz." + +"Listen then, Keuke Mongol. Take life from us as we offer it. Life is +sweet. Erlik, like a spider, waits in darkness for lost souls that +flutter to his net." + +"You think my soul was lost there in the temple, Yarghouz?" + +"Unutterably lost, little temple girl of Yian. Therefore, live. Take +life as a gift!" + +"Whose gift?" + +"Sanang's." + +"It is written," she said gravely, "that we belong to God and we return +to him. Now then, Yezidee, do your duty as I do mine! Kai!" + +At the sound of the formula always uttered by the sect of Assassins when +about to do murder, the young man started and shrank back. The west wind +blew fresh in his startled eyes. + +"Sorceress," he said less firmly, "you leave your Yiort to come all +alone into this forest and seek me. Why then have you come, if not to +submit!--if not to take the gift of life--if not to turn away from your +seducers who are hunting me, and who have corrupted you?" + +"Yarghouz, I come to slay you," she said quietly. + +Suddenly the man snarled at her, flung the shroud at her feet, and crept +deliberately to the left. + +"Be careful!" she cried sharply; "look what you're about! Stand still, +son of a dog! May your mother bewail your death!" + +Yarghouz edged toward the west, clasping in his right hand the flask of +gas. + +"Sorceress," he laughed, "a witch of Thibet prophesied with a drum that +the three purities, the nine perfections, and the nine times nine +felicities shall be lodged in him who slays the treacherous temple girl, +Keuke Mongol! There is more magic in this bottle which I grasp than in +thy mind and body. Heavenly Eyes! I pray God to be merciful to this soul +I send to Erlik!" + +All the time he was advancing, edging cautiously around the circle of +little plumy pines; and already the wind struck his left cheek. + +"Yarghouz Khan!" cried the girl in her clear voice. "Take up your shroud +and repeat the fatha!" + +"Backward!" laughed the young man, "--as do you, Keuke Mongol!" + +"Heretic!" she retorted. "Do you also refuse to name the ten Imaums in +your prayers? Dog! Toad! Spittle of Erlik! May all your cattle die and +all your horses take the glanders and all your dogs the mange!" + +"Silence, sorceress!" he shouted, pale with fear and fury. "Witch! Mud +worm! May Erlik seize you! May your skin be covered with putrefying +sores! May all the demons torment you! May God remember you in hell!" + +"Yarghouz! Stand still!" + +"Is your word then the Rampart of Gog and Magog, you young witch of +Yian, that a Khan of the Seventh Tower need fear you!" he sneered, +stealing stealthily westward through the feathery pines. + +"I give thee thy last chance, Yarghouz Khan," she said in an excited +voice that trembled. "Recite thy prayer naming the ten, because with +their holy names upon thy lips thou mayest escape damnation. For I am +here to slay thee, Yarghouz! Take up thy shroud and pray!" + +The young man felt the west wind at the back of his left ear. Then he +began to laugh. + +"Heavenly Eyes," he said, "thy end is come--together with the two police +who hide in the pines yonder behind thee! Behold the bottle magic of +Yarghouz Khan!" + +And he lifted the glass flask in the moonlight as though he were about +to smash it at her feet. + +Then a terrible thing occurred. The entire flask glowed red hot in his +grasp; and the man screamed and strove convulsively to fling the bottle; +but it stuck to his hand, melted into the smoking flesh. + +Then he screamed again--or tried to--but his entire lower jaw came off +and he stood there with the awful orifice gaping in the +moonlight--stood, reeled a moment--and then--and _then_--his whole face +slid off, leaving nothing but a bony mask out of which burst shriek +after shriek---- + +Keuke Mongol had fainted dead away. Cleves took her into his arms. + +Recklow, trembling and deathly white, went over to the thing that lay +among the young pines and forced himself to bend over it. + +The glass flask still stuck to one charred hand, but it was no longer +hot. And Recklow rolled the unspeakable thing into the white shroud and +pushed it into the swamp. + +An evil ooze took it, slowly sucked it under and engulfed it. A few +stinking bubbles broke. + +Recklow went back to the little glade among the pines. + +A young girl lay sobbing convulsively in her husband's arms, asking +God's pardon and his for the justice she had done upon an enemy of all +mankind. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +AT THE RITZ + + +When Victor Cleves telegraphed from St. Augustine to Washington that he +and his wife were on their way North, and that they desired to see John +Recklow as soon as they arrived, John Recklow remarked that he knew of +no place as private as a public one. And he came on to New York and +established himself at the Ritz, rather regally. + +To dine with him that evening were two volunteer agents of the United +States Secret Service, _ZB-303_, otherwise James Benton, a fashionable +architect; and _XYL-371_, Alexander Selden, sometime junior partner in +the house of Milwin, Selden & Co. + +A single lamp was burning in the white-and-rose rococo room. Under its +veiled glow these three men sat conversing in guarded voices over coffee +and cigars, awaiting the advent of _53-6-26_, otherwise Victor Cleves, +recently Professor of Ornithology at Cambridge; and his young wife, +Tressa, known officially as _V-69_. + +"Did the trip South do Mrs. Cleves any good?" inquired Benton. + +"Some," said Recklow. "When Selden and I saw her she was getting +better." + +"I suppose that affair of Yarghouz upset her pretty thoroughly." + +"Yes." Recklow tossed his cigar into the fireplace and produced a pipe. +"Victor Cleves upsets her more," he remarked. + +"Why?" asked Benton, astonished. + +"She's beginning to fall in love with him and doesn't know what's the +matter with her," replied the elder man drily. "Selden noticed it, too." + +Benton looked immensely surprised. "I supposed," he said, "that she and +Cleves considered the marriage to be merely a temporary necessity. I +didn't imagine that they cared for each other." + +"I don't suppose they did at first," said Selden. "But I think she's +interested in Victor. And I don't see how he can help falling in love +with her, because she's a very beautiful thing to gaze on, and a most +engaging one to talk to." + +"She's about the prettiest girl I ever saw," admitted Benton, "and about +the cleverest. All the same----" + +"All the same--_what_?" + +"Well, Mrs. Cleves has her drawbacks, you know--as a real wife, I mean." + +Recklow said: "There is a fixed idea in Cleves's head that Tressa Norne +married him as a last resort, which is true. But he'll never believe +she's changed her ideas in regard to him unless she herself enlightens +him. And the girl is too shy to do that. Besides, she believes the same +thing of him. There's a mess for you!" + +Recklow filled his pipe carefully. + +"In addition," he went on, "Mrs. Cleves has another and very terrible +fixed idea in her charming head, and that is that she really did lose +her soul among those damned Yezidees. She believes that Cleves, though +kind to her, considers her merely as something uncanny--something to +endure until this Yezidee campaign is ended and she is safe from +assassination." + +Benton said: "After all, and in spite of all her loveliness, I myself +should not feel entirely comfortable with such a girl for a real wife." + +"Why?" demanded Recklow. + +"Well--good heavens, John!--those uncanny things she does--her rather +terrifying psychic knowledge and ability--make a man more or less +uneasy." He laughed without mirth. + +"For example," he added, "I never was nervous in any physical crisis; +but since I've met Tressa Norne--to be frank--I'm not any too +comfortable in my mind when I remember Gutchlug and Sanang and Albert +Feke and that dirty reptile Yarghouz--and when I recollect _how that +girl dealt with them_! Good God, John, I'm not a coward, I hope, but +that sort of thing worries me!" + +Recklow lighted his pipe. He said: "In the Government's campaign against +these eight foreigners who have begun a psychic campaign against the +unsuspicious people of this decent Republic, with the purpose of +surprising, overpowering and enslaving the minds of mankind by a misuse +of psychic power, we agents of the Secret Service are slowly gaining the +upper hand. + +"In this battle of minds we are gaining a victory. But we are winning +solely and alone through the psychic ability and the loyalty and courage +of a young girl who, through tragedy of circumstances, spent the years +of her girlhood in the infamous Yezidee temple at Yian, and who learned +from the devil-worshipers themselves not only this so-called magic of +the Mongol sorcerers, but also how to meet its psychic menace and defeat +it." + +He looked at Benton, shrugged: + +"If you and if Cleves really feel the slightest repugnance toward the +strange psychic ability of this brave and generous girl, I for one do +not share it." + +Benton reddened: "It isn't exactly repugnance----" But Recklow +interrupted sharply: + +"Do you realise, Benton, what she's already accomplished for us in our +secret battle against Bolshevism?--against the very powers of hell +itself, led by these Mongol sorcerers? + +"Of the Eight Assassins--or Sheiks-el-Djebel--who came to the United +States to wield the dreadful weapon of psychic power against the minds +of our people, and to pervert them and destroy all civilisation,--of the +Eight Chief Assassins of the Eight Towers, this girl already has +discovered and identified four,--Sanang, Gutchlug, Albert Feke, and +Yarghouz; and she has destroyed the last three." + +He sat calmly enjoying his pipe for a few moments' silence, then: + +"Five of this sect of Assassins remain--five sly, murderous, psychic +adepts who call themselves sorcerers. Except for Prince Sanang, I do not +know who these other four men may be. I haven't a notion. Nor have you. +Nor do I believe that with all the resources of the United States Secret +Service we ever should be able to discover these four Sheiks-el-Djebel +except for the astounding spiritual courage and psychic experience of +the young wife of Victor Cleves." + +After a moment Selden nodded. "That is quite true," he said simply. "We +are utterly helpless against unknown psychic forces. And I, for one, +feel no repugnance toward what Mrs. Cleves has done for all mankind and +in the name of God." + +"She's a brave girl," muttered Benton, "but it's terrible to possess +such knowledge and horrible to use it." + +Recklow said: "The horror of it nearly killed the girl herself. Have you +any idea how she must suffer by being forced to employ such terrific +knowledge? by being driven to use it to combat this menace of hell? Can +you imagine what this charming, sensitive, tragic young creature must +feel when, with powers natural to her but unfamiliar to us, she destroys +with her own mind and will-power demons in human shape who are about to +destroy her? + +"Talk of nerve! Talk of abnegation! Talk of perfect loyalty and courage! +There is more than these in Tressa Cleves. There is that dauntless +bravery which faces worse than physical death. Because the child still +believes that her soul is damned for whatever happened to her in the +Yezidee temple; and that when these Yezidees succeed in killing her +body, Erlik will surely seize the soul that leaves it." + +There was a knocking at the door. Benton got up and opened it. Victor +Cleves came in with his young wife. + + * * * * * + +Tressa Cleves seemed to have grown since she had been away. Taller, a +trifle paler, yet without even the subtlest hint of that charming +maturity which the young and happily married woman invariably wears, her +virginal allure now verged vaguely on the delicate edges of austerity. + +Cleves, sunburnt and vigorous, looked older, somehow--far less +boyish--and he seemed more silent than when, nearly seven months before, +he had been assigned to the case of Tressa Norne. + +Recklow, Selden and Benton greeted them warmly; to each in turn Tressa +gave her narrow, sun-tanned hand. Recklow led her to a seat. A servant +came with iced fruit juice and little cakes and cigarettes. + +Conversation, aimless and general, fulfilling formalities, gradually +ceased. + +A full June moon stared through the open windows--searching for the +traditional bride, perhaps--and its light silvered a pale and lovely +figure that might possibly have passed for the pretty ghost of a bride, +but not for any girl who had married because she was loved. + +Recklow broke the momentary silence, bluntly: + +"Have you anything to report, Cleves?" + +The young fellow hesitated: + +"My wife has, I believe." + +The others turned to her. She seemed, for a moment, to shrink back in +her chair, and, as her eyes involuntarily sought her husband, there was +in them a vague and troubled appeal. + +Cleves said in a sombre voice: "I need scarcely remind you how deeply +distasteful this entire and accursed business is to my wife. But she is +going to see it through, whatever the cost. And we four men understand +something of what it has cost her--is costing her--in violence to her +every instinct." + +"We honour her the more," said Recklow quietly. + +"We couldn't honour her too much," said Cleves. + +A slight colour came into Tressa's face; she bent her head, but Recklow +saw her eyes steal sideways toward her husband. + +Still bowed a little in her chair, she seemed to reflect for a while +concerning what she had to say; then, looking up at John Recklow: + +"I saw Sanang." + +"Good heavens! Where?" he demanded. + +"I--don't--know." + +Cleves, flushing with embarrassment, explained: "She saw him +clairvoyantly. She was lying in the hammock. You remember I had a +trained nurse for her after--what happened in Orchid Lodge." + +Tressa looked miserably at Recklow,--dumbly, for a moment. Then her lips +unclosed. + +"I saw Prince Sanang," she repeated. "He was near the sea. There were +rocks--cottages on cliffs--and very brilliant flowers in tiny, +pocket-like gardens. + +"Sanang was walking on the cliffs with another man. There were forests, +inland." + +"Do you know who the other man was?" asked Recklow gently. + +"Yes. He was one of the Eight. I recognised him. When I was a girl he +came once to the Temple of Yian, all alone, and spread his shroud on the +pink marble steps. And we temple girls mocked him and threw stemless +roses on the shroud, telling him they were human heads with which to +grease his toug." + +She became excited and sat up straighter in her chair, and her strange +little laughter rippled like a rill among pebbles. + +"I threw a big rose without a stem upon the shroud," she exclaimed, "and +I cried out, 'Niaz!' which means, 'Courage,' and I mocked him, saying, +'Djamouk Khagan,' when he was only a Khan, of course; and I laughed and +rubbed one finger against the other, crying out, 'Toug ia glachakho!' +which means, 'The toug is anointed.' And which was very impudent of me, +because Djamouk was a Sheik-el-Djebel and Khan of the Fifth Tower, and +entitled to a toug and to eight men and a Toughtchi. And it is a grave +offence to mock at the anointing of a toug." + +She paused, breathless, her splendid azure eyes sparkling with the +memory of that girlish mischief. Then their brilliancy faded; she bit +her lip and stole an uncertain glance at her husband. + +And after a pause she explained in a very subdued voice that the "Iagla +michi," or action of "greasing the toug," or standard, was done when a +severed human head taken in battle was cast at the foot of the lance +shaft stuck upright in the ground. + +"You see," she said sadly, "we temple girls, being already damned, cared +little what we said, even to such a terrible man as Djamouk Khan. And +even had the ghost of old Tchinguiz Khagan himself come to the temple +and looked at us out of his tawny eyes, I think we might have done +something saucy." + +Tressa's pretty face was spiritless, now; she leaned back in her +armchair and they heard an unconscious sigh escape her. + +"Ai-ya! Ai-ya!" she murmured to herself, "what crazy things we did on +the rose-marble steps, Yulun and I, so long--so long ago." + +Cleves got up and went over to stand beside his wife's chair. + +"What happened is this," he said heavily. "During my wife's +convalescence after that Yarghouz affair, she found herself, at a +certain moment, clairvoyant. And she thought she saw--she _did_ +see--Sanang, and an Asiatic she recognised as being one of the chiefs of +the Assassins sect, whose name is Djamouk. + +"But, except that it was somewhere near the sea--some summer colony +probably on the Atlantic coast--she does not know where this pair of +jailbirds roost. And this is what we have come here to report." + +Benton, politely appalled, tried not to look incredulous. But it was +evident that Selden and Recklow had no doubts. + +"Of course," said Recklow calmly, "the thing to do is for you and your +wife to try to find this place she saw." + +"Make a tour of all such ocean-side resorts until Mrs. Cleves recognises +the place she saw," added Selden. And to Recklow he added: "I believe +there are several perfectly genuine cases on record where clairvoyants +have aided the police." + +"Several authentic cases," said Recklow quietly. But Benton's face was a +study. + +Tressa looked up at her husband. He dropped his hand reassuringly on her +shoulder and nodded with a slight smile. + +"There--there was something else," she said with considerable +hesitation--"something not quite in line of duty--perhaps----" + +"It seems to concern Benton," added Cleves, smiling. + +"What is it?" inquired Selden, smiling also as Benton's features froze +to a mask. + +"Let me tell you, first," interrupted Cleves, "that my wife's psychic +ability and skill can make me visualise and actually see scenes and +people which, God knows, I never before laid eyes upon, but which she +has both seen and known. + +"And one morning, in Florida, I asked her to do something +strange--something of that sort to amuse me--and we were sitting on the +steps of our cottage--you know, the old club-house at Orchid!--and the +first I knew I saw, in the mist on the St. Johns, a Chinese bridge +humped up over that very commonplace stream, and thousands of people +passing over it,--and a city beyond--the town of Yian, Tressa tells +me,--and I heard the Buddhist bells and the big temple gong and the +noises in streets and on the water----" + +He was becoming considerably excited at the memory, and his lean face +reddened and he gesticulated as he spoke: + +"It was astounding, Recklow! There was that bridge, and all those people +moving over it; and the city beyond, and the boats and shipping, and the +vast murmur of multitudes.... And then, there on the bridge crossing +toward Yian, I saw a young girl, who turned and looked back at my wife +and laughed." + +"And I told him it was Yulun," said Tressa, simply. + +"A playfellow of my wife's in Yian," explained Cleves. "But if she were +really Chinese she didn't look like what are my own notions of a Chinese +girl." + +"Yulun came from Black China," said Mrs. Cleves. "I taught her English. +I loved her dearly. I was her most intimate friend in Yian." + +There ensued a silence, broken presently by Benton; and: + +"Where do I appear in this?" he asked stiffly. + +Tressa's smile was odd; she looked at Selden and said: + +"When I was convalescent I was lonely.... I made _the effort_ one +evening. And I found Yulun. And again she was on a bridge. But she was +dressed as I am. And the bridge was one of those great, horrible steel +monsters that sprawl across the East River. And I was astonished, and I +said, 'Yulun, darling, are you really here in America and in New York, +or has a demon tangled the threads of thought to mock my mind in +illness?' + +"Then Yulun looked very sorrowfully at me and wrote in Arabic +characters, in the air, the name of our enemy who once came to the Lake +of Ghosts for love of her--Yaddin-ed-Din, Tougtchi to Djamouk the +Fox.... And who went his way again amid our scornful laughter.... He is +a demon. And he was tangling my thread of thought!" + +Tressa became exceedingly animated once more. She rose and came swiftly +to where Benton was standing. + +"And what do you think!" she said eagerly. "I said to her, 'Yulun! +Yulun! Will you _make the effort_ and come to me if I _make the effort_? +Will you come to me, beloved?' And Yulun made 'Yes,' with her lips." + +After a silence: "But--where do I come in?" inquired Benton, stiffly +fearful of such matters. + +"You _came_ in." + +"I don't understand." + +"You came in the door while Yulun and I were talking." + +"When?" + +"When you came to see me after I was better, and you and Mr. Selden were +going North with Mr. Recklow. Don't you remember; I was lying in the +hammock in the moonlight, and Victor told you I was asleep?" + +"Yes, of course----" + +"I was not asleep. I had _made the effort_ and I was with Yulun.... I +did not know you were standing beside my hammock in the moonlight until +Yulun told me.... And _that_ is what I am to tell you; Yulun saw you.... +And Yulun has written it in Chinese, in Eighur characters and in +Arabic,--tracing them with her forefinger in the air--that Yulun, +loveliest in Yian, flame-slender and very white, has seen her heart, +like a pink pearl afire, burning between your august hands." + +"My hands!" exclaimed Benton, very red. + +There fell an odd silence. Nobody laughed. + +Tressa came nearer to Benton, wistful, uncertain, shy. + +"Would you care to see Yulun?" she asked. + +"Well--no," he said, startled. "I--I shall not deny that such things +worry me a lot, Mrs. Cleves. I'm a--an Episcopalian." + +The tension released, Selden was the first to laugh. + +"There's no use blinking the truth," he said; "we're up against +something absolutely new. Of course, it isn't magic. It can, of course, +be explained by natural laws about which we happen to know nothing at +present." + +Recklow nodded. "What do we know about the human mind? It has been +proven that no thought can originate within that mass of convoluted +physical matter called the brain. It has been proven that _something +outside_ the brain originates thought and uses the brain as a vehicle to +incubate it. What do we know about thought?" + +Selden, much interested, sat cogitating and looking at Mrs. Cleves. But +Benton, still flushed and evidently nervous, sat staring out of the +window at the full moon, and twisting an unlighted cigarette to shreds. + +"Why didn't you tell Benton when the thing occurred down there at Orchid +Lodge, the night we called to say good-bye?" asked Selden, curiously. + +Tressa gave him a distressed smile: "I was afraid he wouldn't believe +me. And I was afraid that you and Mr. Recklow, even if you believed it, +might not like--like me any the better for--for being clairvoyant." + +Recklow came over, bent his handsome grey head, and kissed her hand. + +"I never liked any woman better, nor respected any woman as deeply," he +said. And, lifting his head, he saw tears sparkling in her eyes. + +"My dear," he said in a low voice, and his firm hand closed over the +slim fingers he had kissed. + +Benton got up from his chair, went to the window, turned shortly and +came over to Tressa. + +"You're braver than I ever could learn to be," he said shortly. "I ask +your pardon if I seem sceptical. I'm more worried than incredulous. +There's something born in me--part of me--that shrinks from anything +that upsets my orthodox belief in the future life. But--if you wish me +to see this--this girl--Yulun--it's quite all right." + +She said softly, and with gentle wonder: "I know of nothing that could +upset your belief, Mr. Benton. There is only one God. And if Mahomet be +His prophet, or if he be Lord Buddha, or if your Lord Christ be +vice-regent to the Most High, I do not know. All I know is that God is +God, and that He prevailed over Satan who was stoned. And that in +Paradise is eternal life, and in hell demons hide where dwells Erlik, +Prince of Darkness." + +Benton, silent and secretly aghast at her theology, said nothing. +Recklow pleasantly but seriously denied that Satan and his demons were +actual and concrete creatures. + +Again Cleves's hand fell lightly on his wife's shoulder, in a careless +gesture of reassurance. And, to Benton, "No soul is ever lost," he said, +calmly. "I don't exactly know how that agrees with your orthodoxy, +Benton. But it is surely so." + +"I don't know myself," said Benton. "I hope it's so." He looked at +Tressa a moment and then blurted out: "Anyway, if ever there was a soul +in God's keeping and guarded by His angels, it's your wife's!" + +"That also is true," said Cleves quietly. + +"By the way," remarked Recklow carelessly, "I've arranged to have you +stop at the Ritz while you're in town, Mrs. Cleves. You and your husband +are to occupy the apartment adjoining this. Where is your luggage, +Victor?" + +"In our apartment." + +"That won't do," said Recklow decisively. "Telephone for it." + +Cleves went to the telephone, but Recklow took the instrument out of his +hand and called the number. The voice of one of his own agents answered. + +Cleves was standing alone by the open window when Recklow hung up the +telephone. Tressa, on the sofa, had been whispering with Benton. Selden, +looking over the evening paper by the rose-shaded lamp, glanced up as +Recklow went over to Cleves. + +"Victor," he said, "your man has been murdered. His throat was cut; his +head was severed completely. Your luggage has been ransacked and so has +your apartment. Three of my men are in possession, and the local police +seem to comprehend the necessity of keeping the matter out of the +newspapers. What was in your baggage?" + +"Nothing," said Cleves, ghastly pale. + +"All right. We'll have your effects packed up again and brought over +here. Are you going to tell your wife?" + +Cleves, still deathly pale, cast a swift glance toward her. She sat on +the sofa in animated conversation with Benton. She laughed once, and +Benton smiled at what she was saying. + +"Is there any need to tell her, Recklow?" + +"Not for a while, anyway." + +"All right. I suppose the Yezidees are responsible for this horrible +business." + +"Certainly. Your poor servant's head lay at the foot of a curtain-pole +which had been placed upright between two chairs. On the pole were tied +three tufts of hair from the dead man's head. The pole had been rubbed +with blood." + +"That's Mongol custom," muttered Cleves. "They made a toug and 'greased' +it!--the murderous devils!" + +"They did more. They left at the foot of your bed and at the foot of +your wife's bed two white sheets. And a knife lay in the centre of each +sheet. That, of course, is the symbol of the Sect of Assassins." + +Cleves nodded. His body, as he leaned there on the window sill in the +moonlight, trembled. But his face had grown dark with rage. + +"If I could--could only get my hands on one of them," he whispered +hoarsely. + +"Be careful. Don't wear a face like that. Your wife is looking at us," +murmured Recklow. + +With an effort Cleves raised his head and smiled across the room at his +wife. + +"Our luggage will be sent over shortly," he said. "If you're tired, +we'll say good-night." + +So she rose and the three men came to make their adieux and pay their +compliments and devoirs. Then, with a smile that seemed almost happy, +she went into her own apartment on her husband's arm. + +Cleves and his wife had connecting bedrooms and a sitting-room between. +Here they paused for a moment before the always formal ceremony of +leave-taking at night. There were roses on the centre table. Tressa +dropped one hand on the table and bent over the flowers. + +"They seem so friendly," she said under her breath. + +He thought she meant that she found even in flowers a refuge from the +solitude of a loveless marriage. + +He said quietly: "I think you will find the world very friendly, if you +wish." But she shook her head, looking at the roses. + +Finally he said good-night and she extended her hand, and he took it +formally. + +Then their hands fell away. Tressa turned and went toward her bedroom. +At the door she stopped, turned slowly. + +"What shall I do about Yulun?" she asked. + +"What is there to do? Yulun is in China." + +"Yes, her body is." + +"Do you mean that the rest of her--whatever it is--could come here?" + +"Why, of course." + +"So that Benton could see her?" + +"Yes." + +"Could he see her just as she is? Her face and figure--clothes and +everything?" + +"Yes." + +"Would she seem real or like a ghost--spirit--whatever you choose to +call such things?" + +Tressa smiled. "She'd be exactly as real as you or I, Victor. She'd seem +like anybody else." + +"That's astonishing," he muttered. "Could Benton hear her speak?" + +"Certainly." + +"Talk to her?" + +Tressa laughed: "Of course. If Yulun should _make the effort_ she could +leave her body as easily as she undresses herself. It is no more +difficult to divest one's self of one's body than it is to put off one +garment and put on another.... And, somehow, I think Yulun will do it +to-night." + +"Come _here_?" + +"It would be like her." Tressa laughed. "Isn't it odd that she should +have become so enamoured of Mr. Benton--just seeing him there in the +moonlight that night at Orchid Lodge?" + +For a moment the smile curved her lips, then the shadow fell again +across her eyes, veiling them in that strange and lovely way which +Cleves knew so well; and he looked into her impenetrable eyes in +troubled silence. + +"Victor," she said in a low voice, "were you afraid to tell me that your +man had been murdered?" + +After a moment: "You always know everything," he said unsteadily. "When +did you learn it?" + +"Just before Mr. Recklow told you." + +"How did you learn it, Tressa?" + +"I looked into our apartment." + +"When?" + +"While you were telephoning." + +"You mean you looked into our rooms from _here_?" + +"Yes, clairvoyantly." + +"What did you see?" + +"The Iaglamichi!" she said with a shudder. "Kai! The Toug of Djamouk is +anointed at last!" + +"Is that the beast of a Mongol who did this murder?" + +"Djamouk and Prince Sanang planned it," she said, trembling a little. +"But that butchery was Yaddin's work, I think. Kai! The work of +Yaddined-Din, Tougtchi to Djamouk the Fox!" + +They stood confronting each other, the length of the sitting-room +between them. And after the silence had lasted a full minute Cleves +reddened and said: "I am going to sleep on the couch at the foot of your +bed, Tressa." + +His young wife reddened too. + +He said: "This affair has thoroughly scared me. I can't let you sleep +out of my sight." + +"I am quite safe. And you would have an uncomfortable night," she +murmured. + +"Do you mind if I sleep on the couch, Tressa?" + +"No." + +"Will you call me when you are ready?" + +"Yes." + +She went into her bedroom and closed the door. + +When he was ready he slipped a pistol into the pocket of his +dressing-gown, belted it over his pyjamas, and walked into the +sitting-room. His wife called him presently, and he went in. Her +night-lamp was burning and she extended her hand to extinguish it. + +"Could you sleep if it burns?" he asked bluntly. + +"Yes." + +"Then let it burn. This business has got on my nerves," he muttered. + +They looked at each other in an expressionless way. Both really +understood how useless was this symbol of protection--this man the girl +called husband;--how utterly useless his physical strength, and the +pistol sagging in the pocket of his dressing-gown. Both understood that +the only real protection to be looked for must come from her--from the +gifted and guardian mind of this young girl who lay there looking at him +from the pillows. + +"Good-night," he said, flushing; "I'll do my best. But only one of God's +envoys, like you, knows how to do battle with things that come out of +hell." + +After a moment's silence she said in a colourless voice: "I wish you'd +lie down on the bed." + +"Had you rather I did?" + +"Yes." + +So he went slowly to the bed, placed his pistol under the pillow, drew +his dressing-gown around him, and lay down. + +After he had lain unstirring for half an hour: "Try to sleep, Tressa," +he said, without turning his head. + +"Can't you seem to sleep, Victor?" she asked. And he heard her turn her +head. + +"No." + +"Shall I help you?" + +"Do you mean use hypnosis--the power of suggestion--on me?" + +"No. I can help you to sleep very gently. I can make you very drowsy.... +You are drowsy now.... You are very close to the edge of sleep.... +Sleep, dear.... Sleep, easily, naturally, confidently as a tired boy.... +You are sleeping, ... deeply ... sweetly ... my dear ... my dear, dear +husband." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +YULUN THE BELOVED + + +Cleves opened his eyes. He was lying on his left side. In the pink glow +of the night-lamp he saw his wife in her night-dress, seated sideways on +the farther edge of the bed, talking to a young girl. + +The strange girl wore what appeared to be a chamber-robe of frail gold +tissue that clung to her body and glittered as she moved. He had never +before seen such a dress; but he had seen the girl; he recognised her +instantly as the girl he had seen turn to look back at Tressa as she +crossed the phantom bridge over that misty Florida river. And Cleves +comprehended that he was looking at Yulun. + +But this charming young thing was no ghost, no astral projection. This +girl was warm, living, breathing flesh. The delicate scent of her +strange garments and of her hair, her very breath, was in the air of the +room. Her half-hushed but laughing voice was deliciously human; her +delicate little hands, caressing Tressa's, were too eagerly real to +doubt. + +Both talked at the same time, their animated voices mingling in the +breathless delight of the reunion. Their exclamations, enchanting +laughter, bubbling chatter, filled his ears. But not one word of what +they were saying to each other could he understand. + +Suddenly Tressa looked over her shoulder and met his astonished eyes. + +"Tokhta!" she exclaimed. "Yulun! My lord is awake!" + +Yulun swung around swiftly on the edge of the bed and looked laughingly +at Cleves. But when her red lips unclosed she spoke to Tressa: and, +"Darling," she said in English, "I think your dear lord remembers that +he saw me on the Bridge of Dreams. And heard the bells of Yian across +the mist." + +Tressa said, laughing at her husband: "This is Yulun, flame-slender, +very white, loveliest in Yian. On the rose-marble steps of the Yezidee +Temple she flung a stemless rose upon Djamouk's shroud, where he had +spread it like a patch of snow in the sun. + +"And at the Lake of the Ghosts, where there is freedom to love, for +those who desire love, came Yaddin, Tougtchi to Djamouk the Fox, in +search of love--and Yulun, flame-slim, and flower-white.... Tell my dear +lord, Yulun!" + +Yulun laughed at Cleves out of her dark eyes that slanted charmingly at +the corners. + +"Kai!" she cried softly, clapping her palms. "I took his roses and tore +them with my hands till their petals rained on him and their golden +hearts were a powdery cloud floating across the water. + +"I said: 'Even the damned do not mate with demons, my Tougtchi! So go to +the devil, my Banneret, and may Erlik seize you!'" + +Cleves, his ears ringing with the sweet confusion of their girlish +laughter, rose from his pillow, supporting himself on one arm. + +"You are Yulun. You are alive and real----" He looked at Tressa: "She is +real, isn't she?" And, to Yulun: "Where do you come from?" + +The girl replied seriously: "I come from Yian." She turned to Tressa +with a dazzling smile: "Thou knowest, my heart's gold, how it was I +came. Tell thy dear lord in thine own way, so that it shall be simple +for his understanding.... And now--because my visit is ending--I think +thy dear lord should sleep. Bid him sleep, my heart's gold!" + +At that calm suggestion Cleves sat upright on the bed,--or attempted to. +But sank back gently on his pillow and met there a dark, delicious rush +of drowsiness. + +He made an effort--or tried to: the smooth, sweet tide of sleep swept +over him to the eyelids, leaving him still and breathing evenly on his +pillow. + +The two girls leaned over and looked down at him. + +"Thy dear lord," murmured Yulun. "Does he love thee, rose-bud of Yian?" + +"No," said Tressa, under her breath. + +"Does he know thou art damned, heart of gold?" + +"He says no soul is ever really harmed," whispered Tressa. + +"Kai! Has he never heard of the Slayer of Souls?" exclaimed Yulun +incredulously. + +"My lord maintains that neither the Assassin of Khorassan nor the +Sheiks-el-Djebel of the Eight Towers, nor their dark prince Erlik, can +have power over God to slay the human soul." + +"Tokhta, Rose of Yian! Our souls were slain there in the Yezidee +temple." + +Tressa looked down at Cleves: + +"My dear lord says no," she said under her breath. + +"And--Sanang?" + +Tressa paled: "His mind and mine did battle. I tore my heart from his +grasp. I have laid it, bleeding, at my dear lord's feet. Let God judge +between us, Yulun." + +"There was a day," whispered Yulun, "when Prince Sanang went to the Lake +of the Ghosts." + +Tressa, very pallid, looked down at her sleeping husband. She said: + +"Prince Sanang came to the Lake of the Ghosts. The snow of the +cherry-trees covered the young world. + +"The water was clear as sunlight; and the lake was afire with scarlet +carp.... Yulun--beloved--the nightingale sang all night long--all night +long.... Then I saw Sanang shining, all gold, in the moonlight.... May +God remember him in hell!" + +"May God remember him." + +"Sanang Noiane. May he be accursed in the Namaz Ga!" + +"May he be tormented in Jehaunum!--Sanang, Slayer of Souls." + +Tressa leaned forward on the bed, stretched herself out, and laid her +face gently across her husband's feet, touching them with her lips. + +Then she straightened herself and sat up, supported by one hand, and +looking silently down at the sleeping man. + +"No soul shall die," she said. "Niaz!" + +"Is it written?" asked Yulun, surprised. + +"My lord has said it." + +"Allahou Ekber," murmured Yulun; "thy lord is only a man." + +Tressa said: "Neither the Tekbir nor the fatha, nor the warning of +Khidr, nor the Yacaz of the Khagan, nor even the prayers of the Ten +Imaums are of any value to me unless my dear lord confirms the truth of +them with his own lips." + +"And Erlik? Is he nothing, then?" + +"Erlik!" repeated Tressa insolently. "Who is Erlik but the servant of +Satan who was stoned?" + +Her beautiful, angry lips were suddenly distorted; her blue eyes blazed. +Then she spat, her mouth still tremulous with hatred. She said in a +voice shaking with rage: + +"Yulun, beloved! Listen attentively. I have slain two of the Slayers of +the Eight Towers. With God's help I shall slay them all--all!--Djamouk, +Yaddin, Arrak Sou-Sou--all!--every one!--Tiyang Khan, Togrul,--all shall +I slay, even to the last one among them!" + +"_Sanang, also?_" + +"I leave him to God. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the +living God!" + +Yulun calmly paraphrased the cant phrase of the Assassins: "For it is +written that we belong to God and we return to Him. Heart of gold, I +shall execute my duty!" + +Then Yulun slipped from the edge of the bed to the floor, and stood +there looking oddly at Tressa, her eyes rain-bright as though choking +back tears--or laughter. + +"Heart of a rose," she said in a suppressed voice, "my time is nearly +ended.... So.... I go to the chamber of this strange young man who holds +my soul like a pearl afire between his hands.... I think it it written +that I shall love him." + +Tressa rose also and placed her lips close to Yulun's ear: "His name, +beloved, is Benton. His room is on this floor. Shall we _make the +effort_ together?" + +"Yes," said Yulun. "Lay your body down upon the bed beside your lord who +sleeps so deeply.... And now stretch out.... And fold both hands.... And +now put off thy body like a silken garment.... So! And leave it there +beside thy lord, asleep." + +They stood together for a moment, shining like dewy shapes of tall +flowers, whispering and laughing together in the soft glow of the night +lamp. + +Cleves slept on, unstirring. There was the white and sleeping figure of +his wife lying on the bed beside him. + +But Tressa and Yulun were already melting away between the wall and the +confused rosy radiance of the lamp. + +Benton, in night attire and chamber-robe belted in, fresh from his bath +and still drying his curly hair on a rough towel, wandered back into his +bedroom. + +When his short, bright hair was dry, he lighted a cigarette, took the +automatic from his dresser, examined the clip, and shoved it under his +pillow. + +Then he picked up the little leather-bound Testament, seated himself, +and opened it. And read tranquilly while his cigarette burned. + +When he was ready he turned out the ceiling light, leaving only the +night lamp lighted. Then he knelt beside his bed,--a custom surviving +the nursery period,--and rested his forehead against his folded hands. + +Then, as he prayed, something snapped the thread of prayer as though +somebody had spoken aloud in the still room; and, like one who has been +suddenly interrupted, he opened his eyes and looked around and upward. + +The silent shock of her presence passed presently. He got up from his +knees, looking at her all the while. + +"You are Yulun," he said very calmly. + +The girl flushed brightly and rested one hand on the foot of the bed. + +"Do you remember in the moonlight where you walked along the hedge of +white hibiscus and oleander--that night you said good-bye to Tressa in +the South?" + +"Yes." + +"Twice," she said, laughing, "you stopped to peer at the blossoms in the +moonlight." + +"I thought I saw a face among them." + +"You were not sure whether it was flowers or a girl's face looking at +you from the blossoming hedge of white hibiscus," said Yulun. + +"I know now," he said in an odd, still voice, unlike his own. + +"Yes, it was I," she murmured. And of a sudden the girl dropped to her +knees without a sound and laid her head on the velvet carpet at his +feet. + +So swiftly, noiselessly was it done that he had not comprehended--had +not moved--when she sat upright, resting on her knees, and grasped the +collar of her tunic with both gemmed hands. + +"Have pity on me, lord of my lost soul!" she cried softly. + +Benton stooped in a dazed way to lift the girl; but found himself knee +deep in a snowy drift of white hibiscus blossoms--touched nothing but +silken petals--waded in them as he stepped forward. And saw her standing +before him still grasping the collar of her golden tunic. + +A great white drift of bloom lay almost waist deep between them; the +fragrance of oleander, too, was heavy in the room. + +"There are years of life before the flaming gates of Jehaunum open. And +I am very young," said Yulun wistfully. + +Somebody else laughed in the room. Turning his head, he saw Tressa +standing by the empty fireplace. + +"What you see and hear need not disturb you," she said, looking at +Benton out of brilliant eyes. "There is no god but God; and His prophet +has been called by many names." And to Yulun: "Have I not told you that +nothing can harm our souls?" + +Yulun's expression altered and she turned to Benton: "Say it to me!" she +pleaded. + +As in a dream he heard his own words: "Nothing can ever really harm the +soul." + +Yulun's hands fell from her tunic collar. Very slowly she lifted her +head, looking at him out of lovely, proud young eyes. + +She said, evenly, her still gaze on him: "I am Yulun of the Temple. My +heart is like a blazing pearl which you hold between your hands. May the +four Blessed Companions witness the truth of what I say." + +Then a delicate veil of colour wrapped her white skin from throat to +temple; she looked at Benton with sudden and exquisite distress, +frightened and ashamed at his silence. + +In the intense stillness Benton moved toward her. Into his outstretched +hands her two hands fell; but, bending above them, his lips touched only +two white hibiscus flowers that lay fresh and dewy in his palms. + +Bewildered, he straightened up; and saw the girl standing by the mantel +beside Tressa, who had caught her by the left hand. + +"Tokhta! Look out!" she said distinctly. + +Suddenly he saw two men in the room, close to him--their broad faces, +slanting eyes, and sparse beards thrust almost against his shoulder. + +"Djamouk! Yaddin-ed-Din!" cried Tressa in a terrible voice. But quick as +a flash Yulun tore a white sheet from the bed, flung it on the floor, +and, whipping a tiny, jewelled knife from her sleeve, threw it +glittering upon the sheet at the feet of the two men. + +"One shroud for two souls!" she said breathlessly, "--and a knife like +that to sever them from their bodies!" + +The two men sprang backward as the sheet touched their feet, and now +they stood there as though confounded. + +"Djamouk, Kahn of the Fifth Tower!" cried Tressa in a clear voice, "you +have put off your body like a threadbare cloak, and your form that +stands there is only your mind! And it is only the evil will of Yaddin +in the shape of his body that confronts us in this room of a man you +have doomed!" + +Yulun, intent as a young leopardess on her prey, moved soundlessly +toward Yaddin. + +"Tougtchi!" she said coldly, "you did murder this day, my Banneret, and +the Toug of Djamouk has been greased. Now look out for yourself!" + +"Don't stir!" came Tressa's warning voice, as Benton snatched his pistol +from the pillow. "Don't fire! Those men have no real substance! For +God's sake don't fire! I tell you they have no bodies!" + +Suddenly something--some force--flung Benton on the bed. The two men did +not seem to touch him at all, but he lay there struggling, crushed, held +by something that was strangling him. + +Through his swimming eyes he saw Yaddin trying to drive a long nail into +his skull with a hammer,--felt the piercing agony of the first crashing +blow,--struggled upright, drenched in blood, his ears ringing with the +screaming of Yaddin. + +Then, there in the little rococo bedroom of the Ritz-Carlton, began a +strange and horrible struggle--the more dreadful because the struggle +was not physical and the combatants never touched each other--scarcely +moved at all. + +Yaddin, still screaming, confronted Yulun. The girl's eyes were ablaze, +her lips parted with the violence of her breathing. And Yaddin writhed +and screamed under the terrible concentration of her gaze, his inferior +but ferocious mind locked with her mind in deadly battle. + +The girl said slowly, showing a glimmer of white teeth: "Your will to do +evil to my young lord is breaking, Yaddin-ed-Din.... I am breaking it. +The nail and hammer were but symbols. It was your brain that brooded +murder--that willed he should die as though shattered by lightning when +that blood-vessel burst in his brain!" + +"Sorceress!" shrieked Yaddin, "what are you doing to my heart, where my +body lies asleep in a berth on the Montreal Express!" + +"Your heart is weak, Yaddin. Soon the valves shall fail. A negro porter +shall discover you dead in your berth, my Banneret!" + +The man's swarthy face became livid with the terrific mental battle. + +"Let me go back to my body!" he panted. "What are you doing to me that I +can not go back? I will go back! I wish it!--I----" + +"Let us go back and rejoin our bodies!" cried Djamouk in an agonised +voice. "There are teeth in my throat, deep in my throat, biting and +tearing out the cords." + +"Cancer," said Tressa calmly. "Your body shall die of it while your soul +stumbles on through darkness." + +"My Tougtchi!" shouted Djamouk, "I hear my soul bidding my body +farewell! I must go before my mind expires in the terrible gaze of this +young sorceress!" + +He turned, drifted like something misty to the solid wall. + +"My soul be ransom for yours!" cried Yulun to Tressa. "Bar that man's +path to life!" + +Tressa flung out her right hand and, with her forefinger, drew a barrier +through space, bar above bar. + +And Benton, half swooning on his bed, saw a cage of terrible and living +light penning in Djamouk, who beat upon the incandescent bars and +grasped them and clawed his way about, squealing like a tortured rat in +a red-hot cage. + +Through the deafening tumult Yulun's voice cut like a sword: + +"Their bodies are dying, Heart of a Rose!... Listen! I hear their souls +bidding their minds farewell!" + +And, after a dreadful silence: "The train speeding north carries two +dead men! God is God. Niaz!" + +The bars of living fire faded. Two cinder-like and shapeless shadows +floated and eddied like whitened ashes stirred by a wind on the hearth; +then drifted through the lamp-light, fading, dissolving, lost gradually +in thin air. + +Tressa, leaning back against the mantel, covered her face with both +hands. + +Yulun crept to the bed where Benton lay, breathing evenly in deepest +sleep. + +With the sheer sleeve of her tunic she wiped the blood from his face. +And, at her touch, the wound in the temple closed and the short, bright +hair dried and curled over a forehead as clean and fresh as a boy's. + +Then Yulun laid her lips against his, rested so a moment. + +"Seek me, dear lord," she whispered. "Or send me a sign and I shall +come." + +And, after a pause, she said, her lips scarcely stirring: "Love me. My +heart is a flaming pearl burning between your hands." + +Then she lifted her head. + +But Tressa had rejoined her body, where it lay asleep beside her deeply +sleeping husband. + +So Yulun stood a moment, her eyes remote. Then, after a while, the +little rococo bedroom in the Ritz-Carlton was empty save for a young man +asleep on the bed, holding in his clenched hand a white hibiscus +blossom. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HIS EXCELLENCY + + +His Excellency President Tintinto, Chief Executive of one of the newer +and cruder republics, visiting New York incognito with his Secretaries +of War and of the Navy, had sent for John Recklow. And now the reception +was in full operation. + +Recklow was explaining. "In the beginning," he said, "the Bolsheviks' +aim was to destroy everything and everybody except themselves, and then +to reorganise for their own benefit what was left of a wrecked world. +That was their programme----" + +"Quite a programme," interrupted the Secretary of War, with something +that almost resembled a giggle. But his prominent eyes continued to +stare at Recklow untouched by the mirth which stretched his large, silly +mouth. + +The face of the Secretary of the Navy resembled the countenance of a +benevolent manatee. The visage of the President was a study in tinted +chalks. + +Recklow said: "To combat that sort of Bolshevism was a business that we +of the United States Secret Service understood--or supposed we +understood. + +"Then, suddenly, out of unknown Mongolia and into the civilised world +stepped eight men." + +"Yezidees," said the President mechanically. "Your Government has sent +me a very full report." + +"Yezidees of the Sect of the Assassins," continued Recklow; "--the most +ancient sect in the world surviving from ancient times--the Sorcerers of +Asia. And, as it was in ancient times, so it is now: the Yezidees are +devil worshipers; their god is Satan; _his_ prophet is Erlik, Prince of +Darkness; _his_ regent on earth is the old man of Mount Alamout; and to +this ancient and sinister title a Yezidee sorcerer called Prince Sanang, +or Sanang Noiane, has succeeded. + +"His murderous deputies were the Eight Khans of the Eight Towers. Four +of these assassins are dead--Gutchlug, Yarghouz, Djamouk the Fox, and +Yaddin-ed-Din. One is in prison charged with murder,--Albert Feke. + +"Four of the sorcerers remain alive: Tiyang Khan, Togrul, Arrak, +Sou-Sou, called The Squirrel, and the Old Man of the Mountain himself, +Sai-Sanang, Prince of the Yezidees." + +Recklow paused; the pop-eyes of the War Secretary were upon him; the +benevolent manatee gazed mildly at him; the countenance of the President +seemed more like a Rocky Mountain goat than ever--chiselled out of a +block of tinted chalk. + +Recklow said: "To the menace of Bolshevism, which endangers this +Republic and yours, has been added a more terrible threat--the threat of +powerful and evil minds made formidable by psychic knowledge. + +"For these Yezidee Sorcerers are determined to conquer, seize, and +subdue the minds of mankind. They are here for that frightful purpose. +Powerfully, terrifically equipped to surprise and capture the unarmed +minds of our people, enslave their very thoughts and use them to their +own purposes, these Sorcerers of the Yezidees assumed control of the +Bolsheviki, who were merely envious and ferocious bandits, but whose +crippled minds are now utterly enslaved by these Assassins from Asia. + +"And this is what the United States Secret Service has to combat. And +its weapons are not warrants, not pistols. For in this awful battle +between decency and evil, it is mind against mind in an occult death +grapple. And our only weapon against these minds made powerful by +psychic knowledge and made terrible by an esoteric ability akin to what +is called black magic,--our only weapon is the mind of a young girl." + +"I understand," said the President, "that she became an adept in occult +practices while imprisoned in the Yezidee Temple of Erlik at Yian." + +Recklow looked into the President's face, which had grown very pale. + +"Yes, sir," he said. "God alone knows what this child learned in the +Yezidee Temple. All I know is that with this knowledge she has met the +Yezidees in a battle of minds, has halted them, confounded them, fought +them with their own occult knowledge, and has slain four of them." + +The intense silence was broken by the frivolous titter of the Secretary +of War: + +"Of course I don't believe any of this supernatural stuff," he said with +the split grin which did not modify his protruding stare. "This girl is +merely a clever detective, that is the gist of the matter. And I don't +believe anything else." + +"Perhaps, sir, you will believe this, then," said John Recklow quietly. +"I cut it from the _Times_ this morning." And he handed the clipping to +the Secretary of War. + + NEW PLOT IN EAST + + Moslem and Hindu Conspirators + Have Formed Secret + Organisation + + Have World Revolution in View + + Think to Rouse Asia, America, and Africa + to Outbreaks by Their + Propaganda. + + * * * * * + + Copyright, 1919, by _The New York Times_ Company. + Special Cable to _The New York Times_. + + July 1.--A significant event has recently taken place. Under + the name of the Oriental League has recently been established a + central organisation uniting all the various secret societies + of Moslem and Hindu nationalists. The aim of the new + association is to prepare for joint revolutionary action in + Asia, America, and Africa. + + The effects of this vast conspiracy may already be traced in + recent events in Egypt, India, and Afghanistan. For the first + time, through the creation of this league, the racial and + religious differences which have divided Eastern conspirators + have been overcome. The Ottoman League, founded by Mahmud + Muktar Pasha, Munir Pasha, and Ahmed Rechid Bey, has adhered to + the new organisation. So have the extreme Egyptian nationalists + and the Hindu revolutionary group, "Pro India," emissaries of + which were recently sentenced for bringing bombs into + Switzerland during the war at the instigation of the German + General Staff. + + At a "Constituent Assembly" of the league, which took place in + Yian, there were present, besides Young Turks, Egyptians and + Hindus, delegates representing Persia, Afghanistan, Algeria, + Morocco, and Mongolia. + + The league is of Mongolian origin. Its leading spirit is a + certain Prince Sanang, of whom little is known. + + Associated with this mischievous and rather mysterious + Mongolian personage are three better known criminals, now + fugitives from justice--Talaat, Enver, and Djemal. It is to + Enver Pasha's talent for intrigue that the union between + Moslems and Hindus, the most striking and dangerous feature of + the movement, is chiefly due. + + Considerable funds are at the disposal of the league. These are + partly supplied from Germany. Besides enjoying the support of + the Germans, the league is also in close touch with Lenine, who + very soon after his advent to power organised an Oriental + Department in Moscow. + + The alliance between the league and the Russian Bolsheviki was + brought about by the notorious German Socialist agent, + "Parvus," who is now in Switzerland. Many weeks ago he + conferred with the Soviet rulers in Moscow, whence he went to + Afghanistan, hoping to reorganise the new Amir's army and + establish lines of communication for propaganda in India. + + Evidence exists that the recent insurrection in Egypt, the + sudden attack of the Afghans, and the rising in India, + remarkable for co-operation between Moslems and Hindus, were + connected with the activities of the league. + +The Secretary looked up after he finished the reading. + +"I don't see anything about Black Magic in this?" he remarked +flippantly. + +Recklow's features became very grave. + +"I think," he said, "that everybody--myself included--and, with all +respect, even yourself, sir,--and your honourable colleague,--and +perhaps even his Excellency your President,--should be on perpetual +guard over their minds, and the thoughts that range there, lest, +surreptitiously, stealthily, some taint of Yezidee infection lodge there +and take root--and spread--perhaps--throughout your new Republic." + +The Secretary of War grinned. "They say I'm something of a socialist +already," he chuckled. "Do you think your magic Yezidees are +responsible?" + +The President, troubled and pallid, gazed steadily at Recklow. + +"Mine is a single-track mind," he remarked as though to himself. + +Recklow said nothing. It is one kind of mind, after all. However, +single-track roads are now obsolete. + +"A single-track mind," repeated the President. "And--I should not like +anything to happen to the switch. It would mean ditching--or a rusty +siding at best.... Please do all that is possible to get those four +Yezidees, Mr. Recklow." + +Recklow said calmly: "Our only hope is in this young girl, Tressa Norne, +who is now Mrs. Cleves." + +"My conscience!" piped the Secretary of the Navy. "What would happen to +us if these Yezidees should murder her?" + +"God knows," replied John Recklow, unsmiling. + +"Why not put her aboard our new dreadnought?" suggested the Secretary, +"and keep her cruising until you United States Secret Service fellows +get the rest of these infernal Yezidees and clap 'em into jail?" + +"We can do nothing without her," said Recklow sombrely. + +There was a painful silence. The President joined his finger tips and +stared palely into space. + +"May I not say," he suggested, "that I think it a vital necessity that +these Yezidees be caught and destroyed before they do any damage to the +minds of myself and my cabinet?" + +"God grant it, sir," said Recklow grimly. + +"Mine," murmured the President, "is a single-track mind. I should be +very much annoyed if anybody tampered with the rails--very much annoyed +indeed, Mr. Recklow." + +"They mustn't murder that girl," said the Secretary of the Navy. "Do you +need any Marines, Mr. Recklow? Why not ask your Government for a few?" + +Recklow rose: "Mr. President," he said, "I shall not deny that my +Government is very deeply disturbed by this situation. In the beginning, +these eight Assassins, and Sanang, came here for the purpose of +attacking, overpowering, and enslaving the minds of the people of the +United States and of the South American Republics. + +"But now, after four of their infamous colleagues have been destroyed, +the ferocious survivors, thoroughly alarmed, have turned their every +energy toward accomplishing the death of Mrs. Cleves! Why, sir, scarcely +a day passes but that some attempt upon her life is made by these +Yezidees. + +"Scarcely a day passes that this young girl is not suddenly summoned to +defend her mind as well as her body against the occult attacks of these +Mongol Sorcerers. Yes, sir, Sorcerers!" repeated Recklow, his calm voice +deep with controlled passion, "--whatever your honourable Secretary of +War may think about it!" + +His cold, grey eyes measured the President as he stood there. + +"Mr. President, I am at my wits' end to protect her from assassination! +Her husband is always with her--Victor Cleves, sir, of our Secret +Service. But wherever he takes her these devils follow and send their +emissaries to watch her, to follow, to attempt her mental destruction or +her physical death. + +"There is no end to their stealthy cunning, to their devilish devices, +to their hellish ingenuity! + +"And all we can do is to guard her person from the approach of +strangers, and stand ready, physically, to aid her. + +"She is our only barrier--_your_ only defence--between civilisation and +horrors worse than Bolshevism. + +"I believe, Mr. President, that civilisation in North and South +America--in your own Republic as well as in ours--depends, literally, +upon the safety of Tressa Cleves. For, if the Yezidees kill her, then I +do not see what is to save civilisation from utter disintegration and +total destruction." + +There was a silence. Recklow was not certain that the President had been +listening. + +His Excellency sat with finger tips joined, gazing pallidly into space; +and Recklow heard him murmuring under his breath and all to himself, as +though to fix the deathless thought forever in his brain: + +"May I not say that mine is a single-track mind? May I not say it? May I +not,--may I not,--not, not, not----" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SA-N'SA + + +June sunshine poured through the window of his bedroom in the Ritz; and +Cleves had just finished dressing when he heard his wife's voice in the +adjoining sitting-room. + +He had not supposed that Tressa was awake. He hastened to tie his tie +and pull on a smoking jacket, listening all the while to his wife's +modulated but gay young voice. + +Then he opened the sitting-room door and went in. And found his wife +entirely alone. + +She looked up at him, her lips still parted as though checked in what +she had been saying, the smile still visible in her blue eyes. + +"Who on earth are you talking to?" he asked, his bewildered glance +sweeping the sunny room again. + +She did not reply; her smile faded as a spot of sunlight wanes, veiled +by a cloud--yet a glimmer of it remained in her gaze as he came over to +her. + +"I thought they'd brought our breakfast," he said, "--hearing your +voice.... Did you sleep well?" + +"Yes, Victor." + +He seated himself, and his perplexed scrutiny included her frail morning +robe of China silk, her lovely bare arms, and her splendid hair twisted +up and pegged down with a jade dagger. Around her bare throat and +shoulders, too, was a magnificent necklace of imperial jade which he had +never before seen; and on one slim, white finger a superb jade ring. + +"By Jove!" he said, "you're very exotic this morning, Tressa. I never +before saw that negligee effect." + +The girl laughed, glanced at her ring, lifted a frail silken fold and +examined the amazing embroidery. + +"I wore it at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said. + +The name of that place always chilled him. He had begun to hate it, +perhaps because of all that he did not know about it--about his wife's +strange girlhood--about Yian and the devil's Temple there--and about +Sanang. + +He said coldly but politely that the robe was unusual and the jade very +wonderful. + +The alteration in his voice and expression did not escape her. It meant +merely masculine jealousy, but Tressa never dreamed he cared in that +way. + +Breakfast was brought, served; and presently these two young people were +busy with their melons, coffee, and toast in the sunny room high above +the softened racket of traffic echoing through avenue and street below. + +"Recklow telephoned me this morning," he remarked. + +She looked up, her face serious. + +"Recklow says that Yezidee mischief is taking visible shape. The +Socialist Party is going to be split into bits and a new party, +impudently and publicly announcing itself as the Communist Party of +America, is being organised. Did you ever hear of anything as +shameless--as outrageous--in this Republic?" + +She said very quietly: "Sanang has taken prisoner the minds of these +wretched people. He and his remaining Yezidees are giving battle to the +unarmed minds of our American people." + +"Gutchlug is dead," said Cleves, "--and Yarghouz and Djamouk, and +Yaddin." + +"But Tiyang Khan is alive, and Togrul, and that cunning demon Arrak +Sou-Sou, called The Squirrel," she said. She bent her head, considering +the jade ring on her finger. "--And Prince Sanang," she added in a low +voice. + +"Why didn't you let me shoot him when I had the chance?" said Cleves +harshly. + +So abrupt was his question, so rough his sudden manner, that the girl +looked up in dismayed surprise. Then a deep colour stained her face. + +"Once," she said, "Prince Sanang held my heart prisoner--as Erlik held +my soul.... I told you that." + +"Is that the reason you gave the fellow a chance?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh.... And possibly you gave Sanang a chance because he still holds +your--affections!" + +She said, crimson with the pain of the accusation: "I tore my heart out +of his keeping.... I told you that.... And, believing--trying to believe +what you say to me, I have tried to tear my soul out of the claws of +Erlik.... Why are you angry?" + +"I don't know.... I'm not angry.... The whole horrible situation is +breaking my nerve, I guess.... With whom were you talking before I came +in?" + +After a silence the girl's smile glimmered. + +"I'm afraid you won't like it if I tell you." + +"Why not?" + +"You--such things perplex and worry you.... I am afraid you won't like +me any the better if I tell you who it was I had been talking with." + +His intent gaze never left her. "I want you to tell me," he repeated. + +"I--I was talking with Sa-n'sa," she faltered. + +"With whom?" + +"With Sa-n'sa.... We called her Sansa." + +"Who the dickens is Sansa?" + +"We were three comrades at the Temple," she said timidly, "--Yulun, +Sansa, and myself. We loved each other. We always went to the Lake of +the Ghosts together--for protection----" + +"Go on!" + +"Sansa was a girl of the Aroulads, born at Buldak--as was Temujin. The +night she was born three moon-rainbows made circles around her Yailak. +The Baroulass horsemen saw this and prayed loudly in their saddles. Then +they galloped to Yian and came crawling on their bellies to Sanang +Noiane with the news of the miracle. And Sanang came with a thousand +riders in leather armour. And, 'What is this child's name?' he shouted, +riding into the Yailak with his black banners flapping around him like +devil's wings. + +"A poor Manggoud came out of the tent of skins, carrying the new born +infant, and touched his head to Sanang's stirrup. 'This babe is called +Tchagane,' he said, trembling all over. 'No!' cries Sanang, 'she is +called Sansa. Give her to me and may Erlik seize you!' + +"And he took the baby on his saddle in front of him and struck his spurs +deep; and so came Sansa to Yian under a roaring rustle of black silk +banners.... It is so written in the Book of Iron.... Allahou Ekber." + + * * * * * + +Cleves had leaned his elbow on the table, his forehead rested in his +palm. + +Perhaps he was striving in a bewildered way to reconcile such occult and +amazing things with the year 1920--with the commonplace and noisy city +of New York--with this pretty, modern, sunlit sitting-room in the +Ritz-Carlton on Madison Avenue--with this girl in her morning negligee +opposite, her coffee and melon fragrant at her elbow, her wonderful blue +eyes resting on him. + +"Sansa," he repeated slowly, as though striving to grasp even a single +word from the confusion of names and phrases that were sounding still in +his ears like the vibration of distant and unfamiliar seas. + +"Is this the girl you were talking with just now? In--in _this_ room?" +he added, striving to understand. + +"Yes." + +"She wasn't here, of course." + +"Her body was not." + +"Oh!" + +Tressa said in her sweet, humorous way: "You must try to accustom +yourself to such things, Victor. You know that Yulun talks to me.... I +wanted to talk to Sansa. The longing awakened me. So--_I made the +effort_." + +"And she came--I mean the part of her which is not her body." + +"Yes, she came. We talked very happily while I was bathing and dressing. +Then we came in here. She is such a darling!" + +"Where is she?" + +"In Yian, feeding her silk-worms and making a garden. You see, Sansa is +quite wealthy now, because when the Japanese came she filled a bullock +cart with great lumps of spongy gold from the Temple and filled another +cart with Yu-stone, and took the Hezar of Baroulass horsemen on guard at +the Lake of the Ghosts. And with this Keutch, riding a Soubz horse, and +dressed like an Urieng lancer, my pretty little comrade Tchagane, who is +called Sansa, marched north preceded by two kettle-drums and a toug with +two tails----" + +Tressa's clear laughter checked her; she clapped her hands, breathless +with mirth at the picture she evoked. + +"Kai!" she laughed; "what adorable impudence has Sansa! Neither +Tchortcha nor Khiounnou dared ask her who were her seven ancestors! No! +And when her caravan came to the lovely Yliang river, my darling Sansa +rode out and grasped the lance from her Tougtchi and drove the point +deep into the fertile soil, crying in a clear voice: 'A place for +Tchagane and her people! Make room for the toug!' + +"Then her Manggoud, who carried the spare steel tip for her lance, got +out of his saddle and, gathering a handful of mulberry leaves, rubbed +the shaft of the lance till it was all pale green. + +"'Toug iaglachakho!' cries my adorable Sansa! 'Build me here my +Urdu![2]--my Mocalla![3] And upon it pitch my tent of skins!" + +[Footnote 2: Urdu = An imperial encampment.] + +[Footnote 3: Mocalla = A platform used as a Moslem pulpit.] + +Again Tressa's laughter checked her, and she strove to control it with +the jade ring pressed to her lips. + +"Oh, Victor," she added in a stifled voice, looking at him out of eyes +full of mischief, "you don't realise how funny it was--Sansa and her +toug and her Urdu--Oh, Allah!--the bones of Tchinguiz must have rattled +in his tomb!" + +Her infectious laughter evoked a responsive but perplexed smile from +Cleves; but it was the smile of a bewildered man who has comprehended +very little of an involved jest; and he looked around at the modern room +as though to find his bearings. + +Suddenly Tressa leaned forward swiftly and laid one hand on his. + +"You don't think all this is very funny. You don't like it," she said in +soft concern. + +"It isn't that, Tressa. But this is New York City in the year 1920. And +I can't--I absolutely can not get into touch--hook up, mentally, with +such things--with the unreal Oriental life that is so familiar to you." + +She nodded sympathetically: "I know. You feel like a Mergued Pagan from +Lake Baikal when all the lamps are lighted in the Mosque;--like a camel +driver with his jade and gold when he enters Yarkand at sunrise." + +"Probably I feel like that," said Cleves, laughing outright. "I take +your word, dear, anyway." + +But he took more; he picked up her soft hand where it still rested on +his, pressed it, and instantly reddened because he had done it. And +Tressa's bright flush responded so quickly that neither of them +understood, and both misunderstood. + +The girl rose with heightened colour, not knowing why she stood up or +what she meant to do. And Cleves, misinterpreting her emotion as a +silent rebuke to the invasion of that convention tacitly accepted +between them, stood up, too, and began to speak carelessly of +commonplace things. + +She made the effort to reply, scarcely knowing what she was saying, so +violently had his caress disturbed her heart,--and she was still +speaking when their telephone rang. + +Cleves went; listened, then, still listening, summoned Tressa to his +side with a gesture. + +"It's Selden," he said in a low voice. "He says he has the Yezidee Arrak +Sou-Sou under observation, and that he needs you desperately. Will you +help us?" + +"I'll go, of course," she replied, turning quite pale. + +Cleves nodded, still listening. After a while: "All right. We'll be +there. Good-bye," he said sharply; and hung up. + +Then he turned and looked at his wife. + +"I wish to God," he muttered, "that this business were ended. I--I can't +bear to have you go." + +"I am not afraid.... Where is it?" + +"I never heard of the place before. We're to meet Selden at 'Fool's +Acre.'" + +"Where is it, Victor?" + +"I don't know. Selden says there are no roads,--not even a spotted +trail. It's a wilderness left practically blank by the Geological +Survey. Only the contours are marked, and Selden tells me that the +altitudes are erroneous and the unnamed lakes and water courses are all +wrong. He says it is his absolute conviction that the Geological Survey +never penetrated this wilderness at all, but merely skirted it and +guessed at what lay inside, because the map he has from Washington is +utterly misleading, and the entire region is left blank except for a few +vague blue lines and spots indicating water, and a few heights marked +'1800.'" + +He turned and began to pace the sitting-room, frowning, perplexed, +undecided. + +"Selden tells me," he said, "that the Yezidee, Arrak Sou-Sou, is in +there and very busy doing something or other. He says that he can do +nothing without you, and will explain why when we meet him." + +"Yes, Victor." + +Cleves turned on his heel and came over to where his wife stood beside +the sunny window. + +"I hate to ask you to go. I know that was the understanding. But this +incessant danger--your constant peril----" + +"That does not count when I think of my country's peril," she said in a +quiet voice. "When are we to start? And what shall I pack in my trunk?" + +"Dear child," he said with a brusque laugh, "it's a wilderness and we +carry what we need on our backs. Selden meets us at a place called +Glenwild, on the edge of this wilderness, and we follow him in on our +two legs." + +He glanced across at the mantel clock. + +"If you'll dress," he said nervously, "we'll go to some shop that +outfits sportsmen for the North. Because, if we can, we ought to leave +on the one o'clock train." + +She smiled; came up to him. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Because I +also am nervous and tired; and I mean to make an end of every Yezidee +remaining in America." + +"Sanang, too?" + +They both flushed deeply. + +She said in a steady voice: "Between God and Erlik there is a black gulf +where a million million stars hang, lighting a million million other +worlds. + +"Prince Sanang's star glimmers there. It is a sun, called Yramid. And it +lights the planet, Yu-tsung. Let him reign there between God and Erlik." + +"You will slay this man?" + +"God forbid!" she said, shuddering. "But I shall send him to his own +star. Let my soul be ransom for his! And may Allah judge between +us--between this man and me." + +Then, in the still, sunny room, the girl turned to face the East. And +her husband saw her lips move as though speaking, but heard no sound. + + * * * * * + +"What on earth are you saying there, all to yourself?" he demanded at +last. + +She turned her head and looked at him across her left shoulder. + +"I asked Sansa to help me.... And she says she will." + +Cleves nodded in a dazed way. Then he opened a window and leaned there +in the sunshine, looking down into Madison Avenue. And the roar of +traffic seemed to soothe his nerves. + +But "Good heavens!" he thought; "do such things really go on in New York +in 1920! Is the entire world becoming a little crazy? Am I really in my +right mind when I believe that the girl I married is talking, without +wireless, to another girl in China!" + +He leaned there heavily, gazing down into the street with sombre eyes. + +"What a ghastly thing these Yezidees are trying to do to the +world--these Assassins of men's minds'!" he thought, turning away toward +the door of his bedroom. + +As he crossed the threshold he stumbled, and looking down saw that he +had tripped over a white sheet lying there. For a moment he thought it +was a sheet from his own bed, and he started to pick it up. Then he saw +the naked blade of a knife at his feet. + +With an uncontrollable shudder he stepped out of the shroud and stood +staring at the knife as though it were a snake. It had a curved blade +and a bone hilt coarsely inlaid with Arabic characters in brass. + +The shroud was a threadbare affair--perhaps a bed-sheet from some cheap +lodging house. But its significance was so repulsive that he hesitated +to touch it. + +However, he was ashamed to have it discovered in his room. He picked up +the brutal-looking knife and kicked the shroud out into the corridor, +where they could guess if they liked how such a rag got into the +Ritz-Carlton. + +Then he searched his bedroom, and, of course, discovered nobody hiding. +But chills crawled on his spine while he was about it, and he shivered +still as he stood in the centre of the room examining the knife and +testing edge and point. + +Then, close to his ear, a low voice whispered: "Be careful, my lord; the +Yezidee knife is poisoned. But it is written that a poisoned heart is +more dangerous still." + +He had turned like a flash; and he saw, between him and the sitting-room +door, a very young girl with slightly slanting eyes, and rose and ivory +features as perfect as though moulded out of tinted bisque. + +She wore a loose blue linen robe, belted in, short at the elbows and +skirt, showing two creamy-skinned arms and two bare feet in straw +sandals. In one hand she had a spray of purple mulberries, and she +looked coolly at Cleves and ate a berry or two. + +"Give me the knife," she said calmly. + +He handed it to her; she wiped it with a mulberry leaf and slipped it +through her girdle. + +"I am Sansa," she said with a friendly glance at him, busy with her +fruit. + +Cleves strove to speak naturally, but his voice trembled. + +"Is it you--I mean your real self--your own body?" + +"It's my real self. Yes. But my body is asleep in my mulberry grove." + +"In--in China?" + +"Yes," she said calmly, detaching another mulberry and eating it. A few +fresh leaves fell on the centre table. + +Sansa chose another berry. "You know," she said, "that I came to Tressa +this morning,--to my little Heart of Fire I came when she called me. And +I was quite sleepy, too. But I heard her, though there was a night wind +in the mulberry trees, and the river made a silvery roaring noise in the +dark.... And now I must go. But I shall come again very soon." + +She smiled shyly and held out her lovely little hand, "--As Tressa tells +me is your custom in America," she said, "I offer you a good-bye." + +He took her hand and found it a warm, smooth thing of life and pulse. + +"Why," he stammered in his astonishment, "you _are_ real! You are not a +ghost!" + +"Yes, I am real," she answered, surprised, "but I'm not in my body,--if +you mean that." Then she laughed and withdrew her hand, and, going, made +him a friendly gesture. + +"Cherish, my lord, my darling Heart of Fire. Serpents twist and twine. +So do rose vines. May their petals make your path of velvet and sweet +scented. May everything that is round be a pomegranate for you two to +share; may everything that sways be lilies bordering a path wide enough +for two. In the name of the Most Merciful God, may the only cry you hear +be the first sweet wail of your first-born. And when the tenth shall be +born, may you and Heart of Fire bewail your fate because both of you +desire more children!" + +She was laughing when she disappeared. Cleves thought she was still +there, so radiant the sunshine, so sweet the scent in the room. + +But the golden shadow by the door was empty of her. If she had slipped +through the doorway he had not noticed her departure. Yet she was no +longer there. And, when he understood, he turned back into the empty +room, quivering all over. Suddenly a terrible need of Tressa assailed +him--an imperative necessity to speak to her--hear her voice. + +"Tressa!" he called, and rested his hand on the centre table, feeling +weak and shaken to the knees. Then he looked down and saw the mulberry +leaves lying scattered there, tender and green and still dewy with the +dew of China. + +"Oh, my God!" he whispered, "such things _are_! It isn't my mind that +has gone wrong. There _are_ such things!" + +The conviction swept him like a tide till his senses swam. As though +peering through a mist of gold he saw his wife enter and come to +him;--felt her arm about him, sustaining him where he swayed slightly +with one hand on the table among the mulberry leaves. + +"Ah," murmured Tressa, noticing the green leaves, "she oughtn't to have +done that. That was thoughtless of her, to show herself to you." + +Cleves looked at her in a dazed way. "The body is nothing," he muttered. +"The rest only is real. That is the truth, isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"I seem to be beginning to believe it.... Sansa said things--I shall try +to tell you--some day--dear.... I'm so glad to hear your voice." + +"Are you?" she murmured. + +"And so glad to feel your touch.... I found a shroud on my threshold. +And a knife." + +"The Yezidees are becoming mountebanks.... Where is the knife?" she +asked scornfully. + +"Sansa said it was poisoned. She took it. She--she said that a poisoned +heart is more dangerous still." + +Then Tressa threw up her head and called softly into space: "Sansa! +Little Silk-Moth! What are these mischievous things you have told to my +lord?" + +She stood silent, listening. And, in the answer which he could not hear, +there seemed to be something that set his young wife's cheeks aflame. + +"Sansa! Little devil!" she cried, exasperated. "May Erlik send his imps +to pinch you if you have said to my lord these shameful things. It was +impudent! It was mischievous! You cover me with shame and confusion, and +I am humbled in the dust of my lord's feet!" + +Cleves looked at her, but she could not sustain his gaze. + +"Did Sansa say to you what she said to me?" he demanded unsteadily. + +"Yes.... I ask your pardon.... And I had already _told_ her you did +not--did not--were not--in--love--with me.... I ask your pardon." + +"Ask more.... Ask your heart whether it would care to hear that I am in +love. And with whom. Ask your heart if it could ever care to listen to +what my heart could say to it." + +"Y-yes--I'll ask--my heart," she faltered.... "I think I had better +finish dressing----" She lifted her eyes, gave him a breathless smile as +he caught her hand and kissed it. + +"It--it would be very wonderful," she stammered, "--if our necessity +should be-become our choice." + +But that speech seemed to scare her and she fled, leaving her husband +standing tense and upright in the middle of the room. + + * * * * * + +Their train on the New York Central Railroad left the Grand Central +Terminal at one in the afternoon. + +Cleves had made his arrangements by wire. They travelled lightly, +carrying, except for the clothing they wore, only camping equipment for +two. + +It was raining in the Hudson valley; they rushed through the outlying +towns and Po'keepsie in a summer downpour. + +At Hudson the rain slackened. A golden mist enveloped Albany, through +which the beautiful tower and facades along the river loomed, masking +the huge and clumsy Capitol and the spires beyond. + +At Schenectady, rifts overhead revealed glimpses of blue. At Amsterdam, +where they descended from the train, the flag on the arsenal across the +Mohawk flickered brilliantly in the sunny wind. + +By telegraphic arrangement, behind the station waited a touring car +driven by a trooper of State Constabulary, who, with his comrade, +saluted smartly as Cleves and Tressa came up. + +There was a brief, low-voiced conversation. Their camping outfit was +stowed aboard, Tressa sprang into the tonneau followed by Cleves, and +the car started swiftly up the inclined roadway, turned to the right +across the railroad bridge, across the trolley tracks, and straight on +up the steep hill paved with blocks of granite. + +On the level road which traversed the ridge at last they speeded up, +whizzed past the great hedged farm where racing horses are bred, rushing +through the afternoon sunshine through the old-time Scotch settlements +which once were outposts of the old New York frontier. + +Nine miles out the macadam road ended. They veered to the left over a +dirt road, through two hamlets; then turned to the right. + +The landscape became rougher. To their left lay the long, low Maxon +hills; behind them the Mayfield range stretched northward into the open +jaws of the Adirondacks. + +All around them were woods, now. Once a Gate House appeared ahead; and +beyond it they crossed four bridges over a foaming, tumbling creek where +Cleves caught glimpses of shadowy forms in amber-tinted pools--big +yellow trout that sank unhurriedly out of sight among huge submerged +boulders wet with spray. + +The State trooper beside the chauffeur turned to Cleves, his purple tie +whipping in the wind. + +"Yonder is Glenwild, sir," he said. + +It was a single house on the flank of a heavily forested hill. Deep +below to the left the creek leaped two cataracts and went flashing out +through a belt of cleared territory ablaze with late sunshine. + +The car swung into the farm-yard, past the barn on the right, and +continued on up a very rough trail. + +"This is the road to the Ireland Vlaie," said the trooper. "It is +possible for cars for another mile only." + +Splendid spruce, pine, oak, maple, and hemlock fringed the swampy, +uneven trail which was no more than a wide, rough vista cut through the +forest. + +And, as the trooper had said, a little more than a mile farther the +trail became a tangle of bushes and swale; the car slowed down and +stopped; and a man rose from where he was seated on a mossy log and came +forward, his rifle balanced across the hollow of his left arm. + +The man was Alek Selden. + + * * * * * + +It was long after dark and they were still travelling through pathless +woods by the aid of their electric torches. + +There was little underbrush; the forest of spruce and hemlock was first +growth. + +Cleves shined the trees but could discover no blazing, no trodden path. + +In explanation, Selden said briefly that he had hunted the territory for +years. + +"But I don't begin to know it," he added. "There are vast and ugly +regions of bog and swale where a sea of alders stretches to the horizon. +There are desolate wastes of cat-briers and witch-hopple under leprous +tangles of grey birches, where stealthy little brooks darkle deep under +matted debris. Only wild things can travel such country. + +"Then there are strange, slow-flowing creeks in the perpetual shadows of +tamarack woods, where many a man has gone in never to come out." + +"Why?" asked Tressa. + +"Under the tender carpet of green cresses are shining black bogs set +with tussock; and under the bog stretches quicksand,--and death." + +"Do you know these places?" asked Cleves. + +"No." + +Cleves stepped forward to Tressa's side. + +"Keep flashing the ground," he said harshly. "I don't want you to step +into some hell-hole. I'm sorry I brought you, anyway." + +"But I had to come," she said in a low voice. + +Like the two men, she wore a grey flannel shirt, knickers, and spiral +puttees. + +They, however, carried rifles as well as packs; and the girl's pack was +lighter. + +They had halted by a swift, icy rivulet to eat, without building a fire. +After that they crossed the Ireland Vlaie and the main creek, where +remains of a shanty stood on the bluff above the right bank--the last +sign of man. + +Beyond lay the uncharted land, skimped and shirked entirely in certain +regions by map-makers;--an unknown wilderness on the edges of which +Selden had often camped when deer shooting. + +It was along this edge he was leading them, now, to a lean-to which he +had erected, and from which he had travelled in to Glenwild to use the +superintendent's telephone to New York. + +There seemed to be no animal life stirring in this forest; their torches +illuminated no fiery orbs of dazed wild things surprised at gaze in the +wilderness; no leaping furry form crossed their flashlights' fan-shaped +radiance. + +There were no nocturnal birds to be seen or heard, either: no bittern +squawked from hidden sloughs; no herons howled; not an owl-note, not a +whispering cry of a whippoorwill, not the sudden uncanny twitter of +those little birds that become abruptly vocal after dark, interrupted +the dense stillness of the forest. + +And it was not until his electric torch glimmered repeatedly upon +reaches of dusk-hidden bog that Cleves understood how Selden took his +bearings--for the night was thick and there were no stars. + +"Yes," said Selden tersely, "I'm trying to skirt the bog until I shine a +peeled stick." + + * * * * * + +An hour later the peeled alder-stem glittered in the beam of the +torches. In ten minutes something white caught the electric rays. + +It was Selden's spare undershirt drying on a bush behind the lean-to. + +"Can we have a fire?" asked Cleves, relieving his wife of her pack and +striding into the open-faced camp. + +"Yes, I'll fix it," replied Selden. "Are you all right, Mrs. Cleves?" + +Tressa said: "Delightfully tired, thank you." And smiled faintly at her +husband as he let go his own pack, knelt, and spread a blanket for his +wife. + +He remained there, kneeling, as she seated herself. + +"Are you quite fit?" he asked bluntly. Yet, through his brusqueness her +ear caught a vague undertone of something else--anxiety perhaps--perhaps +tenderness. And her heart stirred deliciously in her breast. + +He inflated a pillow for her; the firelight glimmered, brightened, +spread glowing across her feet. She lay back with a slight sigh, +relaxed. + +Then, suddenly, the thrill of her husband's touch flooded her face with +colour; but she lay motionless, one arm flung across her eyes, while he +unrolled her puttees and unlaced her muddy shoes. + +A heavenly warmth from the fire dried her stockinged feet. Later, on the +edge of sleep, she opened her eyes and found herself propped upright on +her husband's shoulder. + +Drowsily, obediently she swallowed spoonfuls of the hot broth which he +administered. + +"Are you really quite comfortable, dear?" he whispered. + +"Wonderfully.... And so very happy.... Thank you--dear." + +She lay back, suffering him to bathe her face and hands with warm water. + +When the fire was only a heap of dying coals, she turned over on her +right side and extended her hand a little way into the darkness. +Searching, half asleep, she touched her husband, and her hand relaxed in +his nervous clasp. And she fell into the most perfect sleep which she +had known in years. + + * * * * * + +She dreamed that somebody whispered to her, "Darling, darling, wake up. +It is morning, beloved." + +Suddenly she opened her eyes; and saw her husband set a tray, freshly +plaited out of Indian willow, beside her blanket. + +"Here's your breakfast, pretty lady," he said, smilingly. "And over +there is an exceedingly frigid pool of water. You're to have the camp to +yourself for the next hour or two." + +"You dear fellow," she murmured, still confused by sleep, and reached +out to touch his hand. He caught hers and kissed it, back and palm, and +got up hastily as though scared. + +"Selden and I will stand sentry," he muttered. "There is no hurry, you +know." + +She heard him and his comrade walking away over dried leaves; their +steps receded; a dry stick cracked distantly; then silence stealthily +invaded the place like a cautious living thing, creeping unseen through +the golden twilight of the woods. + +Seated in her blanket, she drank the coffee; ate a little; then lay down +again in the early sun, feeling the warmth of the heap of whitening +coals at her feet, also. + +For an hour she dozed awake, drowsily opening her eyes now and then to +look across the glade at the pool over which a single dragon-fly +glittered on guard. + +Finally she rose resolutely, grasped a bit of soap, and went down to the +edge of the pool. + + * * * * * + +Tressa was in flannel shirt and knickers when her husband and Selden +hailed the camp and presently appeared walking slowly toward the dead +fire. + +Their grave faces checked her smile of greeting; her husband came up and +laid one hand on her arm, looking at her out of thoughtful, preoccupied +eyes. + +"What is the Tchordagh?" he said in a low voice. + +The girl's quiet face went white. + +"The--the Tchordagh!" she stammered. + +"Yes, dear. What is it?" + +"I don't--don't know where you heard that term," she whispered. "The +Tchordagh is the--the power of Erlik. It is a term.... In it is +comprehended all the evil, all the cunning, all the perverted spiritual +intelligence of Evil,--its sinister might,--its menace. It is an +Alouad-Yezidee term, and it is written in brass in Eighur characters on +the Eight Towers, and on the Rampart of Gog and Magog;--nowhere else in +the world!" + +"It is written on a pine tree a few paces from this camp," said Cleves +absently. + +Selden said: "It has not been there more than an hour or two, Mrs. +Cleves. A square of bark was cut out and on the white surface of the +wood this word is written in English." + +"Can you tell us what it signifies?" asked Cleves, quietly. + +Tressa's studied effort at self-control was apparent to both men. + +She said: "When that word is written, then it is a death struggle +between all the powers of Darkness and those who have read the written +letters of that word.... For it is written in The Iron Book that no one +but the Assassin of Khorassan--excepting the Eight Sheiks--shall read +that written word and live to boast of having read it." + +"Let us sit here and talk it over," said Selden soberly. + +And when Tressa was seated on a fallen log, and Cleves settled down +cross-legged at her feet, Selden spoke again, very soberly: + +"On the edges of these woods, to the northwest, lies a sea of briers, +close growing, interwoven and matted, strong and murderous as barbed +wire. + +"Miles out in this almost impenetrable region lies a patch of trees +called Fool's Acre. + +"At Wells I heard that the only man who had ever managed to reach Fool's +Acre was a trapper, and that he was still living. + +"I found him at Rainbow Lake--a very old man, who had a fairly clear +recollection of Fool's Acre and his exhausting journey there. + +"And he told me that man had been there before he had. For there was a +roofless stone house there, and the remains of a walled garden. And a +skull deep in the wild grasses." + +Selden paused and looked down at the recently healed scars on his wrists +and hands. + +"It was a rotten trip," he said bluntly. "It took me three days to cut a +tunnel through that accursed tangle of matted brier and grey birch.... +Fool's Acre is a grove of giant trees--first growth pine, oak, and +maple. Great outcrops of limestone ledges bound it on the east. A brook +runs through the woods. + +"There is a house there, _no longer roofless_, and built of slabs of +fossil-pitted limestone. The glass in the windows is so old that it is +iridescent. + +"A seven-foot wall encloses the house, built also of slabs blasted out +of the rock outcrop, and all pitted with fossil shells. + +"Inside is a garden--not the _remains_ of one--a beautiful garden full +of unfamiliar flowers. And in this garden I saw the Yezidee on his knees +_making living things out of lumps of dead earth_!" + +"The Tchordagh!" whispered the girl. + +"What was the Yezidee doing?" demanded Cleves nervously. + +Involuntarily all three drew nearer each other there in the sunshine. + +"It was difficult for me to see," said Selden in his quiet, serious +voice. "It was nearly twilight: I lay flat on top of the wall under the +curving branches of a huge syringa bush in full bloom. The Yezidees----" + +"Were there two!" exclaimed Cleves. + +"Two. They were squatting on the old stone path bordering one of the +flower-beds." He turned to Tressa: "They both wore white cloths twisted +around their heads, and long soft garments of white. Under these their +bare, brown legs showed, but they wore things on their naked feet which +were shaped like what we call Turkish slippers--only different." + +"Black and green," nodded Tressa with the vague horror growing in her +face. + +"Yes. The soles of their shoes were bright green." + +"Green is the colour sacred to Islam," said Tressa. "The priests of +Satan defile it by staining with green the soles of their footwear." + +After an interval: "Go on," said Cleves nervously. + +Selden drew closer, and they bent their heads to listen: + +"I don't, even now, know what the Yezidees were actually doing. In the +twilight it was hard to see clearly. But I'll tell you what it looked +like to me. One of these squatting creatures would scoop out a handful +of soil from the flower-bed, and mould it for a few moments between his +lean, sinewy fingers, and then he'd open his hands and--and something +_alive_--something small like a rat or a toad, or God knows what, would +escape from between his palms and run out into the grass----" + +Selden's voice failed and he looked at Cleves with sickened eyes. + +"I can't--can't make you understand how repulsive to me it was to see a +wriggling live thing creep out between their fingers and--and go running +or scrambling away--little loathsome things with humpy backs that hopped +or scurried through the grass----" + +"What on earth _were_ these Yezidees doing, Tressa?" asked Cleves almost +roughly. + +The girl's white face was marred by the imprints of deepening horror. + +"It is the Tchor-Dagh," she said mechanically. "They are using every +resource of hell to destroy me--testing the gigantic power of Evil--as +though it were some vast engine charged with thunderous +destruction!--and they were testing it to discover its terrific capacity +to annihilate----" + +Her voice died in her dry throat; she dropped her bloodless visage into +both hands and remained seated so. + +Both men looked at her in silence, not daring to interfere. Finally the +girl lifted her pallid face from her hands. + +"That is what they were doing," she said in a dull voice. "Out of +inanimate earth they were making things animate--living +creatures--to--to test the hellish power which they are +storing--concentrating--for my destruction." + +"What is their purpose?" asked Cleves harshly. "What do these Mongol +Sorcerers expect to gain by making little live things out of lumps of +garden dirt?" + +"They are testing their power," whispered the girl. + +"Like tuning up a huge machine?" muttered Selden. + +"Yes." + +"For what purpose?" + +"To make larger living creatures out of--of clay." + +"They can't--they can't _create_!" exclaimed Cleves. "I don't know +how--by what filthy tricks--they make rats out of dirt. But they can't +make a--anything--like a--like a man!" + +Tressa's body trembled slightly. + +"Once," she said, "in the temple, Prince Sanang took dust which was +brought in sacks of goat-skin, and fashioned the heap of dirt with his +hands, so that it resembled the body of a man lying there on the marble +floor under the shrine of Erlik.... And--and then, there in the shadows +where only the Dark Star burned--that black lamp which is called the +Dark Star--the long heap of dust lying there on the marble pavement +began to--to _breathe_!--" + +She pressed both hands over her breast as though to control her +trembling body: "I saw it; I saw the long shape of dust begin to +breathe, to stir, move, and slowly lift itself----" + +"A Yezidee trick!" gasped Cleves; but he also was trembling now. + +"God!" whispered the girl. "Allah alone knows--the Merciful, the Long +Suffering--He knows what it was that we temple girls saw there--that +Yulun saw--that Sa-n'sa and I beheld there rising up like a man from the +marble floor--and standing erect in the shadowy twilight of the Dark +Star...." + +Her hands gripped at her breast; her face was deathly. + +"Then," she said, "I saw Prince Sanang draw his sabre of Indian steel, +and he struck ... once only.... And a dead man fell down where the +_thing_ had stood. And all the marble was flooded with scarlet blood." + +"A trick," repeated Cleves, in the ghost of his own voice. But his gaze +grew vacant. + +Presently Selden spoke in tones that sounded weakly querulous from +emotional reaction: + +"There is a path--a tunnel under the matted briers. It took me more than +a week to cut it out. It is possible to reach Fool's Acre. We can +try--with our rifles--if you say so, Mrs. Cleves." + +The girl looked up. A little colour came into her cheeks. She shook her +head. + +"Their bodies may not be there in the garden," she said absently. "What +you saw may not have been that part of them--the material which dies by +knife or bullet.... And it is necessary that these Yezidees should die." + +"Can you do anything?" asked Cleves, hoarsely. + +She looked at her husband; tried to smile: + +"I must try.... I think we had better not lose any time--if Mr. Selden +will lead us." + +"Now?" + +"Yes, we had better go, I think," said the girl. Her smile still +remained stamped on her lips, but her eyes seemed preoccupied as though +following the movements of something remote that was passing across the +far horizon. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A DEATH TRAIL + + +The way to Fool's Acre was under a tangled canopy of thorns, under +rotting windfalls of grey mirch, through tunnel after tunnel of fallen +debris woven solidly by millions of strands of tough cat-briers which +cut the flesh like barbed wire. + +There was blood on Tressa, where her flannel shirt had been pierced in a +score of places. Cleves and Selden had been painfully slashed. + +Silent, thread-like streams flowed darkling under the tangled mass that +roofed them. Sometimes they could move upright; more often they were +bent double; and there were long stretches where they had to creep +forward on hands and knees through sparse wild grasses, soft, rotten +soil, or paths of sphagnum which cooled their feverish skin in velvety, +icy depths. + +At noon they rested and ate, lying prone under the matted roof of their +tunnel. + +Cleves and Selden had their rifles. Tressa lay like a slender boy, her +brier-torn hands empty. + +And, as she lay there, her husband made a sponge of a handful of +sphagnum moss, and bathed her face and her arms, cleansing the dried +blood from the skin, while the girl looked up at him out of grave, +inscrutable eyes. + + * * * * * + +The sun hung low over the wilderness when they came to the woods of +Fool's Acre. They crept cautiously out of the briers, among ferns and +open spots carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves which were +beginning to burn ruddy gold under the level rays of the sun. + +Lying flat behind an enormous oak, they remained listening for a while. +Selden pointed through the woods, eastward, whispering that the house +stood there not far away. + +"Don't you think we might risk the chance and use our rifles?" asked +Cleves in a low voice. + +"No. It is the Tchor-Dagh that confronts us. I wish to talk to Sansa," +she murmured. + +A moment later Selden touched her arm. + +"My God," he breathed, "who is that!" + +"It is Sansa," said Tressa calmly, and sat up among the ferns. And the +next instant Sansa stepped daintily out of the red sunlight and seated +herself among them without a sound. + +Nobody spoke. The newcomer glanced at Selden, smiled slightly, blushed, +then caught a glimpse of Cleves where he lay in the brake, and a +mischievous glimmer came into her slanting eyes. + +"Did I not tell my lord truths?" she inquired in a demure whisper. "As +surely as the sun is a dragon, and the flaming pearl burns between his +claws, so surely burns the soul of Heart of Flame between thy guarding +hands. There are as many words as there are demons, my lord, but it is +written that _Niaz_ is the greatest of all words save only the name of +God." + +She laughed without any sound, sweetly malicious where she sat among the +ferns. + +"Heart of Flame," she said to Tressa, "you called me and I _made the +effort_." + +"Darling," said Tressa in her thrilling voice, "the Yezidees are making +living things out of dust,--as Sanang Noiane made that thing in the +Temple.... And slew it before our eyes." + +"The Tchor-Dagh," said Sansa calmly. + +"The Tchor-Dagh," whispered Tressa. + +Sansa's smooth little hands crept up to the collar of her odd, blue +tunic; grasped it. + +"In the name of God the Merciful," she said without a tremor, "listen to +me, Heart of Flame, and may my soul be ransom for yours!" + +"I hear you, Sansa." + +Sansa said, her fingers still grasping the embroidered collar of her +tunic: + +"Yonder, behind walls, two Tower Chiefs meddle with the Tchor-Dagh, +making living things out of the senseless dust they scrape from the +garden." + +Selden moistened his dry lips. Sansa said: + +"The Yezidees who have come into this wilderness are Arrak Sou-Sou, the +Squirrel; and Tiyang Khan.... May God remember them in Hell!" + +"May God remember them," said Tressa mechanically. + +"And these two Yezidee Sorcerers," continued Sansa coolly, "have +advanced thus far in the Tchor-Dagh; for they now roam these woods, +digging like demons, for the roots of Ginseng; and thou knowest, O Heart +of Flame, what that indicates." + +"Does Ginseng grow in these woods!" exclaimed Tressa with a new terror +in her widening eyes. + +"Ginseng grows here, little Rose-Heart, and the roots are as perfect as +human bodies. And Tiyang Khan squats in the walled garden moulding the +Ginseng roots in his unclean hands, while Sou-Sou the Squirrel scratches +among the dead leaves of the woods for roots as perfect as a naked human +body. + +"All day long the Sou-Sou rummages among the trees; all day long Tiyang +pats and rubs and moulds the Ginseng roots in his skinny fingers. It is +the Tchor-Dagh, Heart of Flame. And these Sorcerers must be destroyed." + +"Are their bodies here?" + +"Arrak is in the body. And thus it shall be accomplished: listen +attentively, Rose Heart Afire!--I shall remain here with----" she looked +at Selden and flushed a trifle, "--with you, my lord. And when the +Squirrel comes a-digging, so shall my lord slay him with a bullet.... +And when I hear his soul bidding his body farewell, then I shall make +prisoner his soul.... And send it to the Dark Star.... And the rest +shall be in the hands of Allah." + +She turned to Tressa and caught her hands in both of her own: + +"It is written on the Iron Pages," she whispered, "that we belong to +Erlik and we return to him. But in the Book of Gold it is written +otherwise: 'God preserve us from Satan who was stoned!' ... Therefore, +in the name of Allah! Now then, Heart of Flame, do your duty!" + +A burning flush leaped over Tressa's features. + +"Is my soul, then, my own!" + +"It belongs to God," said Sansa gravely. + +"And--Sanang?" + +"God is greatest." + +"But--was God there--at the Lake of the Ghosts?" + +"God is everywhere. It is so written in the Book of Gold," replied +Sansa, pressing her hands tenderly. + +"Recite the Fatha, Heart of Flame. Thy lips shall not stiffen; God +listens." + +Tressa rose in the sunset glory and stood as though dazed, and all +crimsoned in the last fiery bars of the declining sun. + +Cleves also rose. + +Sansa laughed noiselessly: "My lord would go whither thou goest, Heart +of Fire!" she whispered. "And thy ways shall be his ways!" + +Tressa's cheeks flamed and she turned and looked at Cleves. + +Then Sansa rose and laid a hand on Tressa's arm and on her husband's: + +"Listen attentively. Tiyang Khan must be destroyed. The signal sounds +when my lord's rifle-shot makes a loud noise here among these trees." + +"Can I prevail against the Tchor-Dagh?" asked Tressa, steadily. + +"Is not that event already in God's hands, darling?" said Sansa softly. +She smiled and resumed her seat beside Selden, amid the drooping fern +fronds. + +"Bid thy dear lord leave his rifle here," she added quietly. + +Cleves laid down his weapon. Selden pointed eastward in silence. + +So they went together into the darkening woods. + + * * * * * + +In the dusk of heavy foliage overhanging the garden, Tressa lay flat as +a lizard on the top of the wall. Beside her lay her husband. + +In the garden below them flowers bloomed in scented thickets, bordered +by walks of flat stone slabs split from boulders. A little lawn, very +green, centred the garden. + +And on this lawn, in the clear twilight still tinged with the sombre +fires of sundown, squatted a man dressed in a loose white garment. + +Save for a twisted breadth of white cloth, his shaven head was bare. His +sinewy feet were naked, too, the lean, brown toes buried in the grass. + +Tressa's lips touched her husband's ear. + +"Tiyang Khan," she breathed. "Watch what he does!" + +Shoulder to shoulder they lay there, scarcely daring to breathe. Their +eyes were fastened on the Mongol Sorcerer, who, squatted below on his +haunches, grave and deliberate as a great grey ape, continued busy with +the obscure business which so intently preoccupied him. + +In a short semi-circle on the grass in front of him he had placed a +dozen wild Ginseng roots. The roots were enormous, astoundingly shaped +like the human body, almost repulsive in their weird symmetry. + +The Yezidee had taken one of these roots into his hands. Squatting there +in the semi-dusk, he began to massage it between his long, muscular +fingers, rubbing, moulding, pressing the root with caressing +deliberation. + +His unhurried manipulation, for a few moments, seemed to produce no +result. But presently the Ginseng root became lighter in colour and more +supple, yielding to his fingers, growing ivory pale, sinuously limber in +a newer and more delicate symmetry. + +"Look!" gasped Cleves, grasping his wife's arm. "_What_ is that man +doing?" + +"The Tchor-Dagh!" whispered Tressa. "Do you see what lies twisting there +in his hands?" + +The Ginseng root had become the tiny naked body of a woman--a little +ivory-white creature, struggling to escape between the hands that had +created it--dark, powerful, masterly hands, opening leisurely now, and +releasing the living being they had fashioned. + +The thing scrambled between the fingers of the Sorcerer, leaped into the +grass, ran a little way and hid, crouched down, panting, almost hidden +by the long grass. The shocked watchers on the wall could still see the +creature. Tressa felt Cleves' body trembling beside her. She rested a +cool, steady hand on his. + +"It is the Tchor-Dagh," she breathed close to his face. "The Mongol +Sorcerer is becoming formidable." + +"Oh, God!" murmured Cleves, "that thing he made is _alive_! I saw it. I +can see it hiding there in the grass. It's frightened--breathing! It's +alive!" + +His pistol, clutched in his right hand, quivered. His wife laid her hand +on it and cautiously shook her head. + +"No," she said, "that is of no use." + +"But what that Yezidee is doing is--is blasphemous----" + +"Watch him! His mind is stealthily feeling its way among the laws and +secrets of the Tchor-Dagh. He has found a thread. He is following it +through the maze into hell's own labyrinth! He has created a tiny thing +in the image of the Creator. He will try to create a larger being now. +Watch him with his Ginseng roots!" + +Tiyang, looming ape-like on his haunches in the deepening dusk, moulded +and massaged the Ginseng roots, one after another. And one after +another, tiny naked creatures wriggled out of his palms between his +fingers and scuttled away into the herbage. + +Already the dim lawn was alive with them, crawling, scurrying through +the grass, creeping in among the flower-beds, little, ghostly-white +things that glimmered from shade into shadow like moonbeams. + +Tressa's mouth touched her husband's ear: + +"It is for the secret of Destruction that the Yezidee seeks. But first +he must learn the secret of creation. He is learning.... And he must +learn no more than he has already learned." + +"That Yezidee is a living man. Shall I fire?" + +"No." + +"I can kill him with the first shot." + +"Hark!" she whispered excitedly, her hand closing convulsively on her +husband's arm. + +The whip-crack of a rifle-shot still crackled in their ears. + +Tiyang had leaped to his feet in the dusk, a Ginseng root, half-alive, +hanging from one hand and beginning to squirm. + +Suddenly the first moonbeam fell across the wall. And in its lustre +Tressa rose to her knees and flung up her right hand. + +Then it was as though her palm caught and reflected the moon's ray, and +hurled it in one blinding shaft straight into the dark visage of +Tiyang-Khan. + +The Yezidee fell as though he had been pierced by a shaft of steel, and +lay sprawling there on the grass in the ghastly glare. + +And where his features had been there gaped only a hole into the head. + +Then a dreadful thing occurred; for everywhere the grass swarmed with +the little naked creatures he had made, running, scrambling, scuttling, +darting into the black hole which had been the face of Tiyang-Khan. + +They poured into the awful orifice, crowding, jostling one another so +violently that the head jerked from side to side on the grass, a +wabbling, inert, soggy mass in the moonlight. + +And presently the body of Tiyang-Khan, Warden of the Rampart of Gog and +Magog, and Lord of the Seventh Tower, began to burn with white fire--a +low, glimmering combustion that seemed to clothe the limbs like an +incandescent mist. + +On the wall knelt Tressa, the glare from her lifted hand streaming over +the burning form below. + +Cleves stood tall and shadowy beside his wife, the useless pistol +hanging in his grasp. + +Then, in the silence of the woods, and very near, they heard Sansa +laughing. And Selden's anxious voice: + +"Arrak is dead. The Sou-Sou hangs across a rock, head down, like a shot +squirrel. Is all well with you?" + +"Tiyang is on his way to his star," said Tressa calmly. "Somewhere in +the world his body has bid its mind farewell.... And so his body may +live for a little, blind, in mental darkness, fed by others, and locked +in all day, all night, until the end." + +Sansa, at the base of the wall, turned to Selden. + +"Shall I bring my body with me, one day, my lord?" she asked demurely. + +"Oh, Sansa----" he whispered, but she placed a fragrant hand across his +lips and laughed at him in the moonlight. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +IN THE FIRELIGHT + + +In 1920 the whole spiritual world was trembling under the thundering +shock of the Red Surf pounding the frontiers of civilisation from pole +to pole. + +Up out of the hell-pit of Asia had boiled the molten flood, submerging +Russia, dashing in giant waves over Germany and Austria, drenching +Italy, France, England with its bloody spindrift. + +And now the Red Rain was sprinkling the United States from coast to +coast, and the mindless administration, scared out of its stupidity at +last, began a frantic attempt to drain the country of the filthy flood +and throw up barriers against the threatened deluge. + +In every state and city Federal agents made wholesale arrests--too late! + +A million minds had already been perverted and dominated by the terrible +Sect of the Assassins. A million more were sickening under the awful +psychic power of the Yezidee. + +Thousands of the disciples of the Yezidee devil-worshipers had already +been arrested and held for deportation,--poor, wretched creatures whose +minds were no longer their own, but had been stealthily surprised, +seized and mastered by Mongol adepts and filled with ferocious hatred +against their fellow men. + +Yet, of the Eight Yezidee Assassins only two now remained alive in +America,--Togrul, and Sanang, the Slayer of Souls. + +Yarghouz was dead; Djamouk the Fox, Kahn of the Fifth Tower was dead; +Yaddin-ed-Din, Arrak the Sou-Sou, Gutchlug, Tiyang Khan, all were dead. +Six Towers had become dark and silent. From them the last evil thought, +the last evil shape had sped; the last wicked prayer had been said to +Erlik, Khagan of all Darkness. + +But his emissary on earth, Prince Sanang, still lived. And at Sanang's +heels stole Togrul, Tougtchi to Sanang Noiane, the Slayer of Souls. + + * * * * * + +In the United States there had been a cessation of the active campaign +of violence toward those in authority. Such unhappy dupes of the +Yezidees as the I. W. W. and other radicals were, for the time, +physically quiescent. Crude terrorism with its more brutal outrages +against life and law ceased. But two million sullen eyes, in which all +independent human thought had been extinguished, watched unblinking the +wholesale arrests by the government--watched panic-stricken officials +rushing hither and thither to execute the mandate of a miserable +administration--watched and waited in dreadful silence. + +In that period of ominous quiet which possessed the land, the little +group of Secret Service men that surrounded the young girl who alone +stood between a trembling civilisation and the threat of hell's own +chaos, became convinced that Sanang was preparing a final and terrible +effort to utterly overwhelm the last vestige of civilisation in the +United States. + +What shape that plan would develop they could not guess. + +John Recklow sent Benton to Chicago to watch that centre of infection +for the appearance there of the Yezidee Togrul. + +Selden went to Boston where a half-witted group of parlour-socialists at +Cambridge were talking too loudly and loosely to please even the most +tolerant at Harvard. + +But neither Togrul nor Sanang had, so far, materialised in either city; +and John Recklow prowled the purlieus of New York, haunting strange +byways and obscure quarters where the dull embers of revolution always +smouldered, watching for the Yezidee who was the deep-bedded, vital root +of this psychic evil which menaced the minds of all mankind,--Sanang, +the Slayer of Souls. + +Recklow's lodgings were tucked away in Westover Court--three bedrooms, a +parlour and a kitchenette. Tressa Cleves occupied one bedroom; her +husband another; Recklow the third. + +And in this tiny apartment, hidden away among a group of old buildings, +the very existence of which was unknown to the millions who swarmed the +streets of the greatest city in the world,--here in Westover Court, a +dozen paces from the roar of Broadway, was now living a young girl upon +whose psychic power the only hope of the world now rested. + + * * * * * + +The afternoon had turned grey and bitter; ragged flakes still fell; a +pallid twilight possessed the snowy city, through which lighted trains +and taxis moved in the foggy gloom. + +By three o'clock in the afternoon all shops were illuminated; the south +windows of the Hotel Astor across the street spread a sickly light over +the old buildings of Westover Court as John Recklow entered the tiled +hallway, took the stairs to the left, and went directly to his +apartment. + +He unlocked the door and let himself in and stood a moment in the entry +shaking the snow from his hat and overcoat. + +The sitting-room lamp was unlighted but he could see a fire in the +grate, and Tressa Cleves seated near, her eyes fixed on the glowing +coals. + +He bade her good evening in a low voice; she turned her charming head +and nodded, and he drew a chair to the fender and stretched out his wet +shoes to the warmth. + +"Is Victor still out?" he inquired. + +She said that her husband had not yet returned. Her eyes were on the +fire, Recklow's rested on her shadowy face. + +"Benton got his man in Chicago," he said. "It was not Togrul Kahn." + +"Who was it?" + +"Only a Swami fakir who'd been preaching sedition to a little group of +greasy Bengalese from Seattle.... I've heard from Selden, too." + +She nodded listlessly and lifted her eyes. + +"Neither Sanang nor Togrul have appeared in Boston," he said. "I think +they're here in New York." + +The girl said nothing. + +After a silence: + +"Are you worried about your husband?" he asked abruptly. + +"I am always uneasy when he is absent," she said quietly. + +"Of course.... But I don't suppose he knows that." + +"I suppose not." + +Recklow leaned over, took a coal in the tongs and lighted a cigar. +Leaning back in his armchair, he said in a musing voice: + +"No, I suppose your husband does not realise that you are so deeply +concerned over his welfare." + +The girl remained silent. + +"I suppose," said Recklow softly, "he doesn't dream you are in love with +him." + +Tressa Cleves did not stir a muscle. After a long silence she said in +her even voice: + +"Do you think I am in love with my husband, Mr. Recklow?" + +"I think you fell in love with him the first evening you met him." + +"I did." + +Neither of them spoke again for some minutes. Recklow's cigar went +wrong; he rose and found another and returned to the fire, but did not +light it. + +"It's a rotten day, isn't it?" he said with a shiver, and dumped a +scuttle of coal on the fire. + +They watched the blue flames playing over the grate. + +Tressa said: "I could no more help falling in love with him than I could +stop my heart beating.... But I did not dream that anybody knew." + +"Don't you think he ought to know?" + +"Why? He is not in love with me." + +"Are you sure, Mrs. Cleves?" + +"Yes. He is wonderfully sweet and kind. But he could not fall in love +with a girl who has been what I have been." + +Recklow smiled. "What have you been, Tressa Norne?" + +"You know." + +"A temple-girl at Yian?" + +"And at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said in a low voice. + +"What of it?" + +"I can not tell you, Mr. Recklow.... Only that I lost my soul in the +Yezidee Temple----" + +"That is untrue!" + +"I wish it were untrue.... My husband tells me that nothing can really +harm the soul. I try to believe him.... But Erlik lives. And when my +soul at last shall escape my body, it shall not escape the Slayer of +Souls." + +"That is monstrously untrue----" + +"No. I tell you that Prince Sanang slew my soul. And my soul's ghost +belongs to Erlik. How can any man fall in love with such a girl?" + +"Why do you say that Sanang slew your soul?" asked Recklow, peering at +her averted face through the reddening firelight. + +She lay still in her chair for a moment, then turned suddenly on him: + +"He _did_ slay it! He came to the Lake of the Ghosts as my lover; he +meant to have done it there; but I would not have him--would not listen, +nor suffer his touch!--I mocked at him and his passion. I laughed at his +Tchortchas. They were afraid of me!--" + +She half rose from her chair, grasped the arms, then seated herself +again, her eyes ablaze with the memory of wrongs. + +"How dare I show my dear lord that I am in love with him when Sanang's +soul caught my soul out of my body one day--surprised my soul while my +body lay asleep in the Yezidee Temple!--and bore it in his arms to the +very gates of hell!" + +"Good God," whispered Recklow, "what do you mean? Such things can't +happen." + +"Why not? They do happen. I was caught unawares.... It was one golden +afternoon, and Yulan and Sansa and I were eating oranges by the fountain +in the inner shrine. And I lay down by the pool and _made the +effort_--you understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well. My soul left my body asleep and I went out over the tops of +the flowers--idly, without aim or intent--as the winds blow in +summer.... It was in the Wood of the White Moth that I saw Sanang's soul +flash downward like a streak of fire and wrap my soul in flame!... And, +in a flash, we were at the gates of hell before I could free myself from +his embrace.... Then, by the Temple pool, among the oranges, I cried out +asleep; and my terrified body sat up sobbing and trembling in Yulun's +arms. But the Slayer of Souls had slain mine in the Wood of the White +Moth--slain it as he caught me in his flaming arms.... And now you know +why such a woman as I dare not bend to kiss the dust from my dear Lord's +feet--Aie-a! Aie-a! I who have lost my girl's soul to him who slew it in +the Wood of the White Moth!" + +She sat rocking in her chair in the red firelight, her hands framing her +lovely face, her eyes staring straight ahead as though they saw opening +before them through the sombre shadows of that room all the dread magic +of the East where the dancing flame of Sanang's blazing soul lighted +their path to hell through the enchanted forest. + +Recklow had grown pale, but his voice was steady. + +"I see no reason," he said, "why your husband should not love you." + +"I tell you my girl's soul belonged to Sanang--was part of his, for an +instant." + +"It is burned pure of dross." + +"It is _burned_." + +Recklow remained silent. Tressa lay deep in her armchair, twisting her +white fingers. + +"What makes him so late?" she said.... "I sent my soul out twice to look +for him, and could not find him." + +"Send it again," said Recklow, fearfully. + +For ten minutes the girl lay as though asleep, then her eyes unclosed +and she said drowsily: "I can not find him." + +"Did--did you learn anything while--while you were--away?" asked Recklow +cautiously. + +"Nothing. There is a thick darkness out there--I mean a darkness +gathering over the whole land. It is like a black fog. When the damned +pray to Erlik there is a darkness that gathers like a brown mist----" + +Her voice ceased; her hands tightened on the arms of her chair. + +"_That_ is what Sanang is doing!" she said in a breathless voice. + +"What?" demanded Recklow. + +"_Praying!_ That is what he is doing! A million perverted minds which he +has seized and obsessed are being concentrated on blasphemous prayers to +Erlik! Sanang is directing them. Do you understand the terrible power of +a million minds all _willing_, in unison, the destruction of good and +the triumph of evil? A million human minds! More! For that is what he is +doing. That is the thick darkness that is gathering over the entire +Western world. It is the terrific materialisation of evil power from +evil minds, all focussed upon the single thought that evil must triumph +and good die!" + +She sat, gripping the arms of her chair, pale, rigid, terribly alert, +dreadfully enlightened, now, concerning the awful and new menace +threatening the sanity of mankind. + +She said in her steady, emotionless voice: "When the Yezidee Sorcerers +desire to overwhelm a nomad people--some yort perhaps that has resisted +the Sheiks of the Eight Towers, then the Slayer of Souls rides with his +Black Banners to the Namaz-Ga or Place of Prayer. + +"Two marble bridges lead to it. There are fourteen hundred mosques +there. Then come the Eight, each with his shroud, chanting the prayers +for those dead in hell. And there the Yezidees pray blasphemously, all +their minds in ferocious unison.... And I have seen a little yort full +of Broad Faces with their slanting eyes and sparse beards, sicken and +die, and turn black in the sun as though the plague had breathed on +them. And I have seen the Long Noses and bushy beards of walled towns +wither and perish in the blast and blight from the Namaz-Ga where the +Slayer of Souls sat his saddle and prayed to Erlik, and half a million +Yezidees prayed in blasphemous unison." + +Recklow's head rested on his left hand. The other, unconsciously, had +crept toward his pistol--the weapon which had become so useless in this +awful struggle between this girl and the loosened forces of hell. + +"Is that what you think Sanang is about?" he asked heavily. + +"Yes. I know it. He has seized the minds of a million men in America. +Every anarchist is to-day concentrating in one evil and supreme mental +effort, under Sanang's direction, to will the triumph of evil and the +doom of civilisation.... I wish my husband would come home." + +"Tressa?" + +She turned her pallid face in the firelight: "If Sanang has appointed a +Place of Prayer," she said, "he himself will pray on that spot. That +will be the Namaz-Ga for the last two Yezidee Sorcerers still alive in +the Western World." + +"That's what I wished to ask you," said Recklow softly. "Will you try +once more, Tressa?" + +"Yes. I will send out my soul again to look for the Namaz-Ga." + +She lay back in her armchair and closed her eyes. + +"Only," she added, as though to herself, "I wish my dear lord were safe +in this room beside me.... May God's warriors be his escort. And surely +they are well armed, and can prevail over demons. Aie-a! I wish my lord +would come home out of the darkness.... Mr. Recklow?" + +"Yes, Tressa." + +"I thought I heard him on the stairs." + +"Not yet." + +"Aie-a!" she sighed and closed her eyes again. + +She lay like one dead. There was no sound in the room save the soft purr +of the fire. + +Suddenly from the sleeping girl a frightened voice burst: "Yulun! Yulun! +Where is that yellow maid of the Baroulass?... What is she doing? That +sleek young thing belongs to Togrul Kahn? Yulun! I am afraid of her! +Tell Sansa to watch that she does not stir from the Lake of the +Ghosts!... Warn that young Baroulass Sorceress that if she stirs I slay +her. And know how to do it in spite of Sanang and all the prayers from +the Namaz-Ga! Yulun! Sansa! Watch her, follow her, hearts of flame! My +soul be ransom for yours! Tokhta!" + +The girl's eyes unclosed. Presently she stirred slightly, passed one +hand across her forehead, turned her head toward Recklow. + +"I could not discover the Namaz-Ga," she said wearily. "I wish my +husband would return." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE PLACE OF PRAYER + + +Her husband called her on the telephone a few minutes later: + +"Fifty-three, Six-twenty-six speaking! Who is this?" + +"V-sixty-nine," replied his young wife happily. "Are you all right?" + +"Yes. Is M. H. 2479 there?" + +"He is here." + +"Very well. An hour ago I saw Togrul Khan in a limousine and chased him +in a taxi. His car got away in the fog but it was possible to make out +the number. An empty Cadillac limousine bearing that number is now +waiting outside the 44th Street entrance to the Hotel Astor. The doorman +will hold it until I finish telephoning. Tell M. H. 2479 to send men to +cover this matter----" + +"Victor!" + +"Be careful! Yes, what is it?" + +"I beg you not to stir in this affair until I can join you----" + +"Hurry then. It's just across the street from Westover Court----" His +voice ceased; she heard another voice, faintly, and an exclamation from +her husband; then his hurried voice over the wire: "The doorman just +sent word to hurry. The car number is N. Y. _015 F 0379_! I've got to +run! Good-b----" + + * * * * * + +He left the booth at the end of Peacock Alley, ran down the marble steps +to the left and out to the snowy sidewalk, passing on his way a young +girl swathed to the eyes in chinchilla who was hurrying into the hotel. +As he came to where the limousine was standing, he saw that it was still +empty although the door stood open and the engine was running. Around +the chauffeur stood the gold laced doorman, the gorgeously uniformed +carriage porter and a mounted policeman. + +"Hey!" said the latter when he saw Cleves,--"what's the matter here? +What are you holding up this car for?" + +Cleves beckoned him, whispered, then turned to the doorman. + +"Why did you send for me? Was the chauffeur trying to pull out?" + +"Yes, sir. A lady come hurrying out an' she jumps in, and the shawfur he +starts her humming----" + +"A lady! Where did she go?" + +"It was that young lady in chinchilla fur. The one you just met when you +run out. Yessir! Why, as soon as I held up the car and called this here +cop, she opens the door and out she jumps and beats it into the hotel +again----" + +"Hold that car, Officer!" interrupted Cleves. "Keep it standing here and +arrest anybody who gets into it! I'll be back again----" + +He turned and hurried into the hotel, traversed Peacock Alley scanning +every woman he passed, searching for a slim shape swathed in chinchilla. +There were no chinchilla wraps in Peacock Alley; none in the dining-room +where people already were beginning to gather and the orchestra was now +playing; no young girl in chinchilla in the waiting room, or in the +north dining-room. + +Then, suddenly, far across the crowded lobby, he saw a slender, +bare-headed girl in a chinchilla cloak turn hurriedly away from the +room-clerk's desk, holding a key in her white gloved hand. + +Before he could take two steps in her direction she had disappeared in +the crowd. + +He made his way through the packed lobby as best he could amid throngs +of people dressed for dinner, theatre, or other gaiety awaiting them +somewhere out there in the light-smeared winter fog; but when he arrived +at the room clerk's desk he looked for a chinchilla wrap in vain. + +Then he leaned over the desk and said to the clerk in a low voice: "I am +a Federal agent from the Department of Justice. Here are my credentials. +Now, who was that young woman in chinchilla furs to whom you gave her +door key a moment ago?" + +The clerk leaned over his counter and, dropping his voice, answered that +the lady in question had arrived only that morning from San Francisco; +had registered as Madame Aoula Baroulass; and had been given a suite on +the fourth floor numbered from 408 to 414. + +"Do you mean to arrest her?" added the clerk in a weird whisper. + +"I don't know. Possibly. Have you the master-key?" + +The clerk handed it to him without a word; and Cleves hurried to the +elevator. + +On the fourth floor the matron on duty halted him, but when he murmured +an explanation she nodded and laid a finger on her lips. + +"Madame has gone to her apartment," she whispered. + +"Has she a servant? Or friends with her?" + +"No, sir.... I did see her speak to two foreign looking gentlemen in the +elevator when she arrived this morning." + +Cleves nodded; the matron pointed out the direction in silence, and he +went rapidly down the carpeted corridor, until he came to a door +numbered 408. + +For a second only he hesitated, then swiftly fitted the master-key and +opened the door. + +The room--a bedroom--was brightly lighted; but there was nobody there. +The other rooms--dressing closet, bath-room and parlour, all were +brilliantly lighted by ceiling fixtures and wall brackets; but there was +not a person to be seen in any of the rooms--nor, save for the +illumination, was there any visible sign that anybody inhabited the +apartment. + +Swiftly he searched the apartment from end to end. There was no baggage +to be seen, no garments, no toilet articles, no flowers in the vases, no +magazines or books, not one article of feminine apparel or of personal +bric-a-brac visible in the entire place. + +Nor had the bed even been turned down--nor any preparation for the +night's comfort been attempted. And, except for the blazing lights, it +was as though the apartment had not been entered by anybody for a month. + +All the windows were closed, all shades lowered and curtains drawn. The +air, though apparently pure enough, had that vague flatness which one +associates with an unused guest-chamber when opened for an airing. + +Now, deliberately, Cleves began a more thorough search of the apartment, +looking behind curtains, under beds, into clothes presses, behind sofas. + +Then he searched the bureau drawers, dressers, desks for any sign or +clew of the girl in the chinchillas. There was no dust anywhere,--the +hotel management evidently was particular--but there was not even a pin +to be found. + +Presently he went out into the corridor and looked again at the number +on the door. He had made no mistake. + +Then he turned and sped down the long corridor to where the matron was +standing beside her desk preparing to go off duty as soon as the other +matron arrived to relieve her. + +To his impatient question she replied positively that she had seen the +girl in chinchillas unlock 408 and enter the apartment less than five +minutes before he had arrived in pursuit. + +"And I saw her lights go on as soon as she went in," added the matron, +pointing to the distant illuminated transom. + +"Then she went out through into the next apartment," insisted Cleves. + +"The fire-tower is on one side of her; the scullery closet on the +other," said the matron. "She could not have left that apartment without +coming out into the corridor. And if she had come out I should have seen +her." + +"I tell you she isn't in those rooms!" protested Cleves. + +"She must be there, sir. I saw her go in a few seconds before you came +up." + +At that moment the other matron arrived. There was no use arguing. He +left the explanation of the situation to the woman who was going off +duty, and, hastening his steps, he returned to apartment 408. + +The door, which he had left open, had swung shut. Again he fitted the +master-key, entered, paused on the threshold, looked around nervously, +his nostrils suddenly filled with a puff of perfume. + +And there on the table by the bed he saw a glass bowl filled with a mass +of Chinese orchids--great odorous clusters of orange and snow-white +bloom that saturated all the room with their freshening scent. + +So astounded was he that he stood stock still, one hand still on the +door-knob; then in a trice he had closed and locked the door from +inside. + +_Somebody_ was in that apartment. There could be no doubt about it. He +dropped his right hand into his overcoat pocket and took hold of his +automatic pistol. + +For ten minutes he stood so, listening, peering about the room from bed +to curtains, and out into the parlour. There was not a sound in the +place. Nothing stirred. + +Now, grasping his pistol but not drawing it, he began another stealthy +tour of the apartment, exploring every nook and cranny. And, at the end, +had discovered nothing new. + +When at length he realised that, as far as he could discover, there was +not a living thing in the place excepting himself, a very faint chill +grew along his neck and shoulders, and he caught his breath suddenly, +deeply. + +He had come back to the bedroom, now. The perfume of the orchids +saturated the still air. + +And, as he stood staring at them, all of a sudden he saw, where their +twisted stalks rested in the transparent bowl of water, something +moving--something brilliant as a live ember gliding out from among the +mass of submerged stems--a living fish glowing in scarlet hues and +winnowing the water with grotesquely trailing fins as delicate as +filaments of scarlet lace. + +To and fro swam the fish among the maze of orchid stalks. Even its eyes +were hot and red as molten rubies; and as its crimson gills swelled and +relaxed and swelled, tints of cherry-fire waxed and waned over its fat +and glowing body. + +And vaguely, now, in the perfume saturated air, Cleves seemed to sense a +subtle taint of evil,--something sinister in the intense stillness of +the place--in the jewelled fish gliding so silently in and out among the +pallid convolutions of the drowned stems. + +As he stood staring at the fish, the drugged odour of the orchids heavy +in his throat and lungs, something stirred very lightly in the room. + +Chills crawling over every limb, he looked around across his shoulder. + +There was a figure seated cross-legged in the middle of the bed! + +Then, in the perfumed silence, the girl laughed. + +For a full minute neither of them moved. No sound had echoed her low +laughter save the deadened pulsations of his own heart. But now there +grew a faint ripple of water in the bowl where the scarlet fish, +suddenly restless, was swimming hither and thither as though pursued by +an invisible hand. + +With the slight noise of splashing water in his ears, Cleves stood +staring at the figure on the bed. Under her chinchilla the girl seemed +to be all a pale golden tint--hair, skin, eyes. The scant shred of an +evening gown she wore, the jewels at her throat and breast, all were +yellow and amber and saffron-gold. + +And now, looking him in the eyes, she leisurely disengaged the robe of +silver fur from her naked shoulders and let it fall around her on the +bed. For a second the lithe, willowy golden thing gathered there as +gracefully as a coiled snake filled him with swift loathing. Then, +almost instantly, the beauty of the lissome creature fascinated him. + +She leaned forward and set her elbows on her two knees, and rested her +face between her hands--like a gold rose-bud between two ivory petals, +he thought, dismayed by this young thing's beauty, shaken by the dull +confusion of his own heart battering his breast like the blows of a +rising tide. + +"What do you wish?" she inquired in her soft young voice. "Why have you +come secretly into my rooms to search--and clasping in your hand a +loaded pistol deep within your pocket?" + +"Why have you hidden yourself until now?" he retorted in a dull and +laboured voice. + +"I have been here." + +"Where?" + +"Here!... Looking at you.... And watching my scarlet fish. His name is +Dzelim. He is nearly a thousand years old and as wise as a magician. +Look upon him, my lord! See how rapidly he darts around his tiny crystal +world!--like a comet through outer star-dust, running the eternal race +with Time.... And--yonder is a chair. Will my lord be seated--at his new +servant's feet?" + +A strange, physical weariness seemed to weight his limbs and shoulders. +He seated himself near the bed, never taking his heavy gaze from the +smiling, golden thing which squatted there watching him so intently. + +"Whose limousine was that which you entered and then left so abruptly?" +he asked. + +"My own." + +"What was the Yezidee Togrul Kahn doing in it?" + +"Did you see anybody in my car?" she asked, veiling her eyes a little +with their tawny lashes. + +"I saw a man with a thick beard dyed red with henna, and the bony face +and slant eyes of Togrul the Yezidee." + +"May my soul be ransom for yours, my lord, but you lie!" she said +softly. Her lips parted in a smile; but her half-veiled eyes were +brilliant as two topazes. + +"Is that your answer?" + +She lifted one hand and with her forefinger made signs from right to +left and then downward as though writing in Turkish and in Chinese +characters. + +"It is written," she said in a low voice, "that we belong to God and we +return to him. Look out what you are about, my lord!" + +He drew his pistol from his overcoat and, holding it, rested his hand on +his knee. + +"Now," he said hoarsely, "while we await the coming of Togrul Kahn, you +shall remain exactly where you are, and you shall tell me exactly who +you are in order that I may decide whether to arrest you as an alien +enemy inciting my countrymen to murder, or to let you go as a foreigner +who is able to prove her honesty and innocence." + +The girl laughed: + +"Be careful," she said. "My danger lies in your youth and +mine--somewhere between your lips and mine lies my only danger from you, +my lord." + +A dull flush mounted to his temples and burned there. + +"I am the golden comrade to Heavenly-Azure," she said, still smiling. "I +am the Third Immaum in the necklace Keuke wears where Yulun hangs as a +rose-pearl, and Sansa as a pearl on fire. + +"Look upon me, my lord!" + +There was a golden light in his eyes which seemed to stiffen the muscles +and confuse his vision. He heard her voice again as though very far +away: + +"It is written that we shall love, my lord--thou and I--this night--this +night. Listen attentively. I am thy slave. My lips shall touch thy feet. +Look upon me, my lord!" + +There was a dazzling blindness in his eyes and in his brain. He swayed a +little still striving to fix her with his failing gaze. His pistol hand +slipped sideways from his knee, fell limply, and the weapon dropped to +the thick carpet. He could still see the glimmering golden shape of her, +still hear her distant voice: + +"It is written that we belong to God.... Tokhta!..." + +Over his knees was settling a snow-white sheet; on it, in his lap, lay a +naked knife. There was not a sound in the room save the rushing and +splashing of the scarlet fish in its crystal bowl. + +Bending nearer, the girl fixed her yellow eyes on the man who looked +back at her with dying gaze, sitting upright and knee deep in his +shroud. + +Then, noiselessly she uncoiled her supple golden body, extending her +right arm toward the knife. + +"Throw back thy head, my lord, and stretch thy throat to the knife's +sweet edge," she whispered caressingly. "No!--do not close your eyes. +Look upon me. Look into my eyes. I am Aoula, temple girl of the +Baroulass! I am mistress to the Slayer of Souls! I am a golden plaything +to Sanang Noiane, Prince of the Yezidees. Look upon me attentively, my +lord!" + +Her smooth little hand closed on the hilt; the scarlet fish splashed +furiously in the bowl, dislodging a blossom or two which fell to the +carpet and slowly faded into mist. + +Now she grasped the knife, and she slipped from the bed to the floor and +stood before the dazed man. + +"This is the Namaz-Ga," she said in her silky voice. "Behold, this is +the appointed Place of Prayer. Gaze around you, my lord. These are the +shadows of mighty men who come here to see you die in the Place of +Prayer." + +Cleves's head had fallen back, but his eyes were open. The Baroulass +girl took his head in both hands and turned it hither and thither. And +his glazing eyes seemed to sweep a throng of shadowy white-robed men +crowding the room. And he saw the bloodless, symmetrical visage of +Sanang among them, and the great red beard of Togrul; and his stiffening +lips parted in an uttered cry, and sagged open, flaccid and soundless. + +The Baroulass sorceress lifted the shroud from his knees and spread it +on the carpet, moving with leisurely grace about her business and softly +intoning the Prayers for the Dead. + +Then, having made her arrangements, she took her knife into her right +hand again and came back to the half-conscious man, and stood close in +front of him, bending near and looking curiously into his dimmed eyes. + +"Ayah!" she said smilingly. "This is the Place of Prayer. And you shall +add your prayer to ours before I use my knife. So! I give you back your +power of speech. Pronounce the name of Erlik!" + +Very slowly his dry lips moved and his dry tongue trembled. The word +they formed was, + +"Tressa!" + +Instantly the girl's yellow eyes grew incandescent and her lovely mouth +became distorted. With her left hand she caught his chin, forced his +head back, exposing his throat, and using all her strength drew the +knife's edge across it. + +But it was only her clenched fingers that swept the taut +throat--clenched and empty fingers in which the knife had vanished. + +And when the Baroulass girl saw that her clenched hand was empty, felt +her own pointed nails cutting into the tender flesh of her own palm, she +stared at her blood-stained fingers in sudden terror--stared, spread +them, shrieked where she stood, and writhed there trembling and +screaming as though gripped in an invisible trap. + +But she fell silent when the door of the room opened noiselessly behind +her;--and it was as though she dared not turn her head to face the end +of all things which had entered the room and was drawing nearer in utter +silence. + +Suddenly she saw its shadow on the wall; and her voice burst from her +lips in a last shuddering scream. + +Then the end came slowly, without a sound, and she sank at the knees, +gently, to a kneeling posture, then backward, extending her supple +golden shape across the shroud; and lay there limp as a dead snake. + +Tressa went to the bowl of water and drew from it every blossom. The +scarlet fish was now thrashing the water to an iridescent spume; and +Tressa plunged in her hands and seized it and flung it out--squirming +and wheezing crimson foam--on the shroud beside the golden girl of the +Baroulass. Then, very slowly, she drew the shroud over the dying things; +stepped back to the chair where her husband lay unconscious; knelt down +beside him and took his head on her shoulder, gazing, all the while, at +the outline of the dead girl under the snowy shroud. + +After a long while Cleves stirred and opened his eyes. Presently he +turned his head sideways on her shoulder. + +"Tressa," he whispered. + +"Hush," she whispered, "all is well now." But she did not move her eyes +from the shroud, which now outlined the still shapes of _two_ human +figures. + +"John Recklow!" she called in a low voice. + +Recklow entered noiselessly with drawn pistol. She motioned to him; he +bent and lifted the edge of the shroud, cautiously. A bushy red beard +protruded. + +"Togrul!" he exclaimed.... "But who is this young creature lying dead +beside him?" + +Then Tressa caught the collar of her tunic in her left hand and flung +back her lovely face looking upward out of eyes like sapphires wet with +rain: + +"In the name of the one and only God," she sobbed--"if there be no +resurrection for dead souls, then I have slain this night in vain! + +"For what does it profit a girl if her soul be lost to a lover and her +body be saved for her husband?" + +She rose from her knees, the tears still falling, and went and looked +down at the outlined shapes beneath the shroud. + +Recklow had gone to the telephone to summon his own men and an +ambulance. Now, turning toward Tressa from his chair: + +"God knows what we'd do without you, Mrs. Cleves. I believe this +accounts for all the Yezidees except Sanang." + +"Excepting Prince Sanang," she said drearily. Then she went slowly to +where her husband lay in his armchair, and sank down on the floor, and +laid her cheek across his feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE SLAYER OF SOULS + + +In that great blizzard which, on the 4th of February, struck the eastern +coast of the United States from Georgia to Maine, John Recklow and his +men hunted Sanang, the last of the Yezidees. + +And Sanang clung like a demon to the country which he had doomed to +destruction, imbedding each claw again as it was torn loose, battling +for the supremacy of evil with all his dreadful psychic power, striving +still to seize, cripple, and slay the bodies and souls of a hundred +million Americans. + +Again he scattered the uncounted myriads of germs of the Black Plague +which he and his Yezidees had brought out of Mongolia a year before; and +once more the plague swept over the country, and thousands on thousands +died. + +But now the National, State and City governments were fighting, with +physicians, nurses, and police, this gruesome epidemic which had come +into the world from they knew not where. And National, State and City +governments, aroused at last, were fighting the more terrible plague of +anarchy. + +Nation-wide raids were made from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from +the Gulf to the Lakes. Thousands of terrorists of all shades and stripes +whose minds had been seized and poisoned by the Yezidees were being +arrested. Deportations had begun; government agents were everywhere +swarming to clean out the foulness that had struck deeper into the body +of the Republic than any one had supposed. + +And it seemed, at last, as though the Red Plague, too, was about to be +stamped out along with the Black Death called Influenza. + +But only a small group of Secret Service men knew that a resurgence of +these horrors was inevitable unless Sanang, the Slayer of Souls, was +destroyed. And they knew, too, that only one person in America could +hope to destroy Sanang, the last of the Yezidees, and that was Tressa +Cleves. + +Only by the sudden onset of the plague in various cities of the land had +Recklow any clew concerning the whereabouts of Sanang. + +In Boston, then Washington, then Kansas City, and then New York the +epidemic suddenly blazed up. And in these places of death the Secret +Service men always found a clew, and there they hunted Sanang, the +Yezidee, to kill him without mercy where they might find him. + +But they never found Sanang Noiane; only the ghastly marks of his +poisoned claws on the body of the sickened nation--only minds diseased +by the Red Plague and bodies dying of the Black Death--civil and social +centres disorganized, disrupted, depraved, dying. + +When the blizzard burst upon New York, struggling in the throes of the +plague, and paralysed the metropolis for a week, John Recklow sent out a +special alarm, and New York swarmed with Secret Service men searching +the snow-buried city for a graceful, slender, dark young man whose eyes +slanted a trifle in his amber-tinted face; who dressed fashionably, +lived fastidiously, and spoke English perfectly in a delightfully +modulated voice. + +And to New York, thrice stricken by anarchy, by plague, and now by God, +hurried, from all parts of the nation, thousands of secret agents who +had been hunting Sanang in distant cities or who had been raiding the +traitorous and secret gatherings of his mental dupes. + +Agent ZB-303, who was volunteer agent James Benton, came from Boston +with his new bride who had just arrived by way of England--a young girl +named Yulun who landed swathed in sables, and stretched out both lovely +little hands to Benton the instant she caught sight of him on the pier. +Whereupon he took the slim figure in furs into his arms, which was +interesting because they had never before met in the flesh. + +So,--their honeymoon scarce begun, Benton and Yulun came from Boston in +answer to Recklow's emergency call. + +And all the way across from San Francisco came volunteer agent XLY-371, +otherwise Alek Selden, bringing with him a girl named Sansa whom he had +gone to the coast to meet, and whom he had immediately married after she +had landed from the Japanese steamer _Nan-yang Maru_. Which, also, was +remarkable, because, although they recognised each other instantly, and +their hands and lips clung as they met, neither had ever before beheld +the living body of the other. + +The third man who came to New York at Recklow's summons was volunteer +agent 53-6-26, otherwise Victor Cleves. + +His young wife, suffering from nervous shock after the deaths of Togrul +Khan and of the Baroulass girl, Aoula, had been convalescing in a +private sanitarium in Westchester. + +Until the summons came to her husband from Recklow, she had seen him +only for a few moments every day. But the call to duty seemed to have +effected a miraculous cure in the slender, blue-eyed girl who had lain +all day long, day after day, in her still, sunny room scarcely unclosing +her eyes at all save only when her husband was permitted to enter for +the few minutes allowed them every day. + +The physician had just left, after admitting that Mrs. Cleves seemed to +be well enough to travel if she insisted; and she and her maid had +already begun to pack when her husband came into her room. + +She looked around over her shoulder, then rose from her knees, flung an +armful of clothing into the trunk before which she had been kneeling, +and came across the room to him. Then she dismissed her maid from the +room. And when the girl had gone: + +"I am well, Victor," she said in a low voice. "Why are you troubled?" + +"I can't bear to have you drawn into this horrible affair once more." + +"Who else is there to discover and overcome Sanang?" she asked calmly. + +He remained silent. + +So, for a few moments they stood confronting each other there in the +still, sunny chamber--husband and wife who had never even exchanged the +first kiss--two young creatures more vitally and intimately bound +together than any two on earth--yet utterly separated body and soul from +each other--two solitary spirits which had never merged; two bodies +virginal and inviolate. + +Tressa spoke first: "I must go. That was our bargain." + +The word made him wince as though it had been a sudden blow. Then his +face flushed red. + +"Bargain or no bargain," he said, "I don't want you to go because I'm +afraid you can not endure another shock like the last one.... And every +time you have thrown your own mind and body between this Nation and +destruction you have nearly died of it." + +"And if I die?" she said in a low voice. + +What answer she awaited--perhaps hoped for--was not the one he made. He +said: "If you die in what you believe to be your line of duty, then it +will be I who have killed you." + +"That would not be true. It is you who have saved me." + +"I have not. I have done nothing except to lead you into danger of death +since I first met you. If you mean spiritually, that also is untrue. You +have saved yourself--if that indeed were necessary. You have redeemed +yourself--if it is true you needed redemption--which I never +believed----" + +"Oh," she sighed swiftly, "Sanang surprised my soul when it was free of +my body--followed my soul into the Wood of the White Moth--caught it +there all alone--and--slew it!" + +His lips and throat had gone dry as he watched the pallid terror grow in +her face. + +Presently he recovered his voice: "You call that Yezidee the Slayer of +Souls," he said, "but I tell you there is no such creature, no such +power! + +"I suppose I--I know what you mean--having seen what we call souls +dissociated from their physical bodies--but that this Yezidee could do +you any spiritual damage I do not for one instant believe. The idea is +monstrous, I tell you----" + +"I--I fought him--soul battling against soul----" she stammered, +breathing faster and irregularly. "I struggled with Sanang there in the +Wood of the White Moth. I called on God! I called on my two great dogs, +Bars and Alaga! I recited the Fatha with all my strength--fighting +convulsively whenever his soul seized mine; I cried out the name of +Khidr, begging for wisdom! I called on the Ten Imaums, on Ali the Lion, +on the Blessed Companions. Then I tore my spirit out of the grasp of his +soul--but there was no escape!--no escape," she wailed. "For on every +side I saw the cloud-topped rampart of Gog and Magog, and the woods rang +with Erlik's laughter--the dissonant mirth of hell----" + +She began to shudder and sway a little, then with an effort she +controlled herself in a measure. + +"There never has been," she began again with lips that quivered in spite +of her--"there never has been one moment in our married lives when my +soul dared forget the Wood of the White Moth--dared seek yours.... God +lives. But so does Erlik. There are angels; but there are as many +demons.... My soul is ashamed.... And very lonely ... very lonely ... +but no fit companion--for yours----" + +Her hands dropped listlessly beside her and her chin sank. + +"So you believe that Yezidee devil caught your soul when it was +wandering somewhere out of your body, and destroyed it," he said. + +She did not answer, did not even lift her eyes until he had stepped +close to her--closer than he had ever come. Then she looked up at him, +but closed her eyes as he swept her into his arms and crushed her face +and body against his own. + +Now her red lips were on his; now her face and heart and limbs and +breast melted into his--her breath, her pulse, her strength flowed into +his and became part of their single being and single pulse and breath. +And she felt their two souls flame and fuse together, and burn together +in one heavenly blaze--felt the swift conflagration mount, overwhelm, +and sweep her clean of the last lingering taint; felt her soul, +unafraid, clasp her husband's spirit in its white embrace--clung to him, +uplifted out of hell, rising into the blinding light of Paradise. + +Far--far away she heard her own voice in singing whispers--heard her +lips pronounce _The Name_--"Ata--Ata! Allahou----" + +Her blue eyes unclosed; through a mist, in which she saw her husband's +face, grew a vast metallic clamour in her ears. + +Her husband kissed her, long, silently; then, retaining her hand, he +turned and lifted the receiver from the clamouring telephone. + +"Yes! Yes, this is 53-6-26. Yes, V-69 is with me.... When?... To-day?... +Very well.... Yes, we'll come at once.... Yes, we can get a train in a +few minutes.... All right. Good-bye." + +He took his wife into his arms again. + +"Dearest of all in the world," he said, "Sanang is cornered in a row of +houses near the East River, and Recklow has flung a cordon around the +entire block. Good God! I _can't_ take you there!" + +Then Tressa smiled, drew his head down, looked into his face till the +clear blue splendour of her gaze stilled the tumult in his brain. + +"I alone know how to deal with Prince Sanang," she said quietly. "And if +John Recklow, or you, or Mr. Benton or Mr. Selden should kill him with +your pistols, it would be only his body you slay, not the evil thing +that would escape you and return to Erlik." + +"_Must_ you do this thing, Tressa?" + +"Yes, I must do it." + +"But--if our pistols cannot kill this sorcerer, how are you going to +deal with him?" + +"I know how." + +"Have you the strength?" + +"Yes--the bodily and the spiritual. Don't you know that I am already +part of you?" + +"We shall be nearer still," he murmured. + +She flushed but met his gaze. + +"Yes.... We shall be but one being.... Utterly.... For already our +hearts and souls are one. And we shall become of one mind and one body. + +"I am no longer afraid of Sanang Noiane!" + +"No longer afraid to slay him?" he asked quietly. + +A blue light flashed in her eyes and her face grew still and white and +terrible. + +"Death to the body? That is nothing, my lord!" she said, in a hard, +sweet voice. "It is written that we belong to God and that we return to +Him. All living things must die, Heart of the World! It is only the +death of souls that matters. And it has arrived at a time in the history +of mankind, I think, when the Slayer of Souls shall slay no more." + +She looked at him, flushed, withdrew her hand and went slowly across the +room to the big bay window where potted flowers were in bloom. + +From a window-box she took a pinch of dry soil and dropped it into the +bosom of her gown. + +Then, facing the East, with lowered arms and palms turned outward: + +"There is no god but God," she whispered--"the merciful, the +long-suffering, the compassionate, the just. + +"For it is written that when the heavens are rolled together like a +scroll, every soul shall know what it hath wrought. + +"And those souls that are dead in Jehannum shall arise from the dead, +and shall have their day in court. Nor shall Erlik stay them till all +has been said. + +"And on that day the soul of a girl that hath been put to death shall +ask for what reason it was slain. + +"Thus it has been written." + +Then Tressa dropped to her knees, touched the carpet with her forehead, +straightened her lithe body and, looking over her shoulder, clapped her +hands together sharply. + +Her maid opened the door. "Hasten with my lord's luggage!" she cried +happily; and, still kneeling, lifted her head to her husband and laughed +up into his eyes. + +"You should call the porter for we are nearly ready. Shall we go to the +station in a sleigh? Oh, wonderful!" + +She leaped to her feet, extended her hand and caught his. + +"Horses for the lord of the Yiort!" she cried, laughingly. "Kosh! Take +me out into this new white world that has been born to-day of the ten +purities and the ten thousand felicities! It has been made anew for you +and me who also have been born this day!" + +He scarcely knew this sparkling, laughing girl with her quick grace and +her thousand swift little moods and gaieties. + +Porters came to take his luggage from his own room; and then her trunk +and bags were ready, and were taken away. + +The baggage sleigh drove off. Their own jingling sleigh followed; and +Tressa, buried in furs, looked out upon a dazzling, unblemished world, +lying silvery white under a sky as azure as her eyes. + +"Keuke Mongol--Heavenly Azure," he whispered close to her crimsoned +cheek, "do you know how I have loved you--always--always?" + +"No, I did not know that," she said. + +"Nor I, in the beginning. Yet it happened, also, from the beginning when +I first saw you." + +"That is a delicious thing to be told. Within me a most heavenly glow is +spreading.... Unglove your hand." + +She slipped the glove from her own white fingers and felt for his under +the furs. + +"Aie," she sighed, "you are more beautiful than Ali; more wonderful than +the Flaming Pearl. Out of ice and fire a new world has been made for +us." + +"Heavenly Azure--my darling!" + +"Oh-h," she sighed, "your words are sweeter than the breeze in Yian! I +shall be a bride to you such as there never has been since the days of +the Blessed Companions--may their names be perfumed and +sweet-scented!... Shall I truly be one with you, my lord?" + +"Mind, soul, and body, one being, you and I, little Heavenly Azure." + +"Between your two hands you hold me like a burning rose, my lord." + +"Your sweetness and fire penetrate my soul." + +"We shall burn together then till the sky-carpet be rolled up. Kosh! We +shall be one, and on that day I shall not be afraid." + +The sleigh came to a clashing, jingling halt; the train plowed into the +depot buried in vast clouds of snowy steam. + +But when they had taken the places reserved for them, and the train was +moving swifter and more swiftly toward New York, fear suddenly +overwhelmed Victor Cleves, and his face grew grey with the menacing +tumult of his thoughts. + +The girl seemed to comprehend him, too, and her own features became +still and serious as she leaned forward in her chair. + +"It is in God's hands, Heart of the World," she said in a low voice. "We +are one, thou and I,--or nearly so. Nothing can harm my soul." + +"No.... But the danger--to your life----" + +"I fear no Yezidee." + +"The beast will surely try to kill you. And what can I do? You say my +pistol is useless." + +"Yes.... But I want you near me." + +"Do you imagine I'd leave you for a second? Good God," he added in a +strangled voice, "isn't there any way I can kill this wild beast? With +my naked hands----?" + +"You must leave him to me, Victor." + +"And you believe you can slay him? _Do_ you?" + +She remained silent for a long while, bent forward in her armchair, and +her hands clasped tightly on her knees. + +"My husband," she said at last, "what your astronomers have but just +begun to suspect is true, and has long, long been known to the +Sheiks-el-Djebel. + +"For, near to this world we live in, are other worlds--planets that do +not reflect light. And there is a dark world called Yrimid, close to the +earth--a planet wrapped in darkness--a black star.... And upon it Erlik +dwells.... And it is peopled by demons.... And from it comes sickness +and evil----" + +She moistened her lips; sat for a while gazing vaguely straight before +her. + +"From this black planet comes all evil upon earth," she resumed in a +hushed voice. "For it is very near to the earth. It is not a hundred +miles away. All strange phenomena for which our scientists can not +account are due to this invisible planet,--all new and sudden +pestilences; all convulsions of nature; the newly noticed radio +disturbances; the new, so-called inter-planetary signals--all--all have +their hidden causes within that black and demon-haunted planet long +known to the Yezidees, and by them called Yrimid, or Erlik's World. +And--it is to this black planet that I shall send Sanang, Slayer of +Souls. I shall tear him from this earth, though he cling to it with +every claw; and I shall fling his soul into darkness--out across the +gulf--drive his soul forth--hurl it toward Erlik like a swift rocket +charred and falling from the sky into endless night. + +"So shall I strive to deal with Prince Sanang, Sorcerer of Mount +Alamout, the last of the Assassins, Sheik-el-Djebel, and Slayer of +Souls.... May God remember him in hell." + + * * * * * + +Already their train was rolling into the great terminal. + +Recklow was awaiting them. He took Tressa's hands in his and gazed +earnestly into her face. + +"Have you come to show us how to conclude this murderous business?" he +asked grimly. + +"I shall try," she said calmly. "Where have you cornered Sanang?" + +"Could you and Victor come at once?" + +"Yes." She turned and looked at her husband, who had become quite pale. + +Recklow saw the look they exchanged. There could be no misunderstanding +what had happened to these two. Their tragedy had ended. They were +united at last. He understood it instantly,--realised how terrible was +this new and tragic situation for them both. + +Yet, he knew also that the salvation of civilisation itself now depended +upon this girl. She must face Sanang. There was nothing else possible. + +"The streets are choked with snow," he said, "but I have a coupe and two +strong horses waiting." + +He nodded to one of his men standing near. Cleves gave him the hand +luggage and checks. + +"All right," he said in a low voice to Recklow; and passed one arm +through Tressa's. + + * * * * * + +The coupe was waiting on Forty-second Street, guarded by a policeman. +When they had entered and were seated, two mounted policemen rode ahead +of the lurching vehicle, picking a way amid the monstrous snow-drifts, +and headed for the East River. + +"We've got him somewhere in a wretched row of empty houses not far from +East River Park. I'm taking you there. I've drawn a cordon of my men +around the entire block. He can't get away. But I dared take no chances +with this Yezidee sorcerer--dared not let one of my men go in to look +for him--go anywhere near him,--until I could lay the situation before +you, Mrs. Cleves." + +"Yes," she said calmly, "it was the only way, Mr. Recklow. There would +have been no use shooting him--no use taking him prisoner. A prisoner, +he remains as deadly as ever; dead, his mind still lives and breeds +evil. You are quite right; it is for me to deal with Sanang." + +Recklow shuddered in spite of himself. "Can you tear his claws from the +vitals of the world, and free the sick brains of a million people from +the slavery of this monster's mind?" + +The girl said seriously: + +"Even Satan was stoned. It is so written. And was cast out. And dwells +forever and ever in Abaddon. No star lights that Pit. None lights the +Black Planet, Yrimid. It is where evil dwells. And there Sanang Noiane +belongs." + +And now, beyond the dirty edges of the snow-smothered city, under an icy +mist they caught sight of the river where ships lay blockaded by frozen +floes. + +Gulls circled over it; ghostly factory chimneys on the further shore +loomed up gigantic, ranged like minarettes. + +The coupe, jolting along behind the mounted policemen, struggled up +toward the sidewalk and stopped. The two horses stood steaming, knee +deep in snow. Recklow sprang out; Tressa gave him one hand and stepped +lithely to the sidewalk. Then Cleves got out and came and took hold of +his wife's arm again. + +"Well," he said harshly to Recklow, "where is this damned Yezidee +hidden?" + +Recklow pointed in silence, but he and Tressa had already lifted their +gaze to the stark, shabby row of abandoned three-story houses where +every dirty blind was closed. + +"They're to be demolished and model tenements built," he said briefly. + +A man muffled in a fur overcoat came up and took Tressa's hand and +kissed it. + +She smiled palely at Benton, spoke of Yulun, wished him happiness. While +she was yet speaking Selden approached and bent over her gloved hand. +She spoke to him very sweetly of Sansa, expressing pleasure at the +prospect of seeing her again in the body. + +"The Seldens and ourselves have adjoining apartments at the Ritz," said +Benton. "We have reserved a third suite for you and Victor." + +She inclined her lovely head, gravely, then turned to Recklow, saying +that she was ready. + +"It makes no difference which front door I unlock," he said. "All these +tenements are connected by human rat-holes and hidden runways leading +from one house to another.... How many men do you want?" + +"I want you four men,--nobody else." + +Recklow led the way up a snow-covered stoop, drew a key from his pocket, +fitted it, and pulled open the door. + +A musty chill struck their faces as they entered the darkened and empty +hallway. Involuntarily every man drew his pistol. + +"I must ask you to do exactly what I tell you to do," she said calmly. + +"Certainly," said Recklow, caressing his white moustache and striving to +pierce the gloom with his keen eyes. + +Then Tressa took her husband's hand. "Come," she said. They mounted the +stairway together; and the three others followed with pistols lifted. + +There was a vague grey light on the second floor; the broken rear +shutters let it in. + +As though she seemed to know her way, the girl led them forward, opened +a door in the wall, and disclosed a bare, dusty room in the next house. + +Through this she stepped; the others crept after her with weapons ready. +She opened a second door, turned to the four men. + +"Wait here for me. Come only when I call," she whispered. + +"For God's sake take me with you," burst out Cleves. + +"In God's name stay where you are till you hear me call your name!" she +said almost breathlessly. + +Then, suddenly she turned, swiftly retracing her steps; and they saw her +pass through the first door and disappear into the first house they had +entered. + +A terrible silence fell among them. The sound of her steps on the bare +boards had died away. There was not a sound in the chilly dusk. + +Minute after minute dragged by. One by one the men peered fearfully at +Cleves. His visage was ghastly and they could see his pistol-hand +trembling. + +Twice Recklow looked at his wrist watch. The third time he said, +unsteadily: "She has been gone three-quarters of an hour." + +Then, far away, they heard a heavy tread on the stairs. Nearer and +nearer came the footsteps. Every pistol was levelled at the first door +as a man's bulky form darkened it. + +"It's one of my men," said Recklow in a voice like a low groan. "Where +on earth is Mrs. Cleves?" + +"I came to tell you," said the agent, "Mrs. Cleves came out of the first +house nearly an hour ago. She got into the coupe and told the driver to +go to the Ritz." + +"What!" gasped Recklow. + +"She's gone to the Ritz," repeated the agent. "No one else has come out. +And I began to worry--hearing nothing of you, Mr. Recklow. So I stepped +in to see----" + +"You say that Mrs. Cleves went out of the house we entered, got into the +coupe, and told the driver to go to the Ritz?" demanded Cleves, +astounded. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Where is that coupe? Did it return?" + +"It had not returned when I came in here." + +"Go back and look for it. Look in the other street," said Recklow +sharply. + +The agent hurried away over the creaking boards. The four men gazed at +one another. + +"The thing to do is to obey her and stay where we are," said Recklow +grimly. "Who knows what peril we may cause her if we move from----" + +His words froze on his lips as Tressa's voice rang out from the darkness +beyond the door they were guarding: + +"Victor I I--I need you! Come to me, my husband!" + +As Cleves sprang through the door into the darkness beyond, Benton +smashed a window sash with all the force of his shoulder, and, reaching +out through the shattered glass, tore the rotting blinds from their +hinges, letting in a flood of sickly light. + +Against the bare wall stood Tressa, both arms extended, her hands flat +against the plaster, and each hand transfixed and pinned to the wall by +a knife. + +A white sheet lay at her feet. On it rested a third knife. And, bending +on one knee to pick it up, they caught a glimpse of a slender young man +in fashionable afternoon attire, who, as they entered with the crash of +the shattered window in their ears, sprang to his nimble feet and stood +confronting them, knife in hand. + +Instantly every man fired at him and the bullets whipped the plaster to +a smoke behind him, but the slender, dark skinned young man stood +motionless, looking at them out of brilliant eyes that slanted a trifle. + +Again the racket of the fusillade swept him and filled the room with +plaster dust. + +Cleves, frantic with horror, laid hold of the knives that pinned his +wife's hands to the wall, and dragged them out. + +But there was no blood, no wound to be seen on her soft palms. She took +the murderous looking blades from him, threw one terrible look at +Sanang, kicked the shroud across the floor toward him, and flung both +knives upon it. + +The place was still dim with plaster dust and pistol fumes as she +stepped forward through the acrid mist, motioning the four men aside. + +"Sanang!" she cried in a clear voice, "may God remember you in hell, for +my feet have spurned your shroud, and your knives, which could not scar +my palms, shall never pierce my heart! Look out for yourself, Prince +Sanang!" + +"Tokhta!" he said, calmly. "My soul be ransom for yours!" + +"That is a lie! My soul is already ransomed! My mind is the more +powerful. It has already halted yours. It is conquering yours. It is +seizing your mind and enslaving it. It is mastering your will, Sanang! +Your mind bends before mine. You know it! You know it is bending. You +feel it is breaking down!" + +Sanang's eyes began to glitter but his pale brown face had grown almost +white. + +"I slew you once--in the Wood of the White Moth," he said huskily. +"There is no resurrection from such a death, little Heavenly Azure. Look +upon me! My soul and yours are one!" + +"You are looking upon my soul," she said. + +"A lie! You are in your body!" + +The girl laughed. "My body lies asleep in the Ritz upon my husband's +bed," she said. "My body is his, my mind belongs to him, my soul is +already one with his. Do you not know it, dog of a Yezidee? Look upon +me, Sanang Noiane! Look upon my unwounded hands! My shroud lies at your +feet. And there lie the knives that could not pierce my heart! I am +thrice clean! Listen to my words, Sanang! There is no other god but +God!" + +The young man's visage grew pasty and loose and horrible; his lips +became flaccid like dewlaps; but out of these sagging folds of livid +skin his voice burst whistling, screaming, as though wrenched from his +very belly: + +"May Erlik strangle you! May you rot where you stand! May your face +become a writhing mass of maggots and your body a corruption of living +worms! + +"For what you are doing to me this day may every demon in hell torment +you! + +"Have a care what you are about!" he screeched. "You are slaying my +mind, you sorceress! You have seized my mind and are crushing it! You +are putting out its light, you Yezidee witch!--you are quenching the +last spark--of reason--in--me----" + +"Sanang!" + +His knife fell clattering to the floor. But he stood stock still, his +hands clutching his head--stood motionless, while scream on scream tore +through the loose and gaping lips, blowing them into ghastly, distorted +folds. + +"Sanang Noiane!" she cried in her clear voice, "the Eight Towers are +darkened! The Rampart of Gog and Magog is fallen! On Mount Alamout +nothing is living. The minds of mankind are free again!" + +She stepped forward, slowly, and stood near him chanting in a low voice +the Prayers for the Dead She bent down and unrolled the shroud, laid it +on his shoulders and drew it up and across his face, covering his dying +eyes, and swathed him so, slowly, from head to foot. + +Then she gathered up the three knives, cast them upward into the air. +They did not fall again. They disappeared. And all the while, under her +breath, the girl was chanting the Prayers for the Dead as she moved +silently about her business. + +Shrouded to the forehead in its white cerements, the muffled figure of +Sanang stood upright, motionless as a swathed and frozen corpse. + +Outside, the daylight had become greyer. It had begun to snow again, and +a few flakes blew in through the shattered windows and clung to the +winding sheet of Sanang. + +And now Tressa drew close to the shrouded shape and stood before it, +gazing intently upon the outlined features of the last of the Yezidees. + +"Sanang," she said very softly, "I hear your soul bidding your body +farewell. Tokhta!" + +Then, under the strained gaze of the four men gathered there, the shroud +fell to the floor in a loose heap of white folds. There was nobody under +it; no trace of Sanang. The human shape of the Yezidee had disappeared; +but a greyish mist had filled the room, wavering up like smoke from the +shroud, and, like smoke, blowing in a long streamer toward the window +where the draught drew it out through the falling snow and scattered the +last shred of it against the greying sky. + +In the room the mist thinned swiftly; the four men could now see one +another. But Tressa was no longer in the room. And in place of the white +shroud a piece of filthy tattered carpet lay on the floor. And a dead +rat, flattened out, dry and dusty, lay upon it. + +"For God's sake," whispered Recklow hoarsely, "let us get out of this!" + +Cleves, his pistol clutched convulsively, stared at him in terror. But +Recklow took him by the arm and drew him away, muttering that Tressa was +waiting for him, and might be ill, and that there was nothing further to +expect in this ghastly spot. + + * * * * * + +They went with Cleves to the Ritz. At the desk the clerk said that Mrs. +Cleves had the keys and was in her apartment. + +The three men entered the corridor with him; watched him try the door; +saw him open it; lingered a moment after it had closed; heard the key +turn. + +At the sound of the door closing the maid came. + +"Madame is asleep in her room," she whispered. + +"When did she come in?" + +"More than two hours ago, sir. I have drawn her bath, but when I opened +the door a few moments ago, Madame was still asleep." + +He nodded; he was trembling when he put off his overcoat and dropped hat +and gloves on the carpet. + +From the little rose and ivory reception room he could see the closed +door of his wife's chamber. And for a while he stood staring at it. + +Then, slowly, he crossed this room, opened the door; entered. + +In her bedroom the tinted twilight was like ashes of roses. He went to +the bed and looked down at her shadowy face; gazed intently; listened; +then, in sudden terror, bent and laid his hand on her heart. It was +beating as tranquilly as a child's; but as she stirred, turned her head, +and unclosed her eyes, under his hand her heart leaped like a wild thing +caught unawares and the snowy skin glowed with an exquisite and +deepening tint as she lifted her arms and clasped them around her +husband's, neck, drawing his quivering face against her own. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Slayer Of souls, by Robert Chambers + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SLAYER OF SOULS *** + +***** This file should be named 36281.txt or 36281.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/2/8/36281/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Michael, Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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. 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