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diff --git a/41619-0.txt b/41619-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9302e53 --- /dev/null +++ b/41619-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5747 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41619 *** + +Transcriber's note: + + Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + + + + + +THE HAUNTING OF LOW FENNEL + + * * * * * + +_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME._ + + + ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE. + BY C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE. + + THE LOVERS OF YVONNE. + BY RAFAEL SABATINI. + + THE MARRIAGE OF MARGARET. + BY E. M. ALBANESI. + + THE SECRET WAY. + BY J. S. FLETCHER. + + CAPTAIN KETTLE, K.C.B. + BY C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE. + + * * * * * + + +THE HAUNTING OF LOW FENNEL + +by + +SAX ROHMER + +Author of "Brood of the Witch Queen," +"The Quest of the Sacred Slipper," etc., etc. + + + + + + + +London: +C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd. +Henrietta Street, W.C. 2 + +First Published 1920 +Reprinted 1924 + +Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + THE HAUNTING OF LOW FENNEL 11 + + THE VALLEY OF THE JUST 61 + + THE BLUE MONKEY 97 + + THE RIDDLE OF RAGSTAFF 119 + + THE MASTER OF HOLLOW GRANGE 157 + + THE CURSE OF A THOUSAND KISSES 189 + + THE TURQUOISE NECKLACE 213 + + + + +The Haunting of Low Fennel + + +I + +"There's Low Fennel," said Major Dale. + +We pulled up short on the brow of the hill. Before me lay a little +valley carpeted with heather, purple slopes hemming it in. A group of +four tall firs guarded the house, which was couched in the hollow of the +dip--a low, rambling building, in parts showing evidence of great age +and in other parts of the modern improver. + +"That's the new wing," continued the Major, raising his stick; +"projecting out this way. It's the only addition I've made to the house, +which, as it stood, had insufficient accommodation for the servants." + +"It is a quaint old place." + +"It is, and I'm loath to part with it, especially as it means a big +loss." + +"Ah! Have you formed any theories since wiring me?" + +"None whatever. I've always been a sceptic, Addison, but if Low Fennel +is not haunted, I'm a Dutchman, by the Lord Harry!" + +I laughed reassuringly, and the two of us descended the slope to the +white gate giving access to a trim gravel path flanked by standard +roses. Mrs. Dale greeted us at the door. She was, as I had heard, much +younger than the Major, and a distinctly pretty woman. In so far Dame +Rumour was confirmed; other things I had heard of her, but I was not yet +in a position to pass judgment. + +She greeted me cordially enough, although women are usually natural +actresses. I thought that she did not suspect the real object of my +visit. Tea was served in a delightful little drawing-room which bore +evidence of having but recently left the hands of London decorators, but +when presently I found myself alone with my host in the Major's peculiar +sanctum, the real business afoot monopolised our conversation. + +The room which Major Dale had appropriated as a study was on the ground +floor of the new wing--the wing which he himself had had built on to Low +Fennel. In regard to its outlook it was a charming apartment enough, +with roses growing right up to the open window, so that their perfume +filled the place, and beyond, a prospect of purple heather slopes and +fir-clad hills. + +Sporting prints decorated the walls, and the library was entirely, or +almost entirely, made up of works on riding, hunting, shooting, racing, +and golf, with a sprinkling of Whyte-Melville and Nat Gould novels and a +Murray handbook or two. It was a most cosy room, probably because it was +so untidy, or, as Mrs. Dale phrased it, "so manny." + +On a side table was ranked enough liquid refreshment to have inebriated +a regiment, and, in one corner, cigar-boxes and tobacco-tins were +stacked from the floor some two feet up against the wall. We were soon +comfortably ensconced, then, the Major on a hard leather couch, and I in +a deep saddle-bag chair. + +"It's an awkward sort of thing to explain," began Dale, puffing away at +a cigar and staring through the open window; "because, if you're to do +anything, you will want full particulars." + +I nodded. + +"Well," the Major continued, "you've heard how that blackguard Ellis let +me down over those shares? The result?--I had to sell the Hall--Fennel +Hall, where a Dale has been since the time of Elizabeth! But still, +never mind! that's not the story. This place, Low Fennel, is really +part of the estate, and I have leased it from Meyers, who has bought the +Hall. It was formerly the home farm, but since my father's time it has +not been used for that purpose. The New Farm is over the brow of the +hill there, on the other side of the high road; my father built it." + +"Why?" + +"Well,"--Dale shifted uneasily and a look of perplexity crossed his +jolly, red face--"there were stories--uncomfortable stories. To cut a +long story short, Seager--a man named Seager, who occupied it at the +time I was at Sandhurst--was found dead here, or something; I never was +clear as to the particulars, but there was an inquiry and a lot of fuss, +and, in short, no one would occupy the property. Therefore the governor +built the New Farm." + +"Low Fennel has been empty for many years then?" + +"No, sir; only for one. Ord, the head gardener at the Hall, lived here +up till last September. The old story about Seager was dying out, you +see; but Ord must have got to hear about it--or I've always supposed +so. At any rate, in September--a dam' hot September, too, almost if not +quite as hot as this--Ord declined to live here any longer." + +"On what grounds?" + +"He told me a cock-and-bull story about his wife having seen a +horrible-looking man with a contorted face peering in at her bedroom +window! I questioned the woman, of course, and she swore to it." + +He mopped his heated brow excitedly, and burnt several matches before he +succeeded in relighting his cigar. + +"She tried to make me believe that she woke up and saw this apparition, +but I bullied the truth out of her, and, as I expected, the man Ord had +come home the worse for drink. I made up my mind that the contorted face +was the face of her drunken husband--whom she had declined to admit, and +who therefore had climbed the ivy to get in at the open window." + +"She denied this?" + +"Of course she denied it; they both did; but, from evidence obtained at +the _Three Keys_ in the village, I proved that Ord had returned home +drunk that night. Still"--he shrugged his shoulders ponderously--"the +people declined to remain in the place, so what could I do? Ord was a +good gardener, and his drunken habits in no way interfered with his +efficiency. He gained nothing out of the matter except that, instead +of keeping Low Fennel, a fine house, I sent him to live in one of the +Valley Cottages. He lives there now, for he's still head gardener at +the Hall." + +I made an entry in my notebook. + +"I must see Ord," I said. + +"I should," agreed the Major in his loud voice; "you'll get nothing out +of him. He's the most pig-headed liar in the county! But to continue. +The place proved unlettable. All the old stories were revived, and I'm +told that people cheerfully went two miles out of their way in order to +avoid passing Low Fennel at night! When I sold the Hall and decided to +lease the place from the new proprietor, believe me it was almost hidden +in a wilderness of weeds and bushes which had grown up around it. By the +Lord Harry, I don't think a living soul had approached within a hundred +yards of the house since the day that the Ords quitted it! But it suited +my purpose, being inexpensive to keep up; and by adding this new wing I +was enabled to accommodate such servants as we required. The horses and +the car had to go, of course, and with them a lot of my old people, but +we brought the housekeeper and three servants, and when a London firm +had rebuilt, renovated, decorated, and so forth, it began to look +habitable." + +"It's a charming place," I said with sincerity. + +"Is it!" snapped the Major, tossing his half-smoked cigar on to a side +table and selecting a fresh one from a large box at his elbow. "Help +yourself, the bottle's near you. Is it!... Hullo! what have we here?" + +He broke off, cigar in hand, as the sound of footsteps upon the gravel +path immediately outside the window became audible. Through the cluster +of roses peered a handsome face, that of a dark man, whose soft-grey hat +and loose tie lent him a sort of artistic appearance. + +"Oh, it's you, Wales!" cried the Major, but without cordiality. "See you +in half an hour or so; little bit of business in hand at the moment, +Marjorie's somewhere about." + +"All right!" called the new arrival, and, waving his hand, passed on. + +"It's young Aubrey Wales," explained Dale, almost savagely biting +the end from his cigar, "son of Sir Frederick Wales, and one of my +neighbours. He often drops in." + +Mentally considering the Major's attitude, certain rumours which had +reached me, and the youth and beauty of Mrs. Dale, I concluded that the +visits of Aubrey Wales were not too welcome to my old friend. But he +resumed in a louder voice than ever:-- + +"It was last night that the fun began. I can make neither head nor tail +of it. If the blessed place is haunted, why have we seen nothing of the +ghost during the two months or so we have lived at Low Fennel? The fact +remains that nothing unusual happened until last night. It came about +owing to the infernal heat. + +"Mrs. Alson, the housekeeper, came down about two o'clock, intending, so +I understand, to get a glass of cider from the barrel in the cellar. She +could not sleep owing to the heat, and felt extremely thirsty. There's a +queer sort of bend in the stair--I'll show you in a minute; and as she +came down and reached this bend she met a man, or a thing, who was going +up! The moonlight was streaming in through the window right upon that +corner of the stair, and the apparition stood fully revealed. + +"I gather that it was that of an almost naked man. Mrs. Alson naturally +is rather reticent on the point, but I gather that the apparition was +inadequately clothed. Regarding the face of the thing she supplies more +details. Addison"--the Major leant forward across the table--"it was +the face of a demon, a contorted devilish face, the eyes crossed, and +glaring like the eyes of a mad dog! + +"Of course the poor woman fainted dead away on the spot. She might have +died there if it hadn't been for the amazing heat of the night. This +certainly was the cause of her trouble, but it also saved her. About +three o'clock I woke up in a perfect bath of perspiration. I never +remember such a night, not even in India, and, as Mrs. Alson had done +an hour earlier, I also started to find a drink. Addison! I nearly fell +over her as she lay swooning on the stair!" + +He helped himself to a liberal tot of whisky, then squirted soda into +the glass. + +"For once in a way I did the right thing, Addison. Not wishing to +alarm Marjorie, I knocked up one of the maids, and when Mrs. Alson had +somewhat recovered, gave her into the girl's charge. I sat downstairs +here in this room until she could see me, and then got the particulars +which I've given you. I wired you as soon as the office was open; for I +said to myself, 'Dale, the devilry has begun again. If Marjorie gets to +hear of it there'll be hell to pay. She won't live in the place.'" + +He stood up abruptly, as a ripple of laughter reached us from the +garden. + +"Suppose we explore the scene of the trouble?" he suggested, moving +toward the door. + +I thought in the circumstance our inspection might be a hurried one; +therefore: + +"Should you mind very much if I sought it out for myself?" I said. "It +is my custom in cases of the kind to be alone if possible." + +"My dear fellow, certainly!" + +"My ramble concluded, I will rejoin Mrs. Dale and yourself--say on the +lawn?" + +"Good, good!" cried the Major, throwing open the door. "An opening has +been made on the floor above corresponding with this, and communicating +with the old stair. Go where you like; find out what you can; but +remember--not a word to Marjorie." + + +II + +Filled with the liveliest curiosity, I set out to explore Low +Fennel. First I directed my attention to the exterior, commencing my +investigations from the front. That part of the building on either side +of the door was evidently of Tudor date, with a Jacobean wing to the +west containing apartments overlooking the lawn--the latter a Georgian +addition; whilst the new east wing, built by Major Dale, carried the +building out almost level with the clump of fir-trees, and into the very +heart of the ferns and bushes which here grew densely. + +There was no way around on this side, and not desiring to cross the lawn +at present, I passed in through the house to the garden at the back. +This led me through the northern part of the building and the servants' +quarters, which appeared to be of even greater age than the front of the +house. The fine old kitchen in particular was suggestive of the days +when roasting was done upon a grand scale. + +Beyond the flower garden lay the kitchen garden, and beyond that the +orchard. The latter showed evidences of neglect, bearing out the Major's +story that the place had been unoccupied for twelve months; but it +was evident, nevertheless, that the soil had been cultivated for many +generations. Thus far I had discovered nothing calculated to assist +me in my peculiar investigation, and entering the house I began a +room-to-room quest, which, beyond confirming most of my earlier +impressions, afforded little data. + +The tortuous stairway, which had been the scene of the event described +by my host, occupied me for some time, and I carefully examined the +time-blackened panels, and tested each separate stair, for in houses +like Low Fennel secret passages and "priest-holes" were to be looked +for. However, I discovered nothing, but descending again to the hall I +made a small discovery. + +There were rooms in Low Fennel which one entered by descending or +ascending two or three steps, but this was entirely characteristic of +the architectural methods of the period represented. I was surprised, +however, to find that one mounted three steps in order to obtain +access to the passage leading to the new wing. I had overlooked this +peculiarity hitherto, but now it struck me as worthy of attention. Why +should a modern architect introduce such a device? It could only mean +that the ground was higher on the east side of the building, and that, +for some reason, it had proved more convenient to adopt the existing +foundations than to level the site. + +I returned to the hall-way and stood there deep in thought, when the +contact of a rough tongue with my hand drew my attention to a young +Airedale terrier who was anxious to make my acquaintance. I patted his +head encouragingly, and, having reviewed the notes made during my tour +of inspection, determined to repeat the tour in order to check them. + +The Airedale accompanied me, behaving himself with admirable propriety +as we passed around the house and then out through the kitchens into +the garden. It was not until my journey led me back to the three steps, +communicating with the new wing, that my companion seemed disposed to +desert me. + +At first I ascribed his attitude to mere canine caprice. But when +he persistently refused to be encouraged, I began to ascribe it to +something else. + +Suddenly grasping him by the collar, I dragged him up the steps, along +the corridor, and into the Major's study. The result was extraordinary. +I think I have never seen a dog in quite the same condition; he +whimpered and whined most piteously. At the door he struggled furiously, +and even tried to snap at my hand. Then, as I still kept a firm grip +upon him, he set out upon a series of howls which must have been audible +for miles around. Finally I released him, having first closed the study +door, and lowered the window. What followed was really amazing. + +The Airedale hurled himself upon the closed door, scratching at it +furiously, with intermittent howling; then, crouching down, he turned +his eyes upon me with a look in them, not savage, but truly piteous. +Seeing that I did not move, the dog began to whimper again; when, +suddenly making up his mind, as it seemed, he bounded across the room +and went crashing through the glass of the closed window into the rose +bushes, leaving me standing looking after him in blank wonderment. + + +III + +Aubrey Wales stayed to dinner, and since he had no opportunity of +dressing, his presence afforded a welcome excuse for the other members +of the party. The night was appallingly hot; the temperature being such +as to preclude the slightest exertion. The Major was an excellent host, +but I could see that the presence of the younger man irritated him, and +at times the conversation grew strained; there was an uncomfortable +tension. So that altogether I was not sorry when Mrs. Dale left the +table and the quartet was broken up. On closer acquaintance I perceived +that Wales was even younger than I had supposed, and therefore I was the +more inclined to condone his infatuation for the society of Mrs. Dale, +although I felt less sympathetically disposed toward her for offering +him the encouragement which rather openly she did. + +Ere long, Wales left Major Dale and myself for the more congenial +society of the hostess; so that shortly afterwards, when the Major, +who took at least as much wine as was good for him, began to doze in +his chair, I found myself left to my own devices. I quitted the room +quietly, without disturbing my host, and strolled around on to the lawn +smoking a cigarette, and turning over in my mind the matters responsible +for my presence at Low Fennel. + +With no definite object in view, I had wandered towards the orchard, +when I became aware of a whispered conversation taking place somewhere +near me, punctuated with little peals of laughter. I detected the words +"Aubrey" and "Marjorie" (Mrs. Dale's name), and, impatiently tossing my +cigarette away, I returned to the house, intent upon arousing the Major +and terminating this tête-à-tête. That it was more, on Mrs. Dale's +part, than a harmless flirtation, I did not believe; but young Wales was +not a safe type of man for that sort of amusement. + +The Major, sunk deep in his favourite chair in the study, was snoring +loudly, and as I stood contemplating him in the dusk, I changed my mind, +and retracing my steps, joined the two in the orchard, proclaiming my +arrival by humming a popular melody. + +"Has he fallen asleep?" asked Mrs. Dale, turning laughing eyes upon me. + +I studied the piquant face ere replying. Her tone and her expression had +reassured me, if further assurance were necessary, that my old friend's +heart was in safe keeping; but she was young and gay; it was a case for +diplomatic handling. + +"India leaves its mark on all men," I replied lightly; "but I have no +doubt that the Major is wide-awake enough now." + +My words were an invitation; to which, I was glad to note, she responded +readily enough. + +"Let's come and dig him out of that cavern of his!" she said, and +linking her right arm in that of Wales, and her left with mine, she +turned us about toward the house. + +Dusk was now fallen, and lights shone out from several windows of Low +Fennel. Suddenly, an upper window became illuminated, and Mrs. Dale +pointed to this. + +"That is my room," she said to me; "isn't it delightfully situated? The +view from the window is glorious." + +"I consider Low Fennel charming in every way," I replied. + +Clearly she knew nothing of the place's sinister reputation, which +seemed to indicate that she employed herself little with the domestic +side of the household; otherwise she must undoubtedly have learnt of the +episode of the man with the contorted face, if not from the housekeeper, +from the maid. It was a tribute to the reticence of the servants that +the story had spread no further; but the broken study window and the +sadly damaged Airedale already afforded matter for whispered debate +among them, as I had noted with displeasure. + +The "digging out" of the Major did not prove to be an entire success. He +was in one of his peculiar moods, which I knew of old, and rather surly, +being pointedly rude on more than one occasion to Wales. He had some +accounts to look into, or professed to have, and the three of us +presently left him alone. It was now about ten o'clock, and Aubrey Wales +made his departure, shaking me warmly by the hand and expressing the +hope that we should see more of one another. He could not foresee that +the wish was to be realised in a curious fashion. + +Mrs. Dale informed me that the Major in all probability would remain +immured in his study until a late hour, which I took to be an intimation +that she wished to retire. I therefore pleaded weariness as a result +of my journey, and went up to my room, although I had no intention of +turning-in. I opened the two windows widely, and the heavy perfume +of some kind of tobacco plant growing in the beds below grew almost +oppressive. The heat of the night was truly phenomenal; I might have +been, not in an English home county, but in the Soudan. An absolute +stillness reigned throughout Low Fennel, and, my hearing being +peculiarly acute, I could detect the chirping of the bats which flitted +restlessly past my windows. + +It was difficult to decide how to act. My experience of so-called +supernatural appearances had strengthened my faith in the theory +set forth in the paper "Chemistry of Psychic Phenomena"--which had +attracted unexpected attention a year before. Therein I classified +hauntings under several heads, basing my conclusions upon the fact that +such apparitions are invariably localised; often being confined, not +merely to a particular room, for instance, but to a certain wall, door, +or window. I had been privileged to visit most of the famous haunted +homes of Great Britain, and this paper was the result; but in the case +of Low Fennel I found myself nonplussed, largely owing to lack of data. +I hoped on the morrow to make certain inquiries along lines suggested by +oddities in the structure of the house itself and by the nature of the +little valley in which it stood. + +When meditating I never sit still, and whilst marshalling my ideas I +paced the room from end to end, smoking the whole time. Both windows +and also the door, were widely opened. The amazing heat-wave which we +were then experiencing promised to afford me a valuable clue, for I had +proved to my own satisfaction that the apparitions variously known as +"controls" and "elementals," not infrequently coincided with abrupt +climatic changes, thunder-storms, or heat waves, or with natural +phenomena, such as landslides and the like. + +This pacing led me from end to end of the room, then, between the open +door and the large dressing-table facing it. It was as I returned from +the door towards the dressing-table that I became aware of the presence +of the _contorted face_. + +My peculiar studies had brought me into contact with many horrible +apparitions, and if familiarity had failed to breed contempt, at least +it had served to train my nerves for the reception of such sudden and +ghastly appearances. I should be avoiding the truth, however, if I +claimed to have been unmoved by the vision which now met me in the +mirror. I drew up short, with one sibilant breath, and then stood +transfixed. + +Before me was a reflection of the open door, and of part of the landing +and stairs beyond it. The landing lights were extinguished, and +therefore the place beyond the door lay in comparative darkness. But, +crawling in, serpent-fashion, inch by inch, silently, intently, so that +the head, throat, and hands were actually across the threshold, came a +creature which seemed to be entirely naked! It had the form of a man, +but the face, the dreadful face which was being pushed forward slowly +across the carpet with head held sideways so that one ear all but +touched the floor, was the face, not of a man, but of a ghoul! + +I clenched my teeth hard, staring into the mirror and trying to force +myself to turn and confront, not the reflection, but the reality. +Yet for many seconds I was unable to accomplish this. The baleful, +protruding eyes glared straight into mine from the glass. The chin and +lower lip of this awful face seemed to be drawn up so as almost to +meet the nose, entirely covering the upper lip, and the nostrils were +distended to an incredible degree, whilst the skin had a sort of purple +tinge unlike anything I had seen before. The effect was grotesque in the +true sense of the word; for the thing was clearly grimacing at me, yet +God knows there was nothing humorous in that grimace! + +Nearer it came and nearer. I could hear the heavy body being drawn +across the floor; I could hear the beating of my own heart ... and I +could hear a whispered conversation which seemed to be taking place +somewhere immediately outside my room. + +At the moment that I detected the latter sound, it seemed that the +apparition detected it also. The protruding eyes twisted in the head, +rolling around ridiculously but horribly. Despite the dread which held +me, I identified the whisperers and located their situation. Mrs. Dale +was at her open window and Aubrey Wales was in the garden below. + +The thought crossed my mind and was gone--but gone no quicker than the +contorted face. By a sort of backward, serpentine movement, the thing +which had been crawling into my room suddenly retired and was swallowed +up in the shadows of the landing. + +I turned and sprang toward the open door, the fever of research hot +upon me, and my nerves in hand again. At the door I paused and listened +intently. No sound came to guide me from the darkened stair, and when, +stepping quietly forward and leaning over the rail, I peered down into +the hall below, nothing stirred, no shadow of the many there moved to +tell of the passage of any living thing. I paused irresolute, unable to +doubt that I was in the presence of an authentic apparition. But how to +classify it? + +Slowly I returned to my room, and stood there, thinking hard, and all +the while listening for the slightest sound from within or without the +house. + +The whispered conversation continued, and I stole quietly to one of the +windows and leant out, looking to the left, in the direction of the +new wing. A light burnt in the Major's study, whereby I concluded that +he was still engaged with his accounts, if he had not fallen asleep. +Between my window and the new wing, and on a level with my eyes, was the +window of Mrs. Dale's room; and in the bright moonlight I could see her +leaning out, her elbows on the ledge. Her bare arms gleamed like marble +in the cold light, and she looked statuesquely beautiful. Wales I could +not see, for a thick, square-clipped hedge obstructed my view ... but I +saw something else. + +Lizard fashion, a hideous unclad shape crawled past beneath me amongst +the tangle of ivy and low plants about the foot of the fir trees. The +moonlight touched it for a moment, and then it was gone into denser +shadows.... + +A consciousness of impending disaster came to me, but, because of its +very vagueness, found me unprepared. Then suddenly I saw young Wales. He +sprang into view above the hedge, against which, I presume, he had been +crouching; he leapt high in the air as though from some menace on the +ground beneath him. I have never heard a more horrifying scream than +that which he uttered. + +"My God!" he cried, "Marjorie! Marjorie!" and yet again: "Marjorie! +_save me!_" + +Then he was down, still screaming horribly, and calling on the woman +for aid--as though she could have aided him. The crawling thing made +no sound, but the dreadful screams of Wales sank slowly into a sort +of sobbing, and then into a significant panting which told of his dire +extremity. + +I raced out of the room, and down the dark stair into the hall. +Everywhere I was met by locked doors which baffled me. I had hoped to +reach the garden by way of the kitchens, but now I changed my plan and +turned my attention to the front-door. It was bolted, but I drew the +bolts one after the other, and got the door open. + +Outside, the landscape was bathed in glorious moonlight, and a sort of +grey mist hovered over the valley like smoke. I ran around the angle +of the house on to the lawn, and went plunging through flower-beds +heedlessly to the scene of the incredible conflict. + +I almost fell over Wales as he lay inert upon the gravel path. The +shadows veiled him so that I could not see his face; but when, groping +with my hands, I sought to learn if his heart still pulsed, I failed +to discover any evidence that it did. With my hand thrust against his +breast and my ear lowered anxiously, I listened, but he gave no sign of +life, lying as still as all else around me. + +Now this stillness was broken. Excited voices became audible, and doors +were being unlocked here and there. First of all the household, Mrs. +Dale appeared, enveloped in a lace dressing-gown. + +"Aubrey!" she cried tremulously, "what is it? where are you?" + +"He is here, Mrs. Dale," I answered, standing up, "and in a bad way, I +fear." + +"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to him? Did you hear his awful +cries?" + +"I did," I said shortly. + +Standing with the moonlight fully upon her, Mrs. Dale sought him in the +shadows of the hedge--and I knew that by the manner of his frightened +outcry the man lying unconscious at my feet had forfeited whatever of +her regard he had enjoyed. She was dreadfully alarmed, not so much +on his behalf, as by the mystery of the attack upon him. But now she +composed herself, though not without visible effort. + +"Where is he, Mr. Addison?" she said firmly, "and what has happened to +him?" + +A man, who proved to be a gardener, now appeared upon the scene. + +"Help me to carry him in," I said to this new arrival; "perhaps he has +only fainted." + +We gathered up the recumbent body and carried it through the kitchens +into the breakfast-room, where there was a deep couch. All the servants +were gathered at the foot of the stairs, frightened and useless, but the +outcry did not seem to have aroused Major Dale. + +Mrs. Dale and I bent over Wales. His face was frightfully congested, +whilst his tongue protruded hideously; and it was evident, from the +great discoloured weals which now were coming up upon his throat, that +he had been strangled, or nearly so. I glanced at the white face of my +hostess and then bent over the victim, examining him more carefully. I +stood upright again. + +"Do you know first aid, Mrs. Dale?" I asked abruptly. + +She nodded, her eyes fixed intently upon me. + +"Then help to employ artificial respiration," I said, "and let one +of the girls get ammonia, if you have any, and a bowl of hot water. +We can patch him up, I think, without medical aid--which might be +undesirable." + +Mrs. Dale seemed fully to appreciate the point, and in business-like +fashion set to work to assist me. Wales had just opened his eyes and +begun to clutch at his agonized throat, when I heard a heavy step +descending from the new wing--and Major Dale, in his dressing-gown, +joined us. His red face was more red than usual, and his eyes were round +with wonder. + +"What the devil's the matter?" he cried; "what's everybody up for?" + +"There has been an accident, Major," I said, glancing around at the +servants, who stood in a group by the door of the breakfast-room; "I can +explain more fully later." + +Major Dale stepped forward and looked down at Wales. + +"Good God!" he said hoarsely, "it's young Wales, by the Lord +Harry!--what's he doing here?" + +Mrs. Dale, standing just behind me, laid her hand upon my arm; and, +unseen by the Major, I turned and pressed it reassuringly. + + +IV + +The following day I lunched alone with the Major, Mrs. Dale being absent +on a visit. It had been impossible to keep the truth from her (or what +we knew of it) and at present I could not quite foresee the issue of +last night's affair. Young Wales, who had been driven home in a car sent +from his place at a late hour, had not since put in an appearance; and +it was sufficiently evident that Mrs. Dale would not welcome him should +he do so, the hysterical panic which he had exhibited on the previous +night having disgusted her. She had not said so in as many words, but I +did not doubt it. + +"Well, Addison?" said the Major as I entered, "have you got the facts +you were looking for?" + +"Some of them," I replied, and opening my notebook I turned to the pages +containing notes made that morning. + +The Major watched me with intense curiosity, and almost impatiently +awaited my next words. The servant having left the room: + +"In the first place," I began, glancing at the notes, "I have been +consulting certain local records in the town, and I find that in the +year 1646 a certain Dame Pryce occupied a cabin which, according to one +record, 'stood close beside unto ye Lowe Fennel.'" + +"That is, close beside this house?" interjected the Major excitedly. + +"Exactly," I said. "She attracted the attention of one of the many +infamous wretches who disfigure the history of that period: Matthew +Hopkins, the self-styled Witch-Finder General. This was a witch-ridden +age, and the man Hopkins was one of those who fattened on the credulity +of his fellows, receiving a fee of twenty shillings for every unhappy +woman discovered and convicted of witchcraft. Poor Pryce was 'swum' in a +local pond (a test whereby the villain Hopkins professed to discover if +the woman were one of Satan's band, or otherwise) and burnt alive in +Reigate market-place on September 23, 1646." + +"By God!" said the Major, who had not attempted to commence his lunch, +"that's a horrible story!" + +"It is one of the many to the credit of Matthew Hopkins," I replied; +"but, without boring you with the details of this woman's examination +and so forth, I may say that what interests me most in the case is the +date--September 23." + +"Why? I don't follow you." + +"Well," I said, "there's a hiatus in the history of the place after +that, except that even in those early days it evidently suffered from +the reputation of being haunted; but without troubling about the +interval, consider the case of Seager, which you yourself related to +me. Was it not in the month of August that he was done to death here?" + +"By Gad!" cried the Major, his face growing redder than ever, +"you're right!--and hang it all, Addison! it was in September--last +September--that the Ords cleared out!" + +"I remember your mentioning," I continued, smiling at his excitement, +"that it was a very hot month?" + +"It was." + +"From a mere word dropped by one of the witnesses at the trial of poor +Pryce I have gathered that the month in which she was convicted of +practising witchcraft in her cabin adjoining Low Fennel (as it stood in +those days) was a tropically hot month also." + +Major Dale stared at me uncomprehendingly. + +"I'm out of my depth, Addison--wading hopelessly. What the devil has the +heat to do with the haunting?" + +"To my mind everything. I may be wrong, but I think that if the glass +were to fall to-night, there would be no repetition of the trouble." + +"You mean that it's only in very hot weather--" + +"In phenomenally hot weather, Major--the sort that we only get in +England perhaps once in every ten years. For the glass to reach the +altitude at which it stands at present, in two successive summers, is +quite phenomenal, as you know." + +"It's phenomenal for it to reach that point at all," said the Major, +mopping his perspiring forehead; "it's simply Indian, simply Indian, +sir, by the Lord Harry!" + +"Another inquiry," I continued, turning over a leaf of my book, "I have +been unable to complete, since, in order to interview the people who +built your new wing, I should have to run up to London." + +"What the blazes have they to do with it?" + +"Nothing at all, but I should have liked to learn their reasons for +raising the wing three feet above the level of the hall-way." + +Between the heat and his growing excitement, Major Dale found himself at +a temporary loss for words. Then: + +"They told me," he shouted at the top of his voice, "they told me at the +time that it was something about--that it was due to the plan--that it +was----" + +"I can imagine that they had some ready explanation," I said, "but it +may not have been the true one." + +"Then what the--what the--is the true one?" + +"The true one is that the new wing covers a former mound." + +"Quite right; it does." + +"If my theory is correct, it was upon this mound that the cabin of Dame +Pryce formerly stood." + +"It's quite possible; they used to allow dirty hovels to be erected +alongside one's very walls in those days--quite possible." + +"Moreover, from what I've learnt from Ord--whom I interviewed at the +Hall--and from such accounts as are obtainable of the death of Seager, +this mound, and not the interior of Low Fennel as it then stood, was the +scene of the apparitions." + +"You've got me out of my depth again, Addison. What d'you mean?" + +"Seager was strangled outside the house, not inside." + +"I believe that's true," agreed the Major, still shouting at the top of +his voice, but gradually growing hoarser; "I remember they found him +lying on the step, or something." + +"Then again, the apparition with the contorted face which peered in at +Mrs. Ord----" + +"Lies, all lies!" + +"I don't agree with you, Major. She was trying to shield her husband, +but I think she saw the contorted face right enough. At any rate it's +interesting to note that the visitant came from outside the house +again." + +"But," cried the Major, banging his fist upon the table, "it wanders +about inside the house, and--and--damn it all!--it goes outside as +well!" + +"Where it goes," I interrupted quietly, "is not the point. The point is, +where it comes from." + +"Then where do you believe it comes from?" + +"I believe the trouble arises, in the strictest sense of the word, from +the same spot whence it arose in the days of Matthew Hopkins, and from +which it had probably arisen ages before Low Fennel was built." + +"What the--" + +"I believe it to arise from the ancient barrow, or tumulus, above which +you have had your new wing erected." + +Major Dale fell back in his chair, temporarily speechless, but breathing +noisily; then: + +"Tumulus!" he said hoarsely; "d'you mean to tell me the house is built +on a dam' burial ground?" + +"Not the whole house," I corrected him; "only the new wing." + +"Then is the place haunted by the spirit of some uneasy Ancient Briton +or something of that sort, Addison? Hang it all! you can't tell me a +fairy tale like that! A ghost going back to pre-Roman days is a bit too +ancient for me, my boy--too hoary, by the Lord Harry!" + +"I have said nothing about an Ancient British ghost--you're flying off +at a tangent!" + +"Hang it all, Addison! I don't know what you're talking about at all, +but nevertheless your hints are sufficiently unpleasant. A tumulus! No +man likes to know he's sleeping in a graveyard, not even if it is two or +three thousand years old. D'you think the chap who surveyed the ground +for me knew of it?" + +"By the fact that he planned the new wing so as to avoid excavation, +I think probably he did. He was wise enough to surmise that the order +might be cancelled altogether and the job lost if you learnt the history +of the mound adjoining your walls." + +"A barrow under the study floor!" groaned the Major--"damn it all! I'll +have the place pulled down--I won't live in it. Gad! if Marjorie knew, +she would never close her eyes under the roof of Low Fennel again--I'm +sure she wouldn't, I know she wouldn't. But what's more, Addison, the +thing, whatever it is, is dangerous--infernally dangerous. It nearly +killed young Wales!" he added, with a complacency which was significant. + +"It was the fright that nearly killed him," I said shortly. + +Major Dale stared across the table at me. + +"For God's sake, Addison," he said, "what does it mean? What unholy +thing haunts Low Fennel? You've studied these beastly subjects, and I +rely upon you to make the place clean and good to live in again." + +"Major," I replied, "I doubt if Low Fennel will ever be fit to live +in. At any time an abnormal rise of temperature might produce the most +dreadful results." + +"You don't mean to tell me----" + +"If you care to have the new wing pulled down and the wall bricked up +again, if you care to keep all your doors and windows fastened securely +whenever the thermometer begins to exhibit signs of rising, if you avoid +going out on hot nights after dusk, as you would avoid the plague--yes, +it may be possible to live in Low Fennel." + +Again the Major became speechless, but finally: + +"What d'you mean, Addison?" he whispered; "for God's sake, tell me. What +is it?--what is it?" + +"It is what some students have labelled an 'elemental' and some a +'control,'" I replied; "it is something older than the house, older, +perhaps, than the very hills, something which may never be classified, +something as old as the root of all evil, and it dwells in the Ancient +British tumulus." + + +V + +As I had hoped, for my plans were dependent upon it, the mercury towered +steadily throughout that day, and showed no signs of falling at night; +the phenomenal heat-wave continued uninterruptedly. The household was +late retiring, for the grey lord--Fear--had imposed his will upon all +within it. Every shadow in the rambling old building became a cavern of +horrors, every sound that disturbed the ancient timbers a portent and a +warning. + +That the servants proposed to leave _en masse_ at the earliest possible +moment was perfectly evident to me; in a word, all the dark old stories +which had grown up around Low Fennel were revived and garnished, and new +ones added to them. The horror of the night before had left its mark +upon every one, and the coming of dusk brought with it such a dread +as could almost be felt in the very atmosphere of the place. Ghostly +figures seemed to stir the hangings, ghostly sighs to sound from every +nook of the old hall and stairway; baleful eyes looked in at the open +windows, and the shrubberies were peopled with hosts of nameless things +who whispered together in evil counsel. + +Mrs. Dale was as loath to retire as were the servants, more especially +since the Major and I were unable to disguise from her our intention of +watching for the strange visitant that night. But finally we prevailed +upon her to depart, and she ran upstairs as though the legions of the +lost pursued her, slamming and locking her door so that the sound echoed +all over the house. + +We had told her nothing, of course, of my discoveries and theories, but +nevertheless the cat was out of the bag; the affair of the night before +had spoilt our scheme of secrecy. + +In the Major's study we made our preparations. The windows were widely +opened, and the door was ajar. Not a breath of wind disturbed the +stillness of the night, and although Major Dale had agreed to act +exactly as I might direct, he stared in almost comic surprise when he +learnt the nature of these directions. + +Placing two large silk handkerchiefs upon the table, I saturated them +with the contents of a bottle which I had brought in my pocket, and +handed one of the handkerchiefs to him. + +"Tie that over your mouth and nostrils," I said, "and whatever happens +don't remove it unless I tell you." + +"But, Addison...." + +"You know the compact, Major? If you aren't prepared to assist I must +ask you to retire. To-night might be the last chance, perhaps, for +years." + +Growling beneath his breath, Major Dale obeyed, and, a humorous figure +enough, stretched himself upon the couch, staring at me round-eyed. I +also fastened a handkerchief about my head. + +"It would perhaps be better," I said, my voice dimmed by the wet silk, +"if we avoided conversation as much as possible." + +Standing up, I rolled back a corner of the carpet, exposing the +floor-planks, and with a brace-and-bit, which I had in my pocket, I +bored a round hole in one of these. Into it I screwed the tube, attached +to a little watch-like contrivance, twisting the face of the dial so +that I could study it from where I proposed to sit. Then I took up my +post, smothering a laugh as I noted the expression upon that part of the +Major's red face which was visible to me. + +Thus began the business of that strange night. Half an hour passed in +almost complete silence, save for the audible breathing of the Major--by +no means an ideal companion for such an investigation. But, having +agreed to assist me, in justice to my old friend I must say that he did +his best to stick to the bargain, and to play his part in what obviously +he regarded as an insane comedy. + +At about the expiration of this thirty minutes, I thought I heard a door +open somewhere in the house. Listening intently, and glancing at my +companion, I received no confirmation of the idea. Evidently the Major +had heard nothing. Again I thought I heard a sound--as of the rustling +of silk upon the stair, or in an upper corridor; finally I was almost +certain that the floor of the room above (viz. the Major's bedroom) +creaked very slightly. + +At that I saw my companion glance upward, then across at me, with a +question in his eyes. But not desiring to disturb the silence, I merely +shook my head. + +An hour passed. There had been no repetition of the slight sounds to +which I have referred, and the stillness of Low Fennel was really +extraordinary. A thermometer, which I had placed upon the table near to +my elbow, recorded the fact that the temperature of the room had not +abated a fraction of a point since sunset, and, sitting still though I +was, I found myself bathed in perspiration. Despite the open door and +windows, not a breath of air stirred in the place, but the room was +laden with the oppressive perfume of those night-scented flowers which +I have mentioned elsewhere, for it was faintly perceptible to me, +despite the wet silk. + +Once, a bat flew half in at one of the windows, striking its wings +upon the glass, but almost immediately it flew out again. A big moth +fluttered around the room, persistently banging its wings against the +lamp-shade. But nothing else within or without the house stirred, if I +except the occasional restless movements of the Major. + +Then all at once--and not gradually as I had anticipated--the meter at +my feet began to register. Instantly, I looked to the thermometer. It +had begun to fall. + +I glanced across at Major Dale. He was staring at something which seemed +to have attracted his attention in a distant corner of the room. +Glancing away from the meter, the indicator of which was still moving +upward, I looked in the same direction. There was much shadow there, but +nevertheless I could not doubt that a very faint vapour was forming in +that corner ... rising--rising--rising--slowly higher and higher. + +It proceeded from some part of the floor concealed by the big saddle-bag +chair--the Major's favourite dozing-place (probably from a faulty +floor-board), and it was rising visibly, inch upon inch, as I watched, +until it touched the ceiling above. Then, like a column of smoke, it +spread out, mushroom fashion; it crept in ghostly coils along the +cornices, spreading, a dim grey haze, until it obscured a great part of +the ceiling. + +Again I looked across at the Major. He was staring at the phenomenon +with eyes which were glassy with amazement. I could see that momentarily +he expected the vapour to take shape, to form into some ghoulish thing +with a contorted face and clutching, outstretched fingers. + +But this did not happen. The vapour, which was growing more fine and +imperceptible, began to disperse. I glanced from corner to corner of the +room, then down to the meter on the floor. The indicator was falling +again. + +Still I made no move, although I could hear Major Dale fidgeting +nervously, but I looked across at him ... and a dreadful change had come +over his face. + +He was sitting upright upon the couch, the edge of which he clutched +with one hand, whilst with the other he combed the air in a gesture +evidently meant to attract my attention. He was trying to speak, but +only a guttural sound issued from his throat. His staring eyes were set +in a glare of stark horror upon the door of the study. + +Swiftly I turned--to see the door slowly opening; to see, low down upon +the bare floor--for I had removed the carpet from that corner of the +room--a ghastly, contorted face, held sideways with one ear almost +touching the ground, and with the lower lip and the chin drawn up as +though they were of rubber, almost to the tip of the nose! + +The eyes glared up balefully into mine, the hair hung a dishevelled mass +about the face, and I had a glimpse of one bare shoulder pressed upon +the floor. + +Wider and wider opened the door; and further into the room crept the +horrible apparition.... + +The light gleamed equally upon the hideous, contorted face and upon the +rounded shoulders and slim, white arms, on one of which a heavy gold +Oriental bangle was clasped. + +It was a woman! + +In a flash of inspiration--at sight of the bangle--my doubts were +resolved; _I understood_. Leaning across the table, I extinguished the +lamp ... in the same instant that Major Dale, uttering an inarticulate, +choking cry, sprang to his feet and toppled forward, senseless, upon the +floor! + +The study became plunged in darkness, but into the long corridor, beyond +the open door, poured the cold illumination of the moon. Framed in the +portal, uprose a slim figure, seeming like a black silhouette upon a +silvern background, or a wondrous statue in ebony. Elfin, dishevelled +locks crowned the head; the pose of the form was as that of a startled +dryad or a young Bacchante poised for a joyous leap.... + +Thus, for an instant, like some exquisite dream of Phidias visualised, +the figure stood ... then had fled away down the corridor and was gone! + + +VI + +Close upon a month had elapsed. Major Dale and I sat in my study in +London. + +"Young Aubrey Wales has gone abroad," I said. "He's ashamed to show up +again, I suppose." + +"H'm!" growled the Major--"I've got nothing to crow about, myself, +by the Lord Harry! There's courage and courage, sir! I've led more +than one bayonet attack, but I'd never qualify for the D.S.O. as a +ghost-hunter!--never, by Gad!--never!" + +He reached out for the decanter; then withdrew his hand. "Doctor's +orders," he muttered. "Discipline must be maintained!" + +"It was the sudden excitement which precipitated the seizure," I said, +glancing at the altered face of my old friend. "I was wrong to expose +you to it; but of course I did not know that the doctor had warned you." + +"And now," said the Major, sighing loudly as he filled his tumbler with +plain soda-water--"what have you to tell me?" + +"In the first place--have you definitely decided to leave Low Fennel, +for good?" + +"Certainly--not a doubt on the point! We're leasing a flat in town here +whilst we look around." + +"Good! Because I very much doubt if the place could ever be rendered +tenable...." + +"Then it's really haunted?" + +"Undoubtedly." + +"By what, Addison? Tell me that!--by what?" + +"By a grey vapour." + +Major Dale's eyes began to protrude, and:-- + +"Addison," he said hoarsely--"don't joke about it!--don't joke. It was +not a grey vapour that strangled Seager...." + +"Certainly it was not. Seager was strangled by some wholly inoffensive +person--we shall probably never know his identity--who had fallen asleep +amongst the bushes on the mound, close beside the house...." + +"But man alive! I've _seen_ the beastly thing, with my own eyes! You've +seen it! Wales saw it! Mrs. Ord saw it!..." + +"Mrs. Ord saw her husband." + +"Ah! you're coming round to my belief about the Ords!" + +"Decidedly I am." + +"But what did Wales see--eh? And what did _I_ see!" + +"You saw the vapour in operation." + +The Major fell back in his chair with an expression upon his face which +I cannot hope to describe. Words failed him altogether. + +"I had come prepared for something of the sort," I continued rapidly; +"for I have investigated several cases of haunting--notably in the Peak +district--which have proved to be due to an emanation from the soil--a +vapour. But the effect of such vapour, in the other cases, was to +induce delusions of sight, in nearly every instance (although, in two, +the delusions were of hearing). + +"In other words, the person affected by this vapour was drugged, and, +during the drugged state, perceived certain visions. I made the mistake, +at first, of supposing that Low Fennel came within the same category. +The classical analogy, of course, is that of the Sibyls, who delivered +the oracular responses from the tripod, under the afflatus of a vapour +said to arise from the sacred subterranean stream called Kassotis. The +theory is, therefore, by no means a new one!" + +Major Dale stared dully, but made no attempt to interrupt me. + +"There are probably many spots, in England alone," I continued, +"thus affected; but, fortunately, few of them have been chosen as +building-sites. Barrows and tumuli of the stone and bronze age, and +also Roman shrines, seem frequently to be productive of such emanations. +The barrow beside Low Fennel (and now under the new wing) is a case in +point. + +"Sudden atmospheric changes seem to be favourable to the formation +of the vapour. The barrow in Peel Castle, Isle of Man, is peculiarly +susceptible to thunder-storms, for instance, whilst that at Low Fennel +emits a vapour only after a spell of intense heat, and at the exact +moment when the temperature begins to fall again. In the case of a +sustained heat-wave, this would take place at some time during each +night. + +"And now for the particular in which the vapour at Low Fennel differs +from other, similar emanations. It is not productive of delusions of +sight; it induces a definite and unvarying form of transient insanity!" + +Major Dale moved slightly, but still did not speak. + +"Dame Pryce was the first recorded victim of the vapour. She was accused +of witchcraft by a neighbour who testified to having seen her transform +herself into a hideous and unrecognizable hag--whereas, in her proper +person, she seems to have been a comely old lady. Lack of evidence +compels us to dismiss the case of Seager, but consider that of the Ords. +The man Ord, on his own confession, had fallen asleep outside the house. +He became a victim of the vapour--and his own wife failed to recognize +him. + +"To what extent the mania so produced is homicidal remains to be proved; +the gas is rare and difficult to procure, so that hitherto analysis has +not been attempted. My own theory is that the subject remains harmless +provided that, whilst under the mysterious influence, he does not +encounter any person distasteful to him. Thus, Seager may have met his +death at the hands of some tramp who had been turned away from the +house. + +"As to the symptoms: they seem to be quite unvarying. The subject +strips, contorts his face out of all semblance to humanity (and always +in a particular fashion) and crawls, lizard-like upon the ground, with +the head held low, in an attitude of listening. That it is possible so +to contort the face as to render it unrecognizable is seen in some cases +of angina pectoris, of course. + +"The subject apparently returns to the spot from whence he started and +sinks into profound sleep, as is seen in some cases of somnambulism; +and--like the somnambulist, again--he acquires incredible agility. How +you yourself came, twice, under the influence of the vapour, is easily +explained. The first time--when the housekeeper saw you--you had +actually been in bed; and the second time, as you have told me, you had +gone upstairs, undressed, and then slipped on your dressing-gown in +order to complete some work in the study. Instead of completing the +work, you dozed in your chair--and we know what followed! In the case +of--Mrs. Dale...." + +"God! Addison," said the Major huskily, and stood up, clutching the +chair-arms--"Addison! You are trying to tell me that--what I saw was ... +_Marjorie_!..." + +I nodded gravely. + +"Without letting her suspect my reason for making the inquiries, I +learnt that on that last night at Low Fennel, feeling dreadfully lonely +and frightened, she determined to run along to the new wing--which +seemed a safer place--and to wait in your room until you came up. She +fell asleep, and...." + +"Addison ... can a mere 'vapour' produce such...." + +"You mean, is the vapour directed or animated, by some discarnate, evil +intelligence? My dear Major, you are taking us back to the theory of +Elemental spirits, and I blankly refuse to follow you!" + + + + +The Valley of the Just + +A Story of the Shan Hills + + +I + +The merciless sun beat down upon the little caravan, winding its way +upward and ever upward to the hill-land. Beneath stretched a panorama +limned in feverish greens and unhealthy yellows; scarlike rocks striated +the jungle, clothing the foothills, and through the dancing air, viewed +from the arid heights, they had the appearance of running water. Swamps +to the south-east showed like unhealing wounds upon the face of the +landscape; beyond them spread the muddy river waters, the bank of the +stream proper being discernible only by reason of a greater greenness +in the palm-tops: venomous green slopes beyond them again, a fringe of +dwarfed forest, and the brazen skyline. + +On the right of the path rose volcanic rock, gnarled, twisted, and +contorted as with the agonies of some mighty plague, which in a +forgotten past had seized upon the very bowels of the world, and had +contorted whole mountains, and laid waste vast forests and endless +plains. Above, the cruel sun; ahead, more plague-twisted rocks, with +sandy scars dancing like running water; and, all around, the breathless +stillness, the swooning stillness of tropical midday. North, south, +east, and west, that haze of heat, that silence unbroken, lay like an +accursed mantle upon Burma. + +Moreen Fayne could scarcely support herself upright in the saddle; her +head throbbed incessantly, and the veil which she wore could not protect +her eyes from the maddening glare of the sun. But although at any moment +during the past hour she could have slipped insensible from her saddle, +she sat stiffly upright, her dauntless eyes looking straight ahead, her +small mouth set with masculine sternness, and her hands clenched--the +physical reflection of the mental effort whereby, alone, she was enabled +to pursue the journey. + +Just in front of her paced Ramsa Lal. His stride had not varied from +the lowlands, through the foothills, nor on the rocky mountain paths. +He had looked neither right nor left, but had walked, walked, walked. +At times Moreen had been hard put to it to choke down the hysterical +screams which had risen in her throat; madness had threatened her, as +she watched, in dumb misery, that silent striding man. Yet she knew that +it was only the presence of this tireless, immobile guide which had +enabled her to go on; although he never directed one glance towards her, +she knew that his steady march was meant for encouragement. + +Behind, like the tail of a scorpion, trailed the native retinue, and on +the end of the tail, where the sting would be, rode her husband. This +simile had occurred to her at once, and she allowed her mind to dwell +upon the idea as an invalid will consider imaginary designs upon the +wall-paper of the sick-room. + +Sometimes there was a sliding of hoofs and a sound of stumbling; +sometimes her own pony lost his footing. On such occasion, there would +be mechanical cries of encouragement from the natives, and perhaps +a growling curse from the man who brought up the rear of the little +company. The road wound through a frowning chasm, where lizards and +other creeping things darted into holes to right and left of their +progress. Grateful shadow ruled a while, and a stifled sigh escaped +from Moreen's lips. Ramsa Lal paced straightly onward, the others came +stumbling behind; fifty yards ahead the ravine opened out, and once more +the deathly heat poured unchecked upon their heads. + +Again Moreen all but lost control of herself; her fortitude threatened +to slip from her; so that she bit her lips until the pain filled +her eyes with burning tears. The effort to control herself proved +successful, but left her white and quivering. She felt impelled to speak +to Ramsa Lal, and constrained herself only with a second effort of which +her will was barely capable. Then she saw that speech, which would be +dangerous, was unnecessary; the man's wonderful intuition had enabled +him to hear that crying of the soul, and he was answering her. + +His brown fingers were clutching and unclutching convulsively, and as he +swung his arm, he would clench his right fist and beat the air. For a +moment he acted thus, and then, as if he knew that she had seen, and +understood, his fingers hung limply again, and his arm swung loosely +as before. + +A sort of plateau was reached, and in a natural clearing, where giant +bamboos ranged back to the tangled, creeper-laden boughs of the forest +trees, the voice of Major Fayne cried a halt. Ramsa Lal was beside +Moreen's pony in a trice, and he so screened her exhausted descent from +the saddle, setting her down upon an hospitable bank hard by, that she +was enabled to maintain her inflexible attitude, when presently her +husband came striding along to stand looking down on her, where she sat. +His blackly pencilled brows were drawn together, and the pale blue eyes +shone out, saturnine, from cavernous sockets. His handsome face was +heavily lined, and in the appearance, in the whole attitude of the man, +was something aggressive, a violence markedly repellent. Moreen locked +her hands behind her, the fingers twining and intertwining, but she +raised a pale face to his, from which by a last supreme effort of will +she had driven all traces of emotion. + +So they remained for a moment, whilst the servants busied themselves +with the baggage; he, with feet wide apart, staring down at her, and +slashing at the air with a fly-whisk, and she meeting his gaze with a +stony calm pitiful to behold, had there been any soul capable of pity +to see her. Ramsa Lal was directing operations. + +"Here," said Major Fayne, "we camp." + +His voice would have told a skilled observer that which the facial lines +and a certain odd puffiness of skin more than suggested, that Major +Fayne was not a temperate man. + +Moreen made no sign, but simply sat watching the speaker. + +"It's a delightful situation," continued he, "and your ambition, +frequently expressed in Mandalay, to see something of Burma other than +bridge parties and polo-matches, at last is realised." + +He spoke with a seeming sincerity that had carried conviction to any, +save the most sceptical. But Moreen made no sign. + +"Here," continued Major Fayne, "you may feast your eyes upon the glories +of a Burma forest. Those flowering creepers yonder, festooned from bough +to bough, are peculiar to this district, and if you care to explore +further, you will be rewarded by the discovery of some fine orchids. +Note, also, the perfume of the flowers." + +He twirled his slight moustache, and turned away to supervise the work +of camping. + +Ramsa Lal already had one of the tents nearly erected, and Moreen +watched his deft fingers at work, with an anxiety none the less because +it was masked. She knew that collapse was imminent. The cruel march +under the pitiless sun had had due effect, but it had not broken her +spirit. She knew that she had reached the end of her strength, but she +showed no sign of weakness before her husband. + +It was done at last, and Ramsa Lal held the tent-cloth aside, and bowed. + +Moreen stood up, clenched her teeth together grimly, and staggered +forward. As the tent-flap was dropped, she sank down beside the camp +bedstead, and her head fell upon the covering. + + +II + +Dusk fell, a quick curtain, and the lamps of night shone out with +glorious brilliancy, illuminating the little plateau. The tents gleamed +whitely in the cold radiance; there was a dancing redness to show where +the fire had been built, with figures grouped dimly around it. On a +jagged rock, which started up from the very heart of a thicket, black +against the newly risen moon, was silhouetted the figure of Major Fayne. +Night things swept the air about him, and rustled in the cane brake +below him; the fire crackled in the neighbouring camp; sometimes a +murmur came from the group of natives. + +But, heedless of these matters, Moreen's husband stood on the rocky +eminence looking back upon the way they had come, looking down to the +distant river valley. + +For many minutes he remained so, but presently, clambering down, heavily +forced his way through the undergrowth to the little camp. Passing the +tents, he walked back to the dip of the pathway, and paused again, +watching and listening; then turned and strode to the fire, grasped +Ramsa Lal by the shoulder, and drew him away from the others. + +"Come here!" he directed tersely. + +At the head of the pathway he bade him halt. + +"Listen!" he directed. + +Ramsa Lal stood in an attitude of keen attention, and the Major watched +him with feverish anxiety, which he was wholly unable to conceal. + +"Do you hear it?" he demanded--"hoofs on the path!" + +Ramsa Lal shook his head. + +"I hear nothing, Sahib." + +"Put your ear to the ground, and listen. I tell you that I saw figures +moving away below there, and I heard--hoofs, stumbling hoofs." + +The man knelt down upon the ground, and, bending forward, lowered his +head. Major Fayne watched him, and with growing anxiety, so that, what +with this and the pallid moonlight, his face appeared ghastly. + +But again Ramsa Lal stood up, shaking his head. + +"Nothing, Sahib," he repeated. + +Major Fayne suddenly grasped him by the shoulders, spinning him about, +and dragging him forward, so that the dusky face was but inches removed +from his own. He glared into the man's eyes. + +"Are you lying to me?" he demanded, "are you lying?" + +"I swear it is the truth: why should I lie to you, Sahib?" + +"You want them----" + +Major Fayne broke off abruptly and thrust the man away from him. A +different expression had crept into his face, an expression in which +there was something furtive. He spun around upon his heel and stepped +to the tent where Moreen was. Raising the flap slightly: + +"Good-night," he called, and turned away. + +Ramsa Lal had gone back to the fireside; and Fayne, following a moment +of hesitancy, strode with his swaggering military gait to the tent +erected in the furthermost corner of the clearing. He had stooped to +enter, when he hesitated, remaining there bent forward--and listening. + +From the opposite side of the distant fire, Ramsa Lal, though few would +have suspected the fact, was watching. Evidently enough, the leader +of the little company was obsessed with his delusion that some one or +something clambered up the steep path beneath. Suddenly shrugging his +shoulders, he stooped yet lower, and dived into the tent. + +One of the natives threw fresh fuel upon the fire, and a stream of +sparks sped up through the clear air in a widening trail ever growing +fainter. + +There was a crackling, a murmur of voices, and then a new silence. This +in turn was broken by the distant howling of dogs, and in the near +stillness one might have heard the faint shrieking of the bats, who now +were embarked upon their nocturnal voyagings. + +A shrill, wild scream burst suddenly from the heart of the trees in the +east, rose eerily upon the night, and died away. But the group about the +fire moved not at all, for this dreadful screaming but marked an animal +tragedy of the Burma forests. So furred things howled and screamed and +moaned in the woodlands, feathered things piped and hooted around and +above, and the bats, uncanny creatures of the darkness, who seem to have +kinship neither with fur nor feather, chirped faintly overhead. + +Once there was a distant, hollow booming like the sound of artillery, +which echoed down the mountain gorges, and seemed to roll away over the +lowland swamps, and die, inaudible, by the remote river-bank. + +Yet no one stirred; for this mysterious gunnery is a phenomenon met with +in that district, inexplicable, weird, but no novelty to one who has +camped in the Shan Hills. + +A second time later in the night the phantom guns boomed; and again +their booming died away in the far valleys. The fire was getting low, +now. + + +III + +Moreen lay, sleepless, wide-eyed, staring up at the roof of the tent. +She had eaten, could eat, nothing, but she was consumed by a parching +thirst. The sounds of the night had no terrors for her; indeed, she +scarcely noticed them, for she had other and more dreadful things to +think of. + +Ramsa Lal had been her father's servant; him she could trust. But the +others--the others were Major Fayne's. They were no more than spies upon +her; guards. + +What did it mean, this sudden dash from the bungalow into the hills? +It amused her husband to pretend that it was a pleasure-trip, but the +equipment was not of the sort one takes upon such occasions, and one is +not usually dragged from bed at midnight to embark upon such a journey. +It was additionally improbable in view of the fact that up to the moment +of departure Major Fayne had not spoken to her, except in public, for +six months. The dreadful, forced marches were breaking her down, and she +knew that her husband was drinking heavily. What, in God's name, would +be the end of it? + +Weakly, she raised herself into a sitting position, groping for and +lighting a candle. From the bosom of her dress she took out a letter, +the last she had received from home before this mad flight. There was +something in it which had frightened her at the time, but which, viewed +in the light of recent events, was unspeakably horrifying. + +During the long estrangement between her husband and herself she had +learnt, and had paid for her knowledge with bitter tears, that there was +a side to the character of Major Fayne which he had carefully concealed +from her before marriage; the dark, saturnine part of her husband's +character had dawned upon her suddenly. That had been the beginning of +her disillusionment, the disillusionment which has come to more than one +English girl during the first twelve months of married life in an Indian +bungalow. + +Then, perforce, the gap had widened, and six months later had become a +chasm quite impassable except in the interests of social propriety. +Anglo-Indian society is notable for divorces, and poor Moreen very early +in her married life fully understood the reason. + +She held the letter to the dim light and read it again attentively. +Allowing a certain discount for her mother's changeless animosity +towards Major Fayne, it yet remained a startling letter. Much of it +consisted in feckless condolences, characteristic but foolish; the +passage, however, which she read and re-read by the dim, flickering +light was as follows: + +"Mr. Harringay in his last letter begged of me to come out by the +next boat to Rangoon," her mother wrote. "He has quite opened my eyes +to the truth, Moreen, not in such a way as to shock me all at once, +but gradually. I always distrusted Ralph Fayne and never disguised +the fact from you. I knew that his previous life had been far +from irreproachable, but his treatment of you surpasses even _my_ +expectations. I know _all_, my poor darling! and I know something which +you do not know. His father did not die in Colombo at all; he died in a +madhouse! and there are two other known dipsomaniacs in Ralph Fayne's +family----" + +A hand reached over Moreen's shoulder and tore the letter from her. + +She turned with a cry--and looked up into her husband's quivering face! +For a moment he stood over her, his left fist clenching and unclenching +and his pale blue eyes glassy with anger. Then chokingly he spoke: + +"So you carry one of his letters about with you?" + +The veins were throbbing visibly upon his temples. Moreen clutched at +the blanket but did not speak, dared not move, for if ever she had +looked into the face of a madman it was at this moment when she looked +into the face of Ralph Fayne. + +He suddenly grabbed the candle and, holding it close to the letter, +began to read. His hands were perfectly steady, showing the tremendous +nerve tension under which he laboured. Then his expression changed, but +nothing of the maniac glare left his eyes. + +"From your mother," he said hoarsely, "and full of two things--your +wrongs, _your_ wrongs! and Jack Harringay--Jack Harringay--always Jack +Harringay! Damn him!" + +He put down the candle and began to tear the letter into tiny fragments, +pouring forth the while a stream of coarse, blasphemous language. +Moreen, who felt that consciousness was slipping from her, crouched +there with a face deathly pale. + +Fayne began to laugh softly as he threw the torn-up letter from him +piece by piece. + +"Damn him!" he said again. He turned the blazing eyes towards his wife. +"You lying, baby-faced hypocrite! Why don't you admit that he is----" + +He stopped; the sinister laughter died upon his lips and he stood there +shaking all over and with a sort of stark horror in his eyes dreadful +to see. + +"Why don't you?" he muttered--and looked at her almost +pathetically,--"why of course you can't--no one can----" + +He reeled and clutched at the tent-flap, then stumblingly made his way +out. + +"No one can," came back in a shaky whisper--"no one can----" + +Moreen heard him staggering away, until the sound of his uncertain +footsteps grew inaudible. A distant howling rose upon the night, and, +nearer to the clearing, sounded a sort of tapping, not unlike that of a +woodpecker. Some winged creature was fluttering over the tent. + + +IV + +Dawn saw the dreadful march resumed. Major Fayne now exhibited +unmistakable traces of his course of heavy drinking. He brought up the +rear as hitherto, and often tarried far behind where some peculiar +formation of the path enabled him to study the country already +traversed. He had altered the route of the march, and now they were +leaving the Shan Hills upon the north-east and dipping down to a +chasm-like valley through which ran a tributary of the Selween River. +Since the dry season was commenced the entire country beneath them +showed through a haze of heat and dust. + +They had partaken of a crude and hasty breakfast as strangers having +nothing in common who by chance share a table. Moreen no longer doubted +that her husband was mad, for he muttered to himself and was ever +glancing over his shoulder. This and his constant watching of the path +behind spoke of some secret terror from which he fled. + +Towards noon, they skirted a village whose inhabitants poured forth _en +bloc_ to watch the passing of this unfamiliar company. A faint hope +that some European might be there died in Moreen's breast. Her position +was a dreadful one. Led by a madman--of this she was persuaded--and +surrounded by natives who, if not actively hostile, were certainly +unfriendly, with but one man to whom she could look for the slightest +aid, she was proceeding further and further from civilisation into +unknown wildernesses. + +What her husband's purpose might be she could not conceive. She was +unable to think calmly, unable to formulate any plan. In the dull misery +of a sick dream she rode forward speculating upon the awakening. + +The midday heat in the valley was so great that a halt became +imperative. They camped at the edge of a dense jungle where banks of +rotten vegetation, sun-dried upon the top, lay heaped about the bamboo +stems. None but a madman would have chosen to tarry in such a spot; and +Major Fayne's servants went about their work with many a furtive glance +at their master. Ramsa Lal's velvety eyes showed a great compassion, but +Moreen offered no protest. She was in an unreal frame of mind and her +will was merely capable of a mute indifference: any attempt to assert +herself would have meant a sudden breakdown. Something in her brain was +strained to utmost tension; any further effort must have snapped it. + +In the hour of the greatest heat Major Fayne went out alone, offering no +explanation of his intentions and leaving no word as to the time of his +return. Moreen only learnt of his departure from Ramsa Lal. She received +the news with indifference and asked no questions. Inert she lay in +the little tent looking out at the wall of jungle, where it uprose but +twenty yards away. So the day wore on. Mechanically she partook of food +when Ramsa Lal placed it before her, but, although the man's attitude +palpably was one of uneasiness, she did not question him, and he +departed in silence. It was an incredible situation. + +Throughout the afternoon nothing occurred to break this dread monotony +save that once there arose a buzz of conversation, and she became dimly +aware that some one from the native village which they had passed in +the morning had come into the camp. After a time the sounds had died +away again, and Ramsa Lal had stepped into view, looking towards her +interrogatively; but although she recognized his wish to speak to her, +the inertia which now claimed her mind and body prevailed, and she +offered him no encouragement to intrude upon her misery. + +Thus the weary hours passed, until even to the dulled perceptions of +Moreen the sounds of unrest and uneasiness pervading the camp began to +penetrate. Yet Major Fayne did not return. The insect and reptile life +of a Burmese jungle moved around her, but she was curiously indifferent +to everything. Without alarm she brushed a venomous spider, fully one +inch in girth, from the camp-bedstead, and dully watched it darting away +into the jungle undergrowth. + +Darkness swept down and tropical night things raised their mingled +voices; then came Ramsa Lal. + +"Forgive me, Mem Sahib," he said, "but I must speak to you." + +She half reclined, looking at him as he stood, a dimly seen figure, +before her. + +"The men from the village," continued he, "come to say that we may +not camp. It is holy ground from this place away"--he waved his arm +vaguely--"to the end of the jungle where the river is." + +"I can do nothing, Ramsa Lal." + +"I fear--for him." + +"Major Fayne?" + +"He goes into the jungle to look for something. What does he go to look +for? Why does he not return?" + +Moreen made no reply. + +"All of them there"--he indicated the direction of the native +servants--"know this place. They are already afraid, and, with those +from the village coming to warn us, they get more afraid still. This is +a haunted place, Mem Sahib." + +Moreen sat up, shaking off something of the lassitude which possessed +her. + +"What do you mean?" she asked. + +"In that jungle," replied Ramsa Lal, "there is buried a temple, a very +old temple, and in the temple there is buried one who was a holy man. +His spirit watches over this place, and none may rest here because of +him----" + +"But the men of the village came here," said Moreen. + +"Before sunset, Mem Sahib. No man would come here after dark. Look! you +will see--they are frightened." + +Languidly, but with some awakening to the necessities of the situation, +Moreen stepped out of the tent and looked across to where, about a great +fire, the retinue huddled in a circle. Ramsa Lal stood beside her with +something contemptuous in the bearing of his tall figure. + +"A spell lies upon all this valley, Mem Sahib," he said. "Therefore it +is called the Valley of the Just." + +"Why?" + +"Because only the just can stay within its bounds through the night." + +Moreen stared affrightedly. + +"Do you mean that they die in the night, Ramsa Lal?" + +"In the night, Mem Sahib, before the dawn." + +"By what means?" + +Ramsa Lal spread his palms eloquently. + +"Who knows?" he replied. "It is a haunted place." + +"And are you afraid?" + +"I am not afraid, for I have passed a night in the Valley of the Just +many years ago, and I live." + +"You were alone?" + +"With two others, Mem Sahib." + +"And the others?" + +"One was bitten by a snake an hour before dawn, and the other, who was +an upright man, lives to-day." + +Moreen shuddered. + +"Do you know"--she still hesitated to broach this subject with the +man--"do you know where--Major Fayne has gone?" + +"It is said, Mem Sahib, that a stream runs through the jungle close +beside the old temple, a stream which bubbles up from a cavern and which +is supposed to come underground from the Ruby Mine plateau. He goes +early in the morning to look for rubies--so I think." + +Moreen tapped the ground with her foot. + +"Do you think"--again she hesitated--"that Major Fayne is afraid of +something? Of something--where we have come from?" + +Ramsa Lal bowed low. + +"I cannot tell," he replied, "but we shall know ere sunrise." + +For a moment Moreen scarcely grasped the significance of his words; then +their inner meaning became apparent to her. + +"Make me some coffee, Ramsa Lal," she said; "I am cold--very cold." + +She re-entered the tent, lighting the lamp. + +The Valley of the Just! What irony, that her husband should have +selected that spot to camp in! She sat deep in thought, when presently +Ramsa Lal entered with coffee. He had just set down the tray when the +sound of a distant cry brought him rigidly upright. He stood listening +intently. The sound was repeated--nearer it seemed--a sort of hoarse +scream, terrible to hear--impossible to describe. + +Moreen rose to her feet and followed the man out of the tent. Some +one--some one who kept crying out--was plunging heavily through the +jungle towards the camp. + +The men about the fire were on their feet now. Obviously they would have +fled, but the prospect of flight into the haunted darkness was one more +terrible than that of remaining where they were. + +It ceased, that strange cry; but whoever was approaching could be heard +alternately groaning and laughing madly. + +Then out from the thicket on the west, into the red light of the fire, +burst a fearful figure. It was that of Major Fayne, wild eyed, and with +face which seemed to be of a dull grey. He staggered and almost fell, +but kept on for a few more paces and then collapsed in a heap almost at +Moreen's feet, amid the clatter of the strange loot wherewith he was +laden. + +This consisted in a number of golden vessels heavily encrusted with +gems, a huge golden salver, and a dozen or more ropes of gigantic +rubies! + +Amid these treasures, the ransom of a Sultan, the price of a throne, he +lay writhing convulsively. + +Ramsa Lal was the first to recover himself. He leapt forward, seized +the prostrate man by the shoulders and dragged him into the tent, past +Moreen. Having effected this he raised his eyes in a mute question. +She nodded, and whilst Ramsa Lal seized the Major's shoulders, Moreen +grasped his ankles, and together they lifted him up on to the bed. + +He lay there, rolling from side to side. His eyes were wide open, glassy +and unseeing; a slight froth was upon his lips, his fists rose and +fell in regular, mechanical beats, corresponding with the convulsive +movements of his knees. + +Moreen dropped down beside him. + +"Ramsa Lal! Ramsa Lal! What shall I do? What has happened to him?" + +Ramsa Lal ripped the collar from Major Fayne's neck in order to aid his +respiration. Then, quietly signing to Moreen to hold the lamp, he began +to search the entire exposed surface of the Major's skin. Evidently he +failed to find that for which he was looking. He glanced down at the +ankles, but the Major wore thick putties and Ramsa Lal shook his head in +a puzzled way. + +"It is like the bite of a hamadryad," he said softly, "but there is no +mark." + +"What shall I do!" moaned Moreen--"what shall I do!" + +There was a frightened murmur from the entrance, where the native +servants stood in a group, peering in. Moreen stood up. + +"Hot water, Ramsa Lal!" she said. "We must give him brandy." + +"But it is useless, Mem Sahib; he has not been bitten--there is no mark; +it may be a fever from the jungle." + +Moreen beat her hands together helplessly. + +"We must do _something_!" she said; "we must do _something_." + +A sudden change took place in Major Fayne. The convulsive movements +ceased and he lay quiet, and breathing quite regularly. The glassy look +began to fade from his eyes, and with every appearance of being in full +possession of his senses, he stared at Moreen and spoke: + +"You shall repent of your words, Harringay," he said in a quiet voice. +"You have deliberately accused me of faking the cards. I care nothing +for any of you. Why should I attempt such a thing? I could buy and sell +you all!..." + +Moreen dropped slowly back upon her knees again, white to the lips, +watching her husband. With the same appearance of perfect sanity, but +now addressing the empty air, he continued: + +"In my tent--my wife will tell you it is true--my wife, Harringay, do +you hear?--I have jewelled cups and strings of rubies, enough to buy up +Mandalay! I blundered on to them in that old ruined temple back in the +jungle, not five hundred yards from your bungalow. Harringay--think of +it--a treasure-room like that within sight of your verandah! There are +snakes there, snakes, you understand, in hundreds; but it is worth +risking for a big fortune like mine." + +"He mixes time and place," murmured Ramsa Lal. "He talks to the +Commissioner Sahib in Mandalay of what is here in the Valley of the +Just." + +Moreen nodded, catching her breath hysterically. + +"You see," continued the delirious man, "I am as rich as Midas. Why +should _I_ want to cheat you! Don't talk to me of what you would do for +my wife's sake! Keep your favours, curse you!" + +With a contemptuous smile, Major Fayne threw his head back upon the +pallet. Then came another change; the look of stark horror which Moreen +had seen once before crept into the grey face; and her husband raised +himself in bed, glaring wildly into the shadows beyond the lamp. + +"You are a spirit!" The words came in a thrilling, eerie whisper. "Oh +God! I understand. Yes! I came away from Harringay's bungalow. My wife +was asleep and I sat drinking until I had emptied the whisky decanter." + +He bent forward as if listening. + +"Yes, I went back. I went back to reason with him. No! as God is my +witness I did not plan it! I went back to reason with him." + +Again the uncanny attitude was resumed. Then: + +"I stepped in through the verandah, and there he sat with Moreen's +photograph in his hand. Listen to me--_Listen!_" There was an agony of +entreaty in his voice; it rose to a thin scream--"My wife's photograph! +Do you hear me? Do you understand? _Moreen's_ photograph--and as I stood +behind him, he raised it to his lips--he----" + +Major Fayne stopped abruptly, as if checked by a spoken word; and with +wildly beating heart Moreen found herself listening for the phantom +voice. She could hear the breathing of the natives clustered behind her; +but no other sound save a distant howling in the jungle was audible, +until her husband began again: + +"I struck him down--from behind, yes, from behind. His blood poured over +the picture. You understand I was mad. If you are just--and is not this +called the Valley of the Just?--you cannot condemn me. Why did I fly? +I was not in my right mind; I had--been drinking, as I told you; I +was mad. If I was not mad I should never have fled, never have drawn +suspicion--on myself." + +He fell back as if exhausted, then once more struggled upright and began +to peer about him. When he spoke again, his voice, though weak, was +more like his own. + +"Moreen!" he said--"where the devil are you? why can't you give me a +drink?" + +Suddenly, he seemed to perceive her, and he drew his brows together in +the old, ugly frown. + +"Curse you!" he said. "I have found you out! I am a rich man now, and +when I have gone to England, see what Jack Harringay will do for you. I +will paint London red! I have looted the old temple, and they are after +me, they----" + +The words merged into a frightful scream. Major Fayne threw up his hands +and fell back insensible upon the bed. + +"Mem Sahib! Mem Sahib, you must be brave!" It was Ramsa Lal who spoke; +he supported Moreen with his arm. "There is a spell upon this place. No +medicine, nothing, can save him. There is only one thing----" + +Moreen controlled herself by one of those giant efforts of which she was +capable. + +"Tell me," she whispered--"what must we do?" + +Ramsa Lal removed his arm, saw that she could stand unsupported, and +bent forward over the unconscious man. Following a rapid examination, +he signed to her to leave the tent. They came out into the white blaze +of the moonlight--and there at their feet lay the glittering loot of the +haunted temple, a dazzlement of rainbow sparks. + +"Only for such a thing as this," said Ramsa Lal, "dare I go, but not one +of us will see another dawn if we do not go." He pointed to the heap of +treasure. "Mem Sahib must come also." + +"But--my husband----" + +"He must remain," he said. "It is of his own choosing." + + +V + +The temple stood in a kind of clearing. Grotesquely horrible figures +guarded the time-worn entrance. Moreen drew a deep breath of relief on +emerging from the jungle path by which, amid the rustle of retreating +snakes, they had come, but shrank back affrighted from the blackness +of the ruined doorway. Ramsa Lal stood the lantern upon the stump of a +broken pillar, where its faint yellow light was paled by the moon-rays. + +"It is _you_ who must restore," he said. + +One by one he handed her the jewel-encrusted vessels and hung the ropes +of rubies upon her arm. + +She nodded, and as Ramsa Lal took up the lantern and began to descend +the steps within followed him. + +"No foot save his," came back to her, "has trod these sacred steps for +ages, for the secret of the jungle path is known only to the few...." + +"How do you--know the way?" + +Ramsa Lal did not reply. + +They traversed a short tunnel; a heavy door was thrust open; and Moreen +found herself standing in a small pillared hall. Through a window high +in one wall, overgrown with tangled vegetation, crept a broken moonbeam. +Directly before her was the carven figure of a grotesque deity. A long, +heavily clamped chest stood before it like an altar step. + +She staggered forward, deposited her priceless burden upon the floor, +and mechanically began to raise the lid of the chest. + +"Not that one, Mem Sahib!" The voice of Ramsa Lal rose shrilly--"not +that one!..." + +But he spoke too late. Moreen realised that there were three divisions +in the chest, each having a separate lid. As she raised the one in the +centre, a breath of fetid air greeted her nostrils, and she had a vague +impression that this was no chest but the entrance to a deep pit. Then +all these thoughts were swept away by the crowning horror which rose out +of the subterranean darkness. + +A great winged creature, clammily white, rose towards her, passed +beneath her upraised hands and sailed into the darkness on the right. +She heard it flapping its great bat wings against the wall--heard them +beating upon a pillar--then saw it coming back towards her into the +moonlight--and knew no more. + + +VI + +"Mem Sahib!" + +Moreen opened her eyes. She lay, propped against a saddle, at the camp +beside the jungle. She shuddered icily. + +"Ramsa Lal--how----" + +"I carried the Mem Sahib! the treasures of the temple I restored to +their resting-place----" + +"And the--the other----" + +"The door that the Mem Sahib opened she opened by the decree of Fate. It +was not for Ramsa Lal to close it. That is a passage----" + +"Yes?" + +"--To the tomb of the great one who is buried in the temple!" + +"Oh! heavens! that white thing----" She raised her hands to her face. +"But--the camp----" + +"The camp is deserted! they all fled from----" + +Moreen sat up, rigidly. + +"From what?" + +"From something that came for what we forgot!" + +"My husband----" + +"There was a ring upon his finger. I saw it, and knew where it came +from, but forgot to remove it." + +Moreen stood up, and turned towards the nearer tent. Ramsa Lal gently +detained her. + +"Not that way, Mem Sahib." + +"But I must see him! I must, I _must_ tell him that he wrongs me, +cruelly, wickedly! You heard his words-- Oh, God! can he have----" + +"It would be useless to tell him, Mem Sahib,--he could not hear you! But +that what you would tell him is true I know well; for see--it is the +dawn!" + +"Ramsa Lal!..." + +"The unjust cannot stay in this valley through a night and live to see +the dawn, Mem Sahib!" + + +VII + +At about that same hour, Deputy-Commissioner Jack Harringay opened his +eyes and looked wonderingly at a grey-haired, white-aproned nurse who +sat watching him. + +"Don't speak, Mr. Harringay," she said soothingly. "You have been very +ill, but you are on the high road to recovery now." + +"Nurse!..." + +"Please don't speak; I know what you would ask. There has been no +scandal. The attack upon you was ascribed to robbers. You have been +delirious, Mr. Harringay, and have told me--many things. I am old +enough, or nearly old enough, to be your mother, so you will not mind my +telling you that a love like yours deserves reward. God has spared your +life; be sure it was with a purpose----" + + + + +The Blue Monkey + + +I + +A tropically hot day had been followed by a stuffy and oppressive +evening. In the tiny sitting-room of our tiny cottage, my friend--who, +for the purposes of this story, I shall call Mr. East--by the light +of a vapour lamp was busily arranging a number of botanical specimens +collected that morning. His briar fumed furiously between his teeth, +and, his grim, tanned face lowered over his work, he brought to bear +upon this self-imposed task all the intense nervous energy which was +his. + +I sat by the open window alternately watching my tireless companion and +the wonderful and almost eerie effects of the moonlight on the heather. +Then: + +"We came here for quiet--and rest, East," I said, smiling. + +"Well!" snapped my friend. "Isn't it quiet enough for you?" + +"Undeniably. But I don't remember to have seen you rest from the moment +that we left London! I exclude your brief hours of slumber--during +which, by the way, you toss about and mutter in a manner far from +reposeful." + +"No wonder. My nerves are anything but settled yet, I grant you." + +Indeed, we had passed through a long and trying ordeal, the particulars +whereof have no bearing upon the present matter, and in renting +this tiny and remote cottage we had sought complete seclusion and +forgetfulness of those evil activities of man which had so long engaged +our attention. How ill we had chosen will now appear. + +I had turned again to the open window, when my meditations were +interrupted by a sound that seemed to come from somewhere away behind +the cottage. Cigarette in hand, I leaned upon the sill, listening, then +turned and glanced toward the littered table. East, his eyes steely +bright in the lamplight, was watching me. + +"You heard it?" I said. + +"Clearly. A woman's shriek!" + +"Listen!" + +Tense, expectant, we sat listening for some time, until I began to +suspect that we had been deceived by the note of some unfamiliar denizen +of the moors. Then, faintly, chokingly, the sound was repeated, +seemingly from much nearer. + +"Come on!" snapped East. + +Hatless, we both hurried around to the rear of the cottage. As we came +out upon the slope, a figure appeared on the brow of a mound some two +hundred yards away and stood for a moment silhouetted against the +moonlit sky. It was that of a woman. She raised her arms at sight of +us--and staggered forward. + +Just in the nick of time we reached her, for her strength was almost +spent. East caught her in his arms. + +"Good God!" he said, "it is Miss Baird!" + +What could it mean? The girl, who was near to swooning and inarticulate +with fatigue and emotion, was the daughter of Sir Jeffrey Baird, our +neighbour, whose house, The Warrens, was visible from where we stood. + +East half led, half carried her down the slope to the cottage; and there +I gave her professional attention, whilst, with horror-bright eyes and +parted lips, she fought for mastery of herself. She was a rather pretty +girl, but highly emotional, and her pathetically weak mouth was +doubtless a maternal heritage, for her father, Sir Jeffrey, had the +mouth and jaw of the old fighter that he was. + +At last she achieved speech. + +"My father!" she whispered brokenly; "oh, my poor father!" + +"What!" I began---- + +"At Black Gap!..." + +"Black Gap!" I said; for the place was close upon half a mile away. +"Have you come so far?" + +"He is lying there! My poor father--dead!" + +"What!" cried East, springing up--"Sir Jeffrey--dead? Not drowned?" + +"No, no! he is lying on the path this side of the Gap! I ... almost +stumbled over ... him. He has been ... murdered! Oh, God help me!..." + +East and I stared at one another, speechless with the sudden horror of +it. Sir Jeffrey murdered! + +Suddenly the distracted girl turned to my friend, clutching frenziedly +at his arm. + +"Oh, Mr. East!" she cried, "what had my poor father done to merit such +an end? What monster has struck him down? You will find him, will you +not? I thank God that you are here--for although I know you as 'Mr. +East,' my father confided the truth to me, and I am aware that you are +really a Secret Service agent, and I even know some of the wonderful +things you have done in the past...." + +"Very indiscreet!" muttered East, and his jaws snapped together +viciously. But--"My dear Miss Baird," he added immediately, in the +kindly way that was his own, "rely upon me. Myself and my fellow-worker, +the doctor here, had sought to escape from the darker things of life, +but it was willed otherwise. I esteemed Sir Jeffrey very highly"--his +voice shook--"very highly indeed. I, too, thank God that I am here." + + +II + +Five minutes later, East and I set out across the moor, leaving Miss +Baird at the cottage. By reason of the lonely situation, and the fact +that the nearest house, The Warrens, was fully a mile and a half +away, no other arrangement was possible, since delay could not be +entertained. + +East had managed to glean some few important facts. Sir Jeffrey, whose +museum at The Warrens was justly celebrated, had been to London that day +to attend an auction at Sotheby's. His Greek secretary, Mr. Damopolon, +and his daughter had accompanied him. Returning by train to Stanby, the +nearest station, Miss Baird had called upon friends in the village (Mr. +Damopolon had remained in London on business), and Sir Jeffrey had set +out in the dusk to walk the two miles to The Warrens; for the car was +undergoing repairs. + +Pursuing the same path later in the evening, the girl had come upon the +body of her father in the dramatically dreadful manner already related. +He had no enemies, she declared, or none known to her. She did not +believe that her father was carrying a large sum of money, nor--although +she had scarcely trusted herself to look at him--did she believe that +robbery had been the motive of the crime. + +Sir Jeffrey had been carrying a large parcel containing one of his +purchases, and I remembered, as we silently pursued our way to the scene +of the murder, how East's keen eyes had seemed to dance with excitement +when Miss Baird, in reply to a question, had told us what this parcel +contained. It was a large figure, in blue porcelain, of a sacred ape, +and was of Burmese or Chinese origin; she was uncertain which. + +Her father had apparently attached great importance to this strange +purchase, and had elected to bear it home in person rather than to trust +it to railway transport. + +"Did you notice if this parcel was there," East had inquired eagerly, +"when you discovered him?" + +Miss Baird had shaken her head in reply. + +And now we were come to Black Gap, a weird feature in a weird landscape. +This was a great hole in the moor, having high clay banks upon one side +descending sheer to the tarn, and upon the other being flanked by low, +marshy ground about a small coppice. The road from Stanby to The Warrens +passed close by the coppice on the south-east. + +Regarding this place opinions differed. By some it was supposed to be a +natural formation, but it was locally believed to mark the site of an +abandoned mine, possibly Roman. Its depth was unknown, and the legend +of the coach which lay at the bottom, and which could be seen under +certain favourable conditions, has found a place in all the guide-books +to that picturesque and wild district. + +Whatever its origin, Black Gap was a weird and gloomy spot as one +approached and saw through the trees the gleam of the moonlight on +its mystic waters. And here, passing a slight southerly bend in the +track--for it was no more--we came upon Sir Jeffrey. + +He lay huddled in a grotesque and unnatural attitude. His right hand was +tightly clenched, whilst with his left he clutched a tuft of rank grass. +Strangely enough, his soft hat was still upon his head. His tweed suit, +soft collar and, tie all bore evidence of the fierce struggle which the +old baronet had put up for his life. A quantity of torn brown paper lay +scattered near the body. + +I dropped on my knees and made a rapid examination, East directing the +ray of a pocket-lamp upon the poor victim. + +"Well?" rapped my friend. + +"He was struck over the head by some heavy weapon," I said slowly, +"and perhaps partly stunned. His hat protected him to a degree, and +he tackled his assailant. Death was actually due, I should say, to +strangulation. His throat is very much bruised." + +East made no reply. Glancing up from my gruesome task, I observed that +he was looking at a faint track, which, commencing amid the confused +marks surrounding the body, led in the direction of the coppice. East's +steely eyes were widely opened. + +"In heaven's name, what have we here!" he said. + +A kindred amazement to that which held East claimed me, as I studied +more closely the mysterious tracks. + +The spot where Sir Jeffrey had fallen was soft ground, whereon the +lightest footstep must have left a clear impression. Indeed, around the +recumbent figure the ground showed a mass of indistinguishable marks. +But proceeding thence, as I have said, in the direction of the +neighbouring coppice, was this faint trail. + +"It looks," I said, in a voice hushed with something very like awe, "it +looks like the track of ... _a child_!" + +"Look again!" snapped East. + +I stooped over the first set of marks. Clearly indented, I perceived the +impressions of two small, bare feet, and, eighteen or twenty inches +ahead, those of two small hands. I experienced a sudden chill; my blood +seemed momentarily to run coldly in my veins, and I longed to depart +from the shadow of the trees, from the neighbourhood of the Black Gap, +and from the neighbourhood of the man who had died there. For it seemed +to me that a barefooted infant had recently crawled from the side of the +dead man into the coppice overhanging the tarn. + +Looking up, I found East's steely eyes set upon me strangely. + +"Well!" said he, "do you not miss something that you anticipated +finding?" + +I hesitated, fearfully. Then: + +"Sir Jeffrey carries no cane," I began---- + +"Good! I had failed to note that. Good! But what else?" + +Closely I surveyed the body, noting the disarranged garments, the +discoloured face. + +"What of this torn brown paper?" snapped my friend. + +"Good heavens!" I cried; and like a flash my glance sought again those +mysterious tracks--those tracks of _something_ that had crawled away +from the murdered man. + +"Where," inquired East deliberately, "is the Burmese porcelain ape of +which we have heard? And, since there are no tracks _approaching_ the +body, where did the creature come from that made those retiring from it, +and ... what manner of creature was it?" + + +III + +At East's request (for my friend was a man of very great influence) the +police, beyond the unavoidable formalities, took no steps to apprehend +the murderer of Sir Jeffrey. East had a long interview with the dead +man's daughter, and, shortly afterwards, went off to London, leaving me +to my own devices. + +The subject of the strange death of the baronet naturally engrossed +my attention to the exclusion of all else. Especially, my mind kept +reverting to the tracks which we had discovered leading from the dead +man's body into the coppice. I scarcely dared to follow my ideas to what +seemed to be their logical conclusion. + +That the track was that, not of a child, but of an _ape_, I was now +convinced. No such track approached where the victim had lain; no track +of any kind, other than that of his own heavy footprints, led to the +spot ... but the track of an ape receded from it; and the baronet had +been carrying an ape (inanimate, certainly, according to all known +natural laws), which was missing when his body was found! + +"These are the reflections of a madman!" I said aloud. "Am I seriously +considering the possibility of a blue porcelain monkey having come to +life? If so, since no other footprints have been discovered, I shall be +compelled, logically, to assume that the blue porcelain monkey strangled +Sir Jeffrey!" + +My friend, East, attached very great importance to the missing curio; +this he had not disguised from me. But, beyond spending half an hour or +so among the trees of the coppice and around the margin of the Black +Gap, he had not to my knowledge essayed any quest for it. + +Finding my thoughts at once unpleasant and unprofitable company, I +suddenly determined to make a call at The Warrens, in order to inquire +about the health of poor Miss Baird, and incidentally to learn if there +were any new development. + +Off I set, and failed to repress a shudder, despite the blazing +sunlight, as I passed the gap and the spot where we had found the dead +man. A tropical shower in the early morning had quite obliterated the +mysterious tracks. Coming to The Warrens, I was shown into the fine old +library. That air of hush, so awesome and so significant, prevailed +throughout the house whose master lay dead above, and when presently Mr. +Damopolon entered, attired in black, he seemed to complete a picture +already sombre. + +As East and I had several times remarked, he was a singularly handsome +man, and moreover, a very charming companion, widely travelled and +deeply versed in those subjects to which the late baronet had devoted so +many years of his life. I had always liked Damopolon, though, as a rule, +I am distrustful of his race; and now, seeing at a glance how hard the +death of Sir Jeffrey had hit him, I offered no unnecessary word of +condolence, but immediately turned the conversation upon Miss Baird. + +"She has but just hurried off to London, doctor," he said, to my +surprise. "A telegram from the solicitors rendered her immediate +departure unavoidable." + +"She has sustained this dreadful blow with exemplary fortitude," I +replied. "Are you sure she was strong enough for travel?" + +"I myself escorted her to the station; and Mrs. Grierson, the late +baronet's sister, has accompanied her to London." + +"By the way," I said, "whilst I remember--was Sir Jeffrey carrying a +cane at the time of his death?" + +"He had with him a heavy ash stick, as usual, when we parted at +Sotheby's, doctor; but, of course, he may have left it there, as he had +a large parcel to take." + +"Ah! that parcel! You can no doubt enlighten me, Mr. Damopolon? What, +roughly, were the dimensions of this Burmese idol?" + +"The monkey? I don't think it was actually an idol, doctor; it was, +rather, a grotesque ornament. Oh, it was about the size of a small +Moorish ape, hollow, and weighing perhaps six or seven pounds." + +"Was it upon a pedestal?" + +"No. It was completely modelled, even to the soles of the feet and the +nails." + +"Extraordinary!" I muttered. "Uncanny!" + +Some little while longer I remained, and then set out, my doubts in no +measure cleared up, for the cottage. To my surprise--for I had no idea +that I had tarried so long--dusk was come. I will frankly confess it--I +experienced a thrill of supernatural dread at the thought that my path +led close beside Black Gap. However, it was a glorious evening, and I +should have plenty of light for my return journey. I walked briskly +across the moorpath toward the scene of the mysterious crime, hoping +that I should find East returned when I gained the cottage. + +Perhaps in a wandering life I have known more thrilling moments than +some men; but never while memory serves shall I forget that, when, +coming abreast of the coppice, and glancing hurriedly into the shadow of +the trees ... I saw a crouching figure looking out at me! + +Speech momentarily failed me; I stood rooted to the spot. Then: + +"All right, old man!" I heard. "Shall be with you in a moment!" + +It was East! + +Fear changed to the wildest astonishment. Carrying a strange-looking +bundle, he came out and joined me on the path. + +"Did I frighten you?" + +"Is it necessary to ask!" I cried. "But--whatever were you doing there +by the Black Gap?" + +"Fishing! Look what I have caught!" + +He held up for my inspection the object which he carried, by means of +two loops of stout cord bound about it. It was a large china figure of +an ape! + +"The blue monkey!" he snapped. "Come! I am going to The Warrens." + + +IV + +Again I sat in the fine old library of The Warrens. At the further +end of the long, book-laden table, facing me, sat East; Mr. Damopolon +occupied a chair on the right, and midway between us, in the centre of +the table, presiding over that strange meeting, was the fateful blue +monkey. + +"You see, Mr. Damopolon," said East, "I knew that Sir Jeffrey was +carrying this thing"--he indicated the image--"at the time of his death, +and, since it had disappeared, I assumed at first that it had been the +motive of the crime. Sir Jeffrey had money and other valuables upon him; +therefore we were obviously dealing with no ordinary thief. + +"Accordingly, I made inquiries respecting the history of the thing, +and found that it possessed but little market value and next to +no historical importance. It was of comparatively modern Chinese +workmanship, and Sir Jeffrey had bought it, apparently, because it +amused him, though why he should have taken the trouble to carry it +home, heaven only knows. My first idea--that the curio was a very rare +and costly piece--was thus knocked on the head. + +"I sought another motive for a crime so horrible and, by a stroke of +intuition, I found one. You may not have had an opportunity of studying +the mysterious tracks which so puzzled us, Mr. Damopolon, before they +were obliterated, but my friend, the doctor, will bear me out. They +commenced, then, close beside the body of the murdered man, and they +were, as I now perceive, made by the feet of this blue monstrosity upon +the table here!" + +"Impossible," murmured the secretary incredulously. + +"So it appeared to me at the time, when, although I had not then +seen the image of the monkey, I perceived, by the absolutely regular +character of the impressions, that they were made, not by a living +creature, but by the model of one which had been firmly pressed into +the soft ground at slightly varying intervals. Since no footprints +other than those of Sir Jeffrey were to be found in the vicinity, I was +unable to account for the presence of the person who had made these +impressions. I devoted myself to a close scrutiny of those footprints +of Sir Jeffrey's which led up to the scene of the attack. It became +apparent, immediately, that some one had _followed_ him ... some one who +crept silently along behind the unsuspecting victim ... some one so +clever that he placed his feet _almost exactly_ in the marks made by the +baronet! + +"Good! I had accounted for the presence of the murderer. He struck Sir +Jeffrey with some heavy implement, but failed to stun him. Then began +the struggle, which so churned up the ground that all tracks were lost. +The murderer prevailed. He was a man of wonderful nerve. Never once did +he place his foot upon virgin ground; not one imprint by which he might +be identified did he leave behind him!" + +"Then how," inquired Damopolon, who was hanging upon every word, "did he +leave the scene if----" + +"Listen," snapped East. "I found by the body the torn paper in which the +china image had been wrapped--but no string! I went all the way to +London to learn if the parcel had been tied with string and if Sir +Jeffrey had been carrying a stick!" + +"But surely," said Damopolon, "I could have saved you the journey, since +I was with the late baronet immediately before he set out for home." + +"Quite so--but I had another reason for my visit." + +East shot a sudden glance from Damopolon to myself, and there ensued a +moment of electric silence. + +"Beside the track made by the feet of the image," he resumed slowly, "I +found a series of wedge-shaped holes, one on either side of each +monkey-impression. Do you follow me, Mr. Damopolon?" + +"Perfectly," replied the Greek, taking up and lighting a cigarette. +"Wedge-shaped holes, you say?" + +"They were the clue for which I sought! I saw it all! The china ape had +been used as a _stepping-stone_! The cunning criminal had thus gained +the firm ground in the coppice without leaving a footprint behind!..." + +"But, my dear East," I interrupted, "I cannot follow you. He stepped +from beside the body on to the image, which he had placed at a +convenient distance?" + +"Yes. Then, by means of loops of string--see, they are still +attached!--he lifted it forward with his feet----" + +"But----" + +"Supporting his weight upon two sticks--Sir Jeffrey's and his own! Hence +the wedge-shaped holes beside the track! He had actually reached firm +ground when his own stick snapped off short, and he made the fatal error +of leaving the fragment and the ferrule, imbedded in the hole! Here is +the fragment!" + +On the table East laid a fragment of an ebony cane, broken off short +some three inches above the nickel ferrule. + +"Ebony is so brittle, is it not, Mr. Damopolon?" he said. + +"It is indeed," agreed Damopolon, standing up as though he believed East +to have finished. + +"Yet this stick was made of a particularly fine piece," added East. +"Carter!" he cried loudly. + +The library door opened ... and Detective Sergeant Carter, of New +Scotland Yard, entered, carrying a broken ebony stick. Damopolon dropped +his cigarette, and, whilst he stooped to recover it: + +"Carter and I went fishing this afternoon," said East, "in the Black +Gap. The criminal had sought to hide the broken cane--which bears his +monogram--and also the image. He had tied them together, filled the +image with clay, and dropped them into the water. Fortunately, they +stuck upon an outstanding mass of weeds, and we did not fish in vain. +Is there any point, Mr. Damopolon, which I have not made clear? I don't +know what implement you used to strike Sir Jeffrey, nor do I know what +you did with his ash-stick!..." + +Clutching wildly at the table, I rose to my feet, my gaze set amazedly +upon the man thus accused, upon the man I had called my friend, upon +the man who owed so much to the dead baronet. And he?... He tossed his +cigarette into the hearth and shrugged his shoulders. But, now, I saw +that he was deathly pale. He began speaking, in a hoarse, mechanical +voice: + +"I struck him with a broken elm branch," he said. "His hat saved him. I +completed the matter with my bare hands. I was desperate. You need not +tell me that Olive--Miss Baird--has confessed to our secret marriage, +nor shall I weary you with the many reasons I had to hate her father and +the pressing need I had for the fortune which she inherits at his death. +It is finished; I have lost, and----" + +"Carter!" cried East. "Quick! quick!" + +But though the detective, who had been edging nearer and nearer to the +speaker, now sprang upon him with the leap of a panther, he was too +late. The sound of a muffled shot echoed through The Warrens, and the +Greek fell with an appalling crash fully over the library table, so that +the blue monkey slid across its polished surface and was shattered to +bits upon the oaken floor! + + + + +The Riddle of Ragstaff + + +I + +"Well, Harry, my boy, and what's the latest news from Venice?" + +Harry Lorian stretched his long legs and lay back in his chair. + +"I had a letter from the governor this morning, Colonel. He appears +to be filling his portfolio with studies of windows and doorways and +stair-rails and the other domestic necessities dear to his architectural +soul!" + +Colonel Reynor laughed in his short, gruff way, as my friend, Lorian, +gazing sleepily about the quaint old hall in which we sat, but always +bringing his gaze to one point--a certain door--blew rings of smoke +straightly upward. + +"I suppose," said our host, the Colonel, "most of the material will be +used for the forthcoming book?" + +"I suppose so," drawled Lorian, glancing for the twentieth time at +the yet vacant doorway by the stair-foot. "The idea of architects and +artists and other constitutionally languid people, having to write +books, fills my soul with black horror." + +"He had a glorious time with our old panelling, Harry," laughed the +Colonel, waving his cigar vaguely toward the panelled walls and nooks +which gradually were receding into the twilight. + +"Yes," said my friend. "He was here quite an unconscionable time--even +for an old school chum of the proprietor. I hope you counted the spoons +when he left!" + +Lorian's disrespectful references to Sir Julius, his father, were +characteristic; for he reverences that famous artist with the double +love of a son and a pupil. + +"Of course we did," chuckled Reynor. "Nothing missing, my boy!" + +"That's funny," drawled Lorian. "Because if he didn't steal it from here +I can't imagine from where he stole it!" + +"Stole what, Harry?" + +"Whatever some chap broke into his studio for last night!" + +"Eh!" cried the Colonel, sitting suddenly very upright. "Into your +father's studio? Burglars?" + +"Suppose so," was the reply. "They took nothing that I was aware to be +in his possession, though the place was ransacked. I naturally concluded +that they had taken something that I was _unaware_ to be in his----Ah!" + +Sybil Reynor entered by the door which, for the past twenty minutes, +had been the focus of Lorian's gaze. The gathering dusk precluded the +possibility of my seeing with certainty, but I think her face flushed as +her dark eyes rested upon my friend. Her beauty is not of the kind which +needs deceptive half-lights to perfect it, but there in the dimness, as +she came towards us, she looked very lovely and divinely graceful. I did +not envy Lorian his good fortune; but I suppressed a sigh when I saw how +my existence had escaped the girl's notice and how the world in her +eyes, contained only a Henry Lorian, R.I. + +Her mother entered shortly afterwards and a general conversation arose, +which continued until the arrival of Ralph Edie and his sister. They +were accompanied by Felix Hulme; and their advent completed the small +party expected at Ragstaff Park. + +"You late arrivals," said Lorian, "have only just time to dress, unless +you want to miss everything but the nuts!" + +"Oh, Harry!" said Mrs. Reynor, "you are as bad as your father!" + +"Worse," said Lorian promptly. "I am altogether more rude and have a +bigger appetite!" + +With such seeming trivialities, then, opened the drama of Ragstaff, the +drama in which Fate had cast four of us for leading rôles. + + +II + +Following dinner, the men--or, as my friend has it, "the +gunners"--drifted into the hall. The hall at Ragstaff Park is fitted +as a smoking lounge. It dates back to Tudor days and affords some +magnificent examples of mediæval panelling. At every point the eye meets +the device of a man with a ragged staff--from which the place derives +its name, and which is the crest of the Reynors. + +A conversation took place to which, at the time, I attached small +importance, but which, later, assumed a certain significance. + +"Extraordinary business," said Felix Hulme--"that attempted burglary at +Sir Julius's studio last night." + +"Yes," replied Lorian. "Who told you?" + +Hulme appeared to be confused by the abrupt question. + +"Oh," he replied, "I heard of it from Baxter, who has the next studio, +you know." + +"When did you see Baxter?" asked Lorian casually. + +"This morning." + +"I suppose," said Colonel Reynor to my friend, "a number of your +father's drawings are there?" + +"Yes," answered Lorian slowly; "but the more valuable ones I have at my +own studio, including those intended for use in his book." + +Something in his tone caused me to glance hard at him. + +"You don't think they were the burglar's objective?" I suggested. + +"Hardly," was the reply. "They would be worthless to a thief." + +"First I've heard of this attempt, Lorian," said Edie. "Anything +missing?" + +"No. The thing is an utter mystery. There were some odds and ends lying +about which no ordinary burglar could very well have overlooked." + +"If any loss had been sustained," said the Colonel, half jestingly, "I +should have put it down to the Riddle!" + +"Don't quite follow you. Colonel," remarked Edie. "What riddle?" + +"The family Riddle of the Ragstaffs," explained Lorian. "You've seen +it--over there by the staircase." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the other, "you mean that inscription on the +panel--which means nothing in particular? Yes, I have examined it +several times. But why should it affect the fortunes of Sir Julius?" + +"You see," was the Colonel's reply, "we have a tradition in the family, +Edie, that the Riddle brings us luck, but brings misfortune to anyone +else who has it in his possession. It's never been copied before; but I +let Lorian--Sir Julius--make a drawing of it for his forthcoming book +on Decorative Wood-carving. I don't know," he added smilingly, "if the +mysterious influence follows the copy or only appertains to the +original." + +"Let us have another look at it," said Edie. "It has acquired a new +interest!" + +The whole party of us passed idly across the hall to the foot of the +great staircase. From the direction of the drawing-room proceeded the +softly played strains of the _Duetto_ from _Cavalleria_. I knew Sybil +Reynor was the player, and I saw Lorian glance impatiently in the +direction of the door. Hulme detected the glance, too, and an expression +rested momentarily upon his handsome face which I found myself at a loss +to define. + +"You see," said the Colonel, holding a candle close to the +time-blackened panel, "it is a meaningless piece of mediæval doggerel +roughly carved in the wood. The oak-leaf border is very fine, so your +father tells me, Harry"--to Lorian--"but it is probably the work of +another hand, as is the man and ragged staff which form the shield at +the top." + +"Has it ever occurred to you," asked Hulme, "that the writing might be +of a very much later date--late Stuart, for instance?" + +"No," replied the Colonel abruptly, and turned away. "I am sure it is +earlier than that." + +I was not the only member of the party who noticed the curt tone of his +reply; and when we had all retired for the night I lingered in Lorian's +room and reverted to the matter. + +"Is the late Stuart period a sore point with the Colonel?" I asked. + +Lorian, who was in an unusually thoughtful mood, lighted his pipe and +nodded. + +"It is said," he explained, "that a Reynor at about that time turned +buccaneer and became the terror of the two Atlantics! I don't know what +possessed Hulme to say such a thing. Probably he doesn't know about the +piratical page in the family records, however. He's a strange chap." + +"He is," I agreed. "Everybody seems to know him, yet nobody knows +anything _about_ him. I first met him at the Travellers' Club. I was +unaware, until I came down here this time, that the Colonel was one of +his friends." + +"Edie brought him down first," replied Lorian. "But I think Hulme had +met Sybil--Miss Reynor--in London, before. I may be a silly ass, but +somehow I distrust the chap--always have. He seems to know altogether +too much about other people's affairs." + +I mentally added that he also took too great an interest in a +certain young lady to suit Lorian's taste. We chatted upon various +matters--principally upon the manners, customs, and manifold beauties +of Sybil Reynor--until my friend's pipe went out. Then I bade him good +night and went to my own room. + + +III + +With that abruptness characteristic of the coast and season, a high wind +had sprung up since the party had separated. Now a continuous booming +filled the night, telling how the wrath of the North Atlantic spent +itself upon the western rocks. + +To a town-dweller, more used to the vaguely soothing hum of the +metropolis, this grander music of the elements was a poor sedative. +Sleep evaded me, tired though I was, and I presently found myself +drifting into that uncomfortable frame of mind between dreaming and +waking, wherein one's brain becomes a torturing parrot-house, filled +with some meaningless reiteration. + +"The riddle of the ragged staff--the riddle of the ragged staff," was +the phrase that danced maddeningly through my brain. It got to that pass +with me, familiar enough to victims of insomnia, when the words began to +go to a sort of monotonous melody. + +Thereupon, I determined to light a candle and read for a while, in the +hope of inducing slumber. + +The old clock down in the hall proclaimed the half-hour. I glanced at my +watch. It was half-past one. The moaning of the wind and the wild song +of the sea continued unceasingly. + +Then I dropped my paper--and listened. + +Amid the mighty sounds which raged about Ragstaff Park it was one slight +enough which had attracted my attention. But in the elemental music +there was a sameness which rendered it, after a time, negligible. +Indeed, I think sleep was not far off when this new sound detached +itself from the old--like the solo from its accompaniment. + +Something had fallen, crashingly, within the house. + +It might be some object insecurely fastened which had been detached +in the breeze from an open window. And, realising this, I waited and +listened. + +For some minutes the wind and the waves alone represented sound. Then my +ears, attuned to this stormy conflict, and sensitive to anything apart +from it, detected a faint scratching and tapping. + +My room was the first along the corridor leading to the west wing, and +therefore the nearest to the landing immediately above the hall. I +determined that this mysterious disturbance proceeded from downstairs. +At another time, perhaps, I might have neglected it, but to-night, +and so recently following upon Lorian's story of the attempt upon his +father's studio, I found myself keenly alive to the burglarious +possibilities of Ragstaff. + +I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and, having extinguished the +candle, was about to open the door when I observed a singular thing. + +A strong light--which could not be that of the moon, for ordinarily the +corridor beyond was dark--shone under the door! + +Even as I looked in amazement it was gone. + +Very softly I turned the knob. + +Careful as I was, it slipped from my grasp with a faint _click_. To +this, I think, I owed my failure to see more than I did see. But what I +saw was sufficiently remarkable. + +Cloud-banks raced across the sky tempestuously, and, as I peered over +the oaken balustrade down into the hall, one of these impinged upon the +moon's disc and, within the space of two seconds or less, had wholly +obscured it. Upon where a long, rectangular patch of light, splashed +with lozenge-shaped shadows spread from a mullioned window across +the polished floor, crept a band of blackness--widened--claimed +half--claimed the whole--and left the hall in darkness. + +Yet, in the half-second before the coming of the cloud, and as I first +looked down, I had seen something--something indefinable. All but +immediately it was lost in the quick gliding shadow--yet I could be sure +that I had seen--what? + +A gleaming, metallic streak--almost I had said a sword--which leapt from +my view into the bank of gloom! + +Passing the cloud, and the moon anew cutting a line of light through the +darkness of the hall, nothing, no one, remained to be seen. I might have +imagined the presence of the shining blade, rod, or whatever had seemed +to glitter in the moon-rays; and I should have felt assured that such +was the case but for the suspicion (and it was nearly a certainty) that +a part of the shadow which had enwrapped the mysterious appearance had +been of greater depth than the rest--more tangible; in short, had been +no shadow, but a substance--the form of one who lurked there. + +Doubtful how to act, and unwilling to disturb the house without good +reason, I stood hesitating at the head of the stairs. + +A grating sound, like that of a rusty lock, and clearly distinguishable +above the noise occasioned by the wind, came to my ears. I began slowly +and silently to descend the stairs. + +At the foot I paused, looking warily about me. There was no one in the +hall. + +A new cloud swept across the face of the moon, and utter darkness +surrounded me again. I listened intently, but nothing stirred. + +Briefly I searched all those odd nooks and corners in which the rambling +place abounded, but without discovering anything to account for the +phenomena which had brought me there at that hour of the night. The big +doors were securely bolted, as were all the windows. Extremely puzzled, +I returned to my room and to bed. + +In the morning I said nothing to our host respecting the mysterious +traffic of the night, since nothing appeared to be disturbed in any way. + +"Did you hear it blowing?" asked Colonel Reynor during breakfast. "The +booming of the waves sounded slap under the house. Good job the wind has +dropped this morning." + +It was, indeed, a warm and still morning, when on the moorland strip +beyond the long cornfield, where the thick fir-tufts marked the warren +honeycomb, partridges might be met with in many coveys, basking in the +sandy patches. + +There were tunnels through the dense bushes to the west, too, which led +one with alarming suddenness to the very brink of the cliff. And here +went scurrying many a hare before the armed intruder. + +Lorian and I worked around by lunch-time to the spinneys east of +the cornfield, and, nothing loath to partake of the substantial +hospitalities of Ragstaff, made our way up to the house. There is a kind +of rock-garden from which you must approach from that side. It affords +an uninterrupted view of the lower part of the grounds from the lawn up +to the terrace. + +Only two figures were in sight; and they must have been invisible from +any other point, as we, undoubtedly, were invisible to them. + +They were those of a man and a girl. They stood upon the steps +leading down from the lawn to the rose-garden. It was impossible to +misunderstand the nature of the words which the man was speaking. But +I saw the girl turn aside and shake her head. The man sought to take +her hand and received a further and more decided rebuff. + +We hurried on. Lorian, though I avoided looking directly at him, +was biting his lip. He was very pale, too. And I knew that he had +recognized, as I had recognized, Sybil Reynor and Felix Hulme. + + +IV + +During lunch, a Mr. Findon, who had driven over with one of the +Colonel's neighbours, asked Sybil Reynor whether the peculiar and far +from beautiful ring which she invariably wore was Oriental. From his +conversation I gathered that he was something of an expert. + +"It is generally supposed to be Phoenician, Mr. Findon," she answered; +and slipping it from her finger she passed it to him. "It is my lot in +life to wear it always, hideous though it is!" + +"Indeed! An heirloom, I suppose?" + +"Yes," replied the girl; "and an ugly one." + +In point of fact, the history of the ring was as curious as that of the +Riddle. For generations it had been worn by the heir of Ragstaff from +the day of his majority to that of his eldest son's. Colonel Reynor +had no son. Hence, following the tradition as closely as circumstances +allowed, he had invested Sybil with the ring upon the day that she came +of age--some three months prior to the time of which I write. + +As Mr. Findon was about to return the ring, Lorian said: + +"Excuse me. May I examine it for a moment?" + +"Of course," replied Sybil. + +He took it in his hand and bent over it curiously. I cannot pretend to +explain what impelled me to glance towards Hulme at that moment; but I +did do so. And the expression which rested upon his dark and usually +handsome face positively alarmed me. + +I concluded that, beneath the cool surface, he was a man of hot +passions, and I would have ascribed the fixed glare to the jealousy of +a rejected suitor in presence of a more favoured rival, had it centred +upon Lorian. But it appeared to be focused, particularly, upon the ring. + +The incident impressed me very unfavourably. A sense of mystery was +growing up around me--pervading the atmosphere of Ragstaff Park. + +After lunch Lorian and I again set out in company, but my friend +appeared to be in anything but sporting humour. We bore off at a sharp +angle from the Colonel and some others who were set upon the rough +shooting on the western rim of the moors and made for the honeycombed +ground which led one upward to the cliff edge. + +Abruptly, we found ourselves upon the sheer brink, with the floor of the +ocean at our feet and all the great Atlantic before us. + +"Let us relent of our murderous purpose," said Lorian, dropping +comfortably on to a patch of velvety turf and producing his pipe. "I +have dragged you up here with the malicious intention of talking to +you." + +I was not sorry to hear it. There was much that I wished to discuss with +him. + +"I should have stayed to say something to some one," he added, carefully +stuffing his briar, "but first I wanted to say something to you." He +paused, fumbling for matches. "What," he continued, finding some and +striking one, "is Felix Hulme's little game?" + +"He wants to marry Miss Reynor." + +"I know; but he needn't get so infernally savage because she won't +accept him. He looked at me in a positively murderous way at lunch +to-day." + +"So you noticed that?" + +"Yes--and I saw that you noticed it, too." + +"Listen," I said. "Leaving Hulme out of the question, there is an +altogether more mysterious business afoot." And I told him of the +episode of the previous night. + +He smoked stolidly whilst I spoke, frowning the while; then: + +"Old chap," he said, "I begin to have a sort of glimmering of +intelligence. I believe I am threatened with an idea! But it's such an +utterly fantastic hybrid that I dare not name it--yet." + +He asked me several questions respecting what I had seen, and my replies +appeared to confirm whatever suspicion was gathering in his mind. We saw +little enough sport, but came in later than anyone. + +During dinner there was an odd incident. Lorian said: + +"Colonel, d'you mind my taking a picture of the Riddle?" + +"Eh!" said the Colonel. "What for? Your father made a drawing of it." + +"Yes, I know," replied Lorian. "I mean a photograph." + +"Well," mused the Colonel, "I don't know that there can be much +objection, since it has been copied once. But have you got a camera +here?" + +"Ah--no," said my friend thoughtfully, "I haven't. Can anybody lend me +one?" + +Apparently no one could. + +"If you care to drive over to Dr. Mason's after dinner," said our host, +"he will lend you one. He has several." + +Lorian said he would, and I volunteered to accompany him. Accordingly +the Colonel's high dogcart was prepared; and beneath a perfect moon, +swimming in a fleckless sky which gave no hint of the storm to come, +we set off for the doctor's. + +My friend's manoeuvres were a constant source of surprise to me. +However, I allowed him to know his own business best, and employed my +mind with speculations respecting this mystery, what time the Colonel's +spirited grey whisked us along the dusty roads. + +We had just wheeled around Dr. Mason's drive, when the fact broke in +upon my musings that a Stygian darkness had descended upon the night, +as though the moon had been snuffed, candle-wise. + +"Devil of a storm brewing," said Lorian. "Funny how the weather changes +at night." + +Two minutes after entering the doctor's cosy study, down came the rain. + +"Now we're in for it!" said Mason. "I'll send Wilkins to run the dogcart +into the stable until it blows over." + +The storm proved to be a severe one; and long past midnight, despite the +doctor's hospitable attempts to detain us, we set off for Ragstaff Park. + +"We can put up the grey ourselves," said Lorian. "I love grooming +horses! And by going around into the yard and throwing gravel up at +his window, we can awaken Peters without arousing the house. This plan +almost startles me by its daring originality. I fear that I detect +within myself the symptoms of genius." + +So, with one of Dr. Mason's cameras under the seat, we started back +through the sweet-smelling lanes; and, at about twenty minutes past one, +swung past the gate lodge and up the long avenue, the wheels grinding +crisply upon the newly wetted gravel. There was but little moon, now, +and the house stood up, an irregular black mass, before us. + +Then, from three of the windows, there suddenly leapt out a dazzling +white light! + +Lorian pulled up the grey with a jerk. + +"Good God!" he said. "What's that! An explosion!" + +But no sound reached us. Only, for some seconds, the hard, white glare +streamed out upon the steps and down on to the drive. Suddenly as it had +come--it was gone, and the whole of Ragstaff was in darkness as before! + +The horse started nervously, but my friend held him with a firm hand, +turning and looking at me queerly. + +"That's what shone under your door last night!" he said. "That light was +in the hall!" + + +V + +Peters was awakened, the horse stabled and ourselves admitted without +arousing another soul. As we came around from the back of the house (we +had not entered by the main door), and, candles in hand, passed through +the hall, nothing showed as having been disturbed. + +"Don't breathe a word of our suspicions to anyone," counselled Lorian. + +"What _are_ our suspicions?" said I. + +"At present," he replied, "indefinable." + +To-night the distant murmur of the sea proved very soothing, and I slept +soundly. I was early afoot, however, but not so early as Lorian. As I +passed around the gallery above the hall, on my way to the bathroom, I +saw him folding up the tripod of the camera which he had borrowed from +Dr. Mason. The morning sun was streaming through the windows. + +"Hullo!" Lorian called to me. "I've got a splendid negative, I think. +Peters is rigging up a dark-room in the wine-cellar--delightful site for +the purpose! Will you join me in developing?" + +Although I was unable to conjecture what my friend hoped to gain by his +photographic experiments, I agreed, prompted as much by curiosity as +anything else. So, after my tub, I descended to the cellar and splashed +about in Hypo., until Lorian declared himself satisfied. + +"The second is the best," he pronounced critically, holding the negative +up to the red lamp. "I made three exposures in all; but the reflection +from the polished wood has rather spoiled the first and also the third." + +"Whatever do you want with this photograph, anyway," I said, "when the +original is available?" + +"My dear chap," he replied, "one cannot squat in the hall fixedly +regarding a section of panel like some fakir staring at a palm leaf!" + +"Then you intend to study it?" + +"Closely!" + +As a matter of fact, he did not join us during the whole of the day; but +since he spent the greater part of the time in his own room, I did not +proffer my aid. From a remark dropped by the Colonel, I gathered that +Sybil had volunteered to assist, during the afternoon, in preparing +prints. + +I was one of the first in to tea, and Lorian came racing out to meet me. + +"Not a word yet," he said, "but if the Colonel is agreeable, I shall +tell them all at dinner!" + +"Tell them what?" I began---- + +Then I saw Sybil Reynor standing in the shadow of the porch, and, even +from that distance, saw her rosy blushes. + +I understood. + +"Lucky man!" I cried, and wrung his hand warmly. "The very best of good +wishes, old chap. I am delighted!" + +"So am I!" replied Lorian. "But come and see the print." + +We went into the house together; and Sybil blushed more furiously than +ever when I told her how I envied Lorian--and added that he deserved the +most beautiful girl in England, and had won her. + +Lorian had a very clear print of the photograph pinned up to dry on the +side of his window. + +"We shall be busy to-night!" he said mysteriously. + +He had planned to preserve his great secret until dinner-time; but, of +course, it came out whilst we sat over tea on the balcony. The Colonel +was unfeignedly delighted, and there is nothing secretive about Colonel +Reynor. Consequently, five minutes after he had been informed how +matters were between his daughter and Lorian, all the house knew. + +I studied the face of Hulme, to see how he would take the news. But +he retained a perfect mastery of himself, though his large dark eyes +gleamed at discord with the smile which he wore. + +Our photographic experiments were forgotten; and throughout dinner, +whereat Sybil looked exquisitely lovely and very shy, and Lorian +preserved an unruffled countenance, other topics ruled. + +It was late before we found ourselves alone in Lorian's room, with the +print spread upon the table beneath the light of the shaded lamp. + +We bent over it. + +"Now," said Lorian, "I assume that this is some kind of cipher!" + +I stared at him surprisedly. + +"And," he continued, "you and I are going to solve it if we sit up all +night!" + +"How do you propose to begin?" + +"Well, as it appears to mean nothing in particular, as it stands, I +thought of beginning by assuming that the letters have other values +altogether. Therefore, upon the basis that _e_ is the letter which most +frequently occurs in English, with _a_, _o_, _i_, _d_, _h_, _n_, _r_, +afterwards, I had thought of resolving it into its component letters." + +"But would that rule apply to mediæval English?" + +"Ah," said Lorian thoughtfully, "most sage counsellor! A wise and timely +thought! I'm afraid it wouldn't." + +"What now?" + +Lorian scratched his head in perplexity. + +"Suppose," he suggested, "we write down the words plainly, and see if, +treating each one separately, we can find other meanings to them." + +Accordingly, upon a sheet of paper, I wrote: + + Wherso eer thee doome bee + Looke untoe ye strypped tree + Offe ragged staffe. Upon itte ley + Golde toe greene ande kay toe kay. + +Our efforts in the proposed direction were rewarded with poor success. +Some gibberish even less intelligible than the original was the only +result of our labour. + +Lorian threw down his pencil and began to reload his pipe. + +"Let us consider possible meanings to the original words," he said. "Do +you know of anything in the neighbourhood which might answer to the +description of a 'strypped tree'?" + +I shook my head. + +"What has occasioned your sudden interest in the thing?" I asked +wearily. + +"It is a long story," he replied; "and I have an idea that there's no +time to be lost in solving the Riddle!" + +However, even Lorian's enthusiasm flagged at last. We were forced to +admit ourselves hopelessly beaten by the Riddle. I went to my own room +feeling thoroughly tired. But I was not destined to sleep long. A few +minutes after closing my eyes (or so it seemed), came a clamouring at +the door. + +I stumbled sleepily out of bed, and, slipping on my dressing-gown, +admitted Lorian. Colonel Reynor stood immediately behind him. + +"Most extraordinary business!" began the latter breathlessly. "Sybil +had--_you_ tell him, Harry!" + +"Well," said Lorian, "it is not unexpected! Listen: Sybil woke up a +while ago, with the idea that she had forgotten something or lost +something--you know the frame of mind! She went to her dressing-table +and found the family ring missing!" + +"_The_ ring!" burst in the Colonel excitedly. "Amazing!" + +"She remembered having taken it off, during the evening, to--er--to put +another one on! But she was unable to recall having replaced it. She +determined to run down and see if she had left it upon the seat in the +corner of the library. Well, she went downstairs in her dressing-gown, +and, carrying a candle, very quietly, in order to wake no one, crossed +to the library and searched unavailingly. She heard a faint noise +outside in the hall." + +Lorian paused. Felix Hulme had joined the party. + +"What's the disturbance?" he asked. + +"Oh," said Lorian, turning to him, "it's about Sybil. She was down in +the library a while ago to look for something, and heard a sort of +grating sound out in the hall. She came out, and almost fell over an +iron-bound chest, about a foot and a half long, which stood near the +bottom of the staircase!" + +"Good heavens, Lorian!" I cried, "how had it come there?" + +"Sybil says," he resumed, "that she could not believe her eyes. She +stooped to examine the thing ... and with a thrill of horror saw it to +be roughly marked _with a skull and cross-bones_!" + +"My dear Lorian," said Hulme, "are you certain that Miss Reynor was +awake?" + +"She woke _us_ quickly enough!" interrupted the Colonel. "Poor girl, she +was shaking dreadfully. Thought it was a supernatural appearance. She's +with her mother now." + +"But the box!" I cried. "Where is the box?" + +"That's the mystery," answered Colonel Reynor. "I was downstairs two +minutes later, and there was nothing of the kind to be seen! Has our +Ragstaff ghost started walking again, I wonder? You ought to know, +Hulme; you're in the Turret Room--that is the authentic haunted +chamber!" + +"I was aroused by the bell ringing," replied Hulme. "I am a very light +sleeper. But I heard or saw nothing supernatural." + +"By the way, Hulme," said my friend, "the Turret Room is directly above +the hall. I have a theory. Might I come up with you for a moment?" + +"Certainly," replied Hulme. + +We all went up to the Turret Room. Having climbed the stairs to this +apartment, you enter it by descending three steps. It is octagonal and +panelled all around. My friend tapped the panels and sounded all the +oaken floor-boards. Then, professing himself satisfied, he bade Hulme +good night, and accompanied me to my room. + + +VI + +Ragstaff Park slumbered once more. But Lorian sat upon the edge of my +bed, smoking and thinking hard. He had been to his own room for the +print of the Riddle, and it lay upon a chair before him. + +"Listen to this," he said suddenly: "(_a_) Some one breaks into the +governor's studio, and takes nothing. His drawings of the Ragstaff +Riddle happen to be at my studio. (_b_) You hear a noise in the night, +and see (1) a bright light; (2) a gleaming rod. (_c_) You and I see a +bright light on the following night, and presumably proceeding from +the same place; i.e., the hall. (_d_) Something I have not mentioned +before--Hulme has a camera in his kit! And he doesn't want the fact +known!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I tested him the other night, by inquiring if anyone could lend me +a camera. He did not volunteer! The morning following the mysterious +business in the hall, observed by you, I saw a photographic printing +frame in his window! He must have one of those portable developers with +him." + +"And to what does all this point?" + +"To the fact that he has made at least three attempts to obtain a copy +of the Riddle, and has at last succeeded!" + +"Three!" + +"I really think so. The evidence points to him as the person who broke +into the studio. He made a bad slip. He referred to the matter, and +cited Horace Baxter as his informant. Baxter is away!" + +"But this is serious!" + +"I should say so! He couldn't attempt to photograph the panel in +daylight, so he employed magnesium ribbon at night! First time his +tripod slipped. It is evidently one of the light, telescopic kind. His +negative proved useless. It was one of the metal legs of the tripod +which you saw shining! The second time he was more successful. That was +the light of his magnesium ribbon you and I saw from the drive!" + +"But, Lorian, I went down and searched the hall!" + +"Now we come on to the, at present, conjectural part," explained Lorian. +"My theory is that Hulme, somewhere or other, has come across some old +documents which give the clue to those secret passages said to exist in +Ragstaff, but which the Colonel has never been able to locate. I feel +assured that there is some means of secret communication between the +Turret Room and the hall. I further believe that Hulme has in some way +got upon the track of another secret--that of the Riddle." + +"But what _is_ the secret of the Riddle?" + +"In my opinion the Riddle is a clue to another hiding-place, evidently +not connected with the maze of passages; possibly what is known as a +Priest's Hole. As you know, Hulme asked Sybil to marry him. I believe +the man to be in financial straits; so that we must further assume the +Riddle to conceal the whereabouts of a treasure, since the Reynors are +far from wealthy." + +"The _chest_! Lorian! The chest!" I cried. + +"Quite so. But what immediately preceded its appearance? The loss of the +family ring! If I am not greatly in error, Hulme found that ring! And +the ring is the key to the riddle! Do you recall the shape of the bezel? +Simply _a square peg of gold_! Look at the photograph!" + +He was excited, for once. + +"What does it say?" he continued: "'Ye strypped tree!' That means the +device of leaves, twigs, and acorns--stripped _from_ a tree--see? Here, +at the bottom of the panel, is such a group, and (this is where we have +been so blind!) intertwined with the design is the word _CAEG_--Ancient +Saxon for _key_! Look! 'Golde toe Greene and kay toe kay'! Amongst the +_green_ leaves is a square hole. The _gold_ knob on the ring fits it!" + +For a moment I was too greatly surprised for speech. Then: + +"You think Hulme discovered this?" + +"I do. And I think Sybil's mislaying her ring gave him his big chance. +He had got the chest out whilst she was in the library. He must have +been inside somewhere looking for it when she passed through the hall. +Then, hearing her approach from the library, he was forced to abandon +his heavy 'find' and hide in the secret passage which communicates with +his room. Directly she ran upstairs he returned for the chest!" + +I looked him hard in the face. + +"We don't want a scene, Lorian," I began. "Besides, it's just possible +you may be wrong." + +"I agree," said Lorian. "Come up to his room, now." + +Passing quietly upstairs, we paused before the door of the Turret Room. +A faint light showed under it. Lorian glanced at me--then knocked. + +"Who's there?" came sharply. + +"Lorian," answered my friend. "I want a chat with you about the secret +passage and the old treasure chest--_before speaking to the Colonel_!" + +There was a long silence, then: + +"Just a moment," came hoarsely. "Don't come in until I call." + +We looked at one another doubtfully. A long minute passed. I could hear +a faint sound within. At last came Hulme's voice: + +"All right. Come in." + +As Lorian threw the door open, a faint _click_ sounded from somewhere. + +The Turret Room was empty! + +"By heaven! he's given us the slip!" cried my friend. + +We glanced around the room. A candle burnt upon the table. And upon the +bed stood an iron-barred chest, with a sheet of notepaper lying on its +lid! + +Lorian pounced upon the note. We read it together. + +"Mr. Henry Lorian" (it went), "I realize that you have found me out. I +will confess that I had no time to open the chest. But as matters stand +I only ask you not to pursue me. I have taken nothing not my own. The +ring, and an interesting document which I picked up some years ago, are +on the table. Offer what explanation of my disappearance you please. I +am in your hands." + +We turned again to the table. Upon a piece of worn parchment lay the +missing ring. Lorian spread out the parchment and bent over it. + +"Why," I cried, "it is a plan of Ragstaff Park!" + +"With a perfect network of secret passages!" added my friend, "and some +instructions, apparently, as to how to enter them. It bears the initials +'R. R.' and, in brackets, 'Capt. S.' I begin to understand." + +He raised the candle and stepped across to the ancient chest. It bore +a roughly designed skull and cross-bones, and, in nearly defaced red +characters, the words: + +"_CAPTAIN SATAN_." + +"Captain Satan!" I said. "He was one of the most bloodthirsty pirates +who ever harried the Spanish Main!" + +"He was," agreed Lorian; "and his real name was Roderick Reynor. He +evidently solved the riddle some generations earlier than Hulme--and +stored his bloodstained hoard in the ancient hiding-place. Also, you +see, he knew about the passages." + +"What shall we do?" + +"Hulme has surrendered. You can see that the chest has not been opened. +Therefore there is only one thing that we _can_ do. We must keep what we +know to ourselves, return the chest to its hiding-place, and proclaim +that we have found the missing ring!" + +Down to the hall we bore the heavy chest. The square knob on the ring +fitted, as Lorian had predicted, into the hole half hidden among the +oak leaves of the design. Without much difficulty we forced back the +fastening (it proved to be of a very simple pattern), and slid the whole +panel aside. A small, square chamber was revealed by the light of the +candle--quite empty. + +"As I had surmised," said my friend; "a Priest's Hole." + +We carried the chest within, and reclosed the panel, which came to with +a sharp _click_. + + * * * * * + +The story which we invented to account for Hulme's sudden departure +passed muster; for one topic usurped the interests of all--the ghostly +box, with its piratical emblem. + +"My boy," Colonel Reynor said to Lorian, "I cannot pretend to explain +what Sybil saw. But it bears curiously upon a certain black page in the +family history. If the chest had been tangible, and had contained a +fortune, I would not have opened it. Let all pertaining to that part of +our records remain buried, say I." + +"Which determines our course," explained Lorian to me. "The chest is not +ours, and the Colonel evidently would rather not know about it. I regret +that I lack the morals of a burglar." + + + + +The Master of Hollow Grange + + +I + +Jack Dillon came to Hollow Grange on a thunderous black evening when an +ebony cloud crested the hill-top above, and, catching the upflung rays +of sunset, glowed redly like the pall of Avalon in the torchlight. +Through the dense ranks of firs cloaking the slopes a breeze, presaging +the coming storm, whispered evilly, and here in the hollow the birds +were still. + +The man who had driven him from the station glanced at him, with a +curiosity thinly veiled. + +"What about your things, sir?" he inquired. + +Dillon stared rather blankly at the ivy-covered lodge, which, if +appearances were to be trusted, was unoccupied. + +"Wait a moment; I will ring," he said curtly; for this furtive +curiosity, so ill concealed, had manifested itself in the manner of the +taxi-driver from the moment that Dillon had directed him to drive to +Hollow Grange. + +He pushed open the gate and tugged at the iron ring which was suspended +from the wall of the lodge. A discordant clangour rewarded his efforts, +the cracked note of a bell that spoke from somewhere high up in the +building, that seemed to be buffeted to and fro from fir to fir, until +it died away, mournfully, in some place of shadows far up the slope. In +the voice of the bell there was something furtive, something akin to the +half-veiled curiosity in the eyes of the man who stood watching him; +something fearful, too, in both, as though man and bell would whisper: +"Return! Beware of disturbing the dwellers in this place." + +But Dillon angrily recalled himself to the realities. He felt that +these ghostly imaginings were born of the Boche-maltreated flesh, were +products of lowered tone; that he would have perceived no query in the +glance of the taxi-driver and heard no monkish whisper in the clang of +the bell had he been fit, had he been fully recovered from the effects +of his wound. Monkish whisper? Yes, that was it--his mind had supplied, +automatically, an aptly descriptive term: the cracked bell spoke with +the voice of ancient monasteries, had in it the hush of cloisters and +the sigh of renunciation. + +"Hang it all!" muttered Dillon. "This won't do." + +A second time he awoke the ghostly bell-voice, but nothing responded to +its call; man, bird, and beast had seemingly deserted Hollow Grange. He +was conscious of a sudden nervous irritation, as he turned brusquely and +met the inquiring glance of the taxi-man. + +"I have arrived before I was expected," he said. "If you will put my +things in the porch here I will go up to the house and get a servant to +fetch them. They will be safe enough in the meantime." + +His own words increased his irritability; for were they not in the +nature of an apology on behalf of his silent and unseen host? Were they +not a concession to that nameless query in the man's stare? Moreover, +deep within his own consciousness, some vague thing was stirring; so +that, the man dismissed and promptly departing, Dillon stood glancing +from the little stack of baggage in the lodge porch up the gloomy, +narrow, and over-arched drive, indignantly aware that he also carried +a question in his eyes. + +The throb of the motor mounting the steep, winding lane grew dim and +more dim until it was borne away entirely upon the fitful breeze. +Faintly he detected the lowing of cattle in some distant pasture; the +ranks of firs whispered secretly one to another, and the pall above the +hills grew blacker and began to extend over the valley. + +Amid that ominous stillness of nature he began to ascend the cone-strewn +path. Evidently enough, the extensive grounds had been neglected for +years, and that few pedestrians, and fewer vehicles, ever sought Hollow +Grange was demonstrated by the presence of luxuriant weeds in the +carriage way. Having proceeded for some distance, until the sheer +hillside seemed to loom over him like the wall of a tower, Dillon +paused, peering about in the ever-growing darkness. He was aware of +a physical chill; certainly no ray of sunlight ever penetrated to +this tunnel through the firs. Could he have mistaken the path and be +proceeding, not toward the house, but away from it and into the midnight +of the woods mantling the hills? + +There was something uncomfortable in that reflection; momentarily +he knew a childish fear of the darkening woods, and walked forward +rapidly, self-assertively. Ten paces brought him to one of the many +bends in the winding road--and there, far ahead, as though out of some +cavern in the very hillside, a yellow light shone. + +He pressed on with greater assurance until the house became visible. Now +he perceived that he had indeed strayed from the carriage-sweep in some +way, for the path that he was following terminated at the foot of a +short flight of moss-covered brick steps. He mounted the steps and found +himself at the bottom of a terrace. The main entrance was far to his +left and separated from the terrace by a neglected lawn. That portion +of the place was Hanoverian and ugly, whilst the wing nearest to him +was Tudor and picturesque. Excepting the yellow light shining out from +a sunken window almost at his feet, no illuminations were visible about +the house, although the brewing storm had already plunged the hollow +into premature night. + +Indeed, there was no sign of occupancy about the strange-looking +mansion, which might have hidden forgotten for centuries in the +horseshoe of the hills. He had sought for rest and quiet; here he should +find them. The stillness of the place was of that sort which almost +seems to be palpable; that can be seen and felt. A humid chill arose +apparently from the terrace, with its stone pavings outlined in moss, +crept up from the wilderness below and down from the fir-woods above. + +A thought struggled to assume form in his mind. There was something +reminiscent about this house of the woods, this silent house which +struck no chord of human companionship, in which was no warmth of life +or love. Suddenly, the thought leapt into complete being. + +This was the palace of the sleeping beauty to which he had penetrated. +It was the fairy-tale dear to childhood which had been struggling for +expression in his mind ever since he had emerged from the trees on to +the desolate terrace. With the departure of the station cab had gone the +last link with to-day, and now he was translated to the goblin realm of +fable. + +He had crossed the terrace and the lawn, and stood looking through an +open French window into a room that evidently adjoined the hall. A +great still darkness had come, and on a little table in the room a +reading-lamp was burning. It had a quaint, mosaic shade which shut in +much of the light, but threw a luminous patch directly on a heap of +cushions strewn upon the floor. Face downward in this silken nest, her +chin resting upon her hands and her elfin curly brown hair tousled +bewitchingly, lay a girl so audaciously pretty that Dillon hesitated to +accept the evidence of his eyes. + +The crunching of a piece of gravel beneath his foot led to the awakening +of the sleeping beauty. She raised her head quickly and then started +upright, a lithe, divinely petite figure in a green velvet dress, having +short fur-trimmed sleeves that displayed her pretty arms. For an instant +it was a startled nymph that confronted him; then a distracting dimple +appeared in one fair cheek, and: + +"Oh! how you frightened me!" said the girl, speaking with a slight +French accent which the visitor found wholly entrancing. "You must be +Jack Dillon? I am Phryné." + +Dillon bowed. + +"How I envy Hyperides!" he said. + +A blush quickly stained the lovely face of Phryné, and the roguish eyes +were lowered, whereby the penitent Dillon, who had jested in the not +uncommon belief that a pretty girl is necessarily brainless, knew that +the story of the wonder-woman of Thespiæ was familiar to her modern +namesake. + +"I am afraid," declared Phryné, with a return of her mischievous +composure, "that you are very wicked." + +Dillon, who counted himself a man of the world, was temporarily at a +loss for a suitable rejoinder. The cause of his hesitancy was twofold. +In the first place he had reached the age of disillusionment, whereat a +man ceases to believe that a perfectly lovely woman exists in the flesh, +and in the second place he had found such a fabulous being in a house of +gloom and silence to which, a few moments ago, he had deeply regretted +having come. + +His father, who had accepted the invitation from an old college friend +on his son's behalf, had made no mention of a Phryné, whereas Phryné +clearly took herself for granted and evidently knew all about Jack +Dillon. The latter experienced a volcanic change of sentiment; Hollow +Grange was metamorphosed, and assumed magically the guise of a Golden +House, an Emperor's pleasure palace, a fair, old-world casket holding +this lovely jewel. But who was she?--and in what spirit should he +receive her bewildering coquetries? + +"I trust," he said, looking into the laughing eyes, "that you will learn +to know me better." + +Phryné curtsied mockingly. + +"You have either too much confidence in your own character or not enough +in my wisdom," she said. + +Dillon stepped into the room, and, stooping, took up a book which lay +open upon the floor. It was a French edition of _The Golden Ass_ of +Apuleius. + +The hollow was illuminated by a blinding flash of lightning, and +Phryné's musical laughter was drowned in the thunder that boomed and +crashed in deepening peals over the hills. In a sudden tropical torrent +the rain descended, as Dr. Kassimere entered the room. + + +II + +Jack Dillon leant from his open window and looked out over the valley to +where a dull red glow crowned the hill-top. There was a fire somewhere +in the neighbourhood of the distant town; probably a building had been +struck by lightning. The storm had passed, although thunder was still +audible dimly, like the roll of muffled drums or a remote bombardment. +Stillness had reclaimed Hollow Grange. + +He was restless, uneasy; he sought to collate his impressions of the +place and its master. Twelve years had elapsed since his one previous +meeting with Dr. Kassimere, and little or no memory of the man had +remained. So much had intervened; the war--and Phryné. Now that he was +alone and could collect his ideas he knew of what Dr. Kassimere's gaunt, +wide-eyed face had reminded him: it was of Thoth, the Ibis-headed god +whose figure he had seen on the walls of the temples during his service +in Egypt. + +"Kassimere was always a queer fish, Jack," his father had said; "but +most of his eccentricities were due to his passion for study. The Grange +is the very place Sir Francis" (the specialist) "would have chosen for +your convalescence, and you'll find nothing dangerously exciting in +Kassimere's atmosphere!" + +Yet there was that about Dr. Kassimere which he did not and could not +like; his quietly cordial welcome, his courteous regret that his guest's +arrival by an earlier train (a circumstance due to reduced service) had +led to his not being met at the station; the charming simplicity with +which he confessed to the smallness of his household, and to the +pleasure which it afforded him to have the son of an old chum beneath +his roof--all these kindly overtures had left the bird-like eyes cold, +hard, watchful, calculating. The voice was the voice of a friend and a +gentleman, but the face was the face of Thoth. + +The mystery of Phryné was solved in a measure. She was Dr. Kassimere's +adopted daughter and the orphaned child of Louis Devant, the famous +Paris cartoonist, who had died penniless in 1911, at the height of his +success. In his selection of a name for her, the brilliant and dissolute +artist had exhibited a breadth of mind which Phryné inherited in an +almost embarrassing degree. + +Her mental equipment was bewildering: the erudition of an Oxford don +spiced with more than a dash of Boul' Mich', which made for complexity. +Her curious learning was doubtless due to the setting of a receptive +mind amid such environment, but how she had retained her piquant +vivacity in Hollow Grange was less comprehensible. The servants +formed a small and saturnine company, only two--the housekeeper, Mrs. +Harman, a black and forbidding figure, and Madame Charny, a French +companion--sleeping in the house. Gawly, a surly creature who neglected +the gardens and muttered savagely over other duties, together with his +wife, who cooked, resided at the lodge. There were two maids, who lived +in the village.... + +The glow from the distant fire seemed to be reflected upon the firs +bordering the terrace below; then Dillon, watching the dull, red light, +remembered that Dr. Kassimere's laboratory adjoined the tiny chapel, and +that, though midnight drew near, the doctor was still at work there. + +Owls and other night birds hooted and shrieked among the trees and +many bats were in flight. He found himself thinking of the pyramid +bats of Egypt, and of the ibis-headed Thoth who was the scribe of the +under-world. + +Dr. Kassimere had made himself medically responsible for his case, and +had read attentively the letters which Dillon had brought from his own +physician. He was to prescribe on the following day, and to-night the +visitor found Morpheus a treacherous god. Furtive activities disturbed +the house, or so it seemed to the sleepless man tossing on his bed; +alert intelligences within Hollow Grange responded to the night-life of +the owls without, and he seemed to lie in the shadow of a watchfulness +that never slumbered. + + +III + +"There's many a fine walk hereabouts," said the old man seated in the +arm-chair in the corner of the _Threshers' Inn_ bar-parlour. + +Dillon nodded encouragingly. + +"There's Ganton-on-the-Hill," continued the ancient. "You can see the +sea from there in clear weather; and many's the time I've heard the guns +in France from Upper Crobury of a still night. Then, four mile away, +there's the haunted Grange, though nobody's allowed past the gate. Not +as nobody wants to be," he added, reflectively. + +"The haunted Grange?" questioned Dillon. "Where is that?" + +"Hollow Grange?" said the old man. "Why, it lies----" + +"Oh, Hollow Grange--yes! I know where Hollow Grange is, but I was +unaware that it was reputed to be haunted." + +"Ah," replied the other, pityingly, "you're new to these parts; I see +that the minute I set eyes on you. Maybe you was wounded in France, and +you're down here to get well, like?" + +"Quite so. Your deductive reasoning is admirable." + +"Ah," said the sage, chuckling with self-appreciation, "I ain't lived in +these here parts for nigh on seventy-five years without learning to use +my eyes, I ain't. For seventy-four years and seven months," he added +proudly, "I ain't been outside this here county where I was born, and +I can use my eyes, I can; I know a thing I do, when I see it. Maybe it +was providence, as you might say, what brought you to the _Threshers_ +to-day." + +"Quite possibly," Dillon admitted. + +"He was just such another as you," continued the old man with apparent +irrelevance. "You don't happen to be stopping at Hainingham Vicarage?" + +"No," replied Dillon. + +"Ah! he was stopping at Hainingham Vicarage and he'd been wounded in +France. How he got to know Dr. Kassimere I can't tell you; not at +parson's, anyway. Parson won't never speak to him. Only last Sunday week +he preached agin him; not in so many words, but I could see his drift. +He spoke about them heathen women livin' on an island--sort of female +Robinson Crusoes, I make 'em out, I do--as saves poor shipwrecked +sailors from the sea and strangles of 'em ashore." + +Dillon glanced hard at the voluble old man. + +"The sirens?" he suggested, conscious of a sudden hot surging about his +heart. + +"Ah, that's the women I mean." + +"But where is the connection?" + +"Ah, you're new to these parts, you are. That Dr. Kassimere he keeps a +siren down in Hollow Grange. They see her--these here strangers (same as +the shipwrecked sailors parson told about)--and it's all up with 'em." + +Dillon stifled a laugh, in which anger would have mingled with contempt. +To think that in the twentieth century a man of science was like to meet +with the fate of Dr. Dee in the days of Elizabeth! Truly there were dark +spots in England. But could he credit the statement of this benighted +elder that a modern clergyman had actually drawn an analogy between +Phryné Devant and the sirens? It was unbelievable. + +"What was the unhappy fate," he asked, masking his intolerance, "of the +young man staying at the Vicarage?" + +"The same as them afore him," came the startling reply; "for he warn't +the first, and maybe"--with a shrewd glance of the rheumy old eyes--"he +won't be the last. Them sirens has the powers of darkness. I know, +'cause I've seen one--her at the Grange; and though I'm an old man, nigh +on seventy-five, I'll never forget her face, I won't, and the way she +smiled at me!" + +"But," persisted Dillon, patiently, "what became of this particular +young man, the one who was staying at the Vicarage?" + +The ancient sage leant forward in his chair and tapped the speaker upon +the knee with the stem of his clay pipe. + +"Ask them as knows," he said, with impressive solemnity. "Nobody else +can tell you!" + +And, having permitted an indiscreet laugh to escape him, not another +word on the subject could Dillon induce the old man to utter, he +strictly confining himself, in his ruffled dignity, to the climatic +conditions and the crops. + +When Dillon, finally, set out upon the four-mile walk back to the +Grange, he realised, with annoyance, that the senile imaginings of his +bar-parlour acquaintance lingered in his mind. That Dr. Kassimere dwelt +outside the social life of the county he had speedily learnt; but for +this he had been prepared. That he might possibly be, not a recluse, but +a pariah, was a new point of view. Trivial things, to which hitherto he +had paid scant attention, began to marshal themselves as evidence. The +two village "helpers," he knew, received extravagant wages, because, as +Phryné had confessed, they had "found it almost impossible to get girls +to stay." Why? + +Of the earlier guest, or guests, who had succumbed to the siren lure of +Phryné, he had heard no mention. Why? Save at meal-times he rarely saw +his host, who frankly left him to the society of Phryné. Again--why? Dr. +Kassimere, in his jealously locked laboratory, was at work day and night +upon his experiments. What were these experiments? What was the nature +of the doctor's studies? + +He had now been for nearly three weeks at Hollow Grange, and never had +Dr. Kassimere spoken of his work. And Phryné? The sudden, new thought of +Phryné was so strange, so wonderful and overwhelming, that it reacted +physically; and he pulled up short in the middle of a field-path, as +though some palpable obstacle blocked the way. + +Why had he set out alone that day, when all other days had been spent +in the girl's company? He had deliberately sought solitude--because +of Phryné; because he wanted to think calmly, judicially, to arraign +himself before his own judgment, remote from the witchery of her +presence. He had tried to render his mind a void, wherein should linger +not one fragrant memory of her delicate beauty and charm, so that he +might return unbiased to his judgment. He had returned; he was judged. + +He loved Phryné madly, insanely. His future, his life, lay in the hollow +of her hands. + + +IV + +"Yes," admitted Phryné, "it is true. There were two of them." + +"And"--Dillon hesitated--"were they in love with you?" + +"Of course," said Phryné, naïvely. + +"But you----" + +Phryné shook her curly head. + +"I rather liked the French boy, but I do not believe anything that a +Frenchman says to a girl; and Harry, the other, was handsome, but so +silly...." + +"So you did not love either of them?" + +"Of course not." + +"But," said Dillon, and impulsively he swept her into his arms, "you are +going to love me." + +One quick upward glance she gave, but instantly lowered her eyes and +withheld her bewitching face from him. + +"Am I?" she whispered. "You are so conceited." + +But as she spoke the words he kissed her, and she surrendered sweetly, +nestling her head against his shoulder for a moment. Then, leaping back, +bright-eyed and blushing, she turned and ran like a startled fawn across +the terrace and into the house. + +He saw no more of her until dinner-time, and spent the interval in a +kind of suspended consciousness that was new and perturbing. Within him +life pulsed at delirious speed, but the universe seemed to have slowed +upon its course so that each hour became as two. Throughout dinner, +Phryné was deliciously shy to the point of embarrassment; and Dillon, +who several times surprised the bird-eyes of Dr. Kassimere studying the +girl's face, detained his host, and being a young man of orderly mind, +formally asked his consent to an engagement. + +The doctor's joy was seemingly so unfeigned that Dillon almost liked him +for a moment. He placed no obstacle in the path of the suitor for his +adopted daughter's hand, graciously expressing every confidence in the +future. His joy was genuine enough, Dillon determined; but from what +source did it actually spring? The Thoth-like eyes were exultant, and +all the old mistrust poured back in a wave upon the younger man. Was +this distrust becoming an obsession? Why should he eternally be seeking +an ulterior motive for every act in this man's life? + +He went to look for Phryné, and found her in the spot where he had first +seen her, prone in a nest of cushions. She sprang up as he entered the +room, and glanced at him in that new way which set his heart leaping.... + +And because of the magic of her presence, it was not until later, when +he stood alone in his own room, that he could order the facts gleaned +from her. + +There was some grain of truth in the story of the ancient gossip at +the _Threshers_ after all. A young French lieutenant of artillery had +received an invitation to spend a leave at Hollow Grange. His Gallic +soul had been fired by Phryné's beauty, and although his advances had +been met with rebuff, he had asked Dr. Kassimere's permission to pay his +court to the girl. On the same evening he had departed hurriedly, and +Phryné had supposed, since the doctor never referred to him again, that +he had been sent about his business. Then came a strange letter, which +Phryné had shown to Dillon. Its tone throughout was of passionate anger, +and one passage recurred again and again to Dillon's mind. "I would give +my life for you gladly," it read, "but my soul belongs to God...." + +Phryné had counted him demented and Dr. Kassimere had agreed with her. +But there was Harry Waynwright, the nephew of the vicar of St. Peter's +at Hainingham. An accidental meeting with Phryné had led to a courtesy +call--and the inevitable. It had all the seeming of a case of +love-sickness, and the unhappy youth grew seriously ill. From pestering +her daily he changed his tactics to studiously avoiding her, until, +meeting her in the village one morning, he greeted her with, "I can't do +it, Phryné! tell him I can't do it. He can rely upon my word; but I'm +going away to try to forget!" + +Dr. Kassimere had professed entire ignorance of the meaning of the +words. A faint shadow had crossed Phryné's face as she spoke of these +matters, but, as a result of her extraordinary beauty, she was somewhat +callous where languishing admirers were concerned, and she had dismissed +the gloomy twain with a shrug of her charming shoulders. + +"Mad!" she had said. "It seems my fate always to meet mad-men!" + +The night silence had descended again upon Hollow Grange, disturbed only +by the mournful cry of the owl and the almost imperceptible note of the +bat. But to the nervous alertness of Dillon, a deep unrest seemed to +stir within the house; yet--an unrest not physical but spiritual; it was +as the shadow of a sleepless watcher--a shadow creeping over his soul. + +What was the explanation lying at the back of it all? Vainly he sought +for a theory, however wild, however improbable, that should embrace all +the facts known to him and serve either to banish his black doubts or to +focus them. Upon one thing he had determined: There was some thing or +some one in Hollow Grange that he _feared_, some centre from whence fear +radiated. + +Phryné, for one fleeting moment, had revealed to him that she, too, had +known this formless dread, but only latterly; probably from lack of a +more definite date, she had spoken of this fear as first visiting her at +about the time of the Frenchman's advent. + +"Slowly, he has changed towards me," she had whispered, referring to Dr. +Kassimere. "He watches me, sometimes, in a strange way. Oh, he has been +so good, so very kind and good, but--I shall be glad when----" + +Could some part of the mystery be explained away by the doctor's +increasing absorption in his studies, which led him to regard the charge +of a ward, and a wayward one at that, as unduly onerous and disturbing? +Might it not fairly be supposed that ignorant superstition and the +ravings of unrequited passion accounted for the rest? + +At the nature of Dr. Kassimere's studies he could not even guess. The +greater number of the works in the library related to mysticism in one +form or another, although there was a sprinkling of exact science to +leaven the whole. + +"He can rely upon my word," Waynwright had said. Regarding what, or +regarding whom, had he given his word? + +The cry of a night-hawk came, as if in answer; the hoot of an owl, as if +in mockery. Out beyond the terrace a dull red light showed from Dr. +Kassimere's laboratory. + + +V + +Enlightenment came about in this fashion--seeking to quench a feverish +thirst, Dillon discovered that no glass had been left in his room. He +determined to fetch one from the buffet cupboard downstairs. Softly, in +slippered feet, he descended the stairs and was crossing the hallway +when he kicked something--a small book, he thought--that lay there upon +the floor. Groping, he found it, slipped it into the pocket of his +dressing-gown, and entered the dining-room. He found a tumbler without +difficulty, in the dark, noted the presence of a heavy, oppressive +odour, and returned upstairs. Now he made another discovery. He had +forgotten the nightly draught of medicine prescribed by Dr. Kassimere; +a new unopened phial stood upon the dressing-table. + +He mixed himself a mild whisky and soda from the decanter and siphon +which his host's hospitality caused nightly to be placed in his room, +and then, seized by a sudden thought, took out the little book which he +had found in the hall. + +It was a faded manuscript, in monkish Latin; a copy of an unpublished +work of Paracelsus. Many passages had been rendered into English, and +the translations, in Dr. Kassimere's minute, cramped writing, were +interposed between the bound pages. In these again were interpolated +marginal notes, some in the shape of unintelligible symbols, others in +that of chemical formulæ. Several passages were marked in red ink. +And, having perused the first of these which he chanced upon, a clammy +moisture broke out upon his skin, accompanied by so marked a nervous +trembling that he was forced to seat himself upon the bed. + +The secret of this man's ghastly life-work was in his hands; he knew, +now, what bargain Dr. Kassimere had proposed to the Frenchman and to +the other; he knew why he had adopted the lovely daughter of Louis +Devant--and he knew why he, Jack Dillon, had been invited to Hollow +Grange. That such a ghoul in human shape could live and have his being +amid ordinary mankind was a stupendous improbability which, ten minutes +earlier, he would have laughed to scorn. + +"My God!" he whispered. "My God!" + +His glance fell upon the unopened phial on his dressing-table, and from +his soul a silent thanksgiving rose to heaven that he had left that +potion untasted. He realised that his own case differed from those of +his predecessors in two particulars: He was actually in residence under +Dr. Kassimere's roof and receiving treatment from the man's hands. No +option was to be offered to _him_; the great experiment, the _Magnum +Opus_, was to be performed without his consent! + +And Phryné!--Phryné, the other innocent victim of this fiend's lust +for knowledge! The thought restored his courage. More than life itself +depended upon his coolness and address; he must act, at once. The +monstrous possibility hinted at by von Hohenheim--in his earliest +published work, _Practica D. Theophrasti Paracelsi_, printed at Augsburg +in 1529, was, in this hideous pamphlet, elaborated and brought within +the bounds of practical experiment. + +He crept to the door, opened it, and stood listening intently. That +silence which seemed like a palpable cloud--a cloud masking the presence +of one who watched--lay over the house. Slowly he descended to the +hall and dropped the horror which the evil genius of von Hohenheim had +conceived, upon the spot where it had lain when his foot had discovered +it. + +A creaking sound warned him of some one's approach, and he had barely +time to slip behind some draperies ere a cowled figure bearing a lantern +came out into the hall. It was Dr. Kassimere, wearing a loose gown +having a monkish hood--and he was searching for something. + +Nothing in his experience--not the blood-lust seen in the eyes of men +in battle--had prepared him for that which transfigured the face of +Dr. Kassimere. The strange semblance of Thoth was there no more; it had +given place to another, more active malevolence, to a sort of Satanic +_eagerness_ indescribably terrifying; it was the face of one possessed. + +Like some bird of prey he pounced upon the book, thrust it into the +pocket of his gown, and began furtively to retrace his steps. As he +entered the big dining-room, Dillon was close upon his heels. + +Dr. Kassimere passed into the small room beyond and turned from thence +into the library. Dillon, observing every precaution, followed. From the +library the doctor entered the short, narrow passage leading to that +quaint relic of bygone days and ways--the tiny chapel. At the entrance +Dillon paused, watchful. Once, the man in the monkish robe turned, on +the time-worn step of the altar, and looked back over his shoulder, +revealing a face that might well have been that of Asmodeus himself. + +On the left of the altar was the cupboard wherein, no doubt, in past +ages, the priest had kept his vestments. The oppressive odour which +Dillon had first observed in the dining-room was very perceptible in the +chapel; and as Dr. Kassimere opened the door of the cupboard and stepped +within, an explanation of the presence of this deathly smell in the +house occurred to Dillon's mind. The laboratory adjoined the Grange on +this side; here was a private entrance known to, and used by, Dr. +Kassimere alone. + +His surmise proved to be correct. Occasioning scarcely a sound, the +secret door opened, and a fiery glow leapt out across the altar steps, +accompanied by a wave of heated air laden with the nauseous, unnameable +smell. Within the redly lighted doorway, Dr. Kassimere paused, and +glanced at a watch which he wore upon his wrist. Then for a moment he +disappeared, to reappear carrying a small squat bottle and a contrivance +of wire and gauze the sight of which created in Dillon a sense of +physical nausea. It was a chloroform-mask! Both he placed upon a vaguely +seen table and again approached the door. + +Weakly, Dillon fell back, pressing himself, closely against the chapel +wall, as the doctor, this time leaving the secret entrance open--with a +purpose in view which the watcher shudderingly recognized--recrossed the +chapel and went off, softly treading, in the direction of the library. + +All his courage, moral and physical, was called upon now, and knowing, +by some intuition of love, what and whom he should find there, he +stepped unsteadily into Dr. Kassimere's laboratory.... + +That there were horrors--monstrosities that may not be described, +whose names may not be written--in the place, he realised, in some +subconscious fashion; but--prone upon a low, metal couch of most curious +workmanship lay Phryné, in her night-robe, still--white; perfect in her +pale beauty as her namesake who posed for Praxiteles. + +Dillon reeled, steadied himself, and sank upon his knees by the couch. + +"Phryné!" he whispered, locking his arms about her--"my Phryné!..." + +Then he remembered the gauze mask and even detected the sickly, sweet +smell of the anaesthetic. Anger gave him new strength; he raised the +girl in his arms and turned towards the door communicating with the +chapel. + +Framed in the opening was the hooded figure of Dr. Kassimere, +confronting him. His face was immobile again, with the immobility of +ibis-headed Thoth; his eyes were hard, his voice was cold. + +"What is the meaning of this outrage?" he demanded sternly. "Phryné has +been taken suddenly ill; an immediate operation may be necessary----" + +"Out of my way!" said Dillon, advancing past a huge glass jar filled +with reddish liquid that stood upon a pedestal between the couch and the +door. + +"Be careful, you fool!" shrieked Dr. Kassimere, frenziedly, his calm +dropping from him like a cloak and a new and dreadful light coming into +the staring eyes. + +But he was too late. Dillon's foot had caught the pedestal. With a +resounding crash the thing overturned; as Dr. Kassimere sprang forward, +he slipped in the slimy stream that was pouring over the laboratory +floor--and fell.... + +Laying Phryné upon the altar, her head resting against the age-worn +communion rails, Dillon turned and closed the secret door dividing the +house of God from the house of Satan. One glimpse, in the red furnace +glow, he had of Dr. Kassimere, writhing upon the slimy floor, shrieking, +blaspheming--and fighting, fighting madly, as a man fights for life and +more than life.... + +He had not yet carried the unconscious girl beyond the dining-room, +when, above that other smell, he detected the odour of burning wood. A +fire had broken out in the laboratory. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Jack Dillon mourns her guardian (no trace of whom was ever found in +the charred remains of Hollow Grange) to this day; for she retains no +memory of the night of the great fire, but believes that, overcome by +the fumes, she was rescued and carried insensible from the house, by +her lover. In the latter's bosom the grim secret is locked, with the +memory of a demoniac figure, fighting, fighting.... + + + + +The Curse of a Thousand Kisses + + +Introductory + +Saville Grainger will long be remembered by the public as a brilliant +journalist and by his friends as a confirmed misogynist. His distaste +for the society of women amounted to a mania, and to Grainger a pretty +face was like a red rag to a bull. This was all the more extraordinary +and, for Grainger, more painful, because he was one of the most +handsome men I ever knew--very dark, with wonderful flashing eyes and +the features of an early Roman--or, as I have since thought, of an +aristocratic Oriental; aquiline, clean-cut, and swarthy. At any mixed +gathering at which he appeared, women gravitated in his direction as +though he possessed some magnetic attraction for the sex; and Grainger +invariably bolted. + +His extraordinary end--never explained to this day--will be remembered +by some of those who read of it; but so much that affected whole +continents has occurred in the interval that to the majority of the +public the circumstances will no longer be familiar. It created a +considerable stir in Cairo at the time, as was only natural, but +when the missing man failed to return, the nine days' wonder of his +disappearance was forgotten in the excitement of some new story or +another. + +Briefly, Grainger, who was recuperating at Mena House after a rather +severe illness in London, went out one evening for a stroll, wearing a +light dust-coat over his evening clothes and smoking a cigarette. He +turned in the direction of the Great Pyramid--and never came back. That +is the story in its bald entirety. No one has ever seen him since--or +ever reported having seen him. + +If the following story is an elaborate hoax--perpetrated by Grainger +himself, for some obscure reason remaining in hiding, or by another well +acquainted with his handwriting--I do not profess to say. As to how it +came into my possession, that may be told very briefly. Two years after +Grainger's disappearance I was in Cairo, and although I was not staying +at Mena House I sometimes visited friends there. One night as I came +out of the hotel to enter the car which was to drive me back to the +Continental, a tall native, dressed in white and so muffled up that +little more of his face than two gleaming eyes was visible, handed me +a packet--a roll of paper, apparently--saluted me with extraordinary +formality, and departed. + +No one else seemed to have noticed the man, although the chauffeur, of +course, was nearly as close to him as I was, and a servant from the +hotel had followed me out and down the steps. I stood there in the dusk, +staring at the packet in my hand and then after the tall figure--already +swallowed up in the shadow of the road. Naturally I assumed that the man +had made some mistake, and holding the package near the lamp of the car +I examined it closely. + +It was a roll of some kind of parchment, tied with a fragment of thin +string, and upon the otherwise blank outside page my name was written +very distinctly! + +I entered the car, rather dazed by the occurrence, which presented +several extraordinary features, and, unfastening the string, began +to read. Then, in real earnest, I thought I must be dreaming. Since I +append the whole of the manuscript I will make no further reference to +the contents here, but will content myself with mentioning that it was +written--with dark-brown ink--in Saville Grainger's unmistakable hand +upon some kind of parchment or papyrus which has defied three different +experts to whom I have shown it, but which, in short, is of unknown +manufacture. The twine with which it was tied proved to be of finely +plaited reed. + +That part of Grainger's narrative, if the following amazing statement +is really the work of Grainger, which deals with events up to the time +that he left Mena House--and the world--I have been able to check. The +dragoman, Hassan Abd-el-Kebîr, was still practising his profession at +Mena House at the time of my visit, and he confirmed the truth of +Grainger's story in regard to the heart of lapis-lazuli, which he had +seen, and the meeting with the old woman in the Mûski--of which Grainger +had spoken to him. + +For the rest, the manuscript shall tell Grainger's story. + + +THE MANUSCRIPT + +I + +Two years have elapsed since I quitted the world, and the presence in +Egypt of a one-time colleague, of which I have been advised, prompts me +to put on record these particulars of the strangest, most wonderful, and +most beautiful experience which has ever befallen any man. I do not +expect my story to be believed. The scepticism of the material world of +Fleet Street will consume my statement with its devouring fires. But I +do not care. The old itching to make a "story" is upon me. As a "story" +let this paper be regarded. + +Where the experience actually began I must leave to each reader to judge +for himself. I, personally, do not profess to know, even now. But the +curtain first arose upon that part of the story which it is my present +purpose to chronicle one afternoon near the corner of the Street +of the Silversmiths in Cairo. I was wandering in those wonderful +narrow, winding lanes, unaccompanied, for I am by habit a solitary +being; and despite my ignorance of the language and customs of the +natives I awakened to the fact that a link of sympathy--of silent +understanding--seemed to bind me to these busy brown men. + +I had for many years cherished a secret ambition to pay a protracted +visit to Egypt, but the ties of an arduous profession hitherto had +rendered its realisation impossible. Now, a stranger in a strange land, +I found myself _at home_. I cannot hope to make evident to my readers +the completeness of this recognition. From Shepheard's, with its throngs +of cosmopolitan travellers and its hosts of pretty women, I had early +fled in dismay to the comparative quiet of Mena House. But the only real +happiness I ever knew--indeed, as I soon began to realise, had ever +known--I found among the discordant cries and mingled smells of perfume +and decay in the native city. The desert called to me sweetly, but it +was the people, the shops, the shuttered houses, the noise and the +smells of the Eastern streets which gripped my heart. + +Delightedly I watched the passage of those commercial vehicles, narrow +and set high upon monstrous wheels, which convey loads of indescribable +variety along streets no wider than the "hall" of a small suburban +residence. The Parsees in the Khân Khalîl with their carpets and +shining silk-ware, the Arab dealers, fierce swarthy tradesmen from the +desert, and the smooth-tongued Cairenes upholding embroidered cloths and +gauzy _yashmaks_ to allure the eye--all these I watched with a kind of +gladness that was almost tender, that was unlike any sentiment I had +ever experienced toward my fellow-creatures before. + +Mendicants crying the eternal "_Bakshîsh!_", _Sakhas_ with their skins +of Nile water, and the other hundred and one familiar figures of the +quarter filled me with a great and glad contentment. + +I purposely haunted the Mûski during the heat of the day because at +that hour it was comparatively free from the presence of Europeans and +Americans. Thus, on the occasion of which I write, coming to the end +of the street in which the shops of the principal silversmiths are +situated, I found myself to be the only white man (if I except the +Greeks) in the immediate neighbourhood. + +A group of men hurrying out of the street as I approached it first +attracted my attention. They were glancing behind them apprehensively +as though at a rabid dog. Then came a white-bearded man riding a tiny +donkey and also glancing back apprehensively over his shoulder. He all +but collided with me in his blind haste; and, stepping quickly aside to +avoid him, I knocked down an old woman who was coming out of the street. + +The man who had been the real cause of the accident rode off at headlong +speed and I found myself left with the poor victim of my clumsiness +in a spot which seemed miraculously to have become deserted. If the +shopkeepers remained in their shops, they were invisible, and must +have retreated into the darkest corners of the caves in the wall which +constitute native emporiums. Pedestrians there were none. + +I stooped to the old woman, who lay moaning at my feet ... and as I did +so, I shrank. How can I describe the loathing, the repulsion which I +experienced? Never in the whole of my career had I seen such a hideous +face. A ragged black veil which she wore had been torn from its brass +fastenings as she fell, and her countenance was revealed in all its +appalling ugliness. Yellow, shrivelled, toothless, it was scarcely +human; but, above all, it repelled because of its aspect of _extreme +age_. I do not mean that it was like the face of a woman of eighty; +it was like that of a woman who had miraculously survived decease for +several centuries! It was a witch-face, a deathly face. + +And as I shrank, she opened her eyes, moaning feebly, and groping with +claw-like hands as if darkness surrounded her. Furthermore I saw a new +pain, and a keener pain, light up those aged eyes. She had detected my +involuntary movement of loathing. + +Those who knew me will bear testimony to the fact that I was not an +emotional man or one readily impressionable by any kind of human appeal. +Therefore they will wonder the more to learn that this pathetic light in +the old woman's eyes changed my revulsion to a poignant sorrow. I had +roughly knocked her from her feet and now hesitated to assist her to +rise again! Truly, she was scorned and rejected by all. A wave of +tenderness, that cannot be described, that could not be resisted, swept +over me. My eyes grew misty and a great remorse claimed me. + +"Poor old soul!" I whispered. + +Stooping, I gently raised the shrivelled, ape-like head, resting it +against my knee; and, bending down, I kissed the old woman on the brow! + +I record the fact, but even now, looking back upon its happening, and +seeking to recapture the cold, solitary Saville Grainger who has left +the world, I realise the wonder of it. That _I_ should have given rein +to such an impulse! That such an impulse should have stirred me! Which +phenomenon was the more remarkable? + +The result of my act--regretted as soon as performed--was singular. The +aged, hideous creature sighed in a manner I can never forget, and an +expression that almost lent comeliness to her features momentarily crept +over her face. Then she rose to her feet with difficulty, raised her +hands as if blessing me, and muttering something in Arabic went +shuffling along the deserted street, stooping as she walked. + +Apparently the episode had passed unnoticed. Certainly if anyone +witnessed it he was well concealed. But, conscious of a strange +embarrassment, with which were mingled other tumultuous emotions, I +turned out of the Street of the Silversmiths and found myself amid the +normal activities of the quarter again. The memory of the Kiss was +repugnant, I wanted to wipe my lips--but something seemed to forbid the +act; a lingering compassion that was almost a yearning. + +For once in my life I desired to find myself among normal, healthy, +moderately brainless Europeans. I longed for the smell of cigar-smoke, +for the rattle of the cocktail-maker and the sight of a pretty face. I +hurried to Shepheard's. + + +II + +The same night, after dinner, I walked out of Mena House to look for +Hassan Abd-el-Kebîr, the dragoman with whom I had contracted for a +journey, by camel, to Sakhâra on the following day. He had promised to +attend at half-past eight in order to arrange the time of starting in +the morning, together with some other details. + +I failed to find him, however, among the dragomans and other natives +seated outside the hotel, and to kill time I strolled leisurely down the +road toward the electric-tram terminus. I had taken no more than ten +paces, I suppose, when a tall native, muffled to the tip of his nose in +white and wearing a white turban, appeared out of the darkness beside +me, thrust a small package into my hand, and, touching his brow, his +lips and his breast with both hands, bowed and departed. I saw him no +more! + +Standing there in the road, I stared at the little package stupidly. It +consisted of a piece of fine white silk fastened about some small, hard +object. Evidently, I thought, there had been a mistake. The package +could not have been intended for me. + +Returning to the hotel, I stood near a lamp and unfastened the silk, +which was delicately perfumed. It contained a piece of lapis-lazuli +carved in the form of a heart, beautifully mounted in gold and bearing +three Arabic letters, inlaid in some way, also in gold! + +At this singular ornament I stared harder than ever. Certainly the +muffled native had made a strange mistake. This was a love-token--and +emphatically not for _me_! + +I was standing there lost in wonderment, the heart of lapis-lazuli in my +palm, when the voice of Hassan disturbed my stupor. + +"Ah, my gentleman, I am sorry to be late but----" + +The voice ceased. I looked up. + +"Well?" I said. + +Then I, too, said no more. Hassan Abd-el-Kebîr was glaring at the +ornament in my hand as though I had held, not a very choice example of +native jewellery, but an adder or a scorpion! + +"What's the matter?" I asked, recovering from my surprise. "Do you know +to whom this amulet belongs?" + +He muttered something in guttural Arabic ere replying to my question. +Then: + +"It is the heart of lapis," he said, in a strange voice. "It is the +heart of lapis!" + +"So much is evident," I cried, laughing. "But does it alarm you?" + +"Please," he said softly, and held out a brown hand--"I will see." + +I placed the thing in his open palm and he gazed at it as one might +imagine an orchid hunter would gaze at a new species of _Odontoglossum_. + +"What do the figures mean?" I asked. + +"They form the word _alf_," he replied. + +"_Alf?_ Somebody's name!" I said, still laughing. + +"In Arab it mean ten hundred," he whispered. + +"A thousand?" + +"Yes--one thousand." + +"Well?" + +Hassan returned the ornament to me, and his expression was so strange +that I began to grow really annoyed. He was looking at me with a +mingling of envy and compassion which I found to be quite insufferable. + +"Hassan," I said sternly, "you will tell me all you know about this +matter. One would imagine that you suspected me of stealing the thing!" + +"Ah, no, my gentleman!" he protested earnestly. "But I will tell you, +yes, only you will not believe me." + +"Never mind. Tell me." + +Thereupon Hassan Abd-el-Kebîr told me the most improbable story to which +I had ever listened. Since to reproduce it in his imperfect English, +with my own frequent interjections, would be tedious, I will give it in +brief. Some of the historical details, imperfectly related by Hassan as +I learned later, I have corrected. + +In the reign of the Khalîf El-Mamûn--a son of Hárûn er-Rashîd and +brother of the prototype of Beckford's _Vathek_--one Shâwar was Governor +of Egypt, and the daughter of the Governor, Scheherazade, was famed +throughout the domains of the Khalîf as the most beautiful maiden in the +land. Wazîrs and princes sought her hand in vain. Her heart was given +to a handsome young merchant of Cairo, Ahmad er-Mâdi, who was also the +wealthiest man in the city. Shâwar, although an indulgent father, would +not hear of such a union, however, but he hesitated to destroy his +daughter's happiness by forcing her into an unwelcome marriage. Finally, +passion conquered reason in the breasts of the lovers and they fled, +Scheherazade escaping from the palace of her father by means of a +rope-ladder smuggled into the _harêm_ apartments by a slave whom Ahmad's +gold had tempted, and meeting Ahmad outside the gardens where he waited +with a fleet horse. + +Even the guard at the city gate had been bought by the wealthy merchant, +and the pair succeeded in escaping from Cairo. + +The extensive possessions of Ahmad were confiscated by the enraged +father and a sentence of death was passed upon the absent man--to be +instantly put into execution in the event of his arrest anywhere within +the domain of the Khalîf. + +Exiled in a distant oasis, the Sheikh of which was bound to Ahmad by +ties of ancient friendship, the prospect which had seemed so alluring to +Scheherazade became clouded. Recognising this change in her attitude, +Ahmad er-Mâdi racked his brains for some scheme whereby he might recover +his lost wealth and surround his beautiful wife with the luxury to +which she had been accustomed. In this extremity he had recourse to a +certain recluse who resided in a solitary spot in the desert far from +the haunts of men and who was widely credited with magical powers. + +It was a whole week's journey to the abode of the wizard, and, unknown +to Ahmad, during his absence a son of the Khalîf, visiting Egypt, +chanced to lose his way on a hunting expedition, and came upon the +secret oasis in which Scheherazade was hiding. This prince had been one +of her most persistent suitors. + +The ancient magician consented to receive Ahmad, and the first boon +which the enamoured young man craved of him was that he might grant him +a sight of Scheherazade. The student of dark arts consented. Bidding +Ahmad to look into a mirror, he burned the secret perfumes and uttered +the prescribed incantation. At first mistily, and then quite clearly, +Ahmad saw Scheherazade, standing in the moonlight beneath a tall palm +tree--her lips raised to those of her former suitor! + +At that the world grew black before the eyes of Ahmad. And he, who had +come a long and arduous journey at the behest of love, now experienced +an equally passionate hatred. Acquainting the magician with what he had +seen, he demanded that he should exercise his art in visiting upon the +false Scheherazade the most terrible curse that it lay within his power +to invoke! + +The learned man refused; whereupon Ahmad, insane with sorrow and anger, +drew his sword and gave the magician choice of compliance or instant +death. The threat sufficed. The wizard performed a ghastly conjuration, +calling down upon Scheherazade the curse of an ugliness beyond that of +humanity, and which should remain with her not for the ordinary span of +a lifetime but for incalculable years, during which she should continue +to live in the flesh, loathed, despised, and shunned of all! + +"Until one thousand compassionate men, unasked and of their own free +will, shall each have bestowed a kiss upon thee," was the exact text of +the curse. "Then thou shalt regain thy beauty, thy love--and death." + +Ahmad er-Mâdi staggered out from the cavern, blinded by a hundred +emotions--already sick with remorse; and one night's stage on his return +journey dropped dead from his saddle ... stricken by the malignant will +of the awful being whose power he had invoked! I will conclude this wild +romance in the words of Hassan, the dragoman, as nearly as I can recall +them. + +"And so," he said, his voice lowered in awe, "Scheherazade, who was +stricken with age and ugliness in the very hour that the curse was +spoken, went out into the world, my gentleman. She begged her way from +place to place, and as the years passed by accumulated much wealth in +that manner. Finally, it is said, she returned to Cairo, her native +city, and there remained. To each man who bestowed a kiss upon her--and +such men were rare--she caused a heart of lapis to be sent, and upon the +heart was engraved in gold the number of the kiss! It is said that +these gifts ensured to those upon whom they were bestowed the certain +possession of their beloved! Once before, when I was a small child, +I saw such an amulet, and the number upon it was nine hundred and +ninety-nine." + +The thing was utterly incredible, of course; merely a picturesque +example of Eastern imagination; but just to see what effect it would +have upon him, I told Hassan about the old woman in the Mûski. I had to +do so. Frankly, the coincidence was so extraordinary that it worried +me. When I had finished: + +"It was she--Scheherazade," he said fearfully. "And it was the _last_ +kiss!" + +"What then?" I asked. + +"Nothing, my gentleman. I do not know!" + + +III + +Throughout the expedition to Sakhâra on the following day I could not +fail to note that Hassan was covertly watching me--and his expression +annoyed me intensely. It was that compound of compassion and resignation +which one might bestow upon a condemned man. + +I charged him with it, but of course he denied any such sentiment. +Nevertheless, I knew that he entertained it, and, what was worse, I +began, in an uncomfortable degree, to share it with him! I cannot make +myself clearer. But I simply felt the normal world to be slipping +from under my feet, and, no longer experiencing a desire to clutch at +modernity as I had done after my meeting with the old woman, I found +myself to be reconciled to my fate! + +To my fate? ... to what fate? I did not know; but I realised, beyond +any shade of doubt, that something tremendous, inevitable, and ultimate +was about to happen to me. I caught myself unconsciously raising the +heart of lapis-lazuli to my lips! Why I did so I had no idea; I seemed +to have lost identity. I no longer knew myself. + +When Hassan parted from me at Mena House that evening he could not +disguise the fact that he regarded the parting as final; yet my plans +were made for several weeks ahead. Nor did I quarrel with the man's +curious attitude. _I_ regarded the parting as final, also! + +In a word I was becoming reconciled--to something. It is difficult, all +but impossible, to render such a frame of mind comprehensible, and I +shall not even attempt the task, but leave the events of the night to +speak for themselves. + +After dinner I lighted a cigarette, and avoiding a particularly +persistent and very pretty widow who was waiting to waylay me in the +lounge, I came out of the hotel and strolled along in the direction of +the Pyramid. Once I looked back--bidding a silent farewell to Mena +House! Then I took out the heart of lapis-lazuli from my pocket and +kissed it rapturously--kissed it as I had never kissed any object or +any person in the whole course of my life! + +And why I did so I had no idea. + +All who read my story will be prepared to learn that in this placid and +apparently feeble frame of mind I slipped from life, from the world. It +was not so. The modern man, the Saville Grainger once known in Fleet +Street, came to life again for one terrible, strenuous moment ... and +then passed out of life for ever. + +Just before I reached the Pyramid, and at a lonely spot in the path--for +this was not a "Sphinx and Pyramid night"--that is to say, the moon was +not at the full--a tall, muffled native appeared at my elbow. He was the +same man who had brought me the heart of lapis-lazuli, or his double. I +started. + +He touched me lightly on the arm. + +"Follow," he said--and pointed ahead into the darkness below the +plateau. + +I moved off obediently. Then--suddenly, swiftly, came revolt. The modern +man within me flared into angry life. I stopped dead, and + +"Who are you? Where are you leading me?" I cried. + +I received no reply. + +A silk scarf was slipped over my head by some one who, silently, must +have been following me, and drawn tight enough to prevent any loud +outcry but not so as to endanger my breathing. I fought like a madman. I +knew, and the knowledge appalled me, that I was fighting for life. Arms +like bands of steel grasped me; I was lifted, bound and carried--I knew +not where.... + +Placed in some kind of softly padded saddle, or, as I have since +learned, into a _shibrîyeh_ or covered litter on a camel's back, I felt +the animal rise to its ungainly height and move off swiftly. As suddenly +as revolt had flamed up, resignation returned. I was contented. My bonds +were unnecessary; my rebellion was ended. I yearned, wildly, for the end +of the desert journey! Some one was calling me and all my soul replied. + +For hours, as it seemed, the camel raced ceaselessly on. Absolute +silence reigned about me. Then, in the distance I heard voices, and the +gait of the camel changed. Finally the animal stood still. Came a word +of guttural command, and the camel dropped to its knees. Pillowed among +a pile of scented cushions, I experienced no discomfort from this +usually painful operation. + +I was lifted out of my perfumed couch and set upon my feet. Having been +allowed to stand for a while until the effects of remaining so long in a +constrained position had worn off, I was led forward into some extensive +building. Marble pavements were beneath my feet, fountains played, and +the air was heavy with burning ambergris. + +I was placed with my back to a pillar and bound there, but not harshly. +The bandage about my head was removed. I stared around me. + +A magnificent Eastern apartment met my gaze--a great hall open on one +side to the desert. Out upon the sands I could see a group of men who +had evidently been my captors and my guards. The one who had unfastened +the silk scarf I could not see, but I heard him moving away behind the +pillar to which I was bound. + +Stretched upon a luxurious couch before me was a woman. + +If I were to seek to describe her I should inevitably fail, for her +loveliness surpassed everything which I had ever beheld--of which I had +ever dreamed. I found myself looking into her eyes, and in their depths +I found all that I had missed in life, and lost all that I had found. + +She smiled, rose, and taking a jewelled dagger from a little table +beside her, approached me. My heart beat until I felt almost suffocated +as she came near. And when she bent and cut the silken lashing which +bound me, I knew such rapture as I had hitherto counted an invention of +Arabian poets. I was raised above the joys of common humanity and tasted +the joy of the gods. She placed the dagger in my hand. + +"My life is thine," she said. "Take it." + +And clutching at the silken raiment draping her beautiful bosom, she +invited me to plunge the blade into her heart! + +The knife dropped, clattering upon the marble pavement. For one instant +I hesitated, watching her, devouring her with my eyes; then I swept her +to me and pressed upon her sweet lips the thousand and first kiss.... + +(NOTE.--The manuscript of Saville Grainger finishes here.) + + + + +The Turquoise Necklace + + +I + +"He is the lord of the desert, Effendi," declared Mohammed the dragoman. +"From the Valley of Zered to Damascus he is known and loved, but feared. +They say"--he lowered his voice--"that he is a great _welee_, and that +he is often seen in the street of the attars, having the appearance of a +simple old man; but in the desert he is like a bitter apple, a viper and +a calamity! Overlord is he of the Bedouins, and all the sons of the +desert bow to Ben Azreem, Sheikh of the Ibn-Rawallah." + +"What is a _welee_, exactly?" asked Graham. + +"A man of God, Effendi, favoured beyond other men." + +"And this Arab Sheikh is a _welee_?" + +"So it is said. He goes about secretly aiding the poor and afflicted, +when he may be known by his white beard----" + +"There are many white beards in Egypt," said Graham. + +But the other continued, ignoring the interruption: + +"And in the desert, Ben Azreem, a horseman unrivalled, may be known by +the snow-white horse which he rides, or if he is not so mounted, by his +white camel, swifter than the glance of envy, more surefooted than the +eager lover who climbs to his enslaver's window." + +"Indeed!" said Graham dryly. "Well, I hope I may have the pleasure of +meeting this mysterious notability before I leave the country." + +"Unless you journey across the sands for many days, it is unlikely. For +when he comes into Egypt he reveals himself to none but the supremely +good,"--Graham stared--"and the supremely wicked!" added Mohammed. + +The poetic dragoman having departed, Graham leaned over to his wife, who +had sat spellbound, her big blue eyes turned to the face of Mohammed +throughout his romantic narrative. + +"These wild native legends appeal to you, don't they?" he said, smiling +and patting her hand affectionately. "You superstitious little +colleen!" + +Eileen Graham blushed, and the blush of a pretty Irish bride is a very +beautiful thing. + +"Don't you believe it at all, then?" she asked softly. + +"I believe there may be such a person as Ben Azreem, and possibly he's a +very imposing individual. He may even indulge in visits, incognito, to +Cairo, in the manner of the late lamented Hárûn er-Rashîd of _Arabian +Nights_ memory, but I can't say that I believe in _welees_ as a class!" + +His wife shrugged her pretty shoulders. + +"There is something that _I_ have to tell you, which I suppose you will +also refuse to believe," she said, with mock indignation. "You remember +the Arabs whom we saw at the exhibition in London?" + +Graham started. + +"The gentlemen who were advertised as 'chiefs from the Arabian Desert'? +I remember _one_ in particular." + +"That is the one I mean," said Eileen. + +Her husband looked at her curiously. + +"Your explanation is delightfully lucid, dear!" he said jocularly. +"My memories of the gentleman known as El-Suleym, I believe, are +not pleasant; his memories of me must be equally unfavourable. He +illustrated the fact that savages should never be introduced into +civilised society, however fascinating they may be personally. Mrs. +Marstham was silly enough to take the man up, and because of the way he +looked at you, I was wise enough to knock him down! What then?" + +"Only this--I saw him, to-day!" + +"Eileen!" There was alarm in Graham's voice. "Where? Here, or in Cairo?" + +"As we were driving away from the mosque of the Whirling Dervishes. He +was one of a group who stood by the bridge." + +"You are certain?" + +"Quite certain." + +"Did he see you?" + +"I couldn't say. He gave no sign to show that he had seen me." + +John Graham lighted a cigarette with much care. + +"It doesn't matter, anyway," he said, carelessly. "You are as safe here +as at the _Ritz_." + +But there was unrest in the glance which he cast out across the prospect +touched by moon-magic into supernatural beauty. + +In the distance gleamed a fairy city of silvern minarets, born, it +seemed, from the silvern stream. Beyond lay the night mystery of the +desert, into whose vastness marched the ghostly acacias. The discordant +chattering and chanting from the river-bank merged into a humming song, +not unmusical. The howling of the dogs, even, found a place in the +orchestral scheme. + +Behind him, in the hotel, was European and American life--modernity; +before him was that other life, endless and unchanging. There was +something cold, sombre, and bleak in the wonderful prospect, something +shocking in the presence of those sight-seeing, careless folk, the +luxurious hotel, _all_ that was Western and new, upon that threshold of +the ancient, changeless desert. + +A menace, too, substantial yet cloaked with the mystery of the +motherland of mysteries, had arisen now. Although he had assured Eileen +that Gizeh was as safe as Piccadilly, he had too much imagination to be +unaware that from the Egypt of Cook's to the Egypt of secrets is but a +step. + +None but the very young or very sanguine traveller looks for adventure +nowadays in the neighbourhood of Mena House. When the intrepid George +Sandys visited and explored the Great Pyramid, it was at peril of his +life, but Graham reflected humorously that the most nervous old ladies +now performed the feat almost daily. Yet out here in the moonlight where +the silence was, out beyond the radius of "sights," lay a land unknown +to Europe, as every desert is unknown. + +It was a thought that had often come to him, but it came to-night with a +force and wearing a significance which changed the aspect of the sands, +the aspect of all Egypt. + +He glanced at the charming girl beside him. Eileen, too, was looking +into the distance with far-away gaze. The pose of her head was +delightful, and he sat watching her in silence. Within the hotel the +orchestra had commenced softly to play; but Graham did not notice the +fact. He was thinking how easily one could be lost out upon that grey +ocean, with its islands of priestly ruins. + +"It is growing rather chilly, dear," he said suddenly; "even for fur +wraps. Suppose we go in?" + + +II + +The crowd in the bazaar was excessive, and the bent old figure which +laboured beneath a nondescript burden, wrapped up in a blue cloth, +passed from the noisiness out into the narrow street which ran at +right-angles with the lane of many shops. + +Perhaps the old Arab was deaf, perhaps wearied to the point of +exhaustion; but, from whatever cause, he ignored, or was unaware of, the +oncoming _arabeeyeh_, whose driver had lost control of his horse. Even +the shrill scream of the corpulent, white-veiled German lady, who was +one of its passengers, failed to arouse him. Out into the narrow roadway +he staggered, bent almost double. + +Graham, accompanied by Mohammed, was some distance away, haggling with a +Greek thief who held the view that a return of three hundred and fifty +per cent. spelled black ruination. + +Eileen, finding the air stifling, had walked on in the direction of the +less crowded street above. Thus it happened that she, and the poor old +porter, alone, were in the path of the onward-whirling carriage. + +Many women so placed would have stood, frozen with horror, have been +struck down by the frantic animal; some would have had sufficient +presence of mind to gain the only shelter attainable in time--that of a +deep-set doorway. Few would have acted as Eileen acted. + +It was under the stimulus of that Celtic impetuosity--that generous +madness which seems to proceed, not from the mind, but from the +heart--that she leapt, not back, but forward. + +She never knew exactly what took place, nor how she escaped destruction; +but there was a roaring in her ears, above it rising the Teutonic +screams of the lady in the _arabeeyeh_; there was a confused chorus of +voices, a consciousness of effort; and she found herself, with wildly +beating heart, crouching back into the recess which once had held a +_mastabah_. + +From some place invisible, around a bend in the tortuous street, came +sounds of shouting and that of lashing hoofs. The runaway was stopped. +At her feet lay a shapeless bundle wrapped in a blue cloth, and beside +her, leaning back against the whitewashed wall, and breathing with +short, sobbing breaths, was the old porter. + +Now, her husband had his arms about her, and Mohammed, with frightened +eyes, hovered in the background. Without undue haste, all the bazaar +gradually was coming upon the scene. + +"My darling, are you hurt?" + +John Graham's voice shook. He was deathly pale. + +Eileen smiled reassuringly. + +"Not a bit, dear," she said breathlessly. "But I am afraid the poor old +man is." + +"You are quite sure you are not hurt?" + +"I was not so much as touched, though honestly I don't know how either +of us escaped. But do see if the old man is injured." + +Graham turned to the rescued porter, who now had recovered his +composure. + +"Mohammed, ask him if he is hurt," he directed. + +Mohammed put the question. A curious group surrounded the party. But the +old man, ignoring all, knelt and bowed his bare head to the dust at +Eileen's feet. + +"Oh, John," cried the girl, "ask him to stand up! I feel ashamed to see +such a venerable old man kneeling before me!" + +"Tell him it is--nothing," said Graham hastily to Mohammed, +"and--er----"--he fumbled in his pocket--"give him this." + +But Mohammed, looking ill at ease, thrust aside the proffered +_bakshîsh_--a novel action which made Graham stare widely. + +"He would not take it, Effendi," he whispered. "See, his turban lies +there; he is a _hadj_. He is praying for the eternal happiness of his +preserver, and he is interceding with the Prophet (_Salla--'lláhu +'aleyhi wasellum_), that she may enjoy the delights of Paradise equally +with all true Believers!" + +"Very good of him," said Graham, who, finding the danger passed and his +wife safe, was beginning to feel embarrassed. "Thank him, and tell him +that she is greatly indebted!" + +He took Eileen's arm, and turned to force a way through the strangely +silent group about. But the aged porter seized the hem of the girl's +white skirt, gently detaining her. As he rose upon his knees, Mohammed, +with marks of unusual deference, handed him his green turban. The old +man, still clutching Eileen's dress, signed that his dirty bundle should +likewise be passed to him. This was done. + +Graham was impatient to get away. But---- + +"Humour him for a moment, dear," said Eileen softly. "We don't want to +hurt the poor old fellow's feelings." + +Into the bundle the old man plunged his hand, and drew out a thin gold +chain upon which hung a queerly cut turquoise. He stood upright, raised +the piece of jewellery to his forehead and to his lips, and held it out, +the chain stretched across his open palms, to Eileen. + +"He must be some kind of pedlar," said Graham. + +Eileen shook her head, smiling. + +"Mohammed, tell him that I cannot possibly take his chain," she +directed. "But thank him all the same, of course." + +Mohammed, his face averted from the statuesque old figure, bent to her +ear. + +"Take it!" he whispered. "Take it! Do not refuse!" + +There was a sort of frightened urgency in his tones, so that both Graham +and his wife looked at him curiously. + +"Take it, then, Eileen," said Graham quickly. "And, Mohammed, you must +find out who he is, and we will make it up to him in some way." + +"Yes, yes, Effendi," agreed the man readily. + +Eileen accordingly accepted the present, glancing aside at her husband +to intimate that they must not fail to pay for it. As she took the chain +in her hands, the donor said something in a low voice. + +"Hang it round your neck," translated Mohammed. + +Eileen did so, whispering: + +"You must not lose sight of him, Mohammed." + +Mohammed nodded; and the old man, replacing his turban and making a low +obeisance, spoke rapidly a few words, took up his bundle, and departed. +The silent bystanders made way for him. + +"Come on," said Graham; "I am anxious to get out of this. Find a +carriage, Mohammed. We'll lunch at Shepheard's." + +A carriage was obtained, and they soon left far behind them the scene of +this odd adventure. With Mohammed perched up on the box, Graham and his +wife could discuss the episode without restraint. Graham, however, did +most of the talking, for Eileen was strangely silent. + +"It is quite a fine stone," he said, examining the necklace so curiously +acquired. "We must find some way of repaying the old chap which will not +offend his susceptibilities." + +Eileen nodded absently; and her husband, with his eyes upon the dainty +white figure, found gratitude for her safety welling up like a hot +spring in his heart. The action had been characteristic; and he longed +to reprove her for risking her life, yet burned to take her in his arms +for the noble impulse that had prompted her to do so. + +He wondered anxiously if her silence could be due to the after-effects +of that moment of intense excitement. + +"You don't feel unwell, darling?" he whispered. + +She smiled at him radiantly, and gave his hand a quick little squeeze. + +"Of course not," she said. + +But she remained silent to the end of the short drive. This was not due +to that which her husband feared, however, but to the fact that she had +caught a glimpse, amongst the throng at the corner of the bazaar, of the +handsome, sinister face of El-Suleym, the Bedouin. + + +III + +The moon poured radiance on the desert. At the entrance to a camel-hair +tent stood a tall, handsome man, arrayed in the picturesque costume of +the Bedouin. The tent behind him was upheld by six poles. The ends and +one side were pegged to the ground, and the whole of that side before +which he stood was quite open, with the exception of a portion before +which hung a goat-hair curtain. + +This was the "house of hair" of the Sheikh El-Suleym, of the +Masr-Bishareen--El-Suleym, "the Regicide" outcast of the great tribe of +the Bishareen. At some distance from the Sheikh's tent were some half a +dozen other and smaller tents, housing the rascally following of this +desert outcast. + +Little did those who had engaged the picturesque El-Suleym, to display +his marvellous horsemanship in London, know that he and those that came +with him were a scorn among true sons of the desert, pariahs of that +brotherhood which extends from Zered to the Nile, from Tanta to the Red +Sea; little did those who had opened their doors in hospitality to the +dashing horseman dream that they entertained a petty brigand, sought +for by the Egyptian authorities, driven out into ostracism by his own +people. + +And now before his tent he stood statuesque in the Egyptian moonlight, +and looked towards Gizeh, less than thirty miles to the north-east. + +As El-Suleym looked towards Gizeh, Graham and his wife were seated +before Mena House looking out across the desert. The adventure of the +morning had left its impression upon both of them, and Eileen wore the +gold chain with its turquoise pendant. Graham was smoking in silence, +and thinking, not of the old porter and his odd Eastern gratitude, but +of another figure, and one which often came between his mental eye and +the beauties of that old, beautiful land. Eileen, too, was thinking of +El-Suleym; for the Bedouin now was associated in her mind with the old +pedlar, since she had last seen the handsome, sinister face amid the +throng at the entrance to the bazaar. + +Telepathy is a curious fact. Were Graham's reflections _en rapport_ with +his wife's, or were they both influenced by the passionate thoughts of +that other mind, that subtle, cunning mind of the man who at that moment +was standing before his house of hair and seeking with his eagle glance +to defy distance and the night? + +"Have you seen--him, again?" asked Graham abruptly. "Since the other day +at the bridge?" + +Eileen started. Although he had endeavoured to hide it from her, she was +perfectly well aware of her husband's intense anxiety on her behalf. +She knew, although he prided himself upon having masked his feelings, +that the presence of the Bedouin in Egypt had cast a cloud upon his +happiness. Therefore she had not wished to tell him of her second +encounter with El-Suleym. But to this direct question there could be +only one reply. + +"I saw him again--this morning," she said, toying nervously with the +pendant at her neck. + +Graham clasped her hand tensely. + +"Where?" + +"Outside the bazaar, in the crowd." + +"You did not--tell me." + +"I did not want to worry you." + +He laughed dryly. + +"It doesn't worry me, Eileen," he said carelessly. "If I were in +Damascus or Aleppo, it certainly might worry me to know that a man, no +doubt actively malignant towards us, was near, perhaps watching; but +Cairo is really a prosaically safe and law-abiding spot. We are as +secure here as we should be at--Shepherd's Bush, say!" + +He laughed shortly. Voices floated out to them, nasal, guttural, +strident; voices American, Teutonic, Gallic, and Anglo-Saxon. The +orchestra played a Viennese waltz. Confused chattering, creaking, and +bumping sounded from the river. Out upon the mud walls dogs bayed the +moon. + +But beyond the native village, beyond the howling dogs, beyond the +acacia ranks out in the silver-grey mystery of the sands hard by, an +outpost of the Pharaohs, where a ruined shrine of Horus bared its secret +places to the peeping moon, the Sheikh of the Masr-Bishareen smiled. + +Graham felt strangely uneasy, and sought by light conversation to shake +off the gloom which threatened to claim him. + +"That thief, Mohammed," he said tersely, "has no more idea than Adam, I +believe, who your old porter friend really is." + +"Why do you think so?" asked Eileen. + +"Because he's up in Cairo to-night, searching for him!" + +"How do you know?" + +"I cornered him about it this afternoon, and although I couldn't force +an admission from him--I don't think anybody short of an accomplished +K.C. could--he was suspiciously evasive! I gave him four hours to +procure the name and address of the old gentleman to whom we owe the +price of a turquoise necklace. He has not turned up yet!" + +Eileen made no reply. Her Celtic imagination had invested the morning's +incident with a mystic significance which she could not hope to impart +to her hard-headed husband. + +A dirty and ragged Egyptian boy made his way on to the verandah, +furtively glancing about him, as if anticipating the cuff of an unseen +hand. He sidled up to Graham, thrusting a scrap of paper on to the +little table beside him. + +"For me?" said Graham. + +The boy nodded; and whilst Eileen watched him interestedly, Graham, +tilting the communication so as to catch the light from the hotel +windows, read the following: + +"He is come to here but cannot any farther. I have him waiting the boy +will bring you. + + "Your obedient Effendi, + MOHAMMED." + +Graham laughed grimly, glancing at his watch. + +"Only half an hour late," he said, standing up, "Wait here, Eileen; I +shall not be many minutes." + +"But I should like to see him, too. He might accept the price from me +where you would fail to induce him to take it." + +"Never fear," said her husband; "he wouldn't have come if he meant to +refuse. What shall I offer him?" + +"Whatever you think," said Eileen, smiling; "be generous with the poor +old man." + +Graham nodded and signed to the boy that he was ready to start. + +The night swallowed them up; and Eileen sat waiting, whilst the band +played softly and voices chatted incessantly around her. + +Some five minutes elapsed; ten; fifteen. It grew to half an hour, and +she became uneasy. She stood up and began to pace up and down the +verandah. Then the slinking figure of the Egyptian youth reappeared. + +"Graham Effendi," he said, showing his gleaming teeth, "says you come +too." + +Eileen drew her wrap more closely about her and smiled to the boy to +lead the way. + +They passed out from the hotel, turned sharply to the left, made in the +direction of the river, then bore off to the right in the direction of +the sand-dunes. The murmuring life of Mena House died into remoteness; +the discordance of the Arab village momentarily took precedence; then +this, in turn, was lost, and they were making out desert-ward to the +hollow which harbours the Sphinx. Great events in our lives rarely leave +a clear-cut impression; often the turning-point in one's career is a +confused memory, a mere clash of conflicting ideas. Trivial episodes +are sharp silhouettes; unforgettable; great happenings but grey, vague +things in life's panorama. Thus, Eileen never afterwards could quite +recall what happened that night. The thing that was like to have wrecked +her life had no sharp outlines to etch themselves upon the plate of +memory. Vaguely she wondered to what meeting-place the boy was leading +her. Faintly she was conscious of a fear of the growing silence, of +a warning instinct whispering her to beware of the loneliness of the +desert. + +Then the boy was gone; the silence was gone; harsh voices were in her +ears--a cloth was whipped about her face and strong arms lifted her. She +was not of a stock that swoon or passively accept violence. She strove +to cry out, but the band was too cunningly fastened to allow of it; +she struck out with clenched fists and not unshrewdly, for twice her +knuckles encountered a bearded face and a suppressed exclamation told +that the blows were not those of a weakling. She kicked furiously and +drew forth a howl of pain from her captor. Her hands flew up to the +bandage, but were roughly seized, thrust down and behind her, and tied +securely. + +She was thrown across a saddle, and with a thrill of horror knew herself +a captive. Out into the desert she was borne, into that unknown land +which borders so closely upon the sight-seeing track of Cook's. And her +helplessness, her inability to fight, broke her spirit, born fighter +that she was; and the jarring of the saddle of the galloping horse, the +dull thud of the hoofs on the sand, the iron grip which held her, fear, +anger, all melted into a blank. + + +IV + +Mohammed the dragoman, with two hotel servants, came upon Graham some +time later, gagged and bound behind a sand hillock less than five +hundred yards from Mena House. They had him on his feet in an instant, +unbound; and his face was ghastly--for he knew too well what the outrage +portended. + +"Quick!" he said hoarsely. "How long is she gone?" + +Mohammed was trembling wildly. + +"Nearly an hour, Effendi--nearly an hour. Allah preserve us, what shall +we do? I heard it in Cairo to-night--it is all over the bazaars--the +Sheikh El-Suleym with the Masr-Bishareen is out. They travel like the +wind, Effendi. It is not four days since they stopped a caravan ten +miles beyond Bir-Amber, now they are in Lower Egypt. Allah preserve +her!" he ran on volubly--"who can overtake the horsemen of the +Bishareen?" + +So he ran on, wildly, panting as they raced back to the hotel. The place +was in an uproar. It was an event which furnished the guests with such a +piece of local colour as none but the most inexperienced tourist could +have anticipated. + +An Arab raid in these days of electric tramways! A captive snatched from +the very doors of Mena House! One would as little expect an Arab raid +upon the _Ritz_! + +The authorities at headquarters, advised of the occurrence, found +themselves at a loss how to cope with this stupendous actuality. The +desert had extended its lean arm and snatched a captive to its bosom. +Cairo had never before entirely realised the potentialities of that +all-embracing desert. There are a thousand ways, ten thousand routes, +across that ruin-dotted wilderness. Justly did the ancient people +worship in the moon the queenly Isis; for when the silver emblem of the +goddess claims the sands for her own, to all save the desert-born they +become a place of secrets. Here is a theatre for great dramas, wanting +only the tragedian. The outlawed Sheikh of the Bishareen knew this full +well, but, unlike others who know it, he had acted upon his convictions +and revealed to wondering Egypt what Bedouin craft and a band of +intrepid horsemen can do, aided by a belt of sand, and cloaked by night. + +Graham was distracted. For he was helpless, and realised it. Already the +news was in Cairo, and the machinery of the Government at work. But what +machinery, save that of the Omniscient, could avail him now? + +A crowd of visitors flocked around him, offering frightened consolation. +He broke away from them violently--swearing--a primitive man who wanted +to be alone with his grief. The idea uppermost in his mind was that of +leaping upon a horse and setting out in pursuit. But in which direction +should he pursue? One declared that the Arabs must have rode this way, +another that, and yet another a third. + +Some one shouted--the words came to him as if through a thick +curtain--that the soldiers were coming. + +"What the hell's the good of it!" he said, and turned away, biting his +lips. + +When a spruce young officer came racing up the steps to gather +particulars, Graham stared at him dully, said, "The Arabs have got +her--my wife," and walked away. + +The hoof-clatter and accompanying martial disturbance were faint in the +distance when Mohammed ran in to where Graham was pacing up and down in +an agony of indecision--veritably on the verge of insanity. The dragoman +held a broken gold chain in his hand, from which depended a big +turquoise that seemed to blink in the shaded light. + +"Effendi," he whispered, and held it out upon trembling fingers, "it is +her necklet! I found it yonder,"--pointing eastward. "_Sallee 'a-nebee!_ +it is her necklet!" + +Graham turned, gave one wild glance at the thing, and grasped the man +by the throat, glaring madly upon him. + +"You dog!" he shouted. "You were in the conspiracy! It was you who sent +the false messages!" + +A moment he held him so, then dropped his hands. Mohammed fell back, +choking; but no malice was in the velvet eyes. The Eastern understands +and respects a great passion. + +"Effendi," he gasped--"I am your faithful servant, and--I cannot write! +_Wa-llah!_ and by His mercy, this will save her if anything can!" + +He turned and ran fleetly out, Graham staring after him. + +It may seem singular that John Graham remained thus inert--inactive. But +upon further consideration his attitude becomes explainable. He knew the +futility of a blind search, and dreaded being absent if any definite +clue should reach the hotel. Meanwhile, he felt that madness was not far +off. + +"They say that they have struck out across the Arabian Desert, Mr. +Graham--probably in the direction of the old caravan route." + +Graham did not turn; did not know nor care who spoke. + +"It's four hundred miles across to the caravan route," he said slowly; +"four hundred miles of sand--of sand." + + +V + +The most simple Oriental character is full of complexity. Mohammed the +dragoman, by birth and education a thief, by nature a sluggard, spared +no effort to reach Cairo in the shortest space of time humanly possible. +The source of his devotion is obscure. Perhaps it was due to a humble +admiration which John Graham's attempt to strangle him could not alter, +or perhaps to a motive wholly unconnected with mundane matters. Certain +it is that a sort of religious fervour latterly had possessed the man. +From being something of a scoffer (for Islam, like other creeds, daily +loses adherents), he was become a most devout Believer. To what this +should be ascribed I shall leave you to judge. + +Exhausted, tottering with his giant exertions, he made his way through +the tortuous streets of Old Cairo--streets where ancient palaces and +mansions of wealthy Turks displayed their latticed windows, and, at that +hour, barred doors to the solitary, panting wayfarer. + +Upon one of these barred doors he beat. It was that of an old palace +which seemed to be partially in ruins. After some delay, the door was +opened and Mohammed admitted. The door was reclosed. And, following upon +the brief clamour, silence claimed the street again. + +Much precious time had elapsed since Eileen Graham's disappearance from +the hotel by the Pyramids, when a belated and not too sober Greek, +walking in the direction of Cairo, encountered what his muddled senses +proclaimed to be an apparition--that of a white-robed figure upon a +snow-white camel, which sped, silent, and with arrow-like swiftness, +past him towards Gizeh. About this vision of the racing camel (a more +beautiful creature than any he had seen since the last to carry the +Mahmal), about the rider, spectral in the moonlight, white-bearded, +there was that which suggested a vision of the Moslem Prophet. Ere the +frightened Greek could gather courage to turn and look after the phantom +rider, man and camel were lost across the sands. + +Mena House was in an uproar. No one beneath its roof had thought +of sleep that night. Futile searches were being conducted in every +direction, north, south, east, and west. Graham, feeling that another +hour of inactivity would spell madness, had succumbed to the fever to +be up and doing, and had outdistanced all, had left the boy far behind +and was mercilessly urging his poor little mount out into the desert, +well knowing that in all probability he was riding further and further +away from the one he sought, yet madly pressing on. He felt that to +stop was to court certain insanity; he must press on and on; he must +search--search. + +His mood had changed, and from cursing fate, heaven, everything and +every one, he was come to prayer. + +He, then, was the next to see the man on the white camel, and, like +the Greek, he scarcely doubted that it was a wraith of his tortured +imagination. Indeed, he took it for an omen. The Prophet had appeared +to him to proclaim that the desert, the home of Islam, had taken Eileen +from him. The white-robed figure gave no sign, looked neither to the +right nor to the left, but straight ahead, with eagle eyes. + +Graham pulled up his donkey, and sat like a shape of stone, until the +silver-grey distance swallowed up the phantom. + +Out towards the oasis called the Well of Seven Palms, the straggling +military company proceeded in growing weariness. The officer in charge +had secured fairly reliable evidence to show that the Arabs had struck +out straight for the Red Sea. Since he was not omniscient, he could not +know that they had performed a wide detour which would lead them back +an hour before dawn to the camp by the Nile beside the Temple of Horus, +where El-Suleym waited for his captive. + +It was at the point in their march when, to have intercepted the +raiders, they should have turned due south instead of proceeding toward +the oasis, that one of them pulled up, rubbed his eyes, looked again and +gave the alarm. + +In another moment they all saw it--a white camel; not such a camel +as tourists are familiar with, the poor hacks of the species, but a +swan-like creature, white as milk, bearing a white-robed rider who +ignored utterly the presence of the soldiers, who answered by no word or +sign to their challenge, but who passed them like a cloud borne along by +a breeze and melted vaporously into the steely distances of the desert. +The captain was hopelessly puzzled. + +"Too late to bring him down," he muttered, "and no horse that was ever +born could run down a racing camel. Most mysterious." + +Twenty miles south of their position, and exactly at right-angles to +their route, rode the Bishareen horsemen, the foremost with Eileen +Graham across his saddle. And now, eighteen miles behind the Bishareen, +a white camel, of the pure breed which yearly furnishes the stately +bearer of the Mahmal, spurned the sand and like a creature of air gained +upon the Arabs, wild riders though they were, mile upon mile, league +upon league. + +Within rifle-shot of the camp, and with the desert dawn but an hour +ahead, only a long sand-ridge concealed from the eyes of the Bishareen +troupe that fleet shape which had struck wonder to the hearts of all +beholders. Despite their start of close upon two hours, despite the fact +that the soldiers were now miles, and hopeless miles, in their rear, the +racer of the desert had passed them! + +Eileen Graham had returned to full and agonizing consciousness. For +hours, it seemed, her captives had rode and rode in silence. Now a +certain coolness borne upon the breeze told her that they were nearing +the river again. Clamour sounded ahead. They were come to the Arab +camp. But ere they reached it they entered some lofty building which +echoed hollowly to the horses' tread. She was lifted from her painful +position, tied fast against a stone pillar, and the bandage was +unfastened from about her head. + +She saw that she was lashed to one of the ruined pillars which once +had upheld the great hall of a temple. About her were the crumbling +evidences of the sacerdotal splendour that was Ancient Egypt. The moon +painted massive shadows upon the debris, and carpeted the outer place +with the black image of a towering propylæum. Upon the mound which once +had been the stone avenue of approach was the Bedouin camp. It was +filled with a vague disturbance. She was quite alone; for those who had +brought her there were leading their spent horses out to the camp. + +Eileen could not know what the hushed sounds portended; but actually +they were due to the fact that the outlaw chief, wearied with that most +exhausting passion--the passion of anticipation--had sought his tent, +issuing orders that none should disturb him. Many hours before he knew +they could return, he had stood looking out across the sands, but at +last had decided to fit himself, by repose, for the reception of his +beautiful captive. + +A sheikh's tent has two apartments--one sacred to the lord and master, +the other sheltering his harem. To the former El-Suleym had withdrawn; +and now his emissaries stood at the entrance, where the symbolic spear +was stuck, blade upward, in the sand. Those who had thrown in their lot +with El-Suleym, called the Regicide, had learnt that a robber chief +whose ambitions have been whetted by a sojourn in Europe is a hard +master, though one profitable to serve. They hesitated to arouse him, +even though their delicate task was well accomplished. + +And whilst they debated before the tent, which stood alone, as is usual, +at some little distance from the others, amid which moved busy figures +engaged in striking camp, Eileen, within the temple, heard a movement +behind the pillar to which she was bound. + +She was in no doubt respecting the identity of her captor, and the +author of the ruse by which she had been lured from the hotel, and now, +unable to turn, it came to her that this was _he_, creeping to her +through the moon-patched shadows. With eyes closed, and her teeth +clenched convulsively, she pictured the sinister, approaching figure. +Then, from close beside her, came a voice: + +"Only I can save you from him. Do not hesitate, do not speak. Do as I +tell you." + +Eileen opened her eyes. She could not see the speaker, but the voice was +oddly familiar. Her fevered brain told her that she had heard it before, +but speaking Arabic. It was the voice of an old man, but a strong, +vibrant voice. + +"It is the will of Allah, whose name be exalted, that I repay!" + +A lean hand held before her eyes a broken gold chain, upon which +depended a turquoise. She knew the voice, now: it was that of the old +pedlar! But his English, except for the hoarse Eastern accent, was +flawless, and this was the tone of no broken old man, but of one to be +feared and respected. + +Her reason, she thought, must be tricking her. How could the old pedlar, +however strong in his queer gratitude, save her now? Then the hand came +again before her eyes, and it held a tiny green phial. + +"Be brave. Drink, quickly. They are coming to take you to him. It is the +only escape!" + +"Oh, God!" she whispered, and turned icily cold. + +This was the boon he brought her. This was the road of escape, escape +from El-Suleym--the road of death! It was cruel, unspeakably horrible, +with a bright world just opening out to her, with youth, beauty, and---- +She could not think of her husband. + +"God be merciful to him!" she murmured. "But he would prefer me dead +to----" + +"Quick! They are here!" + +She placed her lips to the phial, and drank. + +It seemed that fire ran through every vein in her body. Then came chill. +It grew, creeping from her hands and her feet inward and upward to her +heart. + +"Good-bye ... dear...." she whispered, and sobbed once, dryly. + +The ropes held her rigidly upright. + + +VI + +"_Wa-llah!_ she is dead, and we have slain her!" + +El-Suleym's Bedouins stood before the pillar in the temple, and fear +was in their eyes. They unbound the girl, beautiful yet in her marble +pallor, and lowered her rigid body to the ground. They looked one at +another, and many a glance was turned toward the Nile. + +Then the leader of the party extended a brown hand, pointing to the +tethered horses. They passed from the temple, muttering. No one among +them dared to brave the wrath of the terrible sheikh. As they came out +into the paling moonlight, the camp seemed to have melted magically; for +ere dawn they began their long march to the lonely oasis in the Arabian +Desert which was the secret base of the Masr-Bishareen's depredatory +operations. + +Stealthily circling the camp, which buzzed with subdued activity--even +the dogs seemed to be silent when the sheikh slept--they came to the +horses. Solitary, a square silhouette against the paling blue, stood the +sheikh's tent, on top of the mound, which alone was still untouched. + +The first horseman had actually leapt into the saddle, and the others, +with furtive glances at the ominous hillock, were about to do likewise, +when a low wail, weird, eerie, rose above the muffled stirring of the +camp. + +"_Allah el-'Azeen!_" groaned one of the party--"what is that?" + +Again the wail sounded--and again. Other woman voices took it up. It +electrified the whole camp. Escape, undetected, was no longer possible. +Men, women, and children were abandoning their tasks and standing, +petrified with the awe of it, and looking towards the sheikh's tent. + +As they looked, as the frightened fugitives hesitated, looking also, +from the tent issued forth a melancholy procession. It was composed of +the women of El-Suleym's household. They beat their bared breasts and +cast dust upon their heads. + +For within his own sacred apartment lay the sheikh in his blood--a +headless corpse. + +And now those who had trembled before him were hot to avenge him. Riders +plunged out in directions as diverse as the spokes of a wheel. Four of +them rode madly through the temple where they had left the body of their +captive, leaping the debris, and circling about the towering pillars, as +only Arab horsemen can. Out into the sands they swept; and before them, +from out of a hollow, rose an apparition that brought all four up short, +their steeds upreared upon their haunches. + +It was the figure of a white-bearded man, white-robed and wearing the +green turban, mounted upon a camel which, to the eyes of the four, +looked in its spotless whiteness a creature of another world. Before +the eagle-eyed stranger lay the still form of Eileen Graham, and as the +camel rose to its feet, its rider turned, swung something high above +him, and hurled it back at the panic-stricken pursuers. Right amongst +their horses' feet it rolled, and up at them in the moonlight from out a +mass of blood-clotted beard, stared the glassy eyes of El-Suleym! + +The sun was high in the heavens when the grey-faced and haggard-eyed +searchers came straggling back to Mena House. Two of them, who had come +upon Graham ten miles to the east, brought him in. He was quite passive, +and offered no protest, spoke no word, but stared straight in front of +him with a set smile that was dreadful to see. + +No news had come from the company of soldiers; no news had come from +anywhere. It was ghastly, inconceivable; people looked at one another +and asked if it could really be possible that one of their number had +been snatched out from their midst in such fashion. + +Officials, military and civil, literally in crowds, besieged the hotel. +Amid that scene of confusion no one missed Mohammed; but when all the +rest had given up in despair, he, a solitary, patient figure, stood out +upon a distant mound watching the desert road to the east. He alone saw +the return of the white camel with its double burden, from a distance +of a hundred yards or more; for he dared approach no closer, but stood +with bowed head pronouncing the _fáthah_ over and over again. He saw it +kneel, saw its rider descend and lift a girl from its back. He saw him +force something between her lips, saw him turn and make a deep obeisance +toward Mecca. At that he, too, knelt and did likewise. When he arose, +camel and rider were gone. + +He raced across the sands as Eileen Graham opened her eyes, and +supported her as she struggled to her feet, pale and trembling. + + * * * * * + +"I don't understand it at all," said Graham. + +Eileen smiled up at him from the long cane chair. She was not yet +recovered from her dreadful experience. "Perhaps," she said softly, "you +will not laugh in future at my Irish stories of the 'good people'!" + +Graham shook his head and turned to Mohammed. + +"What does it all mean, Mohammed?" he said. "Thank God it means that +I have got her back, but how was it done? She returned wearing the +turquoise necklace, which I last saw in your hand." + +Mohammed looked aside. + +"I took it to him, Effendi. It was the token by which he knew her need." + +"The pedlar?" + +"The pedlar, Effendi." + +"You knew where to find him, then?" + +"I knew where to find him, but I feared to tell you; feared that you +might ridicule him." + +He ceased. He was become oddly reticent. Graham shrugged his shoulders, +helplessly. + +"I only hope the authorities will succeed in capturing the Bishareen +brigands," he said grimly. + +"The authorities will never capture them," replied the dragoman with +conviction. "For five years they have lived by plunder, and laughed at +the Government. But before another moon is risen"--he was warming to his +usual eloquence now--"no Masr-Bishareen will remain in the land, they +will be exterminated--purged from the desert!" + +"Indeed," said Graham; "by whom?" + +"By the Rawallah, Effendi." + +"Are they a Bedouin tribe?" + +"The greatest of them all." + +"Then why should they undertake the duty?" + +"Because it is the will of the one who saved her for you, Effendi! I +am blessed that I have set eyes upon him, spoken with him. Paradise is +assured to me because my hand returned to him his turban when it lay in +the dust!" + +Graham stared, looking from his wife, who lay back smiling dreamily, to +Mohammed, whose dark eyes burnt with a strange fervour--the fervour of +one mysteriously converted to an almost fanatic faith. + +"Are you speaking of our old friend, the pedlar?" + +"I am almost afraid to speak of him, Effendi, for he is the chosen of +heaven, a cleanser of uncleanliness; the scourge of God, who holds His +flail in his hand--the broom of the desert!" + +Graham, who had been pacing up and down the room, paused in front of +Mohammed. + +"Who is he, then?" he asked quietly. "I owe him a debt I can never hope +to repay, so I should at least like to know his real name." + +"I almost fear to speak it, Effendi." Mohammed's voice sank to a +whisper, and he raised the turquoise hanging by the thin chain about +Eileen's throat, and reverently touched it with his lips. "He is the +_welee_--Ben Azreem, Sheikh of the Ibn-Rawallah!" + + +_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner Ltd., _Frome and London_ + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Small capitals have been replaced by all capitals. + +The following corrections have been made, on page + + 48 ...." added (But, Addison....") + 74 "he" changed to "her" (looked up into her husband's quivering + face!) + 97 ' changed to " (and rest, East," I said) + 126 . added (lighted his pipe and nodded.) + 142 "then" changed to "than" (blushed more furiously than ever when + I told her) + 144 . added (I asked wearily.) + 172 " added ("Nobody else can) + 190 "posesssion" changed to "possession" (how it came into my + possession, that may) + 208 , removed (and avoiding a particularly persistent) + 236 "Mahommed" changed to "Mohammed" (when Mohammed ran in to where + Graham was). + +Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistent +hyphenation. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41619 *** |