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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75619-0.txt b/75619-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..adda0f3 --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3205 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 *** + + + + + + + Satan's Garden + + By E. HOFFMANN PRICE + + _The story of a terrific adventure in Bayonne, two + ravishingly beautiful girls, occult evil and sudden + death in the lair of the hasheesh-eaters._ + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Weird Tales April and May 1934. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + Since the publication of "The Rajah's Gift" in WEIRD TALES nine + years ago, followed by "The Stranger from Kurdistan," E. Hoffmann + Price has been acclaimed one of the masters of quality fiction; + yet his superb artistry has not interfered in any way with the + vividness and thrilling power of his fascinating stories. West + Point graduate, expert swordsman, orientalist and former soldier + of fortune, his life itself is a thrilling tale of adventure. + Endowed with a natural gift for narrative, he possesses also a + warm imagination and unsurpassed literary craftsmanship. All these + qualities are woven into the strange weird tale presented herewith: + "Satan's Garden." + + + + + _1. Invisible Scourge_ + + +It was long past the hour of tinkling glass, and song to the guitar, +and crowded tables at the Café du Théâtre. The gray-walled city of +Bayonne slept in the moonlight like an odalisque overcome with wine and +lying bejewelled in a garden whence the musicians had departed. It is +thus that Bayonne has slept each night of the full moon for more than +nineteen centuries at the junction of the Nive and the Adour, guarding +the road to Spain. + +There were two who sat in a room on the second floor of a house +that faced the street running along the city wall. One was old and +leathery, with fierce, upturned gray mustaches, and eyes that smoldered +beneath shaggy brows; the other was not more than half his age, a lean, +broad-shouldered man whose bronzed features were rugged as the masonry +of the fortress, and seamed with a saber slash that ran from his +cheek-bone almost to the chin. + +The younger emerged from the depths of his chair like a panther leaving +his cage. He paced the length of the room and paused at the window to +stare out into the dazzling moon-brightness that slowly marched from +the rolling, tree-clustered parkway and invaded the shadows cast by the +city wall across the dry moat that skirted it. Then, as he retraced his +steps, he glanced at his watch. + +"Later than usual tonight, Pierre," he observed. His voice was weary +from baffled wrath. "Do you suppose that It may skip a night?" + +Pierre d'Artois shook his gray head and sighed. + +"Why should It fail to torment her? We sit here like dummies, you and +I. And to what purpose? Look!" He indicated the seals on the door +at his left. "It could get through neither door nor window without +breaking those seals----" + +"But It did, by heaven!" exclaimed the younger. And Glenn Farrell +resumed his pacing the length of the Boukhara rug that carpeted the +room. He made a gesture of futile rage, then resumed, "But how, +Pierre--and why?" + +Pierre d'Artois twisted his mustache, shook his head again, and struck +light to a cigarette. Farrell sank into the depths of his chair and +retrieved the cigar butt he had laid on its arm. + +"We couldn't have slept on post without one of us being aware of +it," resumed Farrell. His voice was monotonous from repetition of a +statement so often made that he himself had begun to doubt it. "And if +we had----" + +He regarded the waxen seals on the door. + +"Those seals couldn't have been duplicated, with your die locked in a +bank vault each night. And she couldn't have escaped." + +"No, she could not," agreed d'Artois. "But some one--some _thing_--got +in." + +"A weasel, a cat, a snake," enumerated Farrell, "might slip through +those bars. Nothing larger. Certainly nothing large enough to--good +God! _Listen!_" + +Grim and trembling they stood at the sealed door. They heard a moaning +and a sobbing, then the screams of a woman seeking to stifle her outcry. + +"Give me that key!" demanded Farrell. + +He unlocked the door and flung it open, shattering the seals and +breaking the cord that ran from panel to jamb. D'Artois followed him. +They halted a few paces past the threshold. + +"Look, damn it, look!" + +As Farrell switched on the lights, he pointed at the woman who lay +face down on the broad, canopied bed. She was writhing and moaning. +At regular intervals she flinched as from a blow, then shuddered, and +relaxed. + +"Lord! I can almost hear the whip," muttered Farrell. He leaped forward +and thrust out his arm as if to ward off blows that flailed the girl's +bare shoulders. Then he retreated, shaking his head. + +"If we can't see it, how can we stop it?" he muttered despairingly. + +They stood, fascinated and horrified, watching a lovely girl being +flayed by an invisible scourge. They saw the red welts rising, crossing +and recrossing her shoulders, and cropping up under the filmy silken +folds of her nightgown. + +"Look at it! Her gown didn't move a hair's breadth, but the whip raised +another welt! Pierre, it's impossible! That gown ought to be cut to +pieces by that flogging. Or else nothing's really hitting her. Or +else"--Farrell shook his head in bewildered despair--"or else we're +both crazy as hoot-owls!" + +"_Tenez donc_," said the old Frenchman, taking his friend by the arm. +Though he himself shrank in sympathy with the girl who writhed under +the invisible lash, his voice was calmer than Farrell's. "Let us study +this thing. And man or devil, in the end we will have his hide!" + +"You take the devils, Pierre, and give me a handful of whatever men you +think are messed up in it! I'll--eh, what's that?" + +He knelt beside the bed, gestured to d'Artois. + +"Listen to that, Pierre!" he said in a tense whisper. + +"_Junayn' ash-Shaytan_ ..." they heard her say. + +"Holy smoke!" gasped Farrell. "_Junayn' ash-Shaytan_ ... and did you +get what she said after that?" Then, before d'Artois could reply, "It's +over now." + + * * * * * + +The sleeping girl had ceased writhing and tossing. Her cries had +subsided to a drowsy murmuring. The two watchers stared at each other +for a moment. + +"But yes," said d'Artois finally. "I heard it, though it has been +several years since I heard any one use such villainous language. It +would do credit to one of the dancing-girls in Abu Aswad's dive in +Cairo. But this _junayn' ash-Shaytan_, that puzzles me." + +"Simple!" said Farrell. "Satan's garden." + +"_Mais oui!_" agreed d'Artois with a touch of impatience. "Only, what +is the point?" + +He frowned fiercely and twisted his mustache. + +"_Mon vieux_," he said after a moment's reflection, "in this first +articulate speech in her sleep we may find a clue to the invisible +scourge that leaves her back crossed with welts." + +Farrell shook his head. + +"Crazier and crazier," he muttered. "We're all nutty. I am, you are, +she is--all of us! Now she's talking Arabic! I'm beginning to wonder +whether her back is really beaten or whether we're both suffering the +same delusion she is." + +D'Artois led the way to the door. Farrell followed. + +"I have been expecting that," he said as he reached for a brief-case +lying on the table. He opened it and withdrew a photograph. "Look." + +Farrell scrutinized the glossy print. + +"That proves your point," he admitted. "The camera isn't subject to +hallucinations or delusions of persecution. Antoinette has been +beaten. Severely. The old black-and-blue marks photographed darker +than the new, red welts. No argument. I'm not, she isn't, you're not +bug-house. That is, _not yet_. But if this doesn't stop soon----" + +He bit the tip off a fresh cigar, chewed it for a moment, struck light. + +"Let us be impersonal about it for a moment," suggested d'Artois, "and +consider what we have. + +"First, she tells us that her dreams have become so real that she +is confused and wonders during the day which is dream, and which is +reality. She dreams that she is in an outlandishly beautiful garden, +dim as by moonlight, yet warm as the glow of morning sun. The plants +are strange, and the flowers have an unnatural, poison sweetness. + +"And strangest of all, she herself has a different body, brown-skinned, +with blue-black hair, and very large, dark eyes. The other girls, her +companions, are also dark," summarized d'Artois. "Now do you see how +her first speech in this troubled sleep begins to lend a touch of +rationality?" + +Farrell pondered for a moment, then replied. + +"Yes. Those few words she spoke in Arabic tonight suggest a dual +personality, give us a bit more background. But on the other hand, +didn't she tell us that she couldn't understand the language of the +other girls, and of the guests: lean, swarthy fellows with staring, +dilated eyes? If she couldn't understand them, how the devil is she +talking the fluent, unsavory Arabic of a dancing-girl in a Port Said +dive?" + +"That sudden gift of tongues can be resolved," said d'Artois. "There +is something else, which is perhaps more relevant: the veiled Master, +whom the guests of the garden regard with great reverence. Does that +suggest anything?" + +"It does, and it doesn't," replied Farrell, "'Way back in my mind it's +there, but I can't express it. And you, I fancy, are in about the same +fix?" + +"I am," admitted d'Artois. "But before many days pass, we will pick up +the trail. We will have this invisible wielder of an unseen scourge. +Him, or his hide. But now get yourself some sleep, _mon ami_." + +Farrell glanced at the door at his left. + +"She'll be all right," assured d'Artois. "The ordeal is over. And what +purpose did we serve, after all?" + +"Guess you're right, Pierre," assented Farrell. "Let's go." + + + + + 2. _La Dorada_ + + +Glenn Farrell was up at dawn. His carefully tiptoeing down the winding +stairway of Pierre d'Artois' house, however, was wasted consideration. +He found that gray-haired _ferrailleur_ hunched over the littered desk +of his study, fuming and muttering in a thick, foul cloud of smoke +that momentarily became more dense as the cigarette between d'Artois' +fingers added its stench of burning rags. The shining brass pot of +Syrian workmanship, and half a dozen tiny cups, each with a thick +residue of pulverized coffee grounds and cigarette stumps, indicated +that the old man had been at work ever since they had left Antoinette +Delatour some six hours ago. + +In the clear space in front of d'Artois was an open book whose pages +were in illuminated Arabic script. Beside it were a pad of note-paper +and a half-dozen loose sheets closely scribbled. + +"Pierre, why didn't you tell me you were going to carry on?" reproached +Farrell as he drew up a chair. "This is really more my funeral than +yours, getting Antoinette out of this terrible mess." + +"_Mordieu!_" exclaimed d'Artois. "This is work for a scholar, not a +towering blockhead like yourself." + +"Oh, all right, all right," said Farrell with a smile that for a moment +cleared his features of the dismay and wrath of the preceding night. +"Only, I can read that stuff myself, almost as well as you can." He +scrutinized the book for a moment; then, indicating the title, he said, +"_Siret al Haken_--how's that for a blockhead?" + +"Very good," approved d'Artois. Then, with a wink and a grin, "And +after all, perhaps I should not call you a blockhead, even though I do +exceed you in intelligence and in skill with the sword." + +He paused a moment after that time-honored raillery in which each +reviled the other's talents, then continued, "But seriously, I have +been pursuing some exceedingly roundabout speculations, and before I +inflicted them on you, I wanted to study them out myself." + +"Oh, all right, then," agreed Farrell as he found a clean _demi-tasse_ +and poured some of the lukewarm, sirupy Turkish coffee with which +d'Artois drugged himself during his midnight studies. "But I see no +connection with the _Memoirs of Haken_ and Antoinette's terrible +predicament." + +"Listen then, I will enlighten you!" began d'Artois. "Mademoiselle +Antoinette has been dreaming of a garden rich with roses, and lilies, +and jasmine. It is alive with strangely colored birds. In fact, she +described the very garden"--d'Artois indicated the page of Arabic +script before him--"that Haken has so glowingly described: lovely girls +playing the _sitar_ and the _oudh_, and entertaining the guests of +paradise with song and wine. And a veiled master who ruled the garden." + +"But what," demanded Farrell, "has that to do with those unmerciful +beatings? How about it?" + +"Did I not say that I was working indirectly?" countered d'Artois. "The +scourgings, you understand, did not come until later, after the dreams +had recurred for some time. Therefore they must be but an indication of +the gradual increase----" + +"Of the undoubted insanity of all three of us!" interpolated Farrell. + +"Mademoiselle Antoinette," declared d'Artois, ignoring his friend's +outburst, "is not dreaming. She actually spends her nights in that +devil's paradise. She awakes and tells us that she had another body; +but her _self_ retained its identity. I conclude then that her +personality, her spiritual essence, whatever you will, is wandering, +driven by some damnable compulsion to inhabit that garden, and a +strange body." + +Farrell sighed wearily and shook his head. + +"This scrambling of selves and personalities is enough to drive one +nutty. It doesn't make any sense." + +"Ah, say you so?" murmured d'Artois as he reached for another +cigarette. "My logic is scrambled, in that I have not attempted to show +_how_ this can be; but by assuming that it is, I get to the next point. + +"Listen somewhat further, yes? We have but to find that place which +Antoinette's physical body, speaking like a Syrian dancing-girl, so +graphically damned and called _junayn' ash-Shaytan_, Satan's garden. + +"There is such a garden at this moment in physical existence; or +else there is one which, reaching out of the dimness of nine hundred +departed years, is _en rapport_ with Antoinette." + +"Hell's fire!" muttered Farrell. "The ghost of a garden haunting a +woman in Bayonne, in 1933!" + +D'Artois tapped the cover of _Siret al Haken_. + +"The author," he said, "tells of Hassan al Sabbah. _Shaykh al Djibal_, +the Chief of the Mountains. The lord of the _Hashisheen_----" + +"I get it!" exclaimed Farrell. "The garden paradise into which +hasheesh-drugged devotees were tossed while unconscious, so that when +they awoke they would believe themselves to be in the Moslem heaven of +cool water, beautiful women, and forbidden wine?" + +"Precisely, my excellent blockhead! I drink to your wit!" said d'Artois +with a smile that flashed over the edge of his cup of cold coffee. +"And your Antoinette is bedeviled in some way by a garden like that +of Hassan al Sabbah, the master of those assassins who terrorized all +Syria and Persia, centuries ago." + +Farrell grimaced. + +"Worse and worse yet! Hasn't this old city of Bayonne got enough ghosts +and devils in its own right, lurking under the blood-soaked foundations +of the citadel, without importing them from Asia?" His eyes shifted to +the clustered simitars and yataghans, kreeses and kampilans, darts and +assegais that adorned the walls of the study. "Now if they were men, we +might do something about it!" + +"Have no fear on that score," assured d'Artois. "We find that every +phantom as malignantly directed as this ghostly garden has a man +pulling the strings--a flesh-and-blood man you can neatly riddle with +bullets, or slice asunder with some of those toys up there on the wall." + +Farrell smiled grimly and took heart. + +"Reasonable, at that. And now, suppose that we drop in and see what +Antoinette has to say about her newly acquired gift of Arabic speech. +It took me several years to learn that fluently." + +"Barbarian!" scoffed d'Artois. "It is too early. You with your military +hours----" + +"And you're another," countered Farrell. "Working the clock around. But +see if you can persuade Félice to scramble some eggs, at least a pound +of bacon, and perhaps a stack of waffles." + +"_Magnifique!_" agreed d'Artois. "Some of those barbarous American +customs of yours are not utterly vile. And since you so kindly sent me +an electric waffle-iron, _à l'Américain_--but as a lover, you are most +unconvincing! At six of the morning, you howl for food--utterly out of +keeping! Romance is dead, slain by such as you." + +"Ghosts," submitted Farrell, "can not be fought on an empty stomach." + + * * * * * + +Breakfast stemmed Farrell's impatience for a while; but as they +lingered over the brandy-laden coffee, he proposed again that they set +out at once to call on Antoinette Delatour. + +"Or at least, let's stretch our legs and get the air. I'll be turning +flip-flops if I don't get going." + +"The air, then," agreed d'Artois. "Look! It is but little past eight." + +So saying, d'Artois selected one of his collection of canes and led +the way down the stairs of the restored ruin which served as his town +house. The circular donjon dated back to the Thirteenth Century; the +remainder, though not so ancient, was old when Columbus set sail; and +the narrow street on which it faced was in accord with those far-off +days, crooked, dingy, and paved with cobblestones. Yet, being in the +heart of that colorful city which he loved so well, d'Artois was +content, and with the modernization of the interior, he contrived to be +comfortable. + +They strolled along the _quai_ that follows the Nive to its junction +with the Adour, then turned to the left toward Place du Théâtre. Before +crossing the street that skirted the plaza, d'Artois paused a moment +at the curbing to give the right of way to the glittering, costly +Italian car which was approaching, presumably from the Biarritz road. +The chauffeur and footman were in livery; and the crest on the door +was one that d'Artois recognized as that of the Marquis des Islots. +Farrell, however, being ignorant of heraldry, had eyes only for the +passenger in the back seat: a dazzlingly beautiful girl whose costly +furs and sparkling jewels betokened a background as golden as her hair. +Her lovely features were drawn and weary, and her eyes haggard and +blue-ringed. + +"Good Lord, Pierre!" he exclaimed as he clutched his friend by the arm. +"Did you see--for a moment I thought----" + +He blinked, passed his hand over his eyes, then sought to catch another +glimpse of the beauty in the back seat. + +"And what did you for a moment think?" wondered d'Artois, as the car +rolled majestically toward the Mayou bridge. His voice was grave, but +his blue eyes twinkled. + +"I thought it was Antoinette," said Farrell, still perplexed. "Or else +I'm seeing things!" + +"My friend," said d'Artois reprovingly, as they crossed the street, +"let Antoinette ever hear that you mistook La Dorada for her!" He shook +his head in solemn warning. "Blasphemy, you understand. _Lèse majesté._" + +"But doesn't she----" began Farrell, his gray eyes still narrowed with +perplexity. + +"Truly! She does just that," admitted d'Artois. "Antoinette has often +been accosted at Biarritz and Santander by admirers of La Dorada. +But on second glance, their error becomes apparent, unless they are +strangers. A similarity of coloring, perhaps a likeness of posture or +mannerism that would deceive one only for a moment, if one knew either +woman well. Had you been able to look again--anyway, La Dorada is the +current playmate of _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots. She was in his +car, and on her way to his château where she is spending the season. +Doubtless she is returning from a night of baccarat or roulette at +Biarritz." + +"Returning? At this hour?" wondered Farrell. + +D'Artois smiled and nodded. + +"You do not know La Dorada. She got the name in Madrid, where she was +discovered by a café proprietor and sponsored by a grandee of Spain. La +Dorada, the gilded, the golden." + +As they passed along the broad plaza, then to the left and up the slope +of rue Port Neuf, d'Artois held forth at length concerning the colorful +career of La Dorada who at first glance so strikingly resembled +Antoinette Delatour. + +At the head of rue Port Neuf they turned to the left, past the old +cathedral whose tall spires tower like silver lance-heads into the +morning light, and ascended the incline to the broad drive that follows +the parapet of the Lachepaillet wall. + + * * * * * + +Despite the barbarity of the hour, they found that Antoinette had +disposed of her morning chocolate and rolls. She wore a negligée of +jade chiffon whose curled ostrich trimming fluffed up about her ears +and caressed the copper-golden hair that enhanced her resemblance to La +Dorada. Her lips smiled, but her dark blue eyes were somber and haunted +as she greeted Farrell and d'Artois. + +"_Hélas!_ It was worse than ever, last night," she replied, with a +despairing gesture, to Farrell's solicitous inquiry. "But be seated, +and I will tell you." + +She shifted her feet to make room for Farrell at the foot of the +chaise-longue on which she reclined; then, as d'Artois drew up a chair, +Antoinette continued, "It was terribly clear! Just fancy: my hair was +jet-black, and so were my eyes. And my skin was as dark as an Arab's! +They beat me most unmercifully ... as usual." + +She shuddered at the memory of the dream. D'Artois stared at the dainty +feet and their turquoise and silver mules. As Antoinette was about to +resume her remarks, he said abruptly, "In your dream, what have you +been wearing? On your ankles, I mean." + +Antoinette closed her eyes for a moment to visualize her dream. + +"Heavy golden anklets set with massive uncut stones," she replied. +"Emeralds, I think. But why?" + +"Were they _very_ heavy?" persisted d'Artois. + +Farrell regarded him curiously, wondering how adornments could be +relevant to the case. + +"Terribly so!" assured Antoinette. Then, with a wan smile, "Only, I've +become used to them." + +"Look!" commanded d'Artois, indicating the girl's ankles. + +"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Farrell, and frowned perplexedly. Then +he glanced at his left hand and shifted the heavy signet on his finger. +"Her ankles are marked just as my finger is by this heavy slug of a +ring!" + +"_Voilà!_ That further indicates an interchange of bodies during the +night!" declared d'Artois. "As a Syrian dancing-girl you are beaten, +and the welts appear on the body of Antoinette Delatour. And the heavy +anklets of the Syrian girl mark your daytime body just as they leave +prints on her. + +"Now what else do you remember, _ma petite_? Your impressions become +more distinct each time, _n'est-ce pas_? Your recollections----" + +"Exactly," she assented. "And last night--oh, I know I'm becoming +utterly mad!--the veiled Master was accompanied by a man who walked +through the garden with him." + +"And how," wondered d'Artois, "is that more peculiar than the rest of +the dream?" + +"The Master's companion," replied Antoinette, "is the Marquis des +Islots! _Mon Dieu_, is the whole city of Bayonne bound for this devil's +garden?" + +"What?" D'Artois started and glanced sharply at Antoinette, then at +Farrell. "_Monsieur le Marquis_ has been added to her dream. Do you see +any connection?" + +"I don't," confessed Farrell. "After all this madhouse she's been +through, might it not be a fancied recognition? Pure imagination?" + +"_Cordieu!_" exclaimed d'Artois. "Would she not sooner imagine that she +saw ibn Saoud, or Saladin? That would be more in keeping. _Diable!_ +Her seeing _Monsieur le Marquis_ is so wide of any fancy that I am now +convinced that she is not dreaming." + +"Eh, what's that?" demanded Farrell, aghast at the wildness of +d'Artois' implication. "That it wasn't a dream? Good Lord, man----" + +The recurrent nightmare had driven Antoinette Delatour to the verge of +distraction, so that d'Artois' contention did not amaze her as much as +it did Farrell. + +"_Mon Dieu_," she sighed wearily, and took Farrell's hand. "It's all +become such a terrific confusion ... I don't know who I am. Oh, how my +poor back aches from that beating!" + +"Courage, my dear!" reassured d'Artois. "The enemy has slipped." Then, +to Farrell, "_Allons!_ Let us get to work at once. I have several of +those hunches." + +"The quicker the better, Pierre," agreed Farrell. And as Antoinette's +slender arms released him, he followed d'Artois down the stairs to the +street. + + + + + _3. The Hand of Hassan_ + + +"Your task, my friend," began d'Artois as, back again at his house, +they sat down to plan their campaign against the phantom garden, "will +be to watch at the plaza. You will loaf, and drink an occasional +_apéritif_, and smoke your way into the day. You may see nothing; but +with time and patience your watch will have results. All of Bayonne +passes the plaza, sooner or later." + +"But what," wondered Farrell, "am I to look for?" + +"People who show signs of hasheesh intoxication, particularly Arabs or +other Orientals," answered d'Artois. "You know the symptoms. You have +seen enough _hasheeshin_ in Egypt and Syria. I need not describe their +manner, or peculiar stare. We are in search of addicts who in addition +are fanatic Moslems. A slender clue at best, but while you pursue that, +something else may happen. + +"And I, in the meanwhile, will be doing some private snooping +of my own. This _Monsieur_ the Marquis des Islots is due for an +investigation. That one has an open reputation for dabbling in obscure +arts, and not such a savory reputation either." + +"But," protested Farrell, "how do hasheesh addicts come into this?" + +"Listen, I will enlighten you," began d'Artois. "We mentioned the +Assassins, the followers of Hassan al Sabbah, the terrible Chief of +the Mountains, _n'est-ce pas_? Those Assassins were of the fanatic +Ismailian sect of Moslems. Those guests of the garden mentioned in +this book"--d'Artois indicated _Siret al Haken_, lying open on the +desk--"actually believed that their master had the power of admitting +them to paradise for brief visits, at the end of which they were +drugged, and dragged forth to awaken once more on earth, and ready for +any infamy that might be demanded as the price of returning to the +garden." + +"I have all that," admitted Farrell. "All right, then?" + +"The sect of the Ismailians," continued d'Artois, "was more than +religious. It was political. Its members did not content themselves +with theory. And if, as Antoinette's strange dreams indicate, we have a +nest of Ismailians--that is, _hasheeshin_--to contend with, sooner or +later one or more of them will be noted about town. + +"As for Antoinette, it is quite possible that she is, without being +aware of it, _clairvoyante_. And thus _Monsieur le Marquis_ will bear +investigation. Do you therefore stand watch as I directed, while I +pursue some private snooping. _À bientôt!_" + +Whereat d'Artois turned to his desk, leaving Farrell to go to the plaza +and seek a table under the striped awning of the café. + + * * * * * + +Farrell was none too optimistic, but upon his arrival at Café du +Théâtre he assumed an indolence that in any place but southern France +would have seemed a pose. But in Bayonne the enjoyment of placid +idleness is an ancient art: and thus it was eminently suitable for him +to sit and watch the smoke spiralling from the cigarette that smoldered +between his fingers. + +All of the Bayonnais, and all visitors, eventually pass the plaza: +Portuguese and Spanish and Italian sailors, Arabs from Algiers and +Morocco, Basques from the hills; English tourists on their way to the +arcades of rue Port Neuf, where they found the only _épiceries_ in +Bayonne where they could buy Scotch whisky; peasants, loafers, soldiers +on leave; quietly dressed and unpainted girls who had left behind them, +in their rooms beyond the Nive, all the gauds and garniture of their +profession. Costly imported cars flashed by, to cross Pont Mayou and +Pont de Saint Esprit; ox-carts lumbered past, the drivers, arrayed in +dingy smocks, trudging along and reviling their placid beasts. Bayonne +marched by in review; and Farrell watched the parade. + +But despite his apparent idleness, Farrell's gray eyes were occupied +with more than wisps of smoke, and the tall glass of _anis del oso_ +that sat on the marble-topped table before him. Without in the least +shifting his slightly bowed head, he was peering between his drooping +eye-lashes at the passers-by, and at the boulevardiers who like himself +sat sipping the meridional _apéritif_. + +He was particularly interested in the trio that sat two tables to +his right, where they could command a view of rue Port Neuf as well +as the street that led to the Mayou bridge. They were swarthy and +aquiline-featured. Two were Syrian Arabs; but the third, despite his +dark skin and foreign air, was no Semite, but an Aryan: a Kurd from +Kurdistan, one of those fierce mountaineers who in their native land +are the terror of Turk and Persian alike. Yet the trio had kinship in +at least one feature: the dilated pupils and the staring glassiness of +their eyes. + +As Farrell raised his glass and sniffed the odor of the cloudy drink, +he smelled trouble as well as _anis del oso_. D'Artois' somber hints +were having substantial realization. Farrell's first reaction was +to loosen the pistol in his shoulder holster. The peculiar stare of +their eyes convinced Farrell that he had picked up the trail of that +which d'Artois felt would lead to the source of the bedevilment of +Antoinette's nights. + +Farrell continued his apparent enjoyment of idleness. His broad +shoulders slumped. He languidly passed his fingers through his sandy +hair; but for all his efforts to maintain his poise, his long, lean +frame was tense, and chills raced up and down his spine, despite the +warmth of the day. + +He summoned the waiter and called for brandy. + +Then he noted that an exotic, imported car was coming to a smooth +halt at the curbing. A footman in livery opened the door and stood at +attention as a woman emerged from the rich upholstery and silver and +cut glass of the town car that bore the crest of the Marquis des Islots. + +Farrell recognized the woman as La Dorada. He wondered, as he saw her +step to the curbing, why a carpet had not been unrolled to keep her +feet from the contamination of the paving. The scarcely perceptible +breeze wafted a breath of perfume whose cost rumor had for once fallen +short of exaggerating. + +La Dorada was passing the table of the trio from Asia. The one facing +the Mayou bridge made a gesture. His lips moved. At that distance, +Farrell could not hear what he said. La Dorada apparently paid no +attention to the murmur. She was accustomed to whispered admiration. + +Farrell ignored the warning of his intuition: it was too unbelievable +and outrageous. + +Then it happened. The Kurd, who faced Farrell, leaped cat-like to his +feet. A knife flashed in his hand. La Dorada started at Farrell's +warning cry, and added her own note of dismay as she saw his hand with +an incredibly swift gesture seek his armpit. + +"Smack-smack-smack!" roared the heavy automatic. + +The Kurd pitched backward to the paving, groaning and clutching his +stomach. + +But even as Farrell drew and fired, the Syrian whose back had been +turned to Farrell leaped from his place. And the knife he held found +its mark, full in the breast of La Dorada. + +The pistol spoke, but too late. Even as the impact of the heavy slug +bowled the Syrian over in a heap, his blade sank home. + +La Dorada screamed, reeled, and collapsed, clutching the dagger whose +hilt projected beyond the blood-splashed fur collar of her coat. + +As he leaped forward, pistol in hand, Farrell knew that she would be +beyond assistance. A shot at the survivor of the trio was impossible, +and pursuit was futile. Waiters, patrons of the café, and passers-by +clustered about the dying beauty. In the confusion Farrell heard the +clash of gears and caught a glimpse of a car tearing madly down toward +the road leading to Maracq. + +La Dorada moaned, and shuddered. + +"Hassan----" she articulated with an effort. Then she coughed, and +gasped. A red foam flecked her red lips. + + * * * * * + +The arrival of a pair of gendarmes, and, a few minutes later, a passing +doctor, scattered the dense cluster of frantically gesticulating +citizens. + +"_Monsieur_," said one of the gendarmes, who had seen Farrell holster +his automatic, "be pleased to accompany us. Purely as a matter of form, +you understand. It is plainly evident that that one----" + +He indicated the second of the assassins that Farrell's pistol fire +had bowled over. + +Farrell shrugged. It would be awkward for a stranger in town to be +dragged into the formalities of a police investigation; and doubly +annoying in view of his having a serious problem of his own to handle. + +"Very well, _monsieur_," agreed Farrell with a wry grimace. + +Then he saw d'Artois emerge from the fringe of the crowd that still +persisted, at a distance of several paces. He whispered in the ear of +the gendarme--only a few words, but they sufficed. + +The gendarme turned from d'Artois to Farrell. + +"Your pardon, _monsieur_. You may call on us at your leisure. It was +routine, you comprehend." + +Farrell in his turn bowed, and followed d'Artois to his car, eager to +be clear of the plaza. And as they drove past the parkway that lies +between the road to Maracq and the wall of Lachepaillet, Farrell gave +his companion an account of the assassination. + +"_Sacré nom d'un nom!_" swore d'Artois at the conclusion of the +narrative. "That is the technique of the Fifth Order of the Ismailians. +They worked in threes, so that if the first and second were cut down, +the third would nevertheless slay the victim. + +"They hunted Saladin seven hundred years ago. They slew Nizam ul Mulk. +The Sultan of Cairo, Baibars the Panther, barely escaped them. They +terrorized the Near East until Tamerlane in his wrath took by assault +their almost impregnable castle of Alamut, tore it down stone by stone, +and put to the sword 12,000 Ismailians. But the order persisted, though +its power has been broken for these past five centuries, thanks to the +savage efficiency of Tamerlane. + +"And I am thoroughly convinced," continued d'Artois, "that you +witnessed a recrudescence of that plague which ate at the heart of +the Moslem world for several centuries. They seem to be branching +out again. Even as during the Crusades they assassinated Conrad of +Montferrat, so are they again carrying secret war against the infidel." + +"But why," demanded Farrell, "did they strike La Dorada in the public +square? They could have killed her stealthily. Even though they could +not foresee that I would shoot two of them down in their tracks, the +other spectators or the police might have killed or captured them." + +"You miss the point," declared d'Artois, "which is pardonable, since +even your extensive travels in the Orient would not of necessity bring +you into contact with the Ismailians. They killed her in public as an +example to instill terror in others. It is a matter of history that +Ismailian assassins were often ordered to slay a dignitary and to make +no attempt at escape. In one case the slayer struck, then sat down and +began eating his travel rations of bread and dates, calmly awaiting +the guard that would drag him to the executioner and impalement on a +sharpened stake. The besotted _hasheeshin_ faced a horrible doom for +the sake of re-entrance to the paradise with which their master duped +them. The utter fearlessness and indifference to death and torture +aroused more terror than the assassinations they perpetrated. + +"So much for the _fedawi_, or Devoted Ones, Ismailians of the Fifth +Order. The first four orders were the Grand Master, the Grand Priors, +and simple priors, or initiates; and then a grade known as _rafiqs_, +or associates. These upper grades were intelligent persons who after +sufficient study in the free-thinking, heretical doctrines of the +Ismailians would be eligible for the highest offices in the Order. + +"The Ismailians became a state within a state; they undermined Persia +and Syria, and for several centuries exacted tribute from sultans +and emirs, with summary vengeance as the penalty of non-payment, +very much," concluded d'Artois, with a malicious grin, "like those +racketeers they have in your United States. That should make it clear!" + +"But how," wondered Farrell, "does Antoinette fit into all this?" + +"The companions and initiates of the Ismailians," replied d'Artois, +"were adepts in alchemy, magic, conjuring, and occult arts. They used +Islam as a mask for all manner of forbidden heresies and as bait to +attract the pious oafs and religious fanatics who did the actual +slaying and--how does one say it, _à l'Américain_?--and took the rap! + +"Maymun the Persian founded the order. A free-thinker, heretic, and +magician, he fled from the wrath of the Khalif Mansur, with his son +Abdallah, to whom he imparted all his vast knowledge of medicine, +conjuring, and occultism. And Abdallah built up on this start by +promising the return of the vanished Seventh Imam, who had never +died, but who was waiting for the day to return and rule all Islam. +They still wait for the return of Ismail, the Seventh Imam. And in +the meanwhile, behold the deviltry with which they amuse themselves, +bewitching Antoinette, slaying La Dorada--_le bon Dieu_ can only say +what will come next." + +They drew up at d'Artois' house as he concluded his refreshing of +Farrell's memory on the origin of the menace that had taken root in +Bayonne. + +"How about my watching the plaza?" wondered Farrell as Raoul admitted +them. + +"You have watched enough," declared d'Artois. "In fact, you have made +yourself so painfully conspicuous that from now on I will have to +watch you more closely than Mademoiselle Antoinette, or you will be +found full of daggers yourself." + +"Nuts, Pierre!" protested Farrell. "I've been away from home before, +and I'm used to being hunted." + +"Nevertheless, be on your guard," cautioned the old man. + + + + + _4. Shirkuh Makes Magic_ + + +That evening, after dinner, d'Artois' man, Raoul, entered the study +with a large envelope that had just been delivered by a messenger. + +D'Artois glanced at the large waxen seal that secured the flap. + +"The crest of _Monsieur le Marquis_," he observed. Then, with a wink +and a grin at Farrell, he continued, "Like Satan in the first lines +of the Book of Job, I wandered up and down the world, and in it, +particularly at Biarritz, and somewhat about the estate of our good +Marquis. But need I assure you that if my presence was noted, it was +also amply accounted for? _Mais oui_, of a verity!" + +He slit the envelope and withdrew an engraved invitation. + +"Hmmm ... _Monsieur le Marquis_ requests the honor of my presence at a +_soirée_ at his château. The Thaumaturgical Order of Thoth is meeting +in open conclave." + +"Wait a minute," interrupted Farrell. "There's something fishy about +this. La Dorada, his sweetheart, is murdered around noon. And now +he sends you an invitation to--what was it?--some kind of juggler's +convention. Anyway, it's utterly out of keeping. Not only inhumanly +callous, but damned poor form; no matter what his private morals may +be, a man of his station would have better manners!" + +"Granted," acquiesced d'Artois. "But consider: this thaumaturgical +society may be depending upon the meeting-place designated, and can +not postpone it for the sake of one man's grief. That there is such +an order has been for some time an open secret. Then, he himself may +be absent from the conclave, even though it assembled in his name. Or +again," continued d'Artois, "it is even possible that Monsieur the +Marquis does not know of La Dorada's death." + +"Absurd!" objected Farrell. "In a town this small----" + +"Wait!" interrupted d'Artois. "Remember Antoinette's dream: the Marquis +walked through the garden with the veiled Master. He may still be in +that garden, not to emerge until the hour of the _soirée_." + +"By the rod, that's possible," agreed Farrell. "Since La Dorada was +presumably killed by the Ismailians, the Marquis may be in their hands, +dead, or a prisoner." + +"Now, as to this invitation," continued d'Artois, "it may be a device +to exact vengeance for your excellent pistol practise. Their espionage +would inform them that you, my friend and guest, would surely accompany +me to the _soirée_. + +"But mark you this: they can scarcely know that your Antoinette could +tell you of seeing the Marquis in the garden. That, you comprehend, is +the information that ties the scattered ends together, and makes their +otherwise subtle trap seem obvious to us. + +"My friend, do we go and defy them, or shall we stay at home?" + +Farrell laughed. + +"Pierre, you're comical at times! We'll go, and be damned to them and +their trap. We can shoot our way out of any handful of knife-artists +they throw at us, what?" + +"Ha! Is it that you are informing me?" scoffed d'Artois with a fierce +gleam in his steel-blue eyes. "_Voilà_--have your choice of my +arsenal," he said, gesturing at his collection of pistols, ranging +from flintlocks and cap-and-ball antiques to heavy Colt revolvers and +automatics. "And perhaps, since we shall be outnumbered, we might slip +into those shirts of Persian chain-mail. They are not much heavier than +a sweater, and so exquisitely forged as to be proof against knives and +any but the heaviest pistols. _Parbleu_, we will attend that conclave!" + +After arraying themselves as d'Artois had suggested, they dressed for a +formal evening affair. + +"Thaumaturgy ... thaumaturgy ..." muttered Farrell as they stepped into +the Renault and d'Artois took the wheel. "Wonder, or miracle workers, +what?" + +"Precisely," agreed d'Artois. "Jugglery, sleight of hand, trickery, but +withal, an underlying substratum of fact that can not be dismissed. +I myself have seen unbelievable things done by the adepts of Tibet. +A corpse, _par exemple_, animated and made to dance by some devilish +magic. The fact of my having been admitted to their inner circles in +Tibet has in time leaked out; and it is to this that they would expect +us to attribute my receiving tonight's invitation." + + * * * * * + +The château of the Marquis was out in the hills beyond the Mousserole +Gate. It was perched on a knoll that commanded the surrounding country. +Several cars were parked in a level space near the entrance. + +"It seems," observed Farrell, "that there are other guests, although +that may or may not mean anything." + +D'Artois presented his invitation to the butler. + +"_Monsieur le Chevalier_ Pierre d'Artois," he intoned in impressive +but oddly accented French. Then he glanced at Farrell. + +D'Artois interposed and instructed the butler, who then announced +Farrell. + +They advanced through the vestibule and thence into the salon, a +vast, high-ceiled chamber illuminated by a pulsing bluish glow. The +walls were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict with +unsavory realism the grotesque imagery of Asian mysteries. At the +far end of the salon was a dais flanked by tall tripod-censers whose +pungent, resinous fumes made the air thick. + +The assembled guests were in formal evening dress. There were Spaniards +with black mustaches, and Frenchmen with spade-shaped beards; and here +and there Farrell saw lean, hawk-faced Arabs, and several distinctly +Mongolian faces. + +"More guests than the number of cars would indicate," muttered Farrell, +nudging d'Artois. "This is all very flossy, but I smell trouble." + +"And no Marquis," added d'Artois with a quick glance about the salon. +Then he advanced to meet the man who seemed to be acting as host. After +the exchange of a few words, d'Artois presented Farrell. + +In the course of the conventional courtesies, Farrell appraised the +master of the show. He was lean as a beast of prey, and as sleek. +His moves and gestures had a cat-like grace, and his speech had the +indefinable blur of accent that marks one who speaks many languages +with equal ease. + +"And thus I have the honor," concluded the host, "of offering in the +name of _Monsieur le Marquis_ his regrets and the hospitality of his +house." + +He paused for a moment, regarding them with his intent, deep-set eyes; +then with a gesture toward a row of chairs arranged before the dais, +"Be pleased to seat yourselves, _messieurs_." + +Farrell watched the broad shoulders and tall figure pass among the +guests like a cat stalking through a jungle. + +"Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi," muttered Farrell. "Ought to be an +honest fighting-man, but----" + +"'But' is correct," interrupted d'Artois. "There is nothing honest +about that playmate of Satan. Mark my words, we shall see more of that +gentleman, if we live long enough." + +As they seated themselves there was a clang of bronze, and the faint, +muffled wailing of pipes and the whine of single-stringed _kemenjahs_ +from an alcove behind the arras. As the guests took seats, an attendant +passed up and down the rows of chairs, offering small glasses of wine, +and triangular pastries iced in curious designs. + +"On your life, don't eat it!" muttered d'Artois as he palmed a +confection he had selected from the tray. "Drugged, there is no telling +what may happen to your good sense. This is all damnably familiar." + +Another peal of bronze; then, as Shirkuh sprang effortlessly to the +dais, the music dimmed to a sighing whisper, a sinister murmuring from +outer darkness. + +Six lean, brown men, nude save for loin-cloths that glowed like golden +flames in the spectral bluish light, emerged from an entrance concealed +by the silver-embroidered arras, and filed across the hall toward the +dais. Following them came four others, likewise arrayed, but blacker +than any negroes Farrell had ever seen. They bore a litter on which lay +a form whose gracious feminine curves were not entirely concealed by +the silken, metallically glistening shroud. + +"Good Lord!" muttered Farrell. "A woman!" + +The brown-skinned sextet ascended the dais. The blacks followed with +their burden. As they halted, two others emerged from the back-drapes +of the dais, bringing with them wrought bronze trestles on which the +litter was placed. + + * * * * * + +Shirkuh took his post behind the litter as the sextet of adepts from +High Asia seated themselves cross-legged in front of it. + +"Fellow thaumaturges," he began, "I, the least of your servants, beg +leave to present a feat that has never been accomplished save in +far-off Lhasa." + +He paused, smiled, and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured toward +the shrouded form on the litter. An attendant gathered the silken folds +and drew them aside. + +Farrell barely suppressed a gasp of horrified amazement. + +The woman on the bier was La Dorada. Her copper-golden hair flamed +like living fire in the bluish-purple, pulsing light of the room. The +hands, folded across her breast, sparkled with jewels. She had no other +adornment or dress. La Dorada, the Golden, dead not over ten hours, +and stripped of all but her exquisite beauty, lay exposed to the gaze +of that assemblage of devil-mongers. For one terrible instant Farrell +had thought that Antoinette lay on that bier; then he remembered her +resemblance to the dead actress, and assured himself that Antoinette +was and must be in her apartment on rue Lachepaillet, awaiting another +night of fantastic dreams of an assassin's paradise, and the lashing of +an invisible scourge. + +"_Monsieur le Marquis_," continued Shirkuh with a smile that flashed +satanic mockery, "is unable to be with us. But I trust that that which +I offer will be worthy of your presence." + +"Lord!" muttered Farrell. "I don't know the Marquis, but exhibiting her +dead body here in his house--I've half a notion to start the show right +here!" + +D'Artois' fingers closed about Farrell's right wrist. + +"_Imbécile!_ This infamy is none of your business. Tend to your own +sheep." + +Shirkuh nodded and made a gesture. The faint, whimpering music became +louder. Among the plucked strings of _sitar_ and _oudh_ Farrell could +distinguish the notes of a wind instrument that was a mockery of a +woman's voice. The drums muttered and purred in complex rhythm. + +The adepts were swaying from their hips, and making statuesque passes +and gestures that resembled an animation of the figures of Egyptian +sculpture. Their glassily staring eyes shifted in regular cadence to +follow their darting finger tips. They were as revivified corpses that +had not yet gained full control of their bodies. + +Then they lifted their voices in a chant like the wailing of ghouls +imprisoned in a looted tomb; dead brazen faces chanting to the dead. +And Shirkuh, arms extended, made antiphonal responses in a voice that +surged and thundered like a distant surf. + +The notes of that diabolical wind instrument behind the arras became +more and more like the voice of a woman: a mellow sweetness against a +background of sepulchral wailing and the solemn intonation of Shirkuh. + +"Good Lord, Pierre, that's awful!" muttered Farrell. + +"Wait until it fairly starts," countered d'Artois in a whisper. "This +is primitive magic. Very primitive, but deadly. They are imitating that +which they design to accomplish. + +"_Pardieu_, hear that damnable pipe--_her_ very voice, now. They +imitate in music and symbolize in their chant the triumph of the dead +as they return from Beyond." + +That satanically sweet voice was now almost articulate. Farrell +strained his ears as he leaned forward, clutching the arms of his +chair. He sought to distinguish the words that it spoke. And then +another instrument came into play: a hoarse, reverberant roaring like +the lustful bellowing of pre-Adamite monsters. The hall trembled with +that terrific bestial blast. + +The fumes of the censers were swirling and twining like fantasmal +serpents in the ghastly blueness, weaving arabesques, spiralling +in vortices, gathering about that hellish sextet and its leader +like shapes from beyond the border clamoring at the periphery of a +necromancer's pentacle. + +A luminous haze was gathering and drawing to itself the censer fumes. +The nebulous iridescence pulsed and quivered like a sentient thing. +It throbbed with the slow, persistent beat of a turtle's heart after +it has been removed from the body. It elongated; then as it slowly +settled, that amorphous luminescence took shape: the graceful form of +La Dorada. + +The pipe that mimicked a woman's voice was articulating now in unison, +joining the necromancer's antiphonal answer to the chanting adepts and +the minotaurean bellowing of that monstrous horn. + +The master had called her, and she was there. + +The phantom presence slowly merged with the nacreous body of La +Dorada. The dead woman shivered for a moment, extended her shapely +arms, sat erect on the bier. Her cry was a mingling of exultation and +bewilderment; then she accepted the hand that Shirkuh offered her, and +splendid in her unclad beauty, sprang gracefully to the dais. + +[Illustration: "_The dead woman shivered for a moment, then sat erect +on the bier._"] + +The music and the chanting and the bestial roaring of that terrific +horn had ceased. The assembled thaumaturges sat fixed and staring as +though their life and their spiritual essence had been torn from them +and given to the dead who saluted them with a gesture and a bow. + +Shirkuh smiled triumphantly. + +"You have seen, Brethren. I called her and she came. And I am but +Shirkuh, the least of the slaves. See, she is alive, with the warmth +and beauty that at noon of this very day was a coldness, and a sister +of the dust." + +The red-gold head inclined in affirmation, and her smile was a slow, +curved sorcery. + +"Good God, that's the awfulest blasphemy!" muttered Farrell. "Or is it +an illusion?" + +"It is all too real," whispered d'Artois. + + * * * * * + +And then she spoke: "I have come back from the shadows and from the +blackness of death. I have come to greet you and to say that there is +a Garden to which I must soon return. And those who meet me there need +not ever think of farewell. + +"I came from across the narrow bridge, and back across it I must go. +Yet not this time to any blackness, but to the Garden, to be the Bride +and the reward and the welcome of those who believe. Oh, _Fedawi_ ... +Devoted Ones...." + +La Dorada, lovely in death, and more alluring than ever in life: yet a +cold horror clutched Farrell as he heard that dead woman's caressing +voice entrance the thaumaturges with promises that no human woman +could fulfill or even imagine. Her voice was a poison sweetness, a +full-throated richness that pronounced the beguilements of Lilith +chanting to the Morning Star. + +"Death so loved me that he has allowed me to leave," she said in that +wondrous voice that had made her the darling of Paris. And then her +exultant tones became a poignant sorrow as she continued, "But the +beloved of death must return...." + +"_Cordieu!_ That is a foulness beyond mention!" growled d'Artois. Then: + +"Let's go! Before we go utterly mad----" + +He leaped to his feet and thrust back his chair. And as Farrell +followed, he expected at any instant a fanatical outburst, the flash +of blades, the crackle of pistols. But the thaumaturges sat like the +ancient dead awaiting the newly died. + +La Dorada was ascending the bier. Her motions were graceful, but very +slow, as though the animation was being drained from her body. She was +dying a second time. + +This as they paused at the threshold for a backward glance; then, +advancing, Farrell and d'Artois sighed deeply, and strode to the +Renault. The hideous life-like unreality had dazed them. + +"_Dieu de Dieu!_" muttered d'Artois as he glanced at Farrell's lean, +drawn features, and shoulders drooping as though from the weight of the +Persian mail they had so needlessly worn. "What did that blasphemous +monster want with us? Did he hope to drive us to madness?" + +"No," said Farrell wearily. "He was mocking us. Certainly he didn't +withhold his cutthroats because he was afraid to try." + + * * * * * + +The long beam of the headlights swept the château, then picked up the +winding road as the car headed back toward the city. D'Artois sat +hunched behind the wheel. Farrell shivered at the memory of that +ghastly loveliness that had greeted them from the grave. + +"I know she was dead," reiterated Farrell. "She couldn't have been +alive. Not with that dagger I saw jammed into her breast this +afternoon. But why did he invite you? What everlastingly damned +mummery--there's something behind all this--she's going to greet them +in the Garden and there will be no farewell--was that all illusion, +or----" + +Farrell slumped back against the cushions and made a gesture of +bewilderment and futility. + +They left the river road, passed through the Mousserole Gate, and +threaded their way through the unsavory quarters between there and the +Nive. As they crossed the first of the seven bridges that span the +river, d'Artois suddenly jerked back from his crouch behind the wheel. + +"_Nom de Dieu!_" he exclaimed. + +Farrell, aroused by the note of alarm, glanced at his companion and saw +that the horror on his face was in keeping with the consternation in +his voice. + +The car leaped forward as d'Artois stepped on the accelerator. + +"Death and damnation!" he shouted above the full-throated roar of the +motor. "We sat there like dummies. _That_ is what he wanted!" + +"What?" demanded Farrell, tense, and alarmed by d'Artois' contagious +excitement. A sudden fear seized him. + +"A trap. Not for your worthless head nor mine, but for her! +Thaumaturgy! If there is but one greater damn fool than Glenn Farrell, +it is Pierre d'Artois!" + +They passed the plaza, and with a screech of brakes slowed down enough +to make the turn at rue Port Neuf. Then up rue d'Espagne, around the +hairpin turn, and thence down the street along the city wall. Again the +brake linings smoked their wrath and squealed their protest. Fuming +and cursing in a high rage, d'Artois leaped to the curbing, dashed up +the steps, and pounded Antoinette Delatour's door with the butt of his +pistol. + +"_Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?_" cried the terrified, bewildered maid. + +"Flames and damnation! Open, quick!" demanded d'Artois. "_C'est moi!_" + +"But she is sleeping," protested the maid, still half asleep. + +"Hasten, then. If she sleeps, wake her--is she indeed----" + +And as the door yielded, d'Artois, pistol in hand, charged up the +stairs, taking them three at a time. Farrell was but a jump behind him. + +They pounded on Antoinette's door. No response. + +"The key----" began d'Artois. + +But Farrell stepped back, gathered himself, and charged the door. It +resisted the shock; but a second assault burst it open, tearing the +lock from its socket. + +The floor of Antoinette's room was covered with fallen plaster. Her bed +was empty. A hole two feet square yawned in the ceiling. The turquoise +and silver slippers mocked them. + +"Gone!" muttered Farrell. + +"While we sat there ready for an ambush that didn't materialize," added +d'Artois. + +Farrell turned to the door. D'Artois seized him by the arm. + +"_Tenez!_ If you are going to tear the château to pieces," he said, +"spare yourself the trouble. They have taken her elsewhere. No effort +was made to detain us when we left because none was necessary. And they +will not be at the château, not any of them." + +Farrell's eyes were cold as sword-points as they flashed back again to +the empty, canopied bed. Then the slaying rage left him. + +"Right, Pierre," he admitted. "It's your move. With some head-work." + +"Head-work, indeed!" retorted d'Artois with a bitter, mordant laugh. +"It was my head-work that led to this. We should have watched her." + + + + + _5. Ibrahim Khan_ + + +"Now, where do we start?" demanded Farrell the following morning, as +he tasted the strong coffee that was to banish the remains of the +nightmarish sleep from which sunrise had awakened them. "You've got the +_Sûreté_--that's what you call your detective bureau, isn't it?--on +the trail. But there's a lot of this that no honest policeman could +swallow." + +"It is indeed a madhouse," admitted d'Artois. "But let us sum up for +a moment: Antoinette is evidently _en rapport_ with some one in that +Garden; some one with whom she identifies herself, and whose savage +beatings in some way leave marks on Antoinette's body. + +"By means of clairvoyance or other unusual perception, she recognized +the Marquis in her dream garden, her description of which tallies +closely with the traditional paradise devised by the higher Ismailians +for the deluding of their fanatical assassins. + +"Assassins operating very much like the _fedawi_ of five centuries ago +murdered La Dorada, the sweetheart of the Marquis. La Dorada bears a +marked resemblance to Antoinette, though far from enough to make her a +double, except under the most favorable conditions. + +"The terribly resurrected La Dorada last night spoke of a Garden. And +the dying La Dorada pronounced the name Hassan just before she expired +in the plaza. Through the whole chain of horror and deviltry, we see a +continuous linkage of the Ismailians and the _hasheeshin_ of accursed +memory. + +"Antoinette," continued d'Artois, "must in some way be involved in a +mesh of necromancy and murder that hinges on her resemblance to La +Dorada. It is not impossible that she was kidnapped to double for La +Dorada in that accursed Garden. + +"And finally," concluded d'Artois, "this society of thaumaturges, which +has made such overgrown fools of us, is obviously allied to or even +an integral part of the society of Ismailians and its higher orders, +adepts, occultists, necromancers, and devil-mongers of all degrees." + +"Now that you've summed it up, what are we going to do?" reiterated +Farrell. + +"You will take the trail at once," replied d'Artois. + +Farrell brightened perceptibly at the hint of direct action. + +"Shoot," he said bruskly. + +"_Mais non_," countered d'Artois, "it is you who will shoot if my plan +is right. You are deft at disguise, and you speak several Oriental +languages like a native." + +D'Artois paused, intently studied the lean, bronzed features of his +friend, and his cold gray eyes. + +"An Arab," he muttered. "Possible, but not so good. A Kurd ... yes, +that would be better." + +"Wrong!" contradicted Farrell. "There were some Kurds at the château +last night, notably that hell-hound of a Shirkuh. And the first of the +assassins I shot down in the plaza was a Kurd. Too many of them in the +picture. I might be tripped on their dialect." + +"An Afghan, then," compromised d'Artois. "They are Aryans, and our +blood brothers, those Afghans. You will loiter around the waterfront. I +will warn the _Sûreté_ to arrest you at times, but to release you for +lack of evidence; so be careful not to be too brazen in building up a +local background of feuds and slayings to substantiate your supposed +reason for having left your native hills. + +"It is a slim chance; but it is possible that you will stumble across +some Ismailian who will favorably mark your possibilities. In the +meanwhile, I will keep in touch with you as much as possible. + +"But remember, one false move will betray your mission. And the first +warning you will receive will be a dagger jammed very deeply into your +back. You are flirting with sudden death the moment you leave this +house." + + * * * * * + +That afternoon Farrell lurched from a doorway that the most vivid +imagination could not have associated with the house of Pierre +d'Artois. The shape of his eyebrows had been changed by judicious +plucking. His hair had been dyed, and the cut of his mustaches altered. +Tenacious, finely powdered pigments had been rubbed into his eyelids +and about his eyes so as to change their expression: all trifles, +yet the total effect, aided by the drunken swagger, the gestures, +the reek of _'araki_ and foreign tobacco, was that Glenn Farrell had +disappeared, and that a hard, haggard, quarrelsome Afghan sobering +up from a spree strode muttering down rue Saint Augustin, and thence +toward the _quai_ along the Adour. + +He found fishing-vessels, tramps from Algiers, and a _zaroug_ that had +sailed all the way from the Red Sea with its crew of stout Danakils. +Husayn, its _nakhoda_, was a lean, grizzled Arab whose manner suggested +pearl-poaching, smuggling, or slave-running from the Somali Coast to +Arabia, with piracy thrown in for good measure.... Husayn spoke of his +health, which forbade further traffic on the Red Sea.... + +There was a Levantin, oily and cringing, who peddled narcotics.... + +There were brawls along the waterfront. No true Afghan would or could +abstain. A fight was a fight. + +Very soon the waterfront boasted a new character, a quarrelsome Afghan, +drunken, bawdy, stranded, swearing loudly by the honor of the Durani +clan, and ready for any skulduggery. Ibrahim Khan, they called him. + +Once in a while some whining cadger of drinks would mutter as Ibrahim +Khan reviled him and tossed him a franc. That was a member of the +_Sûreté_ giving, and receiving, the lack of news that is falsely said +to be good news. Sometimes it was warning, but never encouragement. + +The quarter of the city that lies between the Nive and the Mousserole +Wall is so disreputable that during the war it was out of bounds for +soldiers. It is a district of narrow, dingy streets, dirty cafés, +bawdy-houses of the lowest order; it abounds in cheap wine, cheaper +women, and all the scum and riffraff of a polyglot border-and-seaport +town. + +While the upper stratum of the enemy was doubtless of high degree, the +foundation layer would be in the mire. The underworld of France would +furnish its quota for the lower order of assassins. The master mind +needed dirty tools for dirty work; and here, among the thieves, pimps, +cutthroats of beyond the river, the trail might be picked up. + +Ibrahim Khan sat in one of the dingiest of those unsavory resorts, +muttering in Pushtu and Arabic and broken French, alternately gross +and poetic as he courted the attention of Marcelle, the barmaid whose +coarse, buxom loveliness drew trade for all departments of the house. + + "Tie your husband to a rope, Bimbar, + Tie the rope to a tree; + Throw the tree in the river, Bimbar, + And come to your lover." + +Thus he chanted in amorous, wine-muddled accents, the whole stanza +in one breath, and, in the Afghan fashion, ending in a high-pitched, +gasping cry, a full octave higher. + +The girl did not understand the words; but there was one sitting in the +corner who did. + +"Oh, my brother," he murmured, and spat contemptuously, "are such as +that sister of pigs fit for the pride of the Durani clan?" + +Ibrahim Khan's hand flashed to the hilt of one of the knives that +bristled in his belt. But before he could draw, the thin-faced man +smiled. + +"Put that knife away, brother," he said. "I have news for you." + +"Well?" interrogated Ibrahim Khan a little less belligerently. "Out +with it." + +"Softly, softly," murmured the stranger. Ibrahim Khan had never seen +him along the waterfront, or in the Mousserole quarter. "I am Nureddin. +I have been interested in your handiness in certain matters ... and +Husayn, the _nakhoda_, speaks well of you----" + +"He should, Allah blacken him!" admitted Ibrahim Khan, who under his +layer of grime was Glenn Farrell, trembling with eagerness to follow +up what he sensed was the first open move to take the bait he had so +patiently and thus far vainly offered the enemy. + +"There are women," continued Nureddin, "lovelier than the brides of +paradise." + +Farrell laughed contemptuously, and made an insulting remark that left +little doubt as to his opinion of Nureddin's profession: but that was +to play his part as a truculent Afghan. + +"Nay, by Allah!" protested Nureddin with a good-humored laugh. "It is +not what you think. Follow me, if you have courage." + +Farrell scrutinized Nureddin for an instant. Whatever game Nureddin +might be playing, it would certainly not be for small counters. Then +Farrell, still feigning skepticism, drew from the pocket of his grimy, +ill-fitting suit a small pouch, hefted it so that the gold it contained +clinked softly. He tossed the money to Marcelle. + +"_Ya_ Nureddin, I will fight as eagerly for my naked hide as for a +pouch of gold. Now if you still want me to meet your friends, I will +entertain them royally, _inshallah_!" + +Nureddin smiled and stroked his chin. + +"By Allah, O Afghan, you are suspicious. Follow me." + +"Lead on," agreed Farrell. + + * * * * * + +He followed Nureddin to the street and thence to an alley so narrow +that with his outstretched arms he could at the same time touch the +buildings on both sides: and the narrowness was exceeded only by the +stench. Nureddin halted at the end of the alley. A heavy, iron-bound +door barred further progress. + +"From here you must go blindfolded," said Nureddin. + +"By your beard!" mocked Farrell as his hand flashed into view with a +pistol whose cavernous muzzle gaped ominously. "Perhaps you would like +to bind my hands also? Now, forward! Or I will blow thy teeth right and +left ... if it so please Allah," he concluded piously. + +"Fire!" retorted Nureddin. "The Master would give me a less pleasant +death for disobeying his orders." + +In the moonlight Farrell could see the perspiration that glittered on +Nureddin's forehead; but he did not flinch. + +"_La, billahi!_" ejaculated Farrell after a moment. "Were there a blood +feud between us, I would. But as it is----" He shrugged, holstered his +pistol, and turned, to stalk down the narrow alley. + +Farrell was certain, now, that he was on the right trail. But since +spies are notoriously eager to agree to anything and everything to gain +admittance to forbidden doors, Farrell had to play the blustering, +alternately suspicious and fool-hardy Afghan. He swaggered away in his +lordly fashion, presenting his back as a fair target for hurled knife, +or pistol fire. + +"_Ya_ Ibrahim!" protested Nureddin. "Be reasonable. _He_ ordered. It is +on my head----" + +"_He_, whoever he is," retorted Farrell, "may then seek me himself and +I will induce him to change his rules. _Wallah!_ And your head, that is +no more than a ball to play with!" + +"Oh, well, have it your own way," agreed Nureddin resignedly as Farrell +again turned. Then he clapped his hands sharply. + +Farrell sensed his danger; but before he could whirl and draw, +something soft and clinging enveloped him. It was a net whose fine, +stout silken cords bound his limbs and entangled him. + +"God, by the Very God, by the One True God!" he swore, struggling +with the soft, relentless thing that enmeshed him like a monstrous +spider-web, and seeking to draw a knife. "Pig and father of pigs!" + +Something emerged from the shadow of the pilaster that buttressed the +wall. Farrell dropped flat, still striving to extricate himself and +tackle his enemy. He secured a footing and leaped up, butting his +shoulder with a terrific jolt into his enemy's stomach. + +A grunt and a gasped curse. A warning cry from Nureddin. The knife in +Farrell's hand slashed a dozen meshes in the net. Then, before he could +follow up and extricate himself, a form dropped from a window directly +above, driving him flat against the paving. His knife dug vainly +between the cobblestones. He recovered, thrust upward.... + +Smack! Something hard and heavy and swiftly moving swept his senses +away as he felt his blade bite home. + + + + + _6. Satan's Garden_ + + +The slow, steady drip-drip-drip of water dropping against stones crept +into Farrell's consciousness and finally became an impression distinct +from the trip-hammer throbbing of his battered head. He stirred, and +found that he was not bound. The holster under his left arm was empty. +One of his knives, however, remained. + +"If they wanted my hide, they could have taken it in the alley," he +reflected as he pieced together his recollections of the encounter. "So +far, it looks as if I've got 'em fooled." + +Then, in Arabic, "_Aie_ ... my head! O dogs and sons of dogs, come out +and fight! _Ya_ Nureddin, thou son of a strumpet, thou uncle of camels! +Thou eater of unclean food!" + +The cell echoed with his bellowing. As he paused for breath, he reeled, +clutched at the wall from whose base he had arisen, and supported +himself. A torch flared smokily in the distance, from its sconce in the +wall of the passage that opened into his cell. + +"Father of many pigs!" he stormed as he kicked the iron grillework that +barred his advance, and rattled the chain and lock that secured the +door. + +The clattering and jangling finally drew a protest from beyond +Farrell's field of vision. Then a fat, white-bearded fellow with bleary +eyes and a bloated, sottish face emerged from a cross passage. + +"Silence a moment!" he croaked as he took the torch from its sconce and +advanced toward the grille. + +"Bring me that dog of a Nureddin!" raged Farrell. + +"One thing at a time," replied the warden. "Calm down and I'll promise +you action." + +"Oh, very well, then," agreed Farrell. "Lead on, Uncle." + +Uncle drew a pistol and, keeping Farrell covered, unlocked the door. + +"Now, wild man, forward!" he ordered. "And no false moves." + +The slimy, glistening sides of the passage indicated that they were far +beneath the surface of the city; perhaps in that labyrinth of vaults +and connecting tunnels of which local tradition has murmured darkly and +vaguely. Although his head ached from contact with material weapons +wielded by physical enemies, Farrell shuddered at the evil that brooded +about that archaic masonry and muttered of that which had emerged to +defile the dead with obscene necromancies, and torment the living with +monstrous hallucinations that came in the guise of dreams. The aura of +age-old menace overpowered the terror of the Ismailian assassins. + +"To your left," commanded the warden. + +As Farrell rounded the turn, he saw ahead of him a glow of light and +smelled the heavy, lingering fumes of incense. An Arab, and a bearded +man whose race he could not determine, stood watch at the farther +archway. Their hands rested on their belts, ready to draw knife or +pistol. Their eyes stared fixedly from immobile features. They were +drugged, or entranced: and Farrell shivered at the necessity of +convincing himself that they were not dead. + +"Pass on," commanded the warden as Farrell hesitated at the threshold. +"The Master, our lord Hassan, will receive you." + +The lord Hassan--the one whose name the dying La Dorada had with her +last breath pronounced. She had known who had ordered her death. + +A thrill of exultation was mingled with the flash of dread that +assailed Farrell as he stepped into the reception hall of Hassan, that +slayer of women and master of necromancers. + +The room was long and narrow, and sweltering in a red glow of light. A +Persian carpet ran down the center toward the divan in an arched alcove +at the farther end. A man wearing a silken kaftan sat cross-legged +among heaped cushions. His face was veiled, but his fierce eyes, +smoldering in their deep sockets, were more menacing for being all that +was visible. + +Farrell halted midway between the alcove and the entrance. From the +corner of his eye he saw a row of men, dressed in European clothes, +sitting cross-legged along the wall on either side of him. Their arms +were crossed on their breasts, and their eyes stared as glassily as +those of the guards at the entrance. They were drugged, or deep in a +hypnotic trance. + +Farrell offered the peace. + +"No peace and no protection, ya Ibrahim," responded Hassan, "until we +have made a test of you." + +"_Tawil ul 'Umr_," demanded Farrell with a touch of respect such as +even a blustering Afghan would concede an old man; "Prolonged of Life, +how am I to be tested?" + +The old man reflected for a moment. His glittering eyes narrowed to +slits. + +"Tell me, can you obey as well as slay?" + +"How should I know, Prolonged of Life?" proposed Farrell. "By your +beard, I have never tried obedience. I am of the Durani clan." + +"You will learn," said Hassan. "I will set you an example." He glanced +to his left and clapped his hands. "Asad!" he called sharply. + +One of the staring figures rose from his place along the wall. He moved +as one receiving will and animation from some external source. + +"Harkening and obedience, _ya sidi_!" he acknowledged as he halted +before the dais. + +"Your canjiar," murmured Hassan. + +The curved blade flashed from its sheath. + +"That knife is your gate to Paradise, _ya_ Asad," said Hassan in his +gentle, purring voice. Yet beneath its suggestion Farrell sensed a +relentless command. + +Asad inclined his head as he touched his fingertips to his forehead, +his lips, and his breast. A pause--the blade flashed again as Asad +thrust it full into his own chest. He stood for a moment fingering the +hilt; then he tottered and sank to the tiles, to relax and lie sprawled +face down in the dark pool that slowly spread across the paving. + +Farrell knew that beneath his grimy skin his cheeks were bloodless. It +was horrible to see even a _hasheeshin_ spill his life carelessly as +a glass of wine to humor that old man who peered over the edge of his +veil. + +"There, _ya_ Ibrahim, is obedience." + +Farrell collected his courage and demanded boldly, "And why should any +man yield such obedience?" + +"Because," came the reply, "I am the keeper of the gateway. He is even +now in Paradise, and exempt from any recall." + +Farrell grimaced. + +"No more than any true believer gains for slaying an infidel," he +retorted. + +"You will enter the Garden, _ya_ Ibrahim," murmured Hassan, "and see +for yourself. Then you may accept or reject." + +To the Garden! There, unless all d'Artois' deductions were wrong, he +would find Antoinette. But Farrell restrained his eagerness, and +pondered a moment, as became the rôle he played. + +"I am ready, Prolonged of Life," he finally replied, as he advanced a +pace. + +"Softly, softly," said Hassan. "Are you armed?" + +"_Ay, wallah!_" replied Farrell, drawing his remaining knife. + +Hassan again clapped his hands. + +"_Ya_ Suleiman! Yusuf!" + +Two rose from the ranks and approached. + +"Harkening and obedience, my lord," they said as they bowed. + +"This one claims to be a man of valor, O Devoted Ones!" said Hassan. +"Draw!" + +Their blades were drawn as one. The slayers stood like panthers poised +and ready to close in on their prey. Their eyes glowed in the red +glare like beasts lurking in the shadows beyond a fire. Slaves to the +mesmeric power of Hassan, and to the hypnotic hasheesh, they were men +in form only. + +Hassan glanced at Farrell. + +"You may decline without penalty or dishonor," said the old man. "You +are free, and owe us no obedience." + +"They are your men, _ya sidi_," replied Farrell with a shrug. "If you +can spare them." + +The old man chuckled, and his eyes for a moment smiled. + +"Strike!" he commanded. + +They paused for an instant before closing in. One of them, Farrell was +certain, would go down before his first thrust, but the other would +slay him. Farrell's success depended upon finesse. He shifted his feet +as if to test the footing. He glanced over his shoulder as if to assure +himself that he had room to retreat. All in a flash: and then they +sprang, blades thirsty and a-glitter. + +Farrell's leap took him to the left instead of to the rear. He dropped +his knife and snatched the wrist of the nearest enemy, who, missing +his quarry, plunged forward abreast of his comrade. + +His own momentum was his ruin. There was the snap of a breaking bone, +and Yusuf pitched in a heap before the dais. And Farrell, picking his +knife from the tiles, confronted Suleiman, who despite his fanatic +frenzy was profiting by Yusuf's mishap. + +They circled, feinting and thrusting, seeking to shake each other's +guard. Suleiman avoided Farrell's efforts to close in to make it a test +of strength. Nor would rushing in to exchange thrusts suffice: for +if they slew each other, the Master would still not have the test he +ordered. They wove in and out, shifting and side-stepping, each seeking +an opening in the other's defense. + +Then Farrell made a desperate feint at his enemy's throat. As +Suleiman's blade rose to parry, Farrell evaded, and stretched out in +a full lunge, point forward and arm extended as with a rapier. The +unexpected play caught Suleiman off guard. His downward thrust came +an instant too late: Farrell's knife sank to the hilt in the enemy's +stomach, ripping upward. + + * * * * * + +Farrell, bleeding from the cut on his shoulder, emerged from the +engagement empty-handed as Suleiman collapsed. + +"Well done, _ya_ Ibrahim!" approved Hassan. Then he smote a gong beside +the dais. + +"_Ya_ Musa! Abbas! Khalil!" he shouted. + +A panel opened at right of the dais, and three tall negroes entered. +They made no expressions of obedience; only the inarticulate gurglings +of those whose tongues have been removed. + +Hassan indicated the two dead, and the one whose arm was snapped. + +"To the black pool with them. All three!" Then, as two stepped forward +to execute the command, Hassan spoke to the third: "Take our new +aspirant, Ibrahim, to the Garden." + +Musa bowed, and at the Master's gesture of dismissal, led Farrell +into a dimly lighted room which was arranged after the fashion of a +_majlis_, or reception hall of an Arabian house. + +A narrow divan extended the full length of the wall. At the end +farthest from the entrance were the customary coffee hearth and +polished brass pots. And save for those, and the cushions and rugs with +which the divan was covered, there were no furnishings. + +Farrell noted that he was not alone. Those who lay sprawled on the +divan were, apparently, likewise to visit the Garden. + +"Dead-drunk ... drugged ... or spies to watch me," reflected Farrell. + +Musa, who after indicating that Farrell was to seat himself, had left, +presently returned with a tray on which was a goblet and flagon. These +he set on a small tabouret, bowed, and left Farrell to refresh himself. + +The proof of hand-to-hand fighting had been severe enough; but the +flagon of wine, fragrant but reeking of hasheesh, represented a more +subtle and dangerous test. If under the influence of the drug Farrell +made one remark or gesture that would betray his imposture, the +awakening would be death, either swift, or else by torture administered +to find out how much the outside world knew of the Ismailians. +Nevertheless, Farrell dared not abstain from the drugged wine. He knew +not what eyes might be regarding him through loopholes in the wall. + +"_Bismillahi!_" he ejaculated, and seized the flagon, draining it +at a draft. He hoped that despite the insidious drug, his years of +wandering in the forbidden places of Asia had impressed upon him enough +of his assumed character to insure him against a fatal slip. + +Farrell wondered at the suicide ordered by Hassan. The value of Ibrahim +Khan as a _fedawi_ could scarcely balance the self-slain and the two +killed in action. He reconciled this point, however, when he considered +the probability of the slain being offenders against the discipline of +the order.... + +The intoxication of hasheesh was gripping him. Then an artifice +occurred to Farrell. He might still save the day and avoid complete +intoxication. + +"_Ya_ Musa! _Shewayya' khamr!_" he bawled drunkenly. "More wine!" + +The slave came hurrying with a full flagon. Farrell's chance was to +drink so much of the drugged liquor that his stomach would rebel, and +expel it; and such sottishness would be quite in character. He seized +the flagon with unfeigned eagerness. + +But the saving thought had come too late. + +His heart-beat became terrifyingly slow. His arm seemed so long that +the weight of the flagon, already the size of a cask, and momentarily +becoming larger, would exert a leverage that would upset him. The room +was expanding to allow for the abnormal length of the arm that sought +to raise the wine to his lips. + +Farrell became aware of a duality of identity. Half of him was +struggling fiercely to assert itself and overcome the confusion of his +senses; the other half was yielding to a languorous drowsiness, and a +soporific humming which pervaded the room. + +There came finally a rustling of wings, and a piping, haunting music +that sighed amorously. All sense of time had ceased. Farrell did not +know whether he was being carried through an archway into a vast domed +vault, or whether he had floated in on clouds of overwhelming sweetness. + +A fountain was bubbling, and splashing him with its spray. He stared +up at the ceiling. Its luminous blue was dusted with stars that were +arranged in unfamiliar constellations. + +Drums muttered somewhere in the shifting, warm fragrance. He heard the +silvery clink-clinking of anklets. He rolled over on his side, and as +he glanced along the rose-hued tiles, he saw dainty feet with hennaed +nails stepping in cadence to the whining notes of a _kemenjah_, and the +moan of pipes. + +As he made an effort to sit erect, a warm, soft arm supported his +head, and slender, golden-brown hands offered him a bowl of cold, +aromatic liquid. He drank it, and found that his reeling senses became +more stable. The girl who smiled at him had great dark eyes with +kohl-blackened lids. + +Another heaped cushions behind him. + +Paradise indeed; _al jannat_, temporarily offered as the reward of +whatever infamy the lord Hassan demanded, and promised for all eternity +to the fanatic _fedawi_ who died executing his commands. + +There were other guests scattered about the jasmine and rose clustered +garden, and the brides of _al jannat_ were reviving them with flagons, +cold drinks, and warm caresses. + + * * * * * + +Farrell made an effort to fight the illusion of distorted time and +distance, and the sensuous allure of the music and hasheesh. He rose, +and ignoring his amorous companions, set about exploring the garden. +Strange birds flitted about among the orange and pomegranate trees and +mocked him with their almost articulate cries. A parrot mimicked in a +loud voice the endearments that a Malay girl murmured in the ear of one +of the Devoted Ones. + +"Where is the Golden One?" he heard a swarthy Kurd demand as he thrust +aside his slant-eyed Eurasian companion. + +The last of Farrell's intoxication left him. The Golden One--Antoinette! + +The girl laughed. + +"She'll scratch your eyes out! Let her alone!" + +"But the Master, our Lord Hassan, promised she'd greet us in Paradise," +protested the Kurd. + +Farrell knew now beyond any doubt that Antoinette had been kidnapped +to double in this satanic garden for the murdered La Dorada, to prove +to the _hasheeshin_ that the Lord Hassan indeed held the keys to the +garden of resurrection. + +"_Al Asfarani_, the Golden One----" Farrell seconded the Kurd's inquiry. + +"Snarling and spitting in her alcove, O Strong Man!" smiled the girl. + +Farrell left her to entertain the Kurd, and wandered past the rows of +potted trees that paralleled the walls of the garden. The walls were +pierced with deep niches that formed small rooms whose arched entrances +were scarcely shoulder-high. As he glanced into each in succession, he +noted the trinkets and cosmetics and perfumes, and articles of feminine +apparel. Each bride of _al jannat_ seemed to have her own lupanar; but +they apparently preferred to lounge among the fountains and arbors. + +Finally, however, Farrell found an occupied alcove. A woman lay face +down among a heap of cushions. Her hair was copper-golden, and her bare +shoulders were latticed with long, bluish stripes. + +Farrell knelt at her side. + +"Antoinette!" he whispered. + +At the touch of his fingers on her shoulder, she started and with a +quick motion drew away. Her hand emerged from the cushions clutching a +long sharp steel skewer used in Syria for grilling meat. + +It was Antoinette, wide-eyed with terror. She cried out, and stabbed +at Farrell with the skewer. The point raked his cheek as he seized her +wrist. + +"'Toinette! Don't you recognize me?" he whispered hoarsely. + +She regarded him for a moment, puzzled and incredulous. The skewer +dropped from her fingers. But before she could cry out in amazement, +Farrell continued, "Not a word! If any one passes by, start raising the +devil! Don't seem to recognize me ... understand?" + +She nodded, but he saw that she did not grasp the point that might make +the difference between life and death. She was still bewildered. + +"Oh, Glenn...." She stroked his cheek and regarded him, still +incredulously. "Are you--isn't this--my dear, this is that awful garden +I dreamed of. Only, now I have my own body, and I don't wake up----" + +"Pipe down!" he commanded in a low, tense voice. "I'm supposed to be +one of these devils! You're not dreaming. Pull yourself together----" + +He heard footsteps approaching. They were steady, not the jerky +lurchings of wine and hasheesh intoxication. Whoever it was, was for +Farrell a death sentence if Antoinette in her hysteria spoke one false +word. + +"Scream! Claw me! As you treated the others!" + +Then he seized her in his arms and murmured drunken endearments in her +ear. + +But Antoinette was too dazed by the meeting to play her part. She +clung to Farrell as the one fragment of reality in all that unending +nightmare of hasheesh-drugged assassins who courted her favor, and +pawed her, and abandoned their advances only at the suggestion of more +amiable brides of _al jannat_. Instead of clawing and defying Farrell, +she clung to him, sobbing hysterically. + + * * * * * + +That deliberate tread of doom, soft slipper shod, drew nearer, paused. + +Farrell trembled like a trapped animal. He sought with his own feigned +drunken, amorous approaches to drown her betraying sobs and murmurs. + +The swish-slap of slippers ... another halt. Farrell felt the +intentness of the gaze at his back. + +He broke from Antoinette's embrace and turned. Standing just within +the entrance of the tiny room was Shirkuh the necromancer. He had seen +Farrell at the château, face to face. And he had heard. He knew. + +"Ah ... La Dorada has lured you to the Garden?" he murmured with deadly +emphasis on the dead woman's name. + +The smile was slow and mocking; the relentless eyes burned with a +fanatical hatred. For a moment Farrell was paralyzed with terror, and +horror at the doom from which Antoinette had no further chance of +escape. + +Shirkuh relished the encounter, and gloated--but just an instant too +long. + +Farrell sprang from his crouched position in one swift, fluent motion. +Shirkuh, taken cold-footed, could not draw his knife. They crashed to +the floor. But once Shirkuh recovered from the surprize of the assault, +he was more than a match for Farrell, who was battered, weary from +combat, and shaken by the drugged wine. The iron fingers of the Kurd +sank into his throat and throttled him. Shirkuh whipped his lithe body +aside, avoiding Farrell's frenzied efforts to drive home with his knee. +As Farrell's struggles subsided to a futile gasping for breath, the +Kurd's hand flashed to his belt and drew a knife---- + +But before the stroke descended, there was a crash and a splintering +of glass. Shirkuh toppled over, felled by a decanter that Antoinette +had broken across his head. Farrell gasped, and caught his breath, then +slowly dragged himself clear of his enemy. + +Antoinette, still clutching the neck of the broken decanter, regarded +him with terror-widened eyes. Then she gestured toward Shirkuh, who +muttered and stirred. + +Farrell's fingers closed about the hilt of the knife the Kurd had +dropped. + +"Me or him," muttered Farrell. "If you don't want to see it, look the +other way." + +The blade flashed thrice. + +Farrell wiped the red steel and slipped it into his empty scabbard. +Then he sighed wearily and despairingly. + +"Finish anyway ... they'll miss him ... and no place we can hide him." + +Antoinette stared at the dark pool that spread across the silken rug. + +"Can't cut my way out," muttered Farrell. "But you have a chance. +Pierre and the _Sûreté_ are on the job--is there any place we could +hide that fellow?" + +Antoinette shook her head. + +"Nowhere. The pool of the fountain isn't deep enough----" + +"Never mind the fountain!" interrupted Farrell, as he leaped to his +feet. "I have a hunch. We're not quite ready to hang old man Farrell's +youngest son!" + +At the entrance Farrell turned, reassured Antoinette with a gesture, +then stalked out into the Garden, chanting a bawdy song in Turki. + + * * * * * + +Beside the fountain he found the object of his search: a bemuddled +Kurd, and the Eurasian girl who had finally convinced him that the +Golden One was best left to the blustering Afghan. + +"Get us more wine, O Moon of Loveliness," said Farrell with his most +engaging smile. He nudged the Kurd. + +The girl laughed softly. + +"You look as though she gave you your fill of clawing!" + +"_Ay, wallah!_" agreed Farrell with a broad grin. Then, as the girl +picked up an empty flagon, he said in a low voice to the Kurd, +"Brother, you fellows didn't approach _al Asfarani_ the right way." + +He winked and beckoned. + +The Kurd clambered to his feet and followed Farrell. They paused at the +arched entrance of Antoinette's alcove. + +"She's in there now," whispered Farrell. "She'll not claw you." + +Thus encouraged, the Kurd stepped in, Farrell following. + +"_Ya sitti_," he began, addressing Antoinette. Then he started, seeing +the body of Shirkuh. + +Farrell slipped past, and toward Antoinette's divan. + +"Out of my way, O shamelessly Besotted!" growled the Kurd, pausing to +nudge the body with his toe. + +During that instant Farrell found what he sought; and as the Kurd +decided to ignore the supposed sot, the steel skewer drove home, its +point projecting beyond his shoulders. + +"Sorry, old man," muttered Farrell as he regarded the Kurd twitching +and coughing his life out in a bloody foam. Then he rapidly searched +the body. + +He found no weapons. + +"Disarm 'em when they come in here ... leaves me handicapped...." + +He thrust Shirkuh's knife into the hand of the dying Kurd and closed +the fingers about it. Then he guided the hand of Shirkuh and clenched +it about the blunt end of the skewer. + +"This may save the day," he explained to Antoinette. "Remember, they +fought and killed each other. That may give me a long enough lease on +life to come back and get you out of this hell's hole, or get word +to Pierre. Now I've got to go out into the Garden and do some quick +thinking. Something else may turn up ... no, I can't stay here with +you ... and I've got to leave the bodies where they are." + +Then, as he kissed her, "Hang on. There's still a chance for you. Maybe +for us." + +He strode out into the Garden, and washed his blood-stained hands +at the fountain. The Eurasian girl had not yet returned with the +replenished flagon. And as Farrell glanced about, looking for her, and +preparing to divert her from any thought of her former companion, Musa +the mute negro approached with a jar on his shoulder and a cup in his +hand. + +This, Farrell surmised, would be the end of the visit to Paradise. +The negro would administer a sleeping-potion; the devoted ones would +drink, and upon awakening would find themselves lying in the _majlis_, +mysteriously translated from the empyrean realm of the Lord Hassan, and +ready for whatever butcheries he could assign them. + +As Musa offered him the cup, Farrell extended his own flagon, saying, +"Fill this one, Father of Blackness. That cup of yours is too small." + +The negro grinned, emptied the cup into the larger vessel, and went his +way to minister to the other guests. + +The Eurasian beauty, who returned at that moment, was easily diverted, +so that Farrell contrived to spill most of the drugged wine over his +shirt-front and into the fountain. Then, as he saw the _fedawi_ succumb +to the effects of the drug, he himself lurched forward, feigning +unconsciousness. + +"No chance to look around ... no chance of cutting my way out," he +reflected as he thought of Antoinette and her ghastly companions. "And +maybe the Shirkuh versus drunken Kurd formation will hold water long +enough to give me time to qualify as an assassin and be sent out to do +a bit of slaying!" + +The negro was making the rounds, taking the _fedawi_ one by one from +the Garden. He picked Farrell from the paving as though he were a +bag of meal, shouldered him, and deposited him on the divan in the +anteroom, beside his drugged companions. + +And from sheer weariness and the futility of further thought, Farrell +fell asleep. + + + + + _7. A Left-Handed Kurd_ + + +When a cold sponge on his forehead and the rim of a copper bowl pressed +to his lips awoke Farrell, he had no idea as to the length of his sleep. + +Musa helped him to his feet and led the way down a narrow passage +whose floor sloped perceptibly upward. The negro halted before a panel +and tapped thrice. As the panel slid aside, he gestured and flattened +himself against the wall so that Farrell could pass him and enter the +chamber ahead. + +Farrell stepped into a circular vault fully twenty yards in diameter. +In its center was a pool, likewise circular, and surrounded by a coping +about a foot high. A dark splash on the tiles near the pool convinced +Farrell that this must be the place into which the bodies of the +victims of his test before Hassan had been tossed. + +Farrell wondered if as a matter of convenience he had been conducted +to the vault before the master cut him down. One slip would suffice.... + +Directly opposite Farrell was an arched niche in which sat an old man +whose head was bowed in contemplation. Suspended from the crown of the +arch was a cluster of crystalline prisms that slowly rotated, giving +the effect of a glowing, coruscating ball of light. + +As Farrell advanced, the door behind him slid silently into place. He +skirted the edge of the pool in the center, and wondered from what +abyss its black, untroubled waters emerged; what creatures lurked in +its darkness to devour the bodies tossed into their pit. Then, leaving +the pool, Farrell continued toward the bearded sage who still ignored +his approach. + +"At thy command, _ya shaykh_!" said Farrell as he halted some five +paces from the Presence. + +"Step forward," directed the ancient one, looking up and indicating a +small hearth-rug that lay at the foot of the steps that ascended to the +niche. "Look, _ya_ Ibrahim: hast thou seen me before?" + +As the smoldering eyes narrowed, Farrell recognized Hassan, now +unveiled. He returned the old man's unblinking stare, and strove to +remain unperturbed by its intent concentration; but his effort was +vain. He felt a sense of futility and weakness creeping over him. + +The rotating cluster of prisms now flamed and flashed with an +adamantine fire that expanded and contracted and pulsed like a living +thing. It seemed now to be glowing between the eyes of Hassan. An +overwhelming weariness assailed Farrell. + +The old man's voice intoned sonorously, and as from a great distance. + +"I am the keeper of the gateway ... even in the hollow of my hand I +hold _al jannat_ and its coolness to the eyes.... Yea, behold my +hand...." + +Farrell regarded the outstretched hand of Hassan. + +"In the hollow of my hand, even in this hand I hold _al jannat_...." + +A mistiness was gathering about Hassan, and his features became +obscured so that only his glittering eyes peered through. The +outstretched hand was expanding; and strangely enough, it seemed +fitting to Farrell that this should be so, and that there should be +hazy figures, and clots of greenness appearing in the blankness above +the hand. Trees were taking root. Their outlines were hazy, and through +their immaterial substance he could just distinguish the jambs of the +niche, and the swirling mists that veiled Hassan. + +The voice was now murmuring softly and compellingly. + +"Even in this hand I hold the Garden.... I am the keeper and the +warden.... I accept and I reject...." + +Then that which in the back of his brain had kept Farrell from utterly +succumbing to the sorcery of that murmuring voice and those burning +eyes asserted itself, and he knew that it was illusion. As he sought to +resist and deny, he felt a terrific impact as of a physical substance. +A mighty, implacable will bludgeoned him as with hammer blows. He knew +that if he continued assenting he would be for ever enslaved. + +"There is no Garden. It is illusion," he asserted to himself, and +forced his lips to move and silently enunciate the negation. He +trembled with an all-compelling fear, the awful fear of losing his very +identity. That devastating will behind the cloud-veil was crushing him. +How easy to assent, and end the agony! + +Great beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was drawn and +haggard with the torment of his battered will. But to surrender would +betray Antoinette into the hands of the enemy. + +"There is no Garden," he persisted. "His hand is _empty_. EMPTY. EMPTY!" + +He forced his last vestige of strength into that final declaration. The +trees dwindled to pin-heads of green, and with them vanished the gray +mists. The hand _was_ empty! + +Farrell sighed from mortal weariness and relief. Then he smiled +triumphantly. He had withstood the terrific psychic assault that would +have made him a slave, and a vassal of that old man and the murderous +heritage of Asia. + +Hassan smiled as at an ancient jest. + +"You have withstood my will as no man before you," he said. "There was +one who resisted to the uttermost, but he dropped dead." + +Hassan, the heir of Maymun the magician, the sorcerer, the heretic, +took his defeat gracefully. Then his smile became ominous and mocking. + +"Who but you would have had the wit to slay Shirkuh, the chief of my +servants, then so arrange the body of another you slew, that it would +seem that they had died quarrelling over _Al Asfarani_? Subtle serpent, +you erred in putting the dagger in the right hand. That Kurd was +left-handed." + +As those words hammered home, Farrell wondered if his heart would ever +again start beating. He was lost, and with him, Antoinette. Doomed by +his own cunning. + +But thus far, no word about his imposture; therefore Farrell laughed +full in Hassan's face, as became the honor of the Durani clan. + +"_Wallah_, you put a premium on slayers! Now what award do you give me, +seeing that I was unarmed when I slew Shirkuh?" + +Hassan regarded him admiringly for a moment. + +"_Billahi_, but you do belong to us! Not as a hasheesh-besotted fool to +slay and be slain, but as an Associate, and finally, an Initiate. It is +such as you that we seek, and seek in vain." + +A fierce light flamed in Hassan's eyes. + +"Yet your victory over my will is your doom. In the fullness of your +effort to deny the illusion, you finally spoke your negation aloud. +_And you spoke in English!_" + +For an instant Farrell was dazed by the horror that had been heaped +on the soul-racking triumph he had just won. Doom was at hand--doom +inescapable, else that old man would not dare confront him alone. + +With a cry of rage, Farrell sprang to throttle Hassan despite what +unseen allies he might have. But the floor sank beneath his feet as +Hassan, smiling and unmoved, fingered a knob near the jamb of the +arch. Farrell clutched at the edge of the opening through which he was +dropping. His fingers sustained him for a moment, but the momentum of +his body swinging free into vacancy broke his slender hold. He fell +into the impenetrable blackness below. + + + + + _8. Monsters of the Pool_ + +Instead of an interminable drop to the bottom of an abyss, Farrell +landed in less than a second, and feet foremost, on slippery flags. +He noted that the air was not as stagnant as one would expect in an +oubliette. + +"Plenty of circulation ... just put me in temporary storage until +they get around to organizing a committee to finish me with pomp and +ceremony," he muttered as he struck a match. + +Farrell saw that the walls of the dungeon were curved. He strode toward +the center, and by the light of a second match saw a massive column of +masonry which rose from floor to ceiling. He remembered the pool he had +seen on the floor above, and concluded that the pillar before him was a +hollow shaft which led to some subterranean spring in the heart of the +knoll on which Bayonne was built. + +"All in one piece, unhurt, and no enemy in sight--yet!" he reflected as +he skirted the column. + +Among the inevitable rubbish with which the dungeon would be littered +Farrell hoped to find some fragment of rock, scrap of wood, anything, +in fact, which would give him the means of meeting the enemy with more +than bare hands. But before he could strike his next match, Farrell saw +a glow of light at a considerable distance to his right. It faintly +outlined a low archway, and suggested possible escape from the dungeon +into which he had been dropped by Hassan. That same light, however, +betokened the immediate presence of the enemy, and perhaps an armed +sentry. Farrell therefore crept on in darkness until he was well out +of line with the source of light, then left the column and progressed +toward the wall. + +His knee came into contact with something hard and metallic. He struck +a match, and saw that he had found a chain, one end of which was +attached to a massive leg-iron, and the other secured to an eye-bolt +sunk into the wall. The shank of the eye-bolt was badly corroded where +it entered the masonry. A few minutes of wrenching and tugging sufficed +to separate the chain from its anchorage. The result was a crude flail +which in a strong hand could shatter whatever skull it struck. + +Farrell was armed again, and his spirits rose accordingly. + +He retraced his course and crept down the passageway toward the light. +As he halted in the shelter of a jamb he saw that the vault ahead of +him was illuminated by a glowing brazier; and the scene gave him a +foretaste of what his own fate might be. + +The black, oily form of a muscular negro crouched beside the brazier. +The bellows in his hands wheezed from his vigorous efforts to fan the +charcoal fire to a white heat. Tongs or other long-handled implements +projected from the incandescent mass. + +Limned in harsh highlight and black shadows Farrell saw two white-robed +Ismailians whose predatory, Semitic features were stern from the +contemplation of their task. Both were armed with simitars and pistols. +The object of their scrutiny was a man who sat crouched by a pilaster. +Farrell could distinguish no features beyond the aquiline curve of his +nose, and the black, spade-shaped beard. The hands, clasped about the +knees, were fettered at the wrists. + +"God!" muttered Farrell as the red glow became a dazzling whiteness. +"That lad sitting there looks for all the world like an innocent +bystander. Either that party isn't for him, or he has more guts than +any ten men I've ever seen.... I've not been here long enough for that +to be my reception committee...." + +Farrell appraised the situation, and gaged the distance between his +lurking-place and the group at the brazier. + +"Too far! They'd get wise before I got within striking distance ... +now if this piece of chain were only a solid bar so that I could slug, +swat, and parry instead of having to use it like a whip ... now what?" + +The taller of the Ismailians glanced up, and with a gesture indicated +the ceiling. Farrell could not distinguish his words, but it was +evident that he had addressed the negro, who set aside his bellows, +picked up a length of thin rope, and rose. + +Then Farrell understood. They were going to slip the cord through a +ring in the low ceiling, lash the prisoner's ankles, and suspend him so +that the white-hot irons could be applied without interference from the +victim's agonized writhing. + +"Missed my chance!" growled Farrell. "They were all off guard, and I +could have cold-calked them! Too late, now." + +The Ismailian on the right addressed the prisoner; but the other +was looking in Farrell's direction, though not directly at his +lurking-place. The negro was shifting the implements that projected +from the bed of coals. + +Then Farrell tested the idea that came to him an instant after his +expression of disgust. He reached into his pocket and found a large +silver coin the size of an American dollar. He sent it spinning across +the vault. It struck the opposite wall and tinkled to the floor. + +As the Ismailian at the left of the group started, caught the gleam of +silver, and stooped to pick it up, Farrell, whirling his flail, leaped +from cover and charged. + + * * * * * + +The startled cry of the crouching negro was simultaneous with the +impact of the swinging fetter against the skull of the stooping enemy. +The massive circlet of iron crunched home as the other white-robed +enemy whirled from confronting his prisoner and drew a pistol. Farrell +knew that he could not lash out with a second blow of his flail. He +ducked as the pistol flashed, gripped the Ismailian's wrist as the +pistol cracked again, and back-heeled him. They crashed to the flags, +Farrell striving to keep the pistol out of effective action and to +disable his enemy before the giant negro recovered his wits enough to +overwhelm him. + +With a fierce wrench, Farrell disarmed the Ismailian and sent the +pistol flying against the wall. And then the negro took a hand. +They pounded and crushed Farrell as they sought to drive home with +knife-thrusts which he evaded in his struggles to drive in with boot or +knee. He finally, thrashing about, seized the shackle end of his flail; +and as the Ismailian's knife darted in, Farrell jabbed the ponderous +iron to the enemy's jaw with a crushing blow. + +Then the negro crushed Farrell to the paving. Farrell's struggles +were futile; the cumulative effect of previous combats was telling. +In another moment his breath would be completely cut off by those +relentless black hands.... + +Then an agonized yell, and the stench of burning hair and flesh. The +pressure relaxed as a shower of white-hot charcoal rained from the +frenzied enemy and seared Farrell's hands and face. But the respite, +though brief, sufficed. Farrell's boot laid the enemy out flat. + +Then he rose, recovered the pistol that lay against the wall, and +turned to confront the fettered prisoner. + +"Fortunately," said the prisoner, "I was able to reach the tongs and +flip that brazier into the party." + +The mutual benefactors regarded each other a moment. + +"_Monsieur_," began Farrell, recognizing the prisoner as a Frenchman, +"I am more interested in getting out of here than exchanging +compliments. Judging from the preparations I interrupted, you were in +for a pleasant evening, morning, or whatever it may be." + +"Unfortunately," came the reply, "these fetters are rivetted, and none +of the tools they brought----" + +"I'll tend to that," assured Farrell. He turned and set the brazier +right side up, then with the tongs collected the still glowing +charcoal, and fanned it once more to a white heat. "Get your chains hot +enough," he explained, "and we can break them by hand." + +"_Magnifique!_" Then, regarding Farrell more intently, "But I +don't recognize you as any of the Brethren who might be kindly +disposed--though those fellows lying on the floor prove the case." + +"I'm not quite what I seem," admitted Farrell as he arranged the chains +so that they could get the full heat of the brazier. Then, staring for +an instant at the prisoner and at the device engraved on the emerald +set in his massive ring, Farrell hazarded a guess that seemed warranted +by the absence of the host who had issued the invitations to the +_soirée_ at the château. + +"Are you by any chance the Marquis----" + +"_C'est moi!_ Des Islots, and everlastingly at your service!" The +saturnine features brightened for a moment. + +As Farrell pumped the bellows, he wondered at the fortuitous meeting. + +"Did Hassan put you in here?" + +"No. Shirkuh, his second in command, arranged this. Hassan is too busy +to bother with details----" + +"He had plenty of time for me," countered Farrell. + +"Hmmm ... then Shirkuh must be occupied with some important mission," +began the Marquis. + +"The _late_ Shirkuh," corrected Farrell with a grim smile. + +"_Sacré bleu!_" ejaculated the Marquis. "Did you----" + +"I have the honor--and pleasure," admitted Farrell. + +"Thank God! He was my evil genius. Years ago, in Syria, I joined +the Ismailians as an Associate. I was a student of the occult, you +understand. Their aim at the time was harmless enough: the overthrow of +Islam, and the pursuit of mystic speculations. For centuries the order +has had no secular significance, you comprehend. + +"I advanced to the rank of Initiate, then returned to France and +organized a thaumaturgical society which was to carry on with the +researches I had made in Syria, and in High Asia. And this was all +well until fellow Ismailians came to Bayonne, one by one, and ended by +converting the thaumaturgical society into a chapter of Ismailians. + +"Shirkuh was the chief of these, a prior. And then they reverted to +the tactics of the Twelfth Century. To augment the _hasheeshin_ that +they sent over, they recruited cutthroats from the underworld of Paris. +Various actresses and women of the _demi-monde_ were led to believe +that they had been admitted as Associates, and were set to work as +spies. + +"There is a plot even now under way which, if successful, will upset +the French colonial empire and end in a _jihad_ that will stir up the +entire Moslem world. + +"Another chapter has been organized in Lyons, with a prior in charge; +and Hassan is Grand Prior of France, acknowledging only the supreme +chief in Damascus. + +"At all events, when I saw the political aspect of the Ismailians +who had gained their foothold through my thaumaturgical society, I +protested to Shirkuh--and here I am. Hot irons and other pleasant +devices were to make my end most colorful." + +"Where," wondered Farrell, "does La Dorada fit into the picture?" + +"Eh? La Dorada? Why, a sort of chief female spy--she is friendly with +many high officers and civilian dignitaries, you comprehend. She is----" + +"_Was_," interrupted Farrell. "Three assassins finished her." + +"_Diable!_" exclaimed the Marquis. He was amazed rather than grieved. + +"You take it calmly, for a lover," remarked Farrell. + +"Lover?" The Marquis laughed sourly. "I, her lover? Camouflage, to +account for her presence down here, and along the Riviera. As to her +being assassinated, that is easily explained: her mission must have +been completed. So she was killed to insure her continued secrecy, and +also to warn her dupes that they would follow suit if they relented or +weakened in the course dictated by Hassan. And that move makes it all +the more conclusive that France is due for an explosion." + +The confusion was being untangled. Farrell wondered at Antoinette +Delatour's connection, and the source of the dreams that had haunted +her; but the chains that bound the Marquis were white-hot and ready to +break, so that conversation would have to wait. + +"All right, heave!" directed Farrell. + +The chains parted. + + * * * * * + +They stripped the bodies of the white-robed Ismailians, and armed +themselves with their simitars and pistols, as well as taking the +extra cartridges that studded one of the belts. And the keys that had +admitted the executioners completed the equipment. As the hot ends of +the chain cooled, the Marquis bound them to his limbs so that they +would not clank. + +"I wonder," said Farrell as they turned toward the iron-bound door, "if +those lads are completely out." + +"_Cordieu!_ But I am absent-minded!" growled the Marquis. He drew the +simitar at his side. + +As Farrell unlocked the door, he heard the sword-strokes that assured +beyond all doubt that three more had entered _al jannat_. + +"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Farrell as the door closed behind them. "We +may run into a detachment on the way down here to finish me. Do you +know of any other way except the passage used by your executioners?" + +The Marquis reflected for a moment as he wiped and sheathed his blade. + +"I do," he replied. "But we'd stand a good chance of getting lost +and perishing in a labyrinth. This network is older than the Roman +occupation. We have reclaimed but a fraction of it. It is the sanctuary +of some awful, prehistoric past. And there were living proofs...." The +Marquis shuddered at the recollection of what he had seen. "We killed +most of them. But--as for me, I prefer to face men like ourselves! +Anyway, if Shirkuh is dead, Hassan will be busy until another Prior is +appointed. Shirkuh was an adept who studied in Tibet. A necromancer----" + +Farrell shivered, and as they advanced up the passageway, told the +Marquis what he had seen at the château. + +"_Canaille!_" muttered the Marquis. "The night I was imprisoned! Just +like him. And as you suspect, enough assassins in the crowd to spread +the rumor of his miracle. + +"Our best chance," he resumed, "is to go to the vault where you saw +Hassan unveiled, thence to the assembly hall of the assassins. Then cut +our way out--if we can! The chances are slender----" + +"How about passing by the Garden?" wondered Farrell. + +"Out of our way," protested the Marquis. "But why?" + +"A ... friend," replied Farrell. "Mademoiselle Delatour----" + +"What?" exclaimed the Marquis with a start. "_Dieu de Dieu!_ How----" + +Then he controlled his agitation, beckoned for silence. + +They emerged from the darkness and turned into an upward-sloping branch +passage illuminated by torches thrust into sconces on the wall. Ahead +of them they heard the measured tread of a sentry walking his post. + +"Hang back," whispered the Marquis as he fingered the hilt of the +broad-bladed knife that kept his simitar company. "I know the +passwords. And he may not know I'm a prisoner--but be ready for trouble +if he does!" + +The sentry challenged the Marquis. There was an exchange of sign and +countersign. Then as the sentry saluted, the Marquis' right hand +flashed to the right; his body jerked forward. As Farrell advanced, he +saw the sentry collapse and sprawl across the tiles in a grotesque heap. + +"So far, so good," muttered the Marquis as he wiped his blade, and led +the way. + +A barred door yielded to the Marquis' touch on a concealed lever. They +continued on their upward march. They halted finally before a door +whose panels were of heavy and elaborately carved woodwork. + +"_Diable!_" growled the Marquis as he tried the door. "Barred from the +other side. The release this side does not help us." + +The mutter of drums and the plucked strings of a _sitar_ were plainly +audible. + +"Better wait until the place is vacant," whispered the Marquis. "And in +the meanwhile, let's cut a loophole and see what's happening." + +They drew their knives and set to work. + + * * * * * + +Peering through the loophole, Farrell could see the arched niche from +whose foot he had been precipitated into the dungeon below. Hassan was +again, or perhaps still, at his post. He was veiled, but there was no +mistaking the posture and the expression of the eyes. + +Sitting cross-legged along the curved wall of the vault were a score of +Ismailians in white ceremonial robes. They wore white turbans, scarlet +slippers, and belts of the same color: and all were armed with the +richly adorned simitars suitable to a formal assembly. + +A group of musicians squatted on the floor, along the coping of the +circular pool, whose dark water reflected the spectral glow that +pervaded the vault. The wind instruments joined the music with a +demoniac sobbing and moaning, and a brazen gong clanged. + +Four litter-bearers emerged from an entrance. Attendants followed them, +bearing tripods of bronze. Farrell shuddered at the similarity of that +scene to the horrible beauty of the resurrection of La Dorada. Then he +noted that the figure on the litter was that of a man. + +As the shroud was lifted, he recognized Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi. +The Prior of the Ismailians was to receive the final homage of his +subordinates. The pipes wailed mournfully in honor of that desecrator +of the dead. Farrell sighed with relief, and glanced at the Marquis. + +He peered once more through the loophole. + +"Good God!" he gasped in dismay. + +Four more litter-bearers were filing into the vault, and after them +came attendants with tripods. The tiny feet and the feminine curves +that the shroud revealed unmistakably betokened a woman's body. + +Farrell's cheeks whitened beneath their stain as he caught the glint of +red-gold hair. + +An attendant stripped the brocaded shroud from the body. + +Antoinette Delatour, sleeping--or dead. + +With an inarticulate growl of rage, Farrell gathered himself to charge +the door with his shoulder. But the hand of the Marquis gripping his +arm restrained him. + +"Wait!" whispered the Marquis. "It is hopeless, now. But later--stand +fast. I will tell you--you see, I am acquainted----" + +Farrell stared somberly at his companion. He saw that the Marquis' face +was white and that his eyes flamed with wrath. The hand on Farrell's +arm trembled. + +"All right," he conceded. He wondered at the Marquis' incoherence +and agitation in excess of what he would expect of a right-minded +gentleman. He gained assurance from the Marquis' apparent knowledge of +what was to be; but with it came the dread of some new peak of horror. + +"Great God!" muttered Farrell, remembering once more the necromantic +ritual at the château. "Is she----" Then, in a flare of rage and grief, +"I'm going through!" + +"Restrain yourself!" commanded the Marquis. "I know." + +Farrell shook his head, and turned to the loophole. + +The attendants and the litter-bearers were filing out of the vault. + +The Grand Prior, Hassan, rose from his cushions. + +"Brethren and servants of the Seventh Imam," he began, "your Prior, the +learned Shirkuh, has crossed the Border. He who could raise the dead +can not resurrect himself. But we, _inshallah_, can send a courier to +lead him back to us." + +As his upraised hand dropped to his side, a monstrous peal of bronze +echoed and reverberated through the vault. The assembled Ismailians +stirred, and corrected their posture, so that their feet and hands were +placed with ritual precision. Even their features assumed a oneness of +expression: an intent, solemn stare. The silence became absolute. The +musicians sat motionless, awaiting the signal to sound off. + +The Grand Prior nodded. + +The single-stringed violins, the moaning pipes and the purring drums +wove a harmony that sighed and sobbed like a fallen angel bewailing his +lost estate. The great gong pealed with mighty, brazen reverberations. +Acolytes filed into the vault, and paced in cadence to the music, and +rhythmically swung fuming censers as they passed thrice in procession +about the dead, and the exquisite unclad beauty of the living woman. +And as the acolytes retreated, Hassan descended from his dais. + +He drew on the floor with a piece of chalk a circle several paces in +diameter, and within it a pentacle. Each of the five points he marked +with cabalistical symbols. Then with a ceremonious gesture he summoned +three Initiates from among those who sat waiting beside the dais. Each +Initiate took his post at his assigned station; then all four bowed to +the fifth vertex and the Presence that was to be summoned. + +Hassan intoned a sentence; and the Initiates, beginning at his left, +each in turn chanted a line of the invocation. Those without the circle +solemnly pronounced a fifth sonorous phrase. + +"For the vacant corner," whispered the Marquis to Farrell. "They are +representing the One they are calling to occupy the fifth angle." + +And thus they continued their prodigious utterances, four verses +riming in succession, with the surge and thunder of the unrimed, +antiphonal response from without. Each time the circle was completed, +the riming syllable changed; and from the Arabic with which they had +started, they shifted to Himyaric, and then to obscure, antique tongues +whose sound was an elemental roar of deep gutturals. Then finally came +a primal, bestial murmuring and muttering, a chirping and clucking of +the tongues that were spoken by those who wandered through the Void +before the first man walked the earth. And recurring through the entire +progression was a portentous name that is seldom pronounced above a +whisper. + +The very features of the Initiates changed as they pronounced those +rustling, shivering syllables. They were achieving a unity with that +which crept and crawled and loathsomely slunk through chaos and reviled +the unborn stars, and mocked the light that was to be.... + + * * * * * + +Farrell, staring now with a dread that obliterated every other emotion, +saw that a Presence was materializing at the fifth vertex. A vibrant +glow like the luminous vapor of a mercury arc was momentarily becoming +more dense and substantial. Lambent flames played about the brows of +the Initiates in the pentacle. A terrific tension pervaded the vault. +The bluish glow became deeper, and was shot with flashes of crimson +and yellowish green. Each drawn face was now a ghastly slate-gray: the +Presence at the fifth vertex was drawing the living essence from the +swaying, gesturing bodies of Hassan and his trio of Initiates. + +The Presence took human form: a lordly, satanic visage and a +magnificently muscled body that quivered and throbbed to the droning +chant. Then, rich and clear as a god calling across the wastes of +space, the Presence began declaiming: + +"_Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani!_ I come from the realm of fire +to command you! I have come out of the depths! Harken! Harken! Harken! +_Al Asfarani!_ Golden One! Step forth from your body and walk into the +darkness among those whose bread is dust! Walk among the lonely dead +and seek Shirkuh! Call him by his name and take him by the hand! Guide +him from the shadows and into the morning!" + +[Illustration: "_A terrific tension pervaded the tumult. The Presence +took human form!_"] + +The unconscious woman shuddered at the sound of that mighty voice. She +made a despairing gesture as if to resist the command that came from +the fifth vertex. Then she relaxed. + +The Presence continued his prodigious chant. Even the brazen +reverberation of the gongs was drowned by his awful utterance. + +A thin streamer, like the thread of smoke rising from an +almost-quenched altar flame, rose from Antoinette Delatour's +half-parted lips. + +"_Cordieu!_" shouted the Marquis in Farrell's ear. "They're doing it!" + +His gestures rather than his voice stirred Farrell to action. They +retreated, then charged crashing against the door. It resisted the +shock. Farrell drew his simitar and hacked at the tropical hardwood. A +carven panel splintered. + +"Good God! Look!" he yelled in despair. + +The Presence was now towering toward the ceiling. It was bending over +like a monstrous serpent in human form, arching and writhing, reaching +as though over some invisible wall, making passes and gestures over the +silver-white body of Antoinette. + +The Initiates in the pentacle were paper-white. They swayed to the +cadence of that great voice whose concussion was now making the very +vault tremble. + +The train of smoke-like vapor that emerged from Antoinette's lips was +becoming more dense, and hovered over her body like a veil. + +"Quick!" shouted the Marquis, as they frantically hacked the stout +wood. "Hold them, while I exorcise the Presence!" + +The door was reinforced with iron rods that bound it together. Their +blades were nicked and saw-toothed from the fierce assault. + +"Again!" cried the Marquis as his simitar flashed home. + +A chunk of the hardwood tore loose from its severed reinforcement. They +shouldered through, torn and cut by the splinters and the ragged ends +of the rods they had hacked. + +A musician cried out and sprang to his feet. And then one of the +Initiates who sat beside the dais saw Farrell and the Marquis as they +dashed across the circular vault. He aroused his comrades from their +fascinated contemplation of the invocation of which they were now +accessories rather than principals. They started as from a deep sleep, +stared for an instant, then drew their simitars and charged to meet +the intruders, and to protect the left flank of the pentacle, from +which the Presence still leaned over the unconscious girl, intoning the +mighty commands that would send her across the Border. + +Shoulder to shoulder, Farrell and the Marquis met the assault with +deliberate, deadly pistol fire. The attack was checked; but the enemy +stood fast and firm, protecting the pentacle. And despite the hail of +lead they had poured into the ranks of the Ismailians, Farrell and his +ally were still outnumbered ten to one. + +The musicians were salvaging weapons. + +There was not enough time to reload the pistols. The Ismailians had +recovered from the shock of their murderous reception, and seeing their +advantage, leaped forward, blades ready. + +Then a clash of steel, and a red mill of slaughter. The Marquis +fought with vengeful desperation. He wove in and out, side-stepping +and parrying, shearing and slaying. And Farrell, keeping at his side, +carved a gory path into the enemy. He fought with a blind, unreasoning +fury, seeking to hack his way through the press and clear a road for +the Marquis who could cope with that monstrous Presence that was in +thunderous tones chanting the life and vital essence from Antoinette. + +The enemy, sensing that the Marquis was the keystone of the arch, +concentrated their attack on him; and despite his exquisite +swordsmanship, he was being slashed to pieces by a desperation and +force that discounted his skill. + +He sank once beneath a whirlwind of blades, and recovered under the +shelter of Farrell's blade; but he was coughing blood from a deep wound. + +And Hassan and his trio had left the pentacle. The Presence, now +endowed with the power borrowed from all that the Initiates had +conjured from across the Border, was self-sustaining and no longer +needed its portion of human vitality. + +Hassan, behind the line of the assault, directed his Initiates in the +attack. + +"Cut him down, O sons of flat-nosed mothers!" he cried, as he saw the +Marquis recover and press forward. + +But that magnificent last effort burned out. With a cry of mortal rage, +the Marquis lashed out with a final, devastating stroke, then collapsed +on a heap of slain. + +"Finish!" despaired Farrell. He was doomed, and Antoinette also--even +though he could cut his way out. An adept was required to exorcise +that terrific Presence that was drawing her from her body. + +But the enemy, instead of closing in to hew him to pieces, gaped +stupidly, then yelled in terror. They were staring at something at his +right, and to the rear. He glanced over his shoulder, compelled by the +consternation that stopped them where they stood. + + * * * * * + +Farrell lowered his own point, himself struck with awe. He recalled +what the Marquis had said about the denizens of that labyrinth of +passages. + +A monstrous, amorphous thing had emerged from the circular pool +into which Hassan had ordered the dead _fedawi_ to be flung. It was +misshapen, and grotesque in its vague semblance to humanity. Its +bulbous head had a single, circular eye the size of a saucer. It +glittered glassily in the bluish, spectral light. The limbs were +shapeless and ponderous, and it lumbered, dripping wet, across the +tiles. Its feet fell with a metallic clank, and its breath hissed and +wheezed. + +A second and similar creature was emerging from the water, even as the +first advanced with slow, laborious pace. The hand clutched a short +iron bar. + +The bar rose in a sweeping arc and crunched down on the skull of an +Ismailian, spattering blood and brain in a shower. The second monster +clambered over the coping, unlimbered a bludgeon, and with gruesome +deliberation picked a victim and struck. + +There was a moment of silence unbroken save for the wheezing breath +of the creatures from the pit. Then the Ismailians yelled in mortal +terror. They forgot Farrell with his dripping blade and bewildered +eyes; they forgot the Marquis, who stirred, and strove to lash out +once more with his red scimitar; they forgot the golden-haired girl, +and the malevolent Presence that, now silent, throbbed and pulsed, an +aggregate of quivering, electric-bluish cold fire. + +They broke and fled toward the splintered door. + +At the height of their panic, Farrell understood. The monsters were men +in diving-suits. + +The Marquis was down. Farrell could not himself thwart that monster +that was drinking Antoinette's vital essence and taking her across +the Border beyond recall; but he could slay until he dropped from +wounds, or from weariness of slaughter. He hurdled the hedge of fallen +Ismailians and with a cry of rage and grief joined his allies to exact +vengeance. + +A third diver was at that moment emerging from the pool and joining the +assault against the frenzied enemy, striking them down with remorseless +precision as they struggled to crowd through the splintered panel of +the door that had given Farrell admittance. + +Farrell, however, was not the only one whose wits had recovered from +the terror inspired by the apparitions from the black pool. + +"Back and face them, _ya mumineen_!" shouted Hassan. "They are men like +ourselves!" + +But his attempt to rally his men was vain. Those who abandoned their +efforts to crowd through the jammed door, and circled around to escape +by way of the opposite entrance, were blocked by the arrival of a file +of _fedawi_ who, knives drawn, had come running from the assembly hall. + +The dripping revolvers that the divers drew as they discarded their +grappling-irons crackled and flamed, pouring a deadly fire into the new +center of action. + +Then Farrell conceived the desperate device of capturing Hassan +and forcing him to recall the elemental monster that was drinking +Antoinette's life. He leaped forward, cutting and slashing his way +through the few who interposed. + +"We meet in Paradise, _ya mumineen_!" Hassan shouted, seeing that the +day was lost. And before Farrell could seize him, Hassan released the +trap-door before the dais and dropped into the vault below. + +The last hope was gone. Pursuit through those subterranean mazes would +be futile. As Farrell turned from the yawning trap that had allowed the +arch-enemy to escape, the rage of slaughter left him. The crackle of +pistols died out. He saw that the circular chamber was cleared of all +but the dead and wounded Ismailians. The divers, handicapped by their +heavy suits, could not carry out an effective pursuit of the survivors +of their deadly fire. + +Weary and despairing, Farrell nerved himself to confront the diabolical +creature that was drawing Antoinette across the border. He turned---- + +The Marquis des Islots was raising his hacked, bleeding body from a +heap of slain. He tottered, swayed, then advanced toward the lambent +flame-presence. Farrell stared in fascination as that gory wreck of +a man advanced, making ritual gestures with his faltering hands, and +muttering in a low voice. + +The Presence was shrinking and dimming, and that shimmering exhalation +from Antoinette's lips was being retracted. The Marquis sustained +himself with will alone. He staggered, sank--Farrell's heart sank with +him--he recovered, stepped forward again, still gesticulating and +murmuring. The Presence leaned forward to confront him, and menaced him +with its remaining energy, seeking to outlive the dying adept. + +The Marquis' bleeding, gashed face was drawn and white; his eyes +were fixed and staring. He achieved another pass; then he collected +himself, paused, and instead of murmuring, thundered a final phrase of +command. + +The Presence vanished; and the last vestige of grayish, luminous haze +disappeared between Antoinette's lips. + +Farrell leaped forward in time to catch the Marquis as he collapsed. + + * * * * * + +The divers, returning from the farther entrance at which the Ismailians +had made their last stand, lifted one another's domed helmets. Then, +grimy and exultant, Pierre d'Artois and the two members of the _Sûreté_ +gathered about Farrell and the Marquis, who was regaining a little of +his strength. + +"_Messieurs_," he said, as he gestured toward Antoinette, "she is safe. +She will presently awaken. It can not return. _Jamais!_... It was my +fault ... in the beginning ... but this infamy was not my intent.... I +loved her, but she rejected me ... persistently. And for revenge ... +and to break her spirit ... I administered without her knowledge a +compound ... of hypnotic drugs ... so that she and that Syrian girl +would each night exchange bodies ... then Hassan took a hand...." + +He regarded d'Artois for a moment. + +"You, _monsieur_, doubtless understand----" Then, to Farrell, "But this +last infamy ... was not mine--Shirkuh and Hassan--I tried to make ... +amends----" + +For an instant Farrell regarded the dying man with revulsion. Then he +saw the remorse on the drawn, blood-splashed features, and thought +of the Marquis' last gallant stand, confronting and exorcising that +diabolical presence from beyond the Border. + +"Stout fellow," he muttered, as he grasped the Marquis' hand. + +"_C'est fini_," murmured d'Artois a moment later. "Magnificent in his +death as he was misguided in his life ... dying on his feet, he had the +will to conquer, and make restitution." + +Then d'Artois rose and glanced about him. + +"Do you know the way out of here?" + +"Through that door," directed Farrell. "He told me, before we made our +rush." + +"_Messieurs_," suggested d'Artois, "be ready with your pistols, should +any of these assassins be lingering. I will take charge of the young +lady, and you, my friend, lead the way. _Monsieur le Marquis_ perhaps +deserves greater courtesy, but we can not carry his body and take the +risk of being caught without weapons drawn and ready." + +Farrell led the way. Without much difficulty, he found the passage +that opened into the vault where he had lain while regaining his +consciousness preliminary to submitting to Hassan's tests. And from +there they finally emerged in the heart of the citadel. A few moments +later Farrell and d'Artois, carrying Antoinette, met Raoul where he was +waiting at the wheel of the Renault. + + + + + _9. D'Artois Is Envious_ + + +Antoinette, an hour later, was entirely herself. + +"Oh, it's wonderful to be out of that awful garden," she said, and +curled herself up in the depth of a large, upholstered chair. "And now +that _Monsieur le Médicin_ admits that I'm as good as new, you might +satisfy my curiosity on a few points. How did you ever----" + +She glanced up at Farrell, who had seated himself on the arm of her +chair. He was not yet through convincing himself that Satan's Garden +was a thing of the past, and insisted on keeping Antoinette within +arm's reach. + +"Suppose you ask Pierre," he said. + +D'Artois laughed. + +"After all, _mon vieux_, you were responsible. We found two bodies +floating down the Nive. One of them wore--oh, very becomingly, I assure +you!--a knife in his stomach. The _Sûreté_ informed me. I identified +the knife. It was one of mine, which you had taken from my collection +to wear while disguised as Ibrahim the Afghan ruffian. + +"'_Alors_,' said I, 'Ibrahim Khan has given good account of himself. +Perhaps, but God forbid, his own body will follow. I assure you that we +watched with anxiety. But no further signs. At low tide, however--you +know, the Nive rises and falls with the tide, since we're so close to +the sea--we found another body, mainly as the result of our continued +close watch for yours. This one was wedged near the central of the +seven bridges. We investigated, and found an uncharted drain of +considerable diameter. + +"'_Mordieu_,' said I to _Monsieur_ the Prefect, 'if bodies came out, +bodies can also go in.' We got diving-suits. The tide in the meanwhile +rose, but we had the location well marked. We advanced up the drain +until we came to a dead end. Even before we left the water we heard the +clash and crackle of your skirmish----" + +"Massacre, you mean," interpolated Farrell, grinning as much as his +bandages permitted. "Not a second too soon." + +"_Eh bien_, we shut our exhaust air-valves and thus rose to the +surface. Our grappling-irons snagged to the coping helped us unaided +over the top. Then we sliced our airlines and lifelines, opened our +exhausts and----" + +"Scared them out of a week's growth!" added Farrell as d'Artois paused +to light a cigarette. "But that damnable thing all of quivering +fire--good Lord!" + +"That," submitted d'Artois, "is something that I can explain but +vaguely, if at all. I called it some more mummery, and decided, rather +hastily, perhaps, that you and the Marquis needed help first of all. +On reflection, and in view of some of your remarks since we left, I am +of the opinion that it was either an elemental conjured up by those +devil-mongering adepts, or else a wandering and malignant astral that +was energized by the vital essence of the adepts, or perhaps by the +vibration concentration of their ritual. _Monsieur le Marquis_, God +rest his erring soul, could doubtless explain what it was, since he +used his last spark of will to combat it and thwart its attempt to +convert Mademoiselle Antoinette into--what did you tell me?--a courier +to call Shirkuh from the hell in which he now must be roasting. + +"I would very much relish," continued d'Artois, "questioning Hassan, +who devised all that deviltry. But alas! he escaped. And while you, +both of you, were causing the good doctor a certain amount of concern, +I heard that the _Sûreté_ and a handful of _gendarmes_ cleaned out the +entire nest. Unhappily, two were taken alive of that crew of assassins. +And of course, those lovely ladies of the garden." + +Farrell sighed from weariness and contentment, then grimaced from the +ache of his wounds. + +"The Marquis," he observed, "didn't have time to explain how that +hypnotic drug enabled him to project Antoinette's _self_ into the +body of the Syrian bride of the garden--Lord, it's impossible to +imagine how a brave fellow like him could have let his resentment and +disappointment carry him to such lengths! Having her scourged by proxy, +so to speak." + +"Too much occultism and devil-mongering upset his brilliant mind," +replied d'Artois. "Somber, gloomy, and drunk with his talents. And +translating Antoinette into the body of a bride of the garden, whom he +could flog at will, was his warped expression of denied affection. As +to just how he accomplished it, we can but surmise. Strange drugs are +compounded in the Orient. When I complete the analysis of the pastries +they offered us that night at the château, I may further enlighten you." + +"But the stripes and welts that appeared on Antoinette's body?" +wondered Farrell. + +"For once you ask me something simple," retorted d'Artois. "Did you +know that if a hypnotic is touched with a pencil, for example, and +offered the suggestion that it is a red-hot iron, he will develop a +blister, and all the symptoms of a burn at the spot touched? Moll and +others concede that point with very little argument. It has often been +experimentally demonstrated. + +"_Alors_, the body of the Syrian girl was scourged. Antoinette's +_self_, though in a borrowed body, retained what we can roughly call +an astral connection with her own body; otherwise she could not have +returned to it at the end of each ordeal. And through this connection, +the body of Antoinette developed the same welts that were raised on +the skin of the Syrian girl; just as, by rough analogy, the hypnotic +subject through suggestion shows all outward signs of a burn. And the +marks of the heavy anklets the Syrian bride of the garden wore were +similarly branded on Antoinette's ankles. + +"The Marquis during his unsuccessful courtship of Antoinette had ample +opportunities to administer the hypnotic drug at which he hinted, so +that his influence could have been gained without her knowledge. This, +together with the objective symptoms, convinces me that if it was not +the conventional hypnosis we know, it was at least a quasi-hypnosis. +And as you know, there are vegetable compounds which, if properly +administered, will effect a partial release of the astral counterpart +of a body, or its spiritual essence. To pursue it to its origin would +lead you to a study of Egyptian magic, and the nine traditional +elements of every living human body. + +"I will leave all this to you, _mon vieux_, to study, this matter of +stigmata resulting from suggestion and other psychic influences. Me, I +am no lecturer. + +"And as to Antoinette's Arabic remarks in her sleep: the bride of the +garden, dispossessed of her body for the time, sought Antoinette's. And +by that astral connection which she retained with her own, she felt the +scourgings administered in the garden, and expressed herself, through +Antoinette's lips, as you heard." + +D'Artois emerged from his chair and bowed with formal precision. + +"I will therefore leave you here, my blundering Afghan, to have your +wounds properly nursed while I go about doing all that an old man +can do under the circumstances: envy you, and write a monograph on +_Messieurs les Assassins_, and Satan's Garden, from which you so +happily emerged." + +With a peremptory gesture, he cut short Antoinette's insistence upon +his pausing for at least a moment. Then, halting at the door, he +concluded as he glanced at Farrell, "_Mordieu_, and to think that you +enjoyed all that fine sword-play, while I, Pierre d'Artois, had to +wear a diving-suit to find a fight, and then had to use a crowbar! In +_several_ ways I envy you." + + + THE END + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 *** diff --git a/75619-h/75619-h.htm b/75619-h/75619-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..668ec94 --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-h/75619-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3393 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Satan's Garden | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } +hr.full {width: 95%; margin-left: 2.5%; margin-right: 2.5%;} +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop {display: none;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smcap { font-variant:small-caps; } + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +.caption p +{ + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + margin: 0.25em 0; + font-weight: bold; +} + +div.titlepage { + text-align: center; + page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; +} + +div.titlepage p { + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; + margin-top: 3em; +} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 4px; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} + +.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph1 { font-size: x-large; margin: .83em auto; } + +.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } +.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter x-ebookmaker-drop"> + <img src="images/illusc.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="titlepage"> + +<h1>Satan's Garden</h1> + +<p class="ph1">By E. HOFFMANN PRICE</p> + +<p><i>The story of a terrific adventure in Bayonne, two<br> +ravishingly beautiful girls, occult evil and sudden<br> +death in the lair of the hasheesh-eaters.</i></p> + +<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br> +Weird Tales April and May 1934.<br> +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br> +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>Since the publication of "The Rajah's Gift" in WEIRD TALES nine years +ago, followed by "The Stranger from Kurdistan," E. Hoffmann Price +has been acclaimed one of the masters of quality fiction; yet his +superb artistry has not interfered in any way with the vividness and +thrilling power of his fascinating stories. West Point graduate, +expert swordsman, orientalist and former soldier of fortune, his life +itself is a thrilling tale of adventure. Endowed with a natural gift +for narrative, he possesses also a warm imagination and unsurpassed +literary craftsmanship. All these qualities are woven into the strange +weird tale presented herewith: "Satan's Garden."</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#1_Invisible_Scourge"><i>1. Invisible Scourge</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#2_La_Dorada">2. <i>La Dorada</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#3_The_Hand_of_Hassan"><i>3. The Hand of Hassan</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#4_Shirkuh_Makes_Magic"><i>4. Shirkuh Makes Magic</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#5_Ibrahim_Khan"><i>5. Ibrahim Khan</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#6_Satans_Garden"><i>6. Satan's Garden</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#7_A_Left-Handed_Kurd"><i>7. A Left-Handed Kurd</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#8_Monsters_of_the_Pool"><i>8. Monsters of the Pool</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdl"><a href="#9_DArtois_Is_Envious"><i>9. D'Artois Is Envious</i></a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="1_Invisible_Scourge"><i>1. Invisible Scourge</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was long past the hour of tinkling glass, and song to the guitar, +and crowded tables at the Café du Théâtre. The gray-walled city of +Bayonne slept in the moonlight like an odalisque overcome with wine and +lying bejewelled in a garden whence the musicians had departed. It is +thus that Bayonne has slept each night of the full moon for more than +nineteen centuries at the junction of the Nive and the Adour, guarding +the road to Spain.</p> + +<p>There were two who sat in a room on the second floor of a house +that faced the street running along the city wall. One was old and +leathery, with fierce, upturned gray mustaches, and eyes that smoldered +beneath shaggy brows; the other was not more than half his age, a lean, +broad-shouldered man whose bronzed features were rugged as the masonry +of the fortress, and seamed with a saber slash that ran from his +cheek-bone almost to the chin.</p> + +<p>The younger emerged from the depths of his chair like a panther leaving +his cage. He paced the length of the room and paused at the window to +stare out into the dazzling moon-brightness that slowly marched from +the rolling, tree-clustered parkway and invaded the shadows cast by the +city wall across the dry moat that skirted it. Then, as he retraced his +steps, he glanced at his watch.</p> + +<p>"Later than usual tonight, Pierre," he observed. His voice was weary +from baffled wrath. "Do you suppose that It may skip a night?"</p> + +<p>Pierre d'Artois shook his gray head and sighed.</p> + +<p>"Why should It fail to torment her? We sit here like dummies, you and +I. And to what purpose? Look!" He indicated the seals on the door +at his left. "It could get through neither door nor window without +breaking those seals——"</p> + +<p>"But It did, by heaven!" exclaimed the younger. And Glenn Farrell +resumed his pacing the length of the Boukhara rug that carpeted the +room. He made a gesture of futile rage, then resumed, "But how, +Pierre—and why?"</p> + +<p>Pierre d'Artois twisted his mustache, shook his head again, and struck +light to a cigarette. Farrell sank into the depths of his chair and +retrieved the cigar butt he had laid on its arm.</p> + +<p>"We couldn't have slept on post without one of us being aware of +it," resumed Farrell. His voice was monotonous from repetition of a +statement so often made that he himself had begun to doubt it. "And if +we had——"</p> + +<p>He regarded the waxen seals on the door.</p> + +<p>"Those seals couldn't have been duplicated, with your die locked in a +bank vault each night. And she couldn't have escaped."</p> + +<p>"No, she could not," agreed d'Artois. "But some one—some <i>thing</i>—got +in."</p> + +<p>"A weasel, a cat, a snake," enumerated Farrell, "might slip through +those bars. Nothing larger. Certainly nothing large enough to—good +God! <i>Listen!</i>"</p> + +<p>Grim and trembling they stood at the sealed door. They heard a moaning +and a sobbing, then the screams of a woman seeking to stifle her outcry.</p> + +<p>"Give me that key!" demanded Farrell.</p> + +<p>He unlocked the door and flung it open, shattering the seals and +breaking the cord that ran from panel to jamb. D'Artois followed him. +They halted a few paces past the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Look, damn it, look!"</p> + +<p>As Farrell switched on the lights, he pointed at the woman who lay +face down on the broad, canopied bed. She was writhing and moaning. +At regular intervals she flinched as from a blow, then shuddered, and +relaxed.</p> + +<p>"Lord! I can almost hear the whip," muttered Farrell. He leaped forward +and thrust out his arm as if to ward off blows that flailed the girl's +bare shoulders. Then he retreated, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"If we can't see it, how can we stop it?" he muttered despairingly.</p> + +<p>They stood, fascinated and horrified, watching a lovely girl being +flayed by an invisible scourge. They saw the red welts rising, crossing +and recrossing her shoulders, and cropping up under the filmy silken +folds of her nightgown.</p> + +<p>"Look at it! Her gown didn't move a hair's breadth, but the whip raised +another welt! Pierre, it's impossible! That gown ought to be cut to +pieces by that flogging. Or else nothing's really hitting her. Or +else"—Farrell shook his head in bewildered despair—"or else we're +both crazy as hoot-owls!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Tenez donc</i>," said the old Frenchman, taking his friend by the arm. +Though he himself shrank in sympathy with the girl who writhed under +the invisible lash, his voice was calmer than Farrell's. "Let us study +this thing. And man or devil, in the end we will have his hide!"</p> + +<p>"You take the devils, Pierre, and give me a handful of whatever men you +think are messed up in it! I'll—eh, what's that?"</p> + +<p>He knelt beside the bed, gestured to d'Artois.</p> + +<p>"Listen to that, Pierre!" he said in a tense whisper.</p> + +<p>"<i>Junayn' ash-Shaytan</i> ..." they heard her say.</p> + +<p>"Holy smoke!" gasped Farrell. "<i>Junayn' ash-Shaytan</i> ... and did you +get what she said after that?" Then, before d'Artois could reply, "It's +over now."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The sleeping girl had ceased writhing and tossing. Her cries had +subsided to a drowsy murmuring. The two watchers stared at each other +for a moment.</p> + +<p>"But yes," said d'Artois finally. "I heard it, though it has been +several years since I heard any one use such villainous language. It +would do credit to one of the dancing-girls in Abu Aswad's dive in +Cairo. But this <i>junayn' ash-Shaytan</i>, that puzzles me."</p> + +<p>"Simple!" said Farrell. "Satan's garden."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais oui!</i>" agreed d'Artois with a touch of impatience. "Only, what +is the point?"</p> + +<p>He frowned fiercely and twisted his mustache.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon vieux</i>," he said after a moment's reflection, "in this first +articulate speech in her sleep we may find a clue to the invisible +scourge that leaves her back crossed with welts."</p> + +<p>Farrell shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Crazier and crazier," he muttered. "We're all nutty. I am, you are, +she is—all of us! Now she's talking Arabic! I'm beginning to wonder +whether her back is really beaten or whether we're both suffering the +same delusion she is."</p> + +<p>D'Artois led the way to the door. Farrell followed.</p> + +<p>"I have been expecting that," he said as he reached for a brief-case +lying on the table. He opened it and withdrew a photograph. "Look."</p> + +<p>Farrell scrutinized the glossy print.</p> + +<p>"That proves your point," he admitted. "The camera isn't subject to +hallucinations or delusions of persecution. Antoinette has been +beaten. Severely. The old black-and-blue marks photographed darker +than the new, red welts. No argument. I'm not, she isn't, you're not +bug-house. That is, <i>not yet</i>. But if this doesn't stop soon——"</p> + +<p>He bit the tip off a fresh cigar, chewed it for a moment, struck light.</p> + +<p>"Let us be impersonal about it for a moment," suggested d'Artois, "and +consider what we have.</p> + +<p>"First, she tells us that her dreams have become so real that she +is confused and wonders during the day which is dream, and which is +reality. She dreams that she is in an outlandishly beautiful garden, +dim as by moonlight, yet warm as the glow of morning sun. The plants +are strange, and the flowers have an unnatural, poison sweetness.</p> + +<p>"And strangest of all, she herself has a different body, brown-skinned, +with blue-black hair, and very large, dark eyes. The other girls, her +companions, are also dark," summarized d'Artois. "Now do you see how +her first speech in this troubled sleep begins to lend a touch of +rationality?"</p> + +<p>Farrell pondered for a moment, then replied.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Those few words she spoke in Arabic tonight suggest a dual +personality, give us a bit more background. But on the other hand, +didn't she tell us that she couldn't understand the language of the +other girls, and of the guests: lean, swarthy fellows with staring, +dilated eyes? If she couldn't understand them, how the devil is she +talking the fluent, unsavory Arabic of a dancing-girl in a Port Said +dive?"</p> + +<p>"That sudden gift of tongues can be resolved," said d'Artois. "There +is something else, which is perhaps more relevant: the veiled Master, +whom the guests of the garden regard with great reverence. Does that +suggest anything?"</p> + +<p>"It does, and it doesn't," replied Farrell, "'Way back in my mind it's +there, but I can't express it. And you, I fancy, are in about the same +fix?"</p> + +<p>"I am," admitted d'Artois. "But before many days pass, we will pick up +the trail. We will have this invisible wielder of an unseen scourge. +Him, or his hide. But now get yourself some sleep, <i>mon ami</i>."</p> + +<p>Farrell glanced at the door at his left.</p> + +<p>"She'll be all right," assured d'Artois. "The ordeal is over. And what +purpose did we serve, after all?"</p> + +<p>"Guess you're right, Pierre," assented Farrell. "Let's go."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="2_La_Dorada">2. <i>La Dorada</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>Glenn Farrell was up at dawn. His carefully tiptoeing down the winding +stairway of Pierre d'Artois' house, however, was wasted consideration. +He found that gray-haired <i>ferrailleur</i> hunched over the littered desk +of his study, fuming and muttering in a thick, foul cloud of smoke +that momentarily became more dense as the cigarette between d'Artois' +fingers added its stench of burning rags. The shining brass pot of +Syrian workmanship, and half a dozen tiny cups, each with a thick +residue of pulverized coffee grounds and cigarette stumps, indicated +that the old man had been at work ever since they had left Antoinette +Delatour some six hours ago.</p> + +<p>In the clear space in front of d'Artois was an open book whose pages +were in illuminated Arabic script. Beside it were a pad of note-paper +and a half-dozen loose sheets closely scribbled.</p> + +<p>"Pierre, why didn't you tell me you were going to carry on?" reproached +Farrell as he drew up a chair. "This is really more my funeral than +yours, getting Antoinette out of this terrible mess."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mordieu!</i>" exclaimed d'Artois. "This is work for a scholar, not a +towering blockhead like yourself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right, all right," said Farrell with a smile that for a moment +cleared his features of the dismay and wrath of the preceding night. +"Only, I can read that stuff myself, almost as well as you can." He +scrutinized the book for a moment; then, indicating the title, he said, +"<i>Siret al Haken</i>—how's that for a blockhead?"</p> + +<p>"Very good," approved d'Artois. Then, with a wink and a grin, "And +after all, perhaps I should not call you a blockhead, even though I do +exceed you in intelligence and in skill with the sword."</p> + +<p>He paused a moment after that time-honored raillery in which each +reviled the other's talents, then continued, "But seriously, I have +been pursuing some exceedingly roundabout speculations, and before I +inflicted them on you, I wanted to study them out myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right, then," agreed Farrell as he found a clean <i>demi-tasse</i> +and poured some of the lukewarm, sirupy Turkish coffee with which +d'Artois drugged himself during his midnight studies. "But I see no +connection with the <i>Memoirs of Haken</i> and Antoinette's terrible +predicament."</p> + +<p>"Listen then, I will enlighten you!" began d'Artois. "Mademoiselle +Antoinette has been dreaming of a garden rich with roses, and lilies, +and jasmine. It is alive with strangely colored birds. In fact, she +described the very garden"—d'Artois indicated the page of Arabic +script before him—"that Haken has so glowingly described: lovely girls +playing the <i>sitar</i> and the <i>oudh</i>, and entertaining the guests of +paradise with song and wine. And a veiled master who ruled the garden."</p> + +<p>"But what," demanded Farrell, "has that to do with those unmerciful +beatings? How about it?"</p> + +<p>"Did I not say that I was working indirectly?" countered d'Artois. "The +scourgings, you understand, did not come until later, after the dreams +had recurred for some time. Therefore they must be but an indication of +the gradual increase——"</p> + +<p>"Of the undoubted insanity of all three of us!" interpolated Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle Antoinette," declared d'Artois, ignoring his friend's +outburst, "is not dreaming. She actually spends her nights in that +devil's paradise. She awakes and tells us that she had another body; +but her <i>self</i> retained its identity. I conclude then that her +personality, her spiritual essence, whatever you will, is wandering, +driven by some damnable compulsion to inhabit that garden, and a +strange body."</p> + +<p>Farrell sighed wearily and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"This scrambling of selves and personalities is enough to drive one +nutty. It doesn't make any sense."</p> + +<p>"Ah, say you so?" murmured d'Artois as he reached for another +cigarette. "My logic is scrambled, in that I have not attempted to show +<i>how</i> this can be; but by assuming that it is, I get to the next point.</p> + +<p>"Listen somewhat further, yes? We have but to find that place which +Antoinette's physical body, speaking like a Syrian dancing-girl, so +graphically damned and called <i>junayn' ash-Shaytan</i>, Satan's garden.</p> + +<p>"There is such a garden at this moment in physical existence; or +else there is one which, reaching out of the dimness of nine hundred +departed years, is <i>en rapport</i> with Antoinette."</p> + +<p>"Hell's fire!" muttered Farrell. "The ghost of a garden haunting a +woman in Bayonne, in 1933!"</p> + +<p>D'Artois tapped the cover of <i>Siret al Haken</i>.</p> + +<p>"The author," he said, "tells of Hassan al Sabbah. <i>Shaykh al Djibal</i>, +the Chief of the Mountains. The lord of the <i>Hashisheen</i>——"</p> + +<p>"I get it!" exclaimed Farrell. "The garden paradise into which +hasheesh-drugged devotees were tossed while unconscious, so that when +they awoke they would believe themselves to be in the Moslem heaven of +cool water, beautiful women, and forbidden wine?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely, my excellent blockhead! I drink to your wit!" said d'Artois +with a smile that flashed over the edge of his cup of cold coffee. +"And your Antoinette is bedeviled in some way by a garden like that +of Hassan al Sabbah, the master of those assassins who terrorized all +Syria and Persia, centuries ago."</p> + +<p>Farrell grimaced.</p> + +<p>"Worse and worse yet! Hasn't this old city of Bayonne got enough ghosts +and devils in its own right, lurking under the blood-soaked foundations +of the citadel, without importing them from Asia?" His eyes shifted to +the clustered simitars and yataghans, kreeses and kampilans, darts and +assegais that adorned the walls of the study. "Now if they were men, we +might do something about it!"</p> + +<p>"Have no fear on that score," assured d'Artois. "We find that every +phantom as malignantly directed as this ghostly garden has a man +pulling the strings—a flesh-and-blood man you can neatly riddle with +bullets, or slice asunder with some of those toys up there on the wall."</p> + +<p>Farrell smiled grimly and took heart.</p> + +<p>"Reasonable, at that. And now, suppose that we drop in and see what +Antoinette has to say about her newly acquired gift of Arabic speech. +It took me several years to learn that fluently."</p> + +<p>"Barbarian!" scoffed d'Artois. "It is too early. You with your military +hours——"</p> + +<p>"And you're another," countered Farrell. "Working the clock around. But +see if you can persuade Félice to scramble some eggs, at least a pound +of bacon, and perhaps a stack of waffles."</p> + +<p>"<i>Magnifique!</i>" agreed d'Artois. "Some of those barbarous American +customs of yours are not utterly vile. And since you so kindly sent me +an electric waffle-iron, <i>à l'Américain</i>—but as a lover, you are most +unconvincing! At six of the morning, you howl for food—utterly out of +keeping! Romance is dead, slain by such as you."</p> + +<p>"Ghosts," submitted Farrell, "can not be fought on an empty stomach."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Breakfast stemmed Farrell's impatience for a while; but as they +lingered over the brandy-laden coffee, he proposed again that they set +out at once to call on Antoinette Delatour.</p> + +<p>"Or at least, let's stretch our legs and get the air. I'll be turning +flip-flops if I don't get going."</p> + +<p>"The air, then," agreed d'Artois. "Look! It is but little past eight."</p> + +<p>So saying, d'Artois selected one of his collection of canes and led +the way down the stairs of the restored ruin which served as his town +house. The circular donjon dated back to the Thirteenth Century; the +remainder, though not so ancient, was old when Columbus set sail; and +the narrow street on which it faced was in accord with those far-off +days, crooked, dingy, and paved with cobblestones. Yet, being in the +heart of that colorful city which he loved so well, d'Artois was +content, and with the modernization of the interior, he contrived to be +comfortable.</p> + +<p>They strolled along the <i>quai</i> that follows the Nive to its junction +with the Adour, then turned to the left toward Place du Théâtre. Before +crossing the street that skirted the plaza, d'Artois paused a moment +at the curbing to give the right of way to the glittering, costly +Italian car which was approaching, presumably from the Biarritz road. +The chauffeur and footman were in livery; and the crest on the door +was one that d'Artois recognized as that of the Marquis des Islots. +Farrell, however, being ignorant of heraldry, had eyes only for the +passenger in the back seat: a dazzlingly beautiful girl whose costly +furs and sparkling jewels betokened a background as golden as her hair. +Her lovely features were drawn and weary, and her eyes haggard and +blue-ringed.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, Pierre!" he exclaimed as he clutched his friend by the arm. +"Did you see—for a moment I thought——"</p> + +<p>He blinked, passed his hand over his eyes, then sought to catch another +glimpse of the beauty in the back seat.</p> + +<p>"And what did you for a moment think?" wondered d'Artois, as the car +rolled majestically toward the Mayou bridge. His voice was grave, but +his blue eyes twinkled.</p> + +<p>"I thought it was Antoinette," said Farrell, still perplexed. "Or else +I'm seeing things!"</p> + +<p>"My friend," said d'Artois reprovingly, as they crossed the street, +"let Antoinette ever hear that you mistook La Dorada for her!" He shook +his head in solemn warning. "Blasphemy, you understand. <i>Lèse majesté.</i>"</p> + +<p>"But doesn't she——" began Farrell, his gray eyes still narrowed with +perplexity.</p> + +<p>"Truly! She does just that," admitted d'Artois. "Antoinette has often +been accosted at Biarritz and Santander by admirers of La Dorada. +But on second glance, their error becomes apparent, unless they are +strangers. A similarity of coloring, perhaps a likeness of posture or +mannerism that would deceive one only for a moment, if one knew either +woman well. Had you been able to look again—anyway, La Dorada is the +current playmate of <i>Monsieur</i> the Marquis des Islots. She was in his +car, and on her way to his château where she is spending the season. +Doubtless she is returning from a night of baccarat or roulette at +Biarritz."</p> + +<p>"Returning? At this hour?" wondered Farrell.</p> + +<p>D'Artois smiled and nodded.</p> + +<p>"You do not know La Dorada. She got the name in Madrid, where she was +discovered by a café proprietor and sponsored by a grandee of Spain. La +Dorada, the gilded, the golden."</p> + +<p>As they passed along the broad plaza, then to the left and up the slope +of rue Port Neuf, d'Artois held forth at length concerning the colorful +career of La Dorada who at first glance so strikingly resembled +Antoinette Delatour.</p> + +<p>At the head of rue Port Neuf they turned to the left, past the old +cathedral whose tall spires tower like silver lance-heads into the +morning light, and ascended the incline to the broad drive that follows +the parapet of the Lachepaillet wall.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Despite the barbarity of the hour, they found that Antoinette had +disposed of her morning chocolate and rolls. She wore a negligée of +jade chiffon whose curled ostrich trimming fluffed up about her ears +and caressed the copper-golden hair that enhanced her resemblance to La +Dorada. Her lips smiled, but her dark blue eyes were somber and haunted +as she greeted Farrell and d'Artois.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hélas!</i> It was worse than ever, last night," she replied, with a +despairing gesture, to Farrell's solicitous inquiry. "But be seated, +and I will tell you."</p> + +<p>She shifted her feet to make room for Farrell at the foot of the +chaise-longue on which she reclined; then, as d'Artois drew up a chair, +Antoinette continued, "It was terribly clear! Just fancy: my hair was +jet-black, and so were my eyes. And my skin was as dark as an Arab's! +They beat me most unmercifully ... as usual."</p> + +<p>She shuddered at the memory of the dream. D'Artois stared at the dainty +feet and their turquoise and silver mules. As Antoinette was about to +resume her remarks, he said abruptly, "In your dream, what have you +been wearing? On your ankles, I mean."</p> + +<p>Antoinette closed her eyes for a moment to visualize her dream.</p> + +<p>"Heavy golden anklets set with massive uncut stones," she replied. +"Emeralds, I think. But why?"</p> + +<p>"Were they <i>very</i> heavy?" persisted d'Artois.</p> + +<p>Farrell regarded him curiously, wondering how adornments could be +relevant to the case.</p> + +<p>"Terribly so!" assured Antoinette. Then, with a wan smile, "Only, I've +become used to them."</p> + +<p>"Look!" commanded d'Artois, indicating the girl's ankles.</p> + +<p>"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Farrell, and frowned perplexedly. Then +he glanced at his left hand and shifted the heavy signet on his finger. +"Her ankles are marked just as my finger is by this heavy slug of a +ring!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Voilà!</i> That further indicates an interchange of bodies during the +night!" declared d'Artois. "As a Syrian dancing-girl you are beaten, +and the welts appear on the body of Antoinette Delatour. And the heavy +anklets of the Syrian girl mark your daytime body just as they leave +prints on her.</p> + +<p>"Now what else do you remember, <i>ma petite</i>? Your impressions become +more distinct each time, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>? Your recollections——"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," she assented. "And last night—oh, I know I'm becoming +utterly mad!—the veiled Master was accompanied by a man who walked +through the garden with him."</p> + +<p>"And how," wondered d'Artois, "is that more peculiar than the rest of +the dream?"</p> + +<p>"The Master's companion," replied Antoinette, "is the Marquis des +Islots! <i>Mon Dieu</i>, is the whole city of Bayonne bound for this devil's +garden?"</p> + +<p>"What?" D'Artois started and glanced sharply at Antoinette, then at +Farrell. "<i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> has been added to her dream. Do you see +any connection?"</p> + +<p>"I don't," confessed Farrell. "After all this madhouse she's been +through, might it not be a fancied recognition? Pure imagination?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i>" exclaimed d'Artois. "Would she not sooner imagine that she +saw ibn Saoud, or Saladin? That would be more in keeping. <i>Diable!</i> +Her seeing <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> is so wide of any fancy that I am now +convinced that she is not dreaming."</p> + +<p>"Eh, what's that?" demanded Farrell, aghast at the wildness of +d'Artois' implication. "That it wasn't a dream? Good Lord, man——"</p> + +<p>The recurrent nightmare had driven Antoinette Delatour to the verge of +distraction, so that d'Artois' contention did not amaze her as much as +it did Farrell.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>," she sighed wearily, and took Farrell's hand. "It's all +become such a terrific confusion ... I don't know who I am. Oh, how my +poor back aches from that beating!"</p> + +<p>"Courage, my dear!" reassured d'Artois. "The enemy has slipped." Then, +to Farrell, "<i>Allons!</i> Let us get to work at once. I have several of +those hunches."</p> + +<p>"The quicker the better, Pierre," agreed Farrell. And as Antoinette's +slender arms released him, he followed d'Artois down the stairs to the +street.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="3_The_Hand_of_Hassan"><i>3. The Hand of Hassan</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>"Your task, my friend," began d'Artois as, back again at his house, +they sat down to plan their campaign against the phantom garden, "will +be to watch at the plaza. You will loaf, and drink an occasional +<i>apéritif</i>, and smoke your way into the day. You may see nothing; but +with time and patience your watch will have results. All of Bayonne +passes the plaza, sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"But what," wondered Farrell, "am I to look for?"</p> + +<p>"People who show signs of hasheesh intoxication, particularly Arabs or +other Orientals," answered d'Artois. "You know the symptoms. You have +seen enough <i>hasheeshin</i> in Egypt and Syria. I need not describe their +manner, or peculiar stare. We are in search of addicts who in addition +are fanatic Moslems. A slender clue at best, but while you pursue that, +something else may happen.</p> + +<p>"And I, in the meanwhile, will be doing some private snooping +of my own. This <i>Monsieur</i> the Marquis des Islots is due for an +investigation. That one has an open reputation for dabbling in obscure +arts, and not such a savory reputation either."</p> + +<p>"But," protested Farrell, "how do hasheesh addicts come into this?"</p> + +<p>"Listen, I will enlighten you," began d'Artois. "We mentioned the +Assassins, the followers of Hassan al Sabbah, the terrible Chief of +the Mountains, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>? Those Assassins were of the fanatic +Ismailian sect of Moslems. Those guests of the garden mentioned in +this book"—d'Artois indicated <i>Siret al Haken</i>, lying open on the +desk—"actually believed that their master had the power of admitting +them to paradise for brief visits, at the end of which they were +drugged, and dragged forth to awaken once more on earth, and ready for +any infamy that might be demanded as the price of returning to the +garden."</p> + +<p>"I have all that," admitted Farrell. "All right, then?"</p> + +<p>"The sect of the Ismailians," continued d'Artois, "was more than +religious. It was political. Its members did not content themselves +with theory. And if, as Antoinette's strange dreams indicate, we have a +nest of Ismailians—that is, <i>hasheeshin</i>—to contend with, sooner or +later one or more of them will be noted about town.</p> + +<p>"As for Antoinette, it is quite possible that she is, without being +aware of it, <i>clairvoyante</i>. And thus <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> will bear +investigation. Do you therefore stand watch as I directed, while I +pursue some private snooping. <i>À bientôt!</i>"</p> + +<p>Whereat d'Artois turned to his desk, leaving Farrell to go to the plaza +and seek a table under the striped awning of the café.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Farrell was none too optimistic, but upon his arrival at Café du +Théâtre he assumed an indolence that in any place but southern France +would have seemed a pose. But in Bayonne the enjoyment of placid +idleness is an ancient art: and thus it was eminently suitable for him +to sit and watch the smoke spiralling from the cigarette that smoldered +between his fingers.</p> + +<p>All of the Bayonnais, and all visitors, eventually pass the plaza: +Portuguese and Spanish and Italian sailors, Arabs from Algiers and +Morocco, Basques from the hills; English tourists on their way to the +arcades of rue Port Neuf, where they found the only <i>épiceries</i> in +Bayonne where they could buy Scotch whisky; peasants, loafers, soldiers +on leave; quietly dressed and unpainted girls who had left behind them, +in their rooms beyond the Nive, all the gauds and garniture of their +profession. Costly imported cars flashed by, to cross Pont Mayou and +Pont de Saint Esprit; ox-carts lumbered past, the drivers, arrayed in +dingy smocks, trudging along and reviling their placid beasts. Bayonne +marched by in review; and Farrell watched the parade.</p> + +<p>But despite his apparent idleness, Farrell's gray eyes were occupied +with more than wisps of smoke, and the tall glass of <i>anis del oso</i> +that sat on the marble-topped table before him. Without in the least +shifting his slightly bowed head, he was peering between his drooping +eye-lashes at the passers-by, and at the boulevardiers who like himself +sat sipping the meridional <i>apéritif</i>.</p> + +<p>He was particularly interested in the trio that sat two tables to +his right, where they could command a view of rue Port Neuf as well +as the street that led to the Mayou bridge. They were swarthy and +aquiline-featured. Two were Syrian Arabs; but the third, despite his +dark skin and foreign air, was no Semite, but an Aryan: a Kurd from +Kurdistan, one of those fierce mountaineers who in their native land +are the terror of Turk and Persian alike. Yet the trio had kinship in +at least one feature: the dilated pupils and the staring glassiness of +their eyes.</p> + +<p>As Farrell raised his glass and sniffed the odor of the cloudy drink, +he smelled trouble as well as <i>anis del oso</i>. D'Artois' somber hints +were having substantial realization. Farrell's first reaction was +to loosen the pistol in his shoulder holster. The peculiar stare of +their eyes convinced Farrell that he had picked up the trail of that +which d'Artois felt would lead to the source of the bedevilment of +Antoinette's nights.</p> + +<p>Farrell continued his apparent enjoyment of idleness. His broad +shoulders slumped. He languidly passed his fingers through his sandy +hair; but for all his efforts to maintain his poise, his long, lean +frame was tense, and chills raced up and down his spine, despite the +warmth of the day.</p> + +<p>He summoned the waiter and called for brandy.</p> + +<p>Then he noted that an exotic, imported car was coming to a smooth +halt at the curbing. A footman in livery opened the door and stood at +attention as a woman emerged from the rich upholstery and silver and +cut glass of the town car that bore the crest of the Marquis des Islots.</p> + +<p>Farrell recognized the woman as La Dorada. He wondered, as he saw her +step to the curbing, why a carpet had not been unrolled to keep her +feet from the contamination of the paving. The scarcely perceptible +breeze wafted a breath of perfume whose cost rumor had for once fallen +short of exaggerating.</p> + +<p>La Dorada was passing the table of the trio from Asia. The one facing +the Mayou bridge made a gesture. His lips moved. At that distance, +Farrell could not hear what he said. La Dorada apparently paid no +attention to the murmur. She was accustomed to whispered admiration.</p> + +<p>Farrell ignored the warning of his intuition: it was too unbelievable +and outrageous.</p> + +<p>Then it happened. The Kurd, who faced Farrell, leaped cat-like to his +feet. A knife flashed in his hand. La Dorada started at Farrell's +warning cry, and added her own note of dismay as she saw his hand with +an incredibly swift gesture seek his armpit.</p> + +<p>"Smack-smack-smack!" roared the heavy automatic.</p> + +<p>The Kurd pitched backward to the paving, groaning and clutching his +stomach.</p> + +<p>But even as Farrell drew and fired, the Syrian whose back had been +turned to Farrell leaped from his place. And the knife he held found +its mark, full in the breast of La Dorada.</p> + +<p>The pistol spoke, but too late. Even as the impact of the heavy slug +bowled the Syrian over in a heap, his blade sank home.</p> + +<p>La Dorada screamed, reeled, and collapsed, clutching the dagger whose +hilt projected beyond the blood-splashed fur collar of her coat.</p> + +<p>As he leaped forward, pistol in hand, Farrell knew that she would be +beyond assistance. A shot at the survivor of the trio was impossible, +and pursuit was futile. Waiters, patrons of the café, and passers-by +clustered about the dying beauty. In the confusion Farrell heard the +clash of gears and caught a glimpse of a car tearing madly down toward +the road leading to Maracq.</p> + +<p>La Dorada moaned, and shuddered.</p> + +<p>"Hassan——" she articulated with an effort. Then she coughed, and +gasped. A red foam flecked her red lips.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The arrival of a pair of gendarmes, and, a few minutes later, a passing +doctor, scattered the dense cluster of frantically gesticulating +citizens.</p> + +<p>"<i>Monsieur</i>," said one of the gendarmes, who had seen Farrell holster +his automatic, "be pleased to accompany us. Purely as a matter of form, +you understand. It is plainly evident that that one——"</p> + +<p>He indicated the second of the assassins that Farrell's pistol fire +had bowled over.</p> + +<p>Farrell shrugged. It would be awkward for a stranger in town to be +dragged into the formalities of a police investigation; and doubly +annoying in view of his having a serious problem of his own to handle.</p> + +<p>"Very well, <i>monsieur</i>," agreed Farrell with a wry grimace.</p> + +<p>Then he saw d'Artois emerge from the fringe of the crowd that still +persisted, at a distance of several paces. He whispered in the ear of +the gendarme—only a few words, but they sufficed.</p> + +<p>The gendarme turned from d'Artois to Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Your pardon, <i>monsieur</i>. You may call on us at your leisure. It was +routine, you comprehend."</p> + +<p>Farrell in his turn bowed, and followed d'Artois to his car, eager to +be clear of the plaza. And as they drove past the parkway that lies +between the road to Maracq and the wall of Lachepaillet, Farrell gave +his companion an account of the assassination.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sacré nom d'un nom!</i>" swore d'Artois at the conclusion of the +narrative. "That is the technique of the Fifth Order of the Ismailians. +They worked in threes, so that if the first and second were cut down, +the third would nevertheless slay the victim.</p> + +<p>"They hunted Saladin seven hundred years ago. They slew Nizam ul Mulk. +The Sultan of Cairo, Baibars the Panther, barely escaped them. They +terrorized the Near East until Tamerlane in his wrath took by assault +their almost impregnable castle of Alamut, tore it down stone by stone, +and put to the sword 12,000 Ismailians. But the order persisted, though +its power has been broken for these past five centuries, thanks to the +savage efficiency of Tamerlane.</p> + +<p>"And I am thoroughly convinced," continued d'Artois, "that you +witnessed a recrudescence of that plague which ate at the heart of +the Moslem world for several centuries. They seem to be branching +out again. Even as during the Crusades they assassinated Conrad of +Montferrat, so are they again carrying secret war against the infidel."</p> + +<p>"But why," demanded Farrell, "did they strike La Dorada in the public +square? They could have killed her stealthily. Even though they could +not foresee that I would shoot two of them down in their tracks, the +other spectators or the police might have killed or captured them."</p> + +<p>"You miss the point," declared d'Artois, "which is pardonable, since +even your extensive travels in the Orient would not of necessity bring +you into contact with the Ismailians. They killed her in public as an +example to instill terror in others. It is a matter of history that +Ismailian assassins were often ordered to slay a dignitary and to make +no attempt at escape. In one case the slayer struck, then sat down and +began eating his travel rations of bread and dates, calmly awaiting +the guard that would drag him to the executioner and impalement on a +sharpened stake. The besotted <i>hasheeshin</i> faced a horrible doom for +the sake of re-entrance to the paradise with which their master duped +them. The utter fearlessness and indifference to death and torture +aroused more terror than the assassinations they perpetrated.</p> + +<p>"So much for the <i>fedawi</i>, or Devoted Ones, Ismailians of the Fifth +Order. The first four orders were the Grand Master, the Grand Priors, +and simple priors, or initiates; and then a grade known as <i>rafiqs</i>, +or associates. These upper grades were intelligent persons who after +sufficient study in the free-thinking, heretical doctrines of the +Ismailians would be eligible for the highest offices in the Order.</p> + +<p>"The Ismailians became a state within a state; they undermined Persia +and Syria, and for several centuries exacted tribute from sultans +and emirs, with summary vengeance as the penalty of non-payment, +very much," concluded d'Artois, with a malicious grin, "like those +racketeers they have in your United States. That should make it clear!"</p> + +<p>"But how," wondered Farrell, "does Antoinette fit into all this?"</p> + +<p>"The companions and initiates of the Ismailians," replied d'Artois, +"were adepts in alchemy, magic, conjuring, and occult arts. They used +Islam as a mask for all manner of forbidden heresies and as bait to +attract the pious oafs and religious fanatics who did the actual +slaying and—how does one say it, <i>à l'Américain</i>?—and took the rap!</p> + +<p>"Maymun the Persian founded the order. A free-thinker, heretic, and +magician, he fled from the wrath of the Khalif Mansur, with his son +Abdallah, to whom he imparted all his vast knowledge of medicine, +conjuring, and occultism. And Abdallah built up on this start by +promising the return of the vanished Seventh Imam, who had never +died, but who was waiting for the day to return and rule all Islam. +They still wait for the return of Ismail, the Seventh Imam. And in +the meanwhile, behold the deviltry with which they amuse themselves, +bewitching Antoinette, slaying La Dorada—<i>le bon Dieu</i> can only say +what will come next."</p> + +<p>They drew up at d'Artois' house as he concluded his refreshing of +Farrell's memory on the origin of the menace that had taken root in +Bayonne.</p> + +<p>"How about my watching the plaza?" wondered Farrell as Raoul admitted +them.</p> + +<p>"You have watched enough," declared d'Artois. "In fact, you have made +yourself so painfully conspicuous that from now on I will have to +watch you more closely than Mademoiselle Antoinette, or you will be +found full of daggers yourself."</p> + +<p>"Nuts, Pierre!" protested Farrell. "I've been away from home before, +and I'm used to being hunted."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, be on your guard," cautioned the old man.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="4_Shirkuh_Makes_Magic"><i>4. Shirkuh Makes Magic</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>That evening, after dinner, d'Artois' man, Raoul, entered the study +with a large envelope that had just been delivered by a messenger.</p> + +<p>D'Artois glanced at the large waxen seal that secured the flap.</p> + +<p>"The crest of <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i>," he observed. Then, with a wink +and a grin at Farrell, he continued, "Like Satan in the first lines +of the Book of Job, I wandered up and down the world, and in it, +particularly at Biarritz, and somewhat about the estate of our good +Marquis. But need I assure you that if my presence was noted, it was +also amply accounted for? <i>Mais oui</i>, of a verity!"</p> + +<p>He slit the envelope and withdrew an engraved invitation.</p> + +<p>"Hmmm ... <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> requests the honor of my presence at a +<i>soirée</i> at his château. The Thaumaturgical Order of Thoth is meeting +in open conclave."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," interrupted Farrell. "There's something fishy about +this. La Dorada, his sweetheart, is murdered around noon. And now +he sends you an invitation to—what was it?—some kind of juggler's +convention. Anyway, it's utterly out of keeping. Not only inhumanly +callous, but damned poor form; no matter what his private morals may +be, a man of his station would have better manners!"</p> + +<p>"Granted," acquiesced d'Artois. "But consider: this thaumaturgical +society may be depending upon the meeting-place designated, and can +not postpone it for the sake of one man's grief. That there is such +an order has been for some time an open secret. Then, he himself may +be absent from the conclave, even though it assembled in his name. Or +again," continued d'Artois, "it is even possible that Monsieur the +Marquis does not know of La Dorada's death."</p> + +<p>"Absurd!" objected Farrell. "In a town this small——"</p> + +<p>"Wait!" interrupted d'Artois. "Remember Antoinette's dream: the Marquis +walked through the garden with the veiled Master. He may still be in +that garden, not to emerge until the hour of the <i>soirée</i>."</p> + +<p>"By the rod, that's possible," agreed Farrell. "Since La Dorada was +presumably killed by the Ismailians, the Marquis may be in their hands, +dead, or a prisoner."</p> + +<p>"Now, as to this invitation," continued d'Artois, "it may be a device +to exact vengeance for your excellent pistol practise. Their espionage +would inform them that you, my friend and guest, would surely accompany +me to the <i>soirée</i>.</p> + +<p>"But mark you this: they can scarcely know that your Antoinette could +tell you of seeing the Marquis in the garden. That, you comprehend, is +the information that ties the scattered ends together, and makes their +otherwise subtle trap seem obvious to us.</p> + +<p>"My friend, do we go and defy them, or shall we stay at home?"</p> + +<p>Farrell laughed.</p> + +<p>"Pierre, you're comical at times! We'll go, and be damned to them and +their trap. We can shoot our way out of any handful of knife-artists +they throw at us, what?"</p> + +<p>"Ha! Is it that you are informing me?" scoffed d'Artois with a fierce +gleam in his steel-blue eyes. "<i>Voilà</i>—have your choice of my +arsenal," he said, gesturing at his collection of pistols, ranging +from flintlocks and cap-and-ball antiques to heavy Colt revolvers and +automatics. "And perhaps, since we shall be outnumbered, we might slip +into those shirts of Persian chain-mail. They are not much heavier than +a sweater, and so exquisitely forged as to be proof against knives and +any but the heaviest pistols. <i>Parbleu</i>, we will attend that conclave!"</p> + +<p>After arraying themselves as d'Artois had suggested, they dressed for a +formal evening affair.</p> + +<p>"Thaumaturgy ... thaumaturgy ..." muttered Farrell as they stepped into +the Renault and d'Artois took the wheel. "Wonder, or miracle workers, +what?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely," agreed d'Artois. "Jugglery, sleight of hand, trickery, but +withal, an underlying substratum of fact that can not be dismissed. +I myself have seen unbelievable things done by the adepts of Tibet. +A corpse, <i>par exemple</i>, animated and made to dance by some devilish +magic. The fact of my having been admitted to their inner circles in +Tibet has in time leaked out; and it is to this that they would expect +us to attribute my receiving tonight's invitation."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The château of the Marquis was out in the hills beyond the Mousserole +Gate. It was perched on a knoll that commanded the surrounding country. +Several cars were parked in a level space near the entrance.</p> + +<p>"It seems," observed Farrell, "that there are other guests, although +that may or may not mean anything."</p> + +<p>D'Artois presented his invitation to the butler.</p> + +<p>"<i>Monsieur le Chevalier</i> Pierre d'Artois," he intoned in impressive +but oddly accented French. Then he glanced at Farrell.</p> + +<p>D'Artois interposed and instructed the butler, who then announced +Farrell.</p> + +<p>They advanced through the vestibule and thence into the salon, a +vast, high-ceiled chamber illuminated by a pulsing bluish glow. The +walls were hung with black arras embroidered in silver to depict with +unsavory realism the grotesque imagery of Asian mysteries. At the +far end of the salon was a dais flanked by tall tripod-censers whose +pungent, resinous fumes made the air thick.</p> + +<p>The assembled guests were in formal evening dress. There were Spaniards +with black mustaches, and Frenchmen with spade-shaped beards; and here +and there Farrell saw lean, hawk-faced Arabs, and several distinctly +Mongolian faces.</p> + +<p>"More guests than the number of cars would indicate," muttered Farrell, +nudging d'Artois. "This is all very flossy, but I smell trouble."</p> + +<p>"And no Marquis," added d'Artois with a quick glance about the salon. +Then he advanced to meet the man who seemed to be acting as host. After +the exchange of a few words, d'Artois presented Farrell.</p> + +<p>In the course of the conventional courtesies, Farrell appraised the +master of the show. He was lean as a beast of prey, and as sleek. +His moves and gestures had a cat-like grace, and his speech had the +indefinable blur of accent that marks one who speaks many languages +with equal ease.</p> + +<p>"And thus I have the honor," concluded the host, "of offering in the +name of <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> his regrets and the hospitality of his +house."</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment, regarding them with his intent, deep-set eyes; +then with a gesture toward a row of chairs arranged before the dais, +"Be pleased to seat yourselves, <i>messieurs</i>."</p> + +<p>Farrell watched the broad shoulders and tall figure pass among the +guests like a cat stalking through a jungle.</p> + +<p>"Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi," muttered Farrell. "Ought to be an +honest fighting-man, but——"</p> + +<p>"'But' is correct," interrupted d'Artois. "There is nothing honest +about that playmate of Satan. Mark my words, we shall see more of that +gentleman, if we live long enough."</p> + +<p>As they seated themselves there was a clang of bronze, and the faint, +muffled wailing of pipes and the whine of single-stringed <i>kemenjahs</i> +from an alcove behind the arras. As the guests took seats, an attendant +passed up and down the rows of chairs, offering small glasses of wine, +and triangular pastries iced in curious designs.</p> + +<p>"On your life, don't eat it!" muttered d'Artois as he palmed a +confection he had selected from the tray. "Drugged, there is no telling +what may happen to your good sense. This is all damnably familiar."</p> + +<p>Another peal of bronze; then, as Shirkuh sprang effortlessly to the +dais, the music dimmed to a sighing whisper, a sinister murmuring from +outer darkness.</p> + +<p>Six lean, brown men, nude save for loin-cloths that glowed like golden +flames in the spectral bluish light, emerged from an entrance concealed +by the silver-embroidered arras, and filed across the hall toward the +dais. Following them came four others, likewise arrayed, but blacker +than any negroes Farrell had ever seen. They bore a litter on which lay +a form whose gracious feminine curves were not entirely concealed by +the silken, metallically glistening shroud.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" muttered Farrell. "A woman!"</p> + +<p>The brown-skinned sextet ascended the dais. The blacks followed with +their burden. As they halted, two others emerged from the back-drapes +of the dais, bringing with them wrought bronze trestles on which the +litter was placed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Shirkuh took his post behind the litter as the sextet of adepts from +High Asia seated themselves cross-legged in front of it.</p> + +<p>"Fellow thaumaturges," he began, "I, the least of your servants, beg +leave to present a feat that has never been accomplished save in +far-off Lhasa."</p> + +<p>He paused, smiled, and stroked his mustache. Then he gestured toward +the shrouded form on the litter. An attendant gathered the silken folds +and drew them aside.</p> + +<p>Farrell barely suppressed a gasp of horrified amazement.</p> + +<p>The woman on the bier was La Dorada. Her copper-golden hair flamed +like living fire in the bluish-purple, pulsing light of the room. The +hands, folded across her breast, sparkled with jewels. She had no other +adornment or dress. La Dorada, the Golden, dead not over ten hours, +and stripped of all but her exquisite beauty, lay exposed to the gaze +of that assemblage of devil-mongers. For one terrible instant Farrell +had thought that Antoinette lay on that bier; then he remembered her +resemblance to the dead actress, and assured himself that Antoinette +was and must be in her apartment on rue Lachepaillet, awaiting another +night of fantastic dreams of an assassin's paradise, and the lashing of +an invisible scourge.</p> + +<p>"<i>Monsieur le Marquis</i>," continued Shirkuh with a smile that flashed +satanic mockery, "is unable to be with us. But I trust that that which +I offer will be worthy of your presence."</p> + +<p>"Lord!" muttered Farrell. "I don't know the Marquis, but exhibiting her +dead body here in his house—I've half a notion to start the show right +here!"</p> + +<p>D'Artois' fingers closed about Farrell's right wrist.</p> + +<p>"<i>Imbécile!</i> This infamy is none of your business. Tend to your own +sheep."</p> + +<p>Shirkuh nodded and made a gesture. The faint, whimpering music became +louder. Among the plucked strings of <i>sitar</i> and <i>oudh</i> Farrell could +distinguish the notes of a wind instrument that was a mockery of a +woman's voice. The drums muttered and purred in complex rhythm.</p> + +<p>The adepts were swaying from their hips, and making statuesque passes +and gestures that resembled an animation of the figures of Egyptian +sculpture. Their glassily staring eyes shifted in regular cadence to +follow their darting finger tips. They were as revivified corpses that +had not yet gained full control of their bodies.</p> + +<p>Then they lifted their voices in a chant like the wailing of ghouls +imprisoned in a looted tomb; dead brazen faces chanting to the dead. +And Shirkuh, arms extended, made antiphonal responses in a voice that +surged and thundered like a distant surf.</p> + +<p>The notes of that diabolical wind instrument behind the arras became +more and more like the voice of a woman: a mellow sweetness against a +background of sepulchral wailing and the solemn intonation of Shirkuh.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, Pierre, that's awful!" muttered Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Wait until it fairly starts," countered d'Artois in a whisper. "This +is primitive magic. Very primitive, but deadly. They are imitating that +which they design to accomplish.</p> + +<p>"<i>Pardieu</i>, hear that damnable pipe—<i>her</i> very voice, now. They +imitate in music and symbolize in their chant the triumph of the dead +as they return from Beyond."</p> + +<p>That satanically sweet voice was now almost articulate. Farrell +strained his ears as he leaned forward, clutching the arms of his +chair. He sought to distinguish the words that it spoke. And then +another instrument came into play: a hoarse, reverberant roaring like +the lustful bellowing of pre-Adamite monsters. The hall trembled with +that terrific bestial blast.</p> + +<p>The fumes of the censers were swirling and twining like fantasmal +serpents in the ghastly blueness, weaving arabesques, spiralling +in vortices, gathering about that hellish sextet and its leader +like shapes from beyond the border clamoring at the periphery of a +necromancer's pentacle.</p> + +<p>A luminous haze was gathering and drawing to itself the censer fumes. +The nebulous iridescence pulsed and quivered like a sentient thing. +It throbbed with the slow, persistent beat of a turtle's heart after +it has been removed from the body. It elongated; then as it slowly +settled, that amorphous luminescence took shape: the graceful form of +La Dorada.</p> + +<p>The pipe that mimicked a woman's voice was articulating now in unison, +joining the necromancer's antiphonal answer to the chanting adepts and +the minotaurean bellowing of that monstrous horn.</p> + +<p>The master had called her, and she was there.</p> + +<p>The phantom presence slowly merged with the nacreous body of La +Dorada. The dead woman shivered for a moment, extended her shapely +arms, sat erect on the bier. Her cry was a mingling of exultation and +bewilderment; then she accepted the hand that Shirkuh offered her, and +splendid in her unclad beauty, sprang gracefully to the dais.</p> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""> + <div class="caption"> + <p>"<i>The dead woman shivered for a moment, then sat erect on the bier.</i>"</p> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p>The music and the chanting and the bestial roaring of that terrific +horn had ceased. The assembled thaumaturges sat fixed and staring as +though their life and their spiritual essence had been torn from them +and given to the dead who saluted them with a gesture and a bow.</p> + +<p>Shirkuh smiled triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"You have seen, Brethren. I called her and she came. And I am but +Shirkuh, the least of the slaves. See, she is alive, with the warmth +and beauty that at noon of this very day was a coldness, and a sister +of the dust."</p> + +<p>The red-gold head inclined in affirmation, and her smile was a slow, +curved sorcery.</p> + +<p>"Good God, that's the awfulest blasphemy!" muttered Farrell. "Or is it +an illusion?"</p> + +<p>"It is all too real," whispered d'Artois.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>And then she spoke: "I have come back from the shadows and from the +blackness of death. I have come to greet you and to say that there is +a Garden to which I must soon return. And those who meet me there need +not ever think of farewell.</p> + +<p>"I came from across the narrow bridge, and back across it I must go. +Yet not this time to any blackness, but to the Garden, to be the Bride +and the reward and the welcome of those who believe. Oh, <i>Fedawi</i> ... +Devoted Ones...."</p> + +<p>La Dorada, lovely in death, and more alluring than ever in life: yet a +cold horror clutched Farrell as he heard that dead woman's caressing +voice entrance the thaumaturges with promises that no human woman +could fulfill or even imagine. Her voice was a poison sweetness, a +full-throated richness that pronounced the beguilements of Lilith +chanting to the Morning Star.</p> + +<p>"Death so loved me that he has allowed me to leave," she said in that +wondrous voice that had made her the darling of Paris. And then her +exultant tones became a poignant sorrow as she continued, "But the +beloved of death must return...."</p> + +<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i> That is a foulness beyond mention!" growled d'Artois. Then:</p> + +<p>"Let's go! Before we go utterly mad——"</p> + +<p>He leaped to his feet and thrust back his chair. And as Farrell +followed, he expected at any instant a fanatical outburst, the flash +of blades, the crackle of pistols. But the thaumaturges sat like the +ancient dead awaiting the newly died.</p> + +<p>La Dorada was ascending the bier. Her motions were graceful, but very +slow, as though the animation was being drained from her body. She was +dying a second time.</p> + +<p>This as they paused at the threshold for a backward glance; then, +advancing, Farrell and d'Artois sighed deeply, and strode to the +Renault. The hideous life-like unreality had dazed them.</p> + +<p>"<i>Dieu de Dieu!</i>" muttered d'Artois as he glanced at Farrell's lean, +drawn features, and shoulders drooping as though from the weight of the +Persian mail they had so needlessly worn. "What did that blasphemous +monster want with us? Did he hope to drive us to madness?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Farrell wearily. "He was mocking us. Certainly he didn't +withhold his cutthroats because he was afraid to try."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The long beam of the headlights swept the château, then picked up the +winding road as the car headed back toward the city. D'Artois sat +hunched behind the wheel. Farrell shivered at the memory of that +ghastly loveliness that had greeted them from the grave.</p> + +<p>"I know she was dead," reiterated Farrell. "She couldn't have been +alive. Not with that dagger I saw jammed into her breast this +afternoon. But why did he invite you? What everlastingly damned +mummery—there's something behind all this—she's going to greet them +in the Garden and there will be no farewell—was that all illusion, +or——"</p> + +<p>Farrell slumped back against the cushions and made a gesture of +bewilderment and futility.</p> + +<p>They left the river road, passed through the Mousserole Gate, and +threaded their way through the unsavory quarters between there and the +Nive. As they crossed the first of the seven bridges that span the +river, d'Artois suddenly jerked back from his crouch behind the wheel.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nom de Dieu!</i>" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Farrell, aroused by the note of alarm, glanced at his companion and saw +that the horror on his face was in keeping with the consternation in +his voice.</p> + +<p>The car leaped forward as d'Artois stepped on the accelerator.</p> + +<p>"Death and damnation!" he shouted above the full-throated roar of the +motor. "We sat there like dummies. <i>That</i> is what he wanted!"</p> + +<p>"What?" demanded Farrell, tense, and alarmed by d'Artois' contagious +excitement. A sudden fear seized him.</p> + +<p>"A trap. Not for your worthless head nor mine, but for her! +Thaumaturgy! If there is but one greater damn fool than Glenn Farrell, +it is Pierre d'Artois!"</p> + +<p>They passed the plaza, and with a screech of brakes slowed down enough +to make the turn at rue Port Neuf. Then up rue d'Espagne, around the +hairpin turn, and thence down the street along the city wall. Again the +brake linings smoked their wrath and squealed their protest. Fuming +and cursing in a high rage, d'Artois leaped to the curbing, dashed up +the steps, and pounded Antoinette Delatour's door with the butt of his +pistol.</p> + +<p>"<i>Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?</i>" cried the terrified, bewildered maid.</p> + +<p>"Flames and damnation! Open, quick!" demanded d'Artois. "<i>C'est moi!</i>"</p> + +<p>"But she is sleeping," protested the maid, still half asleep.</p> + +<p>"Hasten, then. If she sleeps, wake her—is she indeed——"</p> + +<p>And as the door yielded, d'Artois, pistol in hand, charged up the +stairs, taking them three at a time. Farrell was but a jump behind him.</p> + +<p>They pounded on Antoinette's door. No response.</p> + +<p>"The key——" began d'Artois.</p> + +<p>But Farrell stepped back, gathered himself, and charged the door. It +resisted the shock; but a second assault burst it open, tearing the +lock from its socket.</p> + +<p>The floor of Antoinette's room was covered with fallen plaster. Her bed +was empty. A hole two feet square yawned in the ceiling. The turquoise +and silver slippers mocked them.</p> + +<p>"Gone!" muttered Farrell.</p> + +<p>"While we sat there ready for an ambush that didn't materialize," added +d'Artois.</p> + +<p>Farrell turned to the door. D'Artois seized him by the arm.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tenez!</i> If you are going to tear the château to pieces," he said, +"spare yourself the trouble. They have taken her elsewhere. No effort +was made to detain us when we left because none was necessary. And they +will not be at the château, not any of them."</p> + +<p>Farrell's eyes were cold as sword-points as they flashed back again to +the empty, canopied bed. Then the slaying rage left him.</p> + +<p>"Right, Pierre," he admitted. "It's your move. With some head-work."</p> + +<p>"Head-work, indeed!" retorted d'Artois with a bitter, mordant laugh. +"It was my head-work that led to this. We should have watched her."</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="5_Ibrahim_Khan"><i>5. Ibrahim Khan</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>"Now, where do we start?" demanded Farrell the following morning, as +he tasted the strong coffee that was to banish the remains of the +nightmarish sleep from which sunrise had awakened them. "You've got the +<i>Sûreté</i>—that's what you call your detective bureau, isn't it?—on +the trail. But there's a lot of this that no honest policeman could +swallow."</p> + +<p>"It is indeed a madhouse," admitted d'Artois. "But let us sum up for +a moment: Antoinette is evidently <i>en rapport</i> with some one in that +Garden; some one with whom she identifies herself, and whose savage +beatings in some way leave marks on Antoinette's body.</p> + +<p>"By means of clairvoyance or other unusual perception, she recognized +the Marquis in her dream garden, her description of which tallies +closely with the traditional paradise devised by the higher Ismailians +for the deluding of their fanatical assassins.</p> + +<p>"Assassins operating very much like the <i>fedawi</i> of five centuries ago +murdered La Dorada, the sweetheart of the Marquis. La Dorada bears a +marked resemblance to Antoinette, though far from enough to make her a +double, except under the most favorable conditions.</p> + +<p>"The terribly resurrected La Dorada last night spoke of a Garden. And +the dying La Dorada pronounced the name Hassan just before she expired +in the plaza. Through the whole chain of horror and deviltry, we see a +continuous linkage of the Ismailians and the <i>hasheeshin</i> of accursed +memory.</p> + +<p>"Antoinette," continued d'Artois, "must in some way be involved in a +mesh of necromancy and murder that hinges on her resemblance to La +Dorada. It is not impossible that she was kidnapped to double for La +Dorada in that accursed Garden.</p> + +<p>"And finally," concluded d'Artois, "this society of thaumaturges, which +has made such overgrown fools of us, is obviously allied to or even +an integral part of the society of Ismailians and its higher orders, +adepts, occultists, necromancers, and devil-mongers of all degrees."</p> + +<p>"Now that you've summed it up, what are we going to do?" reiterated +Farrell.</p> + +<p>"You will take the trail at once," replied d'Artois.</p> + +<p>Farrell brightened perceptibly at the hint of direct action.</p> + +<p>"Shoot," he said bruskly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais non</i>," countered d'Artois, "it is you who will shoot if my plan +is right. You are deft at disguise, and you speak several Oriental +languages like a native."</p> + +<p>D'Artois paused, intently studied the lean, bronzed features of his +friend, and his cold gray eyes.</p> + +<p>"An Arab," he muttered. "Possible, but not so good. A Kurd ... yes, +that would be better."</p> + +<p>"Wrong!" contradicted Farrell. "There were some Kurds at the château +last night, notably that hell-hound of a Shirkuh. And the first of the +assassins I shot down in the plaza was a Kurd. Too many of them in the +picture. I might be tripped on their dialect."</p> + +<p>"An Afghan, then," compromised d'Artois. "They are Aryans, and our +blood brothers, those Afghans. You will loiter around the waterfront. I +will warn the <i>Sûreté</i> to arrest you at times, but to release you for +lack of evidence; so be careful not to be too brazen in building up a +local background of feuds and slayings to substantiate your supposed +reason for having left your native hills.</p> + +<p>"It is a slim chance; but it is possible that you will stumble across +some Ismailian who will favorably mark your possibilities. In the +meanwhile, I will keep in touch with you as much as possible.</p> + +<p>"But remember, one false move will betray your mission. And the first +warning you will receive will be a dagger jammed very deeply into your +back. You are flirting with sudden death the moment you leave this +house."</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>That afternoon Farrell lurched from a doorway that the most vivid +imagination could not have associated with the house of Pierre +d'Artois. The shape of his eyebrows had been changed by judicious +plucking. His hair had been dyed, and the cut of his mustaches altered. +Tenacious, finely powdered pigments had been rubbed into his eyelids +and about his eyes so as to change their expression: all trifles, +yet the total effect, aided by the drunken swagger, the gestures, +the reek of <i>'araki</i> and foreign tobacco, was that Glenn Farrell had +disappeared, and that a hard, haggard, quarrelsome Afghan sobering +up from a spree strode muttering down rue Saint Augustin, and thence +toward the <i>quai</i> along the Adour.</p> + +<p>He found fishing-vessels, tramps from Algiers, and a <i>zaroug</i> that had +sailed all the way from the Red Sea with its crew of stout Danakils. +Husayn, its <i>nakhoda</i>, was a lean, grizzled Arab whose manner suggested +pearl-poaching, smuggling, or slave-running from the Somali Coast to +Arabia, with piracy thrown in for good measure.... Husayn spoke of his +health, which forbade further traffic on the Red Sea....</p> + +<p>There was a Levantin, oily and cringing, who peddled narcotics....</p> + +<p>There were brawls along the waterfront. No true Afghan would or could +abstain. A fight was a fight.</p> + +<p>Very soon the waterfront boasted a new character, a quarrelsome Afghan, +drunken, bawdy, stranded, swearing loudly by the honor of the Durani +clan, and ready for any skulduggery. Ibrahim Khan, they called him.</p> + +<p>Once in a while some whining cadger of drinks would mutter as Ibrahim +Khan reviled him and tossed him a franc. That was a member of the +<i>Sûreté</i> giving, and receiving, the lack of news that is falsely said +to be good news. Sometimes it was warning, but never encouragement.</p> + +<p>The quarter of the city that lies between the Nive and the Mousserole +Wall is so disreputable that during the war it was out of bounds for +soldiers. It is a district of narrow, dingy streets, dirty cafés, +bawdy-houses of the lowest order; it abounds in cheap wine, cheaper +women, and all the scum and riffraff of a polyglot border-and-seaport +town.</p> + +<p>While the upper stratum of the enemy was doubtless of high degree, the +foundation layer would be in the mire. The underworld of France would +furnish its quota for the lower order of assassins. The master mind +needed dirty tools for dirty work; and here, among the thieves, pimps, +cutthroats of beyond the river, the trail might be picked up.</p> + +<p>Ibrahim Khan sat in one of the dingiest of those unsavory resorts, +muttering in Pushtu and Arabic and broken French, alternately gross +and poetic as he courted the attention of Marcelle, the barmaid whose +coarse, buxom loveliness drew trade for all departments of the house.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">"Tie your husband to a rope, Bimbar,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tie the rope to a tree;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Throw the tree in the river, Bimbar,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And come to your lover."</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>Thus he chanted in amorous, wine-muddled accents, the whole stanza +in one breath, and, in the Afghan fashion, ending in a high-pitched, +gasping cry, a full octave higher.</p> + +<p>The girl did not understand the words; but there was one sitting in the +corner who did.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my brother," he murmured, and spat contemptuously, "are such as +that sister of pigs fit for the pride of the Durani clan?"</p> + +<p>Ibrahim Khan's hand flashed to the hilt of one of the knives that +bristled in his belt. But before he could draw, the thin-faced man +smiled.</p> + +<p>"Put that knife away, brother," he said. "I have news for you."</p> + +<p>"Well?" interrogated Ibrahim Khan a little less belligerently. "Out +with it."</p> + +<p>"Softly, softly," murmured the stranger. Ibrahim Khan had never seen +him along the waterfront, or in the Mousserole quarter. "I am Nureddin. +I have been interested in your handiness in certain matters ... and +Husayn, the <i>nakhoda</i>, speaks well of you——"</p> + +<p>"He should, Allah blacken him!" admitted Ibrahim Khan, who under his +layer of grime was Glenn Farrell, trembling with eagerness to follow +up what he sensed was the first open move to take the bait he had so +patiently and thus far vainly offered the enemy.</p> + +<p>"There are women," continued Nureddin, "lovelier than the brides of +paradise."</p> + +<p>Farrell laughed contemptuously, and made an insulting remark that left +little doubt as to his opinion of Nureddin's profession: but that was +to play his part as a truculent Afghan.</p> + +<p>"Nay, by Allah!" protested Nureddin with a good-humored laugh. "It is +not what you think. Follow me, if you have courage."</p> + +<p>Farrell scrutinized Nureddin for an instant. Whatever game Nureddin +might be playing, it would certainly not be for small counters. Then +Farrell, still feigning skepticism, drew from the pocket of his grimy, +ill-fitting suit a small pouch, hefted it so that the gold it contained +clinked softly. He tossed the money to Marcelle.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ya</i> Nureddin, I will fight as eagerly for my naked hide as for a +pouch of gold. Now if you still want me to meet your friends, I will +entertain them royally, <i>inshallah</i>!"</p> + +<p>Nureddin smiled and stroked his chin.</p> + +<p>"By Allah, O Afghan, you are suspicious. Follow me."</p> + +<p>"Lead on," agreed Farrell.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>He followed Nureddin to the street and thence to an alley so narrow +that with his outstretched arms he could at the same time touch the +buildings on both sides: and the narrowness was exceeded only by the +stench. Nureddin halted at the end of the alley. A heavy, iron-bound +door barred further progress.</p> + +<p>"From here you must go blindfolded," said Nureddin.</p> + +<p>"By your beard!" mocked Farrell as his hand flashed into view with a +pistol whose cavernous muzzle gaped ominously. "Perhaps you would like +to bind my hands also? Now, forward! Or I will blow thy teeth right and +left ... if it so please Allah," he concluded piously.</p> + +<p>"Fire!" retorted Nureddin. "The Master would give me a less pleasant +death for disobeying his orders."</p> + +<p>In the moonlight Farrell could see the perspiration that glittered on +Nureddin's forehead; but he did not flinch.</p> + +<p>"<i>La, billahi!</i>" ejaculated Farrell after a moment. "Were there a blood +feud between us, I would. But as it is——" He shrugged, holstered his +pistol, and turned, to stalk down the narrow alley.</p> + +<p>Farrell was certain, now, that he was on the right trail. But since +spies are notoriously eager to agree to anything and everything to gain +admittance to forbidden doors, Farrell had to play the blustering, +alternately suspicious and fool-hardy Afghan. He swaggered away in his +lordly fashion, presenting his back as a fair target for hurled knife, +or pistol fire.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ya</i> Ibrahim!" protested Nureddin. "Be reasonable. <i>He</i> ordered. It is +on my head——"</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i>, whoever he is," retorted Farrell, "may then seek me himself and +I will induce him to change his rules. <i>Wallah!</i> And your head, that is +no more than a ball to play with!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, have it your own way," agreed Nureddin resignedly as Farrell +again turned. Then he clapped his hands sharply.</p> + +<p>Farrell sensed his danger; but before he could whirl and draw, +something soft and clinging enveloped him. It was a net whose fine, +stout silken cords bound his limbs and entangled him.</p> + +<p>"God, by the Very God, by the One True God!" he swore, struggling +with the soft, relentless thing that enmeshed him like a monstrous +spider-web, and seeking to draw a knife. "Pig and father of pigs!"</p> + +<p>Something emerged from the shadow of the pilaster that buttressed the +wall. Farrell dropped flat, still striving to extricate himself and +tackle his enemy. He secured a footing and leaped up, butting his +shoulder with a terrific jolt into his enemy's stomach.</p> + +<p>A grunt and a gasped curse. A warning cry from Nureddin. The knife in +Farrell's hand slashed a dozen meshes in the net. Then, before he could +follow up and extricate himself, a form dropped from a window directly +above, driving him flat against the paving. His knife dug vainly +between the cobblestones. He recovered, thrust upward....</p> + +<p>Smack! Something hard and heavy and swiftly moving swept his senses +away as he felt his blade bite home.</p> + + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/cover2.jpg" alt=""> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="6_Satans_Garden"><i>6. Satan's Garden</i></h2> +</div> + +<p>The slow, steady drip-drip-drip of water dropping against stones crept +into Farrell's consciousness and finally became an impression distinct +from the trip-hammer throbbing of his battered head. He stirred, and +found that he was not bound. The holster under his left arm was empty. +One of his knives, however, remained.</p> + +<p>"If they wanted my hide, they could have taken it in the alley," he +reflected as he pieced together his recollections of the encounter. "So +far, it looks as if I've got 'em fooled."</p> + +<p>Then, in Arabic, "<i>Aie</i> ... my head! O dogs and sons of dogs, come out +and fight! <i>Ya</i> Nureddin, thou son of a strumpet, thou uncle of camels! +Thou eater of unclean food!"</p> + +<p>The cell echoed with his bellowing. As he paused for breath, he reeled, +clutched at the wall from whose base he had arisen, and supported +himself. A torch flared smokily in the distance, from its sconce in the +wall of the passage that opened into his cell.</p> + +<p>"Father of many pigs!" he stormed as he kicked the iron grillework that +barred his advance, and rattled the chain and lock that secured the +door.</p> + +<p>The clattering and jangling finally drew a protest from beyond +Farrell's field of vision. Then a fat, white-bearded fellow with bleary +eyes and a bloated, sottish face emerged from a cross passage.</p> + +<p>"Silence a moment!" he croaked as he took the torch from its sconce and +advanced toward the grille.</p> + +<p>"Bring me that dog of a Nureddin!" raged Farrell.</p> + +<p>"One thing at a time," replied the warden. "Calm down and I'll promise +you action."</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well, then," agreed Farrell. "Lead on, Uncle."</p> + +<p>Uncle drew a pistol and, keeping Farrell covered, unlocked the door.</p> + +<p>"Now, wild man, forward!" he ordered. "And no false moves."</p> + +<p>The slimy, glistening sides of the passage indicated that they were far +beneath the surface of the city; perhaps in that labyrinth of vaults +and connecting tunnels of which local tradition has murmured darkly and +vaguely. Although his head ached from contact with material weapons +wielded by physical enemies, Farrell shuddered at the evil that brooded +about that archaic masonry and muttered of that which had emerged to +defile the dead with obscene necromancies, and torment the living with +monstrous hallucinations that came in the guise of dreams. The aura of +age-old menace overpowered the terror of the Ismailian assassins.</p> + +<p>"To your left," commanded the warden.</p> + +<p>As Farrell rounded the turn, he saw ahead of him a glow of light and +smelled the heavy, lingering fumes of incense. An Arab, and a bearded +man whose race he could not determine, stood watch at the farther +archway. Their hands rested on their belts, ready to draw knife or +pistol. Their eyes stared fixedly from immobile features. They were +drugged, or entranced: and Farrell shivered at the necessity of +convincing himself that they were not dead.</p> + +<p>"Pass on," commanded the warden as Farrell hesitated at the threshold. +"The Master, our lord Hassan, will receive you."</p> + +<p>The lord Hassan—the one whose name the dying La Dorada had with her +last breath pronounced. She had known who had ordered her death.</p> + +<p>A thrill of exultation was mingled with the flash of dread that +assailed Farrell as he stepped into the reception hall of Hassan, that +slayer of women and master of necromancers.</p> + +<p>The room was long and narrow, and sweltering in a red glow of light. A +Persian carpet ran down the center toward the divan in an arched alcove +at the farther end. A man wearing a silken kaftan sat cross-legged +among heaped cushions. His face was veiled, but his fierce eyes, +smoldering in their deep sockets, were more menacing for being all that +was visible.</p> + +<p>Farrell halted midway between the alcove and the entrance. From the +corner of his eye he saw a row of men, dressed in European clothes, +sitting cross-legged along the wall on either side of him. Their arms +were crossed on their breasts, and their eyes stared as glassily as +those of the guards at the entrance. They were drugged, or deep in a +hypnotic trance.</p> + +<p>Farrell offered the peace.</p> + +<p>"No peace and no protection, ya Ibrahim," responded Hassan, "until we +have made a test of you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Tawil ul 'Umr</i>," demanded Farrell with a touch of respect such as +even a blustering Afghan would concede an old man; "Prolonged of Life, +how am I to be tested?"</p> + +<p>The old man reflected for a moment. His glittering eyes narrowed to +slits.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, can you obey as well as slay?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know, Prolonged of Life?" proposed Farrell. "By your +beard, I have never tried obedience. I am of the Durani clan."</p> + +<p>"You will learn," said Hassan. "I will set you an example." He glanced +to his left and clapped his hands. "Asad!" he called sharply.</p> + +<p>One of the staring figures rose from his place along the wall. He moved +as one receiving will and animation from some external source.</p> + +<p>"Harkening and obedience, <i>ya sidi</i>!" he acknowledged as he halted +before the dais.</p> + +<p>"Your canjiar," murmured Hassan.</p> + +<p>The curved blade flashed from its sheath.</p> + +<p>"That knife is your gate to Paradise, <i>ya</i> Asad," said Hassan in his +gentle, purring voice. Yet beneath its suggestion Farrell sensed a +relentless command.</p> + +<p>Asad inclined his head as he touched his fingertips to his forehead, +his lips, and his breast. A pause—the blade flashed again as Asad +thrust it full into his own chest. He stood for a moment fingering the +hilt; then he tottered and sank to the tiles, to relax and lie sprawled +face down in the dark pool that slowly spread across the paving.</p> + +<p>Farrell knew that beneath his grimy skin his cheeks were bloodless. It +was horrible to see even a <i>hasheeshin</i> spill his life carelessly as +a glass of wine to humor that old man who peered over the edge of his +veil.</p> + +<p>"There, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim, is obedience."</p> + +<p>Farrell collected his courage and demanded boldly, "And why should any +man yield such obedience?"</p> + +<p>"Because," came the reply, "I am the keeper of the gateway. He is even +now in Paradise, and exempt from any recall."</p> + +<p>Farrell grimaced.</p> + +<p>"No more than any true believer gains for slaying an infidel," he +retorted.</p> + +<p>"You will enter the Garden, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim," murmured Hassan, "and see +for yourself. Then you may accept or reject."</p> + +<p>To the Garden! There, unless all d'Artois' deductions were wrong, he +would find Antoinette. But Farrell restrained his eagerness, and +pondered a moment, as became the rôle he played.</p> + +<p>"I am ready, Prolonged of Life," he finally replied, as he advanced a +pace.</p> + +<p>"Softly, softly," said Hassan. "Are you armed?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ay, wallah!</i>" replied Farrell, drawing his remaining knife.</p> + +<p>Hassan again clapped his hands.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ya</i> Suleiman! Yusuf!"</p> + +<p>Two rose from the ranks and approached.</p> + +<p>"Harkening and obedience, my lord," they said as they bowed.</p> + +<p>"This one claims to be a man of valor, O Devoted Ones!" said Hassan. +"Draw!"</p> + +<p>Their blades were drawn as one. The slayers stood like panthers poised +and ready to close in on their prey. Their eyes glowed in the red +glare like beasts lurking in the shadows beyond a fire. Slaves to the +mesmeric power of Hassan, and to the hypnotic hasheesh, they were men +in form only.</p> + +<p>Hassan glanced at Farrell.</p> + +<p>"You may decline without penalty or dishonor," said the old man. "You +are free, and owe us no obedience."</p> + +<p>"They are your men, <i>ya sidi</i>," replied Farrell with a shrug. "If you +can spare them."</p> + +<p>The old man chuckled, and his eyes for a moment smiled.</p> + +<p>"Strike!" he commanded.</p> + +<p>They paused for an instant before closing in. One of them, Farrell was +certain, would go down before his first thrust, but the other would +slay him. Farrell's success depended upon finesse. He shifted his feet +as if to test the footing. He glanced over his shoulder as if to assure +himself that he had room to retreat. All in a flash: and then they +sprang, blades thirsty and a-glitter.</p> + +<p>Farrell's leap took him to the left instead of to the rear. He dropped +his knife and snatched the wrist of the nearest enemy, who, missing +his quarry, plunged forward abreast of his comrade.</p> + +<p>His own momentum was his ruin. There was the snap of a breaking bone, +and Yusuf pitched in a heap before the dais. And Farrell, picking his +knife from the tiles, confronted Suleiman, who despite his fanatic +frenzy was profiting by Yusuf's mishap.</p> + +<p>They circled, feinting and thrusting, seeking to shake each other's +guard. Suleiman avoided Farrell's efforts to close in to make it a test +of strength. Nor would rushing in to exchange thrusts suffice: for +if they slew each other, the Master would still not have the test he +ordered. They wove in and out, shifting and side-stepping, each seeking +an opening in the other's defense.</p> + +<p>Then Farrell made a desperate feint at his enemy's throat. As +Suleiman's blade rose to parry, Farrell evaded, and stretched out in +a full lunge, point forward and arm extended as with a rapier. The +unexpected play caught Suleiman off guard. His downward thrust came +an instant too late: Farrell's knife sank to the hilt in the enemy's +stomach, ripping upward.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Farrell, bleeding from the cut on his shoulder, emerged from the +engagement empty-handed as Suleiman collapsed.</p> + +<p>"Well done, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim!" approved Hassan. Then he smote a gong beside +the dais.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ya</i> Musa! Abbas! Khalil!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>A panel opened at right of the dais, and three tall negroes entered. +They made no expressions of obedience; only the inarticulate gurglings +of those whose tongues have been removed.</p> + +<p>Hassan indicated the two dead, and the one whose arm was snapped.</p> + +<p>"To the black pool with them. All three!" Then, as two stepped forward +to execute the command, Hassan spoke to the third: "Take our new +aspirant, Ibrahim, to the Garden."</p> + +<p>Musa bowed, and at the Master's gesture of dismissal, led Farrell +into a dimly lighted room which was arranged after the fashion of a +<i>majlis</i>, or reception hall of an Arabian house.</p> + +<p>A narrow divan extended the full length of the wall. At the end +farthest from the entrance were the customary coffee hearth and +polished brass pots. And save for those, and the cushions and rugs with +which the divan was covered, there were no furnishings.</p> + +<p>Farrell noted that he was not alone. Those who lay sprawled on the +divan were, apparently, likewise to visit the Garden.</p> + +<p>"Dead-drunk ... drugged ... or spies to watch me," reflected Farrell.</p> + +<p>Musa, who after indicating that Farrell was to seat himself, had left, +presently returned with a tray on which was a goblet and flagon. These +he set on a small tabouret, bowed, and left Farrell to refresh himself.</p> + +<p>The proof of hand-to-hand fighting had been severe enough; but the +flagon of wine, fragrant but reeking of hasheesh, represented a more +subtle and dangerous test. If under the influence of the drug Farrell +made one remark or gesture that would betray his imposture, the +awakening would be death, either swift, or else by torture administered +to find out how much the outside world knew of the Ismailians. +Nevertheless, Farrell dared not abstain from the drugged wine. He knew +not what eyes might be regarding him through loopholes in the wall.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bismillahi!</i>" he ejaculated, and seized the flagon, draining it +at a draft. He hoped that despite the insidious drug, his years of +wandering in the forbidden places of Asia had impressed upon him enough +of his assumed character to insure him against a fatal slip.</p> + +<p>Farrell wondered at the suicide ordered by Hassan. The value of Ibrahim +Khan as a <i>fedawi</i> could scarcely balance the self-slain and the two +killed in action. He reconciled this point, however, when he considered +the probability of the slain being offenders against the discipline of +the order....</p> + +<p>The intoxication of hasheesh was gripping him. Then an artifice +occurred to Farrell. He might still save the day and avoid complete +intoxication.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ya</i> Musa! <i>Shewayya' khamr!</i>" he bawled drunkenly. "More wine!"</p> + +<p>The slave came hurrying with a full flagon. Farrell's chance was to +drink so much of the drugged liquor that his stomach would rebel, and +expel it; and such sottishness would be quite in character. He seized +the flagon with unfeigned eagerness.</p> + +<p>But the saving thought had come too late.</p> + +<p>His heart-beat became terrifyingly slow. His arm seemed so long that +the weight of the flagon, already the size of a cask, and momentarily +becoming larger, would exert a leverage that would upset him. The room +was expanding to allow for the abnormal length of the arm that sought +to raise the wine to his lips.</p> + +<p>Farrell became aware of a duality of identity. Half of him was +struggling fiercely to assert itself and overcome the confusion of his +senses; the other half was yielding to a languorous drowsiness, and a +soporific humming which pervaded the room.</p> + +<p>There came finally a rustling of wings, and a piping, haunting music +that sighed amorously. All sense of time had ceased. Farrell did not +know whether he was being carried through an archway into a vast domed +vault, or whether he had floated in on clouds of overwhelming sweetness.</p> + +<p>A fountain was bubbling, and splashing him with its spray. He stared +up at the ceiling. Its luminous blue was dusted with stars that were +arranged in unfamiliar constellations.</p> + +<p>Drums muttered somewhere in the shifting, warm fragrance. He heard the +silvery clink-clinking of anklets. He rolled over on his side, and as +he glanced along the rose-hued tiles, he saw dainty feet with hennaed +nails stepping in cadence to the whining notes of a <i>kemenjah</i>, and the +moan of pipes.</p> + +<p>As he made an effort to sit erect, a warm, soft arm supported his +head, and slender, golden-brown hands offered him a bowl of cold, +aromatic liquid. He drank it, and found that his reeling senses became +more stable. The girl who smiled at him had great dark eyes with +kohl-blackened lids.</p> + +<p>Another heaped cushions behind him.</p> + +<p>Paradise indeed; <i>al jannat</i>, temporarily offered as the reward of +whatever infamy the lord Hassan demanded, and promised for all eternity +to the fanatic <i>fedawi</i> who died executing his commands.</p> + +<p>There were other guests scattered about the jasmine and rose clustered +garden, and the brides of <i>al jannat</i> were reviving them with flagons, +cold drinks, and warm caresses.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Farrell made an effort to fight the illusion of distorted time and +distance, and the sensuous allure of the music and hasheesh. He rose, +and ignoring his amorous companions, set about exploring the garden. +Strange birds flitted about among the orange and pomegranate trees and +mocked him with their almost articulate cries. A parrot mimicked in a +loud voice the endearments that a Malay girl murmured in the ear of one +of the Devoted Ones.</p> + +<p>"Where is the Golden One?" he heard a swarthy Kurd demand as he thrust +aside his slant-eyed Eurasian companion.</p> + +<p>The last of Farrell's intoxication left him. The Golden One—Antoinette!</p> + +<p>The girl laughed.</p> + +<p>"She'll scratch your eyes out! Let her alone!"</p> + +<p>"But the Master, our Lord Hassan, promised she'd greet us in Paradise," +protested the Kurd.</p> + +<p>Farrell knew now beyond any doubt that Antoinette had been kidnapped +to double in this satanic garden for the murdered La Dorada, to prove +to the <i>hasheeshin</i> that the Lord Hassan indeed held the keys to the +garden of resurrection.</p> + +<p>"<i>Al Asfarani</i>, the Golden One——" Farrell seconded the Kurd's inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Snarling and spitting in her alcove, O Strong Man!" smiled the girl.</p> + +<p>Farrell left her to entertain the Kurd, and wandered past the rows of +potted trees that paralleled the walls of the garden. The walls were +pierced with deep niches that formed small rooms whose arched entrances +were scarcely shoulder-high. As he glanced into each in succession, he +noted the trinkets and cosmetics and perfumes, and articles of feminine +apparel. Each bride of <i>al jannat</i> seemed to have her own lupanar; but +they apparently preferred to lounge among the fountains and arbors.</p> + +<p>Finally, however, Farrell found an occupied alcove. A woman lay face +down among a heap of cushions. Her hair was copper-golden, and her bare +shoulders were latticed with long, bluish stripes.</p> + +<p>Farrell knelt at her side.</p> + +<p>"Antoinette!" he whispered.</p> + +<p>At the touch of his fingers on her shoulder, she started and with a +quick motion drew away. Her hand emerged from the cushions clutching a +long sharp steel skewer used in Syria for grilling meat.</p> + +<p>It was Antoinette, wide-eyed with terror. She cried out, and stabbed +at Farrell with the skewer. The point raked his cheek as he seized her +wrist.</p> + +<p>"'Toinette! Don't you recognize me?" he whispered hoarsely.</p> + +<p>She regarded him for a moment, puzzled and incredulous. The skewer +dropped from her fingers. But before she could cry out in amazement, +Farrell continued, "Not a word! If any one passes by, start raising the +devil! Don't seem to recognize me ... understand?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, but he saw that she did not grasp the point that might make +the difference between life and death. She was still bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Glenn...." She stroked his cheek and regarded him, still +incredulously. "Are you—isn't this—my dear, this is that awful garden +I dreamed of. Only, now I have my own body, and I don't wake up——"</p> + +<p>"Pipe down!" he commanded in a low, tense voice. "I'm supposed to be +one of these devils! You're not dreaming. Pull yourself together——"</p> + +<p>He heard footsteps approaching. They were steady, not the jerky +lurchings of wine and hasheesh intoxication. Whoever it was, was for +Farrell a death sentence if Antoinette in her hysteria spoke one false +word.</p> + +<p>"Scream! Claw me! As you treated the others!"</p> + +<p>Then he seized her in his arms and murmured drunken endearments in her +ear.</p> + +<p>But Antoinette was too dazed by the meeting to play her part. She +clung to Farrell as the one fragment of reality in all that unending +nightmare of hasheesh-drugged assassins who courted her favor, and +pawed her, and abandoned their advances only at the suggestion of more +amiable brides of <i>al jannat</i>. Instead of clawing and defying Farrell, +she clung to him, sobbing hysterically.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>That deliberate tread of doom, soft slipper shod, drew nearer, paused.</p> + +<p>Farrell trembled like a trapped animal. He sought with his own feigned +drunken, amorous approaches to drown her betraying sobs and murmurs.</p> + +<p>The swish-slap of slippers ... another halt. Farrell felt the +intentness of the gaze at his back.</p> + +<p>He broke from Antoinette's embrace and turned. Standing just within +the entrance of the tiny room was Shirkuh the necromancer. He had seen +Farrell at the château, face to face. And he had heard. He knew.</p> + +<p>"Ah ... La Dorada has lured you to the Garden?" he murmured with deadly +emphasis on the dead woman's name.</p> + +<p>The smile was slow and mocking; the relentless eyes burned with a +fanatical hatred. For a moment Farrell was paralyzed with terror, and +horror at the doom from which Antoinette had no further chance of +escape.</p> + +<p>Shirkuh relished the encounter, and gloated—but just an instant too +long.</p> + +<p>Farrell sprang from his crouched position in one swift, fluent motion. +Shirkuh, taken cold-footed, could not draw his knife. They crashed to +the floor. But once Shirkuh recovered from the surprize of the assault, +he was more than a match for Farrell, who was battered, weary from +combat, and shaken by the drugged wine. The iron fingers of the Kurd +sank into his throat and throttled him. Shirkuh whipped his lithe body +aside, avoiding Farrell's frenzied efforts to drive home with his knee. +As Farrell's struggles subsided to a futile gasping for breath, the +Kurd's hand flashed to his belt and drew a knife——</p> + +<p>But before the stroke descended, there was a crash and a splintering +of glass. Shirkuh toppled over, felled by a decanter that Antoinette +had broken across his head. Farrell gasped, and caught his breath, then +slowly dragged himself clear of his enemy.</p> + +<p>Antoinette, still clutching the neck of the broken decanter, regarded +him with terror-widened eyes. Then she gestured toward Shirkuh, who +muttered and stirred.</p> + +<p>Farrell's fingers closed about the hilt of the knife the Kurd had +dropped.</p> + +<p>"Me or him," muttered Farrell. "If you don't want to see it, look the +other way."</p> + +<p>The blade flashed thrice.</p> + +<p>Farrell wiped the red steel and slipped it into his empty scabbard. +Then he sighed wearily and despairingly.</p> + +<p>"Finish anyway ... they'll miss him ... and no place we can hide him."</p> + +<p>Antoinette stared at the dark pool that spread across the silken rug.</p> + +<p>"Can't cut my way out," muttered Farrell. "But you have a chance. +Pierre and the <i>Sûreté</i> are on the job—is there any place we could +hide that fellow?"</p> + +<p>Antoinette shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Nowhere. The pool of the fountain isn't deep enough——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind the fountain!" interrupted Farrell, as he leaped to his +feet. "I have a hunch. We're not quite ready to hang old man Farrell's +youngest son!"</p> + +<p>At the entrance Farrell turned, reassured Antoinette with a gesture, +then stalked out into the Garden, chanting a bawdy song in Turki.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Beside the fountain he found the object of his search: a bemuddled +Kurd, and the Eurasian girl who had finally convinced him that the +Golden One was best left to the blustering Afghan.</p> + +<p>"Get us more wine, O Moon of Loveliness," said Farrell with his most +engaging smile. He nudged the Kurd.</p> + +<p>The girl laughed softly.</p> + +<p>"You look as though she gave you your fill of clawing!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ay, wallah!</i>" agreed Farrell with a broad grin. Then, as the girl +picked up an empty flagon, he said in a low voice to the Kurd, +"Brother, you fellows didn't approach <i>al Asfarani</i> the right way."</p> + +<p>He winked and beckoned.</p> + +<p>The Kurd clambered to his feet and followed Farrell. They paused at the +arched entrance of Antoinette's alcove.</p> + +<p>"She's in there now," whispered Farrell. "She'll not claw you."</p> + +<p>Thus encouraged, the Kurd stepped in, Farrell following.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ya sitti</i>," he began, addressing Antoinette. Then he started, seeing +the body of Shirkuh.</p> + +<p>Farrell slipped past, and toward Antoinette's divan.</p> + +<p>"Out of my way, O shamelessly Besotted!" growled the Kurd, pausing to +nudge the body with his toe.</p> + +<p>During that instant Farrell found what he sought; and as the Kurd +decided to ignore the supposed sot, the steel skewer drove home, its +point projecting beyond his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Sorry, old man," muttered Farrell as he regarded the Kurd twitching +and coughing his life out in a bloody foam. Then he rapidly searched +the body.</p> + +<p>He found no weapons.</p> + +<p>"Disarm 'em when they come in here ... leaves me handicapped...."</p> + +<p>He thrust Shirkuh's knife into the hand of the dying Kurd and closed +the fingers about it. Then he guided the hand of Shirkuh and clenched +it about the blunt end of the skewer.</p> + +<p>"This may save the day," he explained to Antoinette. "Remember, they +fought and killed each other. That may give me a long enough lease on +life to come back and get you out of this hell's hole, or get word +to Pierre. Now I've got to go out into the Garden and do some quick +thinking. Something else may turn up ... no, I can't stay here with +you ... and I've got to leave the bodies where they are."</p> + +<p>Then, as he kissed her, "Hang on. There's still a chance for you. Maybe +for us."</p> + +<p>He strode out into the Garden, and washed his blood-stained hands +at the fountain. The Eurasian girl had not yet returned with the +replenished flagon. And as Farrell glanced about, looking for her, and +preparing to divert her from any thought of her former companion, Musa +the mute negro approached with a jar on his shoulder and a cup in his +hand.</p> + +<p>This, Farrell surmised, would be the end of the visit to Paradise. +The negro would administer a sleeping-potion; the devoted ones would +drink, and upon awakening would find themselves lying in the <i>majlis</i>, +mysteriously translated from the empyrean realm of the Lord Hassan, and +ready for whatever butcheries he could assign them.</p> + +<p>As Musa offered him the cup, Farrell extended his own flagon, saying, +"Fill this one, Father of Blackness. That cup of yours is too small."</p> + +<p>The negro grinned, emptied the cup into the larger vessel, and went his +way to minister to the other guests.</p> + +<p>The Eurasian beauty, who returned at that moment, was easily diverted, +so that Farrell contrived to spill most of the drugged wine over his +shirt-front and into the fountain. Then, as he saw the <i>fedawi</i> succumb +to the effects of the drug, he himself lurched forward, feigning +unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>"No chance to look around ... no chance of cutting my way out," he +reflected as he thought of Antoinette and her ghastly companions. "And +maybe the Shirkuh versus drunken Kurd formation will hold water long +enough to give me time to qualify as an assassin and be sent out to do +a bit of slaying!"</p> + +<p>The negro was making the rounds, taking the <i>fedawi</i> one by one from +the Garden. He picked Farrell from the paving as though he were a +bag of meal, shouldered him, and deposited him on the divan in the +anteroom, beside his drugged companions.</p> + +<p>And from sheer weariness and the futility of further thought, Farrell +fell asleep.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="7_A_Left-Handed_Kurd"><i>7. A Left-Handed Kurd</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>When a cold sponge on his forehead and the rim of a copper bowl pressed +to his lips awoke Farrell, he had no idea as to the length of his sleep.</p> + +<p>Musa helped him to his feet and led the way down a narrow passage +whose floor sloped perceptibly upward. The negro halted before a panel +and tapped thrice. As the panel slid aside, he gestured and flattened +himself against the wall so that Farrell could pass him and enter the +chamber ahead.</p> + +<p>Farrell stepped into a circular vault fully twenty yards in diameter. +In its center was a pool, likewise circular, and surrounded by a coping +about a foot high. A dark splash on the tiles near the pool convinced +Farrell that this must be the place into which the bodies of the +victims of his test before Hassan had been tossed.</p> + +<p>Farrell wondered if as a matter of convenience he had been conducted +to the vault before the master cut him down. One slip would suffice....</p> + +<p>Directly opposite Farrell was an arched niche in which sat an old man +whose head was bowed in contemplation. Suspended from the crown of the +arch was a cluster of crystalline prisms that slowly rotated, giving +the effect of a glowing, coruscating ball of light.</p> + +<p>As Farrell advanced, the door behind him slid silently into place. He +skirted the edge of the pool in the center, and wondered from what +abyss its black, untroubled waters emerged; what creatures lurked in +its darkness to devour the bodies tossed into their pit. Then, leaving +the pool, Farrell continued toward the bearded sage who still ignored +his approach.</p> + +<p>"At thy command, <i>ya shaykh</i>!" said Farrell as he halted some five +paces from the Presence.</p> + +<p>"Step forward," directed the ancient one, looking up and indicating a +small hearth-rug that lay at the foot of the steps that ascended to the +niche. "Look, <i>ya</i> Ibrahim: hast thou seen me before?"</p> + +<p>As the smoldering eyes narrowed, Farrell recognized Hassan, now +unveiled. He returned the old man's unblinking stare, and strove to +remain unperturbed by its intent concentration; but his effort was +vain. He felt a sense of futility and weakness creeping over him.</p> + +<p>The rotating cluster of prisms now flamed and flashed with an +adamantine fire that expanded and contracted and pulsed like a living +thing. It seemed now to be glowing between the eyes of Hassan. An +overwhelming weariness assailed Farrell.</p> + +<p>The old man's voice intoned sonorously, and as from a great distance.</p> + +<p>"I am the keeper of the gateway ... even in the hollow of my hand I +hold <i>al jannat</i> and its coolness to the eyes.... Yea, behold my +hand...."</p> + +<p>Farrell regarded the outstretched hand of Hassan.</p> + +<p>"In the hollow of my hand, even in this hand I hold <i>al jannat</i>...."</p> + +<p>A mistiness was gathering about Hassan, and his features became +obscured so that only his glittering eyes peered through. The +outstretched hand was expanding; and strangely enough, it seemed +fitting to Farrell that this should be so, and that there should be +hazy figures, and clots of greenness appearing in the blankness above +the hand. Trees were taking root. Their outlines were hazy, and through +their immaterial substance he could just distinguish the jambs of the +niche, and the swirling mists that veiled Hassan.</p> + +<p>The voice was now murmuring softly and compellingly.</p> + +<p>"Even in this hand I hold the Garden.... I am the keeper and the +warden.... I accept and I reject...."</p> + +<p>Then that which in the back of his brain had kept Farrell from utterly +succumbing to the sorcery of that murmuring voice and those burning +eyes asserted itself, and he knew that it was illusion. As he sought to +resist and deny, he felt a terrific impact as of a physical substance. +A mighty, implacable will bludgeoned him as with hammer blows. He knew +that if he continued assenting he would be for ever enslaved.</p> + +<p>"There is no Garden. It is illusion," he asserted to himself, and +forced his lips to move and silently enunciate the negation. He +trembled with an all-compelling fear, the awful fear of losing his very +identity. That devastating will behind the cloud-veil was crushing him. +How easy to assent, and end the agony!</p> + +<p>Great beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was drawn and +haggard with the torment of his battered will. But to surrender would +betray Antoinette into the hands of the enemy.</p> + +<p>"There is no Garden," he persisted. "His hand is <i>empty</i>. EMPTY. EMPTY!"</p> + +<p>He forced his last vestige of strength into that final declaration. The +trees dwindled to pin-heads of green, and with them vanished the gray +mists. The hand <i>was</i> empty!</p> + +<p>Farrell sighed from mortal weariness and relief. Then he smiled +triumphantly. He had withstood the terrific psychic assault that would +have made him a slave, and a vassal of that old man and the murderous +heritage of Asia.</p> + +<p>Hassan smiled as at an ancient jest.</p> + +<p>"You have withstood my will as no man before you," he said. "There was +one who resisted to the uttermost, but he dropped dead."</p> + +<p>Hassan, the heir of Maymun the magician, the sorcerer, the heretic, +took his defeat gracefully. Then his smile became ominous and mocking.</p> + +<p>"Who but you would have had the wit to slay Shirkuh, the chief of my +servants, then so arrange the body of another you slew, that it would +seem that they had died quarrelling over <i>Al Asfarani</i>? Subtle serpent, +you erred in putting the dagger in the right hand. That Kurd was +left-handed."</p> + +<p>As those words hammered home, Farrell wondered if his heart would ever +again start beating. He was lost, and with him, Antoinette. Doomed by +his own cunning.</p> + +<p>But thus far, no word about his imposture; therefore Farrell laughed +full in Hassan's face, as became the honor of the Durani clan.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wallah</i>, you put a premium on slayers! Now what award do you give me, +seeing that I was unarmed when I slew Shirkuh?"</p> + +<p>Hassan regarded him admiringly for a moment.</p> + +<p>"<i>Billahi</i>, but you do belong to us! Not as a hasheesh-besotted fool to +slay and be slain, but as an Associate, and finally, an Initiate. It is +such as you that we seek, and seek in vain."</p> + +<p>A fierce light flamed in Hassan's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yet your victory over my will is your doom. In the fullness of your +effort to deny the illusion, you finally spoke your negation aloud. +<i>And you spoke in English!</i>"</p> + +<p>For an instant Farrell was dazed by the horror that had been heaped +on the soul-racking triumph he had just won. Doom was at hand—doom +inescapable, else that old man would not dare confront him alone.</p> + +<p>With a cry of rage, Farrell sprang to throttle Hassan despite what +unseen allies he might have. But the floor sank beneath his feet as +Hassan, smiling and unmoved, fingered a knob near the jamb of the +arch. Farrell clutched at the edge of the opening through which he was +dropping. His fingers sustained him for a moment, but the momentum of +his body swinging free into vacancy broke his slender hold. He fell +into the impenetrable blackness below.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="8_Monsters_of_the_Pool"><i>8. Monsters of the Pool</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>Instead of an interminable drop to the bottom of an abyss, Farrell +landed in less than a second, and feet foremost, on slippery flags. +He noted that the air was not as stagnant as one would expect in an +oubliette.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of circulation ... just put me in temporary storage until +they get around to organizing a committee to finish me with pomp and +ceremony," he muttered as he struck a match.</p> + +<p>Farrell saw that the walls of the dungeon were curved. He strode toward +the center, and by the light of a second match saw a massive column of +masonry which rose from floor to ceiling. He remembered the pool he had +seen on the floor above, and concluded that the pillar before him was a +hollow shaft which led to some subterranean spring in the heart of the +knoll on which Bayonne was built.</p> + +<p>"All in one piece, unhurt, and no enemy in sight—yet!" he reflected as +he skirted the column.</p> + +<p>Among the inevitable rubbish with which the dungeon would be littered +Farrell hoped to find some fragment of rock, scrap of wood, anything, +in fact, which would give him the means of meeting the enemy with more +than bare hands. But before he could strike his next match, Farrell saw +a glow of light at a considerable distance to his right. It faintly +outlined a low archway, and suggested possible escape from the dungeon +into which he had been dropped by Hassan. That same light, however, +betokened the immediate presence of the enemy, and perhaps an armed +sentry. Farrell therefore crept on in darkness until he was well out +of line with the source of light, then left the column and progressed +toward the wall.</p> + +<p>His knee came into contact with something hard and metallic. He struck +a match, and saw that he had found a chain, one end of which was +attached to a massive leg-iron, and the other secured to an eye-bolt +sunk into the wall. The shank of the eye-bolt was badly corroded where +it entered the masonry. A few minutes of wrenching and tugging sufficed +to separate the chain from its anchorage. The result was a crude flail +which in a strong hand could shatter whatever skull it struck.</p> + +<p>Farrell was armed again, and his spirits rose accordingly.</p> + +<p>He retraced his course and crept down the passageway toward the light. +As he halted in the shelter of a jamb he saw that the vault ahead of +him was illuminated by a glowing brazier; and the scene gave him a +foretaste of what his own fate might be.</p> + +<p>The black, oily form of a muscular negro crouched beside the brazier. +The bellows in his hands wheezed from his vigorous efforts to fan the +charcoal fire to a white heat. Tongs or other long-handled implements +projected from the incandescent mass.</p> + +<p>Limned in harsh highlight and black shadows Farrell saw two white-robed +Ismailians whose predatory, Semitic features were stern from the +contemplation of their task. Both were armed with simitars and pistols. +The object of their scrutiny was a man who sat crouched by a pilaster. +Farrell could distinguish no features beyond the aquiline curve of his +nose, and the black, spade-shaped beard. The hands, clasped about the +knees, were fettered at the wrists.</p> + +<p>"God!" muttered Farrell as the red glow became a dazzling whiteness. +"That lad sitting there looks for all the world like an innocent +bystander. Either that party isn't for him, or he has more guts than +any ten men I've ever seen.... I've not been here long enough for that +to be my reception committee...."</p> + +<p>Farrell appraised the situation, and gaged the distance between his +lurking-place and the group at the brazier.</p> + +<p>"Too far! They'd get wise before I got within striking distance ... +now if this piece of chain were only a solid bar so that I could slug, +swat, and parry instead of having to use it like a whip ... now what?"</p> + +<p>The taller of the Ismailians glanced up, and with a gesture indicated +the ceiling. Farrell could not distinguish his words, but it was +evident that he had addressed the negro, who set aside his bellows, +picked up a length of thin rope, and rose.</p> + +<p>Then Farrell understood. They were going to slip the cord through a +ring in the low ceiling, lash the prisoner's ankles, and suspend him so +that the white-hot irons could be applied without interference from the +victim's agonized writhing.</p> + +<p>"Missed my chance!" growled Farrell. "They were all off guard, and I +could have cold-calked them! Too late, now."</p> + +<p>The Ismailian on the right addressed the prisoner; but the other +was looking in Farrell's direction, though not directly at his +lurking-place. The negro was shifting the implements that projected +from the bed of coals.</p> + +<p>Then Farrell tested the idea that came to him an instant after his +expression of disgust. He reached into his pocket and found a large +silver coin the size of an American dollar. He sent it spinning across +the vault. It struck the opposite wall and tinkled to the floor.</p> + +<p>As the Ismailian at the left of the group started, caught the gleam of +silver, and stooped to pick it up, Farrell, whirling his flail, leaped +from cover and charged.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The startled cry of the crouching negro was simultaneous with the +impact of the swinging fetter against the skull of the stooping enemy. +The massive circlet of iron crunched home as the other white-robed +enemy whirled from confronting his prisoner and drew a pistol. Farrell +knew that he could not lash out with a second blow of his flail. He +ducked as the pistol flashed, gripped the Ismailian's wrist as the +pistol cracked again, and back-heeled him. They crashed to the flags, +Farrell striving to keep the pistol out of effective action and to +disable his enemy before the giant negro recovered his wits enough to +overwhelm him.</p> + +<p>With a fierce wrench, Farrell disarmed the Ismailian and sent the +pistol flying against the wall. And then the negro took a hand. +They pounded and crushed Farrell as they sought to drive home with +knife-thrusts which he evaded in his struggles to drive in with boot or +knee. He finally, thrashing about, seized the shackle end of his flail; +and as the Ismailian's knife darted in, Farrell jabbed the ponderous +iron to the enemy's jaw with a crushing blow.</p> + +<p>Then the negro crushed Farrell to the paving. Farrell's struggles +were futile; the cumulative effect of previous combats was telling. +In another moment his breath would be completely cut off by those +relentless black hands....</p> + +<p>Then an agonized yell, and the stench of burning hair and flesh. The +pressure relaxed as a shower of white-hot charcoal rained from the +frenzied enemy and seared Farrell's hands and face. But the respite, +though brief, sufficed. Farrell's boot laid the enemy out flat.</p> + +<p>Then he rose, recovered the pistol that lay against the wall, and +turned to confront the fettered prisoner.</p> + +<p>"Fortunately," said the prisoner, "I was able to reach the tongs and +flip that brazier into the party."</p> + +<p>The mutual benefactors regarded each other a moment.</p> + +<p>"<i>Monsieur</i>," began Farrell, recognizing the prisoner as a Frenchman, +"I am more interested in getting out of here than exchanging +compliments. Judging from the preparations I interrupted, you were in +for a pleasant evening, morning, or whatever it may be."</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately," came the reply, "these fetters are rivetted, and none +of the tools they brought——"</p> + +<p>"I'll tend to that," assured Farrell. He turned and set the brazier +right side up, then with the tongs collected the still glowing +charcoal, and fanned it once more to a white heat. "Get your chains hot +enough," he explained, "and we can break them by hand."</p> + +<p>"<i>Magnifique!</i>" Then, regarding Farrell more intently, "But I +don't recognize you as any of the Brethren who might be kindly +disposed—though those fellows lying on the floor prove the case."</p> + +<p>"I'm not quite what I seem," admitted Farrell as he arranged the chains +so that they could get the full heat of the brazier. Then, staring for +an instant at the prisoner and at the device engraved on the emerald +set in his massive ring, Farrell hazarded a guess that seemed warranted +by the absence of the host who had issued the invitations to the +<i>soirée</i> at the château.</p> + +<p>"Are you by any chance the Marquis——"</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est moi!</i> Des Islots, and everlastingly at your service!" The +saturnine features brightened for a moment.</p> + +<p>As Farrell pumped the bellows, he wondered at the fortuitous meeting.</p> + +<p>"Did Hassan put you in here?"</p> + +<p>"No. Shirkuh, his second in command, arranged this. Hassan is too busy +to bother with details——"</p> + +<p>"He had plenty of time for me," countered Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Hmmm ... then Shirkuh must be occupied with some important mission," +began the Marquis.</p> + +<p>"The <i>late</i> Shirkuh," corrected Farrell with a grim smile.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sacré bleu!</i>" ejaculated the Marquis. "Did you——"</p> + +<p>"I have the honor—and pleasure," admitted Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Thank God! He was my evil genius. Years ago, in Syria, I joined +the Ismailians as an Associate. I was a student of the occult, you +understand. Their aim at the time was harmless enough: the overthrow of +Islam, and the pursuit of mystic speculations. For centuries the order +has had no secular significance, you comprehend.</p> + +<p>"I advanced to the rank of Initiate, then returned to France and +organized a thaumaturgical society which was to carry on with the +researches I had made in Syria, and in High Asia. And this was all +well until fellow Ismailians came to Bayonne, one by one, and ended by +converting the thaumaturgical society into a chapter of Ismailians.</p> + +<p>"Shirkuh was the chief of these, a prior. And then they reverted to +the tactics of the Twelfth Century. To augment the <i>hasheeshin</i> that +they sent over, they recruited cutthroats from the underworld of Paris. +Various actresses and women of the <i>demi-monde</i> were led to believe +that they had been admitted as Associates, and were set to work as +spies.</p> + +<p>"There is a plot even now under way which, if successful, will upset +the French colonial empire and end in a <i>jihad</i> that will stir up the +entire Moslem world.</p> + +<p>"Another chapter has been organized in Lyons, with a prior in charge; +and Hassan is Grand Prior of France, acknowledging only the supreme +chief in Damascus.</p> + +<p>"At all events, when I saw the political aspect of the Ismailians +who had gained their foothold through my thaumaturgical society, I +protested to Shirkuh—and here I am. Hot irons and other pleasant +devices were to make my end most colorful."</p> + +<p>"Where," wondered Farrell, "does La Dorada fit into the picture?"</p> + +<p>"Eh? La Dorada? Why, a sort of chief female spy—she is friendly with +many high officers and civilian dignitaries, you comprehend. She is——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Was</i>," interrupted Farrell. "Three assassins finished her."</p> + +<p>"<i>Diable!</i>" exclaimed the Marquis. He was amazed rather than grieved.</p> + +<p>"You take it calmly, for a lover," remarked Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Lover?" The Marquis laughed sourly. "I, her lover? Camouflage, to +account for her presence down here, and along the Riviera. As to her +being assassinated, that is easily explained: her mission must have +been completed. So she was killed to insure her continued secrecy, and +also to warn her dupes that they would follow suit if they relented or +weakened in the course dictated by Hassan. And that move makes it all +the more conclusive that France is due for an explosion."</p> + +<p>The confusion was being untangled. Farrell wondered at Antoinette +Delatour's connection, and the source of the dreams that had haunted +her; but the chains that bound the Marquis were white-hot and ready to +break, so that conversation would have to wait.</p> + +<p>"All right, heave!" directed Farrell.</p> + +<p>The chains parted.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>They stripped the bodies of the white-robed Ismailians, and armed +themselves with their simitars and pistols, as well as taking the +extra cartridges that studded one of the belts. And the keys that had +admitted the executioners completed the equipment. As the hot ends of +the chain cooled, the Marquis bound them to his limbs so that they +would not clank.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Farrell as they turned toward the iron-bound door, "if +those lads are completely out."</p> + +<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i> But I am absent-minded!" growled the Marquis. He drew the +simitar at his side.</p> + +<p>As Farrell unlocked the door, he heard the sword-strokes that assured +beyond all doubt that three more had entered <i>al jannat</i>.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Farrell as the door closed behind them. "We +may run into a detachment on the way down here to finish me. Do you +know of any other way except the passage used by your executioners?"</p> + +<p>The Marquis reflected for a moment as he wiped and sheathed his blade.</p> + +<p>"I do," he replied. "But we'd stand a good chance of getting lost +and perishing in a labyrinth. This network is older than the Roman +occupation. We have reclaimed but a fraction of it. It is the sanctuary +of some awful, prehistoric past. And there were living proofs...." The +Marquis shuddered at the recollection of what he had seen. "We killed +most of them. But—as for me, I prefer to face men like ourselves! +Anyway, if Shirkuh is dead, Hassan will be busy until another Prior is +appointed. Shirkuh was an adept who studied in Tibet. A necromancer——"</p> + +<p>Farrell shivered, and as they advanced up the passageway, told the +Marquis what he had seen at the château.</p> + +<p>"<i>Canaille!</i>" muttered the Marquis. "The night I was imprisoned! Just +like him. And as you suspect, enough assassins in the crowd to spread +the rumor of his miracle.</p> + +<p>"Our best chance," he resumed, "is to go to the vault where you saw +Hassan unveiled, thence to the assembly hall of the assassins. Then cut +our way out—if we can! The chances are slender——"</p> + +<p>"How about passing by the Garden?" wondered Farrell.</p> + +<p>"Out of our way," protested the Marquis. "But why?"</p> + +<p>"A ... friend," replied Farrell. "Mademoiselle Delatour——"</p> + +<p>"What?" exclaimed the Marquis with a start. "<i>Dieu de Dieu!</i> How——"</p> + +<p>Then he controlled his agitation, beckoned for silence.</p> + +<p>They emerged from the darkness and turned into an upward-sloping branch +passage illuminated by torches thrust into sconces on the wall. Ahead +of them they heard the measured tread of a sentry walking his post.</p> + +<p>"Hang back," whispered the Marquis as he fingered the hilt of the +broad-bladed knife that kept his simitar company. "I know the +passwords. And he may not know I'm a prisoner—but be ready for trouble +if he does!"</p> + +<p>The sentry challenged the Marquis. There was an exchange of sign and +countersign. Then as the sentry saluted, the Marquis' right hand +flashed to the right; his body jerked forward. As Farrell advanced, he +saw the sentry collapse and sprawl across the tiles in a grotesque heap.</p> + +<p>"So far, so good," muttered the Marquis as he wiped his blade, and led +the way.</p> + +<p>A barred door yielded to the Marquis' touch on a concealed lever. They +continued on their upward march. They halted finally before a door +whose panels were of heavy and elaborately carved woodwork.</p> + +<p>"<i>Diable!</i>" growled the Marquis as he tried the door. "Barred from the +other side. The release this side does not help us."</p> + +<p>The mutter of drums and the plucked strings of a <i>sitar</i> were plainly +audible.</p> + +<p>"Better wait until the place is vacant," whispered the Marquis. "And in +the meanwhile, let's cut a loophole and see what's happening."</p> + +<p>They drew their knives and set to work.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Peering through the loophole, Farrell could see the arched niche from +whose foot he had been precipitated into the dungeon below. Hassan was +again, or perhaps still, at his post. He was veiled, but there was no +mistaking the posture and the expression of the eyes.</p> + +<p>Sitting cross-legged along the curved wall of the vault were a score of +Ismailians in white ceremonial robes. They wore white turbans, scarlet +slippers, and belts of the same color: and all were armed with the +richly adorned simitars suitable to a formal assembly.</p> + +<p>A group of musicians squatted on the floor, along the coping of the +circular pool, whose dark water reflected the spectral glow that +pervaded the vault. The wind instruments joined the music with a +demoniac sobbing and moaning, and a brazen gong clanged.</p> + +<p>Four litter-bearers emerged from an entrance. Attendants followed them, +bearing tripods of bronze. Farrell shuddered at the similarity of that +scene to the horrible beauty of the resurrection of La Dorada. Then he +noted that the figure on the litter was that of a man.</p> + +<p>As the shroud was lifted, he recognized Shirkuh of the clan of Shadi. +The Prior of the Ismailians was to receive the final homage of his +subordinates. The pipes wailed mournfully in honor of that desecrator +of the dead. Farrell sighed with relief, and glanced at the Marquis.</p> + +<p>He peered once more through the loophole.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he gasped in dismay.</p> + +<p>Four more litter-bearers were filing into the vault, and after them +came attendants with tripods. The tiny feet and the feminine curves +that the shroud revealed unmistakably betokened a woman's body.</p> + +<p>Farrell's cheeks whitened beneath their stain as he caught the glint of +red-gold hair.</p> + +<p>An attendant stripped the brocaded shroud from the body.</p> + +<p>Antoinette Delatour, sleeping—or dead.</p> + +<p>With an inarticulate growl of rage, Farrell gathered himself to charge +the door with his shoulder. But the hand of the Marquis gripping his +arm restrained him.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" whispered the Marquis. "It is hopeless, now. But later—stand +fast. I will tell you—you see, I am acquainted——"</p> + +<p>Farrell stared somberly at his companion. He saw that the Marquis' face +was white and that his eyes flamed with wrath. The hand on Farrell's +arm trembled.</p> + +<p>"All right," he conceded. He wondered at the Marquis' incoherence +and agitation in excess of what he would expect of a right-minded +gentleman. He gained assurance from the Marquis' apparent knowledge of +what was to be; but with it came the dread of some new peak of horror.</p> + +<p>"Great God!" muttered Farrell, remembering once more the necromantic +ritual at the château. "Is she——" Then, in a flare of rage and grief, +"I'm going through!"</p> + +<p>"Restrain yourself!" commanded the Marquis. "I know."</p> + +<p>Farrell shook his head, and turned to the loophole.</p> + +<p>The attendants and the litter-bearers were filing out of the vault.</p> + +<p>The Grand Prior, Hassan, rose from his cushions.</p> + +<p>"Brethren and servants of the Seventh Imam," he began, "your Prior, the +learned Shirkuh, has crossed the Border. He who could raise the dead +can not resurrect himself. But we, <i>inshallah</i>, can send a courier to +lead him back to us."</p> + +<p>As his upraised hand dropped to his side, a monstrous peal of bronze +echoed and reverberated through the vault. The assembled Ismailians +stirred, and corrected their posture, so that their feet and hands were +placed with ritual precision. Even their features assumed a oneness of +expression: an intent, solemn stare. The silence became absolute. The +musicians sat motionless, awaiting the signal to sound off.</p> + +<p>The Grand Prior nodded.</p> + +<p>The single-stringed violins, the moaning pipes and the purring drums +wove a harmony that sighed and sobbed like a fallen angel bewailing his +lost estate. The great gong pealed with mighty, brazen reverberations. +Acolytes filed into the vault, and paced in cadence to the music, and +rhythmically swung fuming censers as they passed thrice in procession +about the dead, and the exquisite unclad beauty of the living woman. +And as the acolytes retreated, Hassan descended from his dais.</p> + +<p>He drew on the floor with a piece of chalk a circle several paces in +diameter, and within it a pentacle. Each of the five points he marked +with cabalistical symbols. Then with a ceremonious gesture he summoned +three Initiates from among those who sat waiting beside the dais. Each +Initiate took his post at his assigned station; then all four bowed to +the fifth vertex and the Presence that was to be summoned.</p> + +<p>Hassan intoned a sentence; and the Initiates, beginning at his left, +each in turn chanted a line of the invocation. Those without the circle +solemnly pronounced a fifth sonorous phrase.</p> + +<p>"For the vacant corner," whispered the Marquis to Farrell. "They are +representing the One they are calling to occupy the fifth angle."</p> + +<p>And thus they continued their prodigious utterances, four verses +riming in succession, with the surge and thunder of the unrimed, +antiphonal response from without. Each time the circle was completed, +the riming syllable changed; and from the Arabic with which they had +started, they shifted to Himyaric, and then to obscure, antique tongues +whose sound was an elemental roar of deep gutturals. Then finally came +a primal, bestial murmuring and muttering, a chirping and clucking of +the tongues that were spoken by those who wandered through the Void +before the first man walked the earth. And recurring through the entire +progression was a portentous name that is seldom pronounced above a +whisper.</p> + +<p>The very features of the Initiates changed as they pronounced those +rustling, shivering syllables. They were achieving a unity with that +which crept and crawled and loathsomely slunk through chaos and reviled +the unborn stars, and mocked the light that was to be....</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Farrell, staring now with a dread that obliterated every other emotion, +saw that a Presence was materializing at the fifth vertex. A vibrant +glow like the luminous vapor of a mercury arc was momentarily becoming +more dense and substantial. Lambent flames played about the brows of +the Initiates in the pentacle. A terrific tension pervaded the vault. +The bluish glow became deeper, and was shot with flashes of crimson +and yellowish green. Each drawn face was now a ghastly slate-gray: the +Presence at the fifth vertex was drawing the living essence from the +swaying, gesturing bodies of Hassan and his trio of Initiates.</p> + +<p>The Presence took human form: a lordly, satanic visage and a +magnificently muscled body that quivered and throbbed to the droning +chant. Then, rich and clear as a god calling across the wastes of +space, the Presence began declaiming:</p> + +<p>"<i>Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani! Al Asfarani!</i> I come from the realm of fire +to command you! I have come out of the depths! Harken! Harken! Harken! +<i>Al Asfarani!</i> Golden One! Step forth from your body and walk into the +darkness among those whose bread is dust! Walk among the lonely dead +and seek Shirkuh! Call him by his name and take him by the hand! Guide +him from the shadows and into the morning!"</p> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""> + <div class="caption"> + <p>"<i>A terrific tension pervaded the tumult. The Presence took human form!</i>"</p> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<p>The unconscious woman shuddered at the sound of that mighty voice. She +made a despairing gesture as if to resist the command that came from +the fifth vertex. Then she relaxed.</p> + +<p>The Presence continued his prodigious chant. Even the brazen +reverberation of the gongs was drowned by his awful utterance.</p> + +<p>A thin streamer, like the thread of smoke rising from an +almost-quenched altar flame, rose from Antoinette Delatour's +half-parted lips.</p> + +<p>"<i>Cordieu!</i>" shouted the Marquis in Farrell's ear. "They're doing it!"</p> + +<p>His gestures rather than his voice stirred Farrell to action. They +retreated, then charged crashing against the door. It resisted the +shock. Farrell drew his simitar and hacked at the tropical hardwood. A +carven panel splintered.</p> + +<p>"Good God! Look!" he yelled in despair.</p> + +<p>The Presence was now towering toward the ceiling. It was bending over +like a monstrous serpent in human form, arching and writhing, reaching +as though over some invisible wall, making passes and gestures over the +silver-white body of Antoinette.</p> + +<p>The Initiates in the pentacle were paper-white. They swayed to the +cadence of that great voice whose concussion was now making the very +vault tremble.</p> + +<p>The train of smoke-like vapor that emerged from Antoinette's lips was +becoming more dense, and hovered over her body like a veil.</p> + +<p>"Quick!" shouted the Marquis, as they frantically hacked the stout +wood. "Hold them, while I exorcise the Presence!"</p> + +<p>The door was reinforced with iron rods that bound it together. Their +blades were nicked and saw-toothed from the fierce assault.</p> + +<p>"Again!" cried the Marquis as his simitar flashed home.</p> + +<p>A chunk of the hardwood tore loose from its severed reinforcement. They +shouldered through, torn and cut by the splinters and the ragged ends +of the rods they had hacked.</p> + +<p>A musician cried out and sprang to his feet. And then one of the +Initiates who sat beside the dais saw Farrell and the Marquis as they +dashed across the circular vault. He aroused his comrades from their +fascinated contemplation of the invocation of which they were now +accessories rather than principals. They started as from a deep sleep, +stared for an instant, then drew their simitars and charged to meet +the intruders, and to protect the left flank of the pentacle, from +which the Presence still leaned over the unconscious girl, intoning the +mighty commands that would send her across the Border.</p> + +<p>Shoulder to shoulder, Farrell and the Marquis met the assault with +deliberate, deadly pistol fire. The attack was checked; but the enemy +stood fast and firm, protecting the pentacle. And despite the hail of +lead they had poured into the ranks of the Ismailians, Farrell and his +ally were still outnumbered ten to one.</p> + +<p>The musicians were salvaging weapons.</p> + +<p>There was not enough time to reload the pistols. The Ismailians had +recovered from the shock of their murderous reception, and seeing their +advantage, leaped forward, blades ready.</p> + +<p>Then a clash of steel, and a red mill of slaughter. The Marquis +fought with vengeful desperation. He wove in and out, side-stepping +and parrying, shearing and slaying. And Farrell, keeping at his side, +carved a gory path into the enemy. He fought with a blind, unreasoning +fury, seeking to hack his way through the press and clear a road for +the Marquis who could cope with that monstrous Presence that was in +thunderous tones chanting the life and vital essence from Antoinette.</p> + +<p>The enemy, sensing that the Marquis was the keystone of the arch, +concentrated their attack on him; and despite his exquisite +swordsmanship, he was being slashed to pieces by a desperation and +force that discounted his skill.</p> + +<p>He sank once beneath a whirlwind of blades, and recovered under the +shelter of Farrell's blade; but he was coughing blood from a deep wound.</p> + +<p>And Hassan and his trio had left the pentacle. The Presence, now +endowed with the power borrowed from all that the Initiates had +conjured from across the Border, was self-sustaining and no longer +needed its portion of human vitality.</p> + +<p>Hassan, behind the line of the assault, directed his Initiates in the +attack.</p> + +<p>"Cut him down, O sons of flat-nosed mothers!" he cried, as he saw the +Marquis recover and press forward.</p> + +<p>But that magnificent last effort burned out. With a cry of mortal rage, +the Marquis lashed out with a final, devastating stroke, then collapsed +on a heap of slain.</p> + +<p>"Finish!" despaired Farrell. He was doomed, and Antoinette also—even +though he could cut his way out. An adept was required to exorcise +that terrific Presence that was drawing her from her body.</p> + +<p>But the enemy, instead of closing in to hew him to pieces, gaped +stupidly, then yelled in terror. They were staring at something at his +right, and to the rear. He glanced over his shoulder, compelled by the +consternation that stopped them where they stood.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Farrell lowered his own point, himself struck with awe. He recalled +what the Marquis had said about the denizens of that labyrinth of +passages.</p> + +<p>A monstrous, amorphous thing had emerged from the circular pool +into which Hassan had ordered the dead <i>fedawi</i> to be flung. It was +misshapen, and grotesque in its vague semblance to humanity. Its +bulbous head had a single, circular eye the size of a saucer. It +glittered glassily in the bluish, spectral light. The limbs were +shapeless and ponderous, and it lumbered, dripping wet, across the +tiles. Its feet fell with a metallic clank, and its breath hissed and +wheezed.</p> + +<p>A second and similar creature was emerging from the water, even as the +first advanced with slow, laborious pace. The hand clutched a short +iron bar.</p> + +<p>The bar rose in a sweeping arc and crunched down on the skull of an +Ismailian, spattering blood and brain in a shower. The second monster +clambered over the coping, unlimbered a bludgeon, and with gruesome +deliberation picked a victim and struck.</p> + +<p>There was a moment of silence unbroken save for the wheezing breath +of the creatures from the pit. Then the Ismailians yelled in mortal +terror. They forgot Farrell with his dripping blade and bewildered +eyes; they forgot the Marquis, who stirred, and strove to lash out +once more with his red scimitar; they forgot the golden-haired girl, +and the malevolent Presence that, now silent, throbbed and pulsed, an +aggregate of quivering, electric-bluish cold fire.</p> + +<p>They broke and fled toward the splintered door.</p> + +<p>At the height of their panic, Farrell understood. The monsters were men +in diving-suits.</p> + +<p>The Marquis was down. Farrell could not himself thwart that monster +that was drinking Antoinette's vital essence and taking her across +the Border beyond recall; but he could slay until he dropped from +wounds, or from weariness of slaughter. He hurdled the hedge of fallen +Ismailians and with a cry of rage and grief joined his allies to exact +vengeance.</p> + +<p>A third diver was at that moment emerging from the pool and joining the +assault against the frenzied enemy, striking them down with remorseless +precision as they struggled to crowd through the splintered panel of +the door that had given Farrell admittance.</p> + +<p>Farrell, however, was not the only one whose wits had recovered from +the terror inspired by the apparitions from the black pool.</p> + +<p>"Back and face them, <i>ya mumineen</i>!" shouted Hassan. "They are men like +ourselves!"</p> + +<p>But his attempt to rally his men was vain. Those who abandoned their +efforts to crowd through the jammed door, and circled around to escape +by way of the opposite entrance, were blocked by the arrival of a file +of <i>fedawi</i> who, knives drawn, had come running from the assembly hall.</p> + +<p>The dripping revolvers that the divers drew as they discarded their +grappling-irons crackled and flamed, pouring a deadly fire into the new +center of action.</p> + +<p>Then Farrell conceived the desperate device of capturing Hassan +and forcing him to recall the elemental monster that was drinking +Antoinette's life. He leaped forward, cutting and slashing his way +through the few who interposed.</p> + +<p>"We meet in Paradise, <i>ya mumineen</i>!" Hassan shouted, seeing that the +day was lost. And before Farrell could seize him, Hassan released the +trap-door before the dais and dropped into the vault below.</p> + +<p>The last hope was gone. Pursuit through those subterranean mazes would +be futile. As Farrell turned from the yawning trap that had allowed the +arch-enemy to escape, the rage of slaughter left him. The crackle of +pistols died out. He saw that the circular chamber was cleared of all +but the dead and wounded Ismailians. The divers, handicapped by their +heavy suits, could not carry out an effective pursuit of the survivors +of their deadly fire.</p> + +<p>Weary and despairing, Farrell nerved himself to confront the diabolical +creature that was drawing Antoinette across the border. He turned——</p> + +<p>The Marquis des Islots was raising his hacked, bleeding body from a +heap of slain. He tottered, swayed, then advanced toward the lambent +flame-presence. Farrell stared in fascination as that gory wreck of +a man advanced, making ritual gestures with his faltering hands, and +muttering in a low voice.</p> + +<p>The Presence was shrinking and dimming, and that shimmering exhalation +from Antoinette's lips was being retracted. The Marquis sustained +himself with will alone. He staggered, sank—Farrell's heart sank with +him—he recovered, stepped forward again, still gesticulating and +murmuring. The Presence leaned forward to confront him, and menaced him +with its remaining energy, seeking to outlive the dying adept.</p> + +<p>The Marquis' bleeding, gashed face was drawn and white; his eyes +were fixed and staring. He achieved another pass; then he collected +himself, paused, and instead of murmuring, thundered a final phrase of +command.</p> + +<p>The Presence vanished; and the last vestige of grayish, luminous haze +disappeared between Antoinette's lips.</p> + +<p>Farrell leaped forward in time to catch the Marquis as he collapsed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The divers, returning from the farther entrance at which the Ismailians +had made their last stand, lifted one another's domed helmets. Then, +grimy and exultant, Pierre d'Artois and the two members of the <i>Sûreté</i> +gathered about Farrell and the Marquis, who was regaining a little of +his strength.</p> + +<p>"<i>Messieurs</i>," he said, as he gestured toward Antoinette, "she is safe. +She will presently awaken. It can not return. <i>Jamais!</i>... It was my +fault ... in the beginning ... but this infamy was not my intent.... I +loved her, but she rejected me ... persistently. And for revenge ... +and to break her spirit ... I administered without her knowledge a +compound ... of hypnotic drugs ... so that she and that Syrian girl +would each night exchange bodies ... then Hassan took a hand...."</p> + +<p>He regarded d'Artois for a moment.</p> + +<p>"You, <i>monsieur</i>, doubtless understand——" Then, to Farrell, "But this +last infamy ... was not mine—Shirkuh and Hassan—I tried to make ... +amends——"</p> + +<p>For an instant Farrell regarded the dying man with revulsion. Then he +saw the remorse on the drawn, blood-splashed features, and thought +of the Marquis' last gallant stand, confronting and exorcising that +diabolical presence from beyond the Border.</p> + +<p>"Stout fellow," he muttered, as he grasped the Marquis' hand.</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est fini</i>," murmured d'Artois a moment later. "Magnificent in his +death as he was misguided in his life ... dying on his feet, he had the +will to conquer, and make restitution."</p> + +<p>Then d'Artois rose and glanced about him.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the way out of here?"</p> + +<p>"Through that door," directed Farrell. "He told me, before we made our +rush."</p> + +<p>"<i>Messieurs</i>," suggested d'Artois, "be ready with your pistols, should +any of these assassins be lingering. I will take charge of the young +lady, and you, my friend, lead the way. <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i> perhaps +deserves greater courtesy, but we can not carry his body and take the +risk of being caught without weapons drawn and ready."</p> + +<p>Farrell led the way. Without much difficulty, he found the passage +that opened into the vault where he had lain while regaining his +consciousness preliminary to submitting to Hassan's tests. And from +there they finally emerged in the heart of the citadel. A few moments +later Farrell and d'Artois, carrying Antoinette, met Raoul where he was +waiting at the wheel of the Renault.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="9_DArtois_Is_Envious"><i>9. D'Artois Is Envious</i></h2> +</div> + + +<p>Antoinette, an hour later, was entirely herself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's wonderful to be out of that awful garden," she said, and +curled herself up in the depth of a large, upholstered chair. "And now +that <i>Monsieur le Médicin</i> admits that I'm as good as new, you might +satisfy my curiosity on a few points. How did you ever——"</p> + +<p>She glanced up at Farrell, who had seated himself on the arm of her +chair. He was not yet through convincing himself that Satan's Garden +was a thing of the past, and insisted on keeping Antoinette within +arm's reach.</p> + +<p>"Suppose you ask Pierre," he said.</p> + +<p>D'Artois laughed.</p> + +<p>"After all, <i>mon vieux</i>, you were responsible. We found two bodies +floating down the Nive. One of them wore—oh, very becomingly, I assure +you!—a knife in his stomach. The <i>Sûreté</i> informed me. I identified +the knife. It was one of mine, which you had taken from my collection +to wear while disguised as Ibrahim the Afghan ruffian.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Alors</i>,' said I, 'Ibrahim Khan has given good account of himself. +Perhaps, but God forbid, his own body will follow. I assure you that we +watched with anxiety. But no further signs. At low tide, however—you +know, the Nive rises and falls with the tide, since we're so close to +the sea—we found another body, mainly as the result of our continued +close watch for yours. This one was wedged near the central of the +seven bridges. We investigated, and found an uncharted drain of +considerable diameter.</p> + +<p>"'<i>Mordieu</i>,' said I to <i>Monsieur</i> the Prefect, 'if bodies came out, +bodies can also go in.' We got diving-suits. The tide in the meanwhile +rose, but we had the location well marked. We advanced up the drain +until we came to a dead end. Even before we left the water we heard the +clash and crackle of your skirmish——"</p> + +<p>"Massacre, you mean," interpolated Farrell, grinning as much as his +bandages permitted. "Not a second too soon."</p> + +<p>"<i>Eh bien</i>, we shut our exhaust air-valves and thus rose to the +surface. Our grappling-irons snagged to the coping helped us unaided +over the top. Then we sliced our airlines and lifelines, opened our +exhausts and——"</p> + +<p>"Scared them out of a week's growth!" added Farrell as d'Artois paused +to light a cigarette. "But that damnable thing all of quivering +fire—good Lord!"</p> + +<p>"That," submitted d'Artois, "is something that I can explain but +vaguely, if at all. I called it some more mummery, and decided, rather +hastily, perhaps, that you and the Marquis needed help first of all. +On reflection, and in view of some of your remarks since we left, I am +of the opinion that it was either an elemental conjured up by those +devil-mongering adepts, or else a wandering and malignant astral that +was energized by the vital essence of the adepts, or perhaps by the +vibration concentration of their ritual. <i>Monsieur le Marquis</i>, God +rest his erring soul, could doubtless explain what it was, since he +used his last spark of will to combat it and thwart its attempt to +convert Mademoiselle Antoinette into—what did you tell me?—a courier +to call Shirkuh from the hell in which he now must be roasting.</p> + +<p>"I would very much relish," continued d'Artois, "questioning Hassan, +who devised all that deviltry. But alas! he escaped. And while you, +both of you, were causing the good doctor a certain amount of concern, +I heard that the <i>Sûreté</i> and a handful of <i>gendarmes</i> cleaned out the +entire nest. Unhappily, two were taken alive of that crew of assassins. +And of course, those lovely ladies of the garden."</p> + +<p>Farrell sighed from weariness and contentment, then grimaced from the +ache of his wounds.</p> + +<p>"The Marquis," he observed, "didn't have time to explain how that +hypnotic drug enabled him to project Antoinette's <i>self</i> into the +body of the Syrian bride of the garden—Lord, it's impossible to +imagine how a brave fellow like him could have let his resentment and +disappointment carry him to such lengths! Having her scourged by proxy, +so to speak."</p> + +<p>"Too much occultism and devil-mongering upset his brilliant mind," +replied d'Artois. "Somber, gloomy, and drunk with his talents. And +translating Antoinette into the body of a bride of the garden, whom he +could flog at will, was his warped expression of denied affection. As +to just how he accomplished it, we can but surmise. Strange drugs are +compounded in the Orient. When I complete the analysis of the pastries +they offered us that night at the château, I may further enlighten you."</p> + +<p>"But the stripes and welts that appeared on Antoinette's body?" +wondered Farrell.</p> + +<p>"For once you ask me something simple," retorted d'Artois. "Did you +know that if a hypnotic is touched with a pencil, for example, and +offered the suggestion that it is a red-hot iron, he will develop a +blister, and all the symptoms of a burn at the spot touched? Moll and +others concede that point with very little argument. It has often been +experimentally demonstrated.</p> + +<p>"<i>Alors</i>, the body of the Syrian girl was scourged. Antoinette's +<i>self</i>, though in a borrowed body, retained what we can roughly call +an astral connection with her own body; otherwise she could not have +returned to it at the end of each ordeal. And through this connection, +the body of Antoinette developed the same welts that were raised on +the skin of the Syrian girl; just as, by rough analogy, the hypnotic +subject through suggestion shows all outward signs of a burn. And the +marks of the heavy anklets the Syrian bride of the garden wore were +similarly branded on Antoinette's ankles.</p> + +<p>"The Marquis during his unsuccessful courtship of Antoinette had ample +opportunities to administer the hypnotic drug at which he hinted, so +that his influence could have been gained without her knowledge. This, +together with the objective symptoms, convinces me that if it was not +the conventional hypnosis we know, it was at least a quasi-hypnosis. +And as you know, there are vegetable compounds which, if properly +administered, will effect a partial release of the astral counterpart +of a body, or its spiritual essence. To pursue it to its origin would +lead you to a study of Egyptian magic, and the nine traditional +elements of every living human body.</p> + +<p>"I will leave all this to you, <i>mon vieux</i>, to study, this matter of +stigmata resulting from suggestion and other psychic influences. Me, I +am no lecturer.</p> + +<p>"And as to Antoinette's Arabic remarks in her sleep: the bride of the +garden, dispossessed of her body for the time, sought Antoinette's. And +by that astral connection which she retained with her own, she felt the +scourgings administered in the garden, and expressed herself, through +Antoinette's lips, as you heard."</p> + +<p>D'Artois emerged from his chair and bowed with formal precision.</p> + +<p>"I will therefore leave you here, my blundering Afghan, to have your +wounds properly nursed while I go about doing all that an old man +can do under the circumstances: envy you, and write a monograph on +<i>Messieurs les Assassins</i>, and Satan's Garden, from which you so +happily emerged."</p> + +<p>With a peremptory gesture, he cut short Antoinette's insistence upon +his pausing for at least a moment. Then, halting at the door, he +concluded as he glanced at Farrell, "<i>Mordieu</i>, and to think that you +enjoyed all that fine sword-play, while I, Pierre d'Artois, had to +wear a diving-suit to find a fight, and then had to use a crowbar! In +<i>several</i> ways I envy you."</p> + + +<p class="ph2">THE END</p> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75619 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75619-h/images/cover.jpg b/75619-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1d3d9b --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75619-h/images/cover2.jpg b/75619-h/images/cover2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1845104 --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-h/images/cover2.jpg diff --git a/75619-h/images/illus1.jpg b/75619-h/images/illus1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a84830e --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-h/images/illus1.jpg diff --git a/75619-h/images/illus2.jpg b/75619-h/images/illus2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..27b0a69 --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-h/images/illus2.jpg diff --git a/75619-h/images/illusc.jpg b/75619-h/images/illusc.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc5d12c --- /dev/null +++ b/75619-h/images/illusc.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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