Complete weird tales of.., p.1236
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1236
“Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the others.”
“I will go too.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes, Dick.”
“Don’t, Lys.”
“I shall suffer every moment you are away.”
“The ride is too fatiguing, and we can’t tell what unpleasant sight you may come upon. Lys, you don’t really think there is anything supernatural in this affair?”
“Dick,” she answered gently, “I am a Bretonne.” With both arms around my neck, my wife said, “Death is the gift of God. I do not fear it when we are together. But alone — oh, my husband, I should fear a God who could take you away from me!”
We kissed each other soberly, simply, like two children. Then Lys hurried away to change her gown, and I paced up and down the garden waiting for her.
She came, drawing on her slender gauntlets. I swung her into the saddle, gave a hasty order to Jean Marie, and mounted.
Now, to quail under thoughts of terror on a morning like this, with Lys in the saddle beside me, no matter what had happened or might happen, was impossible. Moreover, Môme came sneaking after us. I asked Tregunc to catch him, for I was afraid he might be brained by our horses’ hoofs if he followed, but the wily puppy dodged and bolted after Lys, who was trotting along the high-road. “Never mind,” I thought; “if he’s hit he’ll live, for he has no brains to lose.”
Lys was waiting for me in the road beside the Shrine of Our Lady of St. Gildas when I joined her. She crossed herself, I doffed my cap, then we shook out our bridles and galloped toward the forest of Kerselec.
We said very little as we rode. I always loved to watch Lys in the saddle. Her exquisite figure and lovely face were the incarnation of youth and grace; her curling hair glistened like threaded gold.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the spoiled puppy Môme come bounding cheerfully alongside, oblivious of our horses heels. Our road swung close to the cliffs. A filthy cormorant rose from the black rocks and flapped heavily across our path. Ly’s horse reared, but she pulled him down, and pointed at the bird with her riding crop.
“I see,” said I; “it seems to be going our way. Curious to see a cormorant in a forest, isn’t it?”
“It is a bad sign,” said Lys. “You know the Morbihan proverb: ‘When the cormorant turns from the sea, Death laughs in the forest, and wise woodsmen build boats.’”
“I wish,” said I sincerely, “that there were fewer proverbs in Brittany.”
We were in sight of the forest now; across the gorse I could see the sparkle of gendarmes trappings, and the glitter of Le Bihan’s silver-buttoned jacket. The hedge was low and we took it without difficulty, and trotted across the moor to where Le Bihan and Durand stood gesticulating.
They bowed ceremoniously to Lys as we rode up.
“The trail is horrible — it is a river,” said the mayor in his squeaky voice. “Monsieur Darrel, I think perhaps madame would scarcely care to come any nearer.”
Lys drew bridle and looked at me.
“It is horrible!” said Durand, walking up beside me; “it looks as though a bleeding regiment had passed this way. The trail winds and winds about there in the thickets; we lose it at times, but we always find it again. I can’t understand how one man — no, nor twenty — could bleed like that!”
A halloo, answered by another, sounded from the depths of the forest.
“It’s my men; they are following the trail,” muttered the brigadier. “God alone knows what is at the end!”
“Shall we gallop back, Lys?” I asked.
“No; let us ride along the western edge of the woods and dismount. The sun is so hot now, and I should like to rest for a moment,” she said.
“The western forest is clear of anything disagreeable,” said Durand.
“Very well,” I answered; “call me, Le Bihan, if you find anything.”
Lys wheeled her mare, and I followed across the springy heather, Môme trotting cheerfully in the rear.
We entered the sunny woods about a quarter of a kilometre from where we left Durand. I took Lys from her horse, flung both bridles over a limb, and, giving my wife my arm, aided her to a flat mossy rock which overhung a shallow brook gurgling among the beach trees. Lys sat down and drew off her gauntlets. Môme pushed his head into her lap, received an undeserved caress, and came doubtfully toward me. I was weak enough to condone his offence, but I made him lie down at my feet, greatly to his disgust.
I rested my head on Lys’s knees, looking up at the sky through the crossed branches of the trees.
“I suppose I have killed him,” I said. “It shocks me terribly, Lys.”
“You could not have known, dear. He may have been a robber, and — if — not —— Did — have you ever fired your revolver since that day four years ago, when the Red Admiral’s son tried to kill you? But I know you have not.”
“No,” said I, wondering. “It’s a fact, I have not. Why?”
“And don’t you remember that I asked you to let me load it for you the day when Yves went off, swearing to kill you and his father?”
“Yes, I do remember. Well?”
“Well, I — I took the cartridges first to St. Gildas chapel and dipped them in holy water. You must not laugh, Dick,” said Lys gently, laying her cool hands on my lips.
“Laugh, my darling!”
Overhead the October sky was pale amethyst, and the sunlight burned like orange flame through the yellow leaves of beach and oak. Gnats and midges danced and wavered overhead; a spider dropped from a twig halfway to the ground and hung suspended on the end of his gossamer thread.
“Are you sleepy, dear?” asked Lys, bending over me.
“I am a little; I scarcely slept two hours last night,” I answered.
“You may sleep, if you wish,” said Lys, and touched my eyes caressingly.
“Is my head heavy on your knees?”
“No, Dick.”
I was already in a half doze; still I heard the brook babbling under the beeches and the humming of forest flies overhead. Presently even these were stilled.
The next thing I knew I was sitting bolt upright, my ears ringing with a scream, and I saw Lys cowering beside me, covering her white face with both hands.
As I sprang to my feet she cried again and clung to my knees. I saw my dog rush growling into a thicket, then I heard him whimper, and he came backing out, whining, ears flat, tail down. I stooped and disengaged Lys’s hand.
“Don’t go, Dick!” she cried. “God, it’s the Black Priest!”
In a moment I had leaped across the brook and pushed my way into the thicket. It was empty. I stared about me; I scanned every tree trunk, every bush. Suddenly I saw him. He was seated on a fallen log, his head resting in his hands, his rusty black robe gathered around him. For a moment my hair stirred under my cap; sweat started on forehead and cheek-bone; then I recovered my reason, and understood that the man was human and was probably wounded to death. Ay, to death; for there, at my feet, lay the wet trail of blood, over leaves and stones, down into the little hollow, across to the figure in black resting silently under the trees.
I saw that he could not escape even if he had the strength, for before him, almost at his very feet, lay a deep, shining swamp.
As I stepped forward my foot broke a twig. At the sound the figure started a little, then its head fell forward again. Its face was masked. Walking up to the man, I bade him tell where he was wounded. Durand and the others broke through the thicket at the same moment and hurried to my side.
“Who are you who hide a masked face in a priest’s robe?” said the gendarme loudly.
There was no answer.
“See — see the stiff blood all over his robe!” muttered Le Bihan to Fortin.
“He will not speak,” said I.
“He may be too badly wounded,” whispered Le Bihan.
“I saw him raise his head,” I said; “my wife saw him creep up here.”
Durand stepped forward and touched the figure.
“Speak! he said.
“Speak!” quavered Fortin.
Durand waited a moment, then with a sudden upward movement he stripped off the mask and threw hack the man’s head. We were looking into the eye sockets of a skull. Durand stood rigid; the mayor shrieked. The skeleton burst out from its rotting robes and collapsed on the ground before us. From between the staring ribs and the grinning teeth spurted a torrent of black blood, showering the shrinking grasses; then the thing shuddered, and fell over into the black ooze of the bog. Little bubbles of iridescent air appeared from the mud; the bones were slowly engulfed, and, as the last fragments sank out of sight, up from the depths and along the bank crept a creature, shiny, shivering, quivering its wings.
It was a death’s-head moth.
* * * *
I wish I had time to tell you how Lys outgrew superstitions for she never knew the truth about the affair, and she never will know, since she has promised not to read this book. I wish I might tell you about the king and his coronation, and how the coronation robe fitted. I wish that I were able to write how Yvonne and Herbert Stuart rode to a boar hunt in Quimperlé, and how the hounds raced the quarry right through the town, overturning three gendarmes, the notary, and an old woman. But I am becoming garrulous, and Lys is call- ing me to come and hear the king say that he is sleepy. And his Highness shall not be kept waiting.
THE KING’S CRADLE SONG.
Seal with a seal of gold
The scroll of a life unrolled;
Swathe him deep in his purple stole;
Ashes of diamonds, crystalled coal.
Drops of gold in each scented fold.
Crimson wings of the Little Death,
Stir his hair with your silken breath;
Flaming wings of sins to be,
Splendid pinions of prophecy,
Smother his eyes with hues and dyes,
While the white moon spins and the winds arise,
And the stars drip through the skies.
Wave, O wings of the Little Death!
Seal his sight and stifle his breath,
Cover his breast with the gemmed shroud pressed;
From north to north, from west to west,
Wave, wings of the Little Death!
Till the white moon reels in the cracking skies,
And the ghosts of God arise.
We are no other than a moving row
Of magic shadow-shapes, that come and go
Round with this sun-illumined lantern, held
In midnight by the master of the show.
A moment’s halt — a momentary taste
Of being from the well amid the waste —
And lo! the phantom caravan has reached
The nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste!
Ah, Love! could you and I with him conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire!
FITZGERALD.
THE WHITE SHADOW.
Listen, then, love, and with your white hand clear
Your forehead from its cloudy hair.
I.
“THREE great hulking cousins,” said she, closing her gray eyes disdainfully.
We accepted the rebuke in astonished silence. Presently she opened her eyes, and seemed surprised to see us there yet.
“O,” she said, “if you think I am going to stay here until you make up your minds — —”
“I’ve made up mine,” said Donald. “We will go to the links. You may come.”
“I shall not,” she announced. “Walter, what do you propose?”
Walter looked at his cartridge belt and then at the little breech-loader standing in a corner of the arbour.
“Oh, I know,” she said, “but I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”
The uncles and aunts on the piazza turned to look at us; her mother arose from a steamer-chair and came across the lawn.
“Won’t what, Sweetheart?” she asked, placing both hands on her daughter’s shoulders.
“Mamma, Walter wants me to shoot, and Don wants me to play golf, and I — won’t!”
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” said I.
“Don’t I?” she said, flushing with displeasure.
“Her mother might suggest something,” hazarded Donald. We looked at our aunt.
“Sweetheart is spoiled,” said that lady decisively. “If you children don’t go away at once and have a good time, I shall find employment for her.”
“Algebra?” I asked maliciously.
“How dare you!” cried Sweetheart, sitting up. “Oh, isn’t he mean! isn’t he ignoble! — and I’ve done my algebra; haven’t I, mamma?”
“But your French?” I began.
Donald laughed, and so did Walter. As for Sweetheart, she arose in all the dignity of sixteen years, closed her eyes with superb insolence, and, clasping her mother’s waist with one round white arm, marched out of the arbour.
“We tease her too much,” said Donald.
“She’s growing up fast; we ought not to call her Sweetheart when she puts her hair up,” added Walter.
“She’s going to put it up in October, when she goes back to school,” said Donald. “Jack, she will hate you if you keep reminding her of her algebra and French.”
“Then I’ll stop,” said I, suddenly conscious what an awful thing it would be if she hated me.
Donald’s two pointers came frisking across the lawn from the kennels, and Donald picked up his gun.
“Here we go again,” said I. “Donny’s going to the coverts after grouse, Walter’s going up on the hill with his dust-shot and arsenic, and I’m going across the fields after butterflies. Why the deuce can’t we all go together, just for once?”
“And take Sweetheart? She would like it if we all went together,” said Walter; “she is tired of seeing Jack net butterflies.”
“Collecting birds and shooting grouse are two different things,” began Donald. “You spoil my dogs by shooting your confounded owls and humming birds.”
“Oh, your precious dogs!” I cried. “Shut up, Donny, and give Sweetheart a good day’s tramp. It’s a pity if three cousins can’t pool their pleasures for once.”
Donald nodded uncertainly.
“Come on,” said Walter, “we’ll find Sweet heart. Jack, you get your butterfly togs and come back here.”
I nodded, and watched my two cousins sauntering across the lawn — big, clean-cut fellows, resembling each other enough to be brothers instead of cousins.
We all resembled each other more or less, Donald, Walter, and I. As for Sweetheart, she looked like none of us.
It was all very well for her mother to call her Sweetheart, and for her aunts to echo it in chorus, but the time was coming when we saw we should have to stop. A girl of sixteen with such a name is ridiculous, and Sweetheart was nearly seventeen; and her hair was “going up” and her gowns were “coming down” in October.
Her own name was pretty enough. I don’t know that I ought to tell it, but I will: it was the same as her mother’s. We called her Sweetheart sometimes, sometimes “The Aspen Beauty.” Donald had given her that name from a butterfly in my collection, the Vanessa Pandora, commonly known as the Aspen beauty, from its never having been captured in America except in our village of Aspen.
Here, in the north of New York State, we four cousins spent our summers in the family house. There was not much to do in Aspen. We used the links, we galloped over the sandy roads, we also trotted our several hobbies, Donald, Walter, and I. Sweetheart had no hobby; to make up for this, however, she owned a magnificent team of bêtes-noires — Algebra and French.
As for me, my butterfly collection languished. I had specimens of nearly every butterfly in New York State, and I rather longed for new states to conquer. Anyway, there were plenty of Aspen beauties — I mean the butterflies — flying about the roads and balm-of-Gilead trees, and perhaps that is why I lingered there long enough to collect hundreds of duplicates for exchange. And perhaps it wasn’t.
I thought of these things as I sat in the sun-flecked arbour, watching the yellow elm leaves flutter down from the branches. I thought, too, of Sweetheart, and wondered how she would look with her hair up. And while I sat there smoking, watching the yellow leaves drifting across the lawn, a sharp explosion startled me and I raised my head.
Sweetheart was standing on the lawn, gazing dreamily at the smoking débris of a large firecracker.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“It proclaims my independence,” said Sweetheart— “my independence forever. Here after my cousins will ask to accompany me on my walks; they need no longer charitably permit me to accompany them. Are you three boys going to ride your hobbies?”
“We are,” I said.
“Then good-bye. I am going to walk.”
“Can’t we come too?” I asked, laughing.
“Oh,” she said graciously, “if you put it in that way I could not refuse.”
“May we bring our guns?” asked Donald from the piazza.
“May I bring my net?” I added, half amused, half annoyed.
She made a gesture, indifferent, condescending.
“Dear me!” murmured the aunts in chorus from the piazza as we trooped after the Aspen beauty, “Sweetheart is growing very fast.”
I smiled vaguely at Sweetheart. I was wondering how she would look in long frocks and coiled hair.
II.
In the fall of the year the meadows of Aspen glimmer in the sunlight like crumpled sheets of beaten gold; for Aspen is the land of golden-rod, of yellow earth and gilded fern.
There the crisp oaks rustle, every leaf a blot of yellow; there the burnished pines sound, sound, tremble, and resound, like gilt-stringed harps aquiver in the wind.
Sweet fern, sun-dried, bronzed, fills all the hills with incense, vague and delicate as the white down drifting from the frothy milkweed.
And where the meadow brook prattled, limpid, filtered with sunlight, Sweetheart stood knee-deep in fragrant mint, watching the aimless minnows swimming in circles. On a distant hill, dark against the blue, Donald moved with his dogs, and I saw the sun-glint on his gun, and I heard the distant “Hi — on! Hi — on!” long after he disappeared below the brown hill’s brow.
