Complete weird tales of.., p.1247
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1247
Gray and wide as the limitless span of the sky and the sea, the winds gathered from the world’s ends to bear us on; but they were not familiar winds; for now, along the coast, the breakers curled and showed a million fangs, and the ocean stirred to its depths, uneasy, ominous, and the menace of its murmur drew us closer as we moved.
Where the dull thunder and the tossing spray warned us from sunken reefs, we heard the harsh challenges of gulls; where the pallid surf twisted in yellow coils of spume above the bar, the singing sands murmured of treachery and secrets of lost souls agasp in the throes of silent undertows.
But there was a little stretch of heach glimmering through the mountains of water, and toward this we turned, side by side. Around us the water grew warmer; the breath of the following waves moistened our cheeks; the water itself grew gray and strange about us.
“We have come too far,” I said; but she only answered: “Faster, faster! I am afraid!” The water was almost hot now; its aromatic odour filled our lungs.
“The Gulf loop!” I muttered. “Daisy, shall I help you?”
“No. Swim — close by me! Oh-h! Dick — —”
Her startled cry was echoed by another — a shrill scream, unutterably horrible — and a great bird flapped from the beach, splashing and beating its pinions across the water with a thundering noise.
Out across the waves it blundered, rising little by little from the water, and now, to my horror, I saw another monstrous bird swinging in the air above it, squealing as it turned on its vast wings. Before I could speak we touched the beach, and I half lifted her to the shore.
“Quick!” I repeated. “We must not wait.”
Her eyes were dark with fear, but she rested a hand on my shoulder, and we crept up among the dune grasses and sank down by the point of sand where the rough shelter stood, surrounded by the iron-ringed piles.
She lay there, breathing fast and deep, dripping with spray. I had no power of speech left, but when I rose wearily to my knees and looked out upon the water my blood ran cold. Above the ocean, on the breast of the roaring wind, three enormous birds sailed, turning and wheeling among each other; and below, drifting with the gray stream of the Gulf loop, a colossal bulk lay half submerged — a gigantic lizard, floating belly upward.
Then Daisy crept kneeling to my side and touched me, trembling from head to foot.
“I know,” I muttered. “I must run back for the rifle.”
“And — and leave me?”
I took her by the hand, and we dragged ourselves through the wire grass to the open end of a boiler lying in the sand.
She crept in on her hands and knees, and called to me to follow.
“You are safe now,” I cried. “I must go back for the rifle.”
“The birds may — may attack you.”
“If they do I can get into one of the other boilers,” I said. “Daisy, you must not venture out until I come back. You won’t, will you?”
“N~o-o,” she whispered doubtfully.
“Then — good-by.”
“Good-by,” she answered, but her voice was very small and still.
“Good-by,” I said again. I was kneeling at the mouth of the big iron tunnel; it was dark inside and I could not see her, but, before I was conscious of it, her arms were around my neck and we had kissed each other.
I don’t remember how I went away. When I came to my proper senses I was swimming along the coast at full speed, and over my head wheeled one of the birds, screaming at every turn.
The intoxication of that innocent embrace, the close impress of her arms around my neck, gave me a strength and recklessness that neither fear nor fatigue could subdue. The bird above me did not even frighten me; I watched it over my shoulder, swimming strongly, with the tide now aiding me, now stemming my course; but I saw the shore passing quickly and my strength increased, and I shouted when I came in sight of the house, and scrambled up on the sand, dripping and excited. There was nobody in sight, and I gave a last glance up into the air where the bird wheeled, still screeching, and hastened into the house. Freda stared at me in amazement as I seized the rifle and shouted for the professor.
“He has just gone to town, with Captain McPeek in his wagon,” stammered Freda.
“What!” I cried. “Does he know where his daughter is?”
“Miss Holroyd is asleep — not?” gasped Freda.
“Where’s Frisby?” I cried impatiently.
“Yimmie?” quavered Freda.
“Yes, Jimmie; isn’t there anybody here? Good heavens! where’s that man in the shop?”
“He also iss gone,” said Freda, shedding tears, “to buy papier-maché. Yimmie, he iss gone to post bills.”
I waited to hear no more, but swung my rifle over my shoulder, and, hanging the cartridge belt across my chest, hurried out and up the beach. The bird was not in sight.
I had been running for perhaps a minute when, far up on the dunes, I saw a yellow dog rush madly through a clump of sweet bay, and at the same moment a bird soared past, rose, and hung hovering just above the thicket. Suddenly the bird swooped; there was a shriek and a yelp from the cur, but the bird gripped it in one claw and beat its wings upon the sand, striving to rise. Then I saw Frisby — paste, bucket, and brush raised — fall upon the bird, yelling lustily. The fierce creature relaxed its talons, and the dog rushed on, squeaking with terror. The bird turned on Frisby and sent him sprawling on his face, a sticky mass of paste and sand. But this did not end the struggle. The bird, croaking wildly, flew at the prostrate billposter, and the sand whirled into a pillar above its terrible wings. Scarcely knowing what I was about, I raised my rifle and fired twice. A horrid scream echoed each shot, and the bird rose heavily in a shower of sand; but two bullets were embedded in that mass of foul feathers, and I saw the wires and scarlet tape uncoiling on the sand at my feet. In an instant I seized them and passed the ends around a cedar tree, hooking the clasps tight. Then I cast one swift glance upward, where the bird wheeled screeching, anchored like a kite to the pallium wires; and I hurried on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet, and the bushes tearing my wet swimming suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the Thermosaurus floated, claws outspread, belly glistening in the gray light, and over him circled two birds. As I reached the shelter I knelt and fired into the mass of scales, and at my first shot a horrible thing occurred: the lizardlike head writhed, the slitted yellow eyes sliding open from the film that covered them. A shudder passed across the undulating body, the great scaled belly heaved, and one leg feebly clawed at the air.
The thing was still alive!
Crushing back the horror that almost paralyzed my hands, I planted shot after shot into the quivering reptile, while it writhed and clawed, striving to turn over and dive; and at each shot the black blood spurted in long, slim jets across the water. And now Daisy was at my side, pale and determined, swiftly clasping each tape-marked wire to the iron rings in the circle around us. Twice I filled the magazine from my belt, and twice I poured streams of steel-tipped bullets into the scaled mass, twisting and shuddering on the sea. Suddenly the birds steered toward us. I felt the wind from their vast wings. I saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm snapped like a pipestem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I fell again, rolling into the mouth of the iron boiler.
* * * *
When I struggled back to consciousness Daisy knelt silently beside me, while Captain McPeek and Professor Holroyd bound up my shattered arm, talking excitedly. The pain made me faint and dizzy. I tried to speak and could not. At last they got me to my feet and into the wagon, and Daisy came, too, and crouched beside me, wrapped in oilskins to her eyes. Fatigue, lack of food, and excitement had combined with wounds and broken bones to extinguish the last atom of strength in my body; but my mind was clear enough to understand that the trouble was over and the Thermosaurus safe.
I heard McPeek say that one of the birds that I had anchored to a cedar tree had torn loose from the bullets and winged its way heavily out to sea. The professor answered: “Yes, the ekaf-bird; the others were ool-ylliks. I’d have given my right arm to have secured them.” Then for a time I heard no more; but the jolting of the wagon over the dunes roused me to keenest pain, and I held out my right hand to Daisy. She clasped it in both of hers, and kissed it again and again.
* * * *
There is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard has edited this story carefully. His own scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by Professor Holroyd’s sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and mounted Thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile.
When my arm came out of splints, Daisy and I —— But really that has nothing to do with a detailed scientific description of the Thermosaurus, which, I think, I shall add as an appendix to the book. If you do not find it there it will be because Daisy and I have very little time to write about Thermosaurians.
But what I really want to tell you about is the extraordinary adventures of Captain McPeek and Frisby — how they produced a specimen of Samia Cynthia that dwarfed a hundred of Attacus Atlas, and how the American line steamer St. Louis fouled the thing with her screw.
The more I think of it the more determined I am to tell it to you. It will be difficult to prevent me. And that is not fiction either.
ENVOI.
I.
When shadows pass across the grass
And April breezes stir the sedge,
Along the brimming river’s edge
I trail my line for silver trout,
And smoke, and dream of you, my lass,
And wonder why we two fell out,
And how the deuce it came about.
II.
When swallows sheer the meadow-mere
And thickets thrill with thrushes’ hymns,
Along the mill-pond’s reedy rims
I trail my line for shining dace;
But how can finny fishes cheer
A fellow, if he find no grace
In your sweet eyes and your dear face?
III.
Let thrushes wing their way and sing
Where cresses freshen pebbled nooks;
By silent rills and singing brooks
I pass my way alone, alas!
With your dear name the woodlands ring —
Your name is murmured by the grass,
By earth, by air, all-where I pass.
IV.
The painted bream may swim the stream —
I’ll cast no line to-day, pardi!
In vain the river-ripples gleam,
In vain the thrushes’ minstrelsy.
Vain is the wind that whispers, “Lo!
Thy fish are waiting — Angler, go!”
V.
Will you forgive if I forgive?
Life is too sad, I think, to live
Alone, and dream and smoke and fish;
I’ll say “Forgive” first — if you wish?
VI.
For at that word, the Sorcery
Of Love shall change the earth and sky
To Paradise, with cherubim
Instead of birds on every limb.
VII.
Rivers shall sing our rhapsody;
The vaulted forest, tree by tree,
High hung with tapestry, shall glow
With golden pillars all a-row.
VIII.
And down the gilded forest aisle
Shy throngs of violets shall smile
And kiss your feet from tree to tree
While blue-bells droop in courtesy.
IX.
And if the sun incarnadine
The clouds — green leaves shall be your screen;
And if the clouds with jealousy
Should weep — we’ll beg of some kind tree
A moment’s hospitality.
X.
Good cheer is here, if you incline;
Moss-hidden springs shall bubble wine
While squirrels chuckle, rank on rank,
And strawberries from every bank
Shall blush to see how deep we drank.
XI.
Winds of the West shall cool our eyes
While every woodland creature tries
His voice a little, so that he
May know his notes more perfectly
When crickets start the symphony.
XII.
Through hazel glade and scented dell
Where brooklets ring a tinkling bell,
The forest orchestra shall swell,
Until the sun-soaked grasses ring
With crickets strumming string on string.
XIII.
Then, with your white hand daintily
Scarce touching mine, we’ll leave our tree
And ramble slowly toward the West
Where our high castle’s flaming crest,
Towering behind the setting sun,
Flings out its banners, one by one,
Signals of fire, that day is done.
XIV.
Deep in that palace we shall find
How blind we are, how blind! how blind!
And how he’ll laugh, who holds the key
To the great portal’s mystery!
And how his joyous laugh will ring
When you and I shall bid him fling
The gates ajar for you and me!
XV.
Let shadows flee athwart the lea
When dark December strips the hedge
Along the icy river’s edge;
Yet, if you will forgive me, lass,
The world shall bloom like spring to me,
Snow turn to dew upon the grass
And fagots blossom where you pass.
XVI.
Swallows shall sheer the frozen mere,
Dead reeds along the mill-pond’s rims
Shall thrill with summer-thrushes’ hymns,
While summer breezes blow apace,
If you will but forgive me, dear,
And let me find a moment’s grace,
In your sweet eyes and your dear face.
R. W. C.
THE END
The Haunts of Men
First published in 1898, the first four stories of this collection are set during the American Civil War, making full use of Chambers’ talent for describing the natural landscape. In addition, three of the stories are set in France, with the last two tales seeing a reappearance of characters that first featured in Chambers’ first novel, In the Quarter. The stories had originally appeared in various journals between 1895-98.
Cover of the first edition
CONTENTS
THE GOD OF BATTLES
PICKETS.
AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR
SMITH’S BATTERY
AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY.
YO ESPERO
COLLECTOR OF THE PORT
THE WHISPER
THE LITTLE MISERY
ENTER THE QUEEN
ANOTHER GOOD MAN.
ENVOI.
Title page of the first edition
“How shall we seem, each to the other, when,
On that glad day, immortal, we shall meet —
Thou who, long since, didst pass with hastening feet —
I, who still wait here, in the haunts of men?”
TO ELSA
As a Black Veil of Lace,
Parted in sombre grace,
Shadows a pallid face,
So shall the Veil of Night,
Dimly withdrawn,
Shadow the coming Dawn.
Changed are the ashen skies, —
The clearer blue
Deep mirrored in thine eyes
Is changing too.
If the dim Dawn be fair,
Can its pale flames compare
In glory to thy hair?
What, in the jewelled skies,
Matches the dyes
In thine uplifted eyes!
Out from the splendid night
Bright as a spirit’s flight
Thou com’st with the Light.
And in the East the World spins, grey and old,
And in the West wait Life and Death; behold!
Bend down with me; behold!
This is the World, —
This tattered scroll unrolled, —
This chart unfurled.
Here at thy feet,
The Seven Oceans part and meet.
Trace with thy finger tips
The round World round,
Free as a shadow slips
Over the ground.
The World sleeps there
Steeped in the shadow of thy hair.
THE GOD OF BATTLES
AH, WHO COULD couple thoughts of war and crime
With such a blessed time?
Who in the West wind’s aromatic breath,
Could hear the call of Death?
TIMROD.
Sovereign of the world.... these sabres hold another language to-day from that they held yesterday. — VATHEK.
IT happened so unexpectedly, so abruptly, that she forgot to scream. A moment before, she had glanced out of the pantry windows, dusting the flour from her faded pink apron, and she saw the tall oats motionless in the field and the sunlight sifting through the corn. In the heated stillness a wasp, creeping up and down the window pane, filled the dim house with its buzzing. She remembered that, — then she remembered hearing the clock ticking in the darkened dining-room. It was scarcely a moment; she bent again over her flour pan, wistful, saddened by the summer silence, thinking of her brother; then again she raised her eyes to the window.
It was too sudden; she did not scream. Had they dropped from the sky, these men in blue, — these toiling, tramping, crowding creatures? The corn was full of them, the pasture, the road; they were in the garden, they crushed the cucumbers and the sweet-peas, their muddy trousers tore tender tendrils from the melon vines, their great shoes, plodding across the potato hills, harrowed the bronzed earth and levelled it to a waste of beaten mould and green-stuff. They passed, hundreds, thousands, — she could not tell, — and at first they neither spoke nor turned aside, but she heard a harmony, subtle, vast as winds at sea, — a nameless murmur that sweeps through brains of marching men, — the voiceless prophecy of battle.
