by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER XII
THE VISITANT
That first hour of watching, waiting, and listening in the lonelyquietude passed drearily; and with the passage of every quarter--signalized by London's muffled clocks--my mood became increasinglymorbid. I peopled the silent rooms opening out of that wherein I sat,with stealthy, murderous figures; my imagination painted hideousyellow faces upon the draperies, twitching yellow hands protrudingfrom this crevice and that. A score of times I started nervously,thinking I heard the pad of bare feet upon the floor behind me, thesuppressed breathing of some deathly approach.
Since nothing occurred to justify these tremors, this apprehensivemood passed; I realized that I was growing cramped and stiff, thatunconsciously I had been sitting with my muscles nervously tensed.The window was open a foot or so at the top and the blind was drawn;but so accustomed were my eyes now to peering through the darkness,that I could plainly discern the yellow oblong of the window, andthough very vaguely, some of the appointments of the room--theChesterfield against one wall, the lamp-shade above my head, thetable with the Tulun-Nur box upon it.
There was fog in the room, and it was growing damply chill, for wehad extinguished the electric heater some hours before. Very fewsounds penetrated from outside. Twice or perhaps thrice people passedalong the corridor, going to their rooms; but, as I knew, the greaternumber of the rooms along that corridor were unoccupied.
From the Embankment far below me, and from the river, faint noisescame at long intervals it is true; the muffled hooting of motors, andyet fainter ringing of bells. Fog signals boomed distantly, and trainwhistles shrieked, remote and unreal. I determined to enter my bedroom,and, risking any sound which I might make, to lie down upon the bed.
I rose carefully and carried this plan into execution. I would havegiven much for a smoke, although my throat was parched; and almost anydrink would have been nectar. But although my hopes (or my fears) ofan intruder had left me, I determined to stick to the rules of thegame as laid down. Therefore I neither smoked nor drank, but carefullyextended my weary limbs upon the coverlet, and telling myself that Icould guard our strange treasure as well from there as from elsewhere... slipped off into a profound sleep.
Nothing approaching in acute and sustained horror to the moment whennext I opened my eyes exists in all my memories of those days.
In the first place I was aroused by the shaking of the bed. It wasquivering beneath me as though an earthquake disturbed the veryfoundations of the building. I sprang upright and into fullconsciousness of my lapse.... My hands clutching the coverlet oneither side of me, I sat staring, staring, staring ... at _that_ whichpeered at me over the foot of the bed.
I knew that I had slept at my post; I was convinced that I was nowwidely awake; yet I _dared_ not admit to myself that what I saw wasother than a product of my imagination. I dared not admit the physicalquivering of the bed, for I could not, with sanity, believe its causeto be anything human. But what I saw, yet could not credit seeing,was this:
A ghostly white face, which seemed to glisten in some faint reflectedlight from the sitting-room beyond, peered over the bedrail; gibberedat me demoniacally. With quivering hands this night-mare horror, whichhad intruded where I believed human intrusion to be all but impossible,clutched the bed-posts so that the frame of the structure shook andfaintly rattled....
My heart leapt wildly in my breast, then seemed to suspend itspulsations and to grow icily cold. My whole body became chilledhorrifically. My scalp tingled: I felt that I must either cry out orbecome stark, raving mad!
For this clammily white face, those staring eyes, that wordlessgibbering, and the shaking, shaking, shaking of the bed in the clutchof the nameless visitant--prevailed, refused to disperse like the evildream I had hoped it all to be; manifested itself, indubitably, assomething tangible--objective....
Outraged reason deprived me of coherent speech. Past the clammy whiteface I could see the sitting-room illuminated by a faint light; Icould even see the Tulun-Nur box upon the table immediately oppositethe door.
The thing which shook the bed was actual, existent--to be counted with!
Further and further I drew myself away from it, until I crouched closeup against the head of the bed. Then, as the thing reeled aside, and--merciful Heaven!--made as if to come around and approach me yet closer,I uttered a hoarse cry and hurled myself out upon the floor and on theside remote from that pallid horror which I thought was pursuing me.
I heard a dull thud ... and the thing disappeared from my view, yet--and remembering the supreme terror of that visitation I am not ashamedto confess it--I dared not move from the spot upon which I stood, Idared not make to pass that which lay between me and the door.
"Smith!" I cried, but my voice was little more than a hoarse whisper--"Smith! Weymouth!"
The words became clearer and louder as I proceeded, so that the last--"Weymouth!"--was uttered in a sort of falsetto scream.
A door burst open upon the other side of the corridor. A key wasinserted in the lock of the door. Into the dimly lighted arch whichdivided the bed-room from the sitting-room, sprang the figure ofNayland Smith!
"Petrie! Petrie!" he called--and I saw him standing there looking fromleft to right.
Then, ere I could reply, he turned, and his gaze fell upon whateverlay upon the floor at the foot of the bed.
"My God!" he whispered--and sprang into the room.
"Smith! Smith!" I cried, "what is it? what is it?"
He turned in a flash, as Weymouth entered at his heels, saw me, andfell back a step; then looked again down at the floor.
"God's mercy!" he whispered, "I thought it was you--I thought it wasyou!"
Trembling violently, my mind a feverish chaos, I moved to the foot ofthe bed and looked down at what lay there.
"Turn up the light!" snapped Smith.
Weymouth reached for the switch, and the room became illuminatedsuddenly.
Prone upon the carpet, hands outstretched and nails dug deeply intothe pile of the fabric, lay a dark-haired man having his head twistedsideways so that the face showed a ghastly pallid profile against therich colorings upon which it rested. He wore no coat, but a sort ofdark gray shirt and black trousers. To add to the incongruity of hisattire, his feet were clad in drab-colored shoes, rubber-soled.
I stood, one hand raised to my head, looking down upon him, andgradually regaining control of myself. Weymouth, perceiving somethingof my condition, silently passed his flask to me; and I gladly availedmyself of this.
"How in Heaven's name did he get in?" I whispered.
"How, indeed!" said Weymouth, staring about him with wondering eyes.
Both he and Smith had discarded their disguises; and, a bewilderedtrio, we stood looking down upon the man at our feet. Suddenly Smithdropped to his knees and turned him flat upon his back. Composure wasnearly restored to me, and I knelt upon the other side of thewhite-faced creature whose presence there seemed so utterly outsidethe realm of possibility, and examined him with a consuming and fearfulinterest; for it was palpable that, if not already dead, he was dyingrapidly.
He was a slightly built man, and the first discovery that I made wasa curious one. What I had mistaken for dark hair was a wig! The shortblack mustache which he wore was also factitious.
"Look at this!" I cried.
"I am looking," snapped Smith.
He suddenly stood up, and entering the room beyond, turned on thelight there. I saw him staring at the Tulun-Nur box, and I knew whathad been in his mind. But the box, undisturbed, stood upon the tableas we had left it. I saw Smith tugging irritably at the lobe of hisear, and staring from the box towards the man beside whom I knelt.
"For God's sake, what does it man?" said Inspector Weymouth in a voicehushed with wonder. "How did he get in? What did he come for?--andwhat has happened to him?"
"As to what has happened to him," I replied, "unfortunately I cannottell you. I only know that unless something can be done his end is notfar off."
&
nbsp; "Shall we lay him on the bed?"
I nodded, and together we raised the slight figure and placed it uponthe bed where so recently I had lain.
As we did so, the man suddenly opened his eyes, which were glazed withdelirium. He tore himself from our grip, sat bolt upright, andholding his hands, fingers outstretched, before his face, stared atthem frenziedly.
"The golden pomegranates!" he shrieked, and a slight froth appeared onhis blanched lips. "The golden pomegranates!"
He laughed madly, and fell back inert.
"He's dead!" whispered Weymouth; "he's dead!"
Hard upon his words came a cry from Smith:
"Quick! Petrie!--Weymouth!"
