by Sax Rohmer
“Mrs. Ord saw her husband.”
“Ah! you’re coming round to my belief about the Ords!”
“Decidedly I am.”
“But what did Wales see — eh? And what did I see!”
“You saw the vapour in operation.”
The Major fell back in his chair with an expression upon his face which I cannot hope to describe. Words failed him altogether.
“I had come prepared for something of the sort,” I continued rapidly; “for I have investigated several cases of haunting — notably in the Peak district — which have proved to be due to an emanation from the soil — a vapour. But the effect of such vapour, in the other cases, was to induce delusions of sight, in nearly every instance (although, in two, the delusions were of hearing).
“In other words, the person affected by this vapour was drugged, and, during the drugged state, perceived certain visions. I made the mistake, at first, of supposing that Low Fennel came within the same category. The classical analogy, of course, is that of the Sibyls, who delivered the oracular responses from the tripod, under the afflatus of a vapour said to arise from the sacred subterranean stream called Kassotis. The theory is, therefore, by no means a new one!”
Major Dale stared dully, but made no attempt to interrupt me.
“There are probably many spots, in England alone,” I continued, “thus affected; but, fortunately, few of them have been chosen as building-sites. Barrows and tumuli of the stone and bronze age, and also Roman shrines, seem frequently to be productive of such emanations. The barrow beside Low Fennel (and now under the new wing) is a case in point.
“Sudden atmospheric changes seem to be favourable to the formation of the vapour. The barrow in Peel Castle, Isle of Man, is peculiarly susceptible to thunder-storms, for instance, whilst that at Low Fennel emits a vapour only after a spell of intense heat, and at the exact moment when the temperature begins to fall again. In the case of a sustained heat-wave, this would take place at some time during each night.
“And now for the particular in which the vapour at Low Fennel differs from other, similar emanations. It is not productive of delusions of sight; it induces a definite and unvarying form of transient insanity!”
Major Dale moved slightly, but still did not speak.
“Dame Pryce was the first recorded victim of the vapour. She was accused of witchcraft by a neighbour who testified to having seen her transform herself into a hideous and unrecognizable hag — whereas, in her proper person, she seems to have been a comely old lady. Lack of evidence compels us to dismiss the case of Seager, but consider that of the Ords. The man Ord, on his own confession, had fallen asleep outside the house. He became a victim of the vapour — and his own wife failed to recognize him.
“To what extent the mania so produced is homicidal remains to be proved; the gas is rare and difficult to procure, so that hitherto analysis has not been attempted. My own theory is that the subject remains harmless provided that, whilst under the mysterious influence, he does not encounter any person distasteful to him. Thus, Seager may have met his death at the hands of some tramp who had been turned away from the house.
“As to the symptoms: they seem to be quite unvarying. The subject strips, contorts his face out of all semblance to humanity (and always in a particular fashion) and crawls, lizard-like upon the ground, with the head held low, in an attitude of listening. That it is possible so to contort the face as to render it unrecognizable is seen in some cases of angina pectoris, of course.
“The subject apparently returns to the spot from whence he started and sinks into profound sleep, as is seen in some cases of somnambulism; and — like the somnambulist, again — he acquires incredible agility. How you yourself came, twice, under the influence of the vapour, is easily explained. The first time — when the housekeeper saw you — you had actually been in bed; and the second time, as you have told me, you had gone upstairs, undressed, and then slipped on your dressing-gown in order to complete some work in the study. Instead of completing the work, you dozed in your chair — and we know what followed! In the case of — Mrs. Dale....”
“God! Addison,” said the Major huskily, and stood up, clutching the chair-arms— “Addison! You are trying to tell me that — what I saw was ... Marjorie!...”
I nodded gravely.
“Without letting her suspect my reason for making the inquiries, I learnt that on that last night at Low Fennel, feeling dreadfully lonely and frightened, she determined to run along to the new wing — which seemed a safer place — and to wait in your room until you came up. She fell asleep, and....”
“Addison ... can a mere ‘vapour’ produce such....”
“You mean, is the vapour directed or animated, by some discarnate, evil intelligence? My dear Major, you are taking us back to the theory of Elemental spirits, and I blankly refuse to follow you!”
The Valley of the Just
A STORY OF THE SHAN HILLS
I
The merciless sun beat down upon the little caravan, winding its way upward and ever upward to the hill-land. Beneath stretched a panorama limned in feverish greens and unhealthy yellows; scarlike rocks striated the jungle, clothing the foothills, and through the dancing air, viewed from the arid heights, they had the appearance of running water. Swamps to the south-east showed like unhealing wounds upon the face of the landscape; beyond them spread the muddy river waters, the bank of the stream proper being discernible only by reason of a greater greenness in the palm-tops: venomous green slopes beyond them again, a fringe of dwarfed forest, and the brazen skyline.
On the right of the path rose volcanic rock, gnarled, twisted, and contorted as with the agonies of some mighty plague, which in a forgotten past had seized upon the very bowels of the world, and had contorted whole mountains, and laid waste vast forests and endless plains. Above, the cruel sun; ahead, more plague-twisted rocks, with sandy scars dancing like running water; and, all around, the breathless stillness, the swooning stillness of tropical midday. North, south, east, and west, that haze of heat, that silence unbroken, lay like an accursed mantle upon Burma.
Moreen Fayne could scarcely support herself upright in the saddle; her head throbbed incessantly, and the veil which she wore could not protect her eyes from the maddening glare of the sun. But although at any moment during the past hour she could have slipped insensible from her saddle, she sat stiffly upright, her dauntless eyes looking straight ahead, her small mouth set with masculine sternness, and her hands clenched — the physical reflection of the mental effort whereby, alone, she was enabled to pursue the journey.
Just in front of her paced Ramsa Lal. His stride had not varied from the lowlands, through the foothills, nor on the rocky mountain paths. He had looked neither right nor left, but had walked, walked, walked. At times Moreen had been hard put to it to choke down the hysterical screams which had risen in her throat; madness had threatened her, as she watched, in dumb misery, that silent striding man. Yet she knew that it was only the presence of this tireless, immobile guide which had enabled her to go on; although he never directed one glance towards her, she knew that his steady march was meant for encouragement.
Behind, like the tail of a scorpion, trailed the native retinue, and on the end of the tail, where the sting would be, rode her husband. This simile had occurred to her at once, and she allowed her mind to dwell upon the idea as an invalid will consider imaginary designs upon the wall-paper of the sick-room.
Sometimes there was a sliding of hoofs and a sound of stumbling; sometimes her own pony lost his footing. On such occasion, there would be mechanical cries of encouragement from the natives, and perhaps a growling curse from the man who brought up the rear of the little company. The road wound through a frowning chasm, where lizards and other creeping things darted into holes to right and left of their progress. Grateful shadow ruled a while, and a stifled sigh escaped from Moreen’s lips. Ramsa Lal paced straightly onward, the others came stumbling behind; fifty yards ahead the
ravine opened out, and once more the deathly heat poured unchecked upon their heads.
Again Moreen all but lost control of herself; her fortitude threatened to slip from her; so that she bit her lips until the pain filled her eyes with burning tears. The effort to control herself proved successful, but left her white and quivering. She felt impelled to speak to Ramsa Lal, and constrained herself only with a second effort of which her will was barely capable. Then she saw that speech, which would be dangerous, was unnecessary; the man’s wonderful intuition had enabled him to hear that crying of the soul, and he was answering her.
His brown fingers were clutching and unclutching convulsively, and as he swung his arm, he would clench his right fist and beat the air. For a moment he acted thus, and then, as if he knew that she had seen, and understood, his fingers hung limply again, and his arm swung loosely as before.
A sort of plateau was reached, and in a natural clearing, where giant bamboos ranged back to the tangled, creeper-laden boughs of the forest trees, the voice of Major Fayne cried a halt. Ramsa Lal was beside Moreen’s pony in a trice, and he so screened her exhausted descent from the saddle, setting her down upon an hospitable bank hard by, that she was enabled to maintain her inflexible attitude, when presently her husband came striding along to stand looking down on her, where she sat. His blackly pencilled brows were drawn together, and the pale blue eyes shone out, saturnine, from cavernous sockets. His handsome face was heavily lined, and in the appearance, in the whole attitude of the man, was something aggressive, a violence markedly repellent. Moreen locked her hands behind her, the fingers twining and intertwining, but she raised a pale face to his, from which by a last supreme effort of will she had driven all traces of emotion.
So they remained for a moment, whilst the servants busied themselves with the baggage; he, with feet wide apart, staring down at her, and slashing at the air with a fly-whisk, and she meeting his gaze with a stony calm pitiful to behold, had there been any soul capable of pity to see her. Ramsa Lal was directing operations.
“Here,” said Major Fayne, “we camp.”
His voice would have told a skilled observer that which the facial lines and a certain odd puffiness of skin more than suggested, that Major Fayne was not a temperate man.
Moreen made no sign, but simply sat watching the speaker.
“It’s a delightful situation,” continued he, “and your ambition, frequently expressed in Mandalay, to see something of Burma other than bridge parties and polo-matches, at last is realised.”
He spoke with a seeming sincerity that had carried conviction to any, save the most sceptical. But Moreen made no sign.
“Here,” continued Major Fayne, “you may feast your eyes upon the glories of a Burma forest. Those flowering creepers yonder, festooned from bough to bough, are peculiar to this district, and if you care to explore further, you will be rewarded by the discovery of some fine orchids. Note, also, the perfume of the flowers.”
He twirled his slight moustache, and turned away to supervise the work of camping.
Ramsa Lal already had one of the tents nearly erected, and Moreen watched his deft fingers at work, with an anxiety none the less because it was masked. She knew that collapse was imminent. The cruel march under the pitiless sun had had due effect, but it had not broken her spirit. She knew that she had reached the end of her strength, but she showed no sign of weakness before her husband.
It was done at last, and Ramsa Lal held the tent-cloth aside, and bowed.
Moreen stood up, clenched her teeth together grimly, and staggered forward. As the tent-flap was dropped, she sank down beside the camp bedstead, and her head fell upon the covering.
II
Dusk fell, a quick curtain, and the lamps of night shone out with glorious brilliancy, illuminating the little plateau. The tents gleamed whitely in the cold radiance; there was a dancing redness to show where the fire had been built, with figures grouped dimly around it. On a jagged rock, which started up from the very heart of a thicket, black against the newly risen moon, was silhouetted the figure of Major Fayne. Night things swept the air about him, and rustled in the cane brake below him; the fire crackled in the neighbouring camp; sometimes a murmur came from the group of natives.
But, heedless of these matters, Moreen’s husband stood on the rocky eminence looking back upon the way they had come, looking down to the distant river valley.
For many minutes he remained so, but presently, clambering down, heavily forced his way through the undergrowth to the little camp. Passing the tents, he walked back to the dip of the pathway, and paused again, watching and listening; then turned and strode to the fire, grasped Ramsa Lal by the shoulder, and drew him away from the others.
“Come here!” he directed tersely.
At the head of the pathway he bade him halt.
“Listen!” he directed.
Ramsa Lal stood in an attitude of keen attention, and the Major watched him with feverish anxiety, which he was wholly unable to conceal.
“Do you hear it?” he demanded— “hoofs on the path!”
Ramsa Lal shook his head.
“I hear nothing, Sahib.”
“Put your ear to the ground, and listen. I tell you that I saw figures moving away below there, and I heard — hoofs, stumbling hoofs.”
The man knelt down upon the ground, and, bending forward, lowered his head. Major Fayne watched him, and with growing anxiety, so that, what with this and the pallid moonlight, his face appeared ghastly.
But again Ramsa Lal stood up, shaking his head.
“Nothing, Sahib,” he repeated.
Major Fayne suddenly grasped him by the shoulders, spinning him about, and dragging him forward, so that the dusky face was but inches removed from his own. He glared into the man’s eyes.
“Are you lying to me?” he demanded, “are you lying?”
“I swear it is the truth: why should I lie to you, Sahib?”
“You want them — —”
Major Fayne broke off abruptly and thrust the man away from him. A different expression had crept into his face, an expression in which there was something furtive. He spun around upon his heel and stepped to the tent where Moreen was. Raising the flap slightly:
“Good-night,” he called, and turned away.
Ramsa Lal had gone back to the fireside; and Fayne, following a moment of hesitancy, strode with his swaggering military gait to the tent erected in the furthermost corner of the clearing. He had stooped to enter, when he hesitated, remaining there bent forward — and listening.
From the opposite side of the distant fire, Ramsa Lal, though few would have suspected the fact, was watching. Evidently enough, the leader of the little company was obsessed with his delusion that some one or something clambered up the steep path beneath. Suddenly shrugging his shoulders, he stooped yet lower, and dived into the tent.
One of the natives threw fresh fuel upon the fire, and a stream of sparks sped up through the clear air in a widening trail ever growing fainter.
There was a crackling, a murmur of voices, and then a new silence. This in turn was broken by the distant howling of dogs, and in the near stillness one might have heard the faint shrieking of the bats, who now were embarked upon their nocturnal voyagings.
A shrill, wild scream burst suddenly from the heart of the trees in the east, rose eerily upon the night, and died away. But the group about the fire moved not at all, for this dreadful screaming but marked an animal tragedy of the Burma forests. So furred things howled and screamed and moaned in the woodlands, feathered things piped and hooted around and above, and the bats, uncanny creatures of the darkness, who seem to have kinship neither with fur nor feather, chirped faintly overhead.
Once there was a distant, hollow booming like the sound of artillery, which echoed down the mountain gorges, and seemed to roll away over the lowland swamps, and die, inaudible, by the remote river-bank.
Yet no one stirred; for this mysterious gunnery is a phenomenon me
t with in that district, inexplicable, weird, but no novelty to one who has camped in the Shan Hills.
A second time later in the night the phantom guns boomed; and again their booming died away in the far valleys. The fire was getting low, now.
III
Moreen lay, sleepless, wide-eyed, staring up at the roof of the tent. She had eaten, could eat, nothing, but she was consumed by a parching thirst. The sounds of the night had no terrors for her; indeed, she scarcely noticed them, for she had other and more dreadful things to think of.
Ramsa Lal had been her father’s servant; him she could trust. But the others — the others were Major Fayne’s. They were no more than spies upon her; guards.
What did it mean, this sudden dash from the bungalow into the hills? It amused her husband to pretend that it was a pleasure-trip, but the equipment was not of the sort one takes upon such occasions, and one is not usually dragged from bed at midnight to embark upon such a journey. It was additionally improbable in view of the fact that up to the moment of departure Major Fayne had not spoken to her, except in public, for six months. The dreadful, forced marches were breaking her down, and she knew that her husband was drinking heavily. What, in God’s name, would be the end of it?
Weakly, she raised herself into a sitting position, groping for and lighting a candle. From the bosom of her dress she took out a letter, the last she had received from home before this mad flight. There was something in it which had frightened her at the time, but which, viewed in the light of recent events, was unspeakably horrifying.
During the long estrangement between her husband and herself she had learnt, and had paid for her knowledge with bitter tears, that there was a side to the character of Major Fayne which he had carefully concealed from her before marriage; the dark, saturnine part of her husband’s character had dawned upon her suddenly. That had been the beginning of her disillusionment, the disillusionment which has come to more than one English girl during the first twelve months of married life in an Indian bungalow.
