Weird Tales volume 30 number 04
Page 4
" 'Feller, you're as crazy as a cockroach!' I admonished my reflection in the mirror, 'But I know what 11 cure you.
You're taking the first train north tomorrow morning, and if I ever catch you in the Vieux Carre again, I'll '
"A sibilating hiss, no louder than the noise made by steam escaping from a kettle-spout, sounded close beside my foot. There on the rug, coiled in readiness to strike, was a three-foot cotton-mouth, head swaying viciously from side to side, wicked eyes shining in the bright light from the chandelier. I saw the muscles in the creature's fore-part swell, and in a sort of horror-trance I watched its head dart forward, but, miraculously, it stopped its stroke half-way, and drew its head back, turning to glance menacingly at me first from one eye, then the other. Somehow, it seemed to me, the thing was playing with me as a cat might play a mouse, threatening, intimidating, letting me know it was master of the situation and could kill me any time it wished, but deliberately refraining from the death-stroke.
"With one leap I was in the middle of my bed, and when a squad of bellboys came running in response to the frantic call for help I telephoned, they found me crouched against the headboard, almost wild with fear.
"They turned the room completely inside out, rolling back the rugs, probing into chairs and sofa, emptying the bureau drawers, even taking down the towels from the bathroom rack, but nowhere was there any sign of the water moccasin that had terrified me. At the end of fifteen minutes' search they accepted half a dollar each and went grinning from the room. I knew it would be useless to appeal for help again, for I heard one whisper to another as they paused outside my door: 'It ain't right to let them Yankees loose in N'Orleans; they don't know how to hold their licker.'
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*'T didn't take a train next morning. A Somehow, I'd an idea—crazy as it seemed—that my promise to myself and the sudden, inexplicable appearance of the snake beside my foot were related in some way. Just after luncheon I thought I'd put the theory to a test.
" "Well,' I said aloud, 'I guess I might as well start packing. Don't want to let the sun go down and find me here '
"My theory was right. I hadn't finished speaking when I heard the warning hiss, and there, poised ready for the stroke, the snake was coiled before the door. And it was no phantom, either, no figment of an overwrought imagination. It lay upon a rug the hotel management had placed before the door to take the wear of constant passage from the carpet, and I could see the high pile of the rug crushed down beneath its weight. It was flesh and scales—and fangs!—and it coiled and threatened me in my twelfth-floor room in the bright sunlight of the afternoon.
"Little chills of terror chased each other up my back, and I could feel the short hairs on my neck grow stiff and scratch against my collar, but I kept myself in hand. Pretending to ignore the loathsome thing, I flung myself upon the bed.
" 'Oh, well," I said aloud, 'there really isn't any need of hurrying. I promised Julie that I'd come to her tonight, and I mustn't disappoint her.' Half a minute later I roused myself upon my elbow and glanced toward the door. The snake was gone.
" 'Here's a letter for you, Mr. Minton,' said the desk clerk as I paused to leave my key. The note was on gray paper edged with silver-gilt, and very highly scented. The penmanship was tiny, stilted and ill-formed, as though the author were unused to writing, but I could make it out:.
Adore
Meet me in St. Dents Cemetery at sunset A tons de coeur pour I'eternite
Julie
"I stuffed the note back in my pocket. The more I thought about the whole affair the less I liked it. The flirtation had begun harmlessly enough, and Julie was as lovely and appealing as a figure in a fairy-tale, but there are unpleasant aspects; to most fairy-tales, and this was no exception. That scene last night when she had seemed to argue with a full-grown cottonmouth, and the mysterious appearance of the snake whenever I spoke of breaking my promise to go back to her —there was something too much like black magic in it. Now she addressed me as her adored and signed herself for eternity; finally named a graveyard as our rendezvous. Things had become a little bit too thick.
"I was standing at the corner of Canal and Baronne Streets, and crowds of ofBce workers and late shoppers elbowed past me. Til be damned if 111 meet her in a cemetery, or anywhere else,' I muttered. 'I've had enough of all this nonsense '
"A woman's shrill scream, echoed by a man's hoarse shout of terror, interrupted me. On the marble pavement of Canal Street, with half a thousand people bustling by, lay coiled a three-foot water moccasin. Here was proof. I'd seen it twice in my room at the hotel, but I'd been alone each time. Some form of weird hypnosis might have made me think I saw it, but the screaming woman and the shouting man, these panic-stricken people in Canal Street, couldn't all be victims of a spell which had been cast on me. 'All right, I'll go,' I almost shouted, and instantly, as though it been but a puff of smoke, the snake was gone,' the half-fainting woman and a crowd of
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curious bystanders asking what was wrong left to prove I had not been the victim of some strange- delusion.
"r* LD Saint Denis Cemetery lay drows-V-/ ing in the blue, faint twilight It has no graves as we know them, for when the city was laid out it was below sea-level and bodies were stored away in crypts set row on row like lines of pigeonholes in walls as thick as those of mediaeval castles. Grass-grown aisles run between the rows of vaults, and the effect is a true city of the dead with narrow streets shut in by close-set houses. The rattle of a trolley car in Rampart Street came to me faintly as I walked between the rows of tombs; from the river came the mellow-throated bellow of a steamer's whistle, but both sounds were muted as though heard from a great distance. The tomb-lined bastions of Saint Denis hold the present out as firmly as they hold the memories of the past within.
"Down one aisle and up another I walked, the close-clipped turf deadening my footfalls so I might have been a ghost come back to haunt the ancient burial ground, but nowhere was there sign or trace of Julie. I made the circuit of the labyrinth and finally paused before one of the more pretentious tombs.
" 'Looks as if she'd stood me up,' I murmured. 'If she has, I have a good excuse to '
" 'But non, mon coeur, I have not disappointed you!' a soft voice whispered in my ear. 'See, I am here.'
"I think I must have jumped at sound of her greeting, for she clapped her hands delightedly before she put them on my shoulders and turned her face up for a kiss. 'Silly one,' she chided, 'did you think your Julie was unfaithful?'
"I put her hands away as gently as I could, for her utter self-surrender was
embarrassing. 'Where were you?' I asked, striving to make neutral conversation. 'I've been prowling round this graveyard for the last half-hour, and came through this aisle not a minute ago, but I didn't see you '
" 'Ah, but I saw you, cheri; I have watched you as you made your solemn rounds like a watchman of the night. Ohe. but it was hard to wait until the sun went down to greet you, mon petit!'
"She laughed again, and her mirth was mellowly musical as the gurgle of cool water poured from a silver vase.
" 'How could you have seen me?' I demanded. 'Where were you all this time?'
1 "But here, of course/ she answered naively, resting one hand against the graystone slab that sealed the tomb.
"I shook my head bewilderedly. The tomb, like all the others in the deeply recessed wall, was of rough cement in-crusted with small seashells, and its sides were straight and blank without a spear of ivy clinging to them. A sparrow could not have found cover there, yet . , ,
"Julie raised herself on tiptoe and stretched her arms out right and left while she looked at me through half-dosed, smiling eyes. r Je suis engourdie— I am stiff with sleep/ she told me. stifling a yawn. 'But now that you are come, mon ch-er, I am wakeful as the pussy-cat that rouses at the scampering of the mouse. Come, let us walk in this garden of mine.' She linked her arm through mine and started down the gr
assy, grave-lined path.
"Tiny shivers — not of cold — were flickering through my cheeks and down my neck beneath my ears. I had to have an explanation . . . the snake, her declaration that she watched me as I searched the cemetery—and from a tomb where a beetle could not have found a hiding-place—her announcement she was still stiff from sleeping, now her reference
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to a half-forgotten graveyard as her garden.
" 'See here, I want to know ' I
started, but she laid her hand across my lips.
" 'Do not ask to know too soon, mart coeur,' she bade. 'Look at me, am I not veritably elegante?' She stood back a step, gathered up her skirts and swept me a deep curtsy.
"There was no denying she was beautiful. Her tightly curling hair had been combed high and tied back witli a fillet of bright violet tissue which bound her brows like a diadem and at the front of which an aigret plume was set. In her ears were hung two beautifully matched cameos, outlined in gold and seed-pearls, and almost large as silver dollars; a necklace of antique dull-gold hung round her throat, and its pendant was a duplicate of her ear-cameos, while a bracelet of matt-gold set with a fourth matched anaglyph was clasped about her left arm just above the elbow. Her gown was sheer white muslin, low cut at front and back, with little puff-sleeves at the shoulders, fitted tightly at the bodice and flaring sharply from a high-set waist. Over it she wore a narrow scarf of violet silk, hung behind her neck and dropping down on either side in front like a clergyman's stole. Her sandals were gilt leather, heel-less as a ballet dancer's shoes and laced with violet ribbons. Her lovely, pearl-white hands were bare of rings, but on the second toe of her right foot there showed a little cameo which matched the others which she wore.
"I could feel my heart begin to pound and my breath come quicker as I looked at her, but:
" 'You look as if you're going to a masquerade,' I said.
"A look of hurt surprize showed in her eyes. 'A masquerade?' she echoed. 'But no, it is my best, my very finest,
that I wear for you tonight, mon adore. Do not you like it; do you not love me, Edouard?'
" 'No,' I answered shortly, 'I do not. We might as well understand each other, Julie. I'm not in love with you and I never was. It's been a pretty flirtation, nothing more. I'm going home tomorrow, and '
" 'But you will come again? Surely you will come again?' she pleaded. 'You cannot mean it when you say you do not love me, fidouard. Tell me that you spoke so but to tease me '
"A warning hiss sounded in the grass beside my foot, but I was too angry to be frightened. 'Go ahead, set your devilish snake on me,' I taunted. 'Let it bite me. I'd as soon be dead as '
"The snake was quick, but Julie quicker. In the split-second required for the thing to drive at me she leaped across the grass-grown aisle and pushed me back. So violent was the shove she gave me that I fell against the tomb, struck my head against a small projecting stone and stumbled to my knees. As I fought for footing on the slippery grass I saw the deadly, wedge-shaped head strike full against the girl's bare ankle and heard her gasp with pain. The snake recoiled and swung its head toward me, but Julie dropped down to her knees and spread her arms protectingly about me.
" 'Non, nort, grand'iante!' she
screamed; 'not this one! Let me ' Her
voice broke on a little gasp and with a retching hiccup she sank limply to the grass.
"I tried to rise, but my foot slipped on the grass and I fell bade heavily against the tomb, crashing my brow against its shell-set cement wall. I saw Julie lying in a little huddled heap of white against the blackness of the sward, and, shadowy but clearly visible, an aged, wrinkled Negress with turbaned head and cambric.
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apron bending over her, nursing her head against her bosom and rocking back and forth grotesquely while she crooned a wordless threnody. Where had she come from? I wondered idly. Where had the snake gone? Why did the moonlight seem to fade and flicker like a dying lamp? Once more I tried to rise, but slipped back to the grass before the tomb as everything went black before me.
"The lavender light of early morning w : as streaming over the tomb-walls of the cemetery when I waked. I lay quiet for a little while, wondering sleepily how I came there. Then, just as the first rays of the sun shot through the thinning shadows. I remembered. Julie! The snake had bitten her when she flung herself before me. She was gone; the old Negress —where had she come from?—was gone, too, and I was utterly alone in the old graveyard.
"Stiff from lying on the ground, I got myself up awkwardly, grasping at the flower-shelf projecting from the tomb. As my eyes came level with the slab that sealed the crypt I felt the breath catch in my throat. The crypt, like all its fellows, looked for all the world like an old oven let into a brick wall overlaid with peeling plaster. The sealing-stone was probably once white, but years had stained it to a dirty gray, and time had all but rubbed its legend out. Still, I could see the faint inscription carved in quaint, old-fashioned letters, and disbelief gave way to incredulity, which was replaced by panic terror as I read:
lei repose malbeureusement
Julie Amel'ie Marie d'Ayen
Nationde de Paris France
Nee le 29 Aout 1788
Decides a la N O le 2 Juillet 1?07
"Julie! Little Julie whom I'd held in my arms, whose mouth had lain on mine in eager kisses, was a corpse! Dead and in ker grave more than a century!"
THE silence lengthened. Ned stared miserably before him, his outward eyes unseeing, but his mind's eye turned upon that scene in old Saint Denis Cemetery. De Grandin tugged and tugged again at the ends of his mustache till I thought he'd drag the hairs out by the roots. I could think of nothing which might ease the tension till:
"Of course, the name cut on the tombstone was a piece of pure coincidence,' I ha2arded. "Most likely the young woman deliberately assumed it to mislead you "
"And the snake which threatened our young friend, he was an assumption, also, one infers?" de Grandin interrupted.
"N-o, but it could have been a trick. Ned saw an aged Negress in the cemetery, and those old Southern darkies have strange powers "
"I damn think that you hit the thumb upon the nail that time, my friend," the little Frenchman nodded, "though you do not realize how accurate your diagnosis is." To Ned:
"Have you seen this snake again since coming North?"
"Yes," Ned replied. "I have. I was too stunned to speak when I read the epitaph, and I wandered back to the hotel in a sort of daze and packed my bags in silence. Possibly that's why there was no further visitation there. I don't know. I do know nothing further happened, though, and when several months had passed with nothing but my memories to remind me of the incident, I began to think I'd suffered from some sort of walking nightmare. Nella and I went ahead with preparations for our wedding, but three weeks ago the postman brought me this "
He reached into an inner pocket and drew out an envelope. It was of soft gray
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paper, edged with silver-gilt, and the address was in tiny, almost unreadable script:
M. Edouard Minton, 30 Rue Carterci 30, Harrisonville, N. J.
"U'm?" de Grandin commented as he inspected it. "It is addressed a la fran-$aJse> And the letter, may one read it?"
"Of course," Ned answered. "I'd like you to."
Across de Grandin's shoulder I made out the hastily-scrawled missive:
Adore Remember your promise and the kiss of blood that sealed it. Soon I shall tall and you must come.
Pour le lemps et pour YHernite,
Julie.
"You recognize the writing?" de Grandin asked. "It is "
"Oh, yes," Ned answered bitterly. "I recognize it; it's the same the other note was written in."
"And then?"
The boy smiled bleakly. "I crushed the thing into a ball and threw it on the floor and stamped on it. Swore I'd die before I'd keep a
nother rendezvous with
her, and " He broke of?, and put
trembling hands up to his face.
"The so mysterious serpent came again, one may assume?" de Grandin prompted.
"But it's only a phantom snake," I interjected. "At worst it's nothing more than a terrifying vision "
"Think so?" Ned broke in. "D'ye remember Rowdy, my airedale terrier?"
I nodded,
"He was in the room when I opened this letter, and when the cottonmouth appeared beside me on the floor he made a dash for it. Whether it would have struck me I don't know, but it struck at him as he leaped and caught him squarely
in the throat. He thrashed and fought, and the thing held on with locked jaws till I grabbed a fire-shovel and made for it; then, before I could strike, it vanished.
"But its venom didn't. Poor old Rowdy was dead before I could get him out of the house, but I took his corpse to Doctor Kirchoff, the veterinary, and told him Rowdy died suddenly and I wanted him to make an autopsy. He went back to his operating-room and stayed there half an hour. When he came back to the office he was wiping his glasses and wore the most astonished look I've ever seen on a human face. 'You say your dog died suddenly—in the house?' he asked. " 'Yes/ I told him; 'just rolled over and died.'
" "Well, bless my soul, that's the most amazing thing I ever heard!' he answered. 'I can't account for it. That dog died from snake-bite; copperhead, I'd say, and the marks of the fangs show plainly on his throat.' "
"But I thought you said it was a water moccasin," I objected. "Now Doctor Kirchoff says it was a copperhead "
"Ah bah!" de Grandin laughed a thought unpleasantly. "Did no one ever tell you that the copperhead and moccasin are of close kind, my friend? Have not you heard some ophiologists maintain the moccasin is but a dark variety of copperhead?" He did not pause for my reply, but turned again to Ned:
"One understands your chivalry, Monsieur. For yourself you have no fear, since after all at times life can be bought too dearly, but the death of your small dog has put a different aspect on the matter. If this never-to-be-sufficiently-anathematized serpent which comes and goes like the boite a surprise —the how do you call him? Jack from the box?—is, enough a ghost thing to appear at any