by Ashby, R. C.
I don’t remember when it was exactly that the deadlier fear grew on me. I think it was the sudden recollection of that awful sandal-print and Ian Barr’s dead body at the foot of the cliffs in the darkness of just such a misty evening as this. Horror had me in its grip. I stood still, I remember, frozen at the thought of Joan . . . and that monster who had spoken to us, only two nights ago. It seemed to me then that from the first I’d been too unutterably light-hearted about the whole affair of the Barr tragedy, as though I’d been watching a rather thrilling play in a theatre. Now it was coming home to me, and believe me, from that night—those few frightful hours when I searched for Joan—I haven’t been the same man. I got more than a few grey hairs that night.
I tried to be coldly reasonable, and asked myself why the Thing should attack Joan who after all had no connection with the Barr family; but you know yourself how useful it is trying to be reasonable when you’re in a panic, particularly in the middle of a moor at night with all the powers of hell let loose. I think I went rather mad. I know I shouted to the Thing to come out and face me like a man so that I could stand up to it with my fists. And then I thought of the picture-slashing, and the knife in the wall of the library—the knife that had been fetched during the night—and I went crazier still, running and shouting and beating about among the heather.
I must have covered miles. I suddenly remembered that I had agreed to come back and meet Ingram within the hour, and consulting my luminous watch I saw that I had been out for three hours. It was nearly half-past seven. With my pocket compass and torch I found my way back to the village. Ingram was at his house; had been back two or three times expecting to find me. If there was anything good in that welter of anxiety, it was to notice how Ingram’s mind had been taken completely off its own preoccupations. He said to me the sanest thing I had ever heard him say. ‘When I find her,’ he said, ‘I’ll have no more of this kind of thing; I’ll take her straight back to London and hand her over to her father.’
‘You know these moors,’ I said, ‘what—what harm could come to her?’ I wanted desperately to be reassured, or else to have someone share my horrid fears.
‘Anything!’ said Ingram. ‘Anything.’ He paused, and added: ‘Men have been lost on the moor and wandered till they died. Hardy, local men. And she’s only a girl, a stranger, and unused to exposure. I shall have to call on the village for a search-party.’
We were both strung up to the highest pitch by then, and for my part I was ready to do battle with anybody or anything, and quite prepared for a night on the moor, with or without a village search-party. But, as you know, real life is simply a series of anticlimaxes; no artistry, no sense of drama. All that is left to fiction. So instead of some tremendous end to this adventure, all that happened was that a trap stopped outside the door and we heard Joan’s voice and saw her climbing down.
‘Hallo, Billy!’ she said, catching sight of me; ‘I’ve had an adventure.’
I was dumb. I think she must have read something in my face, for she stopped still before me, and put her hands on my wrists.
‘Now what’s the matter? You don’t mean to say you thought I was dead? You dear old pre-War fusser, I believe you did!’
And then I lost my head completely, and did the most idiotic thing. I fumbled in my pocket and pulled out the pink silk reel. ‘Look, Joan,’ I said; ‘I got you this.’
She gave a gay cry. ‘Billy, you’re a wow!’ And she slipped her hands up to my shoulders and kissed me—lavishly. So I kissed her too, in a dazed sort of way, as though I were seeing the light after years in an underground dungeon. Presently she said: ‘That’ll do. Lay off it—as they say in “Bawston.” There’s Uncle Peter looking as if he’d been pole-axed.’
She ran into the house, pulling off her yellow scarf. ‘I’ve had a ripping tea,’ she cried, ‘at a farm. Lucky, wasn’t it? You see, Billy, I set out to meet you, but when I got to the fork I took the wrong road, and I didn’t realize it until I’d gone about two miles. So I turned back, but I somehow got on to another road and this time I walked about seven leagues and it began to get dark. So I thought, “Well, here’s little Maria all alone in the Sahara. Let’s give a view halloo.” So I hooted a bit, and then somebody hooted back, and it was a nice farm-boy called Harold, with a cart. So he took me to the farm and they were just going to have a scrummy sort of meal, jam and hot girdle-cakes, and did I say no? I’ll say I didn’t. And then the young man brought me back in the trap, and here I am, about four hours too late for our walk, Billy. Better luck next time.’
‘There’ll be no next time,’ said Ingram sternly; ‘I’m going to take you to London.’
‘You might have been killed,’ I said, rubbing it in. ‘Your uncle and I have been scouring the moor for hours. We thought you were lost and wandering. Strong men have wandered there until they died of exposure. If you’d fallen into a ghyll with a broken leg you might have lain there for days. We’ve been horribly anxious.’
‘Billy,’ she said, ‘don’t do the heavy parent. It doesn’t suit you. And now I’d better go and pack if we’re starting for London to-morrow.’
‘We can’t go yet,’ said Ingram; ‘I have matters to arrange.’
‘In that case,’ said Joan calmly, ‘we’ll have some supper. You’ll stay, Billy, won’t you? Especially as I did you out of your tea. Sorrow!’
And at that, I realized that it was nine o’clock and I had been away from my duty at The Broch all those hours without giving it a thought. Barr would be justified in thinking it more than casual of me. So I excused myself to Ingram and Joan, and set off on M‘Coul’s bike at a terrific bat, which of course I couldn’t keep up after I was through the village, owing to the darkness and the pot-holes of the road.
As for my state of mind, I felt cold and angry. Reaction after all my excitements and heroics. Just flat and cold and furious and unimaginative; remember that. It was a rotten night; raw and damp, with a wispy mist lying in patches on the moor. The sky was cloudy and wild, and on her back in the cloud-rack lay a weeping half-moon. It would rain before morning. I was thinking of nothing beyond what a vile day I’d had and how hungry I was, and how I ought to apologize at The Broch for having absented myself so long. As a matter of fact I needn’t have worried, as it turned out. Nobody but M‘Coul had missed me, as Charlie had spent the whole day busy in his study. But I didn’t know that as I went pedalling over that moorland road, swerving round the pot-holes I could see and lurching across those that took me unawares. I met no living creature on that journey; few people are abroad in the country at nine o’clock—and later—of an evening.
But in that frame of mind, fearless, unimaginative, preoccupied, and in cold blood—in that frame of mind, pedalling a heavy iron bicycle across a wicked moorland road in the darkness of a raw night, I saw the Roman ghost.”
xiii
“Think of it. And Joan, so gallant and gay, only just safe. It was when I was not more than half a mile from The Broch and the road ran perhaps fifty yards from the cliffs which overhung the sea. The tide was in, because I could hear the thundering of the waves on the rocky shore far below. As I rode I was suddenly dazzled by a strong light which flashed into my eyes for a second and passed on. I saw the long, white beam travelling away across the rough shoulder of the moor; it was the ray from the lighthouse. Sixty seconds it took to complete its revolution, and then it was back again from the sea and sweeping across my path. And this time as I followed the travelling beam of light, I saw where it caught the edge of the cliff, fifty yards away; and there, framed for a moment in the white radiance he stood, Vitellius Gracchus, brilliant against the dark night. He was still, but not with the stillness of a statue; the pose was tense, the powerful shoulders drawn back, the arms flexed. It was as though a single lime in a darkened theatre had picked out one poised and glittering figure on the tenebrous stage.
First I saw the glitter of his helmet with the sweeping neckguard; and then the gleam of his cuirass with its falling thongs of leather and brass, and beneath the thongs the flutter of a scarlet tunic; and then the high, laced sandals. No face. Only a grey blur, like smoke, for I looked particularly. The whole effect was big, powerful, menacing. And yet he was unarmed. I looked in vain for the high shield with the letter of his legion and the painted eagle, for the spear which once must have lain across his shoulder, and the short sword at his side. Vitellius Gracchus was unarmed, and yet unspeakably terrible, standing there on the cliffs above the North Sea, haunting the blood-stained moor where he and his legionaries had died. Here in twentieth-century England for a moment the old, savage England raised its head. And the changeless wind blew across the moor. I was off the cycle now, staring at that brooding figure. And all this, which has taken me several minutes to describe, took place in about a second in the light of the travelling beam from the sea. The beam passed on. Darkness. I breathed as though I had been running; waiting, waiting for the return of the light. A long, long minute and again the white ray swept the cliffs. He was gone, and the tangled heather lay empty and bare. The bicycle clattered down in the road and I began to run across the moor to where he had stood. I stumbled and fell. The heather lashed and entrapped my feet. But I found the place—I think it was the very place—and there was nothing. Not even the print of his sandal. I listened, but I could only hear the creeping of that eerie wind. Then there came a wild gust, and the rain fell.
At that, terror seized hold of me and I couldn’t move a limb. I thought I should suddenly see him rising out of the mist within a yard of me . . . and hear his voice of thunder again . . . and this time see his awful face. I knew that he wasn’t far away. How I blessed that lighthouse lamp! While it swept the sea I waited, with the sweat pouring off me; when it returned to land I made a leap and ran for the road as though hell were at my heels. Do you think me an unspeakable coward? I’m telling you it exactly as it happened. You don’t see a sight like that and feel the same afterwards. I’ve seen, and I know. I’ve twice faced a line of charging bayonets; then my blood boiled, now it froze. Coward if you like. Coward a thousand times. I don’t care.
I don’t know whether I rode the cycle or whether I dragged it after me. I got to the house somehow, and tore at the bell. M‘Coul let me in, impassive as usual.
‘Have you had supper, sir?’ he asked.
I gasped a curt reply.
‘Then if you would have it now, sir, I could clear away. It is waiting in the dining-room.’
Surprisingly, once in the house I felt serene, and pleasantly hungry. I had my supper, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and went into the library. ‘I dreamed it,’ I said to myself. ‘No. I swear I didn’t. It wasn’t just a Roman soldier I saw; it was an individual. I could see the dints in his cuirass, and the neck-guard of his helmet was wrenched awry. I couldn’t have dreamed that.’ I looked at the clock; it was half-past ten. Presently I heard the slam of a door above and footsteps on the stairs. Charlie Barr was coming down. I was flipping over the cards of the index and for the life of me I couldn’t say a word when he came in. He offered me his cigarette-case—he always smoked very good cigarettes, fat, brown Russians with gold tips—sounds rather precious, but he wasn’t at all like that—and I took one and lit up. Then I said: ‘Barr, I saw the ghost to-night. On the cliff. Gracchus.’
Too sudden. Down went the cigarette-case, clatter-clatter on the parquet.
‘I don’t believe it!’ he rapped out.
‘Oh, yes you do!’ I said.
He went over to the fire, lit his cigarette, turned his face away, and said: ‘Tell me.’
‘I was coming back from Ingram’s,’ I said, ‘a little after nine o’clock. As I came over the moor-road the lighthouse beam came sweeping round, and in the light of it I saw him standing on the cliff about fifty yards away. It wasn’t an imaginative effort. My thoughts were far away from him at the time. He was there, quite, quite distinct. I could see the dints in his armour. Then the light passed on, and when it came again he was gone. I even went to the place where he’d been, but he’d vanished. I don’t think he meant to show himself to me. I think that he is just . . . abroad.’
Charlie said nothing, but presently I saw his unsmoked cigarette drop into the fire, and without facing me he said sharply: ‘Have you told anybody?’
‘No,’ I said; ‘I’ve only seen M‘Coul since I came in.’
‘Then don’t, please . . .’ He added, half-hopefully. ‘Perhaps you’ll disbelieve it yourself to-morrow.’
‘No,’ I said firmly; ‘I saw him. It’s a sight I shan’t forget.’
Charlie shivered, and then with a gesture of anger pulled himself together. ‘Please tell me—I’m curious—what was he like? His face . . .’
‘That’s a curious thing,’ I said; ‘he had no face. Between his helmet and cuirass there was only a grey mistiness. It was a face of smoke. The armour and the tunic looked almost material; the man himself was a wraith.’
‘Tall? Powerful?’ he asked.
‘The impression I got was of height and power,’ I explained, ‘but on second thoughts I believe that was the effect of the armour. He was about your own height or mine.’
‘Supposing,’ Charlie went on, ‘that he’d been there on the cliff when you got to him, Mertoun! What would you have done?’
‘Grappled with him,’ I said.
Charlie laughed bitterly. ‘I wonder whether a man could! I’ve half a mind to go out.’
‘Don’t,’ I said tersely.
He laughed, more lightly. ‘Then I’ll stay. But he’s getting nearer, Mertoun. I wonder if I’ll be the next to see him?’ He turned a few papers over restlessly, and said: ‘How’s your job? Made much progress?’
‘I shall finish to-morrow,’ I told him.
He nodded in a preoccupied manner, and left the room. A few minutes later Miss Goff came in and stood just inside the door, waiting with a kind of frigid nonchalance until I looked up from my writing.
I said: ‘Do you want anything, Miss Goff?’
She said coldly: ‘Mr. Barr tells me you are leaving the day after to-morrow. He said I was to tell the Colonel, with regard to your account. The Colonel wishes to know what he owes you.’
Well, of course, taken completely by surprise like that I was at a disadvantage; but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t be well paid for my work by a man who was perfectly able to afford it, and Ingram himself had told me that Colonel Barr was a millionaire, though close with his money.
So I said: ‘I prefer to leave that to the Colonel, Miss Goff. I haven’t had a commission quite like this one before, and I shall be satisfied if he pays me what he thinks my work is worth. Of course it would be more satisfactory if he could see it—and me—but under the circumstances perhaps you’ll tell him that his books are now properly arranged and made up with a complete card index, in these boxes, with cross-references to author and subject. When he can see them for himself I think he’ll be pleased. Kindly tell him that. Also that my charge for the original valuation which I came here to make is five guineas.’
‘Very well,’ said she, and marched out.
In about half an hour she came back, still more tight-lipped.
‘The Colonel,’ she said, as though carefully quoting her instructions, ‘says that he prefers you to name your figure. He hopes you will do so now.’
My hopes of a lavish cheque disappeared, so I accepted the situation and said promptly: ‘Then will you tell him, five guineas for the valuation, and fifteen for the catalogue, including the cost of the cards and boxes.’
‘Twenty guineas in all,’ she said; ‘thank you.’
And then, to crown this engaging conversation, she came a third time and said that the Colonel
had my London address and would send me a cheque for twenty guineas, and that was that. The last phrase, of course, being mine. I thought the Colonel was rather a cool card, but I couldn’t very well say that I would much, much rather carry that cheque away with me. I hoped for the best, and said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And I felt like adding, ‘Tell him that Vitellius Gracchus is out on the moor!’ Which would have been slightly Lower School of me, after all.
I sat up late, reading and smoking. And thinking, rather against my will. That last short interview with the nurse had given a hint of finality to my stay in that strange part of the world. To-morrow was to be my last day at The Broch, and then London, and the memory of a queer, unfinished adventure. Or should I one day wake up in St. John’s Wood and realize that the whole affair had been a dream? No. The characters were too distinct to be dreamlike. Charlie Barr, Winifred Goff, Ingram, Joan. People I should never forget. And the man I had seen to-night; the man from an age of savage strength, passion, brutality, vengefulness, with his dinted armour and swordless hands; the man whose name was carved in living letters on the rock hidden deep in the heart of the house; the man whose voice of thunder had flung us all to the ground like dead men; the man who had wrestled with poor Ian Barr on the cliffs above the dark North Sea. The insatiable, brooding, blood-lusting Gracchus.
And in strange contrast, I remember thinking how lovely a place this might have been with summer lingering on a purple moor, and shifting deeps of azure and sapphire in sky and sea; to wander and dream and hear Joan laughing from morning till night; to pull the gorse and read an old book. But now it was endless winter and the rain was falling coldly from the sad sky.
