Nordenholt's Million

by J. J. Connington

  “I suppose not. Anyway, I’ll do what I can, if only I can hold out till the end myself. And to think that once I used to imagine a minister’s life circled round through sermons, prayer-meetings and visiting the sick. Why, I didn’t know the beginnings of it!”

  “Don’t worry about the past. I’m speaking as a medico now. Get on with your work and leave the thinking till you have time for it. Eternity’s pretty long, you know.”

  “Well, if I take your advice I must be getting back to my work. Good-night, both of you. I’ll see you next week again, perhaps, Glendyne.”

  He walked on, leaving us to continue our exploration. Glendyne was silent for some minutes. When at last he spoke, it was in a graver tone than I had heard him use before.

  “That’s a splendid chap,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at the tall figure behind us. “I don’t envy him, though. His awakening has been a rude one in this affair. Six months ago he knew absolutely nothing of life. He was earnest and all that; but a perfect child in things of the world. The result was that when the blow came he was absolutely helpless. He fought for a time with the old platitudes—and he fought well, I can tell you, for he has a tremendous personality. But he was out of court from the first. I’ve seen things done under his very eyes without his even noticing what was happening. At last I gave him a few pointers from my own experience; and now he has some vague ideas what the temptations really are and how he can best counter them. And he works like a Trojan. A splendid chap. What a chance he had, if he had only had the knowledge; and how he regrets it now, poor beggar. You know, at the very first, he simply led his people down the slope without knowing it. Worked up their religious emotion, you see, until they were simply gunpowder for the flame. What a mess! And all with the best intentions too.”

  It was an extraordinarily long speech from Glendyne; and it gave me some measure of his liking for the clergyman. I gathered that they often met in the course of their work.

  By this time we had emerged into Oxford Street. Glendyne was about to cross the road, when suddenly he caught sight of a train of figures, about a hundred and fifty in all, I should say, who were advancing up the middle of the street. Each had his hands on the shoulders of the person in front of him and the procession advanced towards us slowly, whilst I heard again the air with which I had become familiar.

  “The Dancers!” muttered Glendyne. “Keep a grip on yourself, now, Flint. No hysteria, if you please.”

  I was angry at being treated in this way, for I am not an hysterical subject either outwardly or inwardly; but as the procession drew nearer I realised that he was right to give me a sharp warning. They advanced slowly, as I said, keeping time to the air which they sang and which I now recognised as being something like one of the old nursery lullabies I heard when I was a child. It had the knack of penetrating far into one’s subconsciousness and bringing up into the light all sorts of forgotten childish fancies which had long slipped from my waking thoughts. There was no regularity in the dancing, except that the whole procession kept time to the air: each individual danced as he chose, provided that he kept his hands upon the shoulders before him so that the line remained intact. Men and women were intermingled without any order in the company. Their faces were rapt, as though in some ecstasy; and a strange, compelling magnetism seemed to emanate from the whole scene.

  “Here we go . . . dancing . . . under the . . . Moon,

  Lifting our . . . feet to the . . . time of the . . . tune.

  Come, brother, . . . Come, sister, . . . join in our . . . line;

  Join with us . . . now in this . . . dancing divine.”

  So they came up toward us, while that strange magnetic attraction grew ever stronger upon me. For some reason which I could not fathom, I felt a profound desire to join in the procession. A kind of hallucinatory craving came over me, though I fought it down. At last Glendyne’s voice broke the spell.

  “Fine example of choreomania, isn’t it? Perfectly well-recognised type. The old Dancing Mania of the fourteenth century. Bound to arise under conditions like the present.”

  The phrases fell on my ear and by their matter-of-fact-ness seemed to come between me and the fascination which the lullaby and the rhythmical motion had begun to exercise upon my mind. Almost without any feeling whatever, I watched the Dancers approaching.

  “Here we go . . . dancing . . . under the . . . Moon.

  Join in our . . . chain, it will . . . break all too . . . soon.

  When this verse . . . ends, then . . . scatter like . . . rain;

  And each dance a . . . lone till we . . . form it a . . . gain.”

  At the last word of the verse, the procession dissolved into a whirling crowd of figures, dancing, springing, spinning in their aimless evolutions. We were caught up in the mob; and only Glendyne’s grip on my arm prevented my being jostled from his side. A knot of the Dancers came about us and strove to excite us into their revels. Women with tossing hair besought us breathlessly to join them; men dragged at us, striving to bring us out among them. All the faces wore the same look of ardency, the same expression about the lips. Some were weary; but still the excitement bore them up in their convulsions. The temptation to join them became almost irresistible; and I felt myself being drawn into their ranks when suddenly the singing broke out once more.

  “Here we go . . . dancing . . . under the . . . Moon. . . .”

  The procession re-formed in haste, gathering length as it went; and the Dancers began again to move eastward along Oxford Street. I watched them go, still feeling the attraction long after they were past; and only some minutes later I realised that Glendyne was still gripping my arm.

  “Perhaps you understand now the way in which those two girls were lost,” he said. “A slight weakening of control, eh? Not so bad for a man; but when a girl gives in to it! . . . Let’s go up Rathbone Place, now. I expect we may meet something interesting in that direction.”

  Interesting! I had had enough of interest these last few minutes. I was still quivering with the rhythm of that doggerel song. However, I followed him across Oxford Street, into Rathbone Place. Here the clothed skeletons lay more thickly about our path. Between Oxford Street and Black Horse Yard I counted thirty-seven. Many of them lay in the road; but the majority were huddled in corners and doorways, as though the poor wretches had sought a quiet place in which to die. In the distance I heard wild shouting and the sound of something like a tom-tom being beaten intermittently; whilst in the silences between these outbursts, the roar of the flames somewhere in the neighbourhood came to me over the roofs.

  At the corner of Gresse Street, a gaunt creature sidled up to us furtively; looking us up and down for a moment; and whispered to me: “Are you one of us?” Then, catching sight of the Red Cross on my arm, he fled into the darkness of the side-street without waiting for an answer.

  In Percy Street, the petroleuses were at work, methodically drenching houses with oil and setting them alight. One side of the street was already ablaze; and the light wind was blowing clouds of sparks broadcast over the neighbouring roofs. London was clearly doomed. Nothing could save it now, even had anyone wished to do so. As we stood at the street-corner, one of the hags passed us and snarled as she went by:

  “We’ll roast you out of the West End soon, you —— burjwaw! There’ll be lights enough for you and yer women to dance by when Molly comes with her pail. You’ve trod us down and starved us long enough. It’s our turn now. It’s our turn now, d’yer hear? I could burn ye as ye stand”—she drew back her bucket as though to drench us with petrol—“but I want ye to dance with the rest to make it complete. We’ll fix ye before long, we will.”

  At the southern end of Charlotte Street a rough cross had been erected in the middle of the road and to it clung the remains of a skeleton. Most of the bones had fallen to the ground, but enough remained to show that a body—dead or alive—had been crucified there at one time. Over the head of the cross was nailed a placard with the inscriptio
n:

  ACHTUNG!

  EINGANG VERBOTEN.

  WIR SIND HIER ZU HAUSE

  STÖREN UNS NICHT.

  Glendyne was evidently acquainted with the placard, for he did not come forward to read it. He turned to the left and led me into Upper Rathbone Place.

  “Mostly Germans in Charlotte Street now,” he said. “A branch of the East End colony, and just about as bad as their friends. I pity anyone who falls into their hands. Ugh!”

  He spat on the ground as though he had a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Thank goodness, this is only a small colony, for that sort of thing is apt to contaminate everything in its neighbourhood. Down East it’s on a bigger scale. Hark to that!”

  Across the house-roofs between us and Charlotte Street there came a long, quivering cry as of someone in the extremity of physical and mental agony; then it was drowned in a burst of laughter. Glendyne gritted his teeth.

  “To-morrow night, if the moonlight holds, I’ll have an aeroplane down here and give them a taste. They’re all of a kind, in there; so it’s easy enough to be sure we get the right ones. Loathsome swine!”

  We cut across into Newman Street. At the door of St. Andrew’s Hall a weird figure was standing—a man dressed as a faun, evidently in a costume which had been looted from some theatrical wardrobe. When he caught sight of us, he ran in our direction, leaping and bounding in an ungainly fashion along the pavement and halting occasionally to blow shrilly upon a reed pipe.

  “Pan is not dead!” he cried. “I bring the good tidings! All the world awakes again after its long sleep; and the fauns in the forests are pursuing the hamadryades and following the light feet of the oreads once more upon the hills of Arcady. Io! Io! Evohé! Swift be the hunting!

  “The Old Gods slumbered; but Echo, watching by rock and pool, ever answered our calling through the years. Awake! Awake! O Gods! Hear again the pipes of Pan!”

  He blew a melancholy air upon his instrument, prancing grotesquely the while.

  “Syrinx, reed-maiden, men have not forgotten thee! Again they hear the wailings of thy soul in the pipes of Pan.”

  He danced again, looking up at the moon.

  “Diana! Long hast thou watched us from thy throne in the skies, but now the nights of thy hunting are come once more. Prepare the bow, gird on thy quiver and come with us again as in the days of old. Dost thou remember the white goat? Join us, O Huntress!”

  Again he made music with his pipes.

  “Syrinx, Syrinx! I come to seek thee in the reeds by the river. Awake! The world begins anew.”

  And crying “Syrinx, O Syrinx!” he ran from us and disappeared into Mortimer Street.

  Glendyne turned into Castle Street East. I could not see any reason for these continual turnings and windings in our wanderings, but I suppose that he had some definite itinerary in his mind, some route which would give him the best opportunity of exhibiting to me the varied aspects of London at this time. Here again the skeletons lay scattered, though there appeared to be no aggregations of them in any particular localities. Behind us, the Tottenham Court Road district seemed ablaze; and flames leaped above the house-roofs to the east.

  Suddenly, after we had passed Berners Street, I heard a confused sound of shouting, yells, running feet and the notes of a horn. Glendyne started violently and dragged me rapidly into the shelter of a house door near the corner of Wells Street.

  “This is a case where the Red Cross is no protection,” he said hurriedly. “It’s Herne and his pack. Keep as much under cover as you can. We shall probably not be noticed,” he added. “They seem to be in full cry. There!”

  As he spoke, a single man rushed into view at the corner. He was running with his head down, looking neither to right nor left, but I caught a glimpse of his face as he passed and I have never seen terror marked so deeply on any countenance. He was evidently exhausted, yet he seemed to be driven on by a frantic fear which kept him on his feet even though he staggered and slipped as he went by.

  “The quarry,” said Glendyne. “Now comes the pack.”

  Almost on the heels of the fugitive, a horde of pursuers swept into sight: about forty or fifty men and women running with long, easy strides. Some of them shouted as they ran, others passed in silence; but all had a dreadful air of intentness. It was more like the final stage of a fox-hunt than anything else I can recall. Leading the crew was a huge negro, running with an open razor in his hand; and I saw flecks of foam on his mouth as he passed. Next to him was a chestnut-haired girl wearing an evening dress which had once been magnificent. She had kilted up the skirt for ease in running. A silver horn was in her hand; and on it she blew from time to time, whilst the pack yelled in reply. The whole thing passed in a flash; and we heard them retreating into the distance towards Oxford Street.

  “What’s that ghastly business?” I asked Glendyne. I had pulled out my pistol almost unconsciously when the pack swept into sight; but he had laid a grip on my wrist and prevented me from firing.

  “The nigger in front was Herne—Herne the Hunter, they call him. They hunt in a pack, you see, and run down any isolated individual they happen to come across in their prowlings. I wish we could get hold of them; but they seldom come near any of the picketed areas. They can get all the sport they need without that. Once the hunt is up, they recognise nothing. That’s why I told you the Red Cross wouldn’t save you. If they chase, they kill; and they seem able to run anyone down. I never heard of a victim escaping them.”

  “What do they do it for?’”

  “Pleasure, fun, anything you like. It gives them a peculiar delight to hunt and kill. You see, Flint, in these times the instincts which are normally under control have all broken loose upon us; and the hunting instinct is one of the very oldest we have. In ordinary times, it comes out in fox-hunting or grouse-shooting or some mild form like that. But nowadays there is no restraint and the instinct can glut itself to the full. Man-hunting is the final touch of pleasure for these creatures.”

  “Who was the girl at the head of them?”

  “Oh, that? She was Lady Angela.” He gave a sneering laugh. “What an incongruity there is in some names! Satanita was what she ought to have been christened if everyone had their rights. And yet, in the old days, one could never have suspected this in her. I knew her, you know, and I more than liked her. She used to sing me old French songs; and one of them was rather a horrible production. It ought to have put me on my guard; but I suppose every man is a fool where women are concerned.”

  He broke off and hummed to himself a snatch of an old air:

  “Pour passer ces nuits blanches,

  Gallery, mes enfants,

  Chassait tous les dimanches

  Et battait les paysans.

  Entendez-vous la sarabande? . . .”

  “And so now she’s running a kind of Chasse-Gallery on her own account along with that human devil, Herne. It shows how little one knows.”

  Just as we approached Oxford Mansions, I heard the sound of a pistol-shot, and when we came up to the spot we found a still warm body with a Colt automatic clasped in its hand. “Suicide,” said Glendyne briefly, after examining the body. “The short way out.”

  There was nothing to be done, so we turned away. As we did so a black shadow dropped out of the sky and I saw a huge crow alighting by the side of the corpse. I think that this incident made as great an effect upon me as any. Times had changed indeed when crows became night-birds. Glendyne watched me drive the brute away from the corpse without attempting to help.

  “What’s the use? It will be back as soon as we go; and I don’t suppose you want to stay here all night? Birds are desperate for food nowadays, and that fellow may give you more than you expect if you don’t leave him alone. The old fear of man has left them, you know, nowadays.”

  Before we had gone many steps, we encountered another inhabitant, a cadaverous young man with an acid stain on his sleeve. He stopped and wished us “Good-evening,” being apparently glad
to meet someone to whom he could talk. It was a relief to find that he appeared to be perfectly sane. I had become so accustomed to abnormality by this time that I think his sanity came almost as an unexpected thing. I asked him what he did to pass the time.

  “I was working at some alkaloid constitutions when the Plague came, and I just went on with that. I’ve got one definitely settled except for the position of a single methyl radicle, now; and I think I shall get that fixed in a day or two. But probably you aren’t a chemist?”

  “No. Not my line.”

  “Rather a pity—for me, I mean. One does like to explain what one has done; and there’s no chance of that now.”

  It seemed to me a pity that this enthusiast should be lost. Probably Nordenholt could find some use for him.

  “I think I could put you in touch with some other chemists if you like; but you would need to trust me in the matter. Is there anyone depending on you, any relatives?”

  “No, they’re all gone by now.”

  “Well, I think I might manage it. I believe I could put you in the way of being some use; and it might be the saving of your life, too, for I suppose your food is almost out.”

  A famished look came into his face and I realised what food meant to him.

  “Could you? I’d be awfully grateful. I’m down to the laboratory stores of glycerine and fatty acids now for nourishment, and it’s pretty thin, I can tell you. Could you really do something?”

  In his excitement, he clutched my arm: and at that he recoiled with a look of horror on his face.

  “You damned cannibal!” he cried. “Did you think you would take me in? I suppose your friend was standing by with the sandbag, eh?”

  He retreated a few steps and cursed me with almost hysterical violence.

  “If I had a pistol I would finish you,” he cried. “You don’t deserve to live. And to think you nearly took me in. I suppose you would have enticed me to your den with that fairy-tale of yours.”

  And with an indescribable sound of disgust he turned and ran up Margaret Court, cursing as he went.