The Slayer of Souls

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER IX

  THE WEST WIND

  The night grew sweet with the scent of orange bloom, and all theperfumed darkness was vibrant with the feathery whirr of hawk-moths'wings.

  Tressa had taken her moon-lute to the hammock, but her fingers restedmotionless on the strings.

  Cleves and Recklow, shoulder to shoulder, paced the moonlit path alongthe hedges of oleander and hibiscus which divided garden from jungle.

  And they moved cautiously on the white-shell road, not too near theshadow line. For in the cypress swamp the bloated grey death was awakeand watching under the moon; and in the scrub palmetto thediamond-dotted death moved lithely.

  And somewhere within the dark evil of the jungle a man in white might bewatching.

  So Recklow's pistol swung lightly in his right hand and Cleves' weaponlay in his side-pocket, and they strolled leisurely around the drive andup and down the white-shell walks, passing Tressa at regular intervals,where she sat in her hammock with the moon-lute across her knees.

  Once Cleves paused to place two pink hibiscus blossoms in her hair aboveher ears; and the girl smiled gravely at him in the light.

  Again, pausing beside her hammock on one of their tours of the garden,Recklow said in a low voice: "If the beast would only show himself, Mrs.Cleves, we'd not miss him. Have you caught a glimpse of anything whitein the woods?"

  "Only the night mist rising from the branch and a white ibis stealingthrough it."

  Cleves came nearer: "Do you think the Yezidee is in the woods watchingus, Tressa?"

  "Yes, he is there," she said calmly.

  "You _know_ it?"

  "Yes."

  Recklow stared at the woods. "We can't go in to hunt for him," he said."That fellow would get us with his Lewisite gas before we could discoverand destroy him."

  "Suppose he waits for a west wind and squirts his gas in thisdirection?" whispered Cleves.

  "There is no wind," said Tressa tranquilly. "He has been waiting for it,I think. The Yezidee is very patient. And he is a Shaman sorcerer."

  "My God!" breathed Recklow. "What sort of hellish things has the OldWorld been dumping into America for the last fifty years? An ordinaryanarchist is bad enough, but this new breed of devil--theseYezidees--this sect of Assassins----"

  "Hush!" whispered Tressa.

  All three listened to the great cat-owl howling from the jungle. ButTressa had heard another sound--the vague stir of leaves in thelive-oaks. Was it a passing breeze? Was a night wind rising? Shelistened. But heard no brittle clatter from the palm-fronds.

  "Victor," she said.

  "Yes, Tressa."

  "If a wind comes, we must hunt him. That will be necessary."

  "Either we hunt him and get him, or he kills us here with his gas," saidRecklow quietly.

  "If the night wind comes," said Tressa, "we must hunt the darkness forthe Yezidee." She spoke coolly.

  "If he'd only show himself," muttered Recklow, staring into thedarkness.

  The girl picked up her lute, caught Cleves' worried eyes fixed on her,suddenly comprehended that his anxiety was on her account, and blushedbrightly in the moonlight. And he saw her teeth catch at her underlip;saw her look up again at him, confused.

  "If I dared leave you," he said, "I'd go into the hammock and start thatreptile. This won't do--this standing pat while he comes to some deadlydecision in the woods there."

  "What else is there to do?" growled Recklow.

  "Watch," said the girl. "Out-watch the Yezidee. If there is nonight-wind he may tire of waiting. Then you must shoot fast--very, veryfast and straight. But if the night-wind comes, then we must hunt him indarkness."

  Recklow, pistol in hand, stood straight and sturdy in the moonlight,gazing fixedly at the forest. Cleves sat down at his wife's feet.

  She touched her moon-lute tranquilly and sang in her childish voice:

  "_Ring, ring, Buddha bells, Gilded gods are listening. Swing, swing, lily bells, In my garden glistening. Now I hear the Shaman drum; Now the scarlet horsemen come; Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Through the chanting of the throng Thunders now the temple gong. Boom-boom! Ding-dong!_

  "_Let the gold gods listen! In my garden; what care I Where my lily bells hang mute! Snowy-sweet they glisten Where I'm singing to my lute. In my garden; what care I Who is dead and who shall die? Let the gold gods save or slay Scented lilies bloom in May. Boom, boom, temple gong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!_"

  "What are you singing?" whispered Cleves.

  "'The Bells of Yian.'"

  "Is it old?"

  "Of the 13th century. There were few Buddhist bells in Yian then. It isLamaism that has destroyed the Mongols and that has permitted the creedof the Assassins to spread--the devil worship of Erlik."

  He looked at her, not understanding. And she, pale, slim prophetess, inthe moonlight, gazed at him out of lost eyes--eyes which saw, perhaps,the bloody age of men when mankind took the devil by the throat and allMount Alamout went up in smoking ruin; and the Eight Towers were dark asdeath and as silent before the blast of the silver clarions of GhenghisKhan.

  "Something is stirring in the forest," whispered Tressa, her fingers onher lips.

  "Damnation," muttered Recklow, "it's the wind!"

  They listened. Far in the forest they heard the clatter of palm-fronds.They waited. The ominous warning grew faint, then rose again,--a long,low rattle of palm-fronds which became a steady monotone.

  "We hunt," said Recklow bluntly. "Come on!"

  But the girl sprang from the hammock and caught her husband's arm anddrew Recklow back from the hibiscus hedge.

  "Use me," she said. "You could never find the Yezidee. Let me do thehunting; and then shoot very, very fast."

  "We've got to take her," said Recklow. "We dare not leave her."

  "I can't let her lead the way into those black woods," muttered Cleves.

  "The wind is blowing in my face," insisted Recklow. "We'd better hurry."

  Tressa laid one hand on her husband's arm.

  "I can find the Yezidee, I think. You never could find him before hefinds you! Victor, let me use my own _knowledge_! Let me find the way.Please let me lead! Please, Victor. Because, if you don't, I'm afraidwe'll all die here in the garden where we stand."

  Cleves cast a haggard glance at Recklow, then looked at his wife.

  "All right," he said.

  The girl opened the hedge gate. Both men followed with pistols lifted.

  The moon silvered the forest. There was no mist, but a night-wind blewmournfully through palm and cypress, carrying with it the strange,disturbing pungency of the jungle--wild, unfamiliar perfumes,--the acridaroma of swamp and rotting mould.

  "What about snakes?" muttered Recklow, knee deep in wild phlox.

  But there was a deadlier snake to find and destroy, somewhere in theblotched shadows of the forest.

  The first sentinel trees were very near, now; and Tressa was runningacross a ghostly tangle, where once had been an orange grove, and whereaged and dying citrus stumps rose stark amid the riot of encroachingjungle.

  "She's circling to get the wind at our backs," breathed Recklow, runningforward beside Cleves. "That's our only chance to kill the dirtyrat--catch him with the wind at our backs!"

  Once, traversing a dry hammock where streaks of moonlight alternatedwith velvet-black shadow a rattlesnake sprang his goblin alarm.

  They could not locate the reptile. They shrank together and movedwarily, chilled with fear.

  Once, too, clear in the moonlight, the Grey Death reared up from bloatedfolds and stood swaying rhythmically in a horrible shadow dance beforethem. And Cleves threw one arm around his wife and crept past, givingdeath a wide berth there in the checkered moonlight.

  Now, under foot, the dry hammock lay everywhere and the night wind blewon their backs.

  Then Tressa turned and halted the two men with a gesture. And went toher husband where he s
tood in the palm forest, and laid her hands on hisshoulders, looking him very wistfully in the eyes.

  Under her searching gaze he seemed oddly to comprehend her appeal.

  "You are going to use--to use your _knowledge_," he said mechanically."You are going to find the man in white."

  "Yes."

  "You are going to find him in a way we don't understand," he continued,dully.

  "Yes.... You will not hold me in--in horror--will you?"

  Recklow came up, making no sound on the spongy palm litter underfoot.

  "Can you find this devil?" he whispered.

  "I--think so."

  "Does your super-instinct--finer sense--knowledge--whatever it is--giveyou any inkling as to his whereabouts, Mrs. Cleves?"

  "I think he is here in this hammock. Only----" she turned again, withswift impulse, to her husband, "--only if you--if _you_ do not holdme in--in horror--because of what I do----"

  There was a silence; then:

  "What are you about to do?" he asked hoarsely.

  "Slay this man."

  "We'll do that," said Cleves with a shudder. "Only show him to us andwe'll shoot the dirty reptile to slivers----"

  "Suppose we hit the jar of gas," said Recklow.

  After a silence, Tressa said:

  "I have got to give him back to Satan. There is no other way. Iunderstood that from the first. He can not die by your pistols, thoughyou shoot very fast and straight. No!"

  After another silence, Recklow said:

  "You had better find him before the wind changes. We hunt down windor--we die here together."

  She looked at her husband.

  "Show him to us in your own way," he said, "and deal with him as he mustbe dealt with."

  A gleam passed across her pale face and she tried to smile at herhusband.

  Then, turning down the hammock to the east, she walked noiselesslyforward over the fibrous litter, the men on either side of her, theirpistols poised.

  They had halted on the edge of an open glade, ringed with young pines infullest plumage.

  Tressa was standing very straight and still in a strange, supple,agonised attitude, her left forearm across her eyes, her right handclenched, her slender body slightly twisted to the left.

  The men gazed pallidly at her with tense, set faces, knowing that thegirl was in terrible mental conflict against another mind--a powerful,sinister mind which was seeking to grasp her thoughts and control them.

  Minute after minute sped: the girl never moved, locked in her psychicduel with this other brutal mind,--beating back its terriblethought-waves which were attacking her, fighting for mental supremacy,struggling in silence with an unseen adversary whose mental dominancemeant death.

  Suddenly her cry rang out sharply in the moonlight, and then, all atonce, a man in white stood there in the lustre of the moon--a young,graceful man dressed in white flannels and carrying on his right armwhat seemed to be a long white cloak.

  Instantly the girl was transformed from a living statue into a lithe,supple, lightly moving thing that passed swiftly to the west of theglade, keeping the young man in white facing the wind, which was blowingand tossing the plumy young pines.

  "So it is _you_, young man, with whom I have been wrestling here underthe moon of the only God!" she said in a strange little voice, allvibrant and metallic with menacing laughter.

  "It is I, Keuke Mongol," replied the young man in white, tranquilly; yethis words came as though he were tired and out of breath, and the handhe raised to touch his small black moustache trembled as if fromphysical exhaustion.

  "Yarghouz!" she exclaimed. "Why did I not know you there on the golflinks, Assassin of the Seventh Tower? And why do you come here with yourshroud over your arm and hidden under it, in your right hand, a flaskfull of death?"

  He said, smiling:

  "I come because you are to die, Heavenly-Azure Eyes. I bring you yourshroud." And he moved warily westward around the open circle of youngpines.

  Instantly the girl flung her right arm straight upward.

  "Yarghouz!"

  "I hear thee, Heavenly Azure."

  "Another step to the west and I shatter thy flask of gas."

  "With what?" he demanded; but stood discreetly motionless.

  "With what I grasp in an empty palm. Thou knowest, Yarghouz."

  "I have heard," he said with smiling uncertainty, "but to hear of forcethat can be hurled out of an empty palm is one thing, and to see it andfeel it is another. I think you lie, Heavenly Azure."

  "So thought Gutchlug. And died of a yellow snake."

  The young man seemed to reflect. Then he looked up at her in his frank,smiling way.

  "Wilt thou listen, Heavenly Eyes?"

  "I hear thee, Yarghouz."

  "Listen then, Keuke Mongol. Take life from us as we offer it. Life issweet. Erlik, like a spider, waits in darkness for lost souls thatflutter to his net."

  "You think my soul was lost there in the temple, Yarghouz?"

  "Unutterably lost, little temple girl of Yian. Therefore, live. Takelife as a gift!"

  "Whose gift?"

  "Sanang's."

  "It is written," she said gravely, "that we belong to God and we returnto him. Now then, Yezidee, do your duty as I do mine! Kai!"

  At the sound of the formula always uttered by the sect of Assassins whenabout to do murder, the young man started and shrank back. The west windblew fresh in his startled eyes.

  "Sorceress," he said less firmly, "you leave your Yiort to come allalone into this forest and seek me. Why then have you come, if not tosubmit!--if not to take the gift of life--if not to turn away from yourseducers who are hunting me, and who have corrupted you?"

  "Yarghouz, I come to slay you," she said quietly.

  Suddenly the man snarled at her, flung the shroud at her feet, and creptdeliberately to the left.

  "Be careful!" she cried sharply; "look what you're about! Stand still,son of a dog! May your mother bewail your death!"

  Yarghouz edged toward the west, clasping in his right hand the flask ofgas.

  "Sorceress," he laughed, "a witch of Thibet prophesied with a drum thatthe three purities, the nine perfections, and the nine times ninefelicities shall be lodged in him who slays the treacherous temple girl,Keuke Mongol! There is more magic in this bottle which I grasp than inthy mind and body. Heavenly Eyes! I pray God to be merciful to this soulI send to Erlik!"

  All the time he was advancing, edging cautiously around the circle oflittle plumy pines; and already the wind struck his left cheek.

  "Yarghouz Khan!" cried the girl in her clear voice. "Take up your shroudand repeat the fatha!"

  "Backward!" laughed the young man, "--as do you, Keuke Mongol!"

  "Heretic!" she retorted. "Do you also refuse to name the ten Imaums inyour prayers? Dog! Toad! Spittle of Erlik! May all your cattle die andall your horses take the glanders and all your dogs the mange!"

  "Silence, sorceress!" he shouted, pale with fear and fury. "Witch! Mudworm! May Erlik seize you! May your skin be covered with putrefyingsores! May all the demons torment you! May God remember you in hell!"

  "Yarghouz! Stand still!"

  "Is your word then the Rampart of Gog and Magog, you young witch ofYian, that a Khan of the Seventh Tower need fear you!" he sneered,stealing stealthily westward through the feathery pines.

  "I give thee thy last chance, Yarghouz Khan," she said in an excitedvoice that trembled. "Recite thy prayer naming the ten, because withtheir holy names upon thy lips thou mayest escape damnation. For I amhere to slay thee, Yarghouz! Take up thy shroud and pray!"

  The young man felt the west wind at the back of his left ear. Then hebegan to laugh.

  "Heavenly Eyes," he said, "thy end is come--together with the two policewho hide in the pines yonder behind thee! Behold the bottle magic ofYarghouz Khan!"

  And he lifted the glass flask in the moonlight as though he were aboutto smash it at her feet.

  Then a terrible thing occurred. The entire
flask glowed red hot in hisgrasp; and the man screamed and strove convulsively to fling the bottle;but it stuck to his hand, melted into the smoking flesh.

  Then he screamed again--or tried to--but his entire lower jaw came offand he stood there with the awful orifice gaping in themoonlight--stood, reeled a moment--and then--and _then_--his whole faceslid off, leaving nothing but a bony mask out of which burst shriekafter shriek----

  Keuke Mongol had fainted dead away. Cleves took her into his arms.

  Recklow, trembling and deathly white, went over to the thing that layamong the young pines and forced himself to bend over it.

  The glass flask still stuck to one charred hand, but it was no longerhot. And Recklow rolled the unspeakable thing into the white shroud andpushed it into the swamp.

  An evil ooze took it, slowly sucked it under and engulfed it. A fewstinking bubbles broke.

  Recklow went back to the little glade among the pines.

  A young girl lay sobbing convulsively in her husband's arms, askingGod's pardon and his for the justice she had done upon an enemy of allmankind.