CHAPTER XV
IN THE FIRELIGHT
In 1920 the whole spiritual world was trembling under the thunderingshock of the Red Surf pounding the frontiers of civilisation from poleto pole.
Up out of the hell-pit of Asia had boiled the molten flood, submergingRussia, dashing in giant waves over Germany and Austria, drenchingItaly, France, England with its bloody spindrift.
And now the Red Rain was sprinkling the United States from coast tocoast, and the mindless administration, scared out of its stupidity atlast, began a frantic attempt to drain the country of the filthy floodand throw up barriers against the threatened deluge.
In every state and city Federal agents made wholesale arrests--too late!
A million minds had already been perverted and dominated by the terribleSect of the Assassins. A million more were sickening under the awfulpsychic power of the Yezidee.
Thousands of the disciples of the Yezidee devil-worshipers had alreadybeen arrested and held for deportation,--poor, wretched creatures whoseminds were no longer their own, but had been stealthily surprised,seized and mastered by Mongol adepts and filled with ferocious hatredagainst their fellow men.
Yet, of the Eight Yezidee Assassins only two now remained alive inAmerica,--Togrul, and Sanang, the Slayer of Souls.
Yarghouz was dead; Djamouk the Fox, Kahn of the Fifth Tower was dead;Yaddin-ed-Din, Arrak the Sou-Sou, Gutchlug, Tiyang Khan, all were dead.Six Towers had become dark and silent. From them the last evil thought,the last evil shape had sped; the last wicked prayer had been said toErlik, Khagan of all Darkness.
But his emissary on earth, Prince Sanang, still lived. And at Sanang'sheels stole Togrul, Tougtchi to Sanang Noiane, the Slayer of Souls.
* * * * *
In the United States there had been a cessation of the active campaignof violence toward those in authority. Such unhappy dupes of theYezidees as the I. W. W. and other radicals were, for the time,physically quiescent. Crude terrorism with its more brutal outragesagainst life and law ceased. But two million sullen eyes, in which allindependent human thought had been extinguished, watched unblinking thewholesale arrests by the government--watched panic-stricken officialsrushing hither and thither to execute the mandate of a miserableadministration--watched and waited in dreadful silence.
In that period of ominous quiet which possessed the land, the littlegroup of Secret Service men that surrounded the young girl who alonestood between a trembling civilisation and the threat of hell's ownchaos, became convinced that Sanang was preparing a final and terribleeffort to utterly overwhelm the last vestige of civilisation in theUnited States.
What shape that plan would develop they could not guess.
John Recklow sent Benton to Chicago to watch that centre of infectionfor the appearance there of the Yezidee Togrul.
Selden went to Boston where a half-witted group of parlour-socialists atCambridge were talking too loudly and loosely to please even the mosttolerant at Harvard.
But neither Togrul nor Sanang had, so far, materialised in either city;and John Recklow prowled the purlieus of New York, haunting strangebyways and obscure quarters where the dull embers of revolution alwayssmouldered, watching for the Yezidee who was the deep-bedded, vital rootof this psychic evil which menaced the minds of all mankind,--Sanang,the Slayer of Souls.
Recklow's lodgings were tucked away in Westover Court--three bedrooms, aparlour and a kitchenette. Tressa Cleves occupied one bedroom; herhusband another; Recklow the third.
And in this tiny apartment, hidden away among a group of old buildings,the very existence of which was unknown to the millions who swarmed thestreets of the greatest city in the world,--here in Westover Court, adozen paces from the roar of Broadway, was now living a young girl uponwhose psychic power the only hope of the world now rested.
* * * * *
The afternoon had turned grey and bitter; ragged flakes still fell; apallid twilight possessed the snowy city, through which lighted trainsand taxis moved in the foggy gloom.
By three o'clock in the afternoon all shops were illuminated; the southwindows of the Hotel Astor across the street spread a sickly light overthe old buildings of Westover Court as John Recklow entered the tiledhallway, took the stairs to the left, and went directly to hisapartment.
He unlocked the door and let himself in and stood a moment in the entryshaking the snow from his hat and overcoat.
The sitting-room lamp was unlighted but he could see a fire in thegrate, and Tressa Cleves seated near, her eyes fixed on the glowingcoals.
He bade her good evening in a low voice; she turned her charming headand nodded, and he drew a chair to the fender and stretched out his wetshoes to the warmth.
"Is Victor still out?" he inquired.
She said that her husband had not yet returned. Her eyes were on thefire, Recklow's rested on her shadowy face.
"Benton got his man in Chicago," he said. "It was not Togrul Kahn."
"Who was it?"
"Only a Swami fakir who'd been preaching sedition to a little group ofgreasy Bengalese from Seattle.... I've heard from Selden, too."
She nodded listlessly and lifted her eyes.
"Neither Sanang nor Togrul have appeared in Boston," he said. "I thinkthey're here in New York."
The girl said nothing.
After a silence:
"Are you worried about your husband?" he asked abruptly.
"I am always uneasy when he is absent," she said quietly.
"Of course.... But I don't suppose he knows that."
"I suppose not."
Recklow leaned over, took a coal in the tongs and lighted a cigar.Leaning back in his armchair, he said in a musing voice:
"No, I suppose your husband does not realise that you are so deeplyconcerned over his welfare."
The girl remained silent.
"I suppose," said Recklow softly, "he doesn't dream you are in love withhim."
Tressa Cleves did not stir a muscle. After a long silence she said inher even voice:
"Do you think I am in love with my husband, Mr. Recklow?"
"I think you fell in love with him the first evening you met him."
"I did."
Neither of them spoke again for some minutes. Recklow's cigar wentwrong; he rose and found another and returned to the fire, but did notlight it.
"It's a rotten day, isn't it?" he said with a shiver, and dumped ascuttle of coal on the fire.
They watched the blue flames playing over the grate.
Tressa said: "I could no more help falling in love with him than I couldstop my heart beating.... But I did not dream that anybody knew."
"Don't you think he ought to know?"
"Why? He is not in love with me."
"Are you sure, Mrs. Cleves?"
"Yes. He is wonderfully sweet and kind. But he could not fall in lovewith a girl who has been what I have been."
Recklow smiled. "What have you been, Tressa Norne?"
"You know."
"A temple-girl at Yian?"
"And at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said in a low voice.
"What of it?"
"I can not tell you, Mr. Recklow.... Only that I lost my soul in theYezidee Temple----"
"That is untrue!"
"I wish it were untrue.... My husband tells me that nothing can reallyharm the soul. I try to believe him.... But Erlik lives. And when mysoul at last shall escape my body, it shall not escape the Slayer ofSouls."
"That is monstrously untrue----"
"No. I tell you that Prince Sanang slew my soul. And my soul's ghostbelongs to Erlik. How can any man fall in love with such a girl?"
"Why do you say that Sanang slew your soul?" asked Recklow, peering ather averted face through the reddening firelight.
She lay still in her chair for a moment, then turned suddenly on him:
"He _did_ slay it! He came to the Lake of the Ghosts as my lover; hemeant to have done it there;
but I would not have him--would not listen,nor suffer his touch!--I mocked at him and his passion. I laughed at hisTchortchas. They were afraid of me!--"
She half rose from her chair, grasped the arms, then seated herselfagain, her eyes ablaze with the memory of wrongs.
"How dare I show my dear lord that I am in love with him when Sanang'ssoul caught my soul out of my body one day--surprised my soul while mybody lay asleep in the Yezidee Temple!--and bore it in his arms to thevery gates of hell!"
"Good God," whispered Recklow, "what do you mean? Such things can'thappen."
"Why not? They do happen. I was caught unawares.... It was one goldenafternoon, and Yulan and Sansa and I were eating oranges by the fountainin the inner shrine. And I lay down by the pool and _made theeffort_--you understand?"
"Yes."
"Very well. My soul left my body asleep and I went out over the tops ofthe flowers--idly, without aim or intent--as the winds blow insummer.... It was in the Wood of the White Moth that I saw Sanang's soulflash downward like a streak of fire and wrap my soul in flame!... And,in a flash, we were at the gates of hell before I could free myself fromhis embrace.... Then, by the Temple pool, among the oranges, I cried outasleep; and my terrified body sat up sobbing and trembling in Yulun'sarms. But the Slayer of Souls had slain mine in the Wood of the WhiteMoth--slain it as he caught me in his flaming arms.... And now you knowwhy such a woman as I dare not bend to kiss the dust from my dear Lord'sfeet--Aie-a! Aie-a! I who have lost my girl's soul to him who slew it inthe Wood of the White Moth!"
She sat rocking in her chair in the red firelight, her hands framing herlovely face, her eyes staring straight ahead as though they saw openingbefore them through the sombre shadows of that room all the dread magicof the East where the dancing flame of Sanang's blazing soul lightedtheir path to hell through the enchanted forest.
Recklow had grown pale, but his voice was steady.
"I see no reason," he said, "why your husband should not love you."
"I tell you my girl's soul belonged to Sanang--was part of his, for aninstant."
"It is burned pure of dross."
"It is _burned_."
Recklow remained silent. Tressa lay deep in her armchair, twisting herwhite fingers.
"What makes him so late?" she said.... "I sent my soul out twice to lookfor him, and could not find him."
"Send it again," said Recklow, fearfully.
For ten minutes the girl lay as though asleep, then her eyes unclosedand she said drowsily: "I can not find him."
"Did--did you learn anything while--while you were--away?" asked Recklowcautiously.
"Nothing. There is a thick darkness out there--I mean a darknessgathering over the whole land. It is like a black fog. When the damnedpray to Erlik there is a darkness that gathers like a brown mist----"
Her voice ceased; her hands tightened on the arms of her chair.
"_That_ is what Sanang is doing!" she said in a breathless voice.
"What?" demanded Recklow.
"_Praying!_ That is what he is doing! A million perverted minds which hehas seized and obsessed are being concentrated on blasphemous prayers toErlik! Sanang is directing them. Do you understand the terrible power ofa million minds all _willing_, in unison, the destruction of good andthe triumph of evil? A million human minds! More! For that is what he isdoing. That is the thick darkness that is gathering over the entireWestern world. It is the terrific materialisation of evil power fromevil minds, all focussed upon the single thought that evil must triumphand good die!"
She sat, gripping the arms of her chair, pale, rigid, terribly alert,dreadfully enlightened, now, concerning the awful and new menacethreatening the sanity of mankind.
She said in her steady, emotionless voice: "When the Yezidee Sorcerersdesire to overwhelm a nomad people--some yort perhaps that has resistedthe Sheiks of the Eight Towers, then the Slayer of Souls rides with hisBlack Banners to the Namaz-Ga or Place of Prayer.
"Two marble bridges lead to it. There are fourteen hundred mosquesthere. Then come the Eight, each with his shroud, chanting the prayersfor those dead in hell. And there the Yezidees pray blasphemously, alltheir minds in ferocious unison.... And I have seen a little yort fullof Broad Faces with their slanting eyes and sparse beards, sicken anddie, and turn black in the sun as though the plague had breathed onthem. And I have seen the Long Noses and bushy beards of walled townswither and perish in the blast and blight from the Namaz-Ga where theSlayer of Souls sat his saddle and prayed to Erlik, and half a millionYezidees prayed in blasphemous unison."
Recklow's head rested on his left hand. The other, unconsciously, hadcrept toward his pistol--the weapon which had become so useless in thisawful struggle between this girl and the loosened forces of hell.
"Is that what you think Sanang is about?" he asked heavily.
"Yes. I know it. He has seized the minds of a million men in America.Every anarchist is to-day concentrating in one evil and supreme mentaleffort, under Sanang's direction, to will the triumph of evil and thedoom of civilisation.... I wish my husband would come home."
"Tressa?"
She turned her pallid face in the firelight: "If Sanang has appointed aPlace of Prayer," she said, "he himself will pray on that spot. Thatwill be the Namaz-Ga for the last two Yezidee Sorcerers still alive inthe Western World."
"That's what I wished to ask you," said Recklow softly. "Will you tryonce more, Tressa?"
"Yes. I will send out my soul again to look for the Namaz-Ga."
She lay back in her armchair and closed her eyes.
"Only," she added, as though to herself, "I wish my dear lord were safein this room beside me.... May God's warriors be his escort. And surelythey are well armed, and can prevail over demons. Aie-a! I wish my lordwould come home out of the darkness.... Mr. Recklow?"
"Yes, Tressa."
"I thought I heard him on the stairs."
"Not yet."
"Aie-a!" she sighed and closed her eyes again.
She lay like one dead. There was no sound in the room save the soft purrof the fire.
Suddenly from the sleeping girl a frightened voice burst: "Yulun! Yulun!Where is that yellow maid of the Baroulass?... What is she doing? Thatsleek young thing belongs to Togrul Kahn? Yulun! I am afraid of her!Tell Sansa to watch that she does not stir from the Lake of theGhosts!... Warn that young Baroulass Sorceress that if she stirs I slayher. And know how to do it in spite of Sanang and all the prayers fromthe Namaz-Ga! Yulun! Sansa! Watch her, follow her, hearts of flame! Mysoul be ransom for yours! Tokhta!"
The girl's eyes unclosed. Presently she stirred slightly, passed onehand across her forehead, turned her head toward Recklow.
"I could not discover the Namaz-Ga," she said wearily. "I wish myhusband would return."
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