by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER XXXV. BEYOND THE VEIL
Rita Irvin's awakening was no awakening in the usually accepted sense ofthe word; it did not even represent a lifting of the veil which cuther off from the world, but no more than a momentary perception of theexistence of such a veil and of the existence of something behind it.Upon the veil, in grey smoke, the name "Kazmah" was written in movingcharacters. Beyond the veil, dimly divined, was life.
As of old the victims of the Inquisition, waking or dreaming, beheldever before them the instrument of their torture, so before this woman'sracked and half-numbed mind panoramically passed, an endless pageant,the incidents of the night which had cut her off from living menand women. She tottered on the border-line which divides sanity frommadness. She was learning what Sir Lucien had meant when, once, longlong ago, in some remote time when she was young and happy and hadbelonged to a living world, he had said "a day is sure to come." Ithad come, that "day." It had dawned when she had torn the veil beforeKazmah--and that veil had enveloped her ever since. All that hadpreceded the fatal act was blotted out, blurred and indistinct; all thathad succeeded it lived eternally, passing, an endless pageant, beforeher tortured mind.
The horror of the moment when she had touched the hands of the manseated in the big ebony chair was of such kind that no subsequentterrors had supplanted it. For those long, slim hands of the color ofold ivory were cold, rigid, lifeless--the hands of a corpse! Thus thepageant began, and it continued as hereafter, memory and delusion takingthe stage in turn.
* * * * *
Complete darkness came.
Rita uttered a wild cry of horror and loathing, shrinking back fromthe thing which sat in the ebony chair. She felt that consciousness wasslipping from her; felt herself falling, and shrieked to know herselfhelpless and alone with Kazmah. She groped for support, but found none;and, moaning, she sank down, and was unconscious of her fall.
A voice awakened her. Someone knelt beside her in the darkness,supporting her; someone who spoke wildly, despairingly, but with astrange, emotional reverence curbing the passion in his voice.
"Rita--my Rita! What have they done to you? Speak to me.... Oh God!Spare her to me.... Let her hate me for ever, but spare her--spare her.Rita, speak to me! I tried, heaven hear me, to save you little girl. Ionly want you to be happy!"
She felt herself being lifted gently, tenderly. And as though the man'spassionate entreaty had called her back from the dead, she reenteredinto life and strove to realize what had happened.
Sir Lucien was supporting her, and she found it hard to credit the factthat it was he, the hard, nonchalant man of the world she knew, who hadspoken. She clutched his arm with both hands.
"Oh, Lucy!" she whispered. "I am so frightened--and so ill."
"Thank God," he said huskily, "she is alive. Lean against me and try tostand up. We must get away from here."
Rita managed to stand upright, clinging wildly to Sir Lucien. A square,vaguely luminous opening became visible to her. Against it, silhouetted,she could discern part of the outline of Kazmah's chair. She drew back,uttering a low, sobbing cry. Sir Lucien supported her, and:
"Don't be afraid, dear," he said reassuringly. "Nothing shall hurt you."
He pushed open a door, and through it shone the same vague light whichshe had seen in the opening behind the chair. Sir Lucien spoke rapidlyin a language which sounded like Spanish. He was answered by a perfecttorrent of words in the same tongue.
Fiercely he cried something back at the hidden speaker.
A shriek of rage, of frenzy, came out of the darkness. Rita felt thatconsciousness was about to leave her again. She swayed forward dizzily,and a figure which seemed to belong to delirium--a lithe shadow out ofwhich gleamed a pair of wild eyes--leapt upon her. A knife glittered....
In order to have repelled the attack, Sir Lucien would have had torelease Rita, who was clinging to him, weak and terror-stricken. Insteadhe threw himself before her.... She saw the knife enter his shoulder....
Through absolute darkness she sank down into a land of chaotic nightmarehorrors. Great bells clanged maddeningly. Impish hands plucked at hergarments, dragged her hair. She was hurried this way and that, bruised,torn, and tossed helpless upon a sea of liquid brass. Through vastavenues lined with yellow, immobile Chinese faces she was borne upon abier. Oblique eyes looked into hers. Knives which glittered greenly inthe light of lamps globular and suspended in immeasurable space, werehurled at her in showers....
Sir Lucien stood before her, supporting her; and all the knives buriedthemselves in his body. She tried to cry out, but no sound could sheutter. Darkness fell again....
A Chinaman was bending over her. His hands were tucked in his loosesleeves. He smiled, and his smile was hideous but friendly. He wasstrangely like Sin Sin Wa, save that he did not lack an eye.
Rita found herself lying in an untidy bed in a room laden with opiumfumes and dimly lighted. On a table beside her were the remains ofa meal. She strove to recall having partaken of food, but wasunsuccessful....
There came a blank--then a sharp, stabbing pain in her right arm. Shethought it was the knife, and shrieked wildly again and again....
Years seemingly elapsed, years of agony spent amid oblique eyes whichfloated in space unattached to any visible body, amid reeking fumes andsounds of ceaseless conflict. Once she heard the cry of some bird, andthought it must be the parakeet which eternally sat on a branch of alonely palm in the heart of the Great Sahara.... Then, one night, whenshe lay shrinking from the plucking yellow hands which reached out ofthe darkness:
"Tell me your dream," boomed a deep, mocking voice; "and I will read itsportent!"
She opened her eyes. She lay in the untidy bed in the room which wasladen with the fumes of opium. She stared upward at the low, dirtyceiling.
"Why do you come to me with your stories of desperation?" continued themocking voice. "You have insisted upon seeing me. I am here."
Rita managed to move her head so that she could see more of the room.
On a divan at the other end of the place, propped up by a number ofgarish cushions, Rita beheld Mrs. Sin. The long bamboo pipe had fallenfrom her listless fingers. Her face wore an expression of mysticrapture, like that characterizing the features of some ChineseBuddhas....
In the other corner of the divan, contemplating her from under heavybrows, sat Kazmah....