“I asked what he supposed she meant by evil.
“‘Evil?’ he replied. ‘Evil forces—something that behaves as it has no right to behave. She means almost—possession. Look here! Let’s find out in our own way what she means. Assuming it’s visible, let’s see this thing.’
“It was, he still thought, an animal. Its hunting had been successful, and now that the woods were quiet it would start again. He didn’t think it had been driven away for good.
“‘It wasn’t driven away by the first search parties,’ he pointed out. ‘They frightened all the game for miles around, but this thing simply took one of them. It will come back, just as surely as a man-eating lion comes back. And there’s only one way to catch it—bait!’
“‘Who’s going to be the bait?’ I asked.
“‘You and I.’
“I suppose I looked startled. Vaughan laughed. He said that I was getting fat, that I would make most tempting bait. Whenever he made jokes in poor taste, I knew that he was perfectly serious.
“‘What are you going to do?’ I asked. ‘Tie me to a tree and watch out with a gun?’
“‘That’s about right, except that you needn’t be tied up—and as the idea is mine you can have first turn with the gun. Are you a good shot?’
“I am and so was he. To prove it, we practised on a target after dinner, and found that we could trust each other up to fifty yards in clear moonlight. Kyra disliked shooting. She had a horror of death. Vaughan’s excuse didn’t improve matters. He said that we were going deer stalking the next night and needed some practice.
“‘Are you going to shoot them while they are asleep?’ she asked disgustedly.
“‘While they are having their supper, dear.’
“‘Before, if possible,’ I added.
“I disliked hurting her by jokes that to her were pointless, but we chose that method deliberately. She couldn’t be told the truth, and now she would be too proud to ask questions.
“Vaughan came down to the inn the following afternoon, and we worked out a plan of campaign. The rock was the starting point of all our theories, and on it we decided to place the watcher. From the top there was a clear view of the path for fifty yards on either side. The watcher was to take up his stand, well covered by the ivy, before sunset, and at a little before ten the bait was to be on the path and within shot. He should walk up and down, taking care never to step out of sight of the rock, until midnight when the party would break up. We reckoned that our quarry, if it reasoned, would take the bait to be a picket posted in that part of the forest.
“The difficulty was getting home. We had to go separately in case we were observed, and hope for the best. Eventually we decided that the man on the path, who might be followed, should go straight down to the road as fast as he could. There was a timber slide quite close, by which he could cut down in ten minutes. The man on the rock should wait awhile and then go home by the path.
“‘Well, I shall not see you again until to-morrow morning,’ said Vaughan as he got up to go. ‘You’ll see me but I shan’t see you. Just whistle once, very softly, as I come up the path, so that I know you’re there.’
“He remarked that he had left a letter for Kyra with the notary in case of accidents, and added, with an embarrassed laugh, that he supposed it was silly.
“I thought it was anything but silly, and said so.
“I was on the rock by sunset. I wormed my legs and body back into the ivy, leaving head and shoulders free to pivot with the rifle. It was a little .300 with a longish barrel. I felt certain that Vaughan was as safe as human science and a steady hand could make him.
“The moon came up, and the path was a ribbon of silver in front of me. There’s something silent about moonlight. It’s not light. It’s a state of things. When there was sound it was unexpected, like the sudden shiver on the flank of a sleeping beast. A twig cracked now and then. An owl hooted. A fox slunk across the pathway, looking back over his shoulder. I wished that Vaughan would come. Then the ivy rustled behind me. I couldn’t turn round. My spine became very sensitive, and a point at the back of my skull tingled as if expecting a blow. It was no good my telling myself that nothing but a bird could possibly be behind me—but of course it was a bird. A nightjar whooshed out of the ivy, and my body became suddenly cold with sweat. That infernal fright cleared all vague fears right out of me. I continued to be uneasy, but I was calm.
“After a while I heard Vaughan striding up the path. Then he stepped within range, a bold, clear figure in the moonlight. I whistled softly, and he waved his hand from the wrist in acknowledgment. He walked up and down, smoking a cigar. The point of light marked his head in the shadows. Wherever he went, my sights were lined a yard or two behind him. At midnight he nodded his head towards my hiding place and trotted rapidly away to the timber slide. A little later I took the path home.
“The next night our rôles were reversed. It was my turn to walk the path. I found that I preferred to be the bait. On the rock I had longed for another pair of eyes, but after an hour on the ground I did not even want to turn my head. I was quite content to trust Vaughan to take care of anything going on behind me. Only once was I uneasy. I heard, as I thought, a bird calling far down in the woods. It was a strange call, almost a whimper. It was like the little frightened exclamation of a woman. Birds weren’t popular with me just then. I had a crazy memory of some Brazilian bird which drives a hole in the back of your head and lives on brains. I peered down through the trees, and caught a flicker of white in a moonlight clearing below. It showed only for a split second, and I came to the conclusion that it must have been a ripple of wind in the silver grass. When the time was up I went down the timber slide and took the road home to the inn. I fell asleep wondering whether we hadn’t let our nerves run away with us.
“I went up to see the Vaughans in the morning. Kyra looked pale and worried. I told her at once that she must take more rest.
“‘She won’t,’ said Vaughan. ‘She can’t resist other people’s troubles.’
“‘You see, I can’t put them out of my mind as easily as you,’ she answered provocatively.
“‘Oh Lord!’ Vaughan exclaimed. ‘I’m not going to start an argument.’
“‘No—because you know you’re in the wrong. Have you quite forgotten this horrible affair?’
“I gathered up the reins of the conversation, and gentled it into easier topics. As I did so, I was conscious of resistance from Kyra; she evidently wanted to go on scrapping. I wondered why. Her nerves, no doubt, were overstrained, but she was too tired to wish to relieve them by a quarrel. I decided that she was deliberately worrying her husband to make him admit how he was spending his evenings.
“That was it. Before I left, she took me apart on the pretext of showing me the garden and pinned the conversation to our shooting expeditions. Please God I’m never in the dock if the prosecuting counsel is a woman! As it was, I had the right to ask questions in my turn, and managed to slip from under her cross-examination without allowing her to feel it. It hurt. I couldn’t let her know the truth, but I hated to leave her in that torment of uncertainty. She hesitated an instant before she said good-bye to me. Then she caught my arm, and cried:—
“‘Take care of him!’
“I smiled and told her that she was overwrought, that we were doing nothing dangerous. What else could I say?
“That night, the third of the watching, the woods were alive. The world which lives just below the fallen leaves—mice and moles and big beetles—was making its surprising stir. The night birds were crying. A deer coughed far up in the forest. There was a slight breeze blowing, and from my lair on top of the rock I watched Vaughan trying to catch the scents it bore. He crouched down in the shadows. A bear ambled across the path up wind, and began to grub for some succulent morsel at the roots of a tree. It looked as woolly and harmless as a big dog. Clearly neit
her it nor its kind were the cause of our vigil. I saw Vaughan smile, and knew that he was thinking the same thought.
“A little after eleven the bear looked up, sniffed the air, and disappeared into the black bulk of the undergrowth as effortlessly and completely as if a spotlight had been switched off him. One by one the sounds of the night ceased. Vaughan eased the revolver in his pocket. The silence told its own tale. The forest had laid aside its business, and was watching like ourselves.
“Vaughan walked up the path to the far end of his beat. I looked away from him an instant, and down the path through the trees my eyes caught that same flicker of white. He turned to come back, and by the time that he was abreast of the rock I had seen it again. A bulky object it seemed to be, soft white, moving fast. He passed me, going towards it, and I lined my sights on the path ahead of him. Bounding up through the woods it came, then into the moonlight, and on to him. I was saved only by the extreme difficulty of the shot. I took just a fraction of a second longer than I needed, to make very sure of not hitting Vaughan. In that fraction of a second, thank God, she called to him! It was Kyra. A white ermine coat and her terrified running up the path had made of her a strange figure.
“She clung to him while she got her breath back. I heard her say:—
“‘I was frightened. There was something after me. I know it.’
“Vaughan did not answer, but held her very close and stroked her hair. His upper lip curled back a little from his teeth. For once his whole being was surrendered to a single emotion: the desire to kill whatever had frightened her.
“‘How did you know I was here?’ he asked.
“‘I didn’t. I was looking for you. I looked for you last night, too.’
“‘You mad, brave girl!’ he said.
“‘But you mustn’t, mustn’t be alone. Where’s Shiravieff?’
“‘Right there.’ He pointed to the rock.
“‘Why don’t you hide yourself, too?’
“‘One of us must show himself,’ he answered.
“She understood instantly the full meaning of his reply.
“‘Come back with me!’ she cried. ‘Promise me to stop it!’
“‘I’m very safe, dear,’ he answered. ‘Look!’
“I can hear his tense voice right now, and remember their exact words. Those things eat into the memory. He led her just below the rock. His left arm was round her. At the full stretch of his right arm he held out his handkerchief by two corners. He did not look at me, nor alter his tone.
“‘Shiravieff,’ he said, ‘make a hole in that!’
“It was just a theatrical bit of nonsense, for the handkerchief was the easiest of easy marks. At any other time I would have been as sure as he of the result of the shot. But what he didn’t know was that I had so nearly fired at another white and much larger mark—I was trembling so that I could hardly hold the rifle. I pressed the trigger. The hole in the handkerchief was dangerously near his hand. He put it down to bravado rather than bad shooting.
“Vaughan’s trick had its effect. Kyra was surprised. She did not realize how easy it was, any more than she knew how much harder to hit is a moving mark seen in a moment of excitement.
“‘But let me stay with you,’ she appealed.
“‘Sweetheart, we’re going back right now. Do you think I’m going to allow my most precious possession to run wild in the woods?’
“‘What about mine?’ she said, and kissed him.
“They went away down the short cut. He made her walk a yard in front of him, and I caught the glint of moonlight on the barrel of his revolver. He was taking no risks.
“I myself went back by the path—carelessly, for I was sure that every living thing had been scared away by the voices and the shot. I was nearly down when I knew I was being followed. You’ve both lived in strange places—do you want me to explain the sensation? No? Well then, I knew I was being followed. I stopped and faced back up the path. Instantly something moved past me in the bushes, as if to cut off my retreat. I’m not superstitious. Once I heard it, I felt safe, for I knew where it was. I was sure I could move faster down that path than anything in the undergrowth—and if it came out into the open, it would have to absorb five steel explosive bullets. I ran. So far as I could hear, it didn’t follow.
“I told Vaughan the next morning what had happened.
“‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I had to take her back. You understand, don’t you?’
“‘Of course,’ I answered in surprise. ‘What else could you do?’
“‘Well, I didn’t like leaving you alone. We had advertised our presence pretty widely. True, we should have frightened away any animal—but all we know about this animal is that it doesn’t behave like one. There was a chance of our attracting instead of frightening it. We’re going to get it to-night,’ he added savagely.
“I asked if Kyra would promise to stay at home.
“‘Yes. She says we’re doing our duty, and that she won’t interfere. Do you think this is our duty?’
“‘No!’ I said.
“‘Nor do I. I never feel that anything which I enjoy can possibly be my duty. And, by God, I enjoy this now!’
“I think he did enjoy it as he waited on the rock that night. He wanted revenge. There was no reason to believe that Kyra had been frightened by anything more than night and loneliness, but he was out against the whole set of circumstances that had dared to affect her. He wanted to be the bait instead of the watcher—I believe, with some mad hope of getting his hands on his enemy. But I wouldn’t let him. After all, it was my turn.
“Bait! As I walked up and down the path, the word kept running through my mind. There wasn’t a sound. The only moving thing was the moon which passed from treetop to treetop as the night wore on. I pictured Vaughan on the rock, the foresight of his rifle creeping backwards and forwards in a quarter-circle as it followed my movements. I visualized the line of his aim as a thread of light passing down and across in front of my eyes. Once I heard Vaughan cough. I knew that he had seen my nervousness and was reassuring me. I stood by a clump of bushes some twenty yards away, watching a silver leaf that shook as some tiny beast crawled up it.
“Hot breath on the back of my neck—crushing weight on my shoulders—hardness against the back of my skull—the crack of Vaughan’s rifle—they were instantaneous, but not too swift for me to know all the terror of death. Something leapt away from me, and squirmed into the springhead beneath the rock.
“‘Are you all right?’ shouted Vaughan, crashing down through the ivy.
“‘What was it?’
“‘A man. I’ve winged him. Come on! I’m going in after him!’
“Vaughan was berserk mad. I’ve never seen such flaming disregard of danger. He drew a deep breath, and tackled the hole as if it were a man’s ankles. Head and shoulders, he sloshed into the mud of the cavity, emptying his Winchester in front of him. If he couldn’t wriggle forward swiftly without drawing breath he would be choked by the sulphur fumes or drowned. If his enemy were waiting for him, he was a dead man. He disappeared and I followed. No, I didn’t need any courage. I was covered by the whole length of Vaughan’s body. But it was a vile moment. We’d never dreamed that anything could get in and out through that spring. Imagine holding your breath, and trying to squirm through hot water, using your hips and shoulders like a snake, not knowing how you would return if the way forward was barred. At last I was able to raise myself on my hands and draw a breath. Vaughan had dragged himself clear and was on his feet, holding a flashlight in front of him.
“‘Got him!’ he said.
“We were in a low cave under the rock. There was air from the cracks above us. The floor was of dry sand, for the hot stream flowed into the cave close to the hole by which it left. A man lay crumpled up at the far end of the hollow. We crossed over to him. He held a sort of long pistol in his
hand. It was a spring humane-killer. The touch of that wide muzzle against my skull is not a pleasant memory. The muzzle is jagged, you see, so that it grips the scalp while the spike is released.
“We turned the body over—it was Josef Weiss. Werewolf? Possession? I don’t know. I would call it an atavistic neurosis. But that’s a name, not an explanation.
“Beyond the body there was a hole some six feet in diameter, as round as if it had been bored by a rotary drill. The springs which had forced that passage had dried up, but the mottled-yellow walls were smooth as marble with the deposit left by the water. Evidently Weiss had been trying to reach that opening when Vaughan dropped him. We climbed that natural sewer pipe. For half an hour the flashlight revealed nothing but the sweating walls of the hole. Then we were stopped by a roughly hewn ladder which sprawled across the passage. The rungs were covered with mud, and here and there were dark stains on the wood. We went up. It led to a hollow evidently dug out with spade and chisel. The roof was of planks, with a trapdoor at one end. We lifted it with our shoulders, and stood up within the four walls of a cottage. A fire was smouldering on the open hearth, and as we let in the draught of air, a log burst into flame. A gun stood in the ingle. On a rack were some iron traps and a belt of cartridges. There was a table in the centre of the room with a long knife on it. That was all we saw with our first glance. With our second we saw a lot more. Weiss had certainly carried his homicidal mania to extremes. I imagine his beastly experiences as a prisoner of war had left a kink in the poor devil’s mind. Then, digging out a cellar or repairing the floor, he had accidentally discovered the dry channel beneath the cottage, and followed it to its hidden outlet. That turned his secret desires into action. He could kill and remove his victim without any trace. And so he let himself go.
“At dawn we were back at the cottage with the magistrate. When he came out, he was violently, terribly sick. I have never seen a man be so sick. It cleared him. No, I’m not being humorous. It cleared him mentally. He needed none of those emotional upheavals which we have to employ to drive shock out of our system. Didn’t I tell you he was unimaginative? He handled the subsequent inquiry in a masterly fashion. He accepted as an unavoidable fact the horror of the thing, but he wouldn’t listen to tales which could not be proved. There was never any definite proof of the extra horror in which the villagers believed.”
The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories Page 15