by Sax Rohmer
Then, perforce, the gap had widened, and six months later had become a chasm quite impassable except in the interests of social propriety. Anglo-Indian society is notable for divorces, and poor Moreen very early in her married life fully understood the reason.
She held the letter to the dim light and read it again attentively. Allowing a certain discount for her mother’s changeless animosity towards Major Fayne, it yet remained a startling letter. Much of it consisted in feckless condolences, characteristic but foolish; the passage, however, which she read and re-read by the dim, flickering light was as follows:
“Mr. Harringay in his last letter begged of me to come out by the next boat to Rangoon,” her mother wrote. “He has quite opened my eyes to the truth, Moreen, not in such a way as to shock me all at once, but gradually. I always distrusted Ralph Fayne and never disguised the fact from you. I knew that his previous life had been far from irreproachable, but his treatment of you surpasses even my expectations. I know all, my poor darling! and I know something which you do not know. His father did not die in Colombo at all; he died in a madhouse! and there are two other known dipsomaniacs in Ralph Fayne’s family — —”
A hand reached over Moreen’s shoulder and tore the letter from her.
She turned with a cry — and looked up into her husband’s quivering face! For a moment he stood over her, his left fist clenching and unclenching and his pale blue eyes glassy with anger. Then chokingly he spoke:
“So you carry one of his letters about with you?”
The veins were throbbing visibly upon his temples. Moreen clutched at the blanket but did not speak, dared not move, for if ever she had looked into the face of a madman it was at this moment when she looked into the face of Ralph Fayne.
He suddenly grabbed the candle and, holding it close to the letter, began to read. His hands were perfectly steady, showing the tremendous nerve tension under which he laboured. Then his expression changed, but nothing of the maniac glare left his eyes.
“From your mother,” he said hoarsely, “and full of two things — your wrongs, your wrongs! and Jack Harringay — Jack Harringay — always Jack Harringay! Damn him!”
He put down the candle and began to tear the letter into tiny fragments, pouring forth the while a stream of coarse, blasphemous language. Moreen, who felt that consciousness was slipping from her, crouched there with a face deathly pale.
Fayne began to laugh softly as he threw the torn-up letter from him piece by piece.
“Damn him!” he said again. He turned the blazing eyes towards his wife. “You lying, baby-faced hypocrite! Why don’t you admit that he is — —”
He stopped; the sinister laughter died upon his lips and he stood there shaking all over and with a sort of stark horror in his eyes dreadful to see.
“Why don’t you?” he muttered — and looked at her almost pathetically,— “why of course you can’t — no one can — —”
He reeled and clutched at the tent-flap, then stumblingly made his way out.
“No one can,” came back in a shaky whisper— “no one can — —”
Moreen heard him staggering away, until the sound of his uncertain footsteps grew inaudible. A distant howling rose upon the night, and, nearer to the clearing, sounded a sort of tapping, not unlike that of a woodpecker. Some winged creature was fluttering over the tent.
IV
Dawn saw the dreadful march resumed. Major Fayne now exhibited unmistakable traces of his course of heavy drinking. He brought up the rear as hitherto, and often tarried far behind where some peculiar formation of the path enabled him to study the country already traversed. He had altered the route of the march, and now they were leaving the Shan Hills upon the north-east and dipping down to a chasm-like valley through which ran a tributary of the Selween River. Since the dry season was commenced the entire country beneath them showed through a haze of heat and dust.
They had partaken of a crude and hasty breakfast as strangers having nothing in common who by chance share a table. Moreen no longer doubted that her husband was mad, for he muttered to himself and was ever glancing over his shoulder. This and his constant watching of the path behind spoke of some secret terror from which he fled.
Towards noon, they skirted a village whose inhabitants poured forth en bloc to watch the passing of this unfamiliar company. A faint hope that some European might be there died in Moreen’s breast. Her position was a dreadful one. Led by a madman — of this she was persuaded — and surrounded by natives who, if not actively hostile, were certainly unfriendly, with but one man to whom she could look for the slightest aid, she was proceeding further and further from civilisation into unknown wildernesses.
What her husband’s purpose might be she could not conceive. She was unable to think calmly, unable to formulate any plan. In the dull misery of a sick dream she rode forward speculating upon the awakening.
The midday heat in the valley was so great that a halt became imperative. They camped at the edge of a dense jungle where banks of rotten vegetation, sun-dried upon the top, lay heaped about the bamboo stems. None but a madman would have chosen to tarry in such a spot; and Major Fayne’s servants went about their work with many a furtive glance at their master. Ramsa Lal’s velvety eyes showed a great compassion, but Moreen offered no protest. She was in an unreal frame of mind and her will was merely capable of a mute indifference: any attempt to assert herself would have meant a sudden breakdown. Something in her brain was strained to utmost tension; any further effort must have snapped it.
In the hour of the greatest heat Major Fayne went out alone, offering no explanation of his intentions and leaving no word as to the time of his return. Moreen only learnt of his departure from Ramsa Lal. She received the news with indifference and asked no questions. Inert she lay in the little tent looking out at the wall of jungle, where it uprose but twenty yards away. So the day wore on. Mechanically she partook of food when Ramsa Lal placed it before her, but, although the man’s attitude palpably was one of uneasiness, she did not question him, and he departed in silence. It was an incredible situation.
Throughout the afternoon nothing occurred to break this dread monotony save that once there arose a buzz of conversation, and she became dimly aware that some one from the native village which they had passed in the morning had come into the camp. After a time the sounds had died away again, and Ramsa Lal had stepped into view, looking towards her interrogatively; but although she recognized his wish to speak to her, the inertia which now claimed her mind and body prevailed, and she offered him no encouragement to intrude upon her misery.
Thus the weary hours passed, until even to the dulled perceptions of Moreen the sounds of unrest and uneasiness pervading the camp began to penetrate. Yet Major Fayne did not return. The insect and reptile life of a Burmese jungle moved around her, but she was curiously indifferent to everything. Without alarm she brushed a venomous spider, fully one inch in girth, from the camp-bedstead, and dully watched it darting away into the jungle undergrowth.
Darkness swept down and tropical night things raised their mingled voices; then came Ramsa Lal.
“Forgive me, Mem Sahib,” he said, “but I must speak to you.”
She half reclined, looking at him as he stood, a dimly seen figure, before her.
“The men from the village,” continued he, “come to say that we may not camp. It is holy ground from this place away” — he waved his arm vaguely— “to the end of the jungle where the river is.”
“I can do nothing, Ramsa Lal.”
“I fear — for him.”
“Major Fayne?”
“He goes into the jungle to look for something. What does he go to look for? Why does he not return?”
Moreen made no reply.
“All of them there” — he indicated the direction of the native servants— “know this place. They are already afraid, and, with those from the village coming to warn us, they get more afraid still. This is a haunted place, Mem Sahib.”
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Moreen sat up, shaking off something of the lassitude which possessed her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“In that jungle,” replied Ramsa Lal, “there is buried a temple, a very old temple, and in the temple there is buried one who was a holy man. His spirit watches over this place, and none may rest here because of him — —”
“But the men of the village came here,” said Moreen.
“Before sunset, Mem Sahib. No man would come here after dark. Look! you will see — they are frightened.”
Languidly, but with some awakening to the necessities of the situation, Moreen stepped out of the tent and looked across to where, about a great fire, the retinue huddled in a circle. Ramsa Lal stood beside her with something contemptuous in the bearing of his tall figure.
“A spell lies upon all this valley, Mem Sahib,” he said. “Therefore it is called the Valley of the Just.”
“Why?”
“Because only the just can stay within its bounds through the night.”
Moreen stared affrightedly.
“Do you mean that they die in the night, Ramsa Lal?”
“In the night, Mem Sahib, before the dawn.”
“By what means?”
Ramsa Lal spread his palms eloquently.
“Who knows?” he replied. “It is a haunted place.”
“And are you afraid?”
“I am not afraid, for I have passed a night in the Valley of the Just many years ago, and I live.”
“You were alone?”
“With two others, Mem Sahib.”
“And the others?”
“One was bitten by a snake an hour before dawn, and the other, who was an upright man, lives to-day.”
Moreen shuddered.
“Do you know” — she still hesitated to broach this subject with the man— “do you know where — Major Fayne has gone?”
“It is said, Mem Sahib, that a stream runs through the jungle close beside the old temple, a stream which bubbles up from a cavern and which is supposed to come underground from the Ruby Mine plateau. He goes early in the morning to look for rubies — so I think.”
Moreen tapped the ground with her foot.
“Do you think” — again she hesitated— “that Major Fayne is afraid of something? Of something — where we have come from?”
Ramsa Lal bowed low.
“I cannot tell,” he replied, “but we shall know ere sunrise.”
For a moment Moreen scarcely grasped the significance of his words; then their inner meaning became apparent to her.
“Make me some coffee, Ramsa Lal,” she said; “I am cold — very cold.”
She re-entered the tent, lighting the lamp.
The Valley of the Just! What irony, that her husband should have selected that spot to camp in! She sat deep in thought, when presently Ramsa Lal entered with coffee. He had just set down the tray when the sound of a distant cry brought him rigidly upright. He stood listening intently. The sound was repeated — nearer it seemed — a sort of hoarse scream, terrible to hear — impossible to describe.
Moreen rose to her feet and followed the man out of the tent. Some one — some one who kept crying out — was plunging heavily through the jungle towards the camp.
The men about the fire were on their feet now. Obviously they would have fled, but the prospect of flight into the haunted darkness was one more terrible than that of remaining where they were.
It ceased, that strange cry; but whoever was approaching could be heard alternately groaning and laughing madly.
Then out from the thicket on the west, into the red light of the fire, burst a fearful figure. It was that of Major Fayne, wild eyed, and with face which seemed to be of a dull grey. He staggered and almost fell, but kept on for a few more paces and then collapsed in a heap almost at Moreen’s feet, amid the clatter of the strange loot wherewith he was laden.
This consisted in a number of golden vessels heavily encrusted with gems, a huge golden salver, and a dozen or more ropes of gigantic rubies!
Amid these treasures, the ransom of a Sultan, the price of a throne, he lay writhing convulsively.
Ramsa Lal was the first to recover himself. He leapt forward, seized the prostrate man by the shoulders and dragged him into the tent, past Moreen. Having effected this he raised his eyes in a mute question. She nodded, and whilst Ramsa Lal seized the Major’s shoulders, Moreen grasped his ankles, and together they lifted him up on to the bed.
He lay there, rolling from side to side. His eyes were wide open, glassy and unseeing; a slight froth was upon his lips, his fists rose and fell in regular, mechanical beats, corresponding with the convulsive movements of his knees.
Moreen dropped down beside him.
“Ramsa Lal! Ramsa Lal! What shall I do? What has happened to him?”
Ramsa Lal ripped the collar from Major Fayne’s neck in order to aid his respiration. Then, quietly signing to Moreen to hold the lamp, he began to search the entire exposed surface of the Major’s skin. Evidently he failed to find that for which he was looking. He glanced down at the ankles, but the Major wore thick putties and Ramsa Lal shook his head in a puzzled way.
“It is like the bite of a hamadryad,” he said softly, “but there is no mark.”
“What shall I do!” moaned Moreen— “what shall I do!”
There was a frightened murmur from the entrance, where the native servants stood in a group, peering in. Moreen stood up.
“Hot water, Ramsa Lal!” she said. “We must give him brandy.”
“But it is useless, Mem Sahib; he has not been bitten — there is no mark; it may be a fever from the jungle.”
Moreen beat her hands together helplessly.
“We must do something!” she said; “we must do something.”
A sudden change took place in Major Fayne. The convulsive movements ceased and he lay quiet, and breathing quite regularly. The glassy look began to fade from his eyes, and with every appearance of being in full possession of his senses, he stared at Moreen and spoke:
“You shall repent of your words, Harringay,” he said in a quiet voice. “You have deliberately accused me of faking the cards. I care nothing for any of you. Why should I attempt such a thing? I could buy and sell you all!...”
Moreen dropped slowly back upon her knees again, white to the lips, watching her husband. With the same appearance of perfect sanity, but now addressing the empty air, he continued:
“In my tent — my wife will tell you it is true — my wife, Harringay, do you hear? — I have jewelled cups and strings of rubies, enough to buy up Mandalay! I blundered on to them in that old ruined temple back in the jungle, not five hundred yards from your bungalow. Harringay — think of it — a treasure-room like that within sight of your verandah! There are snakes there, snakes, you understand, in hundreds; but it is worth risking for a big fortune like mine.”
“He mixes time and place,” murmured Ramsa Lal. “He talks to the Commissioner Sahib in Mandalay of what is here in the Valley of the Just.”
Moreen nodded, catching her breath hysterically.
“You see,” continued the delirious man, “I am as rich as Midas. Why should I want to cheat you! Don’t talk to me of what you would do for my wife’s sake! Keep your favours, curse you!”
With a contemptuous smile, Major Fayne threw his head back upon the pallet. Then came another change; the look of stark horror which Moreen had seen once before crept into the grey face; and her husband raised himself in bed, glaring wildly into the shadows beyond the lamp.
“You are a spirit!” The words came in a thrilling, eerie whisper. “Oh God! I understand. Yes! I came away from Harringay’s bungalow. My wife was asleep and I sat drinking until I had emptied the whisky decanter.”
He bent forward as if listening.
“Yes, I went back. I went back to reason with him. No! as God is my witness I did not plan it! I went back to reason with him.”
Again the uncanny attitude
was resumed. Then:
“I stepped in through the verandah, and there he sat with Moreen’s photograph in his hand. Listen to me — Listen!” There was an agony of entreaty in his voice; it rose to a thin scream— “My wife’s photograph! Do you hear me? Do you understand? Moreen’s photograph — and as I stood behind him, he raised it to his lips — he — —”
Major Fayne stopped abruptly, as if checked by a spoken word; and with wildly beating heart Moreen found herself listening for the phantom voice. She could hear the breathing of the natives clustered behind her; but no other sound save a distant howling in the jungle was audible, until her husband began again:
“I struck him down — from behind, yes, from behind. His blood poured over the picture. You understand I was mad. If you are just — and is not this called the Valley of the Just? — you cannot condemn me. Why did I fly? I was not in my right mind; I had — been drinking, as I told you; I was mad. If I was not mad I should never have fled, never have drawn suspicion — on myself.”
He fell back as if exhausted, then once more struggled upright and began to peer about him. When he spoke again, his voice, though weak, was more like his own.
“Moreen!” he said— “where the devil are you? why can’t you give me a drink?”
Suddenly, he seemed to perceive her, and he drew his brows together in the old, ugly frown.
“Curse you!” he said. “I have found you out! I am a rich man now, and when I have gone to England, see what Jack Harringay will do for you. I will paint London red! I have looted the old temple, and they are after me, they — —”
The words merged into a frightful scream. Major Fayne threw up his hands and fell back insensible upon the bed.
“Mem Sahib! Mem Sahib, you must be brave!” It was Ramsa Lal who spoke; he supported Moreen with his arm. “There is a spell upon this place. No medicine, nothing, can save him. There is only one thing — —”
Moreen controlled herself by one of those giant efforts of which she was capable.
“Tell me,” she whispered— “what must we do?”