Again the wind rose with a wailing moan, and the snapping of dead twigs in the shrubberies could distinctly be heard above it. And then, without any warning, the crackling volley of thunder broke out immediately overhead, and rain came down in torrents.
Veronica had never seen such rain ; it had the violence of a tropical storm, and falling upon the frost-bound ground, it ran straight off down every slope in sheets of water. All about them they could hear the sound of water on the move, and before many minutes had passed, the voice of the river had changed its note.
With the outbreaking of the thunder the tense forces of the room seemed to be released. It was as if the power generated by the invocations had passed from the altar into the cloud, there to be released as lightning and tempest. The two men relaxed their vigilance, and going to the sole remaining window, stood watching the storm.
As the lightning lit up the sky in flickering sheets, they could see the river through the gaps in the trees. It drove before the wind like miniature sea and had already risen to cover the road. Suddenly a far away roaring, like a train going over a viaduct, fell upon their ears above the din of the storm. It came steadily nearer, as if some heavy vehicle were charging down the cart-track beside the river, and then into their line of vision came a wall of dark water edged with foam that rushed along the surface of the river with the speed of an express train.
“Good heavens, what's that ?” exclaimed both men simultaneously. They had evidently bargained for no such manifestation.
In the heaving billows behind the line of foam great timbers rose and fell like the lances of a charging army ; part of a hay-rick went past, and then a farm cart, turning over and over.
“A darn must have gone somewhere up stream,” said Dr. Latimer, and a big sluice-gate, coming down flat like a raft, confirmed his words. Lucas, terrible in death, was even more terrible in resurrection.
“Quick,” exclaimed the Third, “we haven't a moment to loose ! Heaven knows what that flood-water has done in the graveyard,” and out he went into the raging, buffeting darkness.
Veronica, clutching her censer as if her life depended on it, went after him, the old man, still cowled, close upon her heels.
They made their way through the tormented woods, guided by the squat tower of the church that stood out against the darkness at each lightning-flash. The trees screamed, roared, crashed and shuddered ; branches came down like javelins, and the water ran ankle-deep over the frozen ground that it could not penetrate. It was undoubtedly the frost-bound earth that had caused the catastrophe, for all the water that fell in the valley ran straight down every slope into the river. Thunder-rain usually falls upon parched ground that absorbs a vast quantity before any is thrown off, but frozen ground can absorb nothing, and rain runs off it as off a roof ; English streams are not calculated to stand such an emergency, and the river, already full with winter rains, was over its banks in five minutes.
They stumbled across the fallen stones of the graveyard wall and found themselves under the lee of the church. The ground rose slightly towards the graveyard, and the road that ran beside the river was cut out of the slope. The swollen river was six feet deep on the road, and raced madly along the retaining wall that held up the face of the bank, and as they approached the spot where Lucas lay, a great spout of foam went up high in the air as a long section of the wall, its foundations undermined, fell into the river.
“Here—here it is !” cried Veronica, stumbling over a low mound of rough earth that lay at the very edge of the water.
“Be careful. Come back,” cried Dr. Latimer, seizing her arm, “More of the bank may go at any minute.”
“It is going now,” said the Third, and even as he spoke, another mass of the bank peeled away, and Veronica had a glimpse of some dark object sticking out of the yellow clay as the moon broke fitfully through the racing clouds. It slowly tilted as the earth was cut from under it by the water, and the loose clods above, washing away in the downpour, revealed the long dark outline of a coffin, which slowly up-ended and slid towards the river.
With one spring the Third was into the washed-out grave and seized the metal handle at the coffin-head that gleamed dully in the moonlight. The bank was crumbling fast, but he stood his ground, and Veronica heard a sound of splintering wood as he forced open the lid of the coffin with some metal tool. The wood was cheap and frail and yielded easily, and as the water reached him, he clambered out of the grave bearing in his powerful arms a long white form, and a flash of lightning revealed to Veronica the features of Lucas, serene in death but unmarred by corruption, swathed in the stained cerements of the desecrated grave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THEY MADE THEIR WAY BACK THROUGH THE roaring darkness. The flickering lightning revealed sudden glimpses of the churchyard, with its rows of headstones and black writhing yew-trees rent by the storm. The ground was sodden by now, and the two men slipped and staggered with their burden, leaving Veronica to follow as best she could, still clutching the censer, which for some unknown reason, had managed to remain alight. The girl hoped and prayed that no one would look out from the upper windows of the cottages and see them in the fitful moonlight. What they would make of the black-robed, ghoulish procession, she could not guess, but she knew it would certainly be attributed to the Grange, and even that stolid countryside had reached the point when it was nearly ready for a lynching.
They were still far from the shelter of the wood when her fears were realized. She heard a window thrown up in the neighbouring darkness. Then she heard a door open and shut. So far as she could judge, the sound came down the wind, indeed, it could hardly have been heard from the contrary direction, and she guessed that it came from the house of Dr. Butler, whose garden abutted on the churchyard.
“Hurry, hurry,” she cried to her companions. “Some one is coming.” They struggled on towards the shelter of the wood, guided by the line of tormented yew-trees, and as they passed the gap in the wall, Veronica, gazing over her shoulder in terrified apprehension saw the flash of an electric torch by the corner of the church. Her companions hurried on, but Veronica paused, she felt that she must see who came and what was discovered. The moon broke through a rift in the clouds, and she distinctly saw a bulky figure clad in the white macintosh that Dr. Butler often wore. What strange fatality, what invisible link caused this man invariably to appear when anything was toward with regard to Lucas ?
She saw him pause suddenly, as if he had heard something. He looked about him as if trying to identify the direction of the sound. She wondered what it could be. Then he set off and made a straight line towards the place where she was hidden. An eddy of wind from the lee of the woods had carried to him the odour of the incense from the censer she still bore with her. She crouched among the bushes like a hunted creature, petrified, unable to move. The man came on till he was some thirty feet from the edge of the trees, and paused irresolute. The eddying draughts around the yew-trees had carried the telltale fragrance away. He was not a primitive savage, and his nose gave him no sure information. She saw him stand there irresolute, and then, believing himself to be alone in the darkness, he lifted his arms above his head and poured out an incoherent mixture of prayer and cursing in which her own name was mingled with that of Lucas and Alec. Then he turned and stumbled off over the grave-mounds in the direction of his home, taking with him his grief and his suspicions to brood over in silence.
Veronica rose from her hiding-place and followed the half-obliterated path through the woods, a sudden realization coming to her that she was alone in the darkness and storm with all the unseen presences of the abyss let loose about her. The storm was not merely a hurricane of wind and rain, it was unspeakably sinister, like hands reaching out from the shadows, and the darkness was palpable, like veil upon veil of soft black woven stuff. But even as she realized the subtle intangible influences abroad in the night, a change began to make itself felt. The howling tumult of the storm was being penetrated by a musical not
e, which gradually dominated its numberless discordant voices. Slowly they were dominated, gradually they were drawn into tune ; then the rhythmical singing itself fell silent and all was still. The storm had died away as suddenly as it had risen.
All about her Veronica could hear the drip of moisture ; little wandering eddies of draught blew in all directions, and the whisper of innumerable streamlets sounded in the darkness. The sudden stillness after the din of the storm left a singing in the ears, the cessation of the lightning gave the eyes a chance to become accustomed to the darkness and use what halflight came from the waning moon. Veronica hastened down the sodden path, going knee-deep into the channels of new-formed streams, pushed through the sodden shrubbery, and mounted the steps from the lawn, just as Dr. Latimer stepped out on to the terrace to come in search of her.
A banishing ritual had evidently been done in the billiard room of the old house, for the altar had been dismantled of its symbols and the lamp extinguished.
The body of Lucas lay upon the long sofa beside the fire. The grave clothes had been replaced by one of the black robes worn by the brethren of the Fraternity, the stains of the soil were removed, and the black hair, that had grown long and shaggy, had been roughly cut and smoothed. There was nothing in his appearance to shock her, except that the eyes were deeply sunken, giving an indefinably deathlike look to the face. Otherwise he might have been lying there asleep.
The Third, still in his sodden robes, stood beside the window, evidently awaiting her arrival.
“Go quickly,” he said, “and change into dry clothes. We have none too long for the resuscitation, it must be completed before cock-crow. Now hurry.”
Veronica needed no second bidding. She fled up to her room and hastily changed her dripping garments and was back again in the billiard room before the fumbling fingers of old Dr. Latimer had completed his toilette. The Third still stood beside the inanimate form of Lucas, and as she came timidly up to the couch, he put his arm round her and drew her towards the body of the dead man he had told her she must marry. Together they stood looking down into the masklike face with its sunken eyes.
Veronica was too dazed and numb to know what she felt towards the man who lay before her. The fact that corruption had not touched him convinced her that it would be even as the Third had said, and that Lucas was in a deep trance and capable of resurrection. All thought of his death and burial was obliterated from her mind. She thought of him as an unconscious man who would shortly recover consciousness, and with whose strange and sinister temperament she would once again have to contend. She remembered all he had been to her and all he had done to her, and if it had not been for the arm of the strange master of men, adept, saint, or sorcerer, whatever he might be, that held her so securely, she felt that, like Ahab, she would have turned her face to the wall and yielded up her spirit. But in him she felt an absolute trust, she knew that it was he who would cope with Lucas, though he had to depend upon her as the instrument of his purpose, and she knew that she would not fail him. Whether her love or her horror of Justin were the greater, she could not have said even to herself, but the mysterious adept absolutely dominated her, not because he controlled her, but because he inspired her.
The old man joined them, and the Third bade him sit at the far side of the hearth while he placed Veronica at the foot of the couch so that her face would be the first thing the dead man should see when he opened his eyes. Then, bending over the inanimate body, he made the same passes that a hypnotist makes when he recalls his subject to consciousness.
He had not long to wait. At the third or fourth stroke a shudder ran through the form of Lucas and he tried to move, but subsided again. Life had not yet reanimated the tissues, it was a mere galvanism of the nerves that followed the movements of the magnetiser's hand. The Third placed his open palm upon the chest of the dead man and slowly raised it up and down ; after a moment or two the chest followed the movements and breathing was restored. It was soon obvious that the heart had also taken up its beat, for the face was losing its waxen appearance and assuming a more normal tint, though still bleached like the skin of one who has long been in the dark.
The Third turned to Veronica.
“Speak to him,” he said, “Call him by name. Make him come back.”
Veronica bent over the foot of the couch.
“Mr. Lucas!” she said hesitatingly.
The hand of the Third fell heavy on her shoulder.
“That will not do,” he said. “You must call him back with love. He will not come for that.”
Veronica struggled with her feelings. The horror of the dead face, the horror of what the dead man had been, filled her with dread and repulsion. She could not love that, it was no use. Then came to her the thought of the old man's words, “He died in your place. He went voluntarily to his death to save you.” If it had not been for his love for her, Lucas would not now be lying dead. She must love him as a struggling human soul, if not as a man. The will of the Third compelled her ; it was her lower self that feared, her higher self that loved, and having known the higher, she must follow it.
She bent: further over the sofa.
“Justin ! ” she said softly, “Justin!”
A quiver passed over the face of the recumbent man. He stirred stiffly, as if with limbs numbed and cramped, and slowly rose to a sitting position ; but his face was still that of a sleeper and the eyes remained closed.
“Can you bear to touch him ?” whispered the Third to Veronica.
She came to the side of the couch and took Lucas's hands in hers. They were cold with the coldness of a serpent, and as she held them the snake-like fingers slowly closed round hers and gripped them, and she saw that the nails had grown long like those of a Chinaman. The man who was called the Third came behind Lucas and placed his palms on either side of his head.
“Lucas ! Justin Lucas!” he said in deep vibrant tones like the low notes of a ’cello.
The lips of the mask-like face slowly unclosed and a husky murmur came from between them.
“Do you know who I am ?” said the voice of the man who bent over him.
A faint nod responded.
The Third let go his hold on Lucas's head, straightened himself, and resting his elbow on the chimney piece, stood waiting for him to regain full consciousness. The expressionless face, like some carven effigy on a tomb, was gradually losing its ghastly pallor as the slow-moving blood began to circulate through the veins. The deathly coldness was passing out of the hands that Veronica held, and it was obvious that moment by moment Lucas was returning to life. He seemed suddenly to become aware of the hands that held his, and shifted his grip on them as if to feel their texture.
“Is that Veronica ?” he said.
Veronica could not speak, but her hands quivered in his, and he bent forward and slowly raised first one and then the other to his lips, and then sank back upon the cushions.
For a long time there was silence, Veronica half-kneeling, half crouching beside the couch and Lucas lying motionless as if dead, but with a difference ; something about him had indefinably changed, he was obviously a man who was neither asleep nor dead, but resting ; only his face, with its unopened, sunken eyes, still looked deathlike.
Finally he spoke again.
“What has become of—the man who was here when I—first woke?”
“He is still here,” said Veronica.
“Where ?”
“Over there, by the fireplace,” replied Veronica.
Lucas slowly turned his head.
“I can't see in this pitch darkness,” he said. “Can't you strike a light ?”
Veronica, nonplussed, did not know what to reply. The soft warm radiance of the lamp fell full on his face and the room was brightly lit. The Third crossed the hearthrug towards them, and taking Lucas's head in his hands again, turned his face full to the light and gently lifted first one and then the other of the eyelids, revealing empty sockets. He and Dr. Latimer looked at each other.
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“Removed at the post-mortem,” said the Third.
Lucas swung his feet off the couch and sat upright on its edge.
“Is it necessary to be in the dark ?” he said. “Can't anyone strike a light ?”
The Third laid a hand on his shoulder.
“There will be no light for you, my son,” he said.
“What do you mean ?” exclaimed Lucas in a quick, strained voice.
No one spoke. He raised his hands to his face and felt the sockets of his eyes hollow under his touch.
“Is the room lighted ?” he said at length.
“Brightly lighted,” said the Third.
Lucas, his face in his hands, sat for a long time silent. At length he spoke.
“I can't complain,” he said. “It is just.”
“Well done, my son!” exclaimed the Third. “There speaks a man. You shall soon see the Inner Light.”
All Veronica's horror of Lucas seemed gone with her knowledge of his blindness, and she knelt beside him, anxiously watching his face.
He turned his head slowly, from habit, as if looking round.
“Are you there, Veronica ?” he said.
“Yes,” came her whisper from close beside him, “I'm here.”
He put out his hand towards her, and she put out hers, but he missed it, and touched her head. His hand rested on it for a moment, and then dropped to her shoulders, encircling them. He opened his lips as if to speak, and then paused, thinking. The realization of his blindness was gradually dawning on him, and he knew that he could no longer carry out the scheme he had planned. True, he had evaded death and returned to life, but it was death-in-life to which he had returned.
A chorus of cocks rang out from the distant farms.
“My curfew,” said Lucas with a smile, and relapsed into silence again.
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