THE NIGHT WIND HOWLS

by Frederick Cowles

  ‘In the morning the gypsy was still there and Radmazov brought her into the kitchen and said to my mother, “Here is your mistress and mine.” He gave a strange laugh and added, “For a year and a day.”

  ‘Of course the news was all over the town by evening, and many people thought the girl very fortunate. But I was not so sure. I could see that Luisa was in deadly fear of the Russian and I did not envy her. In less than a week she had lost all her old spirit and was so quiet and subdued that it seemed impossible she could be the same person.

  ‘As the days went by the gypsy and I struck up a sort of friendship. I was sorry for the poor frightened creature—so sorry, in fact, that I once urged her to run away.

  ‘ “I dare not go alone,” she replied. “He would find me and bring me back or else kill me with his evil eyes.”

  ‘And then, in the following July, I heard that Benito was in Seville again, and I passed on the news to Luisa. Her eyes lit up with something of the old fire, and a new hope seemed to fill her breast. I promised to take a note to her former lover. The letter was written and I set forth on my errand. It was night and I was uncertain of Benito’s whereabouts, but I went in the direction of the gypsy quarter. I was running along the Calle des Extranjeros when a hand gripped my arm. It was Radmazov.

  ‘ “You have a letter from Luisa,” he said. “Let me see it.”

  ‘My first idea was to deny all knowledge of such a missive, but his black eyes gleamed at me and I found myself handing it over without a word. He unfolded it and read aloud, “ ‘Benito, save me from this man or I shall go mad. Come on the second night after the fair ends, and if he is out I shall be sitting at the window. If you do not see me come again the following night and keep coming until you can take me away from this dreadful house. Luisa.’ ”

  ‘With a terrible laugh the Russian refolded the note and handed it back to me.

  ‘ “Deliver it,” he said, “and for your own sake do not say that I have seen it. If you so much as breathe a word of our meeting, you shall die.”

  ‘To make a long story short I was unable to find Benito, but I gave the letter to a gypsy lad who promised to see it safely delivered. I told Luisa what I had done, but I dared not hint that Radmazov had seen the note. From that time she seemed to recover some of her old gaiety and went about the house singing cheerfully.

  ‘As usual the fair opened on the Day of the Assumption, and there were three days of fun and hilarity. On the morning of the 18th of August my mother and I went to Mass at the Church of St James. When we arrived at the Villa Rosita, Radmazov met us with the news that Luisa was unwell. No noise was to be made and we were not to go near the studio. With a kind of sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I realised that it was just a year and a day since the gypsy girl had first come to the house.

  ‘All that day and the next I went about with fear in my heart. I knew that Luisa must be awaiting the coming of her lover. On the morning of the eventful day Radmazov called me aside and whispered, “Well, it is tonight he is coming to take her away from me. He shall find her ready, I do assure you.” With that he laughed in an evil way, and with all my soul I wished I could warn Benito. But I was too frightened of the Russian.

  ‘That night the streets were crowded with merry-makers for the Feast of the Assumption is celebrated throughout the octave. I saw the Russian in the Plaza about nine o’clock, but he did not see me. Soon afterwards I hurried back to the villa, and there was Luisa sitting in the window of the studio and holding a large black fan. I tried to attract her attention, but she never once turned her head. Then I saw Benito pass up the garden path and, almost immediately, the dark figure of Radmazov followed him. How I wished I could cry out a warning, but I was a coward, señor, and stole away into the night lest the strange eyes of the Russian should discover me.

  ‘The end of the story is soon told. In the early hours of the morning my mother and I were awakened by the police and taken off to be examined. It appeared that Benito had entered the house only to discover that Luisa was dead. Her body was propped up in a chair, with the black fan hiding a stiletto in her heart. On her face was that fiendish mask, so lifelike yet a mask of death. Beneath it the lovely girlish features of the gypsy had been wantonly, cruelly mutilated. Benito had hardly made the ghastly discovery when Radmazov came in and stood laughing at him. Half crazed by grief and horror the youth was at the Russian’s throat in a moment, and the dagger that had killed Luisa found a second victim.

  ‘The police discovered the mask in the street outside the house and this led them to suspect that something was wrong. They found a woman with a ghastly defaced countenance who had been dead for at least two days. With her was a man with a dagger in his heart and another dead of some virulent poison. Yes, señor, the Russian had been clever—hellishly clever. The mask had been smeared with a poison so powerful that its very touch killed. Benito, in his rage, had torn it from Luisa’s face and hurled it into the street below, thereby sealing his own fate. The police officer who discovered it had only touched it with gloved hands, but the poison had made him sick although he escaped death.

  ‘In Seville it was said that the Russian had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the gypsy’s body. I do not know if that is true. It all happened over sixty years ago and people have forgotten the details of the story and only remember that some grim tragedy has made the Villa Rosita a haunted place.

  ‘Only old Iñigo remembers why, when the moon is high in the heavens, a dead gypsy girl sits at the studio window in the Calle de Pablo waiting for her dead lover.’

  King of Hearts

  ONLY A FOOL would attempt a walking tour in Scotland in late October when the heather-clad hills are so often veiled in the mist, and cold winds from the mountains make the evenings black and treacherous. But I was ever a fool and so I must needs wait until the holiday season was well over and the trippers long departed before commencing my vacation.

  As a matter of fact it wasn’t exactly a holiday. It was more of a pilgrimage undertaken in pious memory of a bright, hazel-eyed young man who, if right could have conquered might, would have been King of England—a gallant adventurer who made a glorious attempt to win his throne from the usurper, but only broke his heart, and many other hearts as well, amidst the purple hills of the north.

  In a cockle-shell of a fishing-boat I sailed out to Eriskay, where the Prince first landed, with his seven companions, in the fatal ’45. I stood on the Coilleag a’Phrionnsa and saw the dying strands of pink convolvulus—those flowers said to have originally sprung from seeds sprinkled by the Prince himself. I followed him across the water to Borradale, in Moidart, where old Bishop Hugh pleaded with him to return to France. But it was the bishop who was persuaded, not Charles, and it was he who blessed the blue and gold standard when it was raised at Glenfinnan.

  By Loch Shiel I saw the monument which marks the spot where the banner floated, and the old Marquis of Tullibardine read the proclamation of Britain’s legitimate King to the assembled Camerons and Macdonalds.

  And then I planned to follow that road of victory and defeat, down through Scotland and northern England to Derby—that road where hope met despair and laughter was changed to tears. But first I had to see something of the country around Fort William—the glens from whence came the rough, loyal-hearted Highlanders who served the Bonnie Prince, and served him so well that not even a bribe of £30,000 could induce one of them to betray him.

  On the 25th of October (it was a Tuesday, I remember) I walked down the shore of Loch Linnhe to Ardgour and then inland to Strontian, intending to seek a short cut back across the moors to Fort William. It was a foolhardy adventure for one who did not know the countryside. But I only realised my folly when, out on the hills, a thick mist suddenly descended. I was not seriously alarmed for the path was bordered by bracken waist high, and it seemed a comparatively easy matter to feel one’s way along.

  I suppose I managed to keep to the path for a mile or so, and then came
a clearing and the way divided. Undecided which track to follow, I made up my mind to keep to the right, but before long completely lost my bearings. The mist showed no signs of lifting, and I was stumbling on and praying for a shepherd’s hut or some kind of rough shelter when I saw a light ahead. The path suddenly broadened and became a cart track. Within a short time I was amazed to find myself before the entrance of a large house with wide steps leading up to an open door. I could see a great raftered hall lighted by candles which guttered in the draught.

  So surprised must I have been that I completely forgot my manners, and, without troubling to knock or to ring the bell, entered the house. The hall and the staircase were deserted, but the sound of music and laughter came from a room to the right of the entrance. Not pausing to consider what the consequences of my unwarrantable intrusion might be, I lifted the brocaded curtain and passed into a brilliantly lighted apartment. It was thronged with finely dressed people—the men wearing kilts and the ladies attired in gorgeous old-fashioned costumes. The strange thing was that none seemed to remark my presence. I passed among them until I gained the shelter of a recessed window, and yet no one sought to stay me. Unpleasantly thrilled, I became aware of the fact that, although I could see each member of that gay company, I was invisible to them.

  And then I noticed another thing—each man and woman wore a white rose on his or her breast, and they all seemed to be awaiting the arrival of some honoured guest. They spoke in whispers, and ever and anon a lady would glance anxiously at the door.

  Even as I watched the musicians ceased to play and the ladies and gentlemen formed up into two lines from the entrance to a dais at the end of the room. And then I heard, in the distance, the wild skirling of pipes. Nearer and nearer they came until the apartment was full of their martial melody. The tall pipers marched in headed by a bent old man holding a great claymore aloft. And at the end of that procession, wrapped in the Stuart tartan, came the man whose face has haunted my dreams all my life long. His curly hair framed the perfect oval of his face, his lips were parted in a winning smile, and jewelled orders gleamed on his right breast. But over his heart drooped a white rose.

  A great cry went up from the gathering and the women pressed forward to kiss his hand. I needed not the cry nor the homage to tell me that this was Charles Edward Stuart. Over the kneeling throng his eyes met mine, and I knew that he, and he alone, could see me standing there.

  He passed to the dais and took up his position beneath the velvet canopy. The gay music of a Scottish reel began and soon the company was dancing. Laughter echoed through the room, there was a flutter of fans, and bright eyes reflected the glow of the candles. A couple of lovers plighted their troth in the window recess where I was standing. Servitors raised the curtains as the guests passed in and out of the hall, and men with serious faces stood whispering in corners.

  Then, without any warning, the scene changed. The gay music became a mournful dirge, and weary-eyed, bedraggled women were dancing with skeletons dressed in rags. I cried out in horror and looked across at the Prince. He was still standing beneath the canopy, but the smile had gone from his lips. His face was ravaged by sorrow, and the royal garb had become the drab costume of a Highland crofter. I found myself hastening across the room to his side and just as I gained the dais, the deathly company vanished into thin air and the Prince and I were left alone in that deserted hall.

  ‘My Prince,’ I stammered, kneeling at his feet. ‘Do not grieve for the past. The Cause lives on.’

  ‘In my heart it is only the past,’ he whispered brokenly. ‘Look into my eyes and see the things that haunt my soul through all eternity.’

  I gazed into his brown eyes, and like a series of reflections in a mirror, saw pictures come and go. There were the dying on a field of battle and men in English uniforms clubbing the wounded to death. I saw a blazing barn from which came the cries of men being burnt to death—from which some sought to escape but were driven back into the flames by the bayonets of the soldiery. Red coats chased weary fugitives over the moors, cutting them down and stripping their bleeding bodies. And there were hunted loyalists embarking in small boats and bidding farewell to their beloved land for ever.

  With an effort I looked away. ‘Can you wonder that my spirit grieves for my great failure?’ asked the soft voice.

  And then, in a flash, I knew what I had to say: knew why I had been permitted to witness this vision of the past. The words came tumbling from my lips—nay, from my heart.

  ‘My Prince,’ I cried. ‘Talk not of failure. It was never that. Time has proved it to have been a glorious victory, and those who laid down their lives and fortunes in the Stuart cause are heroes for ever. Butcher Cumberland may blaze in hell, but Bonnie Prince Charlie will always reign as King in a wider realm than Britain—the King of hearts.’

  Over that sad face crept the warm glow of a happy smile and the brown eyes gleamed. Again he was attired in the Stuart tartan, with the orders shining like jewelled stars. Lifting his hand, he took the white rose from his heart and held it out to me. As I bent to receive it I heard the triumphant music of the pipes—the victorious march of the Camerons of Lochiel.

  When I lifted my head I found myself alone amidst the ruins of a once beautiful house. The morning sun was shining upon the roofless walls, and making a golden glory around the broken step where the Prince had stood. With a great gladness in my heart I left that house of dreams.

  The mist had gone and the sun gleamed upon the fading heather and the brown bracken. Out on the moorland I came upon a shepherd leaning on his stick.

  ‘Whose house was that in the valley?’ I asked, pointing to the ruin below us.

  ‘It belonged to a Cameron,’ was the reply. ‘ ’Tis said that Prince Charlie was there both before and after Culloden, and for that the English burnt the place. Maybe ’tis only a tale. I do not know that the Prince was ever there.’

  ‘But I know,’ I cried. ‘The Prince was there as surely as I am here.’

  He gazed at me in surprise. But I knew that I was speaking the truth, for in my hand I held the soft petals of a white rose.

  Voodoo

  ‘AND WHAT EXACTLY is meant by Voodooism?’ asked Mackenzie. ‘To us it is just a word which you people who have lived in Haiti are very fond of mentioning in a mysterious manner. But you never tell us the real meaning of it.’

  I noticed the colour drain from Stephen Crane’s face as Mackenzie put the question, and his voice trembled slightly as he replied.

  ‘If you had been in a place like Port-au-Prince for five years you would realise that no one who had really come up against it ever enjoys even the mention of the word Voodooism.’

  ‘Come now,’ chaffed Mackenzie. ‘You don’t mean to imply that here, in a respectable London club within fifty yards of Piccadilly, you are frightened to speak of a negro superstition?’

  ‘If it were just that I shouldn’t give a damn, but it is more,’ Crane answered. ‘Oh, I don’t mind telling you something about it, although it makes me squirm when I remember what Voodoo does mean in Haiti. It isn’t merely a superstition. It’s a religion—a terrible, ancient religion born in the jungles of Africa.’

  ‘How did it reach the West Indies if it belongs to Africa?’ I inquired.

  ‘I can explain that simply enough. The West Indies, as of course you know, were discovered by Columbus who, on his return to Spain, told marvellous stories of the fabulous wealth of the islands. His tales sent hordes of his countrymen hastening westward to seize their share of the gold. Under civilised conditions, which incidentally meant working in the mines, the natives soon died off. Later on, when the French conquered Haiti, they were up against a real shortage of labour. In desperation they imported negroes from Africa, and with the slaves came the terrible rites of Voodoo. So a devilish cult that belonged to the black African jungle, became the curse of one of the fairest islands of the west.’

  ‘But surely there is some form of Christianity on Haiti?’ remarke
d Stocks.

  ‘Officially the religion is Roman Catholic, but the Christian priest is powerless against his Voodoo rival. The Voodoo priests are known as papaloi, and the priestesses as mamaloi—Creole titles which indicate royal honour.

  ‘That there is a lot of mumbo-jumbo about the rites I will frankly admit, but unpleasant experience has taught me that a Voodoo priest can usually do exactly what he claims he can do. The services are held in the forest at dead of night. Some kind of sacrifice is offered—too often a human victim bleeds to death on the altar. The worshippers drink of the blood and then the gathering develops into a mad dance, a drunken orgy which culminates in sexual frenzy. At some of these feasts cannibalism is practised even today.

  ‘Among other things the papaloi claim to be able to resurrect corpses and compel them to behave like living men. Those creatures, known as zombies, must for ever perform the will of the Voodoo priests who, by their loathsome arts, give them the semblance of life.’

  ‘But you don’t mean to say that you believe all that bunkum?’ scoffed Mackenzie.

  ‘Call it bunkum if you like,’ replied Crane quietly. ‘I happen to know it’s actual fact. Just over a year ago I was brought up against Voodooism and saw some of its hellish power. It got two of my friends, and it will get me in the end. Haiti is miles away, but time and distance mean nothing to Voodooism. If you like I’ll tell you what happened to make me fear it so much.’