The Night Land & Other Romances

by William Hope Hodgson; Jeremy Lassen

  Poor Madge answered nothing, but steadied her trembling knees by holding tightly to her sister’s arm.

  Later that same day, after much sympathy and gentle coaxing, Gertrude persuaded her sister to tell her everything about the separation which appeared to be growing permanent between Dicky and her. This the elder girl forced herself to do, growing easier and happier finally because of the telling; so that she found it possible to go into all the half-thoughts and vague suspicionings and fears which had troubled her so much of late.

  “Oh,” cried Gertrude when Madge had finished, “1 hate that man Vivian. I’ve always felt there was something bad and dreadful about him. I’m sure of it now.”

  “Yes,” agreed Madge, miserably. “I’m certain too; but we can’t be sure.” After which contradictory but perfectly intelligible remark she had a good hearty cry.

  “We must get him away dear,” Gertrude told her later, after she had petted and comforted her sister into quietness once more. “Let’s plan. I’ll do anything to help you.”

  For a long while they discussed ways and means, eventually deciding that they would call on Dicky at his rooms in the morning, have a good, serious talk with him, and find out what was wrong and the reason he was looking so ill.

  “There must be no tragedies through silly misunderstandings,” Gertrude asserted with quaint commonsense. “If we can only be sure whether he is really ill, or not, we shall know what to do. If there’s nothing wrong with him, and he’s just cutting you and being a brute, you must never speak to him again. If he’s ill, we’ll take care of him and make him better. Cheer up, dear!”

  The following morning they made their call upon Dicky, in force.

  “Mr. Temple, mem, is staying at ’is friend’s ’ouse in West Street,” the landlady told them. “ ’E ain’t so well as ’e might be, and ’is friend’s ’ad ’im over to stay with ’im a bit. Yes, Miss, I sends all his letters over there by my Billy. Yes, Miss, he comes in sometimes in the day. I’ll tell ’im you called, Miss. Good-day, mem.”

  With the closing of the door, the two sisters looked at each other.

  “I’m sure there’s something wrong,” said Madge in a desperate voice.

  When they arrived home, Madge wrote a long, straight-forward, loving letter to Dicky, telling him all her doubts and troubles, and asking—even though he wished everything to be ended between them—that he should give her a call and let them talk it over; or at least, that he would write to her some explanation of things. She ended by telling him how worried she was about his looks, begging him to take care of his health. But she made no mention of Vivian, judging it wiser under the circumstances to be silent in that direction.

  After the letter was posted, she felt happier. She felt that surely now she would have an opportunity to see him, speak to him, have an explanation, and perhaps win back to the old-time joy of life.

  Several days passed, but there was no reply. Twice, she and Gertrude walked past the house where Vivian had his rooms. It was a biggish, old-fashioned house, and the windows, lit up but securely blinded, gave on to a big veranda. Each time that they had passed, Madge had stopped her sister that she might look up at the light blinds behind which was Dicky. Then, after a long, useless, painful gazing, she had dragged her sister forward once more, being now as anxious to hurry away as before she had been hungry to stop.

  “Why doesn’t he write? Why doesn’t he write?” Madge asked her sister, day by day. But Gertrude had no answer; neither did Madge expect one.

  At the end of another week Madge declared that she would pay one more visit to Dicky’s rooms to see whether he had returned. Gertrude accompanied her. They discovered that Dicky had been there that very day. “Lookin’ pretty bad, Miss, I will say,” the landlady had assured them. “ ’E’s still staying with ’is friend.”

  Madge’s next step was to write direct to George Vivian, asking for news of Dicky. She received a reply two days later, in which he assured her suavely that Dicky Temple was in every way well and happy, but a little run down. He hinted with veiled brutality that Dicky disliked letter writing, and that it might be better for him if he were not bothered with unnecessary correspondence.

  “Unnecessary correspondence!” cried Gertrude furiously. “I never heard of such a horrid man.” Then she broke off to comfort Madge, who was crying. “It’s all right, dear,” she assured her. “We’ll go and see Dicky there. We’ll get him away, you’ll see.” But Madge shook her head, desperate and miserable.

  “He’s got Dicky, body and soul,” she said. “He’ll make him do just what he wants. I know it. I just know it. Oh, what shall I do?”

  Next day, however, they called to see Dicky at his friend’s rooms. But, of course, they never saw Dicky. Mr. George Vivian came down and interviewed them, very politely, very regretfully, exceedingly brutal under a silky manner. Poor Dicky was lying down, and they must forgive him—Vivian—but surely Mr. Temple had made his feelings plain, painful though it had been to him. These things were always painful to both parties. Mr. George Vivian felt sure that the ladies understood. He bowed, coldly apologetic.

  Madge turned away with a white face; but Gertrude faced Vivian, furious.

  “Do you mean—do you mean that Dicky’s there—that Mr. Temple does not wish to see my sister?” she said, panting in her young anger.

  Mr. George Vivian, B.Sc, bowed once more and said nothing. Then, as the angry girl stood, searching for words that should sufficiently express all that she felt without unduly uncovering her sister’s feelings, Madge caught her arm.

  “Come along, dear,” she said quietly. “We should never have come. This is a case for Dicky’s father. I shall wire for him at once.”

  As she said this, a strange look came into Vivian’s hitherto expressionless eyes, and sent a faint shadow of some unknown emotion across the calmness of his face. But neither of the sisters saw this, for they were walking towards the door, which Vivian silently opened for them.

  He bowed to them from the top of the steps; then stood thoughtfully staring after them, his surface-calm lost in an expression of white, intense concentration.

  That evening the two girls went for a walk. Neither said anything to the other, but the same thought was in the mind of each; for presently they found themselves walking down the long road where Vivian lived. As they came in sight of the house, Madge drew her sister to a pause, and the two of them looked up the long garden at the lighted windows above the balcony.

  It was Madge who presently opened the iron gate and began to walk silently up the grass that bordered the central walk. Gertrude followed her equally noiselessly. The same feeling was in both of them—that they must come close to the house; yet beyond that, neither of them had any clear idea, plan or intention. It was instinct, longing, possibly something more—psychic-awareness, if I may compound such a term, or a blending of all three. Certainly their minds were empty of any concerted action. They felt vaguely that they might hear something, might do something; nothing definite yet withal sufficient to impel them forward.

  The lower windows of the house front were dark and shuttered, being closed up for the winter, so that there was no fear of the girls being seen from the lower story. As they drew nearer, the dark bulk of the big veranda loomed out over them, hiding the row of lighted windows above. Near to them, there went up one of the narrow supporting pillars of the veranda.

  “Hush!” said Madge suddenly. Yet there had been no need for the remark as neither of them had spoken. They stood motionless for a while, their faces upturned, listening. Above them there was a faint monotonous sound, continuous.

  “Can you hear it?” asked Madge at last in a breathless whisper, and she gripped her sister’s arm with a hand that shook. “Can you hear it?”

  “Yes,” whispered Gertrude, shaking with excitement. “Yes, it’s Dicky. It’s Dicky! Oh, what is the matter with him?”

  “Hush!” said Madge again, and they both listened once more. The night was utterly s
till, or they had not been able to hear the sound. Even as it was, they heard it only, as it were, in little eddies—a monotonous, dead voice dropping words constantly, so low and toneless and lifeless as scarcely to seem human. Yet it was Dicky’s voice, as both the girls knew.

  Suddenly they caught each other’s hands, shaking and desperate. What devilment was being worked up there in that quiet room over the balcony, behind the lighted blinds? Madge drew in her breath, and her grip on Gertrude’s arm was painful in its intensity. Abruptly she said in a fierce tone: “I’m going up,” and she began to fumble at the pillar by which they stood.

  “I’ll come too! I’ll come too!” Gertrude whispered, her hands all ashake as she strove now to help Madge to climb. She caught her round the knees, lifting her; then stooped and shouldered her up as any schoolboy might have done. And so in a moment Madge stood gasping on the balcony. Gertrude followed, and Madge reached down to aid her.

  The sound of that curious voice came to them plainly now, yet with an even more horrible note of something inhuman and monstrous about it. It was Dicky’s voice, dropping low, toneless words within that light room, and each word came out to them clear yet meaningless as they stood there on the balcony.

  The voice reached them here, dead and lifeless, every word spoken without inflexion, with a constant slow drop, drop, as if they fell leaden upon the air from something without life. Madge caught suddenly at her collar and ripped it open so that she might breath; then she put her hand noiselessly to the blind and pushed it back.

  ‘‘—across the moorlands, pursued by the grey hands—’’ said the strange voice, as the two girls peered into the long room.

  The room was normal enough in its fittings, except for a very low table away to the left, which stood on glass legs. On this table, seated in a black vulcanite chair fitted with switches, sat Dicky. His face was of a dead, pasty whiteness. He was leaning back, his head resting in a cup-shaped vulcanite head rest, and his white face staring up at a dome of bluish metal suspended from the ceiling by thick rods of vulcanite.

  From the dome there came down two metal rods with little bright metal balls at the ends, which were pressed lightly upon Dicky’s closed eyes. Round his head was an India rubber belt, strapping a peculiar dull-colored ring to the center of his forehead, and within the ring there glimmered and winked a curious green light, flashing and disappearing oddly. His hands gripped tightly two big grey-colored electrodes, which were attached to the arms of the vulcanite chair.

  There he sat, with never a movement or sign of life, except for the strange, slow automatic moving of his lips, dropping words like dead things into the room.

  By the side of the motionless talking automaton stood Vivian upon a broad stool supported on glass legs, like those of the table. He had a large notebook in his hand, and as the Dead-Alive brought out that constant dropping of uninflexed words, he wrote steadily. From time to time he would lay his fingers gently on the pulse of the man in the chair; but for this, he wrote always, calmly, methodically, evenly.

  As Madge looked, trembling with a kind of nerve sickness which had seized her as she grasped all these things, she caught again those words that came dropping so dreadfully from the white, stiff-moving lips.

  “—the face rose over the wall—”

  Her attention was taken by Gertrude, who was shaking her arm.

  “It’s Dicky’s tale about the Moon-word,” she whispered in trembling excitement. “The one he told us he was writing. That man’s got him to sleep with electricity or something, and he’s making him tell it all, all, all! Oh! I—I—”

  She grew incoherent in her excitement. “He’ll kill Dicky if we don’t stop him!” she got out at last.

  “—The three grey figures bowed across the silent breadth of the plain, and there rose something up out of the shadows to the left of the wall—” the voice continued monotonously. And all the time Vivian wrote steadily.

  “I’m going in,” said Madge in a quiet voice, and she pushed the blind forward.

  Vivian turned with the rustle of the blind and now stood looking silently at them with an inscrutable expression.

  “What does this mean?” he began at last. But at that moment something in Madge seemed to give way, and she rushed at him with all her might, pushing him with both hands off the low-glass-legged stool on which he stood, so that he fell crashing and rolled bodily on the floor. Then, stretching out her arms she would have touched Dicky, and probably have caused his death, for she was standing on nothing to insulate her, as Vivian had been standing. Moreover, Dicky’s death would quite possibly have caused hers; for the current would have “earthed” through her.

  It was Vivian who saved her, with most marvellous presence of mind, coupled with characteristic brutality.

  “Don’t touch him!” he shouted, even as he fell; then, while he still rolled from his fall upon the floor, he kicked her legs violently from under her so that she too came headlong. He was up in a moment and made to raise her; but she refused his hand and staggered giddily to her feet.

  “So sorry if I was a little rough,” said Vivian with perfect calmness. He stepped to the wall, pulled over a big vulcanite switch, and instantly the glimmering, flickering light died out upon Dicky’s forehead; at the same time his hands released their tension upon the big grey electrodes.

  Vivian turned to Madge.

  “Mr. Temple is safe to touch now,” he said quietly. He walked across the table and with the greatest ease lifted the young man down and carried him to a couch. Then he stepped away and left him to Madge.

  In turning away he saw his notebook on the floor where he had dropped it when Madge pushed him over. He picked it up, but as he turned round with it, he found Gertrude in front of him. She gripped the book, evidently expecting that she would have to tussle for it, but he gave it up to her without an effort or a sign of emotion. Looking at it, she found it covered with shorthand, which she was able to read.

  “Oh, you brute, picking his brains!” she cried vehemently. “You brute! You might have killed him. You wouldn’t care a pin if you had.”

  He looked at her calmly but said nothing; neither did he attempt to take the book from her.

  Over by the couch Madge was silently attending to Dicky, who was now feebly conscious. She chafed his hands and kissed him, the tears running quietly down her face all the time. Presently she turned from the couch to Vivian.

  “Will you call a cab, please,” she said. And he went.

  While he was gone, Gertrude had a sudden idea. She stepped across to the writing table where a pile of notebooks similar to the one she held were placed on one side. She picked them up and, glancing through them, she found them all containing parts of the same story set down in shorthand. She picked them up and counted them. There were six in all. Then, as Vivian came into the room to announce that the cab was at the door, she looked her angry defiance at him, but made no pretence to hide the books.

  The man said not a word, nor attempted to touch them in any way. He helped Dicky up and aided that still dazed young gentleman down the stairs to the cab. As he shut the door after they were all in, he made one terse remark.

  “Of his own free will entirely,” he said and turned away into the house, indifferent to their reply, a truly extraordinary man along certain lines.

  “Yes,” Dicky told them a week later, “that’s all right. I was willing to be his ‘subject’ for that trance mucking about; but I never thought it could harm me. I guess he must be a rotter after all, or he’d never have let me into it. No, I never dreamt he was playing the pirate. He’s a queer chap. The funny thing is that I don’t even now hate him. But I’ll never speak to him again. Too much for me. Why was I like that with you—blest if I know, Madge. I suppose it was with all that trance business. Perhaps there was some ‘suggestion’ about it. You know what I mean. You see, old Vivian wouldn’t want you interfering—eh? Wanted to keep you away and have me to himself till he’d sucked me dry. The old devil!
”

  “Hush!” said Madge, stopping his mouth with her kisses.

  “Anyway,” he said, “you’ll be able to look after me for always, after next Tuesday, won’t you, dear?”

  By which remark, I suppose, we are to understand that the inevitable was about to overtake Dicky Temple and his pretty Madge.

  A Note On The Texts

  Whenever possible, texts for this series have been based on versions that were published in book form, preferably during Hodgson’s lifetime. The major exceptions to this rule are the stories that appear in volumes edited by Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz was known to have access to original manuscripts and other source materials. Some stories were published only in serial form, and have been taken from those primary sources.

  Over the years, many of Hodgson’s stories have appeared under variant titles, which are noted below. As a rule, the titles used in this series are based on the first book publication of a story, even if the story previously appeared under a different title, in serial form.

  Specific textual sources are noted below. The only changes that have been made to the texts have been to correct obvious typographical errors, and to standardize punctuation and capitalization. British and archaic spelling has been retained.

  The Night Land is based on the 1912 Eveleigh Nash edition.

  “The Captain of the Onion Boat” is based on its publication in Men Of Deep Waters (Eveleigh Nash, 1914). It was originally published in Nash’s Magazine No. 21 (Christmas 1910).

  “The Smugglers” is based on its publication in Grand Magazine (March 1911).

  “In the Wailing Gully” is based on its publication in Grand Magazine No. 79 (September 1911).

  “The Girl with the Grey Eyes” is based on its publication in Red Magazine No. 91 (January 15, 1913)

  “Kind, Kind and Gentle Is She” is based on its publication in Red Magazine No. 96 (April 1, 1913).

  “A Timely Escape” is based on its publication in Blue Magazine (June 1922).