Another silence fell. Outside in the black night, the wind rose to a shriek. Starkey twisted his great fingers together and sat silent and brooding.
"And can you prove all this?" he sneered at last.
"I can prove that you are nearly bankrupt and that Harmer promised you money; I can prove that you had Hansen done away with."
"But you can't prove that Siler was not contemplating mutiny," shouted Starkey. "And how can you prove Hansen was shanghaied?"
"This morning I received a letter from my agent who had just arrived in Boston," said Hopkins. "He had seen Hansen in an Asiatic seaport. The young man said that he intended deserting ship at the first opportunity, and returning to America. He asked that Betty be acquainted with the fact that he was alive and still loved her."
Starkey rested his elbows on the table and sank his chin on his fists, like a man who sees his castles falling about him and red ruin facing him. Then he shook his mighty shoulders and laughed savagely. He drained his cup and reeled to his feet, bellowing with sudden laughter.
"I've still a card or two in my hand!" he shouted. "Tom Siler's in Hell with a noose around his neck, and Dick Hansen's across the world! The girl's my ward and a minor, and she'll marry whoever I say. You can't prove what you say about Siler. My word's law on the high seas, and you can't call me to account for anything I do aboard my own ship. As for Dick Hansen--my niece will be safely married to Joe Harmer long before that young fool gets back from his cruise. Go tell her if you like. Go tell her Dick Hansen still lives!"
"That's what I intend to do," said Jonas Hopkins, rising. "And should have done so before now, had I not wished to face you with the facts first."
"Great good it will do!" yelled Starkey like a wild man. He seemed like some savage beast at bay, defying us all. His eyes flamed terribly from under his craggy brows, and his fingers were crooked like talons. He snatched a goblet of liquor from the table and waved it.
"Aye, go tell her! She'll marry Harmer, or I'll kill her. Contrive and plot, you yellow-spined swine, no living man can balk me now, and no living man can save her from being the wife of Joe Harmer!
"Here's a toast, you cringing cowards! I'll drink to Tom Siler, sleeping in the cold white sea with the noose about his traitor's neck. Here's to my mate, Tom Siler, a-spinning and a-twirling from the cross-trees--"
This was insanity; I shrank back from the blast of the man's hideous triumph, and even from John Gower's face the smile was missing.
"To Tom Siler!" The winds answered the roar. The sleet drummed with frantic fingers on the window as if the black night itself sought entrance. I shrank near to the fire behind Captain Starkey's back, yet an unearthly coldness stole over me, as if through a suddenly opened door, a wind from some other sphere had breathed upon me.
"To Tom Siler--" Captain Starkey's arm went up with the goblet, his eyes, following the motion, rested on the window that separated us from the outer darkness. He froze, eyes starting from his head. The goblet dropped unheeded from his hand, and with one deathly scream he pitched forward across the table--dead!
What killed him? Too much drink and the fire in his evil brain, they said. Yet--Jonas Hopkins had turned toward the stairs and John Gower's eyes were fixed on Starkey's face. Only I looked toward the window and saw there what blasted Captain Starkey's brain and blew out his life as a witch blows out a candle. And the sight has haunted me to this day and will haunt me to the day of my death.
The window was rimed with frost and the candles gleamed illusively against it, for a moment I saw it clearly: a shadowy, nebulous shape that was like the reflection of a man's form in restless water. And the face was that of Tom Siler, and about the neck was a shadowy noose!
The Shadow of the Beast
As long as evil stars arise
Or moonlight fires the East,
May God in Heaven preserve us from
The Shadow of the Beast!
The horror had its beginning in the crack of a pistol in a black hand. A white man dropped with a bullet in his chest and the negro who had fired the shot turned and fled, after a single hideous threat hurled at the pale-faced girl who stood horror-struck close by.
Within an hour grim-faced men were combing the pine woods with guns in their hands, and on through the night the grisly hunt went on, while the victim of the hunted lay fighting for his life.
"He's quiet now; they say he'll live," his sister said, as she came out of the room where the boy lay. Then she sank down into a chair and gave way to a burst of tears.
I sat down beside her and soothed her much as one would a child. I loved her and she had shown that she returned my affection. It was my love for her that had drawn me from my Texas ranch to the lumber camps in the shadow of the pine woods, where her brother looked after the interests of his company.
"Give me the details of all this," I said. "I haven't been able to get a coherent account of it. You know I arrived after Harry had been shot."
"There isn't much to tell," she answered listlessly. "This negro's name is Joe Cagle and he's bad--in every sense of the word. Twice I've seen him peering in my window, and this morning he sprang out from behind a pile of lumber and caught me by the arm. I screamed and Harry rushed up and struck him with a club. Then Cagle shot my brother, and snarling like a wild beast, promised to revenge himself on me, also. Then he dashed away among the trees on the edge of the camp, looking like a great black ape with his broad back and stooping gait."
"What threats did he make against you?" I asked, my hands involuntarily clenching.
"He said he'd come back and get me some night when the woods were dark," she answered wearily, and with a fatalism that surprized and dismayed me she added, "He will, too. When a negro like him sets his mind on a white girl, nothing but death can stop him."
"Then death will stop him," I said harshly, rising. "Do you think I'm going to sit here and let that black beast menace you? I'm going to join the posse. Don't you leave this house tonight. By morning Joe Cagle will be past harming any girl, white or black."
As I went out of the house I met one of the men who had been searching for the negro. He had sprained his ankle on a hidden root in the darkness and had returned to the camp on a borrowed horse.
"Naw, we ain't found no trace yet," he replied to my question. "We've done combed the country right around the camp, and the boys are spreading out towards the swamp. Don't look reasonable that he coulda got so far away with the short start he had, and us right after him on horse back, but Joe Cagle's more of a varmint than he is a man. Looks like one uh these gorillas. I imagine he's hidin' in the swamp and if he is, it may take weeks to rout him out. Like I said, we've done searched the woods close by--all except the Deserted House, uh course."
"Why not there?--And where is this house?"
"Down the old tote road what ain't used no more, 'bout four miles. Aw, they ain't a black in the country that'd go near that place, to save his life, even. That negro that killed the foreman a few years ago, they chased him down the old tote road and when he seen he was goin' to have to go right past the Deserted House, he turned back and give up to the mob. No sir, Joe Cagle ain't nowheres near that house, you can bet."
"Why has it such a bad name?" I asked curiously.
"Ain't nobody lived in it for twenty years. Last man owned it leaped, fell or was thrown out of a upstairs window one night and was killed by the fall. Later a young travellin' man stayed there all night on a bet and they found him outside the house next mornin', all smashed up like he'd fell a long ways. A backwoodsman who'd passed that way late in the night swore he'd heard a terrible scream, and then seen the travellin' man come flyin' out of a second story window. He didn't wait to see no more. What give the Deserted House the bad name in the first place was--"
But I was in no mood to listen to a long drawn-out ghost story, or whatever the man was about to tell me. Almost every locality in the South has its "ha'nted" house and the tales attached to each are numberless.
&nb
sp; I interrupted him to ask where I would be likely to find the part of the posse which had penetrated most deeply into the pine woods, and having gotten instructions, I mounted the horse he had ridden back and rode away, first getting his promise that he would keep watch over the girl, Joan, until I had returned.
"Don't get lost," he shouted after me. "Them piney woods is risky business for a stranger. Watch for the light of the posse's torches through the trees."
A brisk canter brought me to the verge of a road which led into the woods in the direction I wished to go, and there I halted. Another road, one which was little more than a dimly defined path, led away at right angles. This was the old tote road which went past the Deserted House. I hesitated. I had none of the confidence that the others had shown, that Joe Cagle would shun the place. The more I thought of it, the more I felt it likely that the negro would take refuge there. From all accounts, he was an unusual man, a complete savage, so bestial, so low in the scale of intelligence that even the superstitions of his race left him untouched. Why then should not his animal craft bid him hide in the last place his pursuers would think of looking, while that same animal-like nature caused him to scorn the fears possessed by the more imaginative of his race?
My decision reached, I reined my steed about and started down the old road.
There is no darkness in the world so utterly devoid of light as the blackness of the pine woods. The silent trees rose like basaltic walls about me, shutting out the stars. Except for the occasional eery sigh of the wind through the branches, or the far away, haunting cry of an owl, the silence was as absolute as the darkness. The stillness bore heavily upon me. I seemed to sense, in the blackness about me, the spirit of the unconquerable swamplands, the primitive foe of man whose abysmal savagery still defies his vaunted civilization. In such surroundings anything seems possible. I did not then wonder at the dark tales of black magic and voo-doo rites attributed to these horrid depths, nor would I have been surprized to hear the throb of the tomtom, or to see a fire leap up in the dark, where naked figures danced about a cannibalistic feast.
I shrugged my shoulders to rid myself of such thoughts. If voo-doo worshippers secretly held their fearsome rites in these woods, there were none tonight with the vengeful white men combing the country.
As my mount, bred in the pine country and sure-footed as a cat in the darkness, picked his way without my aid, I strained my senses to catch any sound such as a man might make. But not one stealthy footfall reached me, not a single rustle of the scanty underbrush. Joe Cagle was armed and desperate. He might be waiting in ambush; might spring on me at any moment, but I felt no especial fear. In that veiling darkness, he could see no better than I, and I would have as good a chance as he in a blind exchange of shots. And if it came to a hand-to-hand conflict, I felt that I, with my two hundred and five pounds of bone and sinew, was a match for even the ape-like negro.
Surely I must be close to the Deserted House by now. I had no idea of knowing the exact time, but far away in the east a faint glow began to be apparent through the masking blackness of the pines. The moon was rising. And on that instant, from somewhere in front of me, rattled a sudden volley of shots, then silence fell again like a heavy fog. I had halted short and now I hesitated. To me it had sounded as if all the reports had come from the same gun, and there had been no answering shots. What had happened out there in the grim darkness? Did those shots spell Joe Cagle's doom, or did they mean that the negro had struck again? Or did the sounds have any connection with the man I was hunting? There was but one way to find out and nudging my mount's ribs, I started on again at a swifter gait.
A few moments later a large clearing opened and a gaunt dark building bulked against the stars. The Deserted House at last! The moon glimmered evilly through the trees, etching out black shadows and throwing an illusive witch-light over the country. I saw, in this vague light, that the house had once been a mansion of the old colonial type. Sitting in my saddle for an instant before I dismounted, a vision of lost glory passed before my mind--a vision of broad plantations, singing negroes, aristocratic Southern colonels, balls, dances--gallantry--
All gone now. Blotted out by the Civil War. The pine trees grew where the plantation fields had flourished, the gallants and the ladies were long dead and forgotten, the mansion crumbled into decay and ruin--and now what grim threat lurked in those dark and dusty rooms where the mice warred with the owls?
I swung from my saddle, and as I did, my horse snorted suddenly and reared back violently upon his haunches, tearing the reins from my hand. I snatched for them again, but he wheeled and galloped away, vanishing like a goblin's shadow in the gloom. I stood struck speechless, listening to the receding thunder of his hoofs, and I will admit that a cold finger traced its way down my spine. It is rather a grisly experience to have your retreat suddenly cut off, in such surroundings as I was in.
However, I had not come to run away from danger, so I strode boldly up to the broad veranda, a heavy pistol in one hand, an electric flash-light in the other. The massive pillars towered above me; the door sagged open upon broken hinges. I swept the broad hallway with a gleam of light but only dust and decay met my eyes. I entered warily, turning the light off.
As I stood there, trying to accustom my eyes to the gloom, I realized that I was doing as reckless a thing as a man could do. If Joe Cagle were hiding somewhere in the house, all he had to do would be to wait until I turned on my light and then shoot me full of lead. But I thought again of his threats against the weak and helpless girl I loved, and my determination was steeled. If Joe Cagle was in that house, he was going to die.
I strode toward the stairs, instinctively feeling that if there, the fugitive would be somewhere in the second story. I groped my way up and came out on a landing, lit by the moonlight which streamed in at a window. The dust lay thick on the floor as if undisturbed for two decades and I heard the whisper of bats' wings and the scampering of mice. No foot prints in the dust betrayed a man's presence but I felt sure that there were other stairways. Cagle might have come into the house through a window.
I went down the hallway, which was a horrible system of black lurking shadows and squares of moonlight--for now the moon had risen high enough to flood in at the windows. There was no sound save the cushioned tread of my own feet in the deep dust on the floor. Room after room I passed, but my flashlight showed only moldered walls, sagging ceilings and broken furniture. At last, close to the end of the corridor, I came to a room whose door was shut. I halted, an intangible feeling working upon me to steel my nerves and send the blood racing through my veins. Somehow, I knew that on the other side of that door lay something mysterious and menacing.
Cautiously I turned on the light. The dust in front of the door was disturbed. An arc of the floor was brushed bare, just in front. The door had been open; had been closed only a short time before. I tried the knob warily, wincing at the rattle it made and expecting a blast of lead through the door. Silence reigned.
I tore the door open and leaped quickly aside.
There was no shot, no sound. Crouching, gun cocked, I peered about the jamb and strained my eyes into the room. A faint acrid scent met my nostrils--gun powder--was it in this room that had been fired those shots I had heard?
Moonlight streamed over a broken window sill, lending a vague radiance. I saw a dark bulky form, that had the semblance of a man, lying close to the center of the floor. I crossed the threshold, bent over the figure and turned my light full into the upturned face.
Joan need never fear Joe Cagle's threats again, for the shape on the floor was Joe Cagle and he was dead.
Close to his outstretched hand lay a revolver, the chambers of which were filled with empty shells. Yet there was no wound upon the negro--at whom had he fired and what had killed him? A second glance at his distorted features told me--I saw that look once before in the eyes of a man struck by a rattlesnake, who died with fear before the reptile's venom could kill him. Cagle's mouth gaped,
his dead eyes stared hideously; he had died of fright, but what grisly thing had caused that fright? At the thought cold sweat started out on my brow and the short hairs prickled at the base of my skull. I was suddenly aware of the silence and solitude of the place and the hour. Somewhere in the house a rat squeaked and I started violently.
I glanced up, then halted, frozen. Moonlight fell on the opposite wall and suddenly a shadow fell silently across it--I bounded to my feet, whirling toward the outer door as I did so. The doorway stood empty. I sprang across the room and went through another door, closing it behind me. Then I halted, shaken. Not a sound broke the stillness. What was it that had stood for an instant in the doorway opening into the hall, throwing its shadow into the room where I had stood? I was still trembling with a nameless fear. The thought of some desperate man was bad enough, but the glance I had had of that shadow had left upon my soul an impression of something strange and unholy--inhuman!
The room in which I now was also opened in the hallway. I started to cross to the hall door and then hesitated at the thought of pitting my powers against whatever lurked in the outer darkness. The door sagged open--I saw nothing, but to my soul-freezing horror, a hideous shadow fell across the floor and moved toward me!
Etched blackly in the moonlight on the floor, it was as if some frightful shape stood in the doorway, throwing its lengthened and distorted shade across the boards to my feet. Yet I swear that the doorway was empty!
I rushed across the room and entered the door that opened into the next room. Still I was adjacent to the hallway. All these upstairs rooms seemed to open into the hall. I stood, shivering, my revolver gripped so tightly in my sweating hand that the barrel shook like a leaf. The pounding of my heart sounded thunderously in the silence. What in God's name was this horror which was hunting me through these dark rooms? What was it that threw a shadow, when its own substance was unseen? Silence lay like a dark mist; the ghostly radiance of the moon patterned the floor. Two rooms away lay the corpse of a man who had seen a thing so unnamably terrible that it had shattered his brain and taken away his life.
The Best Horror Stories of Page 13