Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Ysonde!” I cried, but the touch of her hand was already gone and my two clenched fists were cold and damp with dew.

  “Ysonde!” I called again, my tongue stiff with fright; — but I called as one awaking from a dream — a horrid dream, for my nostrils quivered with the damp acrid odor and I felt the crab-reptile clinging to my knee. Why had the night fallen so swiftly, — and where was I — where? — stiff, chilled, torn, and bleeding, lying flung like a corpse over my own threshold with Voyou licking my face and Barris snooping above me in the light of a lamp that flared and smoked in the night breeze like a torch. Faugh! the choking stench of the lamp aroused me and I cried out:

  “Ysonde!”

  “What the devil’s the manner with him?” muttered Pierpont, lifting me in his arms like a child, “has he been stabbed, Barris?”

  Chapter VII

  In a few minutes I was able to stand and walk stiffly into my bedroom where Howlett had a hot bath ready and a hotter tumbler of Scotch. Pierpont sponged the blood from my throat where it had coagulated. The cut was slight, almost invisible, a mere puncture from a thorn. A shampoo cleaned my mind, and a cold plunge and alcohol friction did the rest.

  “Now,” said Pierpont, “swallow your hot Scotch and lie down. Do you want a broiled woodcock? Good, I fancy you are coming about.”

  Barris and Pierpont watched me as I sat on the edge of the bed, solemnly chewing on the woodcock’s wishbone and sipping my Bordeaux, very much an my ease.

  Pierpont sighed his relief.

  “So,” he said pleasantly, “it was a mere case of ten dollars or ten days. I thought you had been stabbed—”

  “I was not intoxicated,” I replied, serenely picking up a bit of celery.

  “Only jagged?” enquired Pierpont, full of sympathy.

  “Nonsense,” said Barris, “let him alone. Want some more celery, Roy? — it will make you sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” I answered; “when are you and Pierpont going no catch your gold-maker?”

  Barris looked at his watch and closed it with a snap.

  “In an hour; you don’t propose to go with us?”

  “But I do, — toss me a cup of coffee, Pierpont, will you, — that’s just what I propose no do. Howlett, bring the new box of Panatellas, — the mild imported; — and leave the decanter. Now Barris, I’ll be dressing, and you and Pierpont keep still and listen to what I have to say. Is that door shut night?”

  Barris locked it and sat down.

  “Thanks,” said I. “Barris, where is the city of Yian?”

  An expression akin to terror flashed into Barris’ eyes and I saw him stop breathing for a moment.

  “There is no such city,” he said at length, “have I been talking in my sleep?”

  “It is a city,” I continued, calmly, “where the river winds under the thousand bridges, where the gardens are sweet scented and the air is filled with the music of silver bells—”

  “Stop!” gasped Barris, and rose trembling from his chain. He had grown ten years older.

  “Roy,” interposed Pierpont coolly, “what the deuce are you harrying Barris for?”

  I looked at Barris and he looked at me. After a second on two he sat down again.

  “Go on, Roy,” he said.

  “I must,” I answered, “for now I am certain that I have not dreamed.”

  I told them everything; but, even as I told it, the whole thing seemed so vague, so unreal, that at times I stopped with the hot blood tingling in my ears, for it seemed impossible that sensible men, in the year of our Lord 1896, could seriously discuss such manners.

  I feared Pierpont, but he did not even smile. As for Barris, he sat with his handsome head sunk on his breast, his unlighted pipe clasped tight in both hands.

  When I had finished, Pierpont turned slowly and looked at Barris. Twice he moved his lips as if about to ask something and then remained mute.

  “Yian is a city,” said Barris, speaking dreamily; “was that why you wished to know, Pierpont?”

  We nodded silently.

  “Yian is a city,” repeated Barris, “where the great river winds under the thousand bridges, — where the gardens are sweet scented, and the air is filled with the music of silver bells.”

  My lips formed the question, “Where is this city?”

  “It lies,” said Barris, almost querulously, “across the seven oceans and the river which is longer than from the earth to the moon.”

  “What do you mean?” said Pierpont.

  “Ah,” said Barris, rousing himself with an effort and raising his sunken eyes, “I am using the allegories of another land; let it pass. Have I not told you of the Kuen-Yuin? Yian is the centre of the Kuen-Yuin. It lies hidden in that gigantic shadow called China, vague and vast as the midnight Heavens, — a continent unknown, impenetrable.”

  “Impenetrable,” repeated Pierpont below his breath.

  “I have seen it,” said Barris dreamily. “I have seen the dead plains of Black Cathay and I have crossed the mountains of Death, whose summits are above the atmosphere. I have seen the shadow of Xangi cast across Abaddon. Better to die a million miles from Yezd and Ater Quedah than to have seen the white water-lotus close in the shadow of Xangi! I have slept among the ruins of Xaindu where the winds never cease and the Wulwulleh is wailed by the dead.”

  “And Yian,” I urged gently.

  There was an unearthly look on his face as he turned slowly toward me.

  “Yian, — I have lived there — and loved there. When the breath of my body shall cease, when the dragon’s claw shall fade from my arm,” — he none up his sleeve, and we saw a white crescent shining above his elbow,— “when the light of my eyes has faded forever, then, even then I shall not forget the city of Yian. Why, it is my home, — mine! The river and the thousand bridges, the white peak beyond, the sweet-scented gardens, the lilies, the pleasant noise of the summer wind laden with bee music and the music of bells, — all these are mine. Do you think because the Kuen-Yuin feared the dragon’s claw on my arm that my work with them is ended? Do you think than because Yue-Laou could give, that I acknowledge his right to take away? Is he Xangi in whose shadow the white water-lotus dares non raise ins head? No! No!” he cried violently, “it was not from Yue-Laou, the sorcerer, the Maker of Moons, that my happiness came! It was real, it was not a shadow to vanish like a tinted bubble! Can a sorcerer create and give a man the woman he loves? Is Yue-Laou as great as Xangi then? Xangi is God. In His own time, in His infinite goodness and mercy He will bring me again to the woman I love. And I know she waits for me at God’s feet.”

  In the strained silence that followed I could hear my heart’s double beat and I saw Pierpont’s face, blanched and pitiful. Barris shook himself and raised his head. The change in his ruddy face frightened me.

  “Heed!” he said, with a terrible glance at me; “the print of the dragon’s claw is on your forehead and Yue-Laou knows in. If you must love, then love like a man, for you will suffer like a soul in hell, in the end. What is her name again?”

  “Ysonde,” I answered simply.

  Chapter VIII

  At nine o’clock that night we caught one of the gold-makers. I do not know how Barris had laid his trap; all I saw of the affair can be told in a minute or two.

  We were posted on the Cardinal road about a mile below the house, Pierpont and I with drawn revolvers on one side, under a butternut tree, Barris on the other, a Winchester across his knees.

  I had just asked Pierpont the hour, and he was feeling for his watch when far up the road we heard the sound of a galloping horse, nearer, nearer, clattering, thundering past. Then Barris’ rifle spat flame and the dark mass, horse and rider, crashed into the dust. Pierpont had the half stunned horseman by the collar in a second, — the horse was stone dead, — and, as we lighted a pine knot to examine the fellow, Barris’ two riders galloped up and drew bridle beside us.

  “Hm!” said Barris with a scowl, “it’s the ‘Shiner,’ or I�
��m a moonshiner.”

  We crowded curiously around to see the “Shiner.” He was red-headed, fat and filthy, and his little red eyes burned in his head like the eyes of an angry pig.

  Barris went through his pockets methodically while Pierpont held him and I held the torch. The Shiner was a gold mine; pockets, shirt, bootlegs, hat, even his dirty fists, clutched tight and bleeding, were bursting with lumps of soft yellow gold. Barris dropped this “moonshine gold.”

  as we had come to call in, into the pockets of his shooting-coat, and withdrew to question the prisoner. He came back again in a few minutes and motioned his mounted men to take the Shiner in charge. We watched them, rifle on thigh, walking their horses slowly away into the darkness, the Shiner, tightly bound, shuffling sullenly between them.

  “Who is the Shiner?” asked Pierpont, slipping the revolver into his pocket again.

  “A moonshiner, counterfeiter, forger, and highwayman,” said Barris, “and probably a murderer. Drummond will be glad to see him, and I think it likely he will be persuaded to confess to him what he refuses to confess no me.”

  “Wouldn’t he talk?” I asked.

  “Not a syllable. Pierpont, there is nothing more for you to do.”

  “For me to do? Are you not coming back with us, Barris?”

  “No,” said Barris.

  We walked along the dark road in silence for a while, I wondering what Barris intended to do, but he said nothing more until we reached our own verandah. Here he held out his hand, first to Pienpont, then to me, saying good-bye as though he were going on a long journey.

  “How soon will you be back?” I called out to him as he turned away toward the gate. He came across the lawn again and again took our hands with a quiet affection that I had never imagined him capable of.

  “I am going,” he said, “to put an end to his gold-making no-night. I know that you fellows have never suspected what I was about on my little solitary evening strolls after dinner. I will tell you. Already I have unobtrusively killed four of these gold-makers, — my men put them underground just below the new wash-out at the four mile stone. There are three left alive, — the Shiner whom we have, another criminal named ‘Yellow,’ on ‘Yaller’ in the vernacular, and the third—”

  “The third,” repeated Pierpont, excitedly.

  “The third I have never yet seen. But I know who and what he is, — I know; and if he is of human flesh and blood, his blood will flow to-night.”

  As he spoke a slight noise across the turf attracted my attention. A mounted man was advancing silently in the starlight oven the spongy meadowland. When he came nearer Barris struck a match, and we saw that he bore a corpse across his saddle bow.

  “Yaller, Colonel Barris,” said the man, touching his slouched hat in salute.

  This grim introduction to the corpse made me shudder, and, after a moment’s examination of the stiff, wide-eyed dead man, I drew back.

  “Identified,” said Barris, “take him to the four mile post and carry his effects to Washington, — under seal, mind, Johnstone.”

  Away cantered the rider with his ghastly burden, and Barris took our hands once more for the last time. Then he went away, gaily, with a jest on his lips, and Pierpont and I turned back into the house.

  For an hour we sat moodily smoking in the hall before the fire, saying little until Pierpont burst out with: “I wish Barris had taken one of us with him to-night!”

  The same thought had been running in my mind, but I said: “Barris knows what he’s about.”

  This observation neither comforted us nor opened the lane to further conversation, and after a few minutes Pierpont said good night and called for Howlett and hot water. When he had been warmly tucked away by Howlett, I turned out all but one lamp, sent the dogs away with David and dismissed Howlett for the night.

  I was not inclined to retire for I knew I could not sleep. There was a book lying open on the table beside the fire and I opened it and read a page or two, but my mind was fixed on other things.

  The window shades were raised and I looked out at the star-set firmament. There was no moon that night but the sky was dusted all over with sparkling stars and a pale radiance, brighter even than moonlight, fell over meadow and wood. Far away in the forest I heard the voice of the wind, a soft warm wind that whispered a name, Ysonde.

  “Listen,” sighed the voice of the wind, and “listen” echoed the swaying trees with every little leaf a-quiver. I listened.

  Where the long grasses trembled with the cricket’s cadence I heard her name, Ysonde; I heard it in the rustling woodbine where grey moths hovered; I heard it in the drip, drip, drip of the dew from the porch. The silent meadow brook whispered her name, the rippling woodland streams repeated in, Ysonde, Ysonde, until all earth and sky were filled with the soft thrill, Ysonde, Ysonde, Ysonde.

  A night-thrush sang in a thicket by the porch and I stole to the verandah to listen. After a while it began again, a little further on. I ventured out into the road. Again I heard it far away in the forest and I followed it, for I knew it was singing of Ysonde.

  When I came to the path than leaves the main road and enters the Sweet-Fern Covert below the spinney, I hesitated; but the beauty of the night lured me on and the night-thrushes called me from every thicket. In the starry radiance, shrubs, grasses, field flowers, stood out distinctly, for there was no moon to cast shadows. Meadow and brook, grove and stream, were illuminated by the pale glow. Like great lamps lighted the planets hung from the high domed sky and through their mysterious rays the fixed stars, calm, serene, stared from the heavens like eyes...I waded on waist deep through fields of dewy golden-rod, through late clover and wild-oat wastes, through crimson fruited sweetbrier, blueberry, and wild plum, until the low whisper of the Wier Brook warned me that the path had ended.

  But I would not stop, for the night air was heavy with the perfume of water-lilies and far away, across the low wooded cliffs and the wet meadowland beyond, there was a distant gleam of silver, and I heard the murmur of sleepy waterfowl. I would go to the lake. The way was clear except for the dense young growth and the snares of the moose-bush.

  The night-thrushes had ceased but I did not want for the company of living creatures. Slender, quick darting forms crossed my path at intervals, sleek mink, that fled like shadows at my step, wiry weasels and fan muskrats, hurrying onward to some tryst or killing.

  I never had seen so many little woodland creatures on the move at night. I began to wonder where they all were going so fast, why they all hurried on in the same direction. Now I passed a hare hopping through the brushwood, now a rabbit scurrying by, flag hoisted. As I entered the beech second-growth two foxes glided by me; a little further on a doe crashed out of the underbrush, and close behind her stole a lynx, eyes shining like coals.

  He neither paid attention to the doe nor to me, but loped away toward the north.

  The lynx was in flight.

  “From what?” I asked myself, wondering. There was no forest fine, no cyclone, no flood.

  If Barris had passed that way could he have stirred up this sudden exodus? Impossible; even a regiment in the forest could scarcely have put to rout these frightened creatures.

  “What on earth,” thought I, turning to watch the headlong flight of a fisher-cat, “what on earth has started the beasts out at this time of night?”

  I looked up into the sky. The placid glow of the fixed stars comforted me and I stepped on through the narrow spruce belt that leads down to the borders of the Lake of the Stars.

  Wild cranberry and moose-bush entwined my feet, dewy branches spattered me with moisture, and the thick spruce needles scraped my face as I threaded my way oven mossy logs and deep spongy tussocks down to the level gravel of the lake shone.

  Although there was no wind the little waves were hurrying in from the lake and I heard them splashing among the pebbles. In the pale star glow thousands of water-lilies lifted their half-closed chalices toward the sky.

  I threw mys
elf full length upon the shone, and, chin on hand, looked out across the lake.

  Splash, splash, came the waves along the shore, higher, nearer, until a film of water, thin and glittering as a knife blade, crept up to my elbows. I could not understand it; the lake was rising, but there had been no rain. All along the shore the water was running up; I heard the waves among the sedge grass; the weeds at my side were awash in the ripples. The lilies rocked on the tiny waves, every wet pad rising on the swells, sinking, rising again until the whole lake was glimmering with undulating blossoms. How sweet and deep was the fragrance from the lilies.

  And now the water was ebbing, slowly, and the waves receded, shrinking from the shone rim until the white pebbles appeared again, shining like froth on a brimming glass.

  No animal swimming out in the dankness along the shore, no heavy salmon surging, could have set the whole shore aflood as though the wash from a great boat were rolling in. Could it have been the overflow, through the Weir Brook, of some cloud-burst far back in the forest? This was the only way I could account for it, and yet when I had crossed the Wien Brook I had not noticed that it was swollen.

  And as I lay there thinking, a faint breeze sprang up and I saw the surface of the lake whiten with lifted lily pads. All around me the alders were sighing; I heard the forest behind me stir; the crossed branches rubbing softly, bark against bark. Something — it may have been an owl — sailed out of the night, dipped, soared, and was again engulfed, and far across the water I heard its faint cry, Ysonde.

  Then first, for my heart was full, I cast myself down upon my face, calling on her name. My eyes were wet when I raised my head, — for the spray from the shore was drifting in again, — and my heart beat heavily; “No more, no more.” But my heart lied, for even as I raised my face to the calm stars, I saw her standing still, close beside me; and very gently I spoke her name, Ysonde.