CHAPTER XIII
SA-N'SA
June sunshine poured through the window of his bedroom in the Ritz; andCleves had just finished dressing when he heard his wife's voice in theadjoining sitting-room.
He had not supposed that Tressa was awake. He hastened to tie his tieand pull on a smoking jacket, listening all the while to his wife'smodulated but gay young voice.
Then he opened the sitting-room door and went in. And found his wifeentirely alone.
She looked up at him, her lips still parted as though checked in whatshe had been saying, the smile still visible in her blue eyes.
"Who on earth are you talking to?" he asked, his bewildered glancesweeping the sunny room again.
She did not reply; her smile faded as a spot of sunlight wanes, veiledby a cloud--yet a glimmer of it remained in her gaze as he came over toher.
"I thought they'd brought our breakfast," he said, "--hearing yourvoice.... Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, Victor."
He seated himself, and his perplexed scrutiny included her frail morningrobe of China silk, her lovely bare arms, and her splendid hair twistedup and pegged down with a jade dagger. Around her bare throat andshoulders, too, was a magnificent necklace of imperial jade which he hadnever before seen; and on one slim, white finger a superb jade ring.
"By Jove!" he said, "you're very exotic this morning, Tressa. I neverbefore saw that negligee effect."
The girl laughed, glanced at her ring, lifted a frail silken fold andexamined the amazing embroidery.
"I wore it at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said.
The name of that place always chilled him. He had begun to hate it,perhaps because of all that he did not know about it--about his wife'sstrange girlhood--about Yian and the devil's Temple there--and aboutSanang.
He said coldly but politely that the robe was unusual and the jade verywonderful.
The alteration in his voice and expression did not escape her. It meantmerely masculine jealousy, but Tressa never dreamed he cared in thatway.
Breakfast was brought, served; and presently these two young people werebusy with their melons, coffee, and toast in the sunny room high abovethe softened racket of traffic echoing through avenue and street below.
"Recklow telephoned me this morning," he remarked.
She looked up, her face serious.
"Recklow says that Yezidee mischief is taking visible shape. TheSocialist Party is going to be split into bits and a new party,impudently and publicly announcing itself as the Communist Party ofAmerica, is being organised. Did you ever hear of anything asshameless--as outrageous--in this Republic?"
She said very quietly: "Sanang has taken prisoner the minds of thesewretched people. He and his remaining Yezidees are giving battle to theunarmed minds of our American people."
"Gutchlug is dead," said Cleves, "--and Yarghouz and Djamouk, andYaddin."
"But Tiyang Khan is alive, and Togrul, and that cunning demon ArrakSou-Sou, called The Squirrel," she said. She bent her head, consideringthe jade ring on her finger. "--And Prince Sanang," she added in a lowvoice.
"Why didn't you let me shoot him when I had the chance?" said Clevesharshly.
So abrupt was his question, so rough his sudden manner, that the girllooked up in dismayed surprise. Then a deep colour stained her face.
"Once," she said, "Prince Sanang held my heart prisoner--as Erlik heldmy soul.... I told you that."
"Is that the reason you gave the fellow a chance?"
"Yes."
"Oh.... And possibly you gave Sanang a chance because he still holdsyour--affections!"
She said, crimson with the pain of the accusation: "I tore my heart outof his keeping.... I told you that.... And, believing--trying to believewhat you say to me, I have tried to tear my soul out of the claws ofErlik.... Why are you angry?"
"I don't know.... I'm not angry.... The whole horrible situation isbreaking my nerve, I guess.... With whom were you talking before I camein?"
After a silence the girl's smile glimmered.
"I'm afraid you won't like it if I tell you."
"Why not?"
"You--such things perplex and worry you.... I am afraid you won't likeme any the better if I tell you who it was I had been talking with."
His intent gaze never left her. "I want you to tell me," he repeated.
"I--I was talking with Sa-n'sa," she faltered.
"With whom?"
"With Sa-n'sa.... We called her Sansa."
"Who the dickens is Sansa?"
"We were three comrades at the Temple," she said timidly, "--Yulun,Sansa, and myself. We loved each other. We always went to the Lake ofthe Ghosts together--for protection----"
"Go on!"
"Sansa was a girl of the Aroulads, born at Buldak--as was Temujin. Thenight she was born three moon-rainbows made circles around her Yailak.The Baroulass horsemen saw this and prayed loudly in their saddles. Thenthey galloped to Yian and came crawling on their bellies to SanangNoiane with the news of the miracle. And Sanang came with a thousandriders in leather armour. And, 'What is this child's name?' he shouted,riding into the Yailak with his black banners flapping around him likedevil's wings.
"A poor Manggoud came out of the tent of skins, carrying the new borninfant, and touched his head to Sanang's stirrup. 'This babe is calledTchagane,' he said, trembling all over. 'No!' cries Sanang, 'she iscalled Sansa. Give her to me and may Erlik seize you!'
"And he took the baby on his saddle in front of him and struck his spursdeep; and so came Sansa to Yian under a roaring rustle of black silkbanners.... It is so written in the Book of Iron.... Allahou Ekber."
* * * * *
Cleves had leaned his elbow on the table, his forehead rested in hispalm.
Perhaps he was striving in a bewildered way to reconcile such occult andamazing things with the year 1920--with the commonplace and noisy cityof New York--with this pretty, modern, sunlit sitting-room in theRitz-Carlton on Madison Avenue--with this girl in her morning negligeeopposite, her coffee and melon fragrant at her elbow, her wonderful blueeyes resting on him.
"Sansa," he repeated slowly, as though striving to grasp even a singleword from the confusion of names and phrases that were sounding still inhis ears like the vibration of distant and unfamiliar seas.
"Is this the girl you were talking with just now? In--in _this_ room?"he added, striving to understand.
"Yes."
"She wasn't here, of course."
"Her body was not."
"Oh!"
Tressa said in her sweet, humorous way: "You must try to accustomyourself to such things, Victor. You know that Yulun talks to me.... Iwanted to talk to Sansa. The longing awakened me. So--_I made theeffort_."
"And she came--I mean the part of her which is not her body."
"Yes, she came. We talked very happily while I was bathing and dressing.Then we came in here. She is such a darling!"
"Where is she?"
"In Yian, feeding her silk-worms and making a garden. You see, Sansa isquite wealthy now, because when the Japanese came she filled a bullockcart with great lumps of spongy gold from the Temple and filled anothercart with Yu-stone, and took the Hezar of Baroulass horsemen on guard atthe Lake of the Ghosts. And with this Keutch, riding a Soubz horse, anddressed like an Urieng lancer, my pretty little comrade Tchagane, who iscalled Sansa, marched north preceded by two kettle-drums and a toug withtwo tails----"
Tressa's clear laughter checked her; she clapped her hands, breathlesswith mirth at the picture she evoked.
"Kai!" she laughed; "what adorable impudence has Sansa! NeitherTchortcha nor Khiounnou dared ask her who were her seven ancestors! No!And when her caravan came to the lovely Yliang river, my darling Sansarode out and grasped the lance from her Tougtchi and drove the pointdeep into the fertile soil, crying in a clear voice: 'A place forTchagane and her people! Make room for the toug!'
"Then her Manggoud, who carried the spare steel tip for her l
ance, gotout of his saddle and, gathering a handful of mulberry leaves, rubbedthe shaft of the lance till it was all pale green.
"'Toug iaglachakho!' cries my adorable Sansa! 'Build me here myUrdu![2]--my Mocalla![3] And upon it pitch my tent of skins!"
[Footnote 2: Urdu = An imperial encampment.]
[Footnote 3: Mocalla = A platform used as a Moslem pulpit.]
Again Tressa's laughter checked her, and she strove to control it withthe jade ring pressed to her lips.
"Oh, Victor," she added in a stifled voice, looking at him out of eyesfull of mischief, "you don't realise how funny it was--Sansa and hertoug and her Urdu--Oh, Allah!--the bones of Tchinguiz must have rattledin his tomb!"
Her infectious laughter evoked a responsive but perplexed smile fromCleves; but it was the smile of a bewildered man who has comprehendedvery little of an involved jest; and he looked around at the modern roomas though to find his bearings.
Suddenly Tressa leaned forward swiftly and laid one hand on his.
"You don't think all this is very funny. You don't like it," she said insoft concern.
"It isn't that, Tressa. But this is New York City in the year 1920. AndI can't--I absolutely can not get into touch--hook up, mentally, withsuch things--with the unreal Oriental life that is so familiar to you."
She nodded sympathetically: "I know. You feel like a Mergued Pagan fromLake Baikal when all the lamps are lighted in the Mosque;--like a cameldriver with his jade and gold when he enters Yarkand at sunrise."
"Probably I feel like that," said Cleves, laughing outright. "I takeyour word, dear, anyway."
But he took more; he picked up her soft hand where it still rested onhis, pressed it, and instantly reddened because he had done it. AndTressa's bright flush responded so quickly that neither of themunderstood, and both misunderstood.
The girl rose with heightened colour, not knowing why she stood up orwhat she meant to do. And Cleves, misinterpreting her emotion as asilent rebuke to the invasion of that convention tacitly acceptedbetween them, stood up, too, and began to speak carelessly ofcommonplace things.
She made the effort to reply, scarcely knowing what she was saying, soviolently had his caress disturbed her heart,--and she was stillspeaking when their telephone rang.
Cleves went; listened, then, still listening, summoned Tressa to hisside with a gesture.
"It's Selden," he said in a low voice. "He says he has the Yezidee ArrakSou-Sou under observation, and that he needs you desperately. Will youhelp us?"
"I'll go, of course," she replied, turning quite pale.
Cleves nodded, still listening. After a while: "All right. We'll bethere. Good-bye," he said sharply; and hung up.
Then he turned and looked at his wife.
"I wish to God," he muttered, "that this business were ended. I--I can'tbear to have you go."
"I am not afraid.... Where is it?"
"I never heard of the place before. We're to meet Selden at 'Fool'sAcre.'"
"Where is it, Victor?"
"I don't know. Selden says there are no roads,--not even a spottedtrail. It's a wilderness left practically blank by the GeologicalSurvey. Only the contours are marked, and Selden tells me that thealtitudes are erroneous and the unnamed lakes and water courses are allwrong. He says it is his absolute conviction that the Geological Surveynever penetrated this wilderness at all, but merely skirted it andguessed at what lay inside, because the map he has from Washington isutterly misleading, and the entire region is left blank except for a fewvague blue lines and spots indicating water, and a few heights marked'1800.'"
He turned and began to pace the sitting-room, frowning, perplexed,undecided.
"Selden tells me," he said, "that the Yezidee, Arrak Sou-Sou, is inthere and very busy doing something or other. He says that he can donothing without you, and will explain why when we meet him."
"Yes, Victor."
Cleves turned on his heel and came over to where his wife stood besidethe sunny window.
"I hate to ask you to go. I know that was the understanding. But thisincessant danger--your constant peril----"
"That does not count when I think of my country's peril," she said in aquiet voice. "When are we to start? And what shall I pack in my trunk?"
"Dear child," he said with a brusque laugh, "it's a wilderness and wecarry what we need on our backs. Selden meets us at a place calledGlenwild, on the edge of this wilderness, and we follow him in on ourtwo legs."
He glanced across at the mantel clock.
"If you'll dress," he said nervously, "we'll go to some shop thatoutfits sportsmen for the North. Because, if we can, we ought to leaveon the one o'clock train."
She smiled; came up to him. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Because Ialso am nervous and tired; and I mean to make an end of every Yezideeremaining in America."
"Sanang, too?"
They both flushed deeply.
She said in a steady voice: "Between God and Erlik there is a black gulfwhere a million million stars hang, lighting a million million otherworlds.
"Prince Sanang's star glimmers there. It is a sun, called Yramid. And itlights the planet, Yu-tsung. Let him reign there between God and Erlik."
"You will slay this man?"
"God forbid!" she said, shuddering. "But I shall send him to his ownstar. Let my soul be ransom for his! And may Allah judge betweenus--between this man and me."
Then, in the still, sunny room, the girl turned to face the East. Andher husband saw her lips move as though speaking, but heard no sound.
* * * * *
"What on earth are you saying there, all to yourself?" he demanded atlast.
She turned her head and looked at him across her left shoulder.
"I asked Sansa to help me.... And she says she will."
Cleves nodded in a dazed way. Then he opened a window and leaned therein the sunshine, looking down into Madison Avenue. And the roar oftraffic seemed to soothe his nerves.
But "Good heavens!" he thought; "do such things really go on in New Yorkin 1920! Is the entire world becoming a little crazy? Am I really in myright mind when I believe that the girl I married is talking, withoutwireless, to another girl in China!"
He leaned there heavily, gazing down into the street with sombre eyes.
"What a ghastly thing these Yezidees are trying to do to theworld--these Assassins of men's minds'!" he thought, turning away towardthe door of his bedroom.
As he crossed the threshold he stumbled, and looking down saw that hehad tripped over a white sheet lying there. For a moment he thought itwas a sheet from his own bed, and he started to pick it up. Then he sawthe naked blade of a knife at his feet.
With an uncontrollable shudder he stepped out of the shroud and stoodstaring at the knife as though it were a snake. It had a curved bladeand a bone hilt coarsely inlaid with Arabic characters in brass.
The shroud was a threadbare affair--perhaps a bed-sheet from some cheaplodging house. But its significance was so repulsive that he hesitatedto touch it.
However, he was ashamed to have it discovered in his room. He picked upthe brutal-looking knife and kicked the shroud out into the corridor,where they could guess if they liked how such a rag got into theRitz-Carlton.
Then he searched his bedroom, and, of course, discovered nobody hiding.But chills crawled on his spine while he was about it, and he shiveredstill as he stood in the centre of the room examining the knife andtesting edge and point.
Then, close to his ear, a low voice whispered: "Be careful, my lord; theYezidee knife is poisoned. But it is written that a poisoned heart ismore dangerous still."
He had turned like a flash; and he saw, between him and the sitting-roomdoor, a very young girl with slightly slanting eyes, and rose and ivoryfeatures as perfect as though moulded out of tinted bisque.
She wore a loose blue linen robe, belted in, short at the elbows andskirt, showing two creamy-skinned arms and two bare feet in strawsandals. In one hand she
had a spray of purple mulberries, and shelooked coolly at Cleves and ate a berry or two.
"Give me the knife," she said calmly.
He handed it to her; she wiped it with a mulberry leaf and slipped itthrough her girdle.
"I am Sansa," she said with a friendly glance at him, busy with herfruit.
Cleves strove to speak naturally, but his voice trembled.
"Is it you--I mean your real self--your own body?"
"It's my real self. Yes. But my body is asleep in my mulberry grove."
"In--in China?"
"Yes," she said calmly, detaching another mulberry and eating it. A fewfresh leaves fell on the centre table.
Sansa chose another berry. "You know," she said, "that I came to Tressathis morning,--to my little Heart of Fire I came when she called me. AndI was quite sleepy, too. But I heard her, though there was a night windin the mulberry trees, and the river made a silvery roaring noise in thedark.... And now I must go. But I shall come again very soon."
She smiled shyly and held out her lovely little hand, "--As Tressa tellsme is your custom in America," she said, "I offer you a good-bye."
He took her hand and found it a warm, smooth thing of life and pulse.
"Why," he stammered in his astonishment, "you _are_ real! You are not aghost!"
"Yes, I am real," she answered, surprised, "but I'm not in my body,--ifyou mean that." Then she laughed and withdrew her hand, and, going, madehim a friendly gesture.
"Cherish, my lord, my darling Heart of Fire. Serpents twist and twine.So do rose vines. May their petals make your path of velvet and sweetscented. May everything that is round be a pomegranate for you two toshare; may everything that sways be lilies bordering a path wide enoughfor two. In the name of the Most Merciful God, may the only cry you hearbe the first sweet wail of your first-born. And when the tenth shall beborn, may you and Heart of Fire bewail your fate because both of youdesire more children!"
She was laughing when she disappeared. Cleves thought she was stillthere, so radiant the sunshine, so sweet the scent in the room.
But the golden shadow by the door was empty of her. If she had slippedthrough the doorway he had not noticed her departure. Yet she was nolonger there. And, when he understood, he turned back into the emptyroom, quivering all over. Suddenly a terrible need of Tressa assailedhim--an imperative necessity to speak to her--hear her voice.
"Tressa!" he called, and rested his hand on the centre table, feelingweak and shaken to the knees. Then he looked down and saw the mulberryleaves lying scattered there, tender and green and still dewy with thedew of China.
"Oh, my God!" he whispered, "such things _are_! It isn't my mind thathas gone wrong. There _are_ such things!"
The conviction swept him like a tide till his senses swam. As thoughpeering through a mist of gold he saw his wife enter and come tohim;--felt her arm about him, sustaining him where he swayed slightlywith one hand on the table among the mulberry leaves.
"Ah," murmured Tressa, noticing the green leaves, "she oughtn't to havedone that. That was thoughtless of her, to show herself to you."
Cleves looked at her in a dazed way. "The body is nothing," he muttered."The rest only is real. That is the truth, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"I seem to be beginning to believe it.... Sansa said things--I shall tryto tell you--some day--dear.... I'm so glad to hear your voice."
"Are you?" she murmured.
"And so glad to feel your touch.... I found a shroud on my threshold.And a knife."
"The Yezidees are becoming mountebanks.... Where is the knife?" sheasked scornfully.
"Sansa said it was poisoned. She took it. She--she said that a poisonedheart is more dangerous still."
Then Tressa threw up her head and called softly into space: "Sansa!Little Silk-Moth! What are these mischievous things you have told to mylord?"
She stood silent, listening. And, in the answer which he could not hear,there seemed to be something that set his young wife's cheeks aflame.
"Sansa! Little devil!" she cried, exasperated. "May Erlik send his impsto pinch you if you have said to my lord these shameful things. It wasimpudent! It was mischievous! You cover me with shame and confusion, andI am humbled in the dust of my lord's feet!"
Cleves looked at her, but she could not sustain his gaze.
"Did Sansa say to you what she said to me?" he demanded unsteadily.
"Yes.... I ask your pardon.... And I had already _told_ her you didnot--did not--were not--in--love--with me.... I ask your pardon."
"Ask more.... Ask your heart whether it would care to hear that I am inlove. And with whom. Ask your heart if it could ever care to listen towhat my heart could say to it."
"Y-yes--I'll ask--my heart," she faltered.... "I think I had betterfinish dressing----" She lifted her eyes, gave him a breathless smile ashe caught her hand and kissed it.
"It--it would be very wonderful," she stammered, "--if our necessityshould be-become our choice."
But that speech seemed to scare her and she fled, leaving her husbandstanding tense and upright in the middle of the room.
* * * * *
Their train on the New York Central Railroad left the Grand CentralTerminal at one in the afternoon.
Cleves had made his arrangements by wire. They travelled lightly,carrying, except for the clothing they wore, only camping equipment fortwo.
It was raining in the Hudson valley; they rushed through the outlyingtowns and Po'keepsie in a summer downpour.
At Hudson the rain slackened. A golden mist enveloped Albany, throughwhich the beautiful tower and facades along the river loomed, maskingthe huge and clumsy Capitol and the spires beyond.
At Schenectady, rifts overhead revealed glimpses of blue. At Amsterdam,where they descended from the train, the flag on the arsenal across theMohawk flickered brilliantly in the sunny wind.
By telegraphic arrangement, behind the station waited a touring cardriven by a trooper of State Constabulary, who, with his comrade,saluted smartly as Cleves and Tressa came up.
There was a brief, low-voiced conversation. Their camping outfit wasstowed aboard, Tressa sprang into the tonneau followed by Cleves, andthe car started swiftly up the inclined roadway, turned to the rightacross the railroad bridge, across the trolley tracks, and straight onup the steep hill paved with blocks of granite.
On the level road which traversed the ridge at last they speeded up,whizzed past the great hedged farm where racing horses are bred, rushingthrough the afternoon sunshine through the old-time Scotch settlementswhich once were outposts of the old New York frontier.
Nine miles out the macadam road ended. They veered to the left over adirt road, through two hamlets; then turned to the right.
The landscape became rougher. To their left lay the long, low Maxonhills; behind them the Mayfield range stretched northward into the openjaws of the Adirondacks.
All around them were woods, now. Once a Gate House appeared ahead; andbeyond it they crossed four bridges over a foaming, tumbling creek whereCleves caught glimpses of shadowy forms in amber-tinted pools--bigyellow trout that sank unhurriedly out of sight among huge submergedboulders wet with spray.
The State trooper beside the chauffeur turned to Cleves, his purple tiewhipping in the wind.
"Yonder is Glenwild, sir," he said.
It was a single house on the flank of a heavily forested hill. Deepbelow to the left the creek leaped two cataracts and went flashing outthrough a belt of cleared territory ablaze with late sunshine.
The car swung into the farm-yard, past the barn on the right, andcontinued on up a very rough trail.
"This is the road to the Ireland Vlaie," said the trooper. "It ispossible for cars for another mile only."
Splendid spruce, pine, oak, maple, and hemlock fringed the swampy,uneven trail which was no more than a wide, rough vista cut through theforest.
And, as the trooper had said, a little more than a mile farther thetrail became
a tangle of bushes and swale; the car slowed down andstopped; and a man rose from where he was seated on a mossy log and cameforward, his rifle balanced across the hollow of his left arm.
The man was Alek Selden.
* * * * *
It was long after dark and they were still travelling through pathlesswoods by the aid of their electric torches.
There was little underbrush; the forest of spruce and hemlock was firstgrowth.
Cleves shined the trees but could discover no blazing, no trodden path.
In explanation, Selden said briefly that he had hunted the territory foryears.
"But I don't begin to know it," he added. "There are vast and uglyregions of bog and swale where a sea of alders stretches to the horizon.There are desolate wastes of cat-briers and witch-hopple under leproustangles of grey birches, where stealthy little brooks darkle deep undermatted debris. Only wild things can travel such country.
"Then there are strange, slow-flowing creeks in the perpetual shadows oftamarack woods, where many a man has gone in never to come out."
"Why?" asked Tressa.
"Under the tender carpet of green cresses are shining black bogs setwith tussock; and under the bog stretches quicksand,--and death."
"Do you know these places?" asked Cleves.
"No."
Cleves stepped forward to Tressa's side.
"Keep flashing the ground," he said harshly. "I don't want you to stepinto some hell-hole. I'm sorry I brought you, anyway."
"But I had to come," she said in a low voice.
Like the two men, she wore a grey flannel shirt, knickers, and spiralputtees.
They, however, carried rifles as well as packs; and the girl's pack waslighter.
They had halted by a swift, icy rivulet to eat, without building a fire.After that they crossed the Ireland Vlaie and the main creek, whereremains of a shanty stood on the bluff above the right bank--the lastsign of man.
Beyond lay the uncharted land, skimped and shirked entirely in certainregions by map-makers;--an unknown wilderness on the edges of whichSelden had often camped when deer shooting.
It was along this edge he was leading them, now, to a lean-to which hehad erected, and from which he had travelled in to Glenwild to use thesuperintendent's telephone to New York.
There seemed to be no animal life stirring in this forest; their torchesilluminated no fiery orbs of dazed wild things surprised at gaze in thewilderness; no leaping furry form crossed their flashlights' fan-shapedradiance.
There were no nocturnal birds to be seen or heard, either: no bitternsquawked from hidden sloughs; no herons howled; not an owl-note, not awhispering cry of a whippoorwill, not the sudden uncanny twitter ofthose little birds that become abruptly vocal after dark, interruptedthe dense stillness of the forest.
And it was not until his electric torch glimmered repeatedly uponreaches of dusk-hidden bog that Cleves understood how Selden took hisbearings--for the night was thick and there were no stars.
"Yes," said Selden tersely, "I'm trying to skirt the bog until I shine apeeled stick."
* * * * *
An hour later the peeled alder-stem glittered in the beam of thetorches. In ten minutes something white caught the electric rays.
It was Selden's spare undershirt drying on a bush behind the lean-to.
"Can we have a fire?" asked Cleves, relieving his wife of her pack andstriding into the open-faced camp.
"Yes, I'll fix it," replied Selden. "Are you all right, Mrs. Cleves?"
Tressa said: "Delightfully tired, thank you." And smiled faintly at herhusband as he let go his own pack, knelt, and spread a blanket for hiswife.
He remained there, kneeling, as she seated herself.
"Are you quite fit?" he asked bluntly. Yet, through his brusqueness herear caught a vague undertone of something else--anxiety perhaps--perhapstenderness. And her heart stirred deliciously in her breast.
He inflated a pillow for her; the firelight glimmered, brightened,spread glowing across her feet. She lay back with a slight sigh,relaxed.
Then, suddenly, the thrill of her husband's touch flooded her face withcolour; but she lay motionless, one arm flung across her eyes, while heunrolled her puttees and unlaced her muddy shoes.
A heavenly warmth from the fire dried her stockinged feet. Later, on theedge of sleep, she opened her eyes and found herself propped upright onher husband's shoulder.
Drowsily, obediently she swallowed spoonfuls of the hot broth which headministered.
"Are you really quite comfortable, dear?" he whispered.
"Wonderfully.... And so very happy.... Thank you--dear."
She lay back, suffering him to bathe her face and hands with warm water.
When the fire was only a heap of dying coals, she turned over on herright side and extended her hand a little way into the darkness.Searching, half asleep, she touched her husband, and her hand relaxed inhis nervous clasp. And she fell into the most perfect sleep which shehad known in years.
* * * * *
She dreamed that somebody whispered to her, "Darling, darling, wake up.It is morning, beloved."
Suddenly she opened her eyes; and saw her husband set a tray, freshlyplaited out of Indian willow, beside her blanket.
"Here's your breakfast, pretty lady," he said, smilingly. "And overthere is an exceedingly frigid pool of water. You're to have the camp toyourself for the next hour or two."
"You dear fellow," she murmured, still confused by sleep, and reachedout to touch his hand. He caught hers and kissed it, back and palm, andgot up hastily as though scared.
"Selden and I will stand sentry," he muttered. "There is no hurry, youknow."
She heard him and his comrade walking away over dried leaves; theirsteps receded; a dry stick cracked distantly; then silence stealthilyinvaded the place like a cautious living thing, creeping unseen throughthe golden twilight of the woods.
Seated in her blanket, she drank the coffee; ate a little; then lay downagain in the early sun, feeling the warmth of the heap of whiteningcoals at her feet, also.
For an hour she dozed awake, drowsily opening her eyes now and then tolook across the glade at the pool over which a single dragon-flyglittered on guard.
Finally she rose resolutely, grasped a bit of soap, and went down to theedge of the pool.
* * * * *
Tressa was in flannel shirt and knickers when her husband and Seldenhailed the camp and presently appeared walking slowly toward the deadfire.
Their grave faces checked her smile of greeting; her husband came up andlaid one hand on her arm, looking at her out of thoughtful, preoccupiedeyes.
"What is the Tchordagh?" he said in a low voice.
The girl's quiet face went white.
"The--the Tchordagh!" she stammered.
"Yes, dear. What is it?"
"I don't--don't know where you heard that term," she whispered. "TheTchordagh is the--the power of Erlik. It is a term.... In it iscomprehended all the evil, all the cunning, all the perverted spiritualintelligence of Evil,--its sinister might,--its menace. It is anAlouad-Yezidee term, and it is written in brass in Eighur characters onthe Eight Towers, and on the Rampart of Gog and Magog;--nowhere else inthe world!"
"It is written on a pine tree a few paces from this camp," said Clevesabsently.
Selden said: "It has not been there more than an hour or two, Mrs.Cleves. A square of bark was cut out and on the white surface of thewood this word is written in English."
"Can you tell us what it signifies?" asked Cleves, quietly.
Tressa's studied effort at self-control was apparent to both men.
She said: "When that word is written, then it is a death strugglebetween all the powers of Darkness and those who have read the writtenletters of that word.... For it is written in The Iron Book that no onebut the Assassin of Khorassan--excepting the Eight Sheiks--shall readt
hat written word and live to boast of having read it."
"Let us sit here and talk it over," said Selden soberly.
And when Tressa was seated on a fallen log, and Cleves settled downcross-legged at her feet, Selden spoke again, very soberly:
"On the edges of these woods, to the northwest, lies a sea of briers,close growing, interwoven and matted, strong and murderous as barbedwire.
"Miles out in this almost impenetrable region lies a patch of treescalled Fool's Acre.
"At Wells I heard that the only man who had ever managed to reach Fool'sAcre was a trapper, and that he was still living.
"I found him at Rainbow Lake--a very old man, who had a fairly clearrecollection of Fool's Acre and his exhausting journey there.
"And he told me that man had been there before he had. For there was aroofless stone house there, and the remains of a walled garden. And askull deep in the wild grasses."
Selden paused and looked down at the recently healed scars on his wristsand hands.
"It was a rotten trip," he said bluntly. "It took me three days to cut atunnel through that accursed tangle of matted brier and grey birch....Fool's Acre is a grove of giant trees--first growth pine, oak, andmaple. Great outcrops of limestone ledges bound it on the east. A brookruns through the woods.
"There is a house there, _no longer roofless_, and built of slabs offossil-pitted limestone. The glass in the windows is so old that it isiridescent.
"A seven-foot wall encloses the house, built also of slabs blasted outof the rock outcrop, and all pitted with fossil shells.
"Inside is a garden--not the _remains_ of one--a beautiful garden fullof unfamiliar flowers. And in this garden I saw the Yezidee on his knees_making living things out of lumps of dead earth_!"
"The Tchordagh!" whispered the girl.
"What was the Yezidee doing?" demanded Cleves nervously.
Involuntarily all three drew nearer each other there in the sunshine.
"It was difficult for me to see," said Selden in his quiet, seriousvoice. "It was nearly twilight: I lay flat on top of the wall under thecurving branches of a huge syringa bush in full bloom. The Yezidees----"
"Were there two!" exclaimed Cleves.
"Two. They were squatting on the old stone path bordering one of theflower-beds." He turned to Tressa: "They both wore white cloths twistedaround their heads, and long soft garments of white. Under these theirbare, brown legs showed, but they wore things on their naked feet whichwere shaped like what we call Turkish slippers--only different."
"Black and green," nodded Tressa with the vague horror growing in herface.
"Yes. The soles of their shoes were bright green."
"Green is the colour sacred to Islam," said Tressa. "The priests ofSatan defile it by staining with green the soles of their footwear."
After an interval: "Go on," said Cleves nervously.
Selden drew closer, and they bent their heads to listen:
"I don't, even now, know what the Yezidees were actually doing. In thetwilight it was hard to see clearly. But I'll tell you what it lookedlike to me. One of these squatting creatures would scoop out a handfulof soil from the flower-bed, and mould it for a few moments between hislean, sinewy fingers, and then he'd open his hands and--and something_alive_--something small like a rat or a toad, or God knows what, wouldescape from between his palms and run out into the grass----"
Selden's voice failed and he looked at Cleves with sickened eyes.
"I can't--can't make you understand how repulsive to me it was to see awriggling live thing creep out between their fingers and--and go runningor scrambling away--little loathsome things with humpy backs that hoppedor scurried through the grass----"
"What on earth _were_ these Yezidees doing, Tressa?" asked Cleves almostroughly.
The girl's white face was marred by the imprints of deepening horror.
"It is the Tchor-Dagh," she said mechanically. "They are using everyresource of hell to destroy me--testing the gigantic power of Evil--asthough it were some vast engine charged with thunderousdestruction!--and they were testing it to discover its terrific capacityto annihilate----"
Her voice died in her dry throat; she dropped her bloodless visage intoboth hands and remained seated so.
Both men looked at her in silence, not daring to interfere. Finally thegirl lifted her pallid face from her hands.
"That is what they were doing," she said in a dull voice. "Out ofinanimate earth they were making things animate--livingcreatures--to--to test the hellish power which they arestoring--concentrating--for my destruction."
"What is their purpose?" asked Cleves harshly. "What do these MongolSorcerers expect to gain by making little live things out of lumps ofgarden dirt?"
"They are testing their power," whispered the girl.
"Like tuning up a huge machine?" muttered Selden.
"Yes."
"For what purpose?"
"To make larger living creatures out of--of clay."
"They can't--they can't _create_!" exclaimed Cleves. "I don't knowhow--by what filthy tricks--they make rats out of dirt. But they can'tmake a--anything--like a--like a man!"
Tressa's body trembled slightly.
"Once," she said, "in the temple, Prince Sanang took dust which wasbrought in sacks of goat-skin, and fashioned the heap of dirt with hishands, so that it resembled the body of a man lying there on the marblefloor under the shrine of Erlik.... And--and then, there in the shadowswhere only the Dark Star burned--that black lamp which is called theDark Star--the long heap of dust lying there on the marble pavementbegan to--to _breathe_!--"
She pressed both hands over her breast as though to control hertrembling body: "I saw it; I saw the long shape of dust begin tobreathe, to stir, move, and slowly lift itself----"
"A Yezidee trick!" gasped Cleves; but he also was trembling now.
"God!" whispered the girl. "Allah alone knows--the Merciful, the LongSuffering--He knows what it was that we temple girls saw there--thatYulun saw--that Sa-n'sa and I beheld there rising up like a man from themarble floor--and standing erect in the shadowy twilight of the DarkStar...."
Her hands gripped at her breast; her face was deathly.
"Then," she said, "I saw Prince Sanang draw his sabre of Indian steel,and he struck ... once only.... And a dead man fell down where the_thing_ had stood. And all the marble was flooded with scarlet blood."
"A trick," repeated Cleves, in the ghost of his own voice. But his gazegrew vacant.
Presently Selden spoke in tones that sounded weakly querulous fromemotional reaction:
"There is a path--a tunnel under the matted briers. It took me more thana week to cut it out. It is possible to reach Fool's Acre. We cantry--with our rifles--if you say so, Mrs. Cleves."
The girl looked up. A little colour came into her cheeks. She shook herhead.
"Their bodies may not be there in the garden," she said absently. "Whatyou saw may not have been that part of them--the material which dies byknife or bullet.... And it is necessary that these Yezidees should die."
"Can you do anything?" asked Cleves, hoarsely.
She looked at her husband; tried to smile:
"I must try.... I think we had better not lose any time--if Mr. Seldenwill lead us."
"Now?"
"Yes, we had better go, I think," said the girl. Her smile stillremained stamped on her lips, but her eyes seemed preoccupied as thoughfollowing the movements of something remote that was passing across thefar horizon.
The Slayer of Souls Page 13