The Soul Stealer

by Guy Thorne

  CHAPTER XX

  THOUGHTS OF ONE IN DURANCE

  Once more the cell was only tenanted by the victim. Sir William hadgone, the great door had clanked and clicked, and Guy Rathbone still layupon his couch of torture.

  The electric light still shone, as Gouldesbrough had forgotten to turnit off, or perhaps did not know that this was the invariable custom ofhis assistant when Rathbone was clanked and bolted down to his bed ofvulcanite. It was the first visit that Sir William had paid to theliving tomb to which he had consigned his rival.

  Rathbone had laughed indeed, and his laugh was still echoing in thefrenzied brain of the scientist as he mounted upwards to the light ofday. But the laugh, though it had indeed been blithe and confident, hadbeen a supreme effort of will, of faith and trust, was merely the echoand symbol of a momentary state which the tortured body and despairingmind could not sustain.

  Rathbone could not move his head, fixed tight as it was in its collar.But two great tears rolled from the weakened and trembling eyelids downthe gaunt, grey cheeks. The supreme ecstasy of belief and trust in thegirl he loved, the hope of meeting her again in another world where timewas not and where the period of waiting would be unfelt, passed awaylike a thing that falls through water. Once more a frightful emptinessand fear came down over him like a cloud falls.

  From where his couch was placed, though he could not turn his head, hecould see nearly the whole interior of his cell. There were the concretewalls, each cranny and depression of which he knew so well. There wasthe other, and scarcely less painful, bed upon which he slept, or triedto sleep at such times when exhausted nature mercifully banished thepain of his soul. It was not day when he slept, it was not night, forday and night are things of the world, the world with which he was neverto have any more to do, and which he should never see again withmaterial eyes.

  There was the little table upon which was the last book they had let himhave, a book brought to him in bitter mockery by Wilson Guest a child'spicture book called "Reading without Tears." And he could see thenetwork of ropes and india-rubber attachments which went up to thepulley in the roof, and which rendered him absolutely helpless by meansof the mechanism outside the cell which was set in motion before hisjailor entered.

  There was hardly any need for these ingenious instruments any longer.The athlete was gaunt and wasted, his skin hung upon him in grey folds.The gold had faded out of his hair and it was nearly white. The firm andmanly curve of the lips was broken and twisted. The whole mouth waspuckered with pain and torture. It was almost a senile mouth now. Verylittle physical strength remained in the body--no, there was hardly anyneed for the pulley and ropes now, and soon there would be no need forthem at all, until, perhaps, some other unhappy captive languished inthe grip of these monsters.

  His tired eyes gazed round the cell, and his thoughts were for a momentnumbed into nothingness. There was just a piece of lead at the back ofhis brain, that was all. He was conscious of it being there, drowsilyconscious, but no more than that.

  Quite suddenly something seemed to start his mental lethargy, his brainresumed its functions instantaneously. There was a roaring in his earslike the sound of a wind, and he awoke to full consciousness andrealization of what Sir William had told him, of the unutterable terrorand frightfulness of his coming doom. All over his face, hands, andbody, beads of perspiration started out in little jets. Then he felt asif a piece of ice were being slid smoothly down his spine--from theneck downwards. His hands opened and shut convulsively, gripping atnothing, and the soles of his feet, in their list slippers, becamesuddenly and strangely hot. The collar round his neck seemed to bethrottling him, and his mouth opened, gasping for air.

  Then that deep and hidden chamber was filled with a wail so mournful,melancholy and hopeless, so dismal and inhuman that the very concretewalls themselves might also have melted and dissolved away before thefire of such agony and the sound of such despair.

  He knew the dark and more sinister reason of his captivity, he knew whatthey had made him and for what dreadful purpose.

  Ah! It was a supreme revenge. They had stolen him from his love and theyhad stolen his very inmost soul from him. All the agonized prayers whichhad gone up to God like thin flames had been caught upon their way liketangible and material things, caught by the devilish power of one man,and thrown upon the wall for him to see and laugh over. All hispassionate longing for Marjorie, all the messages he tried to frame andsend her through the darkness and the walls of stone, all these had beenbut an amusement and a derision for the fiend whose slave he had become.And all his hatred, his deep cursings of his captor, all his futilehalf-formed plans for an escape were all known to the two men. And stillworse, his very memories, his most sacred memories, had been taken fromhim and used as a theatre by William Gouldesbrough and Wilson Guest. Heunderstood now the remarks that the assistant had sometimes made, thecruel and extraordinary knowledge he seemed to display of things thathad happened in Rathbone's past. It was all quite plain, all terriblydistinct.

  And worst of all, the sacred moments when he had avowed his love forMarjorie, and she, that peerless maiden, had come to him in answer,these dear memories, which alone had kept his cooling mind from madness,were known and exulted over by these men. They had seen him kissMarjorie; all the endearments of the lovers had passed before them liketableaux in a pantomime. Yes; this indeed was more than any brain couldbear.

  Rathbone knew now that he was going mad.

  Of course, God never heard his prayers, they could not get up to God.Those beasts had caught them in a net and God never heard them. Therehad always been that one thought, even in the darkest hour--that thoughtthat God knew and would come to his aid.

  The face, the rigid face, worked and wrinkled horribly. Ripples of agonypassed up and down it like the ripples upon the wind-blown surface of apool. It was not human now any longer, and the curious and lovers ofwhat is terrible may see such faces in the museum of the mad painter ofpictures at Brussels.

  Then, as a stone falls, consciousness flashed away, though the facestill moved and wrinkled automatically.

  Presently the door of the cell was unlocked, and Wilson Guest came in.He was rather drunk and rather angry also.

  Sir William had come back from telling Rathbone the truth about what hadbeen done to him and what they proposed to do. Guest had been waiting inthe study with great expectation. He congratulated himself on havingworked up his patron sufficiently to make him visit Rathbone himself andinform him of his fate. He had not thought that Gouldesbrough could havebeen brought to do any such thing, and he had awaited his chief'sarrival with intense and cynical expectation.

  When at last Sir William did enter the room, his face was very pale, butthe passion of hideous anger had quite gone from it, and it was calm andquiet. The eyes no longer blazed, the lips were set in their usualcurve.

  "Have you told him, William?" Guest asked in his malicious voice. "Haveyou told him everything? Come along, then, let's go into the laboratoryat once and see what he thinks about it."

  There was no response. Sir William seemed as a man in a dream. When atlength he did answer his voice appeared to come from a long distance,and it was sad and almost kindly.

  "Yes," he said, in that gentle mournful voice; "yes, my friend, I havetold him. Poor, poor fellow! How terrible his thoughts must be now. Iwish I could do something for him. The spectacle of such agony is indeedterrible. Poor, poor fellow!"

  He sank into a chair, his head fell upon his breast, his fingersinterlocked, and he seemed to be sleeping.

  Guest looked at him for a moment stupidly. The assistant was fuddledwith drink, and could not understand these strange symptoms andphenomena of a great brain which was swiftly being undermined.

  All he noticed was that Sir William certainly seemed sunk in uponhimself like an old man.

  With a gesture of impatience he left the room and traversed the corridoruntil he came to the largest laboratory, where the Thought Spectroscopeinstruments were. He turn
ed up the electric light, found the switchwhich controlled part of the machinery, moved the switch and turned downthe electric light once more, looking expectantly at the opposite wall.There was no great circle of light such as he waited for.

  With an oath he stumbled out of the laboratory, not forgetting to lockit carefully. And then, unlocking another door, a door which formed theback of a great cupboard in No. C room, a door which nobody ever saw, hewent down a flight of stone steps to those old disused cellars, in oneof which Rathbone was kept. He opened the door and found the captivestill lying upon the vulcanite couch, his face still working like theface of a mechanical toy, and in a deep swoon.

  Guest hastily unbuckled the straps and released the neck from thecollar. He carried Rathbone to the bed, locked the thin steel chains,which hung from the roof, upon the anklets and the handcuffs, and thendashed water repeatedly in his face.

  In his pocket, Mr. Guest invariably carried a supply of liquor. Itsometimes happened that in going from a room where he had exhausted allthe liquor, into another room where he knew he would find more, the tworooms would be separated by a corridor of some little length, and itsometimes happened that Mr. Guest needed a drink when he arrived in themiddle of the corridor. So he always carried a large, silver-mountedflask in the pocket of his coat. He unscrewed this now and poured somewhisky down the captive's throat. In a minute or two a faint tinge ofcolour appeared upon the cheekbones, and with a shudder and sob thetortured soul came back to the tortured body, which even yet it was notto be suffered to leave.

  "That's better," Mr. Guest remarked. "I thought you had gone off, Ireally did. Not yet, my dear boy, not yet. Would not do at all. Wouldnot suit our purpose. I'm sure you won't be so disobliging as to treatus in such a shabby way after all we have done for you. I understandWilliam has told you of the delicate attentions by which we propose tomake your exit as interesting and as valuable to science as possible."

  Rathbone looked at him steadily. He spoke to him in a weak, thin voice.

  "Yes," he said, "I know now, I know everything. But have you no singlespark of pity or compassion within you, that you can come here to mockand gloat over a man who is surely suffering more than any one else hasever suffered in the history of the world? Is it impossible to touch youor move you in any way?"

  Mr. Guest rubbed his hands with huge enjoyment.

  "Ah!" he said chuckling, while the pink, hairless face was one mask ofpleasure. "Ah, that is how I have been wanting to hear you talk for along, long time. I thought we should break you down at last, though. Formy part I should have told you long before, only William thought thatyou would not give yourself away about Miss Marjorie Poole if you knewthat we saw it all. However, we know now, so it don't matter. Dearlittle girl she is, Mr. Rathbone. Sir William sees her every day. Shethinks you have gone off with a barmaid and are living quite happily,helping her to manage a pub. in the East. Sir William sees her everyday, and she sits on his knee, and they kiss each other and laugh aboutbeing in love. Charming, isn't it? Fancy you talking to me like that.Pity? Pity? Aren't I your best friend? Don't I bring you your food everyday? And didn't I give you a drink just now? That's more than Williamdid. And besides to-morrow aren't I going to begin the injections thatin a month's time or so will make you appear a confirmed dipsomaniac,just before I come down here and hold your head in a bucket of wateruntil you are drowned? Then, dress your body in nice, dirty clothes andhave you dropped in the Thames just above Wapping. Oh, Mr. Rathbone, howcould you say such cruel things to your good friend, Mr. Wilson Guest?Well, I must be going. I don't think you will want anything moreto-night, will you? Good night. Sleep pleasantly. I am going to go tobed myself, and I shall lie awake thinking of the fun there will be atthe inquest when the Doctor reports after the post-mortem that you werea confirmed drunkard, and all the world, including Miss Marjorie Poole,will know the real truth about Guy Rathbone's disappearance."