IMirror
of Fashion,Admiral
of Finance,Don't,
in a passion,Denounce
this poor Romance;For,
while I dare not hope it mightEnthuse
you,Perhaps it
will, some rainy night,Amuse
you.IISo,
your attention,In
poetry polite,To my
inventionI
bashfully invite.Don't
hurl the book at Eddie's headDeep
laden,Or
Messmore's; you might hit insteadWill
Braden.IIIKahn
among Canners,And
Grand Vizier of style,Emir
of Manners,Accept—and
place on file—This
tribute, which I proffer whileI
grovel,And honor
with thy matchless SmileMy
novel.
CHAPTER I
THE
YEZIDEEOnly
when the Nan-yang
Maru sailed from
Yuen-San did her terrible sense of foreboding begin to subside.For
four years, waking or sleeping, the awful subconsciousness of supreme
evil had never left her.But
now, as the Korean shore, receding into darkness, grew dimmer and
dimmer, fear subsided and grew vague as the half-forgotten memory of
horror in a dream.She
stood near the steamer's stern apart from other passengers, a
slender, lonely figure in her silver-fox furs, her ulster and smart
little hat, watching the lights of Yuen-San grow paler and smaller
along the horizon until they looked like a level row of stars.Under
her haunted eyes Asia was slowly dissolving to a streak of vapour in
the misty lustre of the moon.Suddenly
the ancient continent disappeared, washed out by a wave against the
sky; and with it vanished the last shreds of that accursed nightmare
which had possessed her for four endless years. But whether during
those unreal years her soul had only been held in bondage, or
whether, as she had been taught, it had been irrevocably destroyed,
she still remained uncertain, knowing nothing about the death of
souls or how it was accomplished.As
she stood there, her sad eyes fixed on the misty East, a passenger
passing—an Englishwoman—paused to say something kind to the young
American; and added, "if there is anything my husband and I can
do it would give us much pleasure." The girl had turned her head
as though not comprehending. The other woman hesitated."This
is Doctor Norne's daughter, is it not?" she inquired in a
pleasant voice."Yes,
I am Tressa Norne.... I ask your pardon.... Thank you, madam:—I
am—I seem to be—a trifle dazed——""What
wonder, you poor child! Come to us if you feel need of
companionship.""You
are very kind.... I seem to wish to be alone, somehow.""I
understand.... Good-night, my dear."Late
the next morning Tressa Norne awoke, conscious for the first time in
four years that it was at last her own familiar self stretched out
there on the pillows where sunshine streamed through the porthole.
All that day she lay in her bamboo steamer chair on deck. Sun and
wind conspired to dry every tear that wet her closed lashes. Her
dark, glossy hair blew about her face; scarlet tinted her full lips
again; the tense hands relaxed. Peace came at sundown.That
evening she took her Yu-kin from her cabin and found a chair on the
deserted hurricane deck.And
here, in the brilliant moonlight of the China Sea, she curled up
cross-legged on the deck, all alone, and sounded the four futile
strings of her moon-lute, and hummed to herself, in a still voice,
old songs she had sung in Yian before the tragedy. She sang the
tent-song called
Tchinguiz. She sang
Camel Bells and
The Blue Bazaar,—children's
songs of the Yiort. She sang the ancient Khiounnou song called "The
Saghalien":IIn
the month of SaffarAmong
the river-reedsI
saw two horsemenSitting
on their steeds.Tulugum!Heitulum!By
the river-reedsIIIn
the month of SaffarA
demon guards the ford.Tokhta,
my Lover!Draw
your shining sword!Tulugum!Heitulum!Slay
him with your sword!IIIIn
the month of SaffarAmong
the water-weedsI
saw two horsemenFighting
on their steeds.Tulugum!Heitulum!How
my lover bleeds!IVIn
the month of Saffar,The
Year I should have wed—The
Year of The Panther—My
lover lay dead,—Tulugum!Heitulum!Dead
without a head.And
songs like these—the one called "Keuke Mongol," and an
ancient air of the Tchortchas called "The Thirty Thousand
Calamities," and some Chinese boatmen's songs which she had
heard in Yian before the tragedy; these she hummed to herself there
in the moonlight playing on her round-faced, short-necked lute of
four strings.Terror
indeed seemed ended for her, and in her heart a great overwhelming
joy was welling up which seemed to overflow across the entire moonlit
world.She
had no longer any fear; no premonition of further evil. Among the few
Americans and English aboard, something of her story was already
known. People were kind; and they were also considerate enough to
subdue their sympathetic curiosity when they discovered that this
young American girl shrank from any mention of what had happened to
her during the last four years of the Great World War.It
was evident, also, that she preferred to remain aloof; and this
inclination, when finally understood, was respected by her fellow
passengers. The clever, efficient and polite Japanese officers and
crew of the Nan-yang
Maru were
invariably considerate and courteous to her, and they remained nicely
reticent, although they also knew the main outline of her story and
very much desired to know more. And so, surrounded now by the
friendly security of civilised humanity, Tressa Norne, reborn to
light out of hell's own shadows, awoke from four years of nightmare
which, after all, perhaps, never had seemed entirely actual.And
now God's real sun warmed her by day; His real moon bathed her in
creamy coolness by night; sky and wind and wave thrilled her with
their blessed assurance that this was once more the real world which
stretched illimitably on every side from horizon to horizon; and the
fair faces and pleasant voices of her own countrymen made the past
seem only a ghastly dream that never again could enmesh her soul with
its web of sorcery.And
now the days at sea fled very swiftly; and when at last the Golden
Gate was not far away she had finally managed to persuade herself
that nothing really can harm the human soul; that the monstrous
devil-years were ended, never again to return; that in this vast,
clean Western Continent there could be no occult threat to dread, no
gigantic menace to destroy her body, no secret power that could
consign her soul to the dreadful abysm of spiritual annihilation.Very
early that morning she came on deck. The November day was
delightfully warm, the air clear save for a belt of mist low on the
water to the southward.She
had been told that land would not be sighted for twenty-four hours,
but she went forward and stood beside the starboard rail, searching
the horizon with the enchanted eyes of hope.As
she stood there a Japanese ship's officer crossing the deck, forward,
halted abruptly and stood staring at something to the southward.At
the same moment, above the belt of mist on the water, and perfectly
clear against the blue sky above, the girl saw a fountain of gold
fire rise from the fog, drift upward in the daylight, slowly assume
the incandescent outline of a serpentine creature which leisurely
uncoiled and hung there floating, its lizard-tail undulating, its
feet with their five stumpy claws closing, relaxing, like those of a
living reptile. For a full minute this amazing shape of fire floated
there in the sky, brilliant in the morning light, then the reptilian
form faded, died out, and the last spark vanished in the sunshine.When
the Japanese officer at last turned to resume his promenade, he
noticed a white-faced girl gripping a stanchion behind him as though
she were on the point of swooning. He crossed the deck quickly.
Tressa Norne's eyes opened."Are
you ill, Miss Norne?" he asked."The—the
Dragon," she whispered.The
officer laughed. "Why, that was nothing but Chinese
day-fireworks," he explained. "The crew of some fishing
boat yonder in the fog is amusing itself." He looked at her
narrowly, then with a nice little bow and smile he offered his arm:
"If you are indisposed, perhaps you might wish to go below to
your stateroom, Miss Norne?"She
thanked him, managed to pull herself together and force a ghost of a
smile.He
lingered a moment, said something cheerful about being nearly home,
then made her a punctilious salute and went his way.Tressa
Norne leaned back against the stanchion and closed her eyes. Her
pallor became deathly. She bent over and laid her white face in her
folded arms.After
a while she lifted her head, and, turning very slowly, stared at the
fog-belt out of frightened eyes.And
saw, rising out of the fog, a pearl-tinted sphere which gradually
mounted into the clear daylight above like the full moon's phantom in
the sky.Higher,
higher rose the spectral moon until at last it swam in the very
zenith. Then it slowly evaporated in the blue vault above.A
great wave of despair swept her; she clung to the stanchion, staring
with half-blinded eyes at the flat fog-bank in the south.But
no more "Chinese day-fireworks" rose out of it. And at
length she summoned sufficient strength to go below to her cabin and
lie there, half senseless, huddled on her bed.When
land was sighted, the following morning, Tressa Norne had lived a
century in twenty-four hours. And in that space of time her agonised
soul had touched all depths.But
now as the Golden Gate loomed up in the morning light, rage, terror,
despair had burned themselves out. From their ashes within her mind
arose the cool wrath of desperation armed for anything, wary, alert,
passionately determined to survive at whatever cost, recklessly ready
to fight for bodily existence.That
was her sole instinct now, to go on living, to survive, no matter at
what price. And if it were indeed true that her soul had been slain,
she defied its murderers to slay her body also.That
night, at her hotel in San Francisco, she double-locked her door and
lay down without undressing, leaving all lights burning and an
automatic pistol underneath her pillow.Toward
morning she fell asleep, slept for an hour, started up in awful fear.
And saw the double-locked door opposite the foot of her bed slowly
opening of its own accord.Into
the brightly illuminated room stepped a graceful young man in full
evening dress carrying over his left arm an overcoat, and in his
other hand a top hat and silver tipped walking-stick.With
one bound the girl swung herself from the bed to the carpet and
clutched at the pistol under her pillow."Sanang!"
she cried in a terrible voice."Keuke
Mongol!" he said, smilingly.For
a moment they confronted each other in the brightly lighted bedroom,
then, partly turning, he cast a calm glance at the open door behind
him; and, as though moved by a wind, the door slowly closed. And she
heard the key turn of itself in the lock, and saw the bolt slide
smoothly into place again.Her
power of speech came back to her presently—only a broken whisper at
first: "Do you think I am afraid of your accursed magic?"
she managed to gasp. "Do you think I am afraid of you, Sanang?""You
are afraid," he said serenely."You
lie!""No,
I do not lie. To one another the Yezidees never lie.""You
lie again, assassin! I am no Yezidee!"He
smiled gently. His features were pleasing, smooth, and regular; his
cheek-bones high, his skin fine and of a pale and delicate ivory
colour. Once his black, beautifully shaped eyes wandered to the
levelled pistol which she now held clutched desperately close to her
right hip, and a slightly ironical expression veiled his gaze for an
instant."Bullets?"
he murmured. "But you and I are of the Hassanis.""The
third lie, Sanang!" Her voice had regained its strength. Tense,
alert, blue eyes ablaze, every faculty concentrated on the terrible
business before her, the girl now seemed like some supple leopardess
poised on the swift verge of murder."Tokhta!"[1]
She spat the word. "Any movement toward a hidden weapon, any
gesture suggesting recourse to magic—and I kill you, Sanang,
exactly where you stand!""With
a pistol?" He laughed. Then his smooth features altered subtly.
He said: "Keuke Mongol, who call yourself Tressa
Norne,—Keuke—heavenly azure-blue,—named so in the temple
because of the colour of your eyes—listen attentively, for this is
the Yarlig which I bring to you by word of mouth from Yian, as from
Yezidee to Yezidee:"Here,
in this land called the United States of America, the Temple girl,
Keuke Mongol, who has witnessed the mysteries of Erlik and who
understands the magic of the Sheiks-el-Djebel, and who has seen Mount
Alamout and the eight castles and the fifty thousand Hassanis in
white turbans and in robes of white;—you—Azure-blue
eyes—heed the Yarlig!—or may thirty thousand calamities overtake
you!"There
was a dead silence; then he went on seriously: "It is decreed:
You shall cease to remember that you are a Yezidee, that you are of
the Hassanis, that you ever have laid eyes on Yian the Beautiful,
that you ever set naked foot upon Mount Alamout. It is decreed that
you remember nothing of what you have seen and heard, of what has
been told and taught during the last four years reckoned as the
Christians reckon from our Year of the Bull. Otherwise—my Master
sends you this for your—convenience."Leisurely,
from under his folded overcoat, the young man produced a roll of
white cloth and dropped it at her feet and the girl shrank aside,
shuddering, knowing that the roll of white cloth was meant for her
winding-sheet.Then
the colour came back to lip and cheek; and, glancing up from the soft
white shroud, she smiled at the young man: "Have you ended your
Oriental mummery?" she asked calmly. "Listen very seriously
in your turn, Sanang, Sheik-el-Djebel, Prince of the Hassanis who,
God knows when and how, have come out into the sunshine of this clean
and decent country, out of a filthy darkness where devils and
sorcerers make earth a hell."If
you, or yours, threaten me, annoy me, interfere with me, I shall go
to our civilised police and tell all I know concerning the Yezidees.
I mean to live. Do you understand? You know what you have done to me
and mine. I come back to my own country alone, without any living
kin, poor, homeless, friendless,—and, perhaps, damned. I intend,
nevertheless, to survive. I shall not relax my clutch on bodily
existence whatever the Yezidees may pretend to have done to my soul.
I am determined to live in the body, anyway."He
nodded gravely.She
said: "Out at sea, over the fog, I saw the sign of Yu-lao in
fire floating in the day-sky. I saw his spectral moon rise and vanish
in mid-heaven. I understood. But——" And here she suddenly
showed an edge of teeth under the full scarlet upper lip: "Keep
your signs and your shrouds to yourself, dog of a
Yezidee!—toad!—tortoise-egg!—he-goat with three legs! Keep your
threats and your messages to yourself! Keep your accursed magic to
yourself! Do you think to frighten me with your sorcery by showing me
the Moons of Yu-lao?—by opening a bolted door? I know more of such
magic than do you, Sanang—Death Adder of Alamout!"Suddenly
she laughed aloud at him—laughed insultingly in his expressionless
face:"I
saw you and Gutchlug Khan and your cowardly Tchortchas in
red-lacquered jackets slink out of the Temple of Erlik where the
bronze gong thundered and a cloud settled down raining little yellow
snakes all over the marble steps—all over you, Prince Sanang! You
were afraid,
my Tougtchi!—you and Gutchlug and your red Tchortchas with their
halberds all dripping with human entrails! And I saw you mount and
gallop off into the woods while in the depths of the magic cloud
which rained little yellow snakes all around you, we temple girls
laughed and mocked at you—at you and your cowardly Tchortcha
horsemen."A
slight tinge of pink came into the young man's pale face. Tressa
Norne stepped nearer, her levelled pistol resting on her hip."Why
did you not complain of us to your Master, the Old Man of the
Mountain?" she asked jeeringly. "And where, also, was your
Yezidee magic when it rained little snakes?—What frightened you
away—who had boldly come to seize a temple girl—you who had
screwed up your courage sufficiently to defy Erlik in his very shrine
and snatch from his temple a young thing whose naked body wrapped in
gold was worth the chance of death to you?"The
young man's top-hat dropped to the floor. He bent over to pick it up.
His face was quite expressionless, quite colourless, now."I
went on no such errand," he said with an effort. "I went
with a thousand prayers on scarlet paper made in——""A
lie, Yezidee! You came to seize
me!"He
turned still paler. "By Abu, Omar, Otman, and Ali, it is not
true!""You
lie!—by the Lion of God, Hassini!"She
stepped closer. "And I'll tell you another thing you fear—you
Yezidee of Alamout—you robber of Yian—you sorcerer of Sabbah
Khan, and chief of his sect of Assassins! You fear this native land
of mine, America; and its laws and customs, and its clear, clean
sunshine; and its cities and people; and its police! Take that
message back. We Americans fear nobody save the true
God!—nobody—neither Yezidee nor Hassani nor Russ nor German nor
that sexless monster born of hell and called the Bolshevik!""Tokhta!"
he cried sharply."Damn
you!" retorted the girl; "get out of my room! Get out of my
sight! Get out of my path! Get out of my life! Take that to your
Master of Mount Alamout! I do what I please; I go where I please; I
live as I please. And if I please,
I turn against him!""In
that event," he said hoarsely, "there lies your
winding-sheet on the floor at your feet! Take up your shroud; and
make Erlik seize you!""Sanang,"
she said very seriously."I
hear you, Keuke-Mongol.""Listen
attentively. I wish to live. I have had enough of death in life. I
desire to remain a living, breathing thing—even if it be true—as
you Yezidees tell me, that you have caught my soul in a net and that
your sorcerers really control its destiny."But
damned or not, I passionately desire to live. And I am coward enough
to hold my peace for the sake of living. So—I remain silent. I have
no stomach to defy the Yezidees; because, if I do, sooner or later I
shall be killed. I know it. I have no desire to die for others—to
perish for the sake of the common good. I am young. I have suffered
too much; I am determined to live—and let my soul take its chances
between God and Erlik."She
came close to him, looked curiously into his pale face."I
laughed at you out of the temple cloud," she said. "I know
how to open bolted doors as well as you do. And I know
other things. And
if you ever again come to me in this life I shall first torture you,
then slay you. Then I shall tell all!... and unroll my shroud.""I
keep your word of promise until you break it," he interrupted
hastily. "Yarlig! It is decreed!" And then he slowly turned
as though to glance over his shoulder at the locked and bolted door."Permit
me to open it for you, Prince Sanang," said the girl scornfully.
And she gazed steadily at the door.Presently,
all by itself, the key turned in the lock, the bolt slid back, the
door gently opened.Toward
it, white as a corpse, his overcoat on his left arm, his stick and
top-hat in the other hand, crept the young man in his faultless
evening garb.Then,
as he reached the threshold, he suddenly sprang aside. A small yellow
snake lay coiled there on the door sill. For a full throbbing minute
the young man stared at the yellow reptile in unfeigned horror. Then,
very cautiously, he moved his fascinated eyes sideways and gazed in
silence at Tressa Norne.The
girl laughed."Sorceress!"
he burst out hoarsely. "Take that accursed thing from my path!""What
thing, Sanang?" At that his dark, frightened eyes stole toward
the threshold again, seeking the little snake. But there was no snake
there. And when he was certain of this he went, twitching and
trembling all over.Behind
him the door closed softly, locking and bolting itself.And
behind the bolted door in the brightly lighted bedroom Tressa Norne
fell on both knees, her pistol still clutched in her right hand,
calling passionately upon Christ to forgive her for the dreadful
ability she had dared to use, and begging Him to save her body from
death and her soul from the snare of the Yezidee.
CHAPTER II
THE
YELLOW SNAKEWhen
the young man named Sanang left the bed-chamber of Tressa Norne he
turned to the right in the carpeted corridor outside and hurried
toward the hotel elevator. But he did not ring for the lift; instead
he took the spiral iron stairway which circled it, and mounted
hastily to the floor above.Here
was his own apartment and he entered it with a key bearing the hotel
tag. A dusky-skinned powerful old man wearing a grizzled beard and a
greasy broadcloth coat of old-fashioned cut known to provincials as a
"Prince Albert" looked up from where he was seated
cross-legged upon the sofa, sharpening a curved knife on a whetstone."Gutchlug,"
stammered Sanang, "I am afraid of her! What happened two years
ago at the temple happened again a moment since, there in her very
bedroom! She made a yellow death-adder out of nothing and placed it
upon the threshold, and mocked me with laughter. May Thirty Thousand
Calamities overtake her! May Erlik seize her! May her eyes rot out
and her limbs fester! May the seven score and three principal
devils——""You
chatter like a temple ape," said Gutchlug tranquilly. "Does
Keuke Mongol die or live? That alone interests me.""Gutchlug,"
faltered the young man, "thou knowest that m-my heart is
inclined to mercy toward this young Yezidee——""I
know that it is inclined to lust," said the other bluntly.Sanang's
pale face flamed."Listen,"
he said. "If I had not loved her better than life had I dared go
that day to the temple to take her for my own?""You
loved life better," said Gutchlug. "You fled when it rained
snakes on the temple steps—you and your Tchortcha horsemen! Kai! I
also ran. But I gave every soldier thirty blows with a stick before I
slept that night. And you should have had your thirty, also,
conforming to the Yarlig, my Tougtchi."Sanang,
still holding his hat and cane and carrying his overcoat over his
left arm, looked down at the heavy, brutal features of Gutchlug
Khan—at the cruel mouth with its crooked smile under the grizzled
beard; at the huge hands—the powerful hands of a murderer—now
deftly honing to a razor-edge the Kalmuck knife held so firmly yet
lightly in his great blunt fingers."Listen
attentively, Prince Sanang," growled Gutchlug, pausing in his
monotonous task to test the blade's edge on his thumb—"Does
the Yezidee Keuke Mongol live? Yes or no?"Sanang
hesitated, moistened his pallid lips. "She dares not betray us.""By
what pledge?""Fear.""That
is no pledge. You also were afraid, yet you went to the temple!""She
has listened to the Yarlig. She has looked upon her shroud. She has
admitted that she desires to live. Therein lies her pledge to us.""And
she placed a yellow snake at your feet!" sneered Gutchlug.
"Prince Sanang, tell me, what man or what devil in all the
chronicles of the past has ever tamed a Snow-Leopard?" And he
continued to hone his yataghan."Gutchlug——""No,
she dies," said the other tranquilly."Not
yet!""When,
then?""Gutchlug,
thou knowest me. Hear my pledge! At her first gesture toward
treachery—her first thought of betrayal—I myself will end it
all.""You
promise to slay this young snow-leopardess?""By
the four companions, I swear to kill her with my own hands!"Gutchlug
sneered. "Kill her—yes—with the kiss that has burned thy
lips to ashes for all these months. I know thee, Sanang. Leave her to
me. Dead she will no longer trouble thee.""Gutchlug!""I
hear, Prince Sanang.""Strike
when I nod. Not until then.""I
hear, Tougtchi. I understand thee, my Banneret. I whet my knife.
Kai!"Sanang
looked at him, put on his top-hat and overcoat, pulled on a pair of
white evening gloves."I
go forth," he said more pleasantly."I
remain here to talk to my seven ancestors and sharpen my knife,"
remarked Gutchlug."When
the white world and the yellow world and the brown world and the
black world finally fall before the Hassanis," said Sanang with
a quick smile, "I shall bring thee to her. Gutchlug—once—before
she is veiled, thou shalt behold what is lovelier than Eve."The
other stolidly whetted his knife.Sanang
pulled out a gold cigarette case, lighted a cigarette with an air."I
go among Germans," he volunteered amiably. "The huns swam
across two oceans, but, like the unclean swine, it is their own
throats they cut when they swim! Well, there is only one God. And not
very many angels. Erlik is greater. And there are many million devils
to do his bidding. Adieu. There is rice and there is koumiss in the
frozen closet. When I return you shall have been asleep for hours."When
Sanang left the hotel one of two young men seated in the hotel lobby
got up and strolled out after him.A
few minutes later the other man went to the elevator, ascended to the
fourth floor, and entered an apartment next to the one occupied by
Sanang.There
was another man there, lying on the lounge and smoking a cigar.
Without a word, they both went leisurely about the matter of
disrobing for the night.When
the shorter man who had been in the apartment when the other entered,
and who was dark and curly-headed, had attired himself in pyjamas, he
sat down on one of the twin beds to enjoy his cigar to the bitter
end."Has
Sanang gone out?" he inquired in a low voice."Yes.
Benton went after him."The
other man nodded. "Cleves," he said, "I guess it looks
as though this Norne girl is in it, too.""What
happened?""As
soon as she arrived, Sanang made straight for her apartment. He
remained inside for half an hour. Then he came out in a hurry and
went to his own rooms, where that surly servant of his squats all
day, shining up his arsenal, and drinking koumiss.""Did
you get their conversation?""I've
got a record of the gibberish. It requires an interpreter, of
course.""I
suppose so. I'll take the records east with me to-morrow, and by the
same token I'd better notify New York that I'm leaving."He
went, half-undressed, to the telephone, got the telegraph office, and
sent the following message:"Recklow,
New York:"Leaving
to-morrow for N. Y. with samples. Retain expert in Oriental fabrics."Victor
Cleves.""Report
for me, too," said the dark young man, who was still enjoying
his cigar on his pillows.So
Cleves sent another telegram, directed also to"Recklow,
New York:"Benton
and I are watching the market. Chinese importations fluctuate. Recent
consignment per
Nan-yang Maru will
be carefully inspected and details forwarded."Alek
Selden."In
the next room Gutchlug could hear the voice of Cleves at the
telephone, but he merely shrugged his heavy shoulders in contempt.
For he had other things to do beside eavesdropping.Also,
for the last hour—in fact, ever since Sanang's departure—something
had been happening to him—something that happens to a Hassani only
once in a lifetime. And now this unique thing had happened to him—to
him, Gutchlug Khan—to him before whose Khiounnou ancestors
eighty-one thousand nations had bowed the knee.It
had come to him at last, this dread thing, unheralded, totally
unexpected, a few minutes after Sanang had departed.And
he suddenly knew he was going to die.And,
when, presently, he comprehended it, he bent his grizzled head and
listened seriously. And, after a little silence, he heard his soul
bidding him farewell.So
the chatter of white men at a telephone in the next apartment had no
longer any significance for him. Whether or not they had been spying
on him; whether they were plotting, made no difference to him now.He
tested his knife's edge with his thumb and listened gravely to his
soul bidding him farewell.But,
for a Yezidee, there was still a little detail to attend to before
his soul departed;—two matters to regulate. One was to select his
shroud. The other was to cut the white throat of this young
snow-leopardess called Keuke Mongol, the Yezidee temple girl.And
he could steal down to her bedroom and finish that matter in five
minutes.But
first he must choose his shroud, as is the custom of the Yezidee.That
office, however, was quickly accomplished in a country where fine
white sheets of linen are to be found on every hotel bed.So,
on his way to the door, his naked knife in his right hand, he paused
to fumble under the bed-covers and draw out a white linen sheet.Something
hurt his hand like a needle. He moved it, felt the thing squirm under
his fingers and pierce his palm again and again. With a shriek, he
tore the bedclothes from the bed.A
little yellow snake lay coiled there.He
got as far as the telephone, but could not use it. And there he fell
heavily, shaking the room and dragging the instrument down with him.There
was some excitement. Cleves and Selden in their bathrobes went in to
look at the body. The hotel physician diagnosed it as heart-trouble.
Or, possibly, poison. Some gazed significantly at the naked knife
still clutched in the dead man's hands.Around
the wrist of the other hand was twisted a pliable gold bracelet
representing a little snake. It had real emeralds for eyes.It
had not been there when Gutchlug died.But
nobody except Sanang could know that. And later when Sanang came back
and found Gutchlug very dead on the bed and a policeman sitting
outside, he offered no information concerning the new bracelet shaped
like a snake with real emeralds for eyes, which adorned the dead
man's left wrist.Toward
evening, however, after an autopsy had confirmed the house
physician's diagnosis that heart-disease had finished Gutchlug,
Sanang mustered enough courage to go to the desk in the lobby and
send up his card to Miss Norne.It
appeared, however, that Miss Norne had left for Chicago about noon.
CHAPTER III
GREY
MAGIC
To Victor Cleves came the
following telegram in code:
"Washington"April 14th, 1919."
"Investigation ordered by the State Department as the
result of frequent mention in despatches of Chinese troops
operating with the Russian Bolsheviki forces has disclosed that the
Bolsheviki are actually raising a Chinese division of 30,000 men
recruited in Central Asia. This division has been guilty of the
greatest cruelties. A strange rumour prevails among the Allied
forces at Archangel that this Chinese division is led by Yezidee
and Hassani officers belonging to the sect of devil-worshipers and
that they employ black arts and magic in battle.
"From
information so far gathered by the several branches of the United
States Secret Service operating throughout the world, it appears
possible that the various revolutionary forces of disorder, in
Europe and Asia, which now are violently threatening the peace and
security, of all established civilisation on earth, may have had a
common origin. This origin, it is now suspected, may date back to a
very remote epoch; the wide-spread forces of violence and merciless
destruction may have had their beginning among some ancient and
predatory race whose existence was maintained solely by robbery and
murder.
"Anarchists,
terrorists, Bolshevists, Reds of all shades and degrees, are now
believed to represent in modern times what perhaps once was a tribe
of Assassins—a sect whose religion was founded upon a common
predilection for crimes of violence.
"On this
theory then, for the present, the United States Government will
proceed with this investigation of Bolshevism; and the Secret
Service will continue to pay particular attention to all Orientals
in the United States and other countries. You personally are
formally instructed to keep in touch with XLY-371 (Alek Selden) and
ZB-303 (James Benton), and to employ every possible means to become
friendly with the girl Tressa Norne, win her confidence, and, if
possible, enlist her actively in the Government Service as your
particular aid and comrade.
"It is
equally important that the movements of the Oriental, called
Sanang, be carefully observed in order to discover the identity and
whereabouts of his companions. However, until further instructions
he is not to be taken into custody. M. H. 2479.
"(Signed)"(John Recklow.)"
The long despatch from John
Recklow made Cleves's duty plain enough.
For months, now, Selden and
Benton had been watching Tressa Norne. And they had learned
practically nothing about her.
And now the girl had come
within Cleves's sphere of operation. She had been in New York for
two weeks. Telegrams from Benton in Chicago, and from Selden in
Buffalo, had prepared him for her arrival.
He had his men watching her
boarding-house on West Twenty-eighth Street, men to follow her, men
to keep their eyes on her at the theatre, where every evening, at
10:45, herentr' actewas
staged. He knew where to get her. But he, himself, had been on the
watch for the man Sanang; and had failed to find the slightest
trace of him in New York, although warned that he had
arrived.
So, for that evening, he left
the hunt for Sanang to others, put on his evening clothes, and
dined with fashionable friends at the Patroons' Club, who never for
an instant suspected that young Victor Cleves was in the Service of
the United States Government. About half-past nine he strolled
around to the theatre, desiring to miss as much as possible of the
popular show without being too late to see the curious
littleentr' actein which this
girl, Tressa Norne, appeared alone.
He had secured an aisle seat
near the stage at an outrageous price; the main show was still
thundering and fizzing and glittering as he entered the theatre; so
he stood in the rear behind the orchestra until the descending
curtain extinguished the outrageous glare and din.
Then he went down the aisle,
and as he seated himself Tressa Norne stepped from the wings and
stood before the lowered curtain facing an expectant but oddly
undemonstrative audience.
The girl worked rapidly,
seriously, and in silence. She seemed a mere child there behind the
footlights, not more than sixteen anyway—her winsome eyes and
wistful lips unspoiled by the world's wisdom.
Yet once or twice the mouth
drooped for a second and the winning eyes darkened to a remoter
blue—the brooding iris hue of far horizons.
She wore the characteristic
tabard of stiff golden tissue and the gold pagoda-shaped headpiece
of a Yezidee temple girl. Her flat, slipper-shaped foot-gear was of
stiff gold, too, and curled upward at the toes.
All this accentuated her
apparent youth. For in face and throat no firmer contours had as
yet modified the soft fullness of immaturity; her limbs were boyish
and frail, and her bosom more undecided still, so that the
embroidered breadth of gold fell flat and straight from her chest
to a few inches above the ankles.
She seemed to have no stock of
paraphernalia with which to aid the performance; no assistant, no
orchestral diversion, nor did she serve herself with any magician's
patter. She did her work close to the footlights.
Behind her loomed a black
curtain; the strip of stage in front was bare even of carpet; the
orchestra remained mute.
But when she needed anything—a
little table, for example—well, it was suddenly there where she
required it—a tripod, for instance, evidently fitted to hold the
big iridescent bubble of glass in which swarmed little tropical
fishes—and which arrived neatly from nowhere. She merely placed her
hands before her as though ready to support something weighty which
she expected and—suddenly, the huge crystal bubble was visible,
resting between her hands. And when she tired of holding it, she
set it upon the empty air and let go of it; and instead of crashing
to the stage with its finny rainbow swarm of swimmers, out of thin
air appeared a tripod to support it.
Applause followed, not very
enthusiastic, for the sort of audience which sustains the shows of
which her performance was merely anentr'
acteis an audience responsive only to the
obvious.
Nobody ever before had seen
that sort of magic in America. People scarcely knew whether or not
they quite liked it. The lightning of innovation stupefies the
dull; ignorance is always suspicious of innovation—always afraid to
put itself on record until its mind is made up by somebody
else.
So in this typical New York
audience approbation was cautious, but every fascinated eye
remained focused on this young girl who continued to do incredible
things, which seemed to resemble "putting something over" on them;
a thing which no uneducated American conglomeration ever quite
forgives.
The girl's silence, too,
perplexed them; they were accustomed to gabble, to noise, to jazz,
vocal and instrumental, to that incessant metropolitan clamour
which fills every second with sound in a city whose only
distinction is its din. Stage, press, art, letters, social
existence unless noisy mean nothing in Gotham; reticence, leisure,
repose are the three lost arts. The megaphone is the city's symbol;
its chiefest crime, silence.
The girl having finished with
the big glass bubble full of tiny fish, picked it up and tossed it
aside. For a moment it apparently floated there in space like a
soap-bubble. Changing rainbow tints waxed and waned on the surface,
growing deeper and more gorgeous until the floating globe glowed
scarlet, then suddenly burst into flame and vanished. And only a
strange, sweet perfume lingered in the air.
But she gave her perplexed
audience no time to wonder; she had seated herself on the stage and
was already swiftly busy unfolding a white veil with which she
presently covered herself, draping it over her like a
tent.
The veil seemed to be
translucent; she was apparently visible seated beneath it. But the
veil turned into smoke, rising into the air in a thin white cloud;
and there, where she had been seated, was a statue of white stone
the image of herself!—in all the frail springtide of early
adolescence—a white statue, cold, opaque, exquisite in its
sculptured immobility.
There came, the next moment, a
sound of distant thunder; flashes lighted the blank curtain; and
suddenly a vein of lightning and a sharper peal shattered the
statue to fragments.
