CHAPTER VIIIEN OBSERVATIONThe incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two enormous eyes.The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Light[pg 93]house; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild boar roamed and rooted unmolested?[pg 94]And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the coasts.Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to[pg 95]verify or discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman, however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.[pg 96]He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be reasonable as well as original.It had been a stiff walk across country—fifteen miles, as against thirty odd around by road—but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield, crossing the marshes, skirtingétangs, a solitary figure in the waste, easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.[pg 97]CHAPTER IXL'OMBREAulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns, startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past[pg 98]timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds—perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding him right of way.[pg 99]After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of stone stood, and where there should have been gates.But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become indistinguishable.Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of massive oak.The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in his autumn migration.The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the house—a low,[pg 100]weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest.An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap."Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?""I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force.""May I see your credentials, Captain Nee[pg 101]land?" She had descended the single step of crumbling stone."Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerningyouridentity?"There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made her skin seem so white."What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice."Only one word, Madame."She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.After she had examined them she handed them back to him."Will you come in, Captain Neeland—or, perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the bridge—in order to lose no time—because I wish you to see for yourself——"She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks: "It may seem[pg 102]absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times—what I am going to say to you—concerning L'Ombre——"She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a bench under the parapet of the little bridge."Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not—unless—except for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition out of my head.... Still, living in Finistère—here in this house"—she flushed again—"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too courteous—... It required some courage for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country—to risk ridicule—of course I do not hesitate."She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as though reassured:"I shall have to tell you a little about[pg 103]myself first—so that you may understand better.""Please," he said gravely."Then—my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my memory—only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes began during the Vendée.... But that is of no interest ... except that—through coincidence, of course—every time a new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still mystified, but interested."Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked."I thought it resembled a fish——"[pg 104]"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?""Yes.""Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'.""Yes.""Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?""No; I did not know that.""There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything ...everything....""I am interested," he assured her pleasantly."Then—it is a legend—perhaps a superstition in our family—that any misfortune to us—and to France—is always preceded by two invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the[pg 105]waters of our moat—" She turned her head slowly and looked down over the parapet of the bridge.—"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong—all striking the same hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendée the clocks persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong."And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland——""I am intensely interested," he repeated,[pg 106]watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed again."It is only to explain—perhaps to justify myself for writing—for asking that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days——""I understand, Countess.""Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself—for my own fears—my personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought—if they sent an officer who would be kind enough to understand——""I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?""Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon.""And—the clocks?""For a week they have been all wrong.""What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously."Five.""No matter where the hands point?""No matter. I have tried to regulate them.[pg 107]I have done everything I could do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I have"—a pale smile touched her lips—"I have been a little wakeful—perhaps a trifle uneasy—on my country's account. You understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the race whose name she bore.The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly believed what she told him.But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it.[pg 108]And this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood of every Breton ever born.But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of great nervous tension in France—of heart-racking suspense——"She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur.""I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a natural explanation concerning these matters.""I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no explanation.""Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?""There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the same time and in the same manner?"He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly.[pg 109]"I'll investigate, if you will permit me.""Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What could explain its presence in the moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its range. My father has often said that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has been seen in Brittany.""From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked, smiling."From living springs in the bottom.""No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere—in the Pyrenees, perhaps—" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as far-fetched as the water.Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He[pg 110]drew out his watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust and regulate them would be a simple matter.She sat very still beside him on the stone coping—her dark eyes wandered toward the forest—wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied—the visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts: "Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy airships—or, undersea boats?"The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been happening in the AulnesÉtang.""What?""I don't know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright—clouds of them—and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour.""A poacher?"[pg 111]"I know of none remaining here in Finistère.""Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?""Only the wild fowl whirling above theétang.""You have heard nothing—from the clouds?""Only thevanneauxcomplaining and the wild curlew answering.""Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent—a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid element through which it loomed.L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.[pg 112]Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped—but not yet quite realizing it.In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle and suspended threat.He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?""Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer be sent here? Tell me truthfully, areyouannoyed?""No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense of depression which was creeping over him.He looked down again at the grey wraith[pg 113]in the water, then, as they turned and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:"Somethingis wrong somewhere in Finistère. That is evident to me. There have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they come—rumours of things half seen, half heard—glimpses of enemy aircraft, sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the light of the military intelligence which we possess."But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they come thicker and faster day by day. But this—" He hesitated, then smiled—"this seems rather different——""I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule——""Countess——""You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become nervous—imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the sadness of the past year—the strangeness of it, and——"[pg 114]She sighed unconsciously."It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said."Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice."Yes.... Aulnes Wood is—too remote for them to send our wounded here for their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest."So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the fern-growncarrefour: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window there—all day long, day after day—and when one is young and when there is nobody—nothing to look at except the curlew flying—nothing to hear except thevanneaux, and the clocks striking the hour——"[pg 115]Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and smiled, and her tone grew firm again:"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my heart is quite undaunted.""You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of France.""Yes ... therefore there could be no fear—no doubt of God.... Affairs go well with France, Monsieur?—may I ask without military impropriety?""France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory and light.""Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur."He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see light, Madame—and I also shall see it—perhaps——"She looked up at the young man, met his[pg 116]eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?—L'Étang aux Vanneaux?""In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?""It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds—like a man without a face—and only two great eyes—" She forced a pale smile. "Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen dress that way.... I wondered——"He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache."One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions—a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer."It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usualAlbatrosstype, with[pg 117]a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew."And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile.""Has such an one been seen in Brittany?""Such a machine has been reported—many, many times—as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us—a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source—from Sweden—that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous.Her chair and workbasket stood by a lat[pg 118]ticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock—a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial.When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance."Ican't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him[pg 119]through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism—that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts; of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had turned to mould—where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where only[pg 120]the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was slowly yielding—under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth and dust and rust.[pg 121]CHAPTER XTHE GHOULSThey dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne served them—old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and herchaussonsbroidered with the rose.Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver—garrulous, deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that second infancy which comes before the night."Ouidame!It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes—alas!—in the Woods and the House of Aulnes——""The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.[pg 122]"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur—and the world was young, too,mon Capitaine—hélas!—but the Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is older,beau jeune homme—only the sea is older—the sea which always was and will be.""Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "—to France!—I have the honour—" She touched her glass to his and they saluted France with the ancient wine of France—a sip, a faint smile, and silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment."This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking. But—but there will be sun enough another year.""Yes.""B'en oui!The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods of Aulnes.Non pas.There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with[pg 123]Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments all——""She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear."In shining robes of grace—oui-da!—the martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who tell you,beau jeune homme—I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed Lady——""She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes—some graceful shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles—the exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and washed it out in blood."I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh nap[pg 124]kins and set two crystal bowls beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat."Ho fois!" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes; they never change—they never change.... The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the trees.""Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair—the Loup-Garou!—O Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content, so full of faith in months——"A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling, swinging wide, drifting against[pg 125]the dying light of day, southward toward the sea."There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds."Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly."Yes. I will go with you——""No.""Why?""No. Show me the path."His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the path?""Yes.... May I not go?""No—please.""Is there danger?""No.... I don't know if there is any danger."[pg 126]"Will you be cautious, then?"He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.At five in the morning every clock struck five.She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles, listening, when the door below burst open and there[pg 127]came the trampling rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall——A loud voice cried:—"Because you are armed and not in uniform!—you British swine!"—And the pistol shots crashed through the house.On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail. Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed window—where they had sat together—he and she——Spectres were flitting to and fro—grey shapes without faces—things with eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking brain:"You there on the stairs!—do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"She looked down at the dead man."Yes," she said.Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring darkness she fell.After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man's. And moved no more.[pg 128]In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes which had no faces, only eyes.[pg 129]CHAPTER XITHE SEED OF DEATHIt was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.When the raid into Finistère ended, and the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful châtelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And perhaps hers desired it, too.Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New York.He had aged ten years in as many months.Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail's pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the younger man.[pg 130]"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally."You don't look very fit, Doctor.""No.... I'mgoing West.""You mean it?""Yes.""Why do you think that you are—going West?""There's a thing over there, born of gas. It's a living thing, animal or vegetable. I don't know which. It's only recently been recognized. We call it the 'Seed of Death.'"Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named. It is always fatal. A man may live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if that germ is inhaled, death is certain."After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension—" And did not finish the sentence.Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said with pleasant impersonality.After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"[pg 131]"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course. I'm feeling rottener every day."He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know how to keep alive. It's odd, isn't it? I don't wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want to see how the local elections turn out in New York.""What!""Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure to win. I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to live to see Tammany a dead cock in the pit!"Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again, said:"I'd like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble.""After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase, every degree—on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched[pg 132]the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining, gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat of a summer day in town.On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under the electric lights—the nine—and—seventy sweating tribes.For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the gilded grilles and still façades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in quest of God knows what—of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their unrest."There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail—"also her inevitable shadow, tyranny.""We need more light; that's all," said Gray.[pg 133]"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible.""The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that there issomelight. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."He lighted a cigar."As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower calledAconitum. It is also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on; "Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for it. It flourishes in the shade—like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing off our local tyrants—slowly, al[pg 134]mostimperceptiblybut inexorably, killing 'em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive—tyrants of every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics, tyrants of religion—great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants, all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western sun of ours——"He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind—a delusion, a ruling passion—strong even in death.... The odd part of it is that a tyrant never knows he's one.... He invariably mistakes himself for a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen.... Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden——""Go on with your story," said Gray.[pg 135]
CHAPTER VIIIEN OBSERVATIONThe incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two enormous eyes.The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Light[pg 93]house; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild boar roamed and rooted unmolested?[pg 94]And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the coasts.Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to[pg 95]verify or discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman, however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.[pg 96]He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be reasonable as well as original.It had been a stiff walk across country—fifteen miles, as against thirty odd around by road—but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield, crossing the marshes, skirtingétangs, a solitary figure in the waste, easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.[pg 97]CHAPTER IXL'OMBREAulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns, startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past[pg 98]timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds—perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding him right of way.[pg 99]After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of stone stood, and where there should have been gates.But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become indistinguishable.Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of massive oak.The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in his autumn migration.The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the house—a low,[pg 100]weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest.An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap."Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?""I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force.""May I see your credentials, Captain Nee[pg 101]land?" She had descended the single step of crumbling stone."Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerningyouridentity?"There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made her skin seem so white."What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice."Only one word, Madame."She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.After she had examined them she handed them back to him."Will you come in, Captain Neeland—or, perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the bridge—in order to lose no time—because I wish you to see for yourself——"She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks: "It may seem[pg 102]absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times—what I am going to say to you—concerning L'Ombre——"She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a bench under the parapet of the little bridge."Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not—unless—except for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition out of my head.... Still, living in Finistère—here in this house"—she flushed again—"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too courteous—... It required some courage for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country—to risk ridicule—of course I do not hesitate."She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as though reassured:"I shall have to tell you a little about[pg 103]myself first—so that you may understand better.""Please," he said gravely."Then—my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my memory—only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes began during the Vendée.... But that is of no interest ... except that—through coincidence, of course—every time a new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still mystified, but interested."Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked."I thought it resembled a fish——"[pg 104]"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?""Yes.""Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'.""Yes.""Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?""No; I did not know that.""There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything ...everything....""I am interested," he assured her pleasantly."Then—it is a legend—perhaps a superstition in our family—that any misfortune to us—and to France—is always preceded by two invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the[pg 105]waters of our moat—" She turned her head slowly and looked down over the parapet of the bridge.—"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong—all striking the same hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendée the clocks persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong."And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland——""I am intensely interested," he repeated,[pg 106]watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed again."It is only to explain—perhaps to justify myself for writing—for asking that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days——""I understand, Countess.""Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself—for my own fears—my personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought—if they sent an officer who would be kind enough to understand——""I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?""Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon.""And—the clocks?""For a week they have been all wrong.""What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously."Five.""No matter where the hands point?""No matter. I have tried to regulate them.[pg 107]I have done everything I could do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I have"—a pale smile touched her lips—"I have been a little wakeful—perhaps a trifle uneasy—on my country's account. You understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the race whose name she bore.The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly believed what she told him.But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it.[pg 108]And this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood of every Breton ever born.But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of great nervous tension in France—of heart-racking suspense——"She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur.""I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a natural explanation concerning these matters.""I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no explanation.""Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?""There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the same time and in the same manner?"He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly.[pg 109]"I'll investigate, if you will permit me.""Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What could explain its presence in the moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its range. My father has often said that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has been seen in Brittany.""From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked, smiling."From living springs in the bottom.""No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere—in the Pyrenees, perhaps—" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as far-fetched as the water.Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He[pg 110]drew out his watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust and regulate them would be a simple matter.She sat very still beside him on the stone coping—her dark eyes wandered toward the forest—wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied—the visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts: "Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy airships—or, undersea boats?"The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been happening in the AulnesÉtang.""What?""I don't know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright—clouds of them—and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour.""A poacher?"[pg 111]"I know of none remaining here in Finistère.""Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?""Only the wild fowl whirling above theétang.""You have heard nothing—from the clouds?""Only thevanneauxcomplaining and the wild curlew answering.""Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent—a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid element through which it loomed.L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.[pg 112]Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped—but not yet quite realizing it.In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle and suspended threat.He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?""Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer be sent here? Tell me truthfully, areyouannoyed?""No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense of depression which was creeping over him.He looked down again at the grey wraith[pg 113]in the water, then, as they turned and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:"Somethingis wrong somewhere in Finistère. That is evident to me. There have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they come—rumours of things half seen, half heard—glimpses of enemy aircraft, sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the light of the military intelligence which we possess."But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they come thicker and faster day by day. But this—" He hesitated, then smiled—"this seems rather different——""I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule——""Countess——""You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become nervous—imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the sadness of the past year—the strangeness of it, and——"[pg 114]She sighed unconsciously."It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said."Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice."Yes.... Aulnes Wood is—too remote for them to send our wounded here for their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest."So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the fern-growncarrefour: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window there—all day long, day after day—and when one is young and when there is nobody—nothing to look at except the curlew flying—nothing to hear except thevanneaux, and the clocks striking the hour——"[pg 115]Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and smiled, and her tone grew firm again:"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my heart is quite undaunted.""You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of France.""Yes ... therefore there could be no fear—no doubt of God.... Affairs go well with France, Monsieur?—may I ask without military impropriety?""France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory and light.""Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur."He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see light, Madame—and I also shall see it—perhaps——"She looked up at the young man, met his[pg 116]eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?—L'Étang aux Vanneaux?""In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?""It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds—like a man without a face—and only two great eyes—" She forced a pale smile. "Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen dress that way.... I wondered——"He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache."One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions—a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer."It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usualAlbatrosstype, with[pg 117]a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew."And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile.""Has such an one been seen in Brittany?""Such a machine has been reported—many, many times—as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us—a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source—from Sweden—that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous.Her chair and workbasket stood by a lat[pg 118]ticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock—a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial.When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance."Ican't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him[pg 119]through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism—that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts; of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had turned to mould—where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where only[pg 120]the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was slowly yielding—under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth and dust and rust.[pg 121]CHAPTER XTHE GHOULSThey dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne served them—old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and herchaussonsbroidered with the rose.Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver—garrulous, deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that second infancy which comes before the night."Ouidame!It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes—alas!—in the Woods and the House of Aulnes——""The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.[pg 122]"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur—and the world was young, too,mon Capitaine—hélas!—but the Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is older,beau jeune homme—only the sea is older—the sea which always was and will be.""Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "—to France!—I have the honour—" She touched her glass to his and they saluted France with the ancient wine of France—a sip, a faint smile, and silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment."This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking. But—but there will be sun enough another year.""Yes.""B'en oui!The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods of Aulnes.Non pas.There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with[pg 123]Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments all——""She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear."In shining robes of grace—oui-da!—the martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who tell you,beau jeune homme—I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed Lady——""She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes—some graceful shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles—the exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and washed it out in blood."I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh nap[pg 124]kins and set two crystal bowls beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat."Ho fois!" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes; they never change—they never change.... The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the trees.""Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair—the Loup-Garou!—O Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content, so full of faith in months——"A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling, swinging wide, drifting against[pg 125]the dying light of day, southward toward the sea."There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds."Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly."Yes. I will go with you——""No.""Why?""No. Show me the path."His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the path?""Yes.... May I not go?""No—please.""Is there danger?""No.... I don't know if there is any danger."[pg 126]"Will you be cautious, then?"He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.At five in the morning every clock struck five.She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles, listening, when the door below burst open and there[pg 127]came the trampling rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall——A loud voice cried:—"Because you are armed and not in uniform!—you British swine!"—And the pistol shots crashed through the house.On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail. Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed window—where they had sat together—he and she——Spectres were flitting to and fro—grey shapes without faces—things with eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking brain:"You there on the stairs!—do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"She looked down at the dead man."Yes," she said.Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring darkness she fell.After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man's. And moved no more.[pg 128]In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes which had no faces, only eyes.[pg 129]CHAPTER XITHE SEED OF DEATHIt was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.When the raid into Finistère ended, and the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful châtelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And perhaps hers desired it, too.Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New York.He had aged ten years in as many months.Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail's pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the younger man.[pg 130]"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally."You don't look very fit, Doctor.""No.... I'mgoing West.""You mean it?""Yes.""Why do you think that you are—going West?""There's a thing over there, born of gas. It's a living thing, animal or vegetable. I don't know which. It's only recently been recognized. We call it the 'Seed of Death.'"Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named. It is always fatal. A man may live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if that germ is inhaled, death is certain."After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension—" And did not finish the sentence.Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said with pleasant impersonality.After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"[pg 131]"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course. I'm feeling rottener every day."He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know how to keep alive. It's odd, isn't it? I don't wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want to see how the local elections turn out in New York.""What!""Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure to win. I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to live to see Tammany a dead cock in the pit!"Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again, said:"I'd like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble.""After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase, every degree—on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched[pg 132]the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining, gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat of a summer day in town.On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under the electric lights—the nine—and—seventy sweating tribes.For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the gilded grilles and still façades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in quest of God knows what—of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their unrest."There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail—"also her inevitable shadow, tyranny.""We need more light; that's all," said Gray.[pg 133]"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible.""The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that there issomelight. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."He lighted a cigar."As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower calledAconitum. It is also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on; "Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for it. It flourishes in the shade—like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing off our local tyrants—slowly, al[pg 134]mostimperceptiblybut inexorably, killing 'em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive—tyrants of every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics, tyrants of religion—great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants, all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western sun of ours——"He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind—a delusion, a ruling passion—strong even in death.... The odd part of it is that a tyrant never knows he's one.... He invariably mistakes himself for a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen.... Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden——""Go on with your story," said Gray.[pg 135]
CHAPTER VIIIEN OBSERVATIONThe incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two enormous eyes.The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Light[pg 93]house; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild boar roamed and rooted unmolested?[pg 94]And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the coasts.Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to[pg 95]verify or discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman, however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.[pg 96]He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be reasonable as well as original.It had been a stiff walk across country—fifteen miles, as against thirty odd around by road—but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield, crossing the marshes, skirtingétangs, a solitary figure in the waste, easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.
The incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.
Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two enormous eyes.
The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes Light[pg 93]house; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.
That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel, at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.
That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.
But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck, and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild boar roamed and rooted unmolested?
And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the enemy's flag had vanished from the seas?
Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the coasts.
Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.
And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion, Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to[pg 95]verify or discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.
The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.
Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman, however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.
He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be reasonable as well as original.
It had been a stiff walk across country—fifteen miles, as against thirty odd around by road—but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield, crossing the marshes, skirtingétangs, a solitary figure in the waste, easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.
CHAPTER IXL'OMBREAulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns, startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past[pg 98]timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds—perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding him right of way.[pg 99]After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of stone stood, and where there should have been gates.But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become indistinguishable.Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of massive oak.The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in his autumn migration.The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the house—a low,[pg 100]weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest.An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap."Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?""I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force.""May I see your credentials, Captain Nee[pg 101]land?" She had descended the single step of crumbling stone."Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerningyouridentity?"There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made her skin seem so white."What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice."Only one word, Madame."She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.After she had examined them she handed them back to him."Will you come in, Captain Neeland—or, perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the bridge—in order to lose no time—because I wish you to see for yourself——"She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks: "It may seem[pg 102]absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times—what I am going to say to you—concerning L'Ombre——"She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a bench under the parapet of the little bridge."Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not—unless—except for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition out of my head.... Still, living in Finistère—here in this house"—she flushed again—"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too courteous—... It required some courage for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country—to risk ridicule—of course I do not hesitate."She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as though reassured:"I shall have to tell you a little about[pg 103]myself first—so that you may understand better.""Please," he said gravely."Then—my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my memory—only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes began during the Vendée.... But that is of no interest ... except that—through coincidence, of course—every time a new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still mystified, but interested."Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked."I thought it resembled a fish——"[pg 104]"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?""Yes.""Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'.""Yes.""Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?""No; I did not know that.""There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything ...everything....""I am interested," he assured her pleasantly."Then—it is a legend—perhaps a superstition in our family—that any misfortune to us—and to France—is always preceded by two invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the[pg 105]waters of our moat—" She turned her head slowly and looked down over the parapet of the bridge.—"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong—all striking the same hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendée the clocks persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong."And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland——""I am intensely interested," he repeated,[pg 106]watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed again."It is only to explain—perhaps to justify myself for writing—for asking that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days——""I understand, Countess.""Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself—for my own fears—my personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought—if they sent an officer who would be kind enough to understand——""I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?""Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon.""And—the clocks?""For a week they have been all wrong.""What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously."Five.""No matter where the hands point?""No matter. I have tried to regulate them.[pg 107]I have done everything I could do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I have"—a pale smile touched her lips—"I have been a little wakeful—perhaps a trifle uneasy—on my country's account. You understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the race whose name she bore.The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly believed what she told him.But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it.[pg 108]And this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood of every Breton ever born.But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of great nervous tension in France—of heart-racking suspense——"She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur.""I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a natural explanation concerning these matters.""I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no explanation.""Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?""There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the same time and in the same manner?"He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly.[pg 109]"I'll investigate, if you will permit me.""Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What could explain its presence in the moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its range. My father has often said that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has been seen in Brittany.""From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked, smiling."From living springs in the bottom.""No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere—in the Pyrenees, perhaps—" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as far-fetched as the water.Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He[pg 110]drew out his watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust and regulate them would be a simple matter.She sat very still beside him on the stone coping—her dark eyes wandered toward the forest—wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied—the visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts: "Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy airships—or, undersea boats?"The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been happening in the AulnesÉtang.""What?""I don't know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright—clouds of them—and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour.""A poacher?"[pg 111]"I know of none remaining here in Finistère.""Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?""Only the wild fowl whirling above theétang.""You have heard nothing—from the clouds?""Only thevanneauxcomplaining and the wild curlew answering.""Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent—a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid element through which it loomed.L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.[pg 112]Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped—but not yet quite realizing it.In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle and suspended threat.He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?""Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer be sent here? Tell me truthfully, areyouannoyed?""No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense of depression which was creeping over him.He looked down again at the grey wraith[pg 113]in the water, then, as they turned and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:"Somethingis wrong somewhere in Finistère. That is evident to me. There have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they come—rumours of things half seen, half heard—glimpses of enemy aircraft, sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the light of the military intelligence which we possess."But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they come thicker and faster day by day. But this—" He hesitated, then smiled—"this seems rather different——""I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule——""Countess——""You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become nervous—imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the sadness of the past year—the strangeness of it, and——"[pg 114]She sighed unconsciously."It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said."Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice."Yes.... Aulnes Wood is—too remote for them to send our wounded here for their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest."So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the fern-growncarrefour: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window there—all day long, day after day—and when one is young and when there is nobody—nothing to look at except the curlew flying—nothing to hear except thevanneaux, and the clocks striking the hour——"[pg 115]Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and smiled, and her tone grew firm again:"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my heart is quite undaunted.""You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of France.""Yes ... therefore there could be no fear—no doubt of God.... Affairs go well with France, Monsieur?—may I ask without military impropriety?""France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory and light.""Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur."He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see light, Madame—and I also shall see it—perhaps——"She looked up at the young man, met his[pg 116]eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?—L'Étang aux Vanneaux?""In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?""It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds—like a man without a face—and only two great eyes—" She forced a pale smile. "Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen dress that way.... I wondered——"He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache."One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions—a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer."It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usualAlbatrosstype, with[pg 117]a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew."And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile.""Has such an one been seen in Brittany?""Such a machine has been reported—many, many times—as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us—a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source—from Sweden—that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous.Her chair and workbasket stood by a lat[pg 118]ticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock—a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial.When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance."Ican't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him[pg 119]through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism—that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts; of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had turned to mould—where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where only[pg 120]the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was slowly yielding—under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth and dust and rust.
Aulnes Woods were brown and still under their unshed canopy of October leaves. Against a grey, transparent sky the oaks and beeches towered, unstirred by any wind; in the subdued light among the trees, ferns, startlingly green, spread delicate plumed fronds; there was no sound except the soft crash of his own footsteps through shriveling patches of brake; no movement save when a yellow leaf fluttered down from above or one of those little silvery grey moths took wing and fluttered aimlessly along the forest aisle, only to alight upon some lichen-spotted tree and cling there, slowly waving its delicate, translucent wings.
It was a very ancient wood, the Forest of Aulnes, and the old trees were long past[pg 98]timber value. Even those gleaners of dead wood and fallen branches seemed to have passed a different way, for the forest floor was littered with material that seldom goes to waste in Europe, and which broke under foot with a dull, thick sound, filling the nostrils with the acrid odour of decay.
Narrow paths full of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked his progress.
It ran west through the silent forest; damp green mould and lichens stained it; patches of grey stucco had peeled from it, revealing underneath the roughly dressed stones. He followed the wall.
Now and then, far in the forest, and indistinctly, he heard faint sounds—perhaps the cautious tread of roebuck, or rabbits in the bracken, or the patter of a stoat over dry leaves; perhaps the sullen retirement of some wild boar, winding man in the depths of his own domain, and sulkily conceding him right of way.
After a while there came a break in the wall where four great posts of stone stood, and where there should have been gates.
But only the ancient and rusting hinges remained of either gate or wicket.
He looked up at the carved escutcheons; the moss of many centuries had softened and smothered the sculptured device, so that its form had become indistinguishable.
Inside stood a stone lodge. Tiles had fallen from the ancient roof; leaded panes were broken; nobody came to the closed and discoloured door of massive oak.
The avenue, which was merely an unkempt, overgrown ride, curved away between the great gateposts into the woods; and, as he entered it, three deer left stealthily, making no sound in the forest.
Nobody was to be seen, neither gatekeeper nor woodchopper nor charcoal burner. Nothing moved amid the trees except a tiny, silent bird belated in his autumn migration.
The ride curved to the east; and abruptly he came into view of the house—a low,[pg 100]weather-ravaged structure in the grassy glade, ringed by a square, wet moat.
There was no terrace; the ride crossed a permanent bridge of stone, passed the carved and massive entrance, crossed a second crumbling causeway, and continued on into the forest.
An old Breton woman, who was drawing a jug of water from the moat, turned and looked at Neeland, and then went silently into the house.
A moment later a younger woman appeared on the doorstep and stood watching his approach.
As he crossed the bridge he took off his cap.
"Madame, the Countess of Aulnes?" he inquired. "Would you be kind enough to say to her that I arrive from Lorient at her request?"
"I am the Countess of Aulnes," she said in flawless English.
He bowed again. "I am Captain Neeland of the British Expeditionary force."
"May I see your credentials, Captain Nee[pg 101]land?" She had descended the single step of crumbling stone.
"Pardon, Countess; may I first be certain concerningyouridentity?"
There was a silence. To Neeland she seemed very young in her black gown. Perhaps it was that sombre setting and her dark eyes and hair which made her skin seem so white.
"What proof of my identity do you expect?" she asked in a low voice.
"Only one word, Madame."
She moved a step nearer, bent a trifle toward him. "L'Ombre," she whispered.
From his pocket he drew his credentials and offered them. Among them was her own letter to the authorities at Lorient.
After she had examined them she handed them back to him.
"Will you come in, Captain Neeland—or, perhaps we had better seat ourselves on the bridge—in order to lose no time—because I wish you to see for yourself——"
She lifted her dark eyes; a tint of embarrassment came into her cheeks: "It may seem[pg 102]absurd to you; it seems so to me, at times—what I am going to say to you—concerning L'Ombre——"
She had turned; he followed; and at her grave gesture of invitation, he seated himself beside her on the coping of mossy stone which ran like a bench under the parapet of the little bridge.
"Captain Neeland," she said, "I am a Bretonne, but, until recently, I did not suppose myself to be superstitious.... I really am not—unless—except for this one matter of L'Ombre.... My English governess drove superstition out of my head.... Still, living in Finistère—here in this house"—she flushed again—"I shall have to leave it to you.... I dread ridicule; but I am sure you are too courteous—... It required some courage for me to write to Lorient. But, if it might possibly help my country—to risk ridicule—of course I do not hesitate."
She looked uncertainly at the young man's pleasant, serious face, and, as though reassured:
"I shall have to tell you a little about[pg 103]myself first—so that you may understand better."
"Please," he said gravely.
"Then—my father and my only brother died a year ago, in battle.... It happened in the Argonne.... I am alone. We had maintained only two men servants here. They went with their classes. One old woman remains." She looked up with a forced smile. "I need not explain to you that our circumstances are much straitened. You have only to look about you to see that ... our poverty is not recent; it always has been so within my memory—only growing a little worse every year. I believe our misfortunes began during the Vendée.... But that is of no interest ... except that—through coincidence, of course—every time a new misfortune comes upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still mystified, but interested.
"Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked.
"I thought it resembled a fish——"
"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"
"Yes."
"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'."
"Yes."
"Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?"
"No; I did not know that."
"There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything ...everything...."
"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.
"Then—it is a legend—perhaps a superstition in our family—that any misfortune to us—and to France—is always preceded by two invariable omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in the[pg 105]waters of our moat—" She turned her head slowly and looked down over the parapet of the bridge.—"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong—all striking the same hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I, myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendée the clocks persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong.
"And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week, until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain Neeland——"
"I am intensely interested," he repeated,[pg 106]watching the lovely, sensitive face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed again.
"It is only to explain—perhaps to justify myself for writing—for asking that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days——"
"I understand, Countess."
"Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself—for my own fears—my personal safety, I should not have written. But our misfortunes seem to be coincident with my country's mishaps.... So I thought—if they sent an officer who would be kind enough to understand——"
"I understand ... L'Ombre has appeared in the moat again, has it not?"
"Yes, it came a week ago, suddenly, at five o'clock in the afternoon."
"And—the clocks?"
"For a week they have been all wrong."
"What hour do they strike?" he asked curiously.
"Five."
"No matter where the hands point?"
"No matter. I have tried to regulate them.[pg 107]I have done everything I could do. But they continue to strike five every hour of the day and night.... I have"—a pale smile touched her lips—"I have been a little wakeful—perhaps a trifle uneasy—on my country's account. You understand...." Pride and courage had permitted her no more than uneasiness, it seemed. Or if fear had threatened her there in her lonely bedroom through the still watches of the night, she desired him to understand that her solicitude was for France, not for any daughter of the race whose name she bore.
The simplicity and directness of her amazing narrative had held his respect and attention; there could be no doubt that she implicitly believed what she told him.
But that was one thing; and the wild extravagance of the story was another. There must be, of course, an explanation for these phenomena other than a supernatural one. Such things do not happen except in medieval romance and tales of sorcery and doom. And of all regions on earth Brittany swarms with such tales and superstitions. He knew it.[pg 108]And this young girl was Bretonne after all, however educated, however accomplished, however honest and modern and sincere. And he began to comprehend that the germs of superstition and credulity were in the blood of every Breton ever born.
But he merely said with pleasant deference: "I can very easily understand your uneasiness and perplexity, Madame. It is a time of mental stress, of great nervous tension in France—of heart-racking suspense——"
She lifted her dark eyes. "You do not believe me, Monsieur."
"I believe what you have told me. But I believe, also, that there is a natural explanation concerning these matters."
"I tell myself so, too.... But I brood over them in vain; I can find no explanation."
"Of course there must be one," he insisted carelessly. "Is there anything in the world more likely to go queer than a clock?"
"There are five clocks in the house. Why should they all go wrong at the same time and in the same manner?"
He smiled. "I don't know," he said frankly.[pg 109]"I'll investigate, if you will permit me."
"Of course.... And, about L'Ombre. What could explain its presence in the moat? It is a creature of icy waters; it is extremely limited in its range. My father has often said that, except L'Ombre which has appeared at long intervals in our moat, L'Ombre never has been seen in Brittany."
"From where does this clear water come which fills the moat?" he asked, smiling.
"From living springs in the bottom."
"No doubt," he said cheerfully, "a long subterranean vein of water connects these springs with some distant Alpine river, somewhere—in the Pyrenees, perhaps—" He hesitated, for the explanation seemed as far-fetched as the water.
Perhaps it so appeared to her, for she remained politely silent.
Suddenly, in the house, a clock struck five times. They both sat listening intently. From the depths of the ancient mansion, the other clocks repeated the strokes, first one, then another, then two sounding their clear little bells almost in unison. All struck five. He[pg 110]drew out his watch and looked at it. The hour was three in the afternoon.
After a moment her attitude, a trifle rigid, relaxed. He muttered something about making an examination of the clocks, adding that to adjust and regulate them would be a simple matter.
She sat very still beside him on the stone coping—her dark eyes wandered toward the forest—wonderful eyes, dreamily preoccupied—the visionary eyes of a Bretonne, full of the mystery and beauty of magic things unseen.
Venturing, at last, to disturb the delicate sequence of her thoughts: "Madame," he said, "have you heard any rumours concerning enemy airships—or, undersea boats?"
The tranquil gaze returned, rested on him: "No, but something has been happening in the AulnesÉtang."
"What?"
"I don't know. But every day the wild ducks rise from it in fright—clouds of them—and the curlew and lapwings fill the sky with their clamour."
"A poacher?"
"I know of none remaining here in Finistère."
"Have you seen anything in the sky? An eagle?"
"Only the wild fowl whirling above theétang."
"You have heard nothing—from the clouds?"
"Only thevanneauxcomplaining and the wild curlew answering."
"Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.
She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.
For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent—a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid element through which it loomed.
L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.
Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.
An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped—but not yet quite realizing it.
In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle and suspended threat.
He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?"
"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer be sent here? Tell me truthfully, areyouannoyed?"
"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense of depression which was creeping over him.
He looked down again at the grey wraith[pg 113]in the water, then, as they turned and walked slowly back across the bridge together, he said, suddenly:
"Somethingis wrong somewhere in Finistère. That is evident to me. There have been too many rumours from too many sources. By sea and land they come—rumours of things half seen, half heard—glimpses of enemy aircraft, sea-craft. Yet their presence would appear to be an impossibility in the light of the military intelligence which we possess.
"But we have investigated every rumour; although I, personally, know of no report which has been confirmed. Nevertheless, these rumours persist; they come thicker and faster day by day. But this—" He hesitated, then smiled—"this seems rather different——"
"I know. I realize that I have invited ridicule——"
"Countess——"
"You are too considerate to say so.... And perhaps I have become nervous—imagining things. It might easily be so. Perhaps it is the sadness of the past year—the strangeness of it, and——"
She sighed unconsciously.
"It is lonely in the Wood of Aulnes," she said.
"Indeed it must be very lonely here," he returned in a low voice.
"Yes.... Aulnes Wood is—too remote for them to send our wounded here for their convalescence. I offered Aulnes. Then I offered myself, saying that I was ready to go anywhere if I might be of use. It seems there are already too many volunteers. They take only the trained in hospitals. I am untrained, and they have no leisure to teach ... nobody wanted me."
She turned and gazed dreamily at the forest.
"So there is nothing for me to do," she said, "except to remain here and sew for the hospitals." ... She looked out thoughtfully across the fern-growncarrefour: "Therefore I sew all day by the latticed window there—all day long, day after day—and when one is young and when there is nobody—nothing to look at except the curlew flying—nothing to hear except thevanneaux, and the clocks striking the hour——"
Her voice had altered subtly, but she lifted her proud little head and smiled, and her tone grew firm again:
"You see, Monsieur, I am truly becoming a trifle morbid. It is entirely physical; my heart is quite undaunted."
"You heart, Madame, is but a part of the great, undaunted heart of France."
"Yes ... therefore there could be no fear—no doubt of God.... Affairs go well with France, Monsieur?—may I ask without military impropriety?"
"France, as always, faces her destiny, Madame. And her destiny is victory and light."
"Surely ... I knew; only I had heard nothing for so long.... Thank you, Monsieur."
He said quietly: "The Light shall break. We must not doubt it, we English. Nor can you doubt the ultimate end of this vast and hellish Darkness which has been let loose upon the world to assail it. You shall live to see light, Madame—and I also shall see it—perhaps——"
She looked up at the young man, met his[pg 116]eyes, and looked elsewhere, gravely. A slight flush lingered on her cheeks.
On the doorstep of the house they paused. "Is it possible," she asked, "that an enemy aëroplane could land in the Aulnes Étang?—L'Étang aux Vanneaux?"
"In the Étang?" he repeated, a little startled. "How large is it, this Étang aux Vanneaux?"
"It is a lake. It is perhaps a mile long and three-quarters of a mile across. My old servant, Anne, had seen the werewolf in the reeds—like a man without a face—and only two great eyes—" She forced a pale smile. "Of course, if it were anything she saw, it was a real man.... And, airmen dress that way.... I wondered——"
He stood looking at her absently, worrying his short mustache.
"One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions—a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer.
"It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usualAlbatrosstype, with[pg 117]a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew.
"And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile."
"Has such an one been seen in Brittany?"
"Such a machine has been reported—many, many times—as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us—a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source—from Sweden—that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds."
After a moment's silence she stepped into the house; he followed.
The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous.
Her chair and workbasket stood by a lat[pg 118]ticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock—a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial.
When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance.
"Ican't do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?"
She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him[pg 119]through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks.
When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism—that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.
As they returned together through the hushed and dusky house, he caught glimpses of faded and depressing tapestries; of vast, tarnished mirrors, through the dim depths of which their passing figures moved like ghosts; of rusted stands of arms, and armoured lay figures where cobwebs clotted the slitted visors and the frail tatters of ancient faded banners drooped.
And he understood why any woman might believe in strange inexplicable things here in the haunting stillness of this house where splendour had turned to mould—where form had become effaced and colour dimmed; where only[pg 120]the shadowy film of texture still remained, and where even that was slowly yielding—under the attacks of Time's relentless mercenaries, moth and dust and rust.
CHAPTER XTHE GHOULSThey dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne served them—old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and herchaussonsbroidered with the rose.Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver—garrulous, deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that second infancy which comes before the night."Ouidame!It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes—alas!—in the Woods and the House of Aulnes——""The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.[pg 122]"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur—and the world was young, too,mon Capitaine—hélas!—but the Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is older,beau jeune homme—only the sea is older—the sea which always was and will be.""Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "—to France!—I have the honour—" She touched her glass to his and they saluted France with the ancient wine of France—a sip, a faint smile, and silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment."This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking. But—but there will be sun enough another year.""Yes.""B'en oui!The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods of Aulnes.Non pas.There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with[pg 123]Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments all——""She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear."In shining robes of grace—oui-da!—the martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who tell you,beau jeune homme—I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed Lady——""She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes—some graceful shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles—the exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and washed it out in blood."I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh nap[pg 124]kins and set two crystal bowls beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat."Ho fois!" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes; they never change—they never change.... The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the trees.""Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair—the Loup-Garou!—O Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content, so full of faith in months——"A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling, swinging wide, drifting against[pg 125]the dying light of day, southward toward the sea."There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds."Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly."Yes. I will go with you——""No.""Why?""No. Show me the path."His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the path?""Yes.... May I not go?""No—please.""Is there danger?""No.... I don't know if there is any danger."[pg 126]"Will you be cautious, then?"He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.At five in the morning every clock struck five.She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles, listening, when the door below burst open and there[pg 127]came the trampling rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall——A loud voice cried:—"Because you are armed and not in uniform!—you British swine!"—And the pistol shots crashed through the house.On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail. Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed window—where they had sat together—he and she——Spectres were flitting to and fro—grey shapes without faces—things with eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking brain:"You there on the stairs!—do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"She looked down at the dead man."Yes," she said.Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring darkness she fell.After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man's. And moved no more.[pg 128]In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes which had no faces, only eyes.
They dined by the latticed window; two candles lighted them; old Anne served them—old Anne of Fäouette in her wide white coiffe and collarette, her velvet bodice and herchaussonsbroidered with the rose.
Always she talked as she moved about with dish and salver—garrulous, deaf, and aged, and perhaps flushed with the gentle afterglow of that second infancy which comes before the night.
"Ouidame!It is I, Anne Le Bihan, who tell you this, my pretty gentleman. I have lived through eighty years and I have seen life begin and end in the Woods of Aulnes—alas!—in the Woods and the House of Aulnes——"
"The red wine, Anne," said her mistress, gently.
"Madame the Countess is served.... These grapes grew when I was young, Monsieur—and the world was young, too,mon Capitaine—hélas!—but the Woods of Aulnes were old, old as the headland yonder. Only the sea is older,beau jeune homme—only the sea is older—the sea which always was and will be."
"Madame," he said, turning toward the young girl beside him, "—to France!—I have the honour—" She touched her glass to his and they saluted France with the ancient wine of France—a sip, a faint smile, and silence through which their eyes still lingered for a moment.
"This year is yielding a bitter vintage," he said. "Light is lacking. But—but there will be sun enough another year."
"Yes."
"B'en oui!The sun must shine again," muttered old Anne, "but not in the Woods of Aulnes.Non pas.There is no sunlight in the Woods of Aulnes where all is dim and still; where the Blessed walk at dawn with[pg 123]Our Lady of Aulnes in shining vestments all——"
"She has seen thin mists rising there," whispered the Countess in his ear.
"In shining robes of grace—oui-da!—the martyrs and the acolytes of God. It is I who tell you,beau jeune homme—I, Anne of Fäouette. I saw them pass where, on my two knees, I gathered orange mushrooms by the brook! I heard them singing prettily and loud, hymns of our blessed Lady——"
"She heard a throstle singing by the brook," whispered the châtelaine of Aulnes. Her breath was delicately fragrant on his cheek.
Against the grey dusk at the window she looked to him like a slim spirit returned to haunt the halls of Aulnes—some graceful shade come back out of the hazy and forgotten years of gallantry and courts and battles—the exquisite apparation of that golden time before the Vendée drowned and washed it out in blood.
"I am so glad you came," she said. "I have not felt so calm, so confident, in months."
Old Anne of Fäouette laid them fresh nap[pg 124]kins and set two crystal bowls beside them and filled the bowls with fresh water from the moat.
"Ho fois!" she said, "love and the heart may change, but not the Woods of Aulnes; they never change—they never change.... The golden people of Ker-Ys come out of the sea to walk among the trees."
The Countess whispered: "She has seen the sunbeams slanting through the trees."
"Vrai, c'est moi, Anne Le Bihan, qui vous dites cela, mon Capitaine!And, in the Woods of Aulnes the werewolf prowls. I have seen him, gallant gentleman. He walks upright, and, in his head, he has only eyes; no mouth, no teeth, no nostrils, and no hair—the Loup-Garou!—O Lady of Aulnes, adored and blessed, protect us from the Loup-Barou!"
The Countess said again to him: "I have not felt so confident, so content, so full of faith in months——"
A far faint clamour came to their ears; high in the fading sky above the forest vast clouds of wild fowl rose like smoke, whirling, circling, swinging wide, drifting against[pg 125]the dying light of day, southward toward the sea.
"There is something wrong there," he said, under his breath.
Minute after minute they watched in silence. The last misty shred of wild fowl floated seaward and was lost against the clouds.
"Is there a path to the Étang?" he asked quietly.
"Yes. I will go with you——"
"No."
"Why?"
"No. Show me the path."
His shotgun stood by the door; he took it with him as he left the house beside her. In the moat, close by the bridge, and pointing toward the house, L'Ombre lay motionless. They saw it as they passed, but did not speak of it to each other. At the forest's edge he halted: "Is this the path?"
"Yes.... May I not go?"
"No—please."
"Is there danger?"
"No.... I don't know if there is any danger."
"Will you be cautious, then?"
He turned and looked at her in the dim light. Standing so for a little while they remained silent. Then he drew a deep, quiet breath. She held out one hand, slowly; half way he bent and touched her fingers with his lips; released them. Her arm fell listlessly at her side.
After he had been gone a long while, she turned away, moving with head lowered. At the bridge she waited for him.
A red moon rose low in the east. It became golden above the trees, paler higher, and deathly white in mid-heaven.
It was long after midnight when she went into the house to light fresh candles. In the intense darkness before dawn she lighted two more and set them in an upper window on the chance that they might guide him back.
At five in the morning every clock struck five.
She was not asleep; she was lying on a lounge beside the burning candles, listening, when the door below burst open and there[pg 127]came the trampling rush of feet, the sound of blows, a fall——
A loud voice cried:—"Because you are armed and not in uniform!—you British swine!"—
And the pistol shots crashed through the house.
On the stairs she swayed for an instant, grasped blindly at the rail. Through the floating smoke below the dead man lay there by the latticed window—where they had sat together—he and she——
Spectres were flitting to and fro—grey shapes without faces—things with eyes. A loud voice dinned in her ears, beat savagely upon her shrinking brain:
"You there on the stairs!—do you hear? What are those candles? Signals?"
She looked down at the dead man.
"Yes," she said.
Through the crackling racket of the fusillade, down, down into roaring darkness she fell.
After a few moments her slim hand moved, closed over the dead man's. And moved no more.
In the moat L'Ombre still remained, unstirring; old Anne lay in the kitchen dying; and the Wood of Aulnes was swarming with ghastly shapes which had no faces, only eyes.
CHAPTER XITHE SEED OF DEATHIt was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.When the raid into Finistère ended, and the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful châtelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And perhaps hers desired it, too.Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New York.He had aged ten years in as many months.Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail's pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the younger man.[pg 130]"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally."You don't look very fit, Doctor.""No.... I'mgoing West.""You mean it?""Yes.""Why do you think that you are—going West?""There's a thing over there, born of gas. It's a living thing, animal or vegetable. I don't know which. It's only recently been recognized. We call it the 'Seed of Death.'"Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named. It is always fatal. A man may live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if that germ is inhaled, death is certain."After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension—" And did not finish the sentence.Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said with pleasant impersonality.After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"[pg 131]"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course. I'm feeling rottener every day."He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know how to keep alive. It's odd, isn't it? I don't wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want to see how the local elections turn out in New York.""What!""Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure to win. I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to live to see Tammany a dead cock in the pit!"Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again, said:"I'd like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble.""After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase, every degree—on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched[pg 132]the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining, gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat of a summer day in town.On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under the electric lights—the nine—and—seventy sweating tribes.For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the gilded grilles and still façades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in quest of God knows what—of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their unrest."There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail—"also her inevitable shadow, tyranny.""We need more light; that's all," said Gray.[pg 133]"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible.""The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that there issomelight. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."He lighted a cigar."As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower calledAconitum. It is also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on; "Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for it. It flourishes in the shade—like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing off our local tyrants—slowly, al[pg 134]mostimperceptiblybut inexorably, killing 'em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive—tyrants of every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics, tyrants of religion—great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants, all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western sun of ours——"He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind—a delusion, a ruling passion—strong even in death.... The odd part of it is that a tyrant never knows he's one.... He invariably mistakes himself for a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen.... Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden——""Go on with your story," said Gray.
It was Dr. Vail whose identification secured burial for Neeland, not in the American cemetery, but in Aulnes Wood.
When the raid into Finistère ended, and the unclean birds took flight, Vail, at Quimper, ordered north with his unit, heard of the tragedy, and went to Aulnes. And so Neeland was properly buried beside the youthful châtelaine. Which was, no doubt, what his severed soul desired. And perhaps hers desired it, too.
Vail continued on to Paris, to Flanders, got gassed, and came back to New York.
He had aged ten years in as many months.
Gray, the younger surgeon, kept glancing from time to time at Vail's pallid face, and the latter understood the professional interest of the younger man.
"You think I look ill?" he asked, finally.
"You don't look very fit, Doctor."
"No.... I'mgoing West."
"You mean it?"
"Yes."
"Why do you think that you are—going West?"
"There's a thing over there, born of gas. It's a living thing, animal or vegetable. I don't know which. It's only recently been recognized. We call it the 'Seed of Death.'"
Gray gazed at the haggard face of the older man in silence.
Vail went on, slowly: "It's properly named. It is always fatal. A man may live for a few months. But, once gassed, even in the slightest degree, if that germ is inhaled, death is certain."
After a silence Gray began: "Do you have any apprehension—" And did not finish the sentence.
Vail shrugged. "It's interesting, isn't it?" he said with pleasant impersonality.
After a silence Gray said: "Are you doing anything about it?"
"Oh, yes. It's working in the dark, of course. I'm feeling rottener every day."
He rested his handsome head on one thin hand:
"I don't want to die, Gray, but I don't know how to keep alive. It's odd, isn't it? I don't wish to die. It's an interesting world. I want to see how the local elections turn out in New York."
"What!"
"Certainly. That is what worries me more than anything. We Allies are sure to win. I'm not worrying about that. But I'd like to live to see Tammany a dead cock in the pit!"
Gray forced a laugh; Vail laughed unfeignedly, and then, solemn again, said:
"I'd like to live to see this country aspire to something really noble."
"After all," said Gray, "there is really nothing to stifle aspiration."
It was not only because Vail had been gazing upon death in every phase, every degree—on brutal destruction wholesale and in detail; but also he had been standing on the outer escarpment of Civilization and had watched[pg 132]the mounting sea of barbarism battering, thundering, undermining, gradually engulfing the world itself and all its ancient liberties.
He and the young surgeon, Gray, who was to sail to France next day were alone together on the loggia of the club; dusk mitigated the infernal heat of a summer day in town.
On the avenue below motor cars moved north and south, hansoms crept slowly along the curb, and on the hot sidewalks people passed listlessly under the electric lights—the nine—and—seventy sweating tribes.
For, on such summer nights, under the red moon, an exodus from the East Side peoples the noble avenue with dingy spectres who shuffle along the gilded grilles and still façades of stone, up and down, to and fro, in quest of God knows what—of air perhaps, perhaps of happiness, or of something even vaguer. But whatever it may be that starts them into painful motion, one thing seems certain: aspiration is a part of their unrest.
"There is liberty here," replied Dr. Vail—"also her inevitable shadow, tyranny."
"We need more light; that's all," said Gray.
"When light streams in from every angle no shadow is possible."
"The millennium? I get you.... In this country the main thing is that there issomelight. A single ray, however feeble, and even coming from one fixed angle only, means aspiration, life...."
He lighted a cigar.
"As you know," he remarked, "there is a flower calledAconitum. It is also known by the ominous names of Monks-Hood and Helmet-Flower. Direct sunlight kills it. It flourishes only in shadow. Like the Kaiser-Flower it also is blue; and," he added, "it is deadly poison.... As you say, the necessary thing in this world is light from every angle."
His cigar glimmered dully through the silence. Presently he went on; "Speaking of tyranny, I think it may be classed as a recognized and tolerated business carried on successfully by those born with a genius for it. It flourishes in the shade—like the Helmet-Flower.... But the sun in this Western Hemisphere of ours is devilish hot. It's gradually killing off our local tyrants—slowly, al[pg 134]mostimperceptiblybut inexorably, killing 'em off.... Of course, there are plenty still alive—tyrants of every degree born to the business of tyranny and making a success at it."
He smoked tranquilly for a while, then:
"There are our tyrants of industry," he said; "tyrants of politics, tyrants of religion—great and small we still harbor plenty of tyrants, all scheming to keep their roots from shriveling under this fierce western sun of ours——"
He laughed without mirth, turning his worn and saddened eyes on Gray:
"Tyranny is a business," he repeated; "also it is a state of mind—a delusion, a ruling passion—strong even in death.... The odd part of it is that a tyrant never knows he's one.... He invariably mistakes himself for a local Moses. I can tell you a sort of story if you care to listen.... Or, we can go to some cheerful show or roof-garden——"
"Go on with your story," said Gray.