CHAPTER XIINuit Blanche
Theaeroplane which carried me southward alighted on the Hendon flying-ground when dusk was falling. As we crossed Hertfordshire I had seen in front of me, to the south-east, a great pall of cloud which seemed to hang above the city; and as the daylight faded, this curtain became lit up with a red glow like the sky above a blast-furnace.
When we landed, I found that all arrangements had already been made by Nordenholt; for after I had removed my flying kit an untidy-looking, unshaven man made his appearance, who introduced himself as my guide for the night. He advised me to have a meal and try to snatch a little sleep before we started. We dined together in one of the buildings—for Nordenholt had spared the Hendon aerodrome in the general destruction of the exodus, though he had burned all the aeroplanes which were there at the time—and during the meal my guide gave me hints as to my behaviour while I was under his charge, so that I might not attract attention under the new conditions. Above all, he warned me not to show any surprise at anything I might see.
After I had dozed for a time, he reappeared and insisted on rubbing some burnt cork well into my skin under the eyes and on my cheeks, and also giving my hands and the rest of my face a lighter treatment with the same medium.
“You look far too well-fed and clean to pass musterhere. There’s very little soap left now; and most of us don’t shave. Must make you look the part.”
He handed me two ·45 Colt pistols and a couple of loaded spare magazines.
“Shove these extra cartridges into a handy pocket as well. The Colts are loaded and there’s an extra cartridge in the breech of each. That gives you eighteen shots without reloading; and sixteen more when you snick in the fresh magazines. You know how to do it? Pull down the safety catches. If you have to shoot, shoot at once; and shoot in any case of doubt. Don’t stop to argue.”
A motor-car was waiting for us with two men in the front seats. The glass of the wind-screen bore a small square of paper with a red cross printed on the white ground; and I saw that one of the side-light glasses had been painted a peculiar colour. My guide and I climbed into the back seats and the car moved off. When we passed out of the aerodrome I observed that the entrance was defended by machine-guns; and a large flag of some coloured bunting was flown on a short staff. As it waved in the air, I caught the letters “PLAGUE” on it.
“To keep off visitors,” said my guide. “By the way, my name’s Glendyne. Oh, by Jove, I’ve forgotten something important.”
He took out of the door-pocket a couple of armlets with the Red Cross on them and fastened one on my left arm, putting the other one on himself. I gathered that they formed part of his disguise.
It was night now. The sky was clear except for some clouds on the horizon and the full moon was up, so that we hardly needed the head-lights to see our way. Again I noticed the peculiar red glow which I had seen from the aeroplane; but now, being nearer, I saw flickerings in it. There were no artificial lights, either of gas or electricity, in the streets through which we passed. Very occasionallyI saw human forms moving in the distance; but they were too far off for me to distinguish what sort of person was abroad. In the main, the figures which I espied were reclining on the ground, some singly, others in groups; and for a time I did not realise that these were corpses.
We soon diverged from the main road and drove through a series of by-streets in which I lost my sense of direction until at last I discovered that we were passing the old Cavalry Barracks in Albany Street.
“Halt!”
The car drew up suddenly and in the glare of our head-lights I saw a group of men carrying rifles and fixed bayonets; bandoliers were slung across their shoulders, but otherwise there was no sign of uniform.
“Where’s your permit?... Doctor’s car, is it? We’ve been taken in by that once before. Never again, thank you. Out with that permit if you have it, or it will be the worse for you.”
The armed group covered us with their rifles while Glendyne searched in his pocket. At last he produced a paper which the leader of the patrol examined.
“Oh, it’s you, Glendyne? Sorry to trouble you, but we can’t help it. A medical car came through the other night and played Old Harry with a patrol at Park Square; so we have to be careful, you see. I think it was some of Johansen’s little lot who had stolen a Red Cross car. Stephen got them with a bomb at Hanover Gate later in the evening and there wasn’t enough left to be sure who they were. Why they can’t leave this district alone beats me. They have most of London left to rollic in; and yet they must come here where no one wants them. By the way, where are you going?”
“Leaving the car at Wood’s Garage. Going down to the Circus on foot after that, I think; probably via Euston, though.”
“All right. I’ll telephone down. Sanderson’s patrol is out there in Portland Place and he might shoot you by accident. I’ll get him to look out for you on your way back.”
“Thanks. Very good of you, I’m sure.”
Our car ran forward again to the foot of Albany Street, where we turned in to a large public garage.
“What was that patrol?” I asked Glendyne.
“Local Vigilance Committee. Some districts have them. Trying to keep out the scum and looters.”
“But what about this being a medical car?”
“Iama medical. Was an asylum doctor before Nordenholt picked me out for this job. Medical cars can go anywhere even now; but we can do better on foot for the particular work you want to-night.”
He seemed to be a man of few words; but I had been struck by the empty state of the garage and wished to know where the usual multitude of cars had gone.
“Most owners took their machines away in the rush out of London. Any cars left were looted long ago. Have to leave a guard now on any car, otherwise we’d have the petrol stolen before we were back. You’ll see later.”
There were no lights burning in the Euston Road, either in the streets or at house-windows. Coming in the car, I had given little heed to the lack of passers-by; but here, in a district which swarmed with population in the old days, I could not help being struck by the change of atmosphere. All inhabitants seemed to have vanished, leaving not a trace. I asked Glendyne if this region was entirely deserted; but he explained to me that in all probability there were still a number of survivors.
“No one shows a light after dark in a house if they can help it,” he said. “It simply invites looters.”
“The full moon stood well above the house-tops, lighting up the streets far ahead of us. Wheeled traffic seemednon-existent; nor could I see a single human being. Just beyond the Tube Station, however, I observed what I took to be a bundle of clothes lying by the roadside. Closer inspection proved it to be a complete skeleton dressed in a shabby suit of serge. While I was puzzling over this, Glendyne, seeing my perplexity, gave me the explanation.”
“Looking for the flesh, I suppose? Gone long ago.B. diazotanstakes care of that, or we should have had a real Plague instead of a fake one, considering the number of deaths there have been. As soon as life goes out, all flesh is attacked by bacteria, butB. diazotansbeats the putrefying bacteria in quick action. You’ll find no decaying corpses about. Quite a clean affair.”
Leaving the skeleton behind us, we continued our way. I suppose if I had been a novelist’s hero I should have examined the pockets of the man and discovered some document of priceless value in them. I must confess the idea of searching the clothes never occurred to me till long afterwards; and I doubt if there was anything useful in them anyway.
As we walked eastwards towards Euston I noticed that the red glow before us was shot now and again with a tongue of flame. We passed several isolated corpses, or rather skeletons, and suddenly I came upon a group of them which covered most of the roadway. I noticed that all the heads pointed in one direction and that the greater number of the dead had accumulated on the steps of a looted public-house. Noticing my astonishment, Glendyne condescended to explain.
“Crawled there at the last gasp looking for alcohol to brace them up for another day, I expect. See the attitudes? All making for the door. Hopeless, anyway. The stuff must have been looted long before they got near it. Curious how one finds them like that, all clustered together, either at the door of a pub or the porch of a church. A Martianwould think that drink and religion were the only things which attracted humanity in the end.”
It was near Whitfield Street that I saw a relic of the exodus from London. Two cars, a limousine and a big five-seater, had collided at high speed; for both of them were badly wrecked, and the touring-car had been driven right across the pavement and through a shop-front. To judge from the skeletons in the limousine, its passengers had been killed by the shock.
Leaving this scene of disaster, we walked eastward again. I glanced up each side-street as I passed, but there were no signs of living beings. In the stillness, our footsteps rang upon the pavements; but the noise attracted no one to our neighbourhood. It was not until we reached the corner of Tottenham Court Road that I was again reminded of my fellow-men. A sound of distant singing reached my ears: fifty or a hundred voices rising and falling in some simple air which had a strangely familiar ring, though I could not recall exactly what it reminded me of at the time. The singers were far off, however; for when we halted at the street-corner I could see no one in Tottenham Court Road; and we went on our way once more.
The notice-boards at the gate of Euston Station were covered with recently-posted bills; and seeing the word PLAGUE in large letters upon some of them I halted for a moment to read the inscriptions. They were all of a kind: quack advertisements of nostrums to prevent the infection or to cure the disease. I was somewhat grimly amused to find that there was still a market for such trash even amid the final convulsion of humanity. The only difference between them and their fore-runners was that instead of money the vendors demanded food in exchange for their cures. Flour, bread, or oatmeal seemed to be the currency in vogue.
The station itself was dark; but here and there in the Hotel windows glowed with lamp or candle-light. “Probablysome select orgy or other,” was Glendyne’s explanation; and he refused to investigate further. “No use thrusting oneself in where one isn’t wanted. In these times the light alone is a danger signal when you know your way about.”
It was in Endsleigh Gardens that we came across another living creature. Half-way along, I caught sight of a figure crouching in a doorway. At first I took it for a skeleton; but as we drew near it rose to its feet and I found that it was a man, indescribably filthy and with a matted beard. When he spoke to us, I detected a Semitic tinge in his speech.
“Give me some food, kind gentlemen! Jahveh will reward you. A sparrow, or even some biscuit crumbs? Be merciful, kind gentlemen.”
“Got none to spare,” said Glendyne roughly.
“Ah, kind gentlemen, kind gentlemen, surely you have food for a starving man? See, I will pay you for it. A sovereign for a sparrow?Twosovereigns for a sparrow? Listen, kind gentlemen, five pounds for a rat—eight pounds if it is a fat one. I could make soup with a rat.”
“There’s no food here for you.”
“But, gentlemen, you don’t understand; you don’t understand. I can make you rich. Gold, much fine gold, for a miserable sparrow—or a rat! You think I am too poor to have gold? You despise me because I am clothed in rags? What are rags to me, who am richer than Solomon? I can pay; I can pay.”
He kept pace with us, shuffling along in the gutter; and I noticed that the sole of one of his boots flapped loose at each step he took. After glancing around suspiciously as though afraid of being overheard, he continued in a lower tone:
“Jahveh has laid a great task upon me. I canmakegold! Give me food, even the smallest scrap, and you shallbe richer than Solomon. All that your hearts desire shall be yours, kind gentlemen. Apes, ivory, peacocks and the riches of the East shall come to you. I will give you gold for your palaces and you shall deck them with beryl and chrysoberyl, sapphire, chrysolite and sardonyx. Diamonds shall be yours, and the stones of Sardis.... These do not tempt you? I curse you by the bones of Isaac! May all the burden of Gerizim and Ebal fall upon you!”
He broke off, almost inarticulate with rage; then, mastering himself, he continued in a calmer tone.
“A few crumbs of bread, kind gentlemen; even the scrapings of your pocket-linings. Or a sparrow? Think what can be bought with my gold. Slaves to your desire, concubines of the fairest, brought from all the parts of the world, whose love is more than wine....”
It enraged me to hear this filthy object profaning all the material splendours of the world; and I thrust him aside roughly. My movement seemed to bring his suppressed anger to its climax.
“You doubt me? You will not hear the word of Jahveh’s messenger? See, I will make gold before you; and then you shall fall down and offer me all the food you have—for I know you have food. Look well, O fools; I will make gold for you this moment.”
He stooped down as though lifting something invisible in handfuls and then made the motion of throwing.
“See! My gold! I throw it abroad. Look how it glitters in the light of the moon. Hear how it tinkles as it falls upon the pavement. There”—he pointed suddenly—“see how the coins spin and run upon the ground. Gold! Much fine gold! Is it not enough? Then here is more.”
He repeated his motion of lifting something, this time with both hands as though he were delving in loose sand.
“See! Gold dust! I throw it; and it falls in showers. I scatter it; and there is a golden cloud about us. I give itall to you, kind gentlemen. Surely all this is worth a rat, a fat one; a rat to make soup?”
He looked at us expectantly, holding out his empty hands as though they contained something which he wished us to examine.
“Still you are not convinced? Not so much as a sparrow for all this gold? I have fallen amid a generation of vipers. Ha! You would rob me of my gold; you would take it all and give me not so much as a rat? But I shall escape you. Even now I go to prepare the streets of the new Jerusalem. Jahveh has commanded me that I make them ready with my finest gold. He has prepared the smelting-furnace here in this city; it burns with fire; and I have but to lay my gold in its streets so that they shall all be covered. I go! Gold! Gold!”
He ran from us; and we heard his voice in Gordon Street crying “Gold! Gold!” as he went.
After he had left us, we came by Upper Woburn Place into Tavistock Square; and it was here that I met the firstpetroleuse. Some houses were burning in Burton Crescent. Suddenly at the corner of the entry I saw a figure appear, an oldish woman in rags, carrying a petrol tin and a dipper. She hobbled along, throwing liquid from her tin at every house-door as she passed. Sometimes she broke a window and threw petrol into the room beyond. I lost sight of her when she turned into Burton Street; but she soon reappeared, having evidently exhausted her stores. She now carried an improvised torch in her hand with which she set fire to the petrol spilled about the doors on her previous passage. Soon each doorway was a mass of flames; and she retired into Burton Crescent, with a final glance to see that her work had been well done.
“That sort of thing is going on all over the East End now,” said Glendyne, “and you see that it is spreading westward too. It began by the East Enders running out ofcoal. Then they took to lighting bonfires in the streets with wood from the houses, to keep themselves warm. And finally houses caught fire and they got the taste for destruction. You’re seeing the last of London. There are no fire-brigades now. It’s only a question of time before the whole city is ablaze.”
Russell Square was dark like all the rest of the streets; but the moon lit it up sufficiently for us to see what was going on in Southampton Row, where a band of men were engaged in breaking into a druggist’s shop.
“What do they expect to find there?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem very promising from the looter’s point of view.”
“Cocaine and morphia, of course,” Glendyne replied, “or ether to get drunk on, if they aren’t very sophisticated. They’ll do anything to keep down hunger pangs nowadays, you know.”
We crossed the south side of Russell Square, making for Montague Street, when my attention was attracted by the sound of singing which I had previously heard in Tottenham Court Road. The voices were nearer this time; and I was able to make out one line of the song:
“Here we go dancing, under the Moon....”
“What’s that?” I asked Glendyne.
“What? Oh, that? Some of the Dancers, I expect. We’ll come across them later on, no doubt. Nothing to be alarmed about. Come along!”
Just as we were moving on, however, at the turning into Montague Street there came a soft whirring behind us; a great limousine car drew up at the kerb; and from its interior descended a tall figure which approached us. As he drew near, I saw in the moonlight that it was a thin and white-haired man, showing no signs of the usual grime. He seemed a gentle old man, out of place in this city ofnightmare; but as I looked more closely into his face I could see something abnormal in his eyes.
“You will excuse me for interrupting you, gentlemen; but I wish to put an important question to you. What is Truth?”
Glendyne gave an impatient snarl in reply. Probably he was completelyblaséby this time; and took little interest in the vagaries of the human mind. As for myself, I was so taken aback by this latest comer that I could only stare without answering.
The old man looked at us eagerly for a moment; then disappointment clouded his face and he turned back to his car. We watched him without speaking as he stepped into it. The chauffeur drove on, leaving us as silently as he had come.
When we reached the great gates of the British Museum, I was somewhat surprised to find them standing wide. I suppose that even amid the abnormalities of this new London my memory was working upon its old lines, and it seemed strange to see this entrance open at that time of night. To my astonishment, Glendyne turned into the court.
“I just want to show you a curious survival in the Reading Room here.”
Inside the building, all was dark; but by the light of an electric torch we found our way to the back of the premises. The Reading Room was dotted here and there with tiny lights like stars in the gloom; and within each nimbus I saw a face bent in the study of a volume.
“Still reading, you see,” said Glendyne. “Even in the last crash some of them are eager for knowledge. How they find the books they want passes my comprehension; for, of course, there is no one left to give them out. But they seem able to pick out what they need from the shelves.”
He threw his flashlight here and there in the gloom, lighting up figure after figure. Some of them turned andgazed toward us with dazzled eyes; but others continued their reading without paying us any attention. It reminded me of a glimpse into the City of Dreadful Night; but it seemed better than the things we had met in our wanderings outside. After all, there was something almost heroic in this vain acquirement of learning at a moment when human things seemed doomed to destruction.
As we emerged from the Museum, it seemed to me that the glare of the flames in the sky was brighter; but this may have been due merely to the increased sensitiveness of my retina after the darkness within the building. We turned to the right and followed Great Russell Street westwards.
We crossed Oxford Street and turned down Charing Cross Road. At the lower end of the street, houses were burning furiously, and I could hear the sound of the fires and the crash of falling girders. Beyond Cambridge Circus the road was impassable. Sutton Street seemed to be the only way left to us. As we came into it, I noticed that the dead were much more numerous here and that many of them held clasped in their skeleton hands a crucifix or a rosary.
“Making their way to St. Patrick’s when they died,” Glendyne explained to me. As we came closer to the church, we found living mingled with the dead. Some of them were so feeble that they could crawl no further; but others were still making efforts to drag themselves nearer to the door. Organ music came from the porch, and I halted amid the dead and dying to listen to the voices of the choir:
“Dies irae, dies illaSolvet saeclum in favilla....”
“Dies irae, dies illaSolvet saeclum in favilla....”
“Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla....”
It was weirdly apposite, there in the centre of that burning city. Then the choir continued:
“Tuba mirum spargens sonumPer sepulchra regionumCoget omnes ante thronum.”
“Tuba mirum spargens sonumPer sepulchra regionumCoget omnes ante thronum.”
“Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum
Coget omnes ante thronum.”
Hardly had the thunder of the great vowels died away when from the crowd around us came a bitter cry, the sound of some soul in its agony. It startled me; and as I turned round, there ran a movement through that multitude of dead and dying, as though in very truth the trumpets had called the dead to life and judgment. The cry had been heard within the church; for a priest came to the porch and blessed them. It seemed to bring comfort to those alive.
“Let’s get out of this,” I said to Glendyne. “We can’t help; and it’s needless to stay here. I can’t stand it.”
“All right,” he said philosophically. “Personally, I don’t mind this so much as some of the other things one sees. These people, you know, by their way of it, have put themselves under the protection of the Church. Their path is clear. There’s only Death now for them, and, after all, each of us comes to that in his own time.Theywill go out with easy minds.”
As we came into Soho Square, I was reminded of the fact that even in this city of the dying, human passions still remained. From Greek Street came the sound of revolver shots: three in rapid succession, evidently a duel, and then a gasping cry, followed by a final shot. Then silence for a moment; and at last the noise of heavy foot-falls dying away in the direction of Old Compton Street.
“What’s that?”
“How should I know?” Glendyne retorted. “Probably some of the foreign scum settling a difference among themselves. We never bother about this district. Too dangerous to poke one’s nose into. If I were to go and try to help, I’d most probably get shot for my pains. One gets to know one’s way about, after a time. A few weeks ago I tried the Good Samaritan on one of these foreigners and he almost succeeded in knifing me for my pains. I suppose he thought I was one of his friends come to finish the job.He was shot through the lung anyway, so I don’t suppose I could have helped much, even if I had persisted.”
Soho Square was deserted. The mingled red and silver light from the burning houses and the moon lay across it; but nothing moved. We turned northward into Soho Street. It also was empty when we entered it; but while we walked up it a figure entered it from the Oxford Street end. As it approached, Glendyne made a gesture of recognition, and when the two met it was evident that they were well acquainted with one another.
“That you, Glendyne? Glad to see you again. It’s a week since we met, I think.”
It was a tall thin clergyman with a clear-cut ascetic face, clean-shaven in spite of the prevailing lack of soap. For the first time that night I saw that the city had thrown up a man who was definitely sane. His keen glance, his air of competence and his matter-of-fact mode of speech were in strong contrast to what I had become accustomed to expect from the inhabitants of this Inferno. Glendyne introduced me with some perfunctory words which left my presence unexplained; and the clergyman seemed to accept me without comment.
“Things are going from bad to worse, Glendyne,” he said. “I’m sometimes tempted to take advantage of your offer and clear out some of these places with a bomb or two.”
“What’s wrong now?” Glendyne inquired, without much apparent interest.
“Well, I can stand a good deal—have had to, you know. But when it comes to open idolatry in the West End, I must say I begin to draw the line.”
“Remember two can play at that game, if youdobegin. If you interfere with them, they will interfere with you.”
“Of course, you’re quite right. So far we have had no persecution; I’ll say that for them. But sometimes temptationis as bad as persecution, or even worse. Persecution couldn’t last long now anyway; and it would only knit us together: but temptation is a different matter. I’ve lost two girls in the last three days—enticed away by the Dancers. Sickening business, for one knows how that always ends. One of them was taken from my side as we were walking along the street together; and I was jammed in the crowd and could do nothing. She just cracked up, got hysterical and darted off. I lost sight of her almost at once. Of course she never came back. Damn them!” he ended with extraordinary bitterness.
“Well, it can’t be helped. You do all that a man can do to keep them sane; and if you fail, it’s no fault of yours.”
“What has that to do with it?” cried the clergyman vehemently. “Do you think I care one way or another for that? It’s the sight of these souls going down to damnation that I care about. In a few days we must all meet our Judge, and these poor things go before Him soiled in body and soul!That’swhat hurts, Glendyne. Six months ago we were all living a normal life; I was preaching the Gospel and doing my best to bring light into these people’s lives. I doubt I was slack in some ways, knowing what I do now. I didn’t realise the gulfs in the darkness through which we walked in this world. I knew very little of the horrors lurking under the surface. And now comes this outpouring of Hell! I used to think one should cover up all the worst in life, keep it from one’s eyes. Perhaps if I had known more, I might have been of more use now. But at first I didn’t know. I didn’t recognise the forms under which temptation could come. Half my flock had fallen before I had opened my eyes to what was happening. Think of that! My sheer ignorance of life, look what it has cost!”
“Well, well,” said Glendyne. “No use crying over spiltmilk, is there? You did your best according to your lights. You weren’t trained as a mental specialist, you know.”
“Thanks so much, Bildad Redivivus, but I’m afraid your argument helps no more nowadays than it did a few thousand years ago in the Land of Uz. Ioughtto have known better; but I shut my eyes. I thought these things unclean and despised them; and now they have ruined my work because I did not take the trouble to understand them.
“You can’t guess what it is like now, Glendyne. They are celebrating the Black Mass in Hyde Park and holding Witches’ Sabbaths. All the old evil things which we thought had died out of the race have reappeared, all the foulest practices and superstitions have come to life. It’s terrible.”
“The old gods were never dead, although you pretended they were. Now they have come again, you have got to make the best of it. It’s not for long, anyway. Another week or two and the last food will be gone.”
“I pray for that day, Glendyne. I never thought to see it; but I go on my knees many times daily and pray that it may come soon. Some of my people I know will be stedfast; but the contagion attacks the younger ones with an awful swiftness.”
“Collective hysteria. I know. Keep them indoors as much as possible, especially the girls. You can do nothing more.”
“I suppose not. Anyway, I’ll do what I can, if only I can hold out till the end myself. And to think that once I used to imagine that a minister’s life circled round through sermons, prayer-meetings and visiting the sick! Why, I didn’t know the beginnings of it!”
“Don’t worry about the past. I’m speaking as a medico now. Get on with your work and leave the thinking till you have time for it. Eternity’s pretty long, you know.”
“Well, if I take your advice I must be getting back tomy work. Good-night, both of you. I’ll see you next week again, perhaps, Glendyne.”
He walked on, leaving us to continue our exploration. Glendyne was silent for some minutes. When at last he spoke, it was in a graver tone than I had heard him use before.
“That’s a splendid chap,” he said, looking back over his shoulder at the tall figure behind us. “I don’t envy him, though. His awakening has been a rude one in this affair. Six months ago he knew absolutely nothing of life. He was earnest and all that; but a perfect child in things of the world. The result was that when the blow came he was absolutely helpless. He fought for a time with the old platitudes—and he fought well, I can tell you, for he has a tremendous personality. But he was out of court from the first. I’ve seen things done under his very eyes without his even noticing what was happening. At last I gave him a few pointers from my own experience; and now he has some vague ideas what the temptations really are and how he can best counter them. And he works like a Trojan. A splendid chap. What a chance he has, if he had only had the knowledge; and how he regrets it now, poor beggar. You know, at the very first, he simply led his people down the slope without knowing it. Worked up their religious emotion, you see, until they were simply gunpowder for the flame. What a mess! And all with the best intentions too.”
It was an extraordinarily long speech from Glendyne; and it gave me some measure of his liking for the clergyman. I gathered that they often met in the course of their work.
By this time we had emerged into Oxford Street. Glendyne was about to cross the road, when suddenly he caught sight of a train of figures, about a hundred and fifty in all, I should say, who were advancing up the middle of thestreet. Each had his hands on the shoulders of the person in front of him and the procession advanced towards us slowly, whilst I heard again the air with which I had become familiar.
“The Dancers!” muttered Glendyne. “Keep a grip on yourself, now, Flint. No hysteria, if you please.”
I was angry at being treated in this way, for I am not an hysterical subject either outwardly or inwardly; but as the procession drew nearer I realised that he was right to give me a sharp warning. They advanced slowly, as I said, keeping time to the air which they sang and which I now recognised as being something like one of the old nursery lullabies I heard when I was a child. It had the knack of penetrating far into one’s subconsciousness and bringing up into the light all sorts of forgotten childish fancies which had long slipped from my waking thoughts. There was no regularity in the dancing, except that the whole procession kept time to the air: each individual danced as he chose, provided that he kept his hands upon the shoulders before him so that the line remained intact. Men and women were intermingled without any order in the company. Their faces were rapt, as though in some ecstasy; and a strange, compelling magnetism seemed to emanate from the whole scene.
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon,Lifting our ... feet to the ... time of the ... tune.Come, brother, ... Come, sister, ... join in our ... line;Join with us ... now in this ... dancing divine.”
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon,Lifting our ... feet to the ... time of the ... tune.Come, brother, ... Come, sister, ... join in our ... line;Join with us ... now in this ... dancing divine.”
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon,
Lifting our ... feet to the ... time of the ... tune.
Come, brother, ... Come, sister, ... join in our ... line;
Join with us ... now in this ... dancing divine.”
So they came up toward us, while that strange magnetic attraction grew ever stronger upon me. For some reason which I could not fathom, I felt a profound desire to join in the procession. A kind of hallucinatory craving came over me, though I fought it down. At last Glendyne’s voice broke the spell.
“Fine example of choreomania, isn’t it? Perfectly well-recognisedtype. The old Dancing Mania of the fourteenth century. Bound to arise under conditions like the present.”
The phrases fell on my ear and by their matter-of-factness seemed to come between me and the fascination which the lullaby and the rhythmical motion had begun to exercise upon my mind. Almost without any feeling whatever, I watched the Dancers approaching.
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon.Join in our ... chain, it will ... break all too ... soon.When this verse ... ends, then ... scatter like ... rain;And each dance a ... lone till we ... form it a ... gain.”
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon.Join in our ... chain, it will ... break all too ... soon.When this verse ... ends, then ... scatter like ... rain;And each dance a ... lone till we ... form it a ... gain.”
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon.
Join in our ... chain, it will ... break all too ... soon.
When this verse ... ends, then ... scatter like ... rain;
And each dance a ... lone till we ... form it a ... gain.”
At the last word of the verse, the procession dissolved into a whirling crowd of figures, dancing, springing, spinning in their aimless evolutions. We were caught up in the mob; and only Glendyne’s grip on my arm prevented my being jostled from his side. A knot of the Dancers came about us and strove to excite us into their revels. Women with tossing hair besought us breathlessly to join them; men dragged at us, striving to bring us out among them. All the faces wore the same look of ardency, the same expression about the lips. Some were weary; but still the excitement bore them up in their convulsions. The temptation to join them became almost irresistible; and I felt myself being drawn into their ranks when suddenly the singing broke out once more.
“Here we go ... dancing ... under the ... Moon....”
The procession reformed in haste, gathering length as it went; and the Dancers began again to move eastward along Oxford Street. I watched them go, still feeling the attraction long after they were past; and only some minutes later I realised that Glendyne was still gripping my arm.
“Perhaps you understand now the way in which those two girls were lost,” he said. “A slight weakening of control, eh? Not so bad for a man; but when a girl givesin to it!... Let’s go up Rathbone Place, now. I expect we may meet something interesting in that direction.”
Interesting! I had had enough of interest these last few minutes. I was still quivering with the rhythm of that doggerel song. However, I followed him across Oxford Street, into Rathbone Place. Here the clothed skeletons lay more thickly about our path. Between Oxford Street and Black Horse Yard I counted thirty-seven. Many of them lay in the road; but the majority were huddled in corners and doorways, as though the poor wretches had sought a quiet place in which to die. In the distance I heard wild shouting and the sound of something like a tom-tom being beaten intermittently; whilst in the silences between these outbursts, the roar of the flames somewhere in the neighbourhood came to me over the roofs.
At the corner of Gresse Street, a gaunt creature sidled up to us furtively; looked us up and down for a moment; and whispered to me: “Areyouone of us?” Then, catching sight of the Red Cross on my arm, he fled into the darkness of the side-street without waiting for an answer.
In Percy Street, thepetroleuseswere at work, methodically drenching houses with oil and setting them alight. One side of the street was already ablaze; and the light wind was blowing clouds of sparks broadcast over the neighbouring roofs. London was clearly doomed. Nothing could save it now, even had anyone wished to do so. As we stood at the street-corner, one of the hags passed us and snarled as she went by:
“We’ll roast you out of the West End soon, you —— burjwaw! There’ll be lights enough for you and yer women to dance by when Molly comes with her pail. You’ve trod us down and starved us long enough. It’s our turn now. It’s our turn now, d’yer hear? I could burn ye as ye stand”—she drew back her bucket as though to drench uswith petrol—“but I want ye to dance with the rest to make it complete. We’ll fix ye before long, we will.”
At the southern end of Charlotte Street a rough cross had been erected in the middle of the road and to it clung the remains of a skeleton. Most of the bones had fallen to the ground, but enough remained to show that a body—dead or alive—had been crucified there at one time. Over the head of the cross was nailed a placard with the inscription:
ACHTUNG!EINGANG VERBOTEN.WIR SIND HIER ZU HAUSESTÖREN UNS NICHT.
Glendyne was evidently acquainted with the placard, for he did not come forward to read it. He turned to the left and led me into Upper Rathbone Place.
“Mostly Germans in Charlotte Street now,” he said. “A branch of the East End colony, and just about as bad as their friends. I pity anyone who falls into their hands. Ugh!”
He spat on the ground as though he had a bad taste in his mouth.
“Thank goodness, this is only a small colony, for that sort of thing is apt to contaminate everything in its neighbourhood. Down East it’s on a bigger scale. Hark to that!”
Across the house-roofs between us and Charlotte Street there came a long quivering cry as of someone in the extremity of physical and mental agony; then it was drowned in a burst of laughter. Glendyne gritted his teeth.
“To-morrow night, if the moonlight holds, I’ll have an aeroplane down here and give them a taste. They’re all ofa kind, in there; so it’s easy enough to be sure we get the right ones. Loathsome swine!”
We cut across into Newman Street. At the door of St. Andrew’s Hall a weird figure was standing—a man dressed as a faun, evidently in a costume which had been looted from some theatrical wardrobe. When he caught sight of us, he ran in our direction, leaping and bounding in an ungainly fashion along the pavement and halting occasionally to blow shrilly upon a reed pipe.
“Pan is not dead!” he cried. “I bring the good tidings! All the world awakes again after its long sleep; and the fauns in the forests are pursuing the hamadryads and following the light feet of the oreads once more upon the hills of Arcady. Io! Io! Evohé! Swift be the hunting!
“The Old Gods slumbered; but Echo, watching by rock and pool, ever answered our calling through the years. Awake! Awake! O Gods! Hear again the pipes of Pan!”
He blew a melancholy air upon his instrument, prancing grotesquely the while.
“Syrinx, reed-maiden, men have not forgotten thee! Again they hear the wailings of thy soul in the pipes of Pan.”
He danced again, looking up at the moon.
“Diana! Long hast thou watched us from thy throne in the skies, but now the nights of thy hunting are come once more. Prepare the bow, gird on thy quiver and come with us again as in the days of old. Dost thou remember the white goat? Join us, O Huntress!”
Again he made music with his pipes.
“Syrinx, Syrinx! I come to seek thee in the reeds by the river. Awake! The world begins anew.”
And crying “Syrinx, O Syrinx!” he ran from us and disappeared into Mortimer Street.
Glendyne turned into Castle Street East. I could not seeany reason for these continual turnings and windings in our wanderings, but I suppose that he had some definite itinerary in his mind, some route which would give him the best opportunity of exhibiting to me the varied aspects of London at this time. Here again the skeletons lay scattered, though there appeared to be no aggregations of them in any particular localities. Behind us, the Tottenham Court Road district seemed ablaze; and flames leaped above the house-roofs to the east.
Suddenly, after we had passed Berners Street, I heard a confused sound of shouting, yells, running feet and the notes of a horn. Glendyne started violently and dragged me rapidly into the shelter of a house-door near the corner of Wells Street.
“This is a case where the Red Cross is no protection,” he said hurriedly. “It’s Herne and his pack. Keep as much under cover as you can. We shall probably not be noticed,” he added. “They seem to be in full cry. There!”
As he spoke, a single man rushed into view at the corner. He was running with his head down, looking neither to right nor left, but I caught a glimpse of his face as he passed and I have never seen terror marked so deeply on any countenance. He was evidently exhausted, yet he seemed to be driven on by a frantic fear which kept him on his feet even though he staggered and slipped as he went by.
“The quarry,” said Glendyne. “Now comes the pack.”
Almost on the heels of the fugitive, a horde of pursuers swept into sight: about forty or fifty men and women running with long, easy strides. Some of them shouted as they ran, others passed in silence; but all had a dreadful air of intentness. It was more like the final stage of a fox-hunt than anything else that I can recall. Leading the crew was a huge negro, running with an open razor in his hand; and I saw flecks of foam on his mouth as he passed. Next to him was a chestnut-haired girl wearing an evening dresswhich had once been magnificent. She had kilted up the skirt for ease in running. A silver horn was in her hand; and on it she blew from time to time, whilst the pack yelled in reply. The whole thing passed in a flash; and we heard them retreating into the distance towards Oxford Street.
“What’s that ghastly business?” I asked Glendyne. I had pulled out my pistol almost unconsciously when the pack swept into sight; but he had laid a grip on my wrist and prevented me from firing.
“The nigger in front was Herne—Herne the Hunter, they call him. They hunt in a pack, you see, and run down any isolated individual they happen to come across in their prowlings. I wish we could get hold of them; but they seldom come near any of the picketed areas. They can get all the sport they need without that. Once the hunt is up, they recognise nothing. That’s why I told you the Red Cross wouldn’t save you. If they chase, they kill; and they seem able to run anyone down. I never heard of a victim escaping them.”
“What do they do it for?”
“Pleasure, fun, anything you like. It gives them a peculiar delight to hunt and kill. You see, Flint, in these times the instincts which are normally under control have all broken loose upon us; and the hunting instinct is one of the very oldest we have. In ordinary times, it comes out in fox-hunting or grouse-shooting or some wild form like that. But nowadays there is no restraint and the instinct can glut itself to the full. Man-hunting is the final touch of pleasure for these creatures.”
“Who was the girl at the head of them?”
“Oh, that? She was Lady Angela.” He gave a sneering laugh. “What an incongruity there is in some names! Satanita was what she ought to have been christened if everyone had their rights. And yet, in the old days, one could never have suspected this in her. I knew her, youknow, and I more than liked her. She used to sing me old French songs; and one of them was rather a horrible production. It ought to have put me on my guard; but I suppose every man is a fool where women are concerned.”
He broke off and hummed to himself a snatch of an old air: