Having returned to the sanctuary behind the altar, Doctor Saturday stood looking down at the Duke’s body while de Richleau took up a position just above and behind his own head.
He had never practised necromancy but he had read a considerable amount about it so he was perfectly well aware that his unfortunate corpse might now be subject to all kinds of abominable treatment.
His only consolation was that he had sealed the nine openings of his body early that afternoon so he felt reasonably confident that the Doctor could not cause an elemental to enter and take possession of it. But should all the Satanist’s efforts to reanimate it fail, it was quite on the cards that in a fit of fury he would smash or sever some vital part, thereby rendering it unfit for further service.
If he bashed in or cut off the head, or drove a knife through the heart, stomach or liver, the effect would be exactly the same as if his victim had blown out his own brains before leaving for the astral, the Duke would still be in a position to challenge the Doctor on the astral, but, even if he had defeated the Mulatto, he would never again be able to return to his own body.
He knew that, if only he could triumph over the Satanist, it was really of very little moment whether he was able to get back to his own body afterwards or not. It might well be that his incarnation as Monseigneur le Duke de Richleau, Knight of the Most Exalted Order of the Golden Fleece, was now over.
It is written that each of us is allotted a certain span for every Earth life, and that no one has the power to prolong his time here for a single second; although, having free will, we may at our peril terminate our lives by suicide or, to our detriment in future lives, shorten our present existence by abuse of the body through over-indulgence in alcohol or other excesses.
If the sands of his recent incarnation had run out it would at least be a mighty consolation to know that by his last act of free will he had rescued his friends from their state as Zombies, even if he was unable to rejoin them; but that depended upon the outcome of the battle which he had yet to wage.
A thought which perturbed him far more than the possibility of a mortal wound being inflicted on his body was that his enemy might mutilate it. The Duke was completely powerless to lift a finger in defence of his own corpse, and there was nothing whatever to prevent the Doctor’s emasculating it with a knife, cutting off the ears and the nose and putting out the eyes. If that happened, de Richleau, even if he won his astral battle afterwards, would still be compelled to return to the hideous wreck of a carcase that remained and to live on, perhaps for years, as a repulsive, shattered invalid. And that, he feared, was just the very thing that the Doctor would do when he had again called upon the recalcitrant spirit and it had still refused to answer.
The tall Mulatto removed his terrifying mask and great horned head-dress, then he spoke to the corpse very quietly. ‘It is useless for you to continue to defy me. If you are still in your physical frame you will save yourself a very great deal of pain by sitting up at once. If you are not in your body you must be lurking not very far away and you will return to it immediately. De Richleau, I order you to answer me.’
He waited for a moment and, as no reply was forthcoming, went on: ‘Very well, then; we’ll soon see whether or not your spirit is in your body.’
With his long, bony fingers he untied the Duke’s right shoe and removed both it and the sock. He then took a long taper of black wax from the drawer of an old carved chest at the side of the room and, lighting it, applied the flame to the sole of the bare foot.
De Richleau felt no pain whatever but he viewed the operation with considerable distress, since he knew that if he did ever return to his body he was going to find himself with an extremely nasty burn.
For a good three minutes the Mulatto held the flame under the arch of the Duke’s instep, until the flesh blackened and gave off a sickly smell. Suddenly he lifted the taper and blew it out. Having replaced it in the drawer, he remarked:
‘Now at least we know that it isn’t that you escaped the full effects of the drug which I put in the water you drank at midday. You were clever enough to get out of your body before rigor mortis set in. However, I have no doubt whatsoever that you are close at hand listening to me, and the sooner you surrender the better it will be for you. I command you to return to your body.’
Once again he waited for a moment. When there was no response, he added: ‘Since you still refuse, I must drag you back by force.’
Turning to the chest, he took from another drawer a little snakeskin bag. Opening its neck, he poured the contents on to a six-sided table and de Richleau saw that they were a collection of small bones.
The Doctor arranged the bones in a certain pattern and began to chant over them in a low voice. Almost instantly the Duke felt his astral jerk forward and downward towards the head of the corpse.
Metaphorically, de Richleau “dug his heels in” and resisted the pull, with all the strength of his will. For minutes on end it seemed as though the back of his astral was breaking under the strain; everything went black before his astral sight and the monotonous chanting beat like thunder against his mind so that it excluded all else from his astral hearing; but somehow he managed to resist the terrific pull upon him. At last the Satanist ceased chanting and the tug on the Duke’s astral stopped.
Making a gesture of annoyance, the Mulatto scooped the bones back into the bag and threw it into the chest.
For several moments he remained staring down at the body, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead. Then he said: ‘I think I know why the bones failed to exert the necessary pressure on you just now. As a European you would naturally not be subject to Negro magic to the same extent as if you were a coloured man. However, as I have both White and Black blood in my veins, you need not flatter yourself that you can elude me. The Ancient European magic will certainly break down your resistance. I don’t think you will face for long the terror inspired by the Great God Pan.’
Going to the chest again, he selected a great variety of items and with some of them carefully erected a pentacle for his own protection. When the defence was completed he placed in its centre a small cauldron, under which he piled wood of three kinds and, with the aid of a pair of bellows, swiftly got the fire going. He then poured seven different liquids into the iron pot and waited patiently while they heated up. As soon as the mixture was brought to the boil he began to mutter an invocation, and every few minutes, after bowing to the North, to the East, to the South and to the West he cast into the bubbling froth one of the horrid things which he had taken from the chest.
As the ceremony proceeded the Duke became conscious of a terrible coldness that was now affecting him upon the astral plane, and he knew that one of the great evil entities of the Outer Circle was approaching. Very faintly at first, gradually growing lounder, he heard the sound of a flute; then quite suddenly the horned god appeared beside him.
De Richleau closed his astral eyes; he dared not look upon that face, for the sight of it in its evil beauty is said to drive men mad and to poison their spirits.
He felt his hand taken in an icy clasp and there was a gentle whispering in his ear. In vain he tried to shut his mind against it; in spite of all his efforts he felt himself being led away and carried swiftly to another sphere.
The cold decreased, the temperature became pleasantly warm again and, for some reason that he could not explain, he suddenly lost all sense of fear. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was in a woodland glade and that seated beside him on a tussock of grass was a good-looking young man with humorous, kindly eyes.
The young man smiled and said: ‘You were terribly frightened, weren’t you? But I’m not surprised. People have the most extraordinary ideas about me which aren’t true at all. They think of Pan as the most terrifying person; but you can see for yourself that I’m nothing of the kind. Of course, I can understand their fear of me in a way; it’s entirely owing to all the slanderous lies which have been told about me by the priests of the Christian God. He’s a dreary fellow, and it always amazes me that in recent centuries so many people should have chosen to follow him instead of me.’
De Richleau sat there, spellbound and quite fascinated, as the young man went on: ‘It was an extraordinary piece of luck for you that the Mulatto decided to call on me. He’s no mean antagonist, mind you, but he made a fatal mistake in thinking that his powers extended outside such help as he can secure from his own Voodoo gods. Naturally, as a European deity, I’m on your side—not his; so you needn’t worry any more—everything’s going to be quite all right.’
In spite of his first fears and suspicions de Richleau could not help feeling himself warm towards this candid and sympathetic young man. After all, when one thought about it a little it was perfectly clear that Doctor Saturday had indeed committed a most stupid blunder. The Duke, although nominally a Christian, was—apart from his unshakable belief in the Old Wisdom which teaches that each man carries God within himself—a pagan at heart. Pan was, therefore, the last entity that a Voodoo Witch Doctor should have called upon to assist him in coercing a cultured European who admired and respected the civilisation of the ancient Greeks.
‘I’m so glad you’re beginning to see things again in their proper perspective,’ Pan remarked, evidently reading the Duke’s thoughts. ‘You’ve been through an extraordinarily wearing time with this Witch Doctor, but the fool has hoisted himself with his own petard now. You know quite a bit about sorcery yourself, so it’s hardly necessary for me to remind you of the immutable law. If anyone summons an entity to do his bidding, and fails to control it, that entity is bound to turn upon the person who has called it up. I haven’t the least intention of doing as the Mulatto demands and forcing you back into your body, though I could quite easily do so if I wished. Instead, I shall appear in one of my grimmer aspects to Doctor Saturday and settle his business for good and all. You will then have nothing more to fear, and when you wake up in your body you’ll find the Doctor is dead.’
‘What about my friends?’ asked the Duke slowly.
‘Oh, you needn’t worry yourself about them,’ replied the young-old god. ‘On the Doctor’s death their spirits will automatically be released.’
De Richleau sighed. ‘If you really mean that you will do this I shall owe you a great debt.’
‘Consider it as already paid,’ smiled Pan. ‘After all, I owe you something for having been, at heart, one of my followers for many incarnations past. Then there’s another side to it. I know the reasons for your visit to Haiti, and, although I have many other aspects which are far more ancient, on earth I’m best known as a Greek; so we’re allies you see and I’m every bit as much for putting these trouble-making humourless Dictators in their places as you are.’
‘Of course,’ smiled de Richleau. ‘I little thought when the night began that I’d find a Greek god for an ally; but naturally you must feel that way. You were always the patron of laughter and dancing and love-making—the very antithesis of war and the dreary regimentation of young and old for which the Totalitarian leaders stand.’
At last the Duke was able to relax and take in the full beauty of the Attic scene. Blissfully he let his eyes rove over the stunted oaks, mossy banks and clearings starred with crocuses and scillas. It was a fundamental tenet of his faith that in the end the Powers of Light always trap the powers of Darkness causing them to become undone through their own evil actions; and that was what had happened to his enemy.
The ordeal had, after all, been less terrible than he had anticipated, and help had been sent to him much earlier than he could have hoped. In what had seemed his darkest hour he had been called upon to face the great god Pan, but Pan had turned out to be a friend. Doctor Saturday’s fate was now sealed and a splendid victory had been won by the Powers of Light.
‘Come on, then,’ said Pan; ‘let’s get back to Haiti and put an end to your unscrupulous enemy.’ And in a flick of time they were both back in the sanctuary of the Hounfort.
The Witch Doctor was still mumbling over his cauldron and he could neither see nor hear Pan and the Duke as they arrived beside the corpse.
‘Get back to your body,’ Pan ordered, ‘then I’ll teach this impudent creature a lesson for daring to summon a European deity. When I appear to him he’ll die of heart spasm—and that’s a nasty, painful death.’
‘Hadn’t you better give him the heart attack first?’ suggested the Duke.
‘Oh no,’ said Pan; ‘that would never do. I should then appear to you as I appear to him, and you too would be utterly blasted with uncontrollable terror. It would affect your astral and cripple it for centuries to come; whereas if you’re back in your physical body and keep your eyes shut, you won’t be able to see me; so all will be well.’
De Richleau saw the incontestable sense of this, so he hesitated no longer. Thanking Pan, he slipped back into his body but remained utterly still, showing no signs of life.
Directly he had arrived he felt the stiff blood in his veins begin to uncongeal, giving him awful cramp pains; then, in spite of all his efforts to prevent it, his injured right foot twitched.
Next second he heard a silvery, derisive laugh. It did not come from the Doctor, but from Pan, and was cold, cruel, mocking. To his utter horror he realised that he had been tricked. He knew then that never for an instant should he have listened to Pan’s subtle reasoning and fair promises. The deadly chill of the astral of the god’s first approach should have been sufficient warning. Like a flash of light he slipped out of his body again.
Pan was still there. A frown darkened his handsome face. ‘Why have you come out?’ he snapped. ‘Go back at once!’
De Richleau mentally shuddered, and cried: ‘I refuse— I refuse!’
In a flick of time Pan’s aspect changed. He had became great and terrible. The Duke strove to cover his astral sight, but could not. In desperate fear he called upon the Powers of Light to aid him.
In the instant preceding that at which de Richleau had slipped out of his body the Witch Doctor had seen the slight jerk of the foot. His face lighting up with evil triumph, he suddenly started forward. As he did so the empty eye-socket of one of the skulls dangling from his waist caught on a projection of the cauldron. The iron pot was not set quite evenly above the fire. Tipping up, it crashed over, spilling it contents upon the ground.
The Satanist gave a howl of rage. Before Pan’s new aspect had reached its full degree of terror the form in which he was presenting himself suddenly quivered and disappeared. The spilling of the evil brew had broken the spell and de Richleau knew that his call for help had been answered.
For several moments the Doctor stamped, blasphemed and swore. At the very moment when victory was in his grasp his clumsiness had ruined the whole ceremony, and both he and the Duke were well aware that no man may summon Pan twice during the same night.
His astral still sweating with terror from his recent hairbreadth escape, de Richleau wondered what fresh ordeals he would have to undergo, but it seemed that for the time being the Satanist had exerted all the powers of which he was capable while still remaining on the physical plane.
When he had recovered his breath from cursing he addressed the Duke again. ‘It was sheer luck that you escaped me that time. But you needn’t think that you’re going to get away. I have plenty of ways of subduing you directly I reach the astral.’
Having mopped up the spilt hell-broth he sprinkled some liquid upon the fire, which immediately caused it to go out, then sat down on a Witch Doctor’s throne which occupied one end of the sanctuary. The back of the throne was formed from two large elephant-tusks, with their points up and curving inward, which had doubtless been imported from Africa; and the rest of it was constructed from other animal, reptile and human remains, mainly bones, teeth and skin. Two human skulls at the forward ends of the arms formed hand-rests, and although the Doctor was no longer wearing his mask and head-dress he looked a formidable figure seated there staring straight before him.
A first the Duke braced himself, believing that his enemy was about to throw himself into a trance and immediately launch an astral attack; but after a little he decided that for the time being no further call would have to be made on his powers of resistance. He was not sufficiently advanced to get right into the Satanist’s mind and learn what he was thinking, but he could to some extent sense his enemy’s mental condition and gradually he became aware of a thing that heartened him as nothing else had yet done—the Black Magician was worried.
Could it be, the Duke wondered, that the Satanist, knowing that all his spells had so far failed and that he must now give battle on the astral, was afraid? De Richleau hardly dared to hope that it might be so; yet what other reason could there be for his opponent’s shirking an immediate settlement of the issue?
The minutes drifted by and still the Mulatto showed no sign whatever of attempting to throw himself into a self-induced trance. Instead, he presently stood up and began to walk uneasily up and down.
For over half an hour he padded back and forth like some caged animal. At last he sat down again, but only a few minutes. Then evidently having come to a decision, he put on his mask and head-dress, went outside and stood watching the wild dance of his followers which was still in progress.
Heartened still further, yet wary of some trap, de Richleau pondered upon the Doctor’s actions and sought to fathom why he should apparently have abandoned the struggle, temporarily at least; but when there suddenly formed in the Duke’s mind a theory that would explain his enemy’s conduct it filled him with fresh perturbation.
In his present state he was definitely not dead. The fact that he had been able to enter his corpse and reanimate it, if only for a few seconds, proved that conclusively. Therefore, sooner or later the natural law would compel him to return to it whether he wanted to or not, and quite independently of the Black Magician’s desire that he should do so.
His present situation was similiar to that which he had been on the last night on which he had gone out to keep watch on the Atlantic convoy. On that occasion, knowing that he could remain asleep only for a certain time, he had arranged for Simon and Marie Lou to relieve him. But now there could be no question of reliefs. When he had reached the uttermost limits of his power to remain asleep he must return; and not, this time, to a healthy body lying in the safety of a pentacle at Cardinals Folly but to the cataleptic corpse that lay below him in the sanctuary of the Voodoo Temple.
That, then, was the Satanist’s new plan. He probably did not fear a conflict on the astral but simply preferred to avoid it. All he had to do was to stay awake longer than the Duke could remain in trance-sleep and the Duke would then have to answer the call which must result in his becoming a Zombie.
Swiftly and anxiously the Duke began to work out times. It comforted him immensely to be able to recall at once that from the moment he had left his bed in Miami he had slept no more than those bare six hours during which Simon had engaged the enemy. He had been awake for a stretch of thirty-nine hours previously to Simon’s arrival, and again from half-past three the following morning until about two o’clock that afternoon—another ten and a half hours. It was now just after two a.m. so he had been in a state which must be counted as sleep for about twelve hours, but altogether he had had only some eighteen hours’ sleep out of the total of sixty-seven.
Had he been called upon to face another long waking vigil his state would have been none too good, but the opposite applied now that his safety depended upon the length of time during which he could remain on the astral.
He then began to speculate upon his enemy’s situation. If the Doctor had not slept since the night before the fire, he had already been awake continuously for forty-three hours. The Duke very much doubted if the Satanist had been able to get any sleep on the previous night, but the odds were that he had managed to snatch a short siesta that afternoon; yet such a respite could not have lasted more than three hours at the most. It looked as if the Doctor’s position was considerabjy more serious than that of the Duke and that, however great his own powers as a magician, Nature could compel him to sleep before it forced the Duke back into his body.
Reassurred that the chances were at least even, de Richleau set himself to wait while he continued to watch his enemy’s every move.
That night was still, warm and breathless. As a faint undertone to the Voodoo drums there came the beating of the surf on the coral strand below the nearby cliff. In the great compound, black, brown and coffee-coloured figures mingled in the ferocious dance, jerking their bodies obscenely and at times pairing to give way to unbridled licence.
The Satanist remained out there for over two hours; sometimes standing silent, sometimes urging his followers to new excesses. But by half-past three most of the devil-worshippers had satiated their lust and many, after having made obeisance to their leader, were departing to snatch a few hours’ sleep before they would have to wake to face the labours of the day. By four o’clock the very last of them had gone, and the High Priest of Evil was left standing alone in the empty clearing.
For a few moments he walked to and fro, deep in thought; then he went in to stare again at the Duke’s body. Having removed his mask he blinked his eyes once or twice and passed his hand over them in a weary gesture. On seeing those signs of tiredness de Richleau became still more confident that at the game they were now playing he could outlast his enemy; but his new elation was short-lived. With a sudden resolution the Satanist strode to his throne, sat down on it and again addressed him.
‘You have defied my spells and by accident escaped the compulsion of Pan. If I had slept last night I would wait until Nature forced you back to obey my call; but why should I further weary myself here, when by passing to another plane I shall instantly be as fresh as a sleeper who wakes? Without the least conception of what you will be called upon to face you have asked for battle. Very well, then; you shall have it; I will come and get you.’
Throwing his head back, he raised his eyeballs until only the whites were showing, then closed his eyes. He remained like that for barely a minute, then a wisp of black smoke issued from his mouth.
De Richleau knew that for his enemy to be able to leave his body in such a manner, without his astral appearing in human form, he must be extremely powerful. Worse: the wisp of smoke had dissolved in a second so that the Duke, to his consternation, was left there without any trace of his antagonists and with no means of guessing what form the astral attack would take.
For what seemed a long time de Richleau waited, his every nerve keyed up to resist a sudden devastating assault. But nothing happened, and although he did not relax his vigilance his tension gradually eased. Then, gathering courage, he went out into the compound and called aloud:
‘I am here, Saturday, ready to give battle. Why do you evade me? Is it that you are afraid?’
There was no answer to the challenge and the Duke’s mind became troubled with a new anxiety. But with his swift transference from the physical to the astral plane his enemy had given him the slip. In due course the Satanist would be compelled to return to his body, but that might not be for many hours, and long before he did so de Richleau would be forced to return to his. Once again it seemed that he would be undone unless he could find the Satanist and conquer him before that happened; and searching for an individual who was unwilling to meet one on the astral is like looking for a particular grain of sand on all the beaches of all the oceans of the world.
In the compound other astrals were now moving; those of some of the dwellers in the Hounfort and of other natives who were asleep in the vicinity. Most of them were ‘Blacks’ and shrank away at the sight of the Duke, knowing him to be their enemy and far more powerful than they; but some were merely almost blind creatures in a very low state of advancement. Presently there appeared from among those nebulous dusky shades a clear, distinct form and the Duke saw that it was the astral of his old friend with whom he had talked in China, when he had gone out to follow the Admiral.
‘What are you doing here?’ he exclaimed with eager interest, immensely cheered by the unexpected arrival of his powerful friend.
‘I came to see how you were getting on,’ replied the other. ‘You’re looking a bit worn, so I imagine you’ve been having a pretty hard time of it.’
De Richleau sighed and, rallying himself, swiftly related what had happened, then he described the critical situation in which he now found himself.
His friend immediately expressed sympathy and promised his aid. ‘I’ll tell you, though, what we ought to do,’ he said. ‘There’s little to choose between us in the matter of spiritual strength, as we’re both almost equally advanced upon the great journey. Either of us could, I feel certain, hold the adversary at bay for a few moments, and both of us together could overcome him. He may be able to remain in hiding away from his body for twenty hours, or even more, so the best way to arrange matters would be for me to watch while you rest. Sooner or later this Devil Doctor must appear; then I will immediately call you, and with our united strength we will defeat him.’
This plan seemed an excellent one to de Richleau, and on his friend asking how long he had been asleep, he replied:
‘It was about two o’clock yesterday afternoon when I put myself into a self-induced trance, so I’ve done over fourteen hours.’
‘That’s a fair time,’ mused his friend, ‘so I think you’d better take a spell now and leave me to hold the fort until I can get your help should the enemy suddenly put in an appearance.’
It was now more than two hours since the Duke had been lured into returning to his body by Pan but the narrowness of his escape was still fresh in his mind. There was nothing unnatural in his friend’s having come to look for him, as spirits that are linked by the bonds of love have little difficulty in ascertaining each other’s whereabouts, yet the very suggestion that he should return again to his body put him instantly upon his guard. As he thought of it there formed in his mind a definite conviction that he was not meant to receive help from gods or men. It was his battle—and he must fight it unaided.
In turning to thank his friend but to tell him that he had decided to see the business through alone, he suddenly realised that the other was wearing the shovel hat of a priest, the brim of which cast a shadow over his eyes.
On an impulse which seemed to come from right outside himself, he grabbed the brim of the hat and tore it off. Then he knew that the thing he had suspected, only in that last second as his arm had shot out, was true. A powerful astral may assume the form of any human, perfecting its resemblance to the last hair and wrinkle; it can also copy a voice to the fraction of a tone; but it cannot change its eyes. The eyes of the astral before him were not those of his friend—they were those of Doctor Saturday.
Instantly the Doctor changed his appearance and re-became the big Negro in which form the Duke had first seen him on that night when he and Marie Lou had hunted him back, over the Atlantic, to Haiti.
The Negro made no gesture of defence or attack. He only smiled and spoke through his spirit.
‘Congratulations, my friend. You have passed every test. I am proud to have the honour to be selected as your opponent.’
De Richleau spoke sternly. ‘You admit your defeat and are prepared to surrender to me?’
The other only laughed and said: ‘There is no occasion for that, since I have done no more than play my part in a trial that was ordered to test your courage. You have come out of it with flying colours, and when you get back to Earth you will wake with all your friends, safe and sound in the launch, to find that your more recent experiences have been no more than a dream. The burial ceremony that you witnessed, the ghoulish rites and the happenings at the Hounfort occurred after you had left your body. They did not, in fact, take place at all—they were only scenes created in your mind by the Great Ones who have power, as you know, to make us Lesser Ones believe in the reality of anything which they care to present to us.’
Slowly de Richleau shook his head. ‘That will not do. If such a trial as you suggest had been planned for me, and I had passed through it successfully, the Great Ones would not have sent the personality whom they had chosen to act as my adversary in the test to inform me of my victory.’
The Negro shrugged his big shoulders. ‘I am only obeying orders and, personally, I’m not surprised that you’re somewhat sceptical; but even caution can be overdone. It may be that this is yet another test. Of course, if you refuse to believe me, that is your affair; but I shall be extremely sorry for you, because the maintenance of such pig-headed-ness against an obvious acceptance of the known law will bring you into great peril.’
‘Why?’ asked the Duke in a hard voice.
‘Because, my poor friend, although you don’t appear to realise it, in your desperate endeavour to escape—as you thought—being turned into a Zombie you are at the moment in the process of committing suicide.’
‘Your statement needs a little explanation,’ said the Duke, but as he spoke he already had a vague and disquieting presentiment as to the other’s meaning.
‘Consider your situation for a moment,’ the Negro went on quietly. ‘Because you feared to die, by an act of your own will you threw yourself into a self-induced trance and left your body before the poison could affect you. There would be no harm in that if you intended to return to it; but apparently you refuse to do so; and if you fail to return your body must then obviously decompose until it is no longer fit for use as a human garment. You will then, arbitrarily and by your own act, have brought about the end of your recent incarnation. Can you deny that such a course would be suicide?’
‘No,’ the Duke admitted, and he saw at once that he was now between the devil and the deep sea. If for their own good reasons the Great Ones had indeed put him through a very severe test, it had obviously been their intention that he should become a Zombie and pay off some past debt in that form. But he had evaded that, and to do so he had virtually committed suicide: the worst sin against the spirit of which any individual can be guilty.
If, having been warned, he now failed to return to his body, for hundreds of years he would suffer the penalty of living over and over again the awful hours through which he had passed since leaving the launch. Innumerable times he would again feel the same helplessness and misery as when he had seen his friends buried, and the same fear and horror that he had experienced while he had watched by his corpse in the sanctuary behind the altar. On the other hand, to go back now, whatever the astral who was talking to him might say—be it good or bad—seemed to him to be an act of surrender.
With a colossal effort he made up his mind, and said firmly: ‘This test is beyond my judgment; but it is not beyond my will. Even if I suffer the penalties of suicide for countless years to come, I still refuse to re-enter my body.’
The Negro’s eyes flickered and fell. In that instant the Duke knew that his decision had been right. Launching himself forward, he hurled himself upon his adversary at the second that the evil entity turned to flee. Suddenly he felt an enormous surge of new power rise up in him, and with a shout of triumph he streaked away in pursuit.
The Adversary climbed to the third plane; the Duke hurtled after him. Their progress slowed but they managed to stagger through the fourth and reached the fifth. This was the highest that de Richleau had ever achieved as a mortal man; the strain of remaining there was terrible for both of them. The Duke felt crushed, breathless, bewildered, blinded, but his enemy was in an even worse plight, and, gasping with fear, dropped like a plummet, straight down to Earth.
The Duke pursued him now with tireless vigour; as though filled with the very essence of Light from his recent nearness to the great Beatitudes. They were back in the compound of the Hounfort, the Satanist was crouching on the ground, whimpering like a stricken animal; while de Richleau towered above him, a brilliant, glowing being surrounded by a great aura of iridescent, pulsing flame.
‘Mercy!’ screamed the Priest of Evil. ‘Mercy, mercy!’ But de Richleau’s heart was hard as agate and he drove the miserable wretch headlong into the sanctuary.
‘Into your body!’ ordered the Duke.
For a moment the Satanist made one last desperate effort, rising up again, black and formidable; but de Richleau struck him down by the power of his will. The astral wailed in utter fear and suddenly dissolved. As it did so the eyes of Doctor Saturday’s mortal body flickered open.
‘Well done!’ said a silvery voice which the Duke recognised, yet without fear, as Pan’s. ‘That which I did before I was constrained to do by his enchantments; but now I will gladly do that which I promised; you have but to command me.’
‘Appear to him!’ cried de Richleau, in ringing tones.
Then, as the Duke hid his eyes under a glowing shield of light which now formed at his instant will, Pan materialised in all his awful glory.
With a screech that rang through the night the Witch Doctor leapt to his feet and dashed from the Voodoo temple; but de Richleau sped, like a Hound of Heaven, on his heels.
Dawn was breaking as the Satanist, barefooted, raced across the compound and out on to the road beyond. His eyes were bulging in his head, his body was sweating with terror. As he fled he screamed wild imprecations and tore, with the gestures of a madman, at the heavy, ceremonial trappings which he was still adorned.
In a few moments he had wrenched off his necklaces, which seemed to choke him, and was tearing his body with his nails as he sought to snap the belt that held up his short, full skirt.
Suddenly it gave way, and as the skirt slid down to his knees he tripped and fell. Wriggling out of it, he sprang to his feet and raced on, now stark naked. Twenty yards further on he swerved, leapt on to a bank and began to run down its far side. It was very steep and ended in a cliff that dropped sheer a hundred feet to the sea. Like the Gadarene swine, the Satanist plunged down the slope until he stumbled and fell again; then he rolled, pitching from tussock to tussock of the coarse grass until, a raving lunatic, he pitched over the cliff and hurtled downwards, his arms and legs whirling, to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
De Richleau hovered there until the spirit came forth from the mangled body. It was now quiet and submissive, with no more fight left in it. Since it had already been defeated on the astral, there was no need to take advantage of the momentary black-out which succeeds death to seize and chain it. Humbly it opened wide its arms and bowed its head in token of surrender. At the Duke’s call two Guardians of the Light appeared and as they led the captive away a triumphant fanfare of trumpets filled the air.
When de Richleau got back to his own body he found it in poor shape. It was still suffering from the effect of the toxin which had passed into it with the water which they had drunk many hours before, but he forced it to obey him and crawled out of the sanctuary to the squalid hut into which his friends had been cast.
They, too, were still heavy and leaden from the drug that had thrown them into a cataleptic state, but by the law of the Timeless Ones, with the surrender of the Satanist the spirits of his captives had been released. Consciousness had just returned to them. They knew one another again, and when de Richleau appeared they knew that he had been victorious.
After half an hour they had recovered sufficiently to leave the hut. Some of the natives in the compound were setting about their early-morning tasks, and when they saw the little party walk forth, with their sight and voices unimpaired, they fled in terror.
It was a sore, weary, crippled group that limped along the road until they came upon a Negro who agreed to give them a lift in his market-cart down to the British Consulate in Port-au-Prince. There, de Richleau felt, they would be safe from any unwelcome attentions which their reappearance in the town might cause, and, if necessary, cables could be sent to Sir Pellinore, who would use all the power and prestige of Britain to ensure them a safe conduct out of Haiti back to the United States.
It was Simon who remarked, as the cart jogged on in the early-morning light: ‘I wonder if the Nazis will be able to find another Black Magician powerful enough to carry on Doctor Saturday’s work?’
‘I doubt it,’ replied the Duke; ‘otherwise they would never, in the first place, have utilised an occultist who was living as far away as Haiti.’
‘Then can we take it that we’ve broken the Nazi menace on the astral?’ murmured Marie Lou.
De Richleau smiled but sadly shook his head. ‘No, no, Princess. That will never cease until Totalitarianism in all its forms is destroyed root and branch. Whether or not Hitler and Mussolini themselves are great masters of Black Magic, nobody can possibly contest that it is through such ambitious and unscrupulous men, German, Italian and Japanese, that the Powers of Darkness are working and in recent years have acquired such a terrifying increase of strength upon our earth.
‘The New World Order which they wish to bring about is but another name for Hell. If through them Evil prevailed, every man and woman of every race and colour would finally be enslaved, from the cradle to the grave. They would be brought up to worship might instead of right and would be taught to condone, or even praise, murder, torture and the suppression of all liberty as “necessary” to the welfare of “the State”.
‘Incontestable proof of that has already been given us by the way in which the young Nazi-educated Germans have behaved in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. They butchered old men, women and children who did not even seek to oppose them. That was part of the Plan, and they obeyed the order to commit these murders in cold blood without a single recorded instance of any protest against them by officers or men. Seven years of the Totalitarian poison has been enough for the Evil to grip five million German youths and with it their hearts have gone cold and stony. If they triumph, within seventy years such words as justice, toleration, freedom and compassion will have ceased to have a place in the vocabularies of the races of mankind.
‘In the New World Order all family life will be at an end, except for the conquerors, and only the worst elements, spiritually, will be allowed to procreate fresh generations to populate a world divided into masters and slaves. The right to homes and children of their own would be reserved to the Overlords; the rest would be herded into barracks and reduced to the level of robots without the right to read or speak or even think for themselves. There could be no revolt, because every officer, priest, deputy, editor, magistrate, writer and other leader of free thought and action in the conquered countries would already have been executed by the firing-squads; and leaderless herds cannot prevail against tanks, tear-gas, bombs and machine-guns.
‘And unless men are free how can they progress upon the great spiritual journey which all must make?
‘This war is not for territory or gain or glory, but that Armageddon which was prophesied of old. That is why all the Children of Light, wherever they may be, captive or free, must hold on to their spiritual integrity as never before and must stick at nothing, physically, in the fight, lest the whole world fall under the domination of these puppets who are animated by the Powers of Darkness.’
As he ceased speaking they knew that although it would be many days before their burns, weals and wounds were healed there had come into their hearts a little glow of warmth. The Battle was still far from being over, but they had done the thing which they had set out to do. Their Victory was an episode—no more—in the Titanic struggle that was in progress, but the flame which animated their spirits was burning all the brighter for it, and they were returning to fight on for the England that they loved.
It seemed that the Duke guessed their thoughts, for he spoke again. ‘As long as Britain stands the Powers of Darkness cannot prevail. On Earth the Anglo-Saxon race is the last Guardian of the Light, and I have an unshakable conviction that, come what may, our island will prove the Bulwark of the World.’