While Rex slumbered evenly and peacefully before the dying fire in the lounge of the ‘Pride of Peacocks,’ Richard, Marie Lou, the Duke and Simon waited in the pentacle, on the floor of the library at Cardinals Folly, for the dreary hours of night to drag their way to morning.
They lay with their heads towards the centre of the circle and their feet towards the rim, forming a human cross, but although they did not speak for a long time after they had settled down, none of them managed to drop off to sleep.
The layer of clean sheets and blankets beneath them was pleasant enough to rest on for a while, but the hard, unyielding floorboards under it soon began to cause them discomfort. The bright flames of the burning candles and the steady glow of the electric light showed pink through their closed eyelids, making repose difficult, and they were all keyed up to varying degrees of anxious expectancy.
Marie Lou was restless and miserable. Nothing but her fondness for Simon, and the Duke’s plea that the presence of Richard and herself would help enormously in his protection, would have induced her to play any part in such proceedings. Her firm belief in the supernatural filled her with grim forebodings, and she tried in vain to shut out her fears by sleep. Every little noise that broke the brooding stillness, the creaking of a beam as the old house eased itself upon its foundations, or the whisper of the breeze as it rustled the leaves of the trees in the garden, caused her to start wide awake again, her muscles taut with alarm and apprehension.
Richard did not attempt to sleep. He lay revolving a number of problems in his mind. Fleur d’amour’s birthday was in a couple of weeks’ time. The child was easy, but a present for Marie Lou was a different question. It must be something that she wanted and yet a surprise. A difficult matter when she already had everything with which his fine fortune could endow her, and jewellery was not only banal but absurd. The sale of the lesser stones among the Shulimoff treasure, which they had brought out of Russia, had realised enough to provide her with a handsome independent income and her retention of the finer gems alone equipped her magnificently in that direction. He toyed with the idea of buying her a two-year-old. He was not a racing man but she was fond of horses and it would be fun for her to see her own run at the lesser meetings.
After a while he turned restlessly on to his tummy, and began to ponder this wretched muddle into which Simon had got himself. The more he thought about it the less he could subscribe to the Duke’s obvious beliefs. That so-called Black Magic was still practised in most of the Continental capitals and many of the great cities in America, he knew. He had even met a man, a few years before, who had told him that he had attended a celebration of the Black Mass at a house in the Earls Court district of London, yet he could not credit that it had been anything more than a flimsy excuse for a crowd of intellectual decadents to get disgustingly drunk and participate in a wholesale sexual orgy. Simon was not that sort, or a fool either, so it was certainly odd that he should have got himself mixed up with such beastliness.
Richard turned over again, yawned, glanced at his friend whom, he decided, he had never seen look more normal, and wondered if, out of courtesy to the Duke, he could possibly continue to play his part in this tedious farce until morning.
The banishing rituals which De Richleau had performed upon Simon the previous night at Stonehenge had certainly proved successful, and he had had a good sleep that afternoon. His brain was now quick and clear as it had been in the old days and, although Mocata’s threats were principally directed against himself, he was by far the most cheerful of the party. Despite his recent experiences, his natural humour bubbling up very nearly caused him to laugh at the thought of them all lying on that hard floor because he had made an idiot of himself, and Richard’s obvious disgust at the discomforts imposed by the Duke caused him much amusement. Nevertheless, he recognised that his desire to laugh was mainly due to nervous tension, and accepted with full understanding the necessity for these extreme precautions. To think, for only a second, of how narrow his escape had been was enough to sober instantly any tendency to mirth and send a quick shudder through his limbs. He was only anxious now, having dragged his friends into this horrible affair, to cause them as little further trouble as possible by following the Duke’s leadership without question. With resolute determination he kept his thoughts away from any of his dealings with Mocata and set himself to endure his comfortless couch with philosophic patience.
To outward appearances De Richleau slept. He lay perfectly still on his back breathing evenly and almost imperceptibly, but he had always been able to do with very little sleep. Actually he was recruiting his forces in a manner that was not possible to the others. That gentle rhythmic breathing, perfectly but unconsciously timed from long practice, was the way of the Raja Yoga which he had learnt when young, and all the time he visualised himself, the others, the whole room as blue–blue–blue, the colour vibration which gives love and sympathy and spiritual attainment. Yet he was conscious of every tiny movement made by the others: the gentle sighing of the breeze outside, and the occasional crackle of burning logs as they fell into the embers. For over two hours he barely moved a muscle but all his senses remained watchful and alert.
The night seemed never-ending. Outside the wind dropped and a steady rain began to fall, dripping with monotonous regularity from the eaves on to the terrace. Richard became more and more sore from the hard floor. He was tired now and bored by this apparently senseless vigil. He thought that it must be about half past one, and daylight would not come to release them from their voluntary prison before half past five or six. That meant another four hours of this acute and momentarily increasing discomfort. As he tossed and turned it grew upon him with ever-increasing force how stupid and futile this whole affair seemed to be. De Richleau was so obviously the victim of a gang of clever tricksters, and his wide reading on obscure subjects had caused his imagination to run away with him. To pander to such folly any longer simply was not good enough. With these thoughts now dominating his mind Richard suddenly sat up.
‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I’m sick of this. A joke’s a joke, but we’ve had no lunch and precious little dinner, and I haven’t had a drink all day. Some of you have got far too lively an imagination, and we are making utter fools of ourselves. We had better go upstairs. If you’re really frightened of anything happening to Simon we could easily shift four beds into one room and all sleep within a hand’s reach of each other. Nobody will be able to get at him then. But frankly, at the moment, I think we’re behaving like a lot of lunatics.’
De Richleau rose with a jerk and gave him a sharp look from beneath his grey slanting devil’s eyebrows. ‘Something’s beginning to happen,’ he told himself swiftly. ‘They’re working upon Richard, because he’s the most sceptical amongst us, to try and make him break up the pentacle.’ Aloud he said quietly: ‘So you’re still unconvinced that Simon is in real danger, Richard?’
‘Yes, I am.’ Richard’s voice held an angry aggressive note quite foreign to his normal manner. ‘I regard this Black Magic business as stupid nonsense. If you could cite me a single case where so-called magicians have actually done their stuff before sane people it would be different. But they’re charlatans–every one of them. Take Cagliostro—he was supposed to make gold but nobody ever saw any of it, and when the Inquisition got hold of him they bunged him in a dungeon in Rome and he died there in abject misery. His Black Magic couldn’t even procure him a hunk of bread. Look at Catherine de Medici. She was a witch on the grand scale if ever there was one—built a special tower at Vincennes for Cosimo Ruggeri, an Italian sorcerer. They used to slit up babies and practise all sorts of abominations there together, night after night, to ensure the death of Henry of Navarre and the birth of children to her own sons. But it didn’t do her a ha’porth of good. All four died childless so that at last, despite all her bloody sacrifices, the House of Valois was extinct, and Henry, the hated Bearnais, became King of France after all. Come nearer home if you like. Take that absurd fool Elipas Levi who was supposed to be the Grand High Whatnot in Victorian times. Did you ever read his book, The Doctrine and Ritual of Magic? In his introduction he professes that he is going to tell you all about the game and that he’s written a really practical book, by the aid of which anybody who likes can raise the devil, and perform all sorts of monkey tricks. He drools on for hundreds of pages about fiery swords and tetragrams and the terrible aqua poffana, but does he tell you anything? Not a blessed thing. Once it comes to a showdown he hedges like the crook he was and tells you that such mysteries are far too terrible and dangerous to be entrusted to the profane. Mysterious balderdash my friend. I’m going to have a good strong nightcap and go to bed.’
Marie Lou looked at him in amazement. Never before had she heard Richard denounce any subject with such passion and venom. Ordinarily, he possessed an extremely open mind and, if he doubted any statement, confined himself to a kindly but slightly cynical expression of disbelief. It was extraordinary that he should suddenly forget even his admirable manners and be downright rude to one of his greatest friends.
De Richleau studied his face with quiet understanding and as Richard stood up he stood up too, laying his hand upon the younger man’s shoulder. ‘Richard,’ he said. ‘You think I’m a superstitious fool, don’t you?’
‘No.’ Richard shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Only that you’ve been through a pretty difficult time and, quite frankly, that your imagination is a bit overstrained at the moment.’
The Duke smiled. ‘All right, perhaps you are correct, but we have been friends for a long time now and this business tonight has not interfered with our friendship in any way, has it?’
‘Why, of course not. You know that.’
‘Then, if I begged of you to do something for my sake, just because of that friendship, you would do it, wouldn’t you?’
‘Certainly I would.’ Richard’s hesitation was hardly perceptible and the Duke cut in quickly, taking him at his word.
‘Good! Then we will agree that Black Magic may be nothing but a childish superstition. Yet I happen to be frightened of it, so I ask you, my friend, who is not bothered with such stupid fears, to stay with me tonight, and not move outside this pentacle.’
Richard shrugged again, and then smiled ruefully. …
‘You’ve caught me properly now so I must make the best of it; quite obviously if you say that, it is impossible for me to refuse.’
‘Thank you,’ De Richleau murmured as they both sat down again, and to himself he thought: ‘That’s the first move in the game to me.’ Then as a fresh silence fell upon the party, he began to ruminate upon the strangeness of the fact that elementals and malicious spirits may be very powerful, but their nature is so low and their intelligence so limited that they can nearly always be trapped by the divine spark of reason which is the salvation of mankind. The snare was such an obvious one and yet Richard’s true nature had reasserted itself so rapidly that the force, which had moved him to try and break up their circle for its benefit, had been scotched almost before it had had a chance to operate.
They settled down again but in some subtle way the atmosphere had changed. The fire glowed red on its great pile of ashes, the candles burned unflickeringly in the five points of the star, and the electric globes above the cornices still lit every corner of the room with a soft diffused radiance, yet the four friends made no further pretence of trying to sleep. Instead they sat back to back, while the moments passed, creeping with leaden feet towards the dawn.
Marie Lou was perplexed and worried by Richard’s outburst, De Richleau tense with a new expectancy, now he felt that psychic forces were actually moving within the room. Stealthy, invisible, but powerful; he knew them to be feeling their way from bay to bay of the pentacle, seeking for any imperfection in the barrier he had erected, just as a strong current swirls and eddies about the jagged fissures of a reef searching for an entrance into a lagoon.
Simon sat crouched, his hands clasped round his knees, staring, apparently with unseeing eyes, at the long lines of books. It seemed that he was listening intently and the Duke watched him with special care, knowing that he was the weak spot of their defence. Presently, his voice a little hoarse, Simon spoke:
‘I’m awfully thirsty. I wish we’d got a drink.’
De Richleau smiled, a little grimly. Another of the minor manifestations—the evil was working upon Simon now but only to give another instance of its brutish stupidity. It overlooked the fact that he had provided for such an emergency with that big carafe of water in the centre of the pentacle. The fact that it had caused Simon to forget its presence was of little moment. ‘Here you are, my friend,’ he said, pouring out a glass. ‘This will quench your thirst.’
Simon sipped it and put it aside with a shake of his narrow head. ‘Do you use well-water, Richard?’ he asked jerkily. ‘This stuff tastes beastly to me, brackish and stale.’
‘Ah!’ thought De Richleau. ‘That’s the line they are trying, is it? Well, I can defeat them there,’ and taking Simon’s glass he poured the contents back into the carafe. Then he picked up his bottle of Lourdes water. There was very little in it now for the bulk of it had been used to fill the five cups which stood in the vales of the pentagram, but enough, and he sprinkled a few drops into the water in the carafe.
Richard was speaking, instinctively now in a lowered voice, assuring Simon that they always used Burrows Malvern for drinking purposes, when the Duke filled the glass again and handed it back to Simon. ‘Now try that.’
Simon sipped again and nodded quickly. ‘Um, that seems quite different. I think it must have been my imagination before,’ and he drank off the contents of the glass.
Again for a long period no one spoke. Only the scraping of a mouse behind the wainscot, sounding abnormally loud, jarred upon the stillness. That frantic insistent gnawing frayed Marie Lou’s nerves to such a pitch that she wanted to scream, but after a while that, too, ceased and the heavy silence, pregnant with suspense, enveloped them once more. Even the gentle patter on the window-panes was no longer there to remind them of healthy, normal things, for the rain had stopped, and in that soundless room the only movement was the soft flicker of the logs, piled high in the wide fireplace.
It seemed that they had been crouching in that pentacle for nights on end and that their frugal dinner lay days away. Their discomfort had been dulled into a miserable apathy and they were drowsy now after these hours of strained uneventful watching. Richard lay down again to try and snatch a little sleep. The Duke alone remained alert. He knew that this long interval of inactivity on the part of the malefic powers was only a snare designed to give a false sense of security before the renewal of the attack. At length he shifted his position slightly and, as he did so, he chanced to glance upwards at the ceiling. Suddenly it seemed to him that the lights were not quite so bright as they had been. It might be his imagination, due to the fact that he was anticipating trouble, but somehow he felt certain that the ceiling had been brighter when he had looked at it before. In quick alarm he roused the others.
Simon nodded, realising why De Richleau had touched him on the shoulder and confirming his suspicion. Then with straining eyes, they all watched the cornice, where the concealed lights ran round the wall above the top of the bookshelves.
The action was so slow, that each of them felt their eyes must be deceiving them, and yet an inner conviction told them that it was true. Shadows had appeared where no shadows were before. Slowly but surely the current was failing and the lights dimming as they watched.
There was something strangely terrifying now about that quiet room. It was orderly and peaceful, just as Richard knew it day by day, except for the absence of the furniture. No nebulous ghost-like figure had risen up to confront them, but there, as the minutes passed, they were faced with an unaccountable phenomenon—those bright electric globes hidden from their sight were gradually but unquestionably being dimmed.
The shadows from the bookcases lengthened. The centre of the ceiling became a dusky patch. Gradually, gradually, and with caught breath they watched as the room was being plunged in darkness. Soundless and stealthy, that black shadow upon the ceiling grew in size and the binding of the books became obscure where they had before been bright until, after what seemed an eternity of time, no light remained save only the faintest line just above the rim of the top bookshelf, the five candles burning steadily in the points of the five-starred pentagram, and the dying fire.
Richard shuddered suddenly. ‘My God! It’s cold,’ he exclaimed, drawing Marie Lou towards him. The Duke nodded, silent and watchful. He felt that sinister chill draught beginning to flow upon the back of his neck, and his scalp prickled as he swung round with a sudden jerk to face it.
There was nothing to be seen, only the vague outline of the bookcases rising high and stark towards the ceiling where the dull ribbon of light still glowed. The flames of the candles were bent now at an angle under the increasing strength of the cold, invisible air current that pressed steadily upon them.
De Richleau began to intone a prayer. The wind ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a moment later it began to play upon them again, this time from a different quarter.
The Duke resumed his prayer, the wind checked, and then came with renewed force from another angle. He swung to meet it but it was at his back again.
A faint, low moaning became perceptible as the unholy blast began to circle round the pentacle. Round and round it swirled with ever-increasing strength and violence, beating up out of the shadows in sudden wild gusts of arctic iciness, and tearing at them with chill, invisible, clutching fingers, so that it seemed as if they were standing in the very vortex of a cyclone. The candles flickered wildly, and went out.
Richard, his scepticism badly shaken, quickly pushed Marie Lou to one side and whipped out his matches. He struck one, and got the nearest candle alight again but, as he turned to the next, that cold damp evil wind came once more, chilling the perspiration that had broken out upon his forehead, snuffing the candle that he had re-lit and the half-burnt match which he still held between his fingers.
He lit another and it spluttered out almost before the wood had caught—another—and another, but they would not burn.
He glimpsed Simon’s face for an instant, white, set, ghastly, the eyeballs protruding unnaturally as he knelt staring out into the shadows, then the whole centre of the room faded to black.
‘We must hold hands,’ whispered the Duke. ‘Quick, it will strengthen our resistance,’ and in the murk they fumbled for each other’s fingers, all standing up now, until they formed a little ring in the very centre of the pentagram, hand clasped in hand and bodies back to back.
The whirling hurricane ceased as suddenly as it had begun. An unnatural stillness descended on the room again. Then without warning, an uncontrollable fit of trembling took possession of Marie Lou.
‘Steady, my sweet,’ breathed Richard, gripping her hand more tightly, ‘you’ll be all right in a minute.’ He thought that she was suffering from the effect of that awful cold which had penetrated the thin garments of them all, but she was standing facing the grate and her knees shook under her as she stammered out:
‘But look—the fire.’
Simon was behind her but the Duke and Richard, who were on either side, turned their heads and saw the thing that had caused her such excess of terror. The piled-up logs had flared into fresh life as that strange rushing wind had circled round the room, but now the flames had died down and, as their eyes rested upon it, they saw that the red hot embers were turning black. It was as though some monstrous invisible hand was dabbing at it, then almost in a second, every spark of light in the great, glowing fire was quenched.
‘Pray,’ urged the Duke, ‘for God’s sake, pray.’
After a little their eyes grew accustomed to this new darkness. The electric globes hidden behind the cornice were not quite dead. They flickered and seemed about to fail entirely every few moments, yet always the power exerted against them seemed just not quite enough, for their area of light would increase again, so that the shadows across the ceiling and below the books were driven back. The four friends waited with pounding hearts as they watched that silent struggle between light and darkness and the swaying of the shadows backwards and forwards, that ringed them in.
For what seemed an immeasurable time they stood in silent apprehension, praying that the last gleam of light would hold out, then, shattering that eerie silence like the sound of guns there came three swift, loud knocks upon the window-pane.
‘What’s that?’ snapped Richard.
‘Stay still,’ hissed the Duke.
A voice came suddenly from outside in the garden. It was clear and unmistakable. Each one of them recognised it instantly as that of Rex.
‘Say, I saw your light burning. Come on and let me in.’
With a little sigh of relief at the breaking of the tension, Richard let go Marie Lou’s hand and took a step forward. But the Duke grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back:
‘Don’t be a fool,’ he rasped. ‘It’s a trap.’
‘Come on now. What in heck is keeping you?’ the voice demanded. ‘It’s mighty cold out here, let me in quick.’
Richard alone remained momentarily unconvinced that it was a superhuman agency at work. The others felt a shiver of horror run through their limbs at that perfect imitation of Rex’s voice, which they were convinced was a manifestation of some terrible entity endeavouring to trick them into leaving their carefully constructed defence.
‘Richard,’ the voice came again, angrily now. ‘It’s Rex I tell you—Rex. Stop all this fooling and get this door undone.’ But the four figures in the pentacle now remained tense, silent and unresponsive.
The voice spoke no more and, once again, there was a long interval of silence.
De Richleau feared that the Adversary was gathering his forces for a direct attack and it was that, above all other things, which filled him with dread. He was reasonably confident that his own intelligence would serve to sense out and avoid any fresh pitfalls which might be set, providing the others would obey his bidding and remain steadfast in their determination not to leave the pentacle, but he had failed in his attempt to secure the holy wafers of the Blessed Sacrament that afternoon, the lights were all but overcome, the sacred candles had been snuffed out. The holy water, horseshoes, garlic and the pentacle itself might only prove a partial defence if the dark entities which were about them made an open and determined assault.
‘What’s that!’ exclaimed Simon, and they swung round to face the new danger. The shadows were massing into deeper blackness in one corner of the room. Something was moving there.
A dim phosphorescent blob began to glow in the darkness; shimmering and spreading into a great hummock, its outline gradually became clearer. It was not a man form nor yet an animal, but heaved there on the floor like some monstrous living sack. It had no eyes or face but from it there radiated a terrible malefic intelligence.
Suddenly there ceased to be anything ghostlike about it. The Thing had a whitish pimply skin, leprous and unclean, like some huge silver slug. Waves of satanic power rippled through its spineless body, causing it to throb and work continually like a great mass of new-made dough. A horrible stench of decay and corruption filled the room; for as it writhed it exuded a slimy poisonous moisture which trickled in little rivulets across the polished floor. It was solid, terribly real, a living thing. They could even see long, single, golden hairs, separated from each other by ulcerous patches of skin, quivering and waving as they rose on end from its flabby body, and suddenly it began to laugh at them, a low, horrid, chuckling laugh.
Marie Lou reeled against Richard, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth and biting into it to prevent a scream.
His eyes were staring, a cold perspiration broke out upon his face.
De Richleau knew that it was a Saiitii manifestation of the most powerful and dangerous kind. His nails bit into the palms of his hands as he watched that shapeless mass, silver white and putrescent, heave and ferment.
Suddenly it moved, with the rapidity of a cat, yet they heard the squelching sound as it leapt along the floor, leaving a wet slimy trail in its wake, that poisoned the air like foul gases given off by animal remains.
They spun round to face it, then it laughed again, mocking them with that quiet, diabolical chuckle that had the power to fill them with such utter dread.
It lay for a moment near the window pulsating with demoniac energy like some enormous livid heart. Then it leapt again back to the place where it had been before.
Shuddering at the thought of that ghastliness springing upon their backs they turned with lightning speed to meet it, but it only lay there wobbling and crepitating with unholy glee.
‘Oh, God!’ gapsed Richard.
The masked door which led up to the nursery was slowly opening. A line of white appeared in the gap from near the floor to about three feet in height. It broadened as the door swung back noiselessly upon its hinges, and Marie Lou gave a terrified cry.
‘It’s Fleur!’
The men, too, instantly recognised the little body, in the white nightgown, vaguely outlined against the blackness of the shadows, as the face with its dark aureole of curling hair became clear.
The Thing was only two yards from the child. With hideous merriment it chuckled evilly and flopping forward, decreased the distance by a half.
With one swift movement, De Richleau flung his arm about Marie Lou’s neck and jerked her backwards, her chin gripped fast in the crook of his elbow. ‘It’s not Fleur,’ he cried desperately. ‘Only some awful thing which has taken her shape to deceive you.’
‘Of course it’s Fleur, she’s walking in her sleep!’ Richard started forward to spring towards the child, but De Richleau gripped his arm with his free hand and wrenched him back.
‘It’s not,’ he insisted in an agonised whisper. ‘Richard, I beg you! Have a little faith in me! Look at her face, it’s blue! Oh, Lord protect us!’
At that positive suggestion, thrown out with such vital force at a moment of supreme emotional tension, it did appear to them for an instant that the child’s face had a corpse-like bluish tinge then, upon the swift plea for Divine aid, the lines of the figure seemed to blur and tremble. The Thing laughed, but this time with thwarted malice, a high-pitched, angry, furious note. Then both the child and that nameless Thing became transparent and faded. The silent heavy darkness, undisturbed by sound or movement, settled all about them once again.
With a gasp of relief the straining Duke released his prisoners. ‘Now do you believe me?’ he muttered hoarsely, but there was not time for them to reply. The next attack developed almost instantly.
Simon was crouching in the middle of the circle. Marie Lou felt his body trembling against her thigh. She put her hand on his shoulder to steady him and found that he was shaking like an epileptic in a fit.
He began to gibber. Great shudders shook his frame from head to toe and suddenly he burst into heart-rending sobs.
‘What is it, Simon,’ she bent towards him quickly, but he took no notice of her and crouched there on all fours like a dog until, with a sudden jerk, he pulled himself upright and began to mutter:
‘I won’t—I won’t I say—I won’t. D’you hear—You mustn’t make me–no–no—No!’ Then with a reeling, drunken motion he staggered forward in the direction of the window. But Marie Lou was too quick for him and flung both arms about his neck.
‘Simon darling—Simon,’ she panted. ‘You mustn’t leave us.’
For a moment he remained still, then, his body twisted violently as though his limbs were animated by some terrible inhuman force, and he flung her from him. The mild good-natured smile had left his face and it seemed, in the faint light which still glowed from the cornice, that he had become an utterly changed personality—his mouth hung open showing the bared teeth in a snarl of ferocious rage, his eyes glinted hot and dangerous with the glare of insanity, a little dribble of saliva ran down his chin.
‘Quick, Richard,’ cried the Duke. ‘They’ve got him, for God’s sake pull him down!’
Richard had seen enough now to destroy his scepticism for life. He followed De Richleau’s lead, grappling frantically with Simon, and all three of them crashed struggling to the floor.
‘Oh, God,’ sobbed Marie Lou. ‘Oh, God, dear God!’
Simon’s breath came in great gasps as though his chest would burst. He fought and struggled like a maniac, but Richard, desperate now, kneed him in the stomach and between them they managed to hold him down. Then De Richleau, who, fearing such an attack, had had the forethought to provide himself with cords, succeeded in tying his wrists and ankles.
Richard rose panting from the struggle, smoothed back his dark hair, and said huskily to the Duke. ‘I take it all back. I’m sorry if I’ve been an extra nuisance to you.’
De Richleau patted him on the elbow. He could not smile for his eyes were flickering, even as Richard spoke, from corner to corner of that grim, darkened room, seeking, yet dreading, some new form in which the Adversary might attempt their undoing.
All three linked their arms together and stood, with Simon’s body squirming at their feet, jerking their heads from side to side in nervous expectancy. They had not long to wait. Indistinct at first, but certain after a moment, there was a stirring in the blackness near the door. Some new horror was forming out there in the shadows beyond the pointers of the pentacle—just on a level with their heads.
Their grip upon each other tightened as they fought desperately to recruit their courage. Marie Lou stood between the others, her eyes wide and distended, as she watched this fresh manifestation gradually take shape and gain solidity.
Her scalp began to prickle beneath her chestnut curls. The Thing was forming into a long, dark, beast-like face. Two tiny points of light appeared in it just above the level of her eyes. She felt the short hairs at the back of her skull lift of their own volition like the hackles of a dog.
The points of light grew in size and intensity. They were eyes. Round, protuberant and burning with a fiery glow they bored into hers, watching her with a horrible unwinking stare.
She wanted desperately to break away and run, but her knees sagged beneath her. The head of the Beast merged into powerful shoulders and the blackness below solidified into strong thick legs.
‘It’s a horse!’ gasped Richard. ‘A riderless horse.’
De Richleau groaned. It was a horse indeed. A great black stallion and it had no rider that was visible to them, but he knew its terrible significance. Mocata, grown desperate by his failures to wrest Simon from their keeping, had abandoned the attempt and, in savage revenge, now sent the Angel of Death himself to claim them.
A saddle of crimson leather was strapped upon the stallion’s back, the pressure of invisible feet held the long stirrup leathers rigid to its flanks, and unseen hands held the reins taut a few inches above its withers. The Duke knew well enough that no human who has beheld that dread rider in all his sombre glory has ever lived to tell of it. If that dark Presence broke into the pentacle they would see him all too certainly, but at the price of death.
The sweat streaming down his face, Richard held his ground, staring with fascinated horror at the muzzle of the beast. The fleshy nose wrinkled, the lips drew back, baring two rows of yellowish teeth. It champed its silver bit. Flecks of foam, white and real, dripped from its loose mouth.
It snorted violently and its heated breath came like two clouds of steam from its quivering nostrils warm and damp on his face. He heard De Richleau praying, frantically, unceasingly, and tried to follow suit.
The stallion whinnied, tossed its head and backed into the bookcases drawn by the power of those unseen hands, its mighty hooves ringing loud on the boards. Then, as though rowelled by knife-edged spurs, it was launched upon them.
Marie Lou screamed and tried to tear herself from De Richleau’s grip, but his slim fingers were like a steel vice upon her arm. He remained there, ashen-faced but rigid, fronting the huge beast which seemed about to trample all three of them under foot.
As it plunged forward the only thought which penetrated Richard’s brain was to protect Marie Lou. Instead of leaping back, he sprang in front of her with his automatic levelled and pressed the trigger.
The crash of the explosion sounded like a thunder-clap in that confined space. Again–again–again, he fired while blinding flashes lit the room as though with streaks of lightning. For a succession of seconds the whole library was as bright as day and the gilded bookbacks stood out so clearly that De Richleau could even read the titles across the empty space where, so lately, the great horse had been.
The silence that descended on them when Richard ceased fire was so intense that they could hear each other breathing, and for the moment they were plunged in utter darkness.
After that glaring succession of flashes from the shots, the little rivers of light around the cornice seemed to have shrunk to the glimmer of night lights coming beneath heavy curtains. They could no longer even see each other’s figures as they crouched together in the ring.
The thought of the servants flashed for a second into Richard’s mind. The shooting was bound to have fetched them out of bed. If they came down their presence might put an end to this ghastly business. But the minutes passed. No welcome sound of running feet came to break that horrid stillness that had closed in upon them once more. With damp hands he fingered his automatic and found that the magazine was empty. In his frantic terror he had loosed off every one of the eight shots.
How long they remained there, tense with horror, peering again into those awful shadows, they never knew, yet each became suddenly aware that the steed of the Dark Angel, who had been sent out from the underworld to bring about their destruction, was steadily re-forming.
The red eyes began to glow in the dark face. The body lengthened. The stallion’s hoof-beats rang upon the floor as it stamped with impatience to be unleashed. The very smell of the stable was in the room. That gleaming harness stood out plain and clear. The reins rose sharply from its polished bit to bend uncannily in that invisible grip above its saddle bow. The black beast snorted, reared high in to the air, and then the crouching humans faced that terrifying charge again.
The Duke felt Marie Lou sway against him, clutch at his shoulder, and slip to the floor. The strain had proved too great and she had fainted. He could do nothing for her—the beast was actually upon them.
It baulked, upon the very edge of the pentacle, its fore hooves slithering upon the polished floor, its back legs crashing under it as though faced with some invisible barrier.
With a neigh of fright and pain it flung up its powerful head as though its face had been brought into contact with a red-hot bar. It backed away champing and whinnying until its steaming hindquarters pressed against the book-lined wall.
Richard stooped to clasp Marie Lou’s limp body. In their fear they had all unconsciously retreated from the middle to the edge of the circle. As he knelt his foot caught one of the cups of Holy Water set in the vales of the pentacle. It toppled over. The water spilled and ran to waste upon the floor.
Instantly a roar of savage triumph filled the room, coming from beneath their feet. The abhuman monster from the outer circle—that obscene sack-like Thing—appeared again. Its body vibrated with tremendous rapidity. It screamed at them with positively frantic glee. With incredible speed the stallion was swung by its invisible rider at the gap in the protective barrier. The black beast plunged, scattering the gutted candles and dried mandrake, then reared above them, its great, dark belly on a level with their heads, its enormous hooves poised in mid-air about to batter out their brains.
For one awful second it hovered there while Richard crouched gazing upward, his arms locked tight round the unconscious Marie Lou, De Richleau stood his ground above them both, the sweat pouring in great rivulets down his lean face.
Almost, it seemed, the end had come. Then the Duke used his final resources, and did a thing which shall never be done except in the direst emergency when the very soul is in peril of destruction. In a clear sharp voice he pronounced the last two lines of the dread Sussamma Ritual.
A streak of light seemed to curl for a second round the stallion’s body, as though it had been struck with unerring aim, caught in the toils of some gigantic whip-lash and hurled back. The Thing disintegrated instantly in sizzling atoms of opalescent light. The horse dissolved into the silent shadows.
Those mysterious and unconquerable powers, the Lord of Light, the Timeless Ones, had answered; compelled by those mystic words to leave their eternal contemplation of Supreme Beatitude for a fraction of earthly time, to intervene for the salvation of those four small flickering flames that burned in the beleaguered humans.
An utter silence descended upon the room. It was so still that De Richleau could hear Richard’s heart pounding in his breast. Yet he knew that by that extreme invocation they had been carried out of their bodies on to the fifth Astral plane. His conscious brain told him that it was improbable that they would ever get back. To call upon the very essence of light requires almost superhuman courage, for Prana possesses an energy and force utterly beyond the understanding of the human mind. As it can shatter darkness in a manner beside which a million candle power searchlight becomes a pallid beam, so it can attract all lesser light to itself and carry it to realms undreamed of by infinitesimal man.
For a moment it seemed that they had been ripped right out of the room and were looking down into it. The pentacle had become a flaming star. Their bodies were dark shadows grouped in its centre. The peace and silence of death surged over them in great saturating waves. They were above the house. Cardinals Folly became a black speck in the distance. Then everything faded.
Time ceased, and it seemed that for a thousand years they floated, atoms of radiant matter in an immense, immeasurable void—circling for ever in the soundless stratosphere—being shut off from every feeling and sensation, as though travelling with effortless impulse five hundred fathoms deep below the current levels of some uncharted sea.
Then, after a passage of eons in human time they saw the house again, infinitely far beneath them, their bodies lying in the pentacle and that darkened room. In an utter eerie silence the dust of centuries was falling. Softly, impalpably, like infinitely tiny particles of swansdown, it seemed to cover them, the room, and all that was in it, with a fine grey powder.
De Richleau raised his head. It seemed to him that he had been on a long journey and then slept for many days. He passed his hand across his eyes and saw the familiar bookshelves in the semi-darkened library. The bulbs above the cornice flickered and the light came full on.
Marie Lou had come to and was struggling to her knees while Richard fondled her with trembling hands, and murmured: ‘We’re safe, darling, safe.’
Simon’s eyes were free now from that terrible maniacal glare. The Duke had no memory of having unloosened his bonds but he knelt beside them looking as normal as he had when they had first entered upon that terrible weaponless battle.
‘Yes, we’re safe, and Mocata is finished,’ De Richleau passed a hand over his eyes as if they were still clouded. ‘The Angel of Death was sent against us tonight, but he failed to get us, and he will never return empty-handed to his dark Kingdom. Mocata summoned him so Mocata must pay the penalty.’
‘Are—are you sure of that?’ Simon’s jaw dropped suddenly.
‘Certain. The age-old law of retaliation cannot fail to operate. He will be dead before the morning.’
‘But—but,’ Simon stammered. ‘Don’t you realise that Mocata never does these things himself. He throws other people into a hypnotic trance and makes them do his devilish business for him. One of the poor wretches who are in his power will have to pay for this night’s work.’
Even as he spoke there came the sound of running footsteps along the flagstones of the terrace. A rending crash as a heavy boot landed violently on the woodwork of the french-windows.
They burst open, and framed in them stood no vision but Rex himself. Haggard, dishevelled, hollow-eyed, his face a ghastly mask of panic, fear and fury.
He stood there for a moment staring at them as though they were ghosts. In his arms he held the body of a woman; her fair hair tumbled across his right arm, and her long silk-stockinged legs dangled limply from the other.
Suddenly two great tears welled up into his eyes and trickled slowly down his furrowed cheeks. Then as he laid the body gently on the floor they saw that it was Tanith, and knew, by her strange unnatural stillness, that she was dead.