CHAPTER XVII
THE SLAYER OF SOULS
In that great blizzard which, on the 4th of February, struck the easterncoast of the United States from Georgia to Maine, John Recklow and hismen hunted Sanang, the last of the Yezidees.
And Sanang clung like a demon to the country which he had doomed todestruction, imbedding each claw again as it was torn loose, battlingfor the supremacy of evil with all his dreadful psychic power, strivingstill to seize, cripple, and slay the bodies and souls of a hundredmillion Americans.
Again he scattered the uncounted myriads of germs of the Black Plaguewhich he and his Yezidees had brought out of Mongolia a year before; andonce more the plague swept over the country, and thousands on thousandsdied.
But now the National, State and City governments were fighting, withphysicians, nurses, and police, this gruesome epidemic which had comeinto the world from they knew not where. And National, State and Citygovernments, aroused at last, were fighting the more terrible plague ofanarchy.
Nation-wide raids were made from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and fromthe Gulf to the Lakes. Thousands of terrorists of all shades and stripeswhose minds had been seized and poisoned by the Yezidees were beingarrested. Deportations had begun; government agents were everywhereswarming to clean out the foulness that had struck deeper into the bodyof the Republic than any one had supposed.
And it seemed, at last, as though the Red Plague, too, was about to bestamped out along with the Black Death called Influenza.
But only a small group of Secret Service men knew that a resurgence ofthese horrors was inevitable unless Sanang, the Slayer of Souls, wasdestroyed. And they knew, too, that only one person in America couldhope to destroy Sanang, the last of the Yezidees, and that was TressaCleves.
Only by the sudden onset of the plague in various cities of the land hadRecklow any clew concerning the whereabouts of Sanang.
In Boston, then Washington, then Kansas City, and then New York theepidemic suddenly blazed up. And in these places of death the SecretService men always found a clew, and there they hunted Sanang, theYezidee, to kill him without mercy where they might find him.
But they never found Sanang Noiane; only the ghastly marks of hispoisoned claws on the body of the sickened nation--only minds diseasedby the Red Plague and bodies dying of the Black Death--civil and socialcentres disorganized, disrupted, depraved, dying.
When the blizzard burst upon New York, struggling in the throes of theplague, and paralysed the metropolis for a week, John Recklow sent out aspecial alarm, and New York swarmed with Secret Service men searchingthe snow-buried city for a graceful, slender, dark young man whose eyesslanted a trifle in his amber-tinted face; who dressed fashionably,lived fastidiously, and spoke English perfectly in a delightfullymodulated voice.
And to New York, thrice stricken by anarchy, by plague, and now by God,hurried, from all parts of the nation, thousands of secret agents whohad been hunting Sanang in distant cities or who had been raiding thetraitorous and secret gatherings of his mental dupes.
Agent ZB-303, who was volunteer agent James Benton, came from Bostonwith his new bride who had just arrived by way of England--a young girlnamed Yulun who landed swathed in sables, and stretched out both lovelylittle hands to Benton the instant she caught sight of him on the pier.Whereupon he took the slim figure in furs into his arms, which wasinteresting because they had never before met in the flesh.
So,--their honeymoon scarce begun, Benton and Yulun came from Boston inanswer to Recklow's emergency call.
And all the way across from San Francisco came volunteer agent XLY-371,otherwise Alek Selden, bringing with him a girl named Sansa whom he hadgone to the coast to meet, and whom he had immediately married after shehad landed from the Japanese steamer _Nan-yang Maru_. Which, also, wasremarkable, because, although they recognised each other instantly, andtheir hands and lips clung as they met, neither had ever before beheldthe living body of the other.
The third man who came to New York at Recklow's summons was volunteeragent 53-6-26, otherwise Victor Cleves.
His young wife, suffering from nervous shock after the deaths of TogrulKhan and of the Baroulass girl, Aoula, had been convalescing in aprivate sanitarium in Westchester.
Until the summons came to her husband from Recklow, she had seen himonly for a few moments every day. But the call to duty seemed to haveeffected a miraculous cure in the slender, blue-eyed girl who had lainall day long, day after day, in her still, sunny room scarcely unclosingher eyes at all save only when her husband was permitted to enter forthe few minutes allowed them every day.
The physician had just left, after admitting that Mrs. Cleves seemed tobe well enough to travel if she insisted; and she and her maid hadalready begun to pack when her husband came into her room.
She looked around over her shoulder, then rose from her knees, flung anarmful of clothing into the trunk before which she had been kneeling,and came across the room to him. Then she dismissed her maid from theroom. And when the girl had gone:
"I am well, Victor," she said in a low voice. "Why are you troubled?"
"I can't bear to have you drawn into this horrible affair once more."
"Who else is there to discover and overcome Sanang?" she asked calmly.
He remained silent.
So, for a few moments they stood confronting each other there in thestill, sunny chamber--husband and wife who had never even exchanged thefirst kiss--two young creatures more vitally and intimately boundtogether than any two on earth--yet utterly separated body and soul fromeach other--two solitary spirits which had never merged; two bodiesvirginal and inviolate.
Tressa spoke first: "I must go. That was our bargain."
The word made him wince as though it had been a sudden blow. Then hisface flushed red.
"Bargain or no bargain," he said, "I don't want you to go because I'mafraid you can not endure another shock like the last one.... And everytime you have thrown your own mind and body between this Nation anddestruction you have nearly died of it."
"And if I die?" she said in a low voice.
What answer she awaited--perhaps hoped for--was not the one he made. Hesaid: "If you die in what you believe to be your line of duty, then itwill be I who have killed you."
"That would not be true. It is you who have saved me."
"I have not. I have done nothing except to lead you into danger of deathsince I first met you. If you mean spiritually, that also is untrue. Youhave saved yourself--if that indeed were necessary. You have redeemedyourself--if it is true you needed redemption--which I neverbelieved----"
"Oh," she sighed swiftly, "Sanang surprised my soul when it was free ofmy body--followed my soul into the Wood of the White Moth--caught itthere all alone--and--slew it!"
His lips and throat had gone dry as he watched the pallid terror grow inher face.
Presently he recovered his voice: "You call that Yezidee the Slayer ofSouls," he said, "but I tell you there is no such creature, no suchpower!
"I suppose I--I know what you mean--having seen what we call soulsdissociated from their physical bodies--but that this Yezidee could doyou any spiritual damage I do not for one instant believe. The idea ismonstrous, I tell you----"
"I--I fought him--soul battling against soul----" she stammered,breathing faster and irregularly. "I struggled with Sanang there in theWood of the White Moth. I called on God! I called on my two great dogs,Bars and Alaga! I recited the Fatha with all my strength--fightingconvulsively whenever his soul seized mine; I cried out the name ofKhidr, begging for wisdom! I called on the Ten Imaums, on Ali the Lion,on the Blessed Companions. Then I tore my spirit out of the grasp of hissoul--but there was no escape!--no escape," she wailed. "For on everyside I saw the cloud-topped rampart of Gog and Magog, and the woods rangwith Erlik's laughter--the dissonant mirth of hell----"
She began to shudder and sway a little, then with an effort shecontrolled herself in a measure.
"There never has been," she began agai
n with lips that quivered in spiteof her--"there never has been one moment in our married lives when mysoul dared forget the Wood of the White Moth--dared seek yours.... Godlives. But so does Erlik. There are angels; but there are as manydemons.... My soul is ashamed.... And very lonely ... very lonely ...but no fit companion--for yours----"
Her hands dropped listlessly beside her and her chin sank.
"So you believe that Yezidee devil caught your soul when it waswandering somewhere out of your body, and destroyed it," he said.
She did not answer, did not even lift her eyes until he had steppedclose to her--closer than he had ever come. Then she looked up at him,but closed her eyes as he swept her into his arms and crushed her faceand body against his own.
Now her red lips were on his; now her face and heart and limbs andbreast melted into his--her breath, her pulse, her strength flowed intohis and became part of their single being and single pulse and breath.And she felt their two souls flame and fuse together, and burn togetherin one heavenly blaze--felt the swift conflagration mount, overwhelm,and sweep her clean of the last lingering taint; felt her soul,unafraid, clasp her husband's spirit in its white embrace--clung to him,uplifted out of hell, rising into the blinding light of Paradise.
Far--far away she heard her own voice in singing whispers--heard herlips pronounce _The Name_--"Ata--Ata! Allahou----"
Her blue eyes unclosed; through a mist, in which she saw her husband'sface, grew a vast metallic clamour in her ears.
Her husband kissed her, long, silently; then, retaining her hand, heturned and lifted the receiver from the clamouring telephone.
"Yes! Yes, this is 53-6-26. Yes, V-69 is with me.... When?... To-day?...Very well.... Yes, we'll come at once.... Yes, we can get a train in afew minutes.... All right. Good-bye."
He took his wife into his arms again.
"Dearest of all in the world," he said, "Sanang is cornered in a row ofhouses near the East River, and Recklow has flung a cordon around theentire block. Good God! I _can't_ take you there!"
Then Tressa smiled, drew his head down, looked into his face till theclear blue splendour of her gaze stilled the tumult in his brain.
"I alone know how to deal with Prince Sanang," she said quietly. "And ifJohn Recklow, or you, or Mr. Benton or Mr. Selden should kill him withyour pistols, it would be only his body you slay, not the evil thingthat would escape you and return to Erlik."
"_Must_ you do this thing, Tressa?"
"Yes, I must do it."
"But--if our pistols cannot kill this sorcerer, how are you going todeal with him?"
"I know how."
"Have you the strength?"
"Yes--the bodily and the spiritual. Don't you know that I am alreadypart of you?"
"We shall be nearer still," he murmured.
She flushed but met his gaze.
"Yes.... We shall be but one being.... Utterly.... For already ourhearts and souls are one. And we shall become of one mind and one body.
"I am no longer afraid of Sanang Noiane!"
"No longer afraid to slay him?" he asked quietly.
A blue light flashed in her eyes and her face grew still and white andterrible.
"Death to the body? That is nothing, my lord!" she said, in a hard,sweet voice. "It is written that we belong to God and that we return toHim. All living things must die, Heart of the World! It is only thedeath of souls that matters. And it has arrived at a time in the historyof mankind, I think, when the Slayer of Souls shall slay no more."
She looked at him, flushed, withdrew her hand and went slowly across theroom to the big bay window where potted flowers were in bloom.
From a window-box she took a pinch of dry soil and dropped it into thebosom of her gown.
Then, facing the East, with lowered arms and palms turned outward:
"There is no god but God," she whispered--"the merciful, thelong-suffering, the compassionate, the just.
"For it is written that when the heavens are rolled together like ascroll, every soul shall know what it hath wrought.
"And those souls that are dead in Jehannum shall arise from the dead,and shall have their day in court. Nor shall Erlik stay them till allhas been said.
"And on that day the soul of a girl that hath been put to death shallask for what reason it was slain.
"Thus it has been written."
Then Tressa dropped to her knees, touched the carpet with her forehead,straightened her lithe body and, looking over her shoulder, clapped herhands together sharply.
Her maid opened the door. "Hasten with my lord's luggage!" she criedhappily; and, still kneeling, lifted her head to her husband and laughedup into his eyes.
"You should call the porter for we are nearly ready. Shall we go to thestation in a sleigh? Oh, wonderful!"
She leaped to her feet, extended her hand and caught his.
"Horses for the lord of the Yiort!" she cried, laughingly. "Kosh! Takeme out into this new white world that has been born to-day of the tenpurities and the ten thousand felicities! It has been made anew for youand me who also have been born this day!"
He scarcely knew this sparkling, laughing girl with her quick grace andher thousand swift little moods and gaieties.
Porters came to take his luggage from his own room; and then her trunkand bags were ready, and were taken away.
The baggage sleigh drove off. Their own jingling sleigh followed; andTressa, buried in furs, looked out upon a dazzling, unblemished world,lying silvery white under a sky as azure as her eyes.
"Keuke Mongol--Heavenly Azure," he whispered close to her crimsonedcheek, "do you know how I have loved you--always--always?"
"No, I did not know that," she said.
"Nor I, in the beginning. Yet it happened, also, from the beginning whenI first saw you."
"That is a delicious thing to be told. Within me a most heavenly glow isspreading.... Unglove your hand."
She slipped the glove from her own white fingers and felt for his underthe furs.
"Aie," she sighed, "you are more beautiful than Ali; more wonderful thanthe Flaming Pearl. Out of ice and fire a new world has been made forus."
"Heavenly Azure--my darling!"
"Oh-h," she sighed, "your words are sweeter than the breeze in Yian! Ishall be a bride to you such as there never has been since the days ofthe Blessed Companions--may their names be perfumed andsweet-scented!... Shall I truly be one with you, my lord?"
"Mind, soul, and body, one being, you and I, little Heavenly Azure."
"Between your two hands you hold me like a burning rose, my lord."
"Your sweetness and fire penetrate my soul."
"We shall burn together then till the sky-carpet be rolled up. Kosh! Weshall be one, and on that day I shall not be afraid."
The sleigh came to a clashing, jingling halt; the train plowed into thedepot buried in vast clouds of snowy steam.
But when they had taken the places reserved for them, and the train wasmoving swifter and more swiftly toward New York, fear suddenlyoverwhelmed Victor Cleves, and his face grew grey with the menacingtumult of his thoughts.
The girl seemed to comprehend him, too, and her own features becamestill and serious as she leaned forward in her chair.
"It is in God's hands, Heart of the World," she said in a low voice. "Weare one, thou and I,--or nearly so. Nothing can harm my soul."
"No.... But the danger--to your life----"
"I fear no Yezidee."
"The beast will surely try to kill you. And what can I do? You say mypistol is useless."
"Yes.... But I want you near me."
"Do you imagine I'd leave you for a second? Good God," he added in astrangled voice, "isn't there any way I can kill this wild beast? Withmy naked hands----?"
"You must leave him to me, Victor."
"And you believe you can slay him? _Do_ you?"
She remained silent for a long while, bent forward in her armchair, andher hands clasped tightly on her knees.
"My husban
d," she said at last, "what your astronomers have but justbegun to suspect is true, and has long, long been known to theSheiks-el-Djebel.
"For, near to this world we live in, are other worlds--planets that donot reflect light. And there is a dark world called Yrimid, close to theearth--a planet wrapped in darkness--a black star.... And upon it Erlikdwells.... And it is peopled by demons.... And from it comes sicknessand evil----"
She moistened her lips; sat for a while gazing vaguely straight beforeher.
"From this black planet comes all evil upon earth," she resumed in ahushed voice. "For it is very near to the earth. It is not a hundredmiles away. All strange phenomena for which our scientists can notaccount are due to this invisible planet,--all new and suddenpestilences; all convulsions of nature; the newly noticed radiodisturbances; the new, so-called inter-planetary signals--all--all havetheir hidden causes within that black and demon-haunted planet longknown to the Yezidees, and by them called Yrimid, or Erlik's World.And--it is to this black planet that I shall send Sanang, Slayer ofSouls. I shall tear him from this earth, though he cling to it withevery claw; and I shall fling his soul into darkness--out across thegulf--drive his soul forth--hurl it toward Erlik like a swift rocketcharred and falling from the sky into endless night.
"So shall I strive to deal with Prince Sanang, Sorcerer of MountAlamout, the last of the Assassins, Sheik-el-Djebel, and Slayer ofSouls.... May God remember him in hell."
* * * * *
Already their train was rolling into the great terminal.
Recklow was awaiting them. He took Tressa's hands in his and gazedearnestly into her face.
"Have you come to show us how to conclude this murderous business?" heasked grimly.
"I shall try," she said calmly. "Where have you cornered Sanang?"
"Could you and Victor come at once?"
"Yes." She turned and looked at her husband, who had become quite pale.
Recklow saw the look they exchanged. There could be no misunderstandingwhat had happened to these two. Their tragedy had ended. They wereunited at last. He understood it instantly,--realised how terrible wasthis new and tragic situation for them both.
Yet, he knew also that the salvation of civilisation itself now dependedupon this girl. She must face Sanang. There was nothing else possible.
"The streets are choked with snow," he said, "but I have a coupe and twostrong horses waiting."
He nodded to one of his men standing near. Cleves gave him the handluggage and checks.
"All right," he said in a low voice to Recklow; and passed one armthrough Tressa's.
* * * * *
The coupe was waiting on Forty-second Street, guarded by a policeman.When they had entered and were seated, two mounted policemen rode aheadof the lurching vehicle, picking a way amid the monstrous snow-drifts,and headed for the East River.
"We've got him somewhere in a wretched row of empty houses not far fromEast River Park. I'm taking you there. I've drawn a cordon of my menaround the entire block. He can't get away. But I dared take no chanceswith this Yezidee sorcerer--dared not let one of my men go in to lookfor him--go anywhere near him,--until I could lay the situation beforeyou, Mrs. Cleves."
"Yes," she said calmly, "it was the only way, Mr. Recklow. There wouldhave been no use shooting him--no use taking him prisoner. A prisoner,he remains as deadly as ever; dead, his mind still lives and breedsevil. You are quite right; it is for me to deal with Sanang."
Recklow shuddered in spite of himself. "Can you tear his claws from thevitals of the world, and free the sick brains of a million people fromthe slavery of this monster's mind?"
The girl said seriously:
"Even Satan was stoned. It is so written. And was cast out. And dwellsforever and ever in Abaddon. No star lights that Pit. None lights theBlack Planet, Yrimid. It is where evil dwells. And there Sanang Noianebelongs."
And now, beyond the dirty edges of the snow-smothered city, under an icymist they caught sight of the river where ships lay blockaded by frozenfloes.
Gulls circled over it; ghostly factory chimneys on the further shoreloomed up gigantic, ranged like minarettes.
The coupe, jolting along behind the mounted policemen, struggled uptoward the sidewalk and stopped. The two horses stood steaming, kneedeep in snow. Recklow sprang out; Tressa gave him one hand and steppedlithely to the sidewalk. Then Cleves got out and came and took hold ofhis wife's arm again.
"Well," he said harshly to Recklow, "where is this damned Yezideehidden?"
Recklow pointed in silence, but he and Tressa had already lifted theirgaze to the stark, shabby row of abandoned three-story houses whereevery dirty blind was closed.
"They're to be demolished and model tenements built," he said briefly.
A man muffled in a fur overcoat came up and took Tressa's hand andkissed it.
She smiled palely at Benton, spoke of Yulun, wished him happiness. Whileshe was yet speaking Selden approached and bent over her gloved hand.She spoke to him very sweetly of Sansa, expressing pleasure at theprospect of seeing her again in the body.
"The Seldens and ourselves have adjoining apartments at the Ritz," saidBenton. "We have reserved a third suite for you and Victor."
She inclined her lovely head, gravely, then turned to Recklow, sayingthat she was ready.
"It makes no difference which front door I unlock," he said. "All thesetenements are connected by human rat-holes and hidden runways leadingfrom one house to another.... How many men do you want?"
"I want you four men,--nobody else."
Recklow led the way up a snow-covered stoop, drew a key from his pocket,fitted it, and pulled open the door.
A musty chill struck their faces as they entered the darkened and emptyhallway. Involuntarily every man drew his pistol.
"I must ask you to do exactly what I tell you to do," she said calmly.
"Certainly," said Recklow, caressing his white moustache and striving topierce the gloom with his keen eyes.
Then Tressa took her husband's hand. "Come," she said. They mounted thestairway together; and the three others followed with pistols lifted.
There was a vague grey light on the second floor; the broken rearshutters let it in.
As though she seemed to know her way, the girl led them forward, openeda door in the wall, and disclosed a bare, dusty room in the next house.
Through this she stepped; the others crept after her with weapons ready.She opened a second door, turned to the four men.
"Wait here for me. Come only when I call," she whispered.
"For God's sake take me with you," burst out Cleves.
"In God's name stay where you are till you hear me call your name!" shesaid almost breathlessly.
Then, suddenly she turned, swiftly retracing her steps; and they saw herpass through the first door and disappear into the first house they hadentered.
A terrible silence fell among them. The sound of her steps on the bareboards had died away. There was not a sound in the chilly dusk.
Minute after minute dragged by. One by one the men peered fearfully atCleves. His visage was ghastly and they could see his pistol-handtrembling.
Twice Recklow looked at his wrist watch. The third time he said,unsteadily: "She has been gone three-quarters of an hour."
Then, far away, they heard a heavy tread on the stairs. Nearer andnearer came the footsteps. Every pistol was levelled at the first dooras a man's bulky form darkened it.
"It's one of my men," said Recklow in a voice like a low groan. "Whereon earth is Mrs. Cleves?"
"I came to tell you," said the agent, "Mrs. Cleves came out of the firsthouse nearly an hour ago. She got into the coupe and told the driver togo to the Ritz."
"What!" gasped Recklow.
"She's gone to the Ritz," repeated the agent. "No one else has come out.And I began to worry--hearing nothing of you, Mr. Recklow. So I steppedin to see----"
"You say that Mrs. Cleves
went out of the house we entered, got into thecoupe, and told the driver to go to the Ritz?" demanded Cleves,astounded.
"Yes, sir."
"Where is that coupe? Did it return?"
"It had not returned when I came in here."
"Go back and look for it. Look in the other street," said Recklowsharply.
The agent hurried away over the creaking boards. The four men gazed atone another.
"The thing to do is to obey her and stay where we are," said Recklowgrimly. "Who knows what peril we may cause her if we move from----"
His words froze on his lips as Tressa's voice rang out from the darknessbeyond the door they were guarding:
"Victor I I--I need you! Come to me, my husband!"
As Cleves sprang through the door into the darkness beyond, Bentonsmashed a window sash with all the force of his shoulder, and, reachingout through the shattered glass, tore the rotting blinds from theirhinges, letting in a flood of sickly light.
Against the bare wall stood Tressa, both arms extended, her hands flatagainst the plaster, and each hand transfixed and pinned to the wall bya knife.
A white sheet lay at her feet. On it rested a third knife. And, bendingon one knee to pick it up, they caught a glimpse of a slender young manin fashionable afternoon attire, who, as they entered with the crash ofthe shattered window in their ears, sprang to his nimble feet and stoodconfronting them, knife in hand.
Instantly every man fired at him and the bullets whipped the plaster toa smoke behind him, but the slender, dark skinned young man stoodmotionless, looking at them out of brilliant eyes that slanted a trifle.
Again the racket of the fusillade swept him and filled the room withplaster dust.
Cleves, frantic with horror, laid hold of the knives that pinned hiswife's hands to the wall, and dragged them out.
But there was no blood, no wound to be seen on her soft palms. She tookthe murderous looking blades from him, threw one terrible look atSanang, kicked the shroud across the floor toward him, and flung bothknives upon it.
The place was still dim with plaster dust and pistol fumes as shestepped forward through the acrid mist, motioning the four men aside.
"Sanang!" she cried in a clear voice, "may God remember you in hell, formy feet have spurned your shroud, and your knives, which could not scarmy palms, shall never pierce my heart! Look out for yourself, PrinceSanang!"
"Tokhta!" he said, calmly. "My soul be ransom for yours!"
"That is a lie! My soul is already ransomed! My mind is the morepowerful. It has already halted yours. It is conquering yours. It isseizing your mind and enslaving it. It is mastering your will, Sanang!Your mind bends before mine. You know it! You know it is bending. Youfeel it is breaking down!"
Sanang's eyes began to glitter but his pale brown face had grown almostwhite.
"I slew you once--in the Wood of the White Moth," he said huskily."There is no resurrection from such a death, little Heavenly Azure. Lookupon me! My soul and yours are one!"
"You are looking upon my soul," she said.
"A lie! You are in your body!"
The girl laughed. "My body lies asleep in the Ritz upon my husband'sbed," she said. "My body is his, my mind belongs to him, my soul isalready one with his. Do you not know it, dog of a Yezidee? Look uponme, Sanang Noiane! Look upon my unwounded hands! My shroud lies at yourfeet. And there lie the knives that could not pierce my heart! I amthrice clean! Listen to my words, Sanang! There is no other god butGod!"
The young man's visage grew pasty and loose and horrible; his lipsbecame flaccid like dewlaps; but out of these sagging folds of lividskin his voice burst whistling, screaming, as though wrenched from hisvery belly:
"May Erlik strangle you! May you rot where you stand! May your facebecome a writhing mass of maggots and your body a corruption of livingworms!
"For what you are doing to me this day may every demon in hell tormentyou!
"Have a care what you are about!" he screeched. "You are slaying mymind, you sorceress! You have seized my mind and are crushing it! Youare putting out its light, you Yezidee witch!--you are quenching thelast spark--of reason--in--me----"
"Sanang!"
His knife fell clattering to the floor. But he stood stock still, hishands clutching his head--stood motionless, while scream on scream torethrough the loose and gaping lips, blowing them into ghastly, distortedfolds.
"Sanang Noiane!" she cried in her clear voice, "the Eight Towers aredarkened! The Rampart of Gog and Magog is fallen! On Mount Alamoutnothing is living. The minds of mankind are free again!"
She stepped forward, slowly, and stood near him chanting in a low voicethe Prayers for the Dead She bent down and unrolled the shroud, laid iton his shoulders and drew it up and across his face, covering his dyingeyes, and swathed him so, slowly, from head to foot.
Then she gathered up the three knives, cast them upward into the air.They did not fall again. They disappeared. And all the while, under herbreath, the girl was chanting the Prayers for the Dead as she movedsilently about her business.
Shrouded to the forehead in its white cerements, the muffled figure ofSanang stood upright, motionless as a swathed and frozen corpse.
Outside, the daylight had become greyer. It had begun to snow again, anda few flakes blew in through the shattered windows and clung to thewinding sheet of Sanang.
And now Tressa drew close to the shrouded shape and stood before it,gazing intently upon the outlined features of the last of the Yezidees.
"Sanang," she said very softly, "I hear your soul bidding your bodyfarewell. Tokhta!"
Then, under the strained gaze of the four men gathered there, the shroudfell to the floor in a loose heap of white folds. There was nobody underit; no trace of Sanang. The human shape of the Yezidee had disappeared;but a greyish mist had filled the room, wavering up like smoke from theshroud, and, like smoke, blowing in a long streamer toward the windowwhere the draught drew it out through the falling snow and scattered thelast shred of it against the greying sky.
In the room the mist thinned swiftly; the four men could now see oneanother. But Tressa was no longer in the room. And in place of the whiteshroud a piece of filthy tattered carpet lay on the floor. And a deadrat, flattened out, dry and dusty, lay upon it.
"For God's sake," whispered Recklow hoarsely, "let us get out of this!"
Cleves, his pistol clutched convulsively, stared at him in terror. ButRecklow took him by the arm and drew him away, muttering that Tressa waswaiting for him, and might be ill, and that there was nothing further toexpect in this ghastly spot.
* * * * *
They went with Cleves to the Ritz. At the desk the clerk said that Mrs.Cleves had the keys and was in her apartment.
The three men entered the corridor with him; watched him try the door;saw him open it; lingered a moment after it had closed; heard the keyturn.
At the sound of the door closing the maid came.
"Madame is asleep in her room," she whispered.
"When did she come in?"
"More than two hours ago, sir. I have drawn her bath, but when I openedthe door a few moments ago, Madame was still asleep."
He nodded; he was trembling when he put off his overcoat and dropped hatand gloves on the carpet.
From the little rose and ivory reception room he could see the closeddoor of his wife's chamber. And for a while he stood staring at it.
Then, slowly, he crossed this room, opened the door; entered.
In her bedroom the tinted twilight was like ashes of roses. He went tothe bed and looked down at her shadowy face; gazed intently; listened;then, in sudden terror, bent and laid his hand on her heart. It wasbeating as tranquilly as a child's; but as she stirred, turned her head,and unclosed her eyes, under his hand her heart leaped like a wild thingcaught unawares and the snowy skin glowed with an exquisite anddeepening tint as she lifted her arms and clasped them around herhusband's, neck, drawing his quivering face against her own.
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