But I strolled back when one of the natives of the village near by came up and interrupted the sale with a long harangue to Dom Vincente.
While they talked de Montour came up, and presently Dom Vincente turned to us and said, “One of the woodcutters of the village was torn to pieces by a leopard or some such beast last night. A strong young man and unmarried.”
“A leopard? Did they see it?” suddenly asked de Montour, and when Dom Vincente said no, that it came and went in the night, de Montour lifted a trembling hand and drew it across his forehead, as if to brush away cold sweat.
“Look you, Pierre,” quoth Dom Vincente, “I have here a slave who, wonder of wonders, desires to be your man. Though the devil only knows why.”
He led up a slim young Jakri, a mere youth, whose main asset seemed a merry grin.
“He is yours,” said Dom Vincente. “He is goodly trained and will make a fine servant. And look ye, a slave is of an advantage over a servant, for all he requires is food and a loincloth or so with a touch of the whip to keep him in his place.”
It was not long before I learned why Gola wished to be “my man,” choosing me among all the rest. It was because of my hair. Like many dandies of that day, I wore it long and curled, the strands falling to my shoulders. As it happened, I was the only man of the party who so wore my hair, and Gola would sit and gaze at it in silent admiration for hours at a time, or until, growing nervous under his unblinking scrutiny, I would boot him forth.
It was that night that a brooding animosity, hardly apparent, between Baron von Schiller and Jean Desmarte broke out into a flame.
As usual, woman was the cause. Marcita carried on a most outrageous flirtation with both of them.
That was not wise. Desmarte was a wild young fool. Von Schiller was a lustful beast. But when, Messieurs, did woman ever use wisdom?
Their hate flamed to a murderous fury when the German sought to kiss Marcita.
Swords were clashing in an instant. But before Dom Vincente could thunder a command to halt, Luigi was between the combatants, and had beaten their swords down, hurling them back viciously.
“Signori,” said he, softly, but with a fierce intensity, “is it the part of high-bred signori to fight over my sister? Ha, by the toe-nails of Satan, for the toss of a coin I would call you both out! You, Marcita, go to your chamber, instantly, nor leave until I give you permission.”
And she went, for, independent though she was, none cared to face the slim, effeminate-appearing youth when a tigerish snarl curled his lips, a murderous gleam lightened his dark eyes.
Apologies were made, but from the glances the two rivals threw at each other, we knew that the quarrel was not forgotten and would blaze forth again at the slightest pretext.
Late that night I woke suddenly with a strange, eery feeling of horror. Why, I could not say. I rose, saw that the door was firmly bolted, and seeing Gola asleep on the floor, kicked him awake irritably.
And just as he got up, hastily, rubbing himself, the silence was broken by a wild scream, a scream that rang through the castle and brought a startled shout from the arquebusier pacing the palisade; a scream from the mouth of a girl, frenzied with terror.
Gola squawked and dived behind the divan. I jerked the door open and raced down the dark corridor.
Dashing down a winding stair, I caromed into someone at the bottom and we tumbled headlong.
He gasped something and I recognized the voice of Jean Desmarte. I hauled him to his feet, and raced along, he following; the screams had ceased, but the whole castle was in an uproar, voices shouting, the clank of weapons, lights flashing up, Dom Vincente’s voice shouting for the soldiers, the noise of armed men rushing through the rooms and falling over each other. With all the confusion, Desmarte, the Spaniard, and I reached Marcita’s room just as Luigi darted inside and snatched his sister into his arms.
Others rushed in, carrying lights and weapons, shouting, demanding to know what was occurring.
The girl lay quietly in her brother’s arms, her dark hair loose and rippling over her shoulders, her dainty night-garments torn to shreds and exposing her lovely body. Long scratches showed upon her arms, breasts and shoulders.
Presently she opened her eyes, shuddered, then shrieked wildly and clung frantically to Luigi, begging him not to let something take her.
“The door!” she whimpered. “I left it unbarred. And something crept into my room through the darkness.
I struck at it with my dagger and it hurled me to the floor, tearing, tearing at me. Then I fainted.”
“Where is von Schiller?” asked the Spaniard, a fierce glint in his dark eyes. Every man glanced at his neighbor. All the guests were there except the German. I noted de Montour, gazing at the terrified girl, his face more haggard than usual. And I thought it strange that he wore no weapon.
“Aye, von Schiller!” exclaimed Desmarte fiercely. And half of us followed Dom Vincente out into the corridor. We began a vengeful search through the castle, and in a small, dark hallway we found von Schiller. On his face he lay, in a crimson, ever widening stain.
“This is the work of some native!” exclaimed Desmarte, face aghast.
“Nonsense,” bellowed Dom Vincente. “No native from the outside could pass the soldiers. All slaves, von Schiller’s among them, were barred and bolted in the slave quarters, except Gola, who sleeps in Pierre’s room, and Ysabel’s woman.”
“But who else could have done this deed?” exclaimed Desmarte in a fury.
“You!” I said abruptly; “else why ran you so swiftly away from the room of Marcita?”
“Curse you, you lie!” he shouted, and his swift-drawn sword leaped for my breast; but quick as he was, the Spaniard was quicker. Desmarte’s rapier clattered against the wall and Desmarte stood like a statue, the Spaniard’s motionless point just touching his throat.
“Bind him,” said the Spaniard without passion.
“Put down your blade, Don Florenzo,” commanded Dom Vincente, striding forward and dominating the scene. “Signor Desmarte, you are one of my best friends, but I am the only law here and duty must be done. Give your word that you will not seek to escape.”
“I give it,” replied the Gascon calmly. “I acted hastily. I apologize. I was not intentionally running away, but the halls and corridors of this cursed castle confuse me.”
Of us all, probably but one man believed him.
“Messieurs!” De Montour stepped forward. “This youth is not guilty. Turn the German over.”
Two soldiers did as he asked. De Montour shuddered, pointing. The rest of us glanced once, then recoiled in horror.
“Could man have done that thing?”
“With a dagger–” began someone.
“No dagger makes wounds like that,” said the Spaniard. “The German was torn to pieces by the talons of some frightful beast.”
We glanced about us, half expecting some hideous monster to leap upon us from the shadows.
We searched that castle; every foot, every inch of it. And we found no trace of any beast.
Dawn was breaking when I returned to my room, to find that Gola had barred himself in; and it took me nearly a half-hour to convince him to let me in.
Having smacked him soundly and berated him for his cowardice, I told him what had taken place, as he could understand French and could speak a weird mixture which he proudly called French.
His mouth gaped and only the whites of his eyes showed as the tale reached its climax.
“Ju ju!” he whispered fearsomely. “Fetish man!”
Suddenly an idea came to me. I had heard vague tales, little more than hints of legends, of the devilish leopard cult that existed on the West Coast. No white man had ever seen one of its votaries, but Dom Vincente had told us tales of beast-men, disguised in skins of leopards, who stole through the midnight jungle and slew and devoured. A ghastly thrill traveled up and down my spine and in an instant I had Gola in a grasp which made him yell.
“Was
that a leopard-man?” I hissed, shaking him viciously.
“Massa, massa!” he gasped. “Me good boy! Ju ju man get! More besser no tell!”
“You’ll tell me!” I gritted, renewing my endeavors, until, his hands waving feeble protests, he promised to tell me what he knew.
“No leopard-man!” he whispered, and his eyes grew big with supernatural fear. “Moon, he full, woodcutter find, him heap clawed. Find ’nother woodcutter. Big Massa (Dom Vincente) say, ‘leopard.’
No leopard. But leopard-man, he come to kill. Something kill leopard-man! Heap claw! Hai, hai!
Moon full again. Something come in lonely hut; claw um woman, claw um pick’n in. Man find um claw up. Big Massa say ‘leopard.’ Full moon again, and woodcutter find, heap clawed. Now come in castle.
No leopard. But always footmarks of a man! ”
I gave a startled, incredulous exclamation.
It was true, Gola averred. Always the footprints of a man led away from the scene of the murder. Then why did the natives not tell the Big Massa that he might hunt down the fiend? Here Gola assumed a crafty expression and whispered in my ear, “The footprints were of a man who wore shoes!”
Even assuming that Gola was lying, I felt a thrill of unexplainable horror. Who, then, did the natives believe was doing these frightful murders?
And he answered: Dom Vincente!
By this time, Messieurs, my mind was in a whirl.
What was the meaning of all this? Who slew the German and sought to ravish Marcita? And as I reviewed the crime, it appeared to me that murder rather than rape was the object of the attack.
Why did de Montour warn us, and then appear to have knowledge of the crime, telling us that Desmarte was innocent and then proving it?
It was all beyond me.
The tale of the slaughter got among the natives, in spite of all we could do, and they appeared restless and nervous, and thrice that day Dom Vincente had a black lashed for insolence. A brooding atmosphere pervaded the castle.
I considered going to Dom Vincente with Gola’s tale, but decided to wait awhile.
The women kept their chambers that day, the men were restless and moody. Dom Vincente announced that the sentries would be doubled and some would patrol the corridors of the castle itself. I found myself musing cynically that if Gola’s suspicions were true, sentries would be of little good.
I am not, Messieurs, a man to brook such a situation with patience. And I was young then. So as we drank before retiring, I flung my goblet on the table and angrily announced that in spite of man, beast or devil, I slept that night with doors flung wide. And I tramped angrily to my chamber.
Again, as on the first night, de Montour came. And his face was as a man who has looked into the gaping gates of hell.
“I have come,” he said, “to ask you–nay, Monsieur, to implore you–to reconsider your rash determination.”
I shook my head impatiently.
“You are resolved? Yes? Then I ask you to do this for me, that after I enter my chamber, you will bolt my doors from the outside.”
I did as he asked, and then made my way back to my chamber, my mind in a maze of wonderment. I had sent Gola to the slave quarters, and I laid rapier and dagger close at hand. Nor did I go to bed, but crouched in a great chair, in the darkness. Then I had much ado to keep from sleeping. To keep myself awake, I fell to musing on the strange words of de Montour. He seemed to be laboring under great excitement; his eyes hinted of ghastly mysteries known to him alone. And yet his face was not that of a wicked man.
Suddenly the notion took me to go to his chamber and talk with him.
Walking those dark passages was a shuddersome task, but eventually I stood before de Montour’s door. I called softly. Silence. I reached out a hand and felt splintered fragments of wood. Hastily I struck flint and steel which I carried, and the flaming tinder showed the great oaken door sagging on its mighty hinges; showed a door smashed and splintered from the inside. And the chamber of de Montour was unoccupied.
Some instinct prompted me to hurry back to my room, swiftly but silently, shoeless feet treading softly.
And as I neared the door, I was aware of something in the darkness before me. Something which crept in from a side corridor and glided stealthily along.
In a wild panic of fear I leaped, striking wildly and aimlessly in the darkness. My clenched fist encountered a human head, and something went down with a crash. Again I struck a light; a man lay senseless on the floor, and he was de Montour.
I thrust a candle into a niche in the wall, and just then de Montour’s eyes opened and he rose uncertainly.
“You!” I exclaimed, hardly knowing what I said. “You, of all men!”
He merely nodded.
“You killed von Schiller?”
“Yes.”
I recoiled with a gasp of horror.
“Listen.” He raised his hand. “Take your rapier and run me through. No man will touch you.”
“No,” I exclaimed. “I can not.”
“Then, quick,” he said hurriedly, “get into your chamber and bolt the door. Haste! It will return!”
“What will return?” I asked, with a thrill of horror. “If it will harm me, it will harm you. Come into the chamber with me.”
“No, no!” he fairly shrieked, springing back from my outstretched arm. “Haste, haste! It left me for an instant, but it will return.” Then in a low-pitched voice of indescribable horror: “It is returning. It is here now! ”
And I felt a something, a formless, shapeless presence near. A thing of frightfulness.
De Montour was standing, legs braced, arms thrown back, fists clenched. The muscles bulged beneath his skin, his eyes widened and narrowed, the veins stood out upon his forehead as if in great physical effort. As I looked, to my horror, out of nothing, a shapeless, nameless something took vague form!
Like a shadow it moved upon de Montour.
It was hovering about him! Good God, it was merging, becoming one with the man!
De Montour swayed; a great gasp escaped him. The dim thing vanished. De Montour wavered. Then he turned toward me, and may God grant that I never look on a face like that again!
It was a hideous, a bestial face. The eyes gleamed with a frightful ferocity; the snarling lips were drawn back from gleaming teeth, which to my startled gaze appeared more like bestial fangs than human teeth.
Silently the thing (I can not call it a human) slunk toward me. Gasping with horror I sprang back and through the door, just as the thing launched itself through the air, with a sinuous motion which even then made me think of a leaping wolf. I slammed the door, holding it against the frightful thing which hurled itself again and again against it.
Finally it desisted and I heard it slink stealthily off down the corridor. Faint and exhausted I sat down, waiting, listening. Through the open window wafted the breeze, bearing all the scents of Africa, the spicy and the foul. From the native village came the sound of a native drum. Other drums answered farther up the river and back in the bush. Then from somewhere in the jungle, horridly incongruous, sounded the long, high-pitched call of a timber wolf. My soul revolted.
Dawn brought a tale of terrified villagers, of a negro woman torn by some fiend of the night, barely escaping. And to de Montour I went.
On the way I met Dom Vincente. He was perplexed and angry.
“Some hellish thing is at work in this castle,” he said. “Last night, though I have said naught of it to anyone, something leaped upon the back of one of the arquebusiers, tore the leather jerkin from his shoulders and pursued him to the barbican. More, someone locked de Montour into his room last night, and he was forced to smash the door to get out.”
He strode on, muttering to himself, and I proceeded down the stairs, more puzzled than ever.
De Montour sat upon a stool, gazing out the window. An indescribable air of weariness was about him.
His long hair was uncombed and tousled, his garments were tattered. With a s
hudder I saw faint crimson stains upon his hands, and noted that the nails were torn and broken.
He looked up as I came in, and waved me to a seat. His face was worn and haggard, but was that of a man.
After a moment’s silence, he spoke.
“I will tell you my strange tale. Never before has it passed my lips, and why I tell you, knowing that you will not believe me, I can not say.”
And then I listened to what was surely the wildest, the most fantastic, the weirdest tale ever heard by man.
“Years ago,” said de Montour, “I was upon a military mission in northern France. Alone, I was forced to pass through the fiend-haunted woodlands of Villefère. In those frightful forests I was beset by an inhuman, a ghastly thing–a werewolf. Beneath a midnight moon we fought, and I slew it. Now this is the truth: that if a werewolf is slain in the half-form of a man, its ghost will haunt its slayer through eternity. But if it is slain as a wolf, hell gapes to receive it. The true werewolf is not (as many think) a man who may take the form of a wolf, but a wolf who takes the form of a man!
“Now listen, my friend, and I will tell you of the wisdom, the hellish knowledge that is mine, gained through many a frightful deed, imparted to me amid the ghastly shadows of midnight forests where fiends and half-beasts roamed.
“In the beginning, the world was strange, misshapen. Grotesque beasts wandered through its jungles.
Driven from another world, ancient demons and fiends came in great numbers and settled upon this newer, younger world. Long the forces of good and evil warred.
“A strange beast, known as man, wandered among the other beasts, and since good or bad must have a concrete form ere either accomplishes its desire, the spirits of good entered man. The fiends entered other beast, reptiles and birds; and long and fiercely waged the age-old battle. But man conquered. The great dragons and serpents were slain and with them the demons. Finally, Solomon, wise beyond the ken of man, made great war upon them, and by virtue of his wisdom, slew, seized and bound. But there were some which were the fiercest, the boldest, and though Solomon drove them out he could not conquer them. Those had taken the form of wolves. As the ages passed, wolf and demon became merged. No longer could the fiend leave the body of the wolf at will. In many instances, the savagery of the wolf overcame the subtlety of the demon and enslaved him, so the wolf became again only a beast, a fierce, cunning beast, but merely a beast. But of the werewolves, there are many, even yet.