The Slayer of Souls

She had become very white now. She stood beside Recklow, her back toward the suspended map, and looked in a scared sort of way from one to the other of the men seated before her, turning finally to Cleves, and coming toward him.

"I – I once killed a man," she said with a catch in her breath.

Cleves reddened with astonishment. "Why did you do that?" he asked.

"He was already on his way to kill me in bed."

"You were perfectly right," remarked Recklow coolly.

"I don't know … I was in bed… And then, on the edge of sleep, I felt his mind groping to get hold of mine – feeling about in the darkness to get hold of my brain and seize it and paralyse it."

All colour had left her face. Cleves gripped the arm of his chair and watched her intently.

"I – I had only a moment's mental freedom," she went on in a ghost of a voice. "I was just able to rouse myself, fight off those murderous brain-fingers – let loose a clear mental ray… And then, O God! I saw him in his room with his Kalmuck knife – saw him already on his way to murder me – Gutchlug Khan, the Yezidee – looking about in his bedroom for a shroud… And when – when he reached for the bed to draw forth a fine, white sheet for the shroud without which no Yezidee dares journey deathward – then —then I became frightened… And I killed him – I slew him there in his hotel bedroom on the floor above mine!"

Selden moistened his lips: "That Oriental, Gutchlug, died from heart-failure in a San Francisco hotel," he said. "I was there at the time."

"He died by the fangs of a little yellow snake," whispered the girl.

"There was no snake in his room," retorted Cleves.

"And no wound on his body," added Selden. "I attended the autopsy."

She said, faintly: "There was no snake, and no wound, as you say… Yet Gutchlug died of both there in his bedroom… And before he died he heard his soul bidding him farewell; and he saw the death-adder coiled in the sheet he clutched – saw the thing strike him again and again – saw and felt the tiny wounds on his left hand; felt the fangs pricking deep, deep into the veins; died of it there within the minute – died of the swiftest poison known. And yet – "

She turned her dead-white face to Cleves – "And yet there was no snake there!.. And never had been… And so I – I ask you, gentlemen, if souls do not die when minds learn to fight death with death – and deal it so swiftly, so silently, while one's body lies, unstirring on a bed – in a locked room on the floor below – "

She swayed a little, put out one hand rather blindly.

Recklow rose and passed a muscular arm around her; Cleves, beside her, held her left hand, crushing it, without intention, until she opened her eyes with a cry of pain.

"Are you all right?" asked Recklow bluntly.

"Yes." She turned and looked at Cleves and he caressed her bruised hand as though dazed.

"Tell me," she said to Cleves – "you who know – know more about my mind than anybody living – " a painful colour surged into her face – but she went on steadily, forcing herself to meet his gaze: "tell me, Mr. Cleves – do you still believe that nothing can really destroy my soul? And that it shall yet win through to safety?"

He said: "Your soul is in God's keeping, and always shall be… And if the Yezidees have made you believe otherwise, they lie."

Recklow added in a slow, perplexed way: "I have no personal knowledge of psychic power. I am not psychic, not susceptible. But if you actually possess such ability, Miss Norne, and if you have employed such knowledge to defend your life, then you have done absolutely right."

"No guilt touches you," added Selden with an involuntary shiver, "if by hypnosis or psychic ability you really did put an end to that would-be murderer, Gutchlug."

Selden said: "If Gutchlug died by the fangs of a yellow death-adder which existed only in his own mind, and if you actually had anything to do with it you acted purely in self-defence."

"You did your full duty," added Benton – "but – good God! – it seems incredible to me, that such power can actually be available in the world!"

Recklow spoke again in his pleasant, undisturbed voice: "Go back to the map, Miss Norne, and tell us a little more about this rather terrifying thing which you believe menaces the civilised world with destruction."

Tressa Norne laid a slim finger on the map. Her voice had become steady. She said:

"The devil-worship, of which one of the modern developments is Bolshevism, and another the terrorism of the hun, began in Asia long before Christ's advent: At least so it was taught us in the temple of Erlik.

"It has always existed, its aim always has been the annihilation of good and the elevation of evil; the subjection of right by might, and the worldwide triumph of wrong.

"Perhaps it is as old as the first battle between God and Satan. I have wondered about it, sometimes. There in the dusk of the temple when the Eight Assassins came – the eight Sheiks-el-Djebel, all in white – chanting the Yakase of Sabbah – always that dirge when they came and spread their eight white shrouds on the temple steps – "

Her voice caught; she waited to recover her composure. Then went on:

"The ambition of Genghis was to conquer the world by force of arms. It was merely of physical subjection that he dreamed. But the Slayer of Souls – "

"Who?" asked Recklow sharply.

"The Slayer of Souls – Erlik's vice-regent on earth – Hassan Sabbah. The Old Man of the Mountain. It is of him I am speaking," exclaimed Tressa Norne – with quiet resolution. "Genghis sought only physical conquest of man; the Yezidee's ambition is more awful, for he is attempting to surprise and seize the very minds of men!"

There was a dead silence. Tressa looked palely upon the four.

"The Yezidees – who you tell me are not sorcerers – are using power – which you tell me is not magic accursed by God – to waylay, capture, enslave, and destroy the minds and souls of mankind.

"It may be that what they employ is hypnotic ability and psychic power and can be, some day, explained on a scientific basis when we learn more about the occult laws which govern these phenomena.

"But could anything render the threat less awful? For there have existed for centuries – perhaps always – a sect of Satanists determined upon the destruction of everything that is pure and holy and good on earth; and they are resolved to substitute for righteousness the dreadful reign of hell.

"In the beginning there were comparatively few of these human demons. Gradually, through the eras, they have increased. In the twelfth century there were fifty thousand of the Sect of Assassins.

"Beside the castle of the Slayer of Souls on Mount Alamout – " she laid her finger on the map – "eight other towers were erected for the Eight Chief Assassins, called Sheiks-el-Djebel.

"In the temple we were taught where these eight towers stood." She picked up a pencil, and on eight blank spaces of unexplored and unmapped Mongolia she made eight crosses. Then she turned to the men behind her.

"It was taught to us in the temple that from these eight foci of infection the disease of evil has been spreading throughout the world; from these eight towers have gone forth every year the emissaries of evil – perverted missionaries – to spread the poisonous propaganda, to teach it, to tamper stealthily with the minds of men, dominate them, pervert them, instruct them in the creed of the Assassin of Souls.

"All over the world are people, already contaminated, whose minds are already enslaved and poisoned, and who are infecting the still healthy brains of others – stealthily possessing themselves of the minds of mankind – teaching them evil, inviting them to mock the precepts of Christ.

"Of such lost minds are the degraded brains of the Germans – the pastors and philosophers who teach that might is right.

"Of such crippled minds are the Bolsheviki, poisoned long, long ago by close contact with Asia which, before that, had infected and enslaved the minds of the ruling classes with ferocious philosophy.

"Of such minds are all anarchists of every shade and stripe – all terrorists, all disciples of violence, – the murderously envious, the slothful slinking brotherhood which prowls through the world taking every opportunity to set it afire; those mentally dulled by reason of excesses; those weak intellects become unsound through futile gabble, – parlour socialists, amateur revolutionists, theoretical incapables excited by discussion fit only for healthy minds."

She left the map and came over to where the four men were seated terribly intent upon her every word.

"In the temple of Erlik, where my girlhood was passed after the murder of my parents, I learned what I am repeating to you," she said.

"I learned this, also, that the Eight Towers still exist – still stand to-day, – at least theoretically – and that from the Eight Towers pours forth across the world a stream of poison.

"I was told that, to every country, eight Yezidees were allotted – eight sorcerers – or adepts in scientific psychology if you prefer it – whose mission is to teach the gospel of hell and gradually but surely to win the minds of men to the service of the Slayer of Souls.

"That is what was taught us in the temple. We were educated in the development of occult powers – for it seems all human beings possess this psychic power latent within them – only few, even when instructed, acquire any ability to control and use this force…