The Slayer of Souls

"Oh – as for that – "

"Don't you need it?"

"For some things – some kinds of things… I could do – other things – "

He waited. She seemed disconcerted. "Don't do anything you don't wish to do, Tressa," he said.

"I was only – only afraid – that if I should do some little things to amuse you, I might stir – stir up – interfere – encounter some sinister current – and betray myself – betray my whereabouts – "

"Well, for heaven's sake don't venture then!" he said with emphasis. "Don't do anything to stir up any other wireless – any Yezidee – "

"I am wondering," she reflected, "just what I dare venture to do to amuse you."

"Don't bother about me. I wouldn't have you try any psychic stunt down here, and run the chance of stirring up some Asiatic devil somewhere!"

She nodded absently, occupied with her own thoughts, sitting there, chin on hand, her musing eyes intensely blue.

"I think I can amuse you," she concluded, "without bringing any harm to myself."

"Don't try it, Tressa! – "

"I'll be very careful. Now, sit quite still – closer to me, please."

He edged closer; and became conscious of an indefinable freshness in the air that enveloped him, like the scent of something young and growing. But it was no magic odour, – merely the virginal scent of her hair and skin that even clung to her summer gown.

He heard her singing under her breath to herself:

"La-ē-la!
La-ē-la!"

and murmuring caressingly in an unknown tongue.

Then, suddenly in the pale sunshine, scores of little birds came hovering around them, alighting all over them. And he saw them swarming out of the mossy festoons of the water-oaks – scores and scores of tiny birds – Parula warblers, mostly – all flitting fearlessly down to alight upon his shoulders and knees, all keeping up their sweet, dreamy little twittering sound.

"This is wonderful," he whispered.

The girl laughed, took several birds on her forefinger.

"This is nothing," she said. "If I only dared – wait a moment! – " And, to the Parula warblers:

"Go home, little friends of God!"

The air was filled with the musical whisper of wings. She passed her right arm around her husband's neck.

"Look at the river," she said.

"Good God!" he blurted out. And sat dumb.

For, over the St. John's misty surface, there was the span of a bridge – a strange, marble bridge humped up high in the centre.

And over it were passing thousands of people – he could make them out vaguely – see them passing in two never-ending streams – tinted shapes on the marble bridge.

And now, on the farther shore of the river, he was aware of a city – a vast one, with spectral pagoda shapes against the sky —

Her arm tightened around his neck.

He saw boats on the river – like the grotesque shapes that decorate ancient lacquer.

She rested her face lightly against his cheek.

In his ears was a far confusion of voices – the stir and movement of multitudes – noises on ships, boatmen's cries, the creak of oars.

Then, far and sonorous, quavering across the water from the city, the din of a temple gong.

There were bells, too – very sweet and silvery – camel bells, bells from the Buddhist temples.

He strained his eyes, and thought, amid the pagodas, that there were minarets, also.

Suddenly, clear and ringing came the distant muezzin's cry: "There is no other god but God!.. It is noon. Mussulmans, pray!"

The girl's arm slipped from his neck and she shuddered and pushed him from her.

There was nothing, now, on the river or beyond it but the curtain of hanging mist; no sound except the cry of a gull, sharp and querulous in the vapours overhead.

"Have – have you been amused?" she asked.

"What did you do to me!" he demanded harshly.

She smiled and drew a light breath like a sigh.

"God knows what we living do to one another, – or to ourselves," she said. "I only tried to amuse you – after taking counsel with the birds."

"What was that bridge I saw!"

"The Bridge of Ten Thousand Felicities."

"And the city?"

"Yian."

"You lived there?"

"Yes."

He moistened his dry lips and stole another glance at this very commonplace Florida river. Sky and water were blank and still, and the ghostly trees stood tall, reflected palely in the translucent tide.

"You merely made me visualise what you were thinking about," he concluded in a voice which still remained unsteady.

"Did you hear nothing?"