The Slayer of Souls

He was silent, remembering the bells and the enormous murmur of a living multitude.

"And – there were the birds, too." She added, with an uncertain smile: "I do not mean to worry you… And you did ask me to amuse you."

"I don't know how you did it," he said harshly. "And the details – those thousands and thousands of people on the bridge!.. And there was one, quite near this end of the bridge, who looked back… A young girl who turned and laughed at us – "

"That was Yulun."

"Who?"

"Yulun. I taught her English."

"A temple girl?"

"Yes. From Black China."

"How could you make me see her!" he demanded.

"Why do you ask such things? I do not know how to tell you how I do it."

"It's a dangerous, uncanny knowledge!" he blurted out; and suddenly checked himself, for the girl's face went white.

"I don't mean uncanny," he hastened to add. "Because it seems to me that what you did by juggling with invisible currents to which, when attuned, our five senses respond, is on the same lines as the wireless telegraph and telephone."

She said nothing, but her colour slowly returned.

"You mustn't be so sensitive," he added. "I've no doubt that it's all quite normal – quite explicable on a perfectly scientific basis. Probably it's no more mysterious than a man in an airplane over midocean conversing with people ashore on two continents."

For the remainder of the day and evening Tressa seemed subdued – not restless, not nervous, but so quiet that, sometimes, glancing at her askance, Cleves involuntarily was reminded of some lithe young creature of the wilds, intensely alert and still, immersed in fixed and dangerous meditation.

About five in the afternoon they took their golf sticks, went down to the river, and embarked in the canoe.

The water was glassy and still. There was not a ripple ahead, save when a sleeping gull awoke and leisurely steered out of their way.

Tressa's arms and throat were bare and she wore no hat. She sat forward, wielding the bow paddle and singing to herself in a low voice.

"You feel all right, don't you?" he asked.

"Oh, I am so well, physically, now! It's really wonderful, Victor – like being a child again," she replied happily.

"You're not much more," he muttered.

She heard him: "Not very much more – in years," she said… "Does Scripture tell us how old Our Lord was when He descended into Hell?"

"I don't know," he replied, startled.

After a little while Tressa tranquilly resumed her paddling and singing:

"– And eight tall towers
Guard the route
Of human life,
Where at all hours
Death looks out,
Holding a knife
Rolled in a shroud.

For every man,
Humble or proud,
Mighty or bowed,
Death has a shroud; – for every man, —
Even for Tchingniz Khan!
Behold them pass! – lancer.
Baroulass,
Temple dancer
In tissue gold,
Khiounnou,
Karlik bold,

Christian, Jew, —
Nations swarm to the great Urdu.
Yaçaoul, with your kettledrum,
Warn your Khan that his hour is come!
Shroud and knife at his spurred feet throw,
And bid him stretch his neck for the blow! —"

"You know," remarked Cleves, "that some of those songs you sing are devilish creepy."

Tressa looked around at him over her shoulder, saw he was smiling, smiled faintly in return.

They were off Orchid Cove now. The hotel and cottages loomed dimly in the silver mist. Voices came distinctly across the water. There were people on the golf course paralleling the river; laughter sounded from the club-house veranda.

They went ashore.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAN IN WHITE

It was at the sixth hole that they passed the man ahead who was playing all alone – a courteous young fellow in white flannels, who smiled and bowed them "through" in silence.

They thanked him, drove from the tee, and left the polite and reticent young man still apparently hunting for a lost ball.

Like other things which depended upon dexterity and precision, Tressa had taken most naturally to golf. Her supple muscles helped.

At the ninth hole they looked back but did not see the young man in white flannels.

Hammock, set with pine and palmetto, and intervals of evil-looking swamp, flanked the course. Rank wire-grass, bayberry and scrub palmetto bounded the fairgreen.

On every blossoming bush hung butterflies – Palomedes swallowtails – drugged with sparkle-berry honey, their gold and black velvet wings conspicuous in the sunny mist.