The Slayer of Souls

"He's here on the St. Johns River, somewhere. He came up in a motor-boat, but left it east of Orchard Cove. Benton knows this country. He's covering the motor-boat. And I – came here to see how you are getting on."

"And to warn us," added Cleves quietly.

"Well – yes. He's got that stuff. It's deadlier than the newspaper suspects. And I guess – I guess, Cleves, he's one of those damned Yezidee witch-doctors – or sorcerers, as they call them; – one of that sect of Assassins sent over here to work havoc on feeble minds and do murder on the side."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because the dirty beast lugs his shroud around with him – a bed-sheet stolen from the New Willard in Washington.

"We were so close to him in Jacksonville that we got it, and his luggage. But we didn't get him, the rat! God knows how he knew we were waiting for him in his room. He never came back to get his luggage.

"But he stole a bed-sheet from his hotel in St. Augustine, and that is how we picked him up again. Then, at Palm Beach, we lost the beggar, but somehow or other I felt it in my bones that he was after you – you and your wife. So I sent Benton to Ormond and I went to Palatka. Benton picked up his trail. It led toward you – toward the St. Johns. And the reptile has been here forty-eight hours, trying to nose you out, I suppose – "

Tressa came into the room. Both men looked at her.

Cleves said in a guarded voice:

"To-day, on the golf links at Orchard Cove, there was a young man in white flannels – very polite and courteous to us – but – Tressa thought she saw him slinking through the woods as though following and watching us."

"My man, probably," said Recklow. He turned quietly to Tressa and sketched for her the substance of what he had just told Cleves.

"The man in white flannels on the golf links," said Cleves, "was well built and rather handsome, and not more than twenty-five. I thought he was a Jew."

"I thought so too," said Tressa, calmly, "until I saw him in the woods. And then – and then – suddenly it came to me that his smile was the smile of a treacherous Shaman sorcerer.

"… And the idea haunts me – the memory of those smooth-faced, smiling men in white – men who smile only when they slay – when they slay body and soul under the iris skies of Yian! – O God, merciful, long suffering," she whispered, staring into the East, "deliver our souls from Satan who was stoned, and our bodies from the snare of the Yezidee!"

CHAPTER IX

THE WEST WIND

The night grew sweet with the scent of orange bloom, and all the perfumed darkness was vibrant with the feathery whirr of hawk-moths' wings.

Tressa had taken her moon-lute to the hammock, but her fingers rested motionless on the strings.

Cleves and Recklow, shoulder to shoulder, paced the moonlit path along the hedges of oleander and hibiscus which divided garden from jungle.

And they moved cautiously on the white-shell road, not too near the shadow line. For in the cypress swamp the bloated grey death was awake and watching under the moon; and in the scrub palmetto the diamond-dotted death moved lithely.

And somewhere within the dark evil of the jungle a man in white might be watching.

So Recklow's pistol swung lightly in his right hand and Cleves' weapon lay in his side-pocket, and they strolled leisurely around the drive and up and down the white-shell walks, passing Tressa at regular intervals, where she sat in her hammock with the moon-lute across her knees.

Once Cleves paused to place two pink hibiscus blossoms in her hair above her ears; and the girl smiled gravely at him in the light.

Again, pausing beside her hammock on one of their tours of the garden, Recklow said in a low voice: "If the beast would only show himself, Mrs. Cleves, we'd not miss him. Have you caught a glimpse of anything white in the woods?"

"Only the night mist rising from the branch and a white ibis stealing through it."

Cleves came nearer: "Do you think the Yezidee is in the woods watching us, Tressa?"

"Yes, he is there," she said calmly.

"You know it?"

"Yes."

Recklow stared at the woods. "We can't go in to hunt for him," he said. "That fellow would get us with his Lewisite gas before we could discover and destroy him."

"Suppose he waits for a west wind and squirts his gas in this direction?" whispered Cleves.

"There is no wind," said Tressa tranquilly. "He has been waiting for it, I think. The Yezidee is very patient. And he is a Shaman sorcerer."

"My God!" breathed Recklow. "What sort of hellish things has the Old World been dumping into America for the last fifty years? An ordinary anarchist is bad enough, but this new breed of devil – these Yezidees – this sect of Assassins – "

"Hush!" whispered Tressa.

All three listened to the great cat-owl howling from the jungle. But Tressa had heard another sound – the vague stir of leaves in the live-oaks. Was it a passing breeze? Was a night wind rising? She listened. But heard no brittle clatter from the palm-fronds.

"Victor," she said.

"Yes, Tressa."

"If a wind comes, we must hunt him. That will be necessary."

"Either we hunt him and get him, or he kills us here with his gas," said Recklow quietly.

"If the night wind comes," said Tressa, "we must hunt the darkness for the Yezidee." She spoke coolly.

"If he'd only show himself," muttered Recklow, staring into the darkness.

The girl picked up her lute, caught Cleves' worried eyes fixed on her, suddenly comprehended that his anxiety was on her account, and blushed brightly in the moonlight. And he saw her teeth catch at her underlip; saw her look up again at him, confused.

"If I dared leave you," he said, "I'd go into the hammock and start that reptile. This won't do – this standing pat while he comes to some deadly decision in the woods there."

"What else is there to do?" growled Recklow.

"Watch," said the girl. "Out-watch the Yezidee. If there is no night-wind he may tire of waiting. Then you must shoot fast – very, very fast and straight. But if the night-wind comes, then we must hunt him in darkness."

Recklow, pistol in hand, stood straight and sturdy in the moonlight, gazing fixedly at the forest. Cleves sat down at his wife's feet.

She touched her moon-lute tranquilly and sang in her childish voice:

"Ring, ring, Buddha bells,
Gilded gods are listening.
Swing, swing, lily bells,
In my garden glistening.
Now I hear the Shaman drum;
Now the scarlet horsemen come;