The Slayer of Souls

Ding-dong!
Ding-dong!
Through the chanting of the throng
Thunders now the temple gong.
Boom-boom!
Ding-dong!

"Let the gold gods listen!
In my garden; what care I
Where my lily bells hang mute!
Snowy-sweet they glisten
Where I'm singing to my lute.
In my garden; what care I
Who is dead and who shall die?
Let the gold gods save or slay
Scented lilies bloom in May.
Boom, boom, temple gong!
Ding-dong!
Ding-dong!"

"What are you singing?" whispered Cleves.

"'The Bells of Yian.'"

"Is it old?"

"Of the 13th century. There were few Buddhist bells in Yian then. It is Lamaism that has destroyed the Mongols and that has permitted the creed of the Assassins to spread – the devil worship of Erlik."

He looked at her, not understanding. And she, pale, slim prophetess, in the moonlight, gazed at him out of lost eyes – eyes which saw, perhaps, the bloody age of men when mankind took the devil by the throat and all Mount Alamout went up in smoking ruin; and the Eight Towers were dark as death and as silent before the blast of the silver clarions of Ghenghis Khan.

"Something is stirring in the forest," whispered Tressa, her fingers on her lips.

"Damnation," muttered Recklow, "it's the wind!"

They listened. Far in the forest they heard the clatter of palm-fronds. They waited. The ominous warning grew faint, then rose again, – a long, low rattle of palm-fronds which became a steady monotone.

"We hunt," said Recklow bluntly. "Come on!"

But the girl sprang from the hammock and caught her husband's arm and drew Recklow back from the hibiscus hedge.

"Use me," she said. "You could never find the Yezidee. Let me do the hunting; and then shoot very, very fast."

"We've got to take her," said Recklow. "We dare not leave her."

"I can't let her lead the way into those black woods," muttered Cleves.

"The wind is blowing in my face," insisted Recklow. "We'd better hurry."

Tressa laid one hand on her husband's arm.

"I can find the Yezidee, I think. You never could find him before he finds you! Victor, let me use my own knowledge! Let me find the way. Please let me lead! Please, Victor. Because, if you don't, I'm afraid we'll all die here in the garden where we stand."

Cleves cast a haggard glance at Recklow, then looked at his wife.

"All right," he said.

The girl opened the hedge gate. Both men followed with pistols lifted.

The moon silvered the forest. There was no mist, but a night-wind blew mournfully through palm and cypress, carrying with it the strange, disturbing pungency of the jungle – wild, unfamiliar perfumes, – the acrid aroma of swamp and rotting mould.

"What about snakes?" muttered Recklow, knee deep in wild phlox.

But there was a deadlier snake to find and destroy, somewhere in the blotched shadows of the forest.

The first sentinel trees were very near, now; and Tressa was running across a ghostly tangle, where once had been an orange grove, and where aged and dying citrus stumps rose stark amid the riot of encroaching jungle.

"She's circling to get the wind at our backs," breathed Recklow, running forward beside Cleves. "That's our only chance to kill the dirty rat – catch him with the wind at our backs!"

Once, traversing a dry hammock where streaks of moonlight alternated with velvet-black shadow a rattlesnake sprang his goblin alarm.

They could not locate the reptile. They shrank together and moved warily, chilled with fear.

Once, too, clear in the moonlight, the Grey Death reared up from bloated folds and stood swaying rhythmically in a horrible shadow dance before them. And Cleves threw one arm around his wife and crept past, giving death a wide berth there in the checkered moonlight.

Now, under foot, the dry hammock lay everywhere and the night wind blew on their backs.

Then Tressa turned and halted the two men with a gesture. And went to her husband where he stood in the palm forest, and laid her hands on his shoulders, looking him very wistfully in the eyes.

Under her searching gaze he seemed oddly to comprehend her appeal.

"You are going to use – to use your knowledge," he said mechanically. "You are going to find the man in white."

"Yes."

"You are going to find him in a way we don't understand," he continued, dully.

"Yes… You will not hold me in – in horror – will you?"

Recklow came up, making no sound on the spongy palm litter underfoot.

"Can you find this devil?" he whispered.

"I – think so."

"Does your super-instinct – finer sense – knowledge – whatever it is – give you any inkling as to his whereabouts, Mrs. Cleves?"

"I think he is here in this hammock. Only – " she turned again, with swift impulse, to her husband, " – only if you – if you do not hold me in – in horror – because of what I do – "

There was a silence; then: