The Slayer Of souls Part 27

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-sh.e.l.l 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-sh.e.l.l walks, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d!" breathed Recklow. "What sort of h.e.l.lish 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 a.s.sa.s.sins----"

"Hus.h.!.+" 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 pa.s.sing 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 st.u.r.dy 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 G.o.ds are listening.

Swing, swing, lily bells, In my garden glistening.

Now I hear the Shaman drum; Now the scarlet hors.e.m.e.n come; Ding-dong!

Ding-dong!

Through the chanting of the throng Thunders now the temple gong.

Boom-boom!

Ding-dong!_

"_Let the gold G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sa.s.sins to spread--the devil wors.h.i.+p 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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.

"d.a.m.nation," muttered Recklow, "it's the wind!"

They listened. Far in the forest they heard the clatter of palm-fronds.