Chambers Robert William
The Slayer of Souls

CHAPTER XV
IN THE FIRELIGHT

In 1920 the whole spiritual world was trembling under the thundering shock of the Red Surf pounding the frontiers of civilisation from pole to pole.

Up out of the hell-pit of Asia had boiled the molten flood, submerging Russia, dashing in giant waves over Germany and Austria, drenching Italy, France, England with its bloody spindrift.

And now the Red Rain was sprinkling the United States from coast to coast, and the mindless administration, scared out of its stupidity at last, began a frantic attempt to drain the country of the filthy flood and throw up barriers against the threatened deluge.

In every state and city Federal agents made wholesale arrests – too late!

A million minds had already been perverted and dominated by the terrible Sect of the Assassins. A million more were sickening under the awful psychic power of the Yezidee.

Thousands of the disciples of the Yezidee devil-worshipers had already been arrested and held for deportation, – poor, wretched creatures whose minds were no longer their own, but had been stealthily surprised, seized and mastered by Mongol adepts and filled with ferocious hatred against their fellow men.

Yet, of the Eight Yezidee Assassins only two now remained alive in America, – Togrul, and Sanang, the Slayer of Souls.

Yarghouz was dead; Djamouk the Fox, Kahn of the Fifth Tower was dead; Yaddin-ed-Din, Arrak the Sou-Sou, Gutchlug, Tiyang Khan, all were dead. Six Towers had become dark and silent. From them the last evil thought, the last evil shape had sped; the last wicked prayer had been said to Erlik, Khagan of all Darkness.

But his emissary on earth, Prince Sanang, still lived. And at Sanang's heels stole Togrul, Tougtchi to Sanang Noïane, the Slayer of Souls.

In the United States there had been a cessation of the active campaign of violence toward those in authority. Such unhappy dupes of the Yezidees as the I. W. W. and other radicals were, for the time, physically quiescent. Crude terrorism with its more brutal outrages against life and law ceased. But two million sullen eyes, in which all independent human thought had been extinguished, watched unblinking the wholesale arrests by the government – watched panic-stricken officials rushing hither and thither to execute the mandate of a miserable administration – watched and waited in dreadful silence.

In that period of ominous quiet which possessed the land, the little group of Secret Service men that surrounded the young girl who alone stood between a trembling civilisation and the threat of hell's own chaos, became convinced that Sanang was preparing a final and terrible effort to utterly overwhelm the last vestige of civilisation in the United States.

What shape that plan would develop they could not guess.

John Recklow sent Benton to Chicago to watch that centre of infection for the appearance there of the Yezidee Togrul.

Selden went to Boston where a half-witted group of parlour-socialists at Cambridge were talking too loudly and loosely to please even the most tolerant at Harvard.

But neither Togrul nor Sanang had, so far, materialised in either city; and John Recklow prowled the purlieus of New York, haunting strange byways and obscure quarters where the dull embers of revolution always smouldered, watching for the Yezidee who was the deep-bedded, vital root of this psychic evil which menaced the minds of all mankind, – Sanang, the Slayer of Souls.

Recklow's lodgings were tucked away in Westover Court – three bedrooms, a parlour and a kitchenette. Tressa Cleves occupied one bedroom; her husband another; Recklow the third.

And in this tiny apartment, hidden away among a group of old buildings, the very existence of which was unknown to the millions who swarmed the streets of the greatest city in the world, – here in Westover Court, a dozen paces from the roar of Broadway, was now living a young girl upon whose psychic power the only hope of the world now rested.

The afternoon had turned grey and bitter; ragged flakes still fell; a pallid twilight possessed the snowy city, through which lighted trains and taxis moved in the foggy gloom.

By three o'clock in the afternoon all shops were illuminated; the south windows of the Hotel Astor across the street spread a sickly light over the old buildings of Westover Court as John Recklow entered the tiled hallway, took the stairs to the left, and went directly to his apartment.

He unlocked the door and let himself in and stood a moment in the entry shaking the snow from his hat and overcoat.

The sitting-room lamp was unlighted but he could see a fire in the grate, and Tressa Cleves seated near, her eyes fixed on the glowing coals.

He bade her good evening in a low voice; she turned her charming head and nodded, and he drew a chair to the fender and stretched out his wet shoes to the warmth.

"Is Victor still out?" he inquired.

She said that her husband had not yet returned. Her eyes were on the fire, Recklow's rested on her shadowy face.

"Benton got his man in Chicago," he said. "It was not Togrul Kahn."

"Who was it?"

"Only a Swami fakir who'd been preaching sedition to a little group of greasy Bengalese from Seattle… I've heard from Selden, too."

She nodded listlessly and lifted her eyes.

"Neither Sanang nor Togrul have appeared in Boston," he said. "I think they're here in New York."

The girl said nothing.

After a silence:

"Are you worried about your husband?" he asked abruptly.

"I am always uneasy when he is absent," she said quietly.

"Of course… But I don't suppose he knows that."

"I suppose not."

Recklow leaned over, took a coal in the tongs and lighted a cigar. Leaning back in his armchair, he said in a musing voice:

"No, I suppose your husband does not realise that you are so deeply concerned over his welfare."

The girl remained silent.

"I suppose," said Recklow softly, "he doesn't dream you are in love with him."

Tressa Cleves did not stir a muscle. After a long silence she said in her even voice:

"Do you think I am in love with my husband, Mr. Recklow?"

"I think you fell in love with him the first evening you met him."

"I did."

Neither of them spoke again for some minutes. Recklow's cigar went wrong; he rose and found another and returned to the fire, but did not light it.

"It's a rotten day, isn't it?" he said with a shiver, and dumped a scuttle of coal on the fire.

They watched the blue flames playing over the grate.

Tressa said: "I could no more help falling in love with him than I could stop my heart beating… But I did not dream that anybody knew."

"Don't you think he ought to know?"

"Why? He is not in love with me."

"Are you sure, Mrs. Cleves?"

"Yes. He is wonderfully sweet and kind. But he could not fall in love with a girl who has been what I have been."

Recklow smiled. "What have you been, Tressa Norne?"

"You know."

"A temple-girl at Yian?"

"And at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said in a low voice.

"What of it?"

"I can not tell you, Mr. Recklow… Only that I lost my soul in the Yezidee Temple – "

"That is untrue!"

"I wish it were untrue… My husband tells me that nothing can really harm the soul. I try to believe him… But Erlik lives. And when my soul at last shall escape my body, it shall not escape the Slayer of Souls."

"That is monstrously untrue – "

"No. I tell you that Prince Sanang slew my soul. And my soul's ghost belongs to Erlik. How can any man fall in love with such a girl?"

"Why do you say that Sanang slew your soul?" asked Recklow, peering at her averted face through the reddening firelight.

She lay still in her chair for a moment, then turned suddenly on him:

"He did slay it! He came to the Lake of the Ghosts as my lover; he meant to have done it there; but I would not have him – would not listen, nor suffer his touch! – I mocked at him and his passion. I laughed at his Tchortchas. They were afraid of me! – "

She half rose from her chair, grasped the arms, then seated herself again, her eyes ablaze with the memory of wrongs.

"How dare I show my dear lord that I am in love with him when Sanang's soul caught my soul out of my body one day – surprised my soul while my body lay asleep in the Yezidee Temple! – and bore it in his arms to the very gates of hell!"

"Good God," whispered Recklow, "what do you mean? Such things can't happen."

"Why not? They do happen. I was caught unawares… It was one golden afternoon, and Yulan and Sansa and I were eating oranges by the fountain in the inner shrine. And I lay down by the pool and made the effort– you understand?"

"Yes."

"Very well. My soul left my body asleep and I went out over the tops of the flowers – idly, without aim or intent – as the winds blow in summer… It was in the Wood of the White Moth that I saw Sanang's soul flash downward like a streak of fire and wrap my soul in flame!.. And, in a flash, we were at the gates of hell before I could free myself from his embrace… Then, by the Temple pool, among the oranges, I cried out asleep; and my terrified body sat up sobbing and trembling in Yulun's arms. But the Slayer of Souls had slain mine in the Wood of the White Moth – slain it as he caught me in his flaming arms… And now you know why such a woman as I dare not bend to kiss the dust from my dear Lord's feet – Aie-a! Aie-a! I who have lost my girl's soul to him who slew it in the Wood of the White Moth!"

She sat rocking in her chair in the red firelight, her hands framing her lovely face, her eyes staring straight ahead as though they saw opening before them through the sombre shadows of that room all the dread magic of the East where the dancing flame of Sanang's blazing soul lighted their path to hell through the enchanted forest.

Recklow had grown pale, but his voice was steady.

"I see no reason," he said, "why your husband should not love you."

"I tell you my girl's soul belonged to Sanang – was part of his, for an instant."

"It is burned pure of dross."

"It is burned."

Recklow remained silent. Tressa lay deep in her armchair, twisting her white fingers.

"What makes him so late?" she said… "I sent my soul out twice to look for him, and could not find him."

"Send it again," said Recklow, fearfully.

For ten minutes the girl lay as though asleep, then her eyes unclosed and she said drowsily: "I can not find him."

"Did – did you learn anything while – while you were – away?" asked Recklow cautiously.

"Nothing. There is a thick darkness out there – I mean a darkness gathering over the whole land. It is like a black fog. When the damned pray to Erlik there is a darkness that gathers like a brown mist – "

Her voice ceased; her hands tightened on the arms of her chair.

"That is what Sanang is doing!" she said in a breathless voice.

"What?" demanded Recklow.

"Praying! That is what he is doing! A million perverted minds which he has seized and obsessed are being concentrated on blasphemous prayers to Erlik! Sanang is directing them. Do you understand the terrible power of a million minds all willing, in unison, the destruction of good and the triumph of evil? A million human minds! More! For that is what he is doing. That is the thick darkness that is gathering over the entire Western world. It is the terrific materialisation of evil power from evil minds, all focussed upon the single thought that evil must triumph and good die!"

She sat, gripping the arms of her chair, pale, rigid, terribly alert, dreadfully enlightened, now, concerning the awful and new menace threatening the sanity of mankind.

She said in her steady, emotionless voice: "When the Yezidee Sorcerers desire to overwhelm a nomad people – some yort perhaps that has resisted the Sheiks of the Eight Towers, then the Slayer of Souls rides with his Black Banners to the Namaz-Ga or Place of Prayer.

"Two marble bridges lead to it. There are fourteen hundred mosques there. Then come the Eight, each with his shroud, chanting the prayers for those dead in hell. And there the Yezidees pray blasphemously, all their minds in ferocious unison… And I have seen a little yort full of Broad Faces with their slanting eyes and sparse beards, sicken and die, and turn black in the sun as though the plague had breathed on them. And I have seen the Long Noses and bushy beards of walled towns wither and perish in the blast and blight from the Namaz-Ga where the Slayer of Souls sat his saddle and prayed to Erlik, and half a million Yezidees prayed in blasphemous unison."

Recklow's head rested on his left hand. The other, unconsciously, had crept toward his pistol – the weapon which had become so useless in this awful struggle between this girl and the loosened forces of hell.

"Is that what you think Sanang is about?" he asked heavily.

"Yes. I know it. He has seized the minds of a million men in America. Every anarchist is to-day concentrating in one evil and supreme mental effort, under Sanang's direction, to will the triumph of evil and the doom of civilisation… I wish my husband would come home."

"Tressa?"

She turned her pallid face in the firelight: "If Sanang has appointed a Place of Prayer," she said, "he himself will pray on that spot. That will be the Namaz-Ga for the last two Yezidee Sorcerers still alive in the Western World."

"That's what I wished to ask you," said Recklow softly. "Will you try once more, Tressa?"

"Yes. I will send out my soul again to look for the Namaz-Ga."

She lay back in her armchair and closed her eyes.

"Only," she added, as though to herself, "I wish my dear lord were safe in this room beside me… May God's warriors be his escort. And surely they are well armed, and can prevail over demons. Aie-a! I wish my lord would come home out of the darkness… Mr. Recklow?"

"Yes, Tressa."

"I thought I heard him on the stairs."

"Not yet."

"Aie-a!" she sighed and closed her eyes again.

She lay like one dead. There was no sound in the room save the soft purr of the fire.

Suddenly from the sleeping girl a frightened voice burst: "Yulun! Yulun! Where is that yellow maid of the Baroulass?.. What is she doing? That sleek young thing belongs to Togrul Kahn? Yulun! I am afraid of her! Tell Sansa to watch that she does not stir from the Lake of the Ghosts!.. Warn that young Baroulass Sorceress that if she stirs I slay her. And know how to do it in spite of Sanang and all the prayers from the Namaz-Ga! Yulun! Sansa! Watch her, follow her, hearts of flame! My soul be ransom for yours! Tokhta!"

The girl's eyes unclosed. Presently she stirred slightly, passed one hand across her forehead, turned her head toward Recklow.

"I could not discover the Namaz-Ga," she said wearily. "I wish my husband would return."

CHAPTER XVI
THE PLACE OF PRAYER

Her husband called her on the telephone a few minutes later:

"Fifty-three, Six-twenty-six speaking! Who is this?"

"V-sixty-nine," replied his young wife happily. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Is M. H. 2479 there?"

"He is here."

"Very well. An hour ago I saw Togrul Khan in a limousine and chased him in a taxi. His car got away in the fog but it was possible to make out the number. An empty Cadillac limousine bearing that number is now waiting outside the 44th Street entrance to the Hotel Astor. The doorman will hold it until I finish telephoning. Tell M. H. 2479 to send men to cover this matter – "

"Victor!"

"Be careful! Yes, what is it?"

"I beg you not to stir in this affair until I can join you – "

"Hurry then. It's just across the street from Westover Court – " His voice ceased; she heard another voice, faintly, and an exclamation from her husband; then his hurried voice over the wire: "The doorman just sent word to hurry. The car number is N. Y. 015 F 0379! I've got to run! Good-b – "

He left the booth at the end of Peacock Alley, ran down the marble steps to the left and out to the snowy sidewalk, passing on his way a young girl swathed to the eyes in chinchilla who was hurrying into the hotel. As he came to where the limousine was standing, he saw that it was still empty although the door stood open and the engine was running. Around the chauffeur stood the gold laced doorman, the gorgeously uniformed carriage porter and a mounted policeman.

"Hey!" said the latter when he saw Cleves, – "what's the matter here? What are you holding up this car for?"

Cleves beckoned him, whispered, then turned to the doorman.

"Why did you send for me? Was the chauffeur trying to pull out?"

"Yes, sir. A lady come hurrying out an' she jumps in, and the shawfur he starts her humming – "

"A lady! Where did she go?"

"It was that young lady in chinchilla fur. The one you just met when you run out. Yessir! Why, as soon as I held up the car and called this here cop, she opens the door and out she jumps and beats it into the hotel again – "

"Hold that car, Officer!" interrupted Cleves. "Keep it standing here and arrest anybody who gets into it! I'll be back again – "

He turned and hurried into the hotel, traversed Peacock Alley scanning every woman he passed, searching for a slim shape swathed in chinchilla. There were no chinchilla wraps in Peacock Alley; none in the dining-room where people already were beginning to gather and the orchestra was now playing; no young girl in chinchilla in the waiting room, or in the north dining-room.

Then, suddenly, far across the crowded lobby, he saw a slender, bare-headed girl in a chinchilla cloak turn hurriedly away from the room-clerk's desk, holding a key in her white gloved hand.

Before he could take two steps in her direction she had disappeared in the crowd.

He made his way through the packed lobby as best he could amid throngs of people dressed for dinner, theatre, or other gaiety awaiting them somewhere out there in the light-smeared winter fog; but when he arrived at the room clerk's desk he looked for a chinchilla wrap in vain.

Then he leaned over the desk and said to the clerk in a low voice: "I am a Federal agent from the Department of Justice. Here are my credentials. Now, who was that young woman in chinchilla furs to whom you gave her door key a moment ago?"

The clerk leaned over his counter and, dropping his voice, answered that the lady in question had arrived only that morning from San Francisco; had registered as Madame Aoula Baroulass; and had been given a suite on the fourth floor numbered from 408 to 414.

"Do you mean to arrest her?" added the clerk in a weird whisper.

"I don't know. Possibly. Have you the master-key?"

The clerk handed it to him without a word; and Cleves hurried to the elevator.

On the fourth floor the matron on duty halted him, but when he murmured an explanation she nodded and laid a finger on her lips.

"Madame has gone to her apartment," she whispered.

"Has she a servant? Or friends with her?"

"No, sir… I did see her speak to two foreign looking gentlemen in the elevator when she arrived this morning."

Cleves nodded; the matron pointed out the direction in silence, and he went rapidly down the carpeted corridor, until he came to a door numbered 408.

For a second only he hesitated, then swiftly fitted the master-key and opened the door.

The room – a bedroom – was brightly lighted; but there was nobody there. The other rooms – dressing closet, bath-room and parlour, all were brilliantly lighted by ceiling fixtures and wall brackets; but there was not a person to be seen in any of the rooms – nor, save for the illumination, was there any visible sign that anybody inhabited the apartment.

Swiftly he searched the apartment from end to end. There was no baggage to be seen, no garments, no toilet articles, no flowers in the vases, no magazines or books, not one article of feminine apparel or of personal bric-a-brac visible in the entire place.

Nor had the bed even been turned down – nor any preparation for the night's comfort been attempted. And, except for the blazing lights, it was as though the apartment had not been entered by anybody for a month.

All the windows were closed, all shades lowered and curtains drawn. The air, though apparently pure enough, had that vague flatness which one associates with an unused guest-chamber when opened for an airing.

Now, deliberately, Cleves began a more thorough search of the apartment, looking behind curtains, under beds, into clothes presses, behind sofas.

Then he searched the bureau drawers, dressers, desks for any sign or clew of the girl in the chinchillas. There was no dust anywhere, – the hotel management evidently was particular – but there was not even a pin to be found.

Presently he went out into the corridor and looked again at the number on the door. He had made no mistake.

Then he turned and sped down the long corridor to where the matron was standing beside her desk preparing to go off duty as soon as the other matron arrived to relieve her.

To his impatient question she replied positively that she had seen the girl in chinchillas unlock 408 and enter the apartment less than five minutes before he had arrived in pursuit.

"And I saw her lights go on as soon as she went in," added the matron, pointing to the distant illuminated transom.

"Then she went out through into the next apartment," insisted Cleves.

"The fire-tower is on one side of her; the scullery closet on the other," said the matron. "She could not have left that apartment without coming out into the corridor. And if she had come out I should have seen her."

"I tell you she isn't in those rooms!" protested Cleves.

"She must be there, sir. I saw her go in a few seconds before you came up."

At that moment the other matron arrived. There was no use arguing. He left the explanation of the situation to the woman who was going off duty, and, hastening his steps, he returned to apartment 408.

The door, which he had left open, had swung shut. Again he fitted the master-key, entered, paused on the threshold, looked around nervously, his nostrils suddenly filled with a puff of perfume.

And there on the table by the bed he saw a glass bowl filled with a mass of Chinese orchids – great odorous clusters of orange and snow-white bloom that saturated all the room with their freshening scent.

So astounded was he that he stood stock still, one hand still on the door-knob; then in a trice he had closed and locked the door from inside.

Somebody was in that apartment. There could be no doubt about it. He dropped his right hand into his overcoat pocket and took hold of his automatic pistol.

For ten minutes he stood so, listening, peering about the room from bed to curtains, and out into the parlour. There was not a sound in the place. Nothing stirred.

Now, grasping his pistol but not drawing it, he began another stealthy tour of the apartment, exploring every nook and cranny. And, at the end, had discovered nothing new.

When at length he realised that, as far as he could discover, there was not a living thing in the place excepting himself, a very faint chill grew along his neck and shoulders, and he caught his breath suddenly, deeply.

He had come back to the bedroom, now. The perfume of the orchids saturated the still air.

And, as he stood staring at them, all of a sudden he saw, where their twisted stalks rested in the transparent bowl of water, something moving – something brilliant as a live ember gliding out from among the mass of submerged stems – a living fish glowing in scarlet hues and winnowing the water with grotesquely trailing fins as delicate as filaments of scarlet lace.

To and fro swam the fish among the maze of orchid stalks. Even its eyes were hot and red as molten rubies; and as its crimson gills swelled and relaxed and swelled, tints of cherry-fire waxed and waned over its fat and glowing body.

And vaguely, now, in the perfume saturated air, Cleves seemed to sense a subtle taint of evil, – something sinister in the intense stillness of the place – in the jewelled fish gliding so silently in and out among the pallid convolutions of the drowned stems.

As he stood staring at the fish, the drugged odour of the orchids heavy in his throat and lungs, something stirred very lightly in the room.

Chills crawling over every limb, he looked around across his shoulder.

There was a figure seated cross-legged in the middle of the bed!

Then, in the perfumed silence, the girl laughed.

For a full minute neither of them moved. No sound had echoed her low laughter save the deadened pulsations of his own heart. But now there grew a faint ripple of water in the bowl where the scarlet fish, suddenly restless, was swimming hither and thither as though pursued by an invisible hand.

With the slight noise of splashing water in his ears, Cleves stood staring at the figure on the bed. Under her chinchilla the girl seemed to be all a pale golden tint – hair, skin, eyes. The scant shred of an evening gown she wore, the jewels at her throat and breast, all were yellow and amber and saffron-gold.

And now, looking him in the eyes, she leisurely disengaged the robe of silver fur from her naked shoulders and let it fall around her on the bed. For a second the lithe, willowy golden thing gathered there as gracefully as a coiled snake filled him with swift loathing. Then, almost instantly, the beauty of the lissome creature fascinated him.

She leaned forward and set her elbows on her two knees, and rested her face between her hands – like a gold rose-bud between two ivory petals, he thought, dismayed by this young thing's beauty, shaken by the dull confusion of his own heart battering his breast like the blows of a rising tide.

"What do you wish?" she inquired in her soft young voice. "Why have you come secretly into my rooms to search – and clasping in your hand a loaded pistol deep within your pocket?"

"Why have you hidden yourself until now?" he retorted in a dull and laboured voice.

"I have been here."

"Where?"

"Here!.. Looking at you… And watching my scarlet fish. His name is Dzelim. He is nearly a thousand years old and as wise as a magician. Look upon him, my lord! See how rapidly he darts around his tiny crystal world! – like a comet through outer star-dust, running the eternal race with Time… And – yonder is a chair. Will my lord be seated – at his new servant's feet?"

A strange, physical weariness seemed to weight his limbs and shoulders. He seated himself near the bed, never taking his heavy gaze from the smiling, golden thing which squatted there watching him so intently.

"Whose limousine was that which you entered and then left so abruptly?" he asked.

"My own."

"What was the Yezidee Togrul Kahn doing in it?"

"Did you see anybody in my car?" she asked, veiling her eyes a little with their tawny lashes.

"I saw a man with a thick beard dyed red with henna, and the bony face and slant eyes of Togrul the Yezidee."

"May my soul be ransom for yours, my lord, but you lie!" she said softly. Her lips parted in a smile; but her half-veiled eyes were brilliant as two topazes.

"Is that your answer?"

She lifted one hand and with her forefinger made signs from right to left and then downward as though writing in Turkish and in Chinese characters.

"It is written," she said in a low voice, "that we belong to God and we return to him. Look out what you are about, my lord!"

He drew his pistol from his overcoat and, holding it, rested his hand on his knee.

"Now," he said hoarsely, "while we await the coming of Togrul Kahn, you shall remain exactly where you are, and you shall tell me exactly who you are in order that I may decide whether to arrest you as an alien enemy inciting my countrymen to murder, or to let you go as a foreigner who is able to prove her honesty and innocence."

The girl laughed:

"Be careful," she said. "My danger lies in your youth and mine – somewhere between your lips and mine lies my only danger from you, my lord."

A dull flush mounted to his temples and burned there.

"I am the golden comrade to Heavenly-Azure," she said, still smiling. "I am the Third Immaum in the necklace Keuke wears where Yulun hangs as a rose-pearl, and Sansa as a pearl on fire.

"Look upon me, my lord!"

There was a golden light in his eyes which seemed to stiffen the muscles and confuse his vision. He heard her voice again as though very far away:

"It is written that we shall love, my lord – thou and I – this night – this night. Listen attentively. I am thy slave. My lips shall touch thy feet. Look upon me, my lord!"

There was a dazzling blindness in his eyes and in his brain. He swayed a little still striving to fix her with his failing gaze. His pistol hand slipped sideways from his knee, fell limply, and the weapon dropped to the thick carpet. He could still see the glimmering golden shape of her, still hear her distant voice:

"It is written that we belong to God… Tokhta!.."

Over his knees was settling a snow-white sheet; on it, in his lap, lay a naked knife. There was not a sound in the room save the rushing and splashing of the scarlet fish in its crystal bowl.

Bending nearer, the girl fixed her yellow eyes on the man who looked back at her with dying gaze, sitting upright and knee deep in his shroud.

Then, noiselessly she uncoiled her supple golden body, extending her right arm toward the knife.

"Throw back thy head, my lord, and stretch thy throat to the knife's sweet edge," she whispered caressingly. "No! – do not close your eyes. Look upon me. Look into my eyes. I am Aoula, temple girl of the Baroulass! I am mistress to the Slayer of Souls! I am a golden plaything to Sanang Noïane, Prince of the Yezidees. Look upon me attentively, my lord!"

Her smooth little hand closed on the hilt; the scarlet fish splashed furiously in the bowl, dislodging a blossom or two which fell to the carpet and slowly faded into mist.

Now she grasped the knife, and she slipped from the bed to the floor and stood before the dazed man.

"This is the Namaz-Ga," she said in her silky voice. "Behold, this is the appointed Place of Prayer. Gaze around you, my lord. These are the shadows of mighty men who come here to see you die in the Place of Prayer."

Cleves's head had fallen back, but his eyes were open. The Baroulass girl took his head in both hands and turned it hither and thither. And his glazing eyes seemed to sweep a throng of shadowy white-robed men crowding the room. And he saw the bloodless, symmetrical visage of Sanang among them, and the great red beard of Togrul; and his stiffening lips parted in an uttered cry, and sagged open, flaccid and soundless.