 CHAPTER VIII Nilsburgquist had his own ways, and whether or not they were practical or customary to mankind at large influenced him in no degree. He called himself a socialist, but in pure fact he was one of those persons who required a cause to fight for and argue about, as a hedonist craves his pleasures or the average man an income. Real socialism, with the communal interests it applies, was foreign to Berquist's very nature. He could get along in a withdrawn kind of way with almost anyone. He would share what small possessions he had with literally anyone. But his interest went to such abstractions of thought as were talked and written by men of his own kind, while himself, his mind, he kept for the very few. These are the qualities of an aristocrat, not a socialist. One result of his paradoxical attitude showed in the fact that when it came to current news Nils was as ignorant a man as you could meet in a day's walk. My various troubles and activities had kept me from thinking of him, but when I again happened on Nils in town one evening it hurt my feelings to discover that the spectacular downfall of Barbara and Hutchinson might have occurred on another planet so far as he was concerned. News that had been blazoned in every paper was news to him all this time afterward. Even learning it for me in person he said little, though this silence might have been caused by embarrassment. Roberta was with me, and to Ty Nils's tongue you had only to lead him into the presence of femininity in the person of a young pretty girl. I at last recalled the fact, and because for a certain reason I wished a chance to talk with him where he could talk I asked if he couldn't run out some night and have dinner with us. Kathy's cooking was nothing wonderful, but I knew Nils wouldn't mind that, nor the cramped quarters we had to live in. I reckoned on taking him up to my own room later for a private confab. After a short hesitation he accepted. You take care of yourself, Clay, he added. You're looking pale, run down. Don't tell me you've been laid up sick along with all this other trouble. No indeed, old man. Working rather harder than I used, and, lately, I haven't slept very well. Bad dreams. But aside from that, nothing serious. After a few more words we parted, he striding off on his lonely way to some born unknown, Roberta and I proceeding toward the motion picture theatre that we try to enjoy like a real playhouse. As if misery had altered the Charlestonian viewpoint, Mrs. Whittingfield had relaxed her chaperone edge and let us go alone almost wherever we liked, or where my diminished pocket fund afforded to take us. A fortnight had passed since the strange face had made its first appearance. If Nils thought I looked pale, there was reason for it. Bad dreams, I had told him, but bad dreams were less than all. My resolve to visit a doctor had come to nothing. I had called, indeed, upon our family physician, as I had met. The moment I entered his presence, however, that instinct for concealment which had prevented me from confiding in Roberta or my family rose up full strength. The symptoms I actually laid before Dr. Lloyd produced a smile and a prescription that might as well have been the traditional bread pills. I didn't bother to have it filled. I went out as alone with my secret as when I entered. A face, boyish in manner, pleasant, half-smiling usually, with an amused slinus to the clear light-blue eyes, an agreeable inward quirk at the corners of the finely cut lips. I had come to know every liniment intimately well. It had not returned again until some time after the first appearance. Then, at the bank, the afternoon following my futile conference with Dr. Lloyd, I happened to close my eyes, and it was there, behind the lids. There was a table in Mr. Turn's office over which he used to spread out his correspondence and papers. I was seated at one side of the table and he on the other, and I started so violently that he dropped his pen and made a straggling ink feather across the schedule of securities he was verifying. He patiently blotted it and I made such a fuss over getting out the ink eradicator and restoring the sheet of minutely-figured ledger paper to neatness that he forgot to ask what had made me jump in the first place. After that the face was with me so often that if I shut my eyes and saw nothing its absence bothered me. I would feel then that the face had got behind me, perhaps, and acquired the bad habit of casting furtive glances over my shoulder. You may think that if one must be burdened with a companion invisible to the world, such a good-humored countenance as I have described would be the least disagreeable, but that was not so. There was to me a subtle hatefulness about it, like a thing beautiful and at the same time vile, which one hates in fear of coming to love it. I never called the face him, never thought of it as a man, nor gave it a man's name. I was afraid to, as if recognition would lend the vision power. I called it the fifth presence and hated it. As the days of this past there came a time when the face began trying to talk to me. There at least I had the advantage. Though I could see the lips move, forming words, by merely opening my eyes I was able to banish it, and so avoid learning what it wished to say. In bed I used to lie with my eyes wide open, sometimes for hours, waiting for sleep to come suddenly. When that happened I was safe, for though my dreams were often bad, the face never invaded them. I discovered too that the name Serapien had in a measure lost power to throw me off balance since the face had come. My mother continued to harp on the superiority of my dead uncle's character, and how he would have shielded us from the evils that had befallen, until Dad acquiesced in sheer self- protection. But though I didn't like to hear her talk of him, and though the sound of the name invariably quickened my heartbeat, hearing neither increased nor diminished the vision's vividness. It was with me, however, through most of my waking hours, waiting behind my lids. And, if I looked pale, as Nils said, the wonder is that I was able to appear at all as usual. So I wished to talk with Nils, hoping that to the man who had warned me against the Moors I could force myself to confide the distressing aftermath of my visit at the dead alive house. He had promised to come out the next night but won, which was Wednesday. Unfortunately, however, I missed seeing him then, after all, and because of an incident whose climax was to give the fifth presence a new and unexpected significance. About two-thirty Wednesday afternoon I ran up the steps of the Colossus Trust, and at the top collided squarely with Van Junior. By the slight reel with which he staggered against a pillar and caught hold of it I knew that Van had been hitting the high spots again, and hoped he had not been interviewing his father in that condition. On recovering his balance, Van stood up steady enough. Old Scott Clay! Say, you look like a pale, pallid, piffling, freshwater clam you do. Pardon my word, I'm ashamed of the old Colossus. The old brass idol has sucked all the blood out of you. My fault, serving up the best friend I ever had as a helpless sacrifice to the governor's old brass Colossus. Come on with me, you've been good too long. He playfully pretended to tear off the brass-lettered name of the Trust Company, which adorned the wall beside him, cast it down, and trample on it. When I tried to pass, he caught my arm. Come on! Can't, I explained quietly. Mr. Turn was the best man at a wedding today, but he left me a stack of work. Van sniffed. Huh! I know that wedding. I was invited to that wedding. But I wouldn't go. That's the old prohibition wedding. Just suits fatty turn. When you get married, Clay, I'll send along about eleven magnums for a wedding present. Then I'll come to your wedding. You may, when it happens. Again, I tried to pass him. Wait a minute, you poor, pallid work-slave. You know what I'm going to do for you. Get me fired by present prospects. I must, you must not. Just listen. You know Barney Finn. Not personally. Let me go now, Van, and I'll see you later. Barney Finn, he persisted doggedly, has got just the biggest little engine that ever slid around to track. Now you wait a minute. Barney's another friend of mine. Told me all about it. Showed it to me. Show me how it's going to make every other wagon at fair of you tomorrow look like a hand-pushed per-perambulator. All right. Come around after the race and tell me how Finn made out. Please. Wait. You're my friend, Clay, and I like you. You put a thousand bones on Finney's car and say good-bye to old Colossus. Start a bank of your own. How's that, huh? I laughed. Bed on it yourself, Van, and let me alone. I've forgotten what a thousand dollars looks like. No place will you round old Colossus then. Say, boy, if you think me too squiffy to whist wherever I speak, you misjudge me sadly. Yes, indeed. Didn't I rest one pitiful century from Colossus five minutes ago, and isn't that the last that stood between me and Starvation, and ain't I going right out and plaster that century on Finn's car? Would I impoverse the Colossus and me putting that last century on anything but a sure win? Come across, boy! Now when might think that Van's invitation lacked attractiveness to a sober man. I happen to know, however, that drunk or sober his judgment was good on one subject, the same being motor-cars. Barney Finn, moreover, was a speed-track veteran with a mighty reputation at his back. He had, in the previous year, met several defeats due to bad luck in my opinion, but they had brought up the odds. If he had something particularly good and new in his car for tomorrow's race at Fairview, there was a chance for somebody to make a killing, as Van said. What odds, I queried. For each little bone you plant, twelve little bones will blossom. Good enough. I could get better, but this will be off Jackie Rosenblatt, and you know that little Jew's a regular old Colossus's own self. Solid and square. Hock his old high silk hat before he'd welch. Yes, rosy square. I did some quick mental figuring and then pulled a thin sheaf of bills from an inner coat pocket. Instantly Van had snatched them out of my hand. Not all, I exclaimed sharply. Take fifty, but I brought that into deposit. Deposit it with Jackie. Why, you old miser with your bank account? Four entire centuries, and you weepen over poverty. Say, Clay, how much is twelve times four? Forty-eight, but lighten and calculator, he admired. Say, doesn't forty-eight hundred make a bigger noise in your delicate ear than four measly centuries? Come across! I don't think I nodded. I am almost sure that I had begun reaching my hand to take all or most of the bills back, but Van thought otherwise. Right, boy. With plunging abruptness he was off down the steps. I hesitated. Forty-four hundred. Then I caught myself and was after him, but too late. His speedy gray roaster was already nosing recklessly into the traffic. Before I reached the bottom step it had shot around the corner and was gone. End of Chapter 8 CHAPTER IX. OF SORRAPIAN. BY FRANCIS STEPANS. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. SORRAPIAN. CHAPTER IX. THE FACE SPEAKS. Off Mr. Turn's spacious office there was a little glass enclosed six by eight cubby-hole, which I called my own. Ten o'clock Thursday morning found me seated in the one chair, staring at a pile of canceled notes on the desk before me. I had started to check them half an hour ago, but so far just one check mark showed on the list beside them. I had something worse to think of than canceled notes. As I sat I could hear Mr. Turn fussing about the outer office. Then I heard him go out. About two minutes afterward the door banged open so forcibly that I half started up, conscience clamoring. But it wasn't the second vice returning in a rage. It was van. He fairly bolded into my cubby-hole, closed the door, pitched his hat in a corner, and swung himself to a seat on my desk-edge, scattering canceled notes right and left. There he sat, hands clasped, staring at me in a perfect stillness which contrasted dramatically with his violent entry. His eyes looked dark and sunken in a strained white face. My nerves were inappreciative of drama. Where were you last night? I demanded irritably. I hunted for you around town till nearly midnight. What? Oh, I was way out in. I don't know exactly. Some dinky road-house. I pretty nearly missed the race, and... and I wished a God I had, Clay. He passed a shaking hand across his eyes. Did Finn lose? I snapped. But why? The race can hardly be more than started yet. Finn started. He gulped. Ditched, I gasped, a flash of inspiration mourning me of what was coming. He nodded. Turned turtle on the second lap, and... Say, boy, I help dig him out and carry him off. You know, I liked Barney. It was bad. The mechanism broke his back clean, flung against a post. But Barney, say, what was left of him kind of... kind of came apart when we... He stopped short, gulped again, and... Guess I'm in bad shape this morning, he said huskily. Nerves all shot to pieces. I should have imagined they would be. A man straight from an all-night debauch, can't witness a racing-car accident, help handle the human wreckage afterward, and go whistling merrily to tell his friends the tale. I expressed that, though in more kindly chosen words, and then we were both silent a minute. Barney Finn had not been my friend, or even acquaintance, and while I was vicariously touched by Van's grief and horror, my own dilemma wasn't simplified by this news. Yet I hated to fling sordidness in the face of tragedy by speaking of money. Afterward I didn't feel like watching the race out. As Van spoke, I heard the outer door open again. This time it really was Mr. Turn, for I recognized his step. So I came straight here. Van continued. My own door opened, and a kindly dignified figure appeared there. Barber, said the second voice, have you that? Oh, good morning, Richard. He nodded rather coldly to Van, and went on to ask me for the list I was supposed to be at work on. When I explained that the checking wasn't quite finished, he turned away, then glanced back. By the way, Barber, he said, Prang dropped me a line saying that when you were in his office yesterday, he paid up four hundred he has owed me since last June. If you were too late to deposit yesterday afternoon, get it from my box and we'll put it in with this check from the United. I felt myself going fiery red. Sorry, I said. I'll let you have that money this afternoon, Mr. Turn. I... I... He gave it to me to deposit for him, and I used it for something else. Broke in Van with the utmost coolness. On occasion, Van's brain worked with flashlight rapidity. He had put the two and two of that four hundred together, while another man might have been wondering about it. Turn stared, first at Van, then at me. You... You gave it, he began slowly. He came here for your passbook, ran Van's glib tongue. I dropped in on him, and as I was going out past the tellers, I offered to put it in for him. Then I stuck it in my pocket, forgot it till too late, and needing some cash last night, I used that. Barber has been throwing fits ever since I told him. I'll get it for you this afternoon. Turn stared some more, and Van returned the look with cool insolence. A brick-reddish color crept up the second VP's cheeks, his mouth compressed to an unfamiliar straightness, and turning suddenly he walked out of not only my cubby-hole but his own office, the door shut with a rattle of jarred glazing. You shouldn't have done that, I breathed. Oh, rats! Fatty Turn's going to tell the Governor what a naughty bad boy I am. He'll get thrown out. No news to the Governor, and he's sick of hearing it. Anyway, this is my fault, Clay, and I ought to stand the gaff. You've worked like the devil here, and then I come along and spoil everything. Drunken fool me! Knew I'd queer you if we got together, until yesterday I had sense enough to keep off. When I took those bills I knew there was something wrong, but I was too squiffy to have any sense about it. Plain highway robbery. Never mind, old pal, I'll bring you back the loot this afternoon, if I have to bust open one of the old Colossus's vaults for it. My elbow, the house telephone jingled. Just a minute, I said. No, wait, Van. Hello? Hello, Mr. Vancetart? Yes, sir. Be over at once, sir. Yes, he's here. What? Yes. The other receiver had clicked up. We're in for it, I muttered. Apparently your esteemed Governor hasn't thrown turn out. Vancetart Sr., the gruff old lion, granted lax discipline to no man under his control save one, and even Van Jr. was, if not afraid, at least a bit wary of him. Though he had taken me on in the bank at a far higher wage than my services were worth, he had also made it very clear that so far as I was concerned, favoritism ended there. For me, I was sure the truth of the present affair would mean instant discharge. Shut that door, the lion growled as we entered. Now, Dick, I'll thank you to explain for exactly what weighty reason you stole Mr. Turn's four hundred. Stole! Van Slim figure stiffened, and he went two shades wider. Stole, yes. I said stole. That is the usual term for appropriating money without the owner's consent. I don't accuse the boy of theft. Turn's set face of anger relaxed suddenly. He didn't like Van, but he was a man who could not be unfair if he tried. Keep out of this turn, please. Dick, I am waiting. Well, really, Van drawled. If you put it that way, I couldn't say what I did use the money for. There was a trifle of four hundred, owned, I believe, by Mr. Turn, which I borrowed, intending to return it in a few hours. From what fund? The lion's mane was up now in earnest. I felt instinctively that this interview was a bit different from any that Van had been through here to for. Are you aware that your account in this bank is already overdrawn to the sum of, he consulted a slip before him, a forty-nine dollars and sixty cents? You perhaps have reserve funds at your command elsewhere? Van looked his father in the eye. What he saw must have been unusual. His brows went up slightly, and the same fighting look came into his face, which I had seen there when he and I confronted the faculty together. On that occasion I had been genuinely inclined to meekness. I remained in college while Van was sat down. He laughed lightly. Excuse me half an hour while I run out and sell the little old roadster. Forty-nine sixty you said? I'll pay you yours first, sir. That's kind. After stealing one man's money, you propose selling another man's car to replace it. Yes, my car, I said. What have you got in this world but your worthless brains and body to call your own? Wait. We'll go into this matter of ownership more deeply in a few minutes. Barber, he whirled on me, you allowed funds belonging to your superior to pass into unauthorized hands. That is not done in this bank. As things stand I shall leave your case to Mr. Turn, but first you will make one direct statement. I wish it made so that no question may rise afterward. Did you, or did you not, hand four hundred dollars in bills the property of Mr. Turn to my—to my son, God help me? It was up to me and Ernest. I was now sure beyond doubt of what Van had run against. His Leonine parent had turned at last, and even the whole truth would barely suffice to save him. My lips opened. To blame though he was in a way, Van mustn't suffer seriously in my protection. I could not forget that momentary hesitation on my part, say for which I could easily have retrieved the bills before Van was out of reach. I gave it to him. I began. And then abruptly, silently, another face flashed in between me and the President. Instead of Van Satard's dark, angry eyes, I was staring into a pair of clear, amused, light blue ones. A finely cut mouth half-smouted me with lips that moved. Always there to fore the face had come only when my lids were closed. It swished to communicate with me, and that it did wish to communicate I was sure as if the thing had been a living man, following me about and perpetually tugging at my sleeve, had been a continual menace, but one which I had grown to feel secure from because the thing's power seemed so limited. Now with my eyes wide open there hung the face in mid-air. It was not in the least transparent. That is, its intervening presence obscured Van Satard's countenance as completely as though the head of a real man had thrust in between us. And yet, it is hard to express, but there was that about it, a kind of flatness, a lack of the normal three-dimensional solidity which gave it the look of a living portrait projected on the atmosphere. I knew without even glancing toward them that Van and Mr. Turn did not see the thing as I did. It was there for me alone. At the moment, though, I fought the belief again. Later I knew beyond question that what I beheld was the projection of a powerful, external will, the same which, with Alicia's dynamic force to aid, had once actually taken possession of my body. The finely cut lips moved. No audible sound came from them, but as they formed words, the speech was heard in my brain, distinctly as of convey by normal sound vibrations through the eardrums. It was silent sound. The tone was deep, rather agreeable, amably amused. You have said enough. The face observed pleasantly. You have told the truth. Now stop there. Your friend has a father to deal with while you have an employer. He is willing to shoulder all the blame, and for you to expose your share in it would be a preposterous folly. Remember that hard as you have worked, you are receiving here twice the money you are worth, three times when you can hope to begin on elsewhere. Remember the miserable consequences of your own father's needless sacrifice. Remember how often, and very justly, you have wished that he had thought less of a point of fine-drawn honour and more of his family's happiness. Will you commit a like folly? I can't tell, so that anyone will understand, what a wave of accumulated memories and secret revolts against fate overswept me as I stared hard into the smiling, light blue eyes. But I fought. Grimly I began again. I gave it to him, and then stopped. That's enough. This time it was Vancitard speaking. You may go, Barber. Mr. Turn, I will ask you to leave us. You will receive my personal check for the amount you have lost. But, but, I stammer desperately, while those clear eyes grew more amused, more dominating. The lion's hard-held calmness broke in a roar. Get out! Out of here! Both of you! Go! Mr. Turn laid his hand on my arm, and reluctantly I allowed myself to be steered toward the door. As I turned away the face did not float around with the turning of my eyes. It hung in mid-air, safe for that odd, undimensional flatness real as any of the three other faces there. When my back was to the President, the—the fifth presence was behind me. On glancing back, it still hung there. Then it smiled at me. A beautiful, pleased, wholly approving smile, and faded to nothing. I went out with Mr. Turn and left Van alone with his father. CHAPTER X. THE BELOVED SERAPIAN. An hour later I departed from the Colossus Trust Company with instructions not to return. Oh, no, I had not been ruthlessly discharged by the outraged second vice. The inhibition covered the balance of the day only, and, as Mr. Turn put it, "'A few hours quiet will give you a clearer view of the situation, Barber. I honour you for feeling as you do. It was Richard, I believe, who obtained you a position here. As for your consolation, when Mr. Avancetart has—er, cooled off somewhat—I intend making a small plea in Richard's behalf. Now go home and come back fresh in the morning. You look as though all the cares of the world had been dumped on your shoulders. Take an older man's advice and shake off those that aren't yours, boy.' He was a kindly good man, the second vice president of the Colossus. But his kindness didn't console me. In fact, I felt rather the worse for it. I went home, wishing that he had kicked me clean around the block, instead of—of liking and petting and, by inference, praising me for being such a contrast in character to poor, reckless, loose-living, heroic van. When I left, the latter was still in his father's office. Though I might have waited for him outside, I didn't. He was not the kind to meet me with even a glance of reproach. But just the same, I did not feel eager to meet him. I had resolved, however, that unless van pulled through scathe-less, I would myself make a small plea in Richard's behalf, and next time not all the smooth, smiling devils from the place that's no longer believed in should persuade me to crumple. On the train, I commuted, of course, I deliberately shut my eyes and waited for the vision to appear. If it could talk to me by moving its lips, there must be some way in which I could express my opinion to it. I burned to do that. Like a sneak, it had taken me unawares in a crucial moment. I had a few thoughts of the fifth presence, which would make even that smug vision curl up and die. I closed my eyes, and was asleep in five minutes. I was tired, you see, and now that I wanted it the fifth presence kept discreetly invisible. The conductor, who knew me, called my station and me at the same time, and I blundered off the train, half awake, but thoroughly miserable. There was no one at home but my mother. Of late Dad's sight had failed till it was not safe for him to be on the street alone. As he liked to walk, however, Kathy had gone out with him. I found Mother lying down in her darkened bedroom, in the preparatory stage of a headache. Having explained that Mr. Turn had given me an unexpected half-holiday, I turned to leave her, but checked on a sudden impulse. Mother, I said softly. Why did you name me, sir? Why was I given my uncle's name instead of just Dad's? What an odd question! Mother sat up so energetically that two cushions fell off the couch. I picked them up and tried to re-establish her comfortably, but she wouldn't have it. Tell me at once why you asked that extraordinary question, Clay. I said there was nothing extraordinary about it that I could see. My uncle's name itself was extraordinary, or at least unusual, and the question happened to come into my mind just then. Besides, she had spoken a good deal of him lately. Maybe that had maybe think of it. Mother drew a deep breath. He told me, can you believe this? He told me that some day you would ask that question. This is too wonderful. And I've seemed to feel a protecting influence about us, this house that was his, and your good position in the bank. Mother, will you kindly explain what you were talking about? My heart had begun a muffled throbbing. Be patient. I have a wonderful story to tell you. I have doubted and hoped and dared say nothing, but Clayton dear, in these last miserable weeks I have felt his presence like the overshadowing wings of a protecting angel. If it is true, if it only could be true. Mother, please. Sit down, dear. Are my salts on the dresser? Yes, on the cologne, too, please. That's a dear boy. And now, sit down. Your father never liked dear Serapien, and... Why, how wonderful this all is! You're coming home early, I mean, and asking me the question just at the one time when your father, who disliked him, is away, and we have the whole house, his house, to ourselves. Can't you feel his influence in that, dear? What have you to tell me, mother? I shall begin at the very first. If you make the story too long, I objected craftily. Dad and Kathy will be back. That is true. Then I'll just tell you the part he particularly wish you to know. Dear Serapien was universally loved, and I could go on by the hour about his friendships and the faculty he had for making people happy. Physically, he had little strength, and your father was very unjust to him. Can't we leave dad out of this, mother? You are so like your uncle. Serapien could never bear to hear anyone criticised, no matter how the person had treated him. My happiness, he would say, is in living at harmony with all. Clayton, your father he meant, of course, Clayton is a splendid man whom I admire. His own fine energy and capacities make him unduly hard, perhaps toward those less gifted. I try to console myself with the thought that life has several sides. Love, kindness, good humour. I am at least fortunate in rousing the gentlest qualities in most of those about me. Who knows. From the beginning that may have been my mission in life, and I was given a delicate constitution that I might have leisure merely to live, love and be loved in return. Of course he wouldn't have expressed that beautiful thought to everyone, but Serapien knew that I would understand. Yes, dear, I shall come to your part in the story directly. Serapien passed to his reward before you were born, my son. He went from us in January, and you came into the world the April following. The doctors had told him that only a few hours were left him of life. When Serapien learned that, he asked to be left alone with me for a little while. I remember every word of that beautiful conversation. I remember how he laid his hand on mine and pressed it feebly. Do as I ask, Evelyn, he said. If the child is a boy, give him my name. I only ask second place. Clayton has first right. But let the boy have my name as well as his father's. I've been too happy in my life. Too happy in my loves and friendships. I can't bear to die utterly out of this good old world. I haven't a child of my own, but if you just give your boy my name, some day he will ask why, and then you are to tell him that it's because I was so happy. Mother was sobbing, but after a moment she regained self-control to continue. You may think it weakened me to cry over my brother who passed long ago, but he has lived in my memory. And he said, Some people only talk of life after death, but I believe in it. It is really true that we go out to go on. I know it. There is something bright and strong in me, Evelyn, that only grows stronger as I feel the body dying from about me. Bright, strong, and clear-sighted. I have never been quite like other men. Not even you have understood me, and perhaps that is for the best. With his hand on mine he smiled. And oh, Clayton, I have wondered many times since what that smile meant. It was so beautiful that... that it was almost terrible. I love life, he went on, and I shall live beyond this perishing clay. Soon or late a day will come when you will feel my living presence in the house, and it will be in that time that your son will ask of me. Then you will tell him all I have said, and also this. That I promise to return, to watch over him, to guard him. Name him for me that I may have the power. There's power in a name, and I am not as other men. Be very sure that your son, Serapian, shall be as happy shall have all that I have had of life. Believe, promise. And I promised. The strangest look came into his eyes. A look of... my mother's voice sang to a hushed whisper. I can only describe it as holy exaltation. It was too vivid and triumphant to have been of this world. And he died in my arms. Clayton, why do you look at me like that? What is the matter, child? Nothing. You told the story so well that, for a moment, I seemed to... to see him or something. Never mind me. Mother, haven't you any picture of my uncle? Only one of him, as he was in his latter years. I have kept it locked away, for fear it might be destroyed or injured. After Serapian was gone, they had a fire at the photographers. Mother had risen and was searching in a bureau drawer. A fire... where is that key? The fire spoiled all the old negatives, the man said. I had that key here. Though the studio was only partly burned, and I always suspected he simply didn't take the trouble to hunt for the one of your uncle. Here it is. In my glovebox of all places. I am so glad that you take this seriously, Clayton. Do you feel nearly as deeply about it as I, don't you, dear? It's nothing to joke over, I said. No. But your father might have influenced you. Let me unlock it. She was struggling with a small drawer in the side of the high, old-fashioned carved walnut escretois that she kept in her bedroom now, because our one living room was small and crowded. I made fussing over the refractory lock and excuse to hide my too-genuine emotion. I wished to see that picture. At the same time I dreaded unspeakably the moment when doubt might become certainty. It's open, I said at last, and stepped back. My mother took out a flat package wrapped in yellow tissue paper. She began to undo the silk cord tied around it. I turned my back suddenly. Then I felt something thrust into my hand. With all my will I forced myself to bring the thing around before my eyes. What face would stare back at me, eye to eye, amused, pleasant? The window shades were still drawn and the light dim. It was a moment before I realized that what I held was not a picture at all, but some kind of printed pamphlet. Raise the shade, said my mother. I wish you to read that. It is a little memorial of your uncle, written by one of his friends, a Mr. Hazlet. The words are so touching. Almost as beautiful as the thoughts Serapien himself often expressed. Would you mind? I controlled my voice by an effort. Would you mind letting me see the picture first? There it is. This time she headed me the unmistakable, polished, bescrolled oblong of an old-fashioned, photocopious mounting. Defiance, last resource of the hard-pressed, drove me in two bold strides to the window where I jerked the shade up, rattling on its roller. Daylight beat in. This was the middle of November, and the light was gray, filtered through gray clouds. A few scattered particles of snow flickered past the window. In my fingers the polished face of a cardboard mount felt smooth, almost soft to the touch. I watched the snow. Isn't his face beautiful, dear? demanded a voice at my shoulder. I... I... Yes, I'm afraid. Of course, mother. But you are not looking at it. I did look, I lied. I... This has all been a little too much for me. Take it, put it away. No, I'll read the memorial another time. Happy. Did he promise, too, to come back and make me happy? Practically that. How like him you are, dear son. He was sensitive, too. And your eyes. You have the barber nose and forehead, but your eyes. Please, mother. She let me go at last, and in the quiet of refuge behind the locked door of my bedroom, I, who after all had not dared to look upon the picture of Serapian, scrutinized thoroughly every feature of my own face in the mirror. Like him. She had often said so in the past, but the statement had failed to make any particular impression. Yes, she was right about the eyes. They were the same clear, light blue as his. What? Never. Not as his. For all I knew, by actual observation, Serapian's eyes might have been sea-green or shell-pink. I had never seen him. Let me keep that fact firmly in mind. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Serapian. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Serapian by Francis Stevens. Chapter 11. Verschlinger des Lebens. My face in the mirror bore a faint, sketchy resemblance to that of the unreal, but nonetheless troublesome vision, by which I was intermittently afflicted. The resemblance accounted for the vague familiarity that had enveloped it from the first. The face in the mirror, though, was much younger and resolved flat up in its eyes like a light at fire. You, I address my reflection, are not a sneak. You're not going to be made one. Tonight you will present yourself to Mr. James Barton Moore, and you will inform him that a little trick of hypnotism performed by his wife last August will either be reversed by her or he himself will pay for it unpleasantly. I believe, and my arm muscles flexed in pervado, that Mr. Jimmy Moore will think twice before he refuses. That was what I said, but in my heart I yearned suddenly to go and fling myself object at the feet of Alicia Moore and entreat her to help me. It was a cold night and the afternoon scattered flakes had increased to a heavy snowfall. A lighting from the car, not mine this time, but the transit companies, I found the snow inches deep. I can still recall the feel of it blown against my face like light cold finger touches. Plowing through it I came again to the dead alive house, that other wizard had been in summer. The twin lawns, one green and close cropped, the other high ground with weeds, had stood out contrastingly then. There had been a line of sharp demarcation between Moore's clean freshly painted half of the house and the other half's stirred freckled wall. Now all that sharp difference was blurred and indistinct. The snow, blue white in the swaying circles of light from a corner arc lamp had buried both the lawns. Joining the roofs in whiteness, drifting across the porches, swirling in the air, it obliterated all but a hint of difference between the living half and the dead. Though the windows of one part were dark as those of the other, a faint glow shone through the curtain glazing of Moore's door. Now that I was here, I almost hoped that he and his wife were out. The accusation I must make was strange to absurdity. I braced myself, however, opened the gate, and as I did so, a hand dropped on my shoulder from behind. A man had come upon me soundlessly through the snow. In my nerve-wracked state, I whirled and struck at him. He caught my wrist. Here, I'm no highwayman clay. Kneels, I loved shakily. He stalled me. Bequist stared with a sudden close attention that I found myself shrinking away from. For weeks I had been keeping a secret at some cost. Though I had come here to reveal it, the habit of concealment was still on me. Your nerves used to be better than that, said Bequist shortly. You calling on Moore, I queried. Thought there was some kind of vendetta between you. You wouldn't come here with me, I remember. I'm glad you remember something, he retorted gravely. You have a very nice hospitable family, though. They took me in last night and fed me on the bare strength of my ward that I'd been invited. I say, Kneels, that's too bad. In my desperate search for where in the previous evening, I had clean forgotten my dinner invitation to Bequist. Reaching home near midnight, I had received a thoroughly sisterly call on from Cathie, who had waited up to express her frank opinion of a brother who not only invited a friend to dinner without forewarning her, but neglected even to be present when the friend arrived. It seemed, too, that Roberta had dined there on Cathie's own invitation, and the two girls had unitedly agreed that poor Kneels was queer and not very desirable. He had committed the double offense of talking wild theories to dad, verbally ignoring the feminine element, and at the same time staring bad out of countenance whenever her eyes were not actually on him. I had informed Cathie that Bert should feel highly honored, since Kneels was generally too shy even to look at a girl, much less stare at her, and that as the family support, I should certainly invite whom I pleased to dinner. As for Kneels, I had regretted missing him, but knew he was too casual himself to hold the laps against me. Now I began an apology that was rather wandering, for my mind was otherwise concerned. I wished to tell him about the fifth presence. Before I entered Moors House, it would be very well that I should tell Kneels of my errand. Why, in the name of all reason, was I possessed by the sense of shame that shut my lips whenever I tried to open them concerning the haunting face. Cutting the apologies short, Kneels forgave me, explained that though out of sympathy with Moors work, he occasionally called to play chess with him, and then we were going up the snow-planketed walk side by side. Even the chess sometimes ends in a row, Kneels added gloomily. I wouldn't play him at all if he hadn't beaten me so many times. Perhaps some day I'll get the score even, and then I shan't come here anymore. Moors is, did he ever tell you that I kept my appointment with him? Which one? The question leaped out cuttingly sharp. The only one I ever made with him, of course, that day you introduced us in the restaurant. You haven't been coming here since? No, why should you think that? We had checked again, halfway up the walk. As we stood, Kneels caught my shoulders and swung me around till the arc lamp raised speed on my face. He scrutinized me from underfroaming bros. You've lost something, he said bluntly. I can't tell exactly what. I don't know what story your eyes hide, but they hide one. Clay, don't think me an official meddler, but you, you have your family dependent on you. And, oh, why do I beat about the bush? That girl you will marry someday. She's rather wonderful. For her sake, if not your own, tell me the truth. Has Moor involved you in some of his cursed dangerous experiments? Tell me, is it dead or his voice softened? Are you merely worn out with a common and comparatively safe kinds of trouble? I've had trouble enough to marry any fellow. Yes, but is any part of it to be laid at the store? He jerked his head toward Moor's dimly radiant portal. A face, a face! Sheer panic choked the words in my throat. I had begun betraying the secret which every atom of my being demanded should be kept. Yes, a face. A face is not necessarily a chart of the owner's doings. I wrenched roughly from his grasp. Since when have you set up as a critic in physiognomy, Niels? When one has a friend, one cares to look beneath the surface, he said simply. Well, don't look with the air of hunting or the criminal then. I have as good a right to call here as you, haven't I? Moor sent me a letter asking me to drop around, so I thought I would. I'm tired and need distraction. What's the harm? Without answering, he eyed me through a long moment, then turned quietly and went on up into the porch. Standing hesitant, I glanced upward, looking for light in the windows above. Again, I saw the slanting roofs, blended in snow. Months ago, in a momentary illusion of moonlight, I had seen them look just so. The thought brought me a tiny prick of apprehension. Not fear, but the startled uneasiness one might feel at coming to a place one has never visited and knowing it for the place one has seen in her dream. Nevertheless, I followed Niels to the door. Another mate opened it than the one who had admitted Roberta and myself in August. She was a great, craggy, hard-faced, old-colored woman, whom Niels addressed familiarly as Sabina, and who made him rather glumly welcome in accents that betrayed her sovereign origin. She assumed, I suppose, that Niels and I had come together, and my card did not proceed me into moor's sanct. The letter was in the library again. The shades and curtains were drawn tight, which accounted for the not-at-home look of the windows from outside. I learned later that he frequently denied himself to callers, even near acquaintances, unless they came by appointment. This letter to me had been ignored too long to come under that heading. I wonder, would he have refused to see me that night, given my choice? In my very first step across the library's threshold, I realized that my battle was to be an even more difficult one than I had feared. Passing the doorway, I entered, physically and consciously entered, the same field of tension, to call it that, which had centralized about Alicia at the climax of my previous experience. It was less masterful than then. There was not the same drain on my physical strength, nor the feeling of being in report with the movements of others. But the condition was nonetheless present. I knew it as surely and actually as one recognizes a marked change in atmospheric temperature, or to use a closer simile, as one feels entry into the radius of electrical force produced by a certain type of powerful generator. There is no simile which will exactly express what I mean. The consciousness involved is other than normal, and only a person who had been possessed by it could fully understand. On that first occasion, I had been sure that my impressions were shared by the others present. This time, some minutes passed before I became convinced that Berquist and James Moore, at least, were insensitive to the condition. The library appeared as I had seen it first, save that the lamp broken then had been replaced by another, with a Japanese art shade made of painted silk. Near the large reading table with the lamp, a small stand had been drawn up and a chessboard laid upon it. In anticipation of Neil's arrival, Moore had been arranging the pieces. They were red and white ivory man, finely carved. They and the Japanese lamp shade made a glow of exotic color, and the shadow behind which said, Alicia, a dim figure, pallet and immobile. By one of those surface thoughts that flash across moments of intensity, I noted that Moore was dressed in a gray suit, patterned with a faint large check in lighter gray. Then he had recognized me, and the man's pale eyebrows lifted. You've brought Barber, he said to Neil's. No, denied my friend, met him at the door. How do, Alicia? He strode across the room to where Mr. Moore sat in the shadow. Under other conditions I should have felt embarrassed. By Moore's tone and Neil's non-committal response, they had placed me as an intruder, received without even a gloss of welcome for courtesy's sake. But to me, it seemed only strange that they could speak at all in ordinary tones through this atmosphere of breathless tension. A voice here, I thought, should be either a shriek or a whisper. Then Alicia's dry monotone. You should have come alone, Neil's. You have brought one with you, who is very evil. I know him. He is an eater of lives. Dear lady, protested Neil's half jokingly. Surely you don't apply that cannibalistic description to my friend here. He might take it that way. How he takes it is nothing, shrugged Alicia. There's one too many in this room. There are four of us here. And there is also a fifth. And I think your friend is more aware of that than even I. Moore's previously unenthusiastic face lighted a quick eagerness. He pounced in Alicia's original phrase like a cat jumping for a mouse. An eater of life. Did you say this invisible fifth presence is an eater of life, Alicia? I did not, she retorted precisely. I said an eater of lives. Everyone does not know that. No, but wait, Alicia. This is really interesting. He turned from here to us. There's a particularly horrid old German legend about such a being. He informed us of it with the air of one imparting some delightful news. Give me a German legend always for pure horror, but this excels the average. Deffeshlinger deslabens. The devourer of life. Very interesting. Now the question arises. Did Alicia read that you're on some time in the past and is this the subliminal report of it coming out now? Or does she really sense an alien force which has entered the room in your company? What's your impression, Barber? Have you any? You psychic yourself knew it the first time I saw you. Is anyone here but before? By a great effort I forced my lips to answer. I couldn't say this. I have a chair, Barber, and take your time. It was all sudden kindness, the active sword with a motive behind it as I knew well enough now. To him I was not a guest but an experiment. I haven't adept, she asserted cheerfully, that you and Alicia sense a presence that entered with you and which such poor molds as Niels and myself are blind to. Now don't deny it. Anyone possessing the psychic gift who denies or tries to smother it is not only unwise but selfish. Supremely selfish. And it's a curious fact that one powerful psychic will often bring out the undeveloped potentialities of another. Alicia may have already done that for you. When you were here before, that will do. Approximately deserting Alicia, Niels showed down upon us. There was wrath in every line of his dark face. Jimmy, that boy is my friend. If he has psychic potentialities as you call it, let him alone. He doesn't wish to develop into a ghost ridden hysterical semi-human monstrosity with one foot in this world and the other across the border. Really, Droughtmore, that description runs beyond even the insolence I've learned to expect from you, BearQuist. My wife is a psychic. Niels was not too easily crushed but this time he had brought confusion on himself. Ghost-ridden hysterical semi-human monstrosity may have been an excellent description for Alicia. It is certain, however, that Niels had forgotten her when he voiced it. He flushed through the ears and stammered through an apology to which Moore listened in grim silence. Then Alicia spoke with a customary dry directness. I am not offended. My guides do not like you, Niels, but that is because your position interferes with the work. Personally, I like you for speaking frankly always. Take your unfortunate young friend, Mr. Barber, and go away now. Alicia! Moore was half-pleading, half-indignant. You agreed with me that Barber had possibilities of mediumship almost as great as your own, and yet you sent him away. Think of the work. I tried to send him away the first time. From beyond the lamp, Alicia's enormous eyes glinted mockingly at her husband. You believe, chewing on, that Mr. Barber was naturally psychic but undeveloped. Many times we have disagreed in similar cases. Your theory that more than half the human race might properly trained be sensitive to the atheric vibrations of astral and spiritual beings is true enough. Then why did you? Don't argue, James. That hires me. I say that your belief is correct. But I have told you, and through me, my guides have told you, that not everyone who is a natural sensitive is worthy of being developed. I consulted you. Moore's voice trembled with suppressed irritation. I consulted you and you. I said that a tremendous psychic possibility enveloped Mr. Barber. That was true. Had I told you that the possibility was evil, that would have been equally true. But you would not have yielded to my judgment and sent him away, as I tried to do. Alicia, cried her husband, are we never to have any clear understandings? Possibly not, she said, with cool indifference. I am what I am. Also, I am a channel for all forces, good or evil. My guides protect me, of course. They will not let any bad spirit harm me. But I think Mr. Barber was not glad that he stayed when I wished him to go. He has come back to me for help. I am not sure that I wish to help him. It was a long time before I was arrested from my first struggle with the one he is afraid of. Niels made an impatient movement. I don't believe Clay needs any help except, pardon me, except to keep away from this house and you. Then why did he return here? Because, interpolated Moore with a skull for Niels, he grew interested in his own possibilities. This attempt to frighten him is not only absurd, but the worst thing possible for him. Of course, the invisible forces are of different kinds. And of course, some of them are inimical. But fear is the only dangerous weapon they have. If they can't frighten you, they can't harm you. Alicia, cut in Niels, seems to disagree there. Alicia does agree. She inclines to repel the so-called evil beings, not from fear of them, but because they are more apt to trespass than the friendlier powers. They demand too much of his strength. In consequence, I have had an insufficient opportunity to study them. If Barber is psychic, and I should say that he very obviously is, then his strength, combined with Alicia's, should be great enough for almost any strain. You are interfering here, Berkwist. I won't have it. I will not have it. And my friend is to be sacrificed, so that you may study demonology. Berkwist, I have nothing to do with demons or devas, devils of flippity gibbets. You use the nomenclature of a past age. Feschlinger, the slaves, quoted Niels quickly. You didn't boggle over nomenclature when Alicia warned us that an eater of life was present. Oh, God, give me patience, Grant Moore. I try to trace a reference, and you... He broke off and wheeled to the small, shadowy figure beyond the lamplight. Alicia, exactly what did you mean when you said that an eater of lives had entered the room? You can put us straight there, at least. I, man, drawed Alicia, one of those quaint, harmless beings whom you are so anxious to study at anybody's expense. Not a demon, certainly, and the sense that Niels means. But not company I care for, either. No, I am not afraid of this one. He has the strength of an enormous greed. Of a dead spirit who covets life, but he will not trap me again into lending my strength to his purpose. His? Whose? To be plain for one, Alicia? I try to be, she retorted compositely. I could give him a name that one of you, at least, would recognize, but that would please him too well. There's power in a name. Everyone does not know that, know how to use it. This one does. He bears his name written across his forehead. He wills that I shall see it and speak it now. Once he surprised me into speaking it, but that was Mr. Barber's fault. He threw me off balance at a critical moment by turning on the lights. You have probably forgotten the name I spoke then, but adapt if Mr. Barber has forgotten. This one whom I refuse to name has no power over me. I have many friends among the living dead who protect me from such dead spirits as this one. Just a minute, Alicia. Moore was exaggerately patient. I can believe in a dead body, and through you I've come to believe in life spirits disembodied. But a dead spirit? That would be like an extinguished flame. It would have no existence. She shook her head. Please don't argue, James. You know that hires me. A spirit cannot perish, but a spirit may die, and having died exists in death eternal. There's life eternal, and there's death eternal. They are the living spirits of the so-called dead. They are many and harmless. My guides are of their number. Also, they are dead spirits. They are the ones to beware of, because they covet life. Such one is he whom I called an eater of lives, and who is better known to Mr. Barber than to me. That is not my fault, however, and now I wish no more to do with any of it. I must insist, James, that you ask Mr. Barber to leave. In fact, if he remains in the house five minutes longer, I shall go out of it. Her strange eyes opened suddenly, till a gleam of white was plainly visible all around the white blackness of them. Her poor slain, dull-like plasticity, vanished in an instant. Make him go, she cried. I tell you, there is an evil in this room, which is accumulating force every moment. I tell you, something bad is coming. Bad! Do you hear me? And I won't be involved in it. I won't. I won't! Her voice rose to a quarrel or streak, as Bassem twitched every feature, and then she had sunk back in her chair with drooped lids. Bad, she murmured softly. End of Chapter 11, Recording by der Fragriddiger Chapter 12 of the Rapion. This is a LibriWox recording, or LibriWox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriWox.org, recording by der Fragriddiger. Syrapion by Francis Stevens, Chapter 12, The Scarlet Horror You will have to go, Barber, said Moore heavily. I am sorry, but there are occasions when Alicia must be humored. This seems to be one of them. Unfortunate, very unfortunate. Perhaps another time. He paused and glanced suggestively toward the door. All the while that they had argued and quarreled over me, I had said as apparently passive as the lay figure to which I had once compared Alicia. It was, however, the passivity not of inertia, but of high-keyed endurance. What Alicia felt, I don't know. If it was anything like the strain I suffered under, I can't wonder that she wished to be rid of me. Another time, said Moore and looked toward the door. I rose. Instantly, back west was beside me. He took my arm, tried to draw me away, out of the room. I shook him off. When I moved, it was toward Alicia. Before either Moore or Niels realized my objective, I was halfway around the table. Alicia, her eyes still closed, moaned softly. She cried out and thrust forth her hands in a resisting motion. Stop! That was Moore's voice, but it was not for his sharp command that I halted. There was. It was as if a wall had risen between Alicia and me. Or as if her outstretched hands were against my chest holding me back. Yet there was a space of at least two yards between us. What do you want, barber? demanded Moore roughly. I said you would have to go. I wish I forced out to make her undo what she has done to me. Then I was right, cried back with indignantly. I stood still, swept by wave upon wave of the force that willed to absorb me. The past weeks had trained me for such a struggle. Though the face of the fifth presence remained invisible, its identity with the intangible power I fought was clear enough to me. And I hated the face. I repulsed the enveloping consciousness of it as one strives to fling off a loathsome carous. While I stood there, blind, silent at war, back was continued. No, I know that I was right. Jimmy, you have let this boy suffer in some way that I neither understand nor wish wholly to understand. But believe me, you'll answer for it. Clay, lad, come away. You are courting disaster here. Alicia can't help you. She is a poor slave and tool for any force that would use her. Why, the very atmosphere of this house is contagious. Psychic. Many people are immune. Moor is immune. But I tell you, there has been more than one time when I have resolutely shut by senses against the influence. While Alicia would have dragged me into her own field of abnormal and accursed perceptiveness. It's because I resist that they won't have me at a seance. Come away. No, they could not guess, of course, that I spoke from outer swimming darkness slashed with streaks of scarlet. No, I muttered again. This woman here, she can help me. She shall help me. Moor, I'll ring your neck if you don't make her help me. Through the swimming scarlet slashed gloom I drove forward another step. Came rush of motion. There was a vast muffled sound as of beating wings. A trumpet-like voice cried out loudly. I'll settle with you once for all. It shouted. And then something had thrust in between Alicia and me. Instantly the gloom lifted. There at my right hand was the large table with the shaded lamp and the books and papers strewn over it. To my left the massive empty chair in which Alicia was want to be imprisoned during a seance. Beyond that hung the straight black folds of the curtains which concealed the cabinet. Though I turned my head to neither side I saw all these things as though looking directly at them. And also with even more unusual distinctness I saw what was straight ahead of me. Between me and Alicia the figure of a man had sprung into sudden existence. In no way did this figure such as the ghostly form one might expect from what is called materialization. The man was real, solid. He was of stocky but not very powerful build. He was dressed in gray. His face, ah, only once before had I seen this man's face with open gaze. But many times it had haunted my closed lids. Smooth, boyish, pleasant, with smiling lips and clear light blue eyes, my own eyes, save that the amused gleam in them did not express a boy's unsophisticated humor. Not a bodyless face this time afloat in midair or lurking behind my lids. This was the man himself, the whole solid flesh and blood man. I could not doubt that he was real. His hand caught my arm, roughly for that amiable gentleness the face expressed. I felt the clutching fingers tight and heavy. He clutched and at the same time smiled, sweetly, amusedly. Clutched and smiled. C-rapion, I whispered. And, C-rapion. His smile grew a trifle brighter, his clutch tightened. But I was no longer afraid of him. The very strain I had been under flung me suddenly to a height of exalted courage, instinctive loafing climaxed in rebellion. He clasped my left arm tight. My right was free. I had no weapon but caught up from the table a thing that served as one. And even as I did it, that clear sight vision I have referred to beheld a singular happening. As my head grew hot with a rush of exultant blood, something came flying out through the curtains of the cabinet. It was bright scarlet in color, and about the size of a pigeon or small hawk. I'm not sure that it had the shape of a bird. The size and the peculiarly brilliant scarlet of it are all I am sure of. This red thing fleshed out of the cabinet, darted across the room, passing chest high through the narrow space between the suddenly embodied fifth presence and myself, and vanished. I heard Alisha crying. Bad! Bad! It has come! And then, in all the young strength of my right arm, I struck at the fifth presence. My aim was the face I hated, the weapon, a queer enough one, but efficient, saying deep, deep, bird half its length in one of those smiling light blue eyes. He let go my arm and dashed his hand to his face. The weapon remained in the wound. From around it, even before my victim fell, blood gushed out, scarlet, scarlet. Below the edge of his clutching hand that would clutch me no more, I could see his mouth, and, God help me, the lips of it smiled still. Then he had rift and crumpled down in a loose gray heap at my feet. Barber, for God's sake! The man I struck had sunk without a sound. That horse, harsh shot, came from Niels. Next instant his powerful arm sent me spinning half across the room. I didn't care. He dropped to his knees. When he tried to straighten the gray heap, his hands were instantly bright, with a grim color that had been the flying scarlet things. But I didn't care. I had killed him, it! The fifth presence had dared embody itself in flesh, and I had slain it. Niels had the body straight now, face uppermost. The light of the lamp beat down. Creeping tiptoe, I came to pier over Niels' shoulder. The lips? Did they still smile? Then. But there's an extremity of feeling, with which words are inadequate to deal. Leave my emotions, and let me state bare facts. The gray suit in which I had seen the fifth presence clothed was the same faintly-checked light suit I had wandered at Moors wearing in November. And the face there in the lamp light contorted ashen, blood smeared, was the face of James Barton Moore. Chapter 13 of Syrapion. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Der Fraguideger. Syrapion by Francis Stevens. Chapter 13. The Shadow of the Cross. Though I had a few obscure after-memories of low talking of blue uniforms that crowded in around me, of going downstairs and out into open air, of being pushed into a clumsy vehicle of some kind, and of interminable riding through a night cold and sharply white with snow, all the real consciousness of me hovered in a timeless, spaceless agony, whereby it could neither reason nor take right account of these impressions. Thrust in a cell at last I must have lain down, and from pure weariness of pain fallen asleep. Shortly after dawn, however, I awoke to a very clear-headed cognizance of facts. I knew that I had killed. When I threatened, Moore had sprung in between me and his wife, intending, no doubt, with that hot temper of his, to put me violently from the house. His physical intervention had shocked me out of the swimming shadows, then rapidly closing in, and the fifth presence had chosen that opportunity for its most ghastly trick. The face I had struck at was a wraith, a vision. My weapon, one of those paper files that are made with a heavy-brown space and an upright, murderously sharp-pointed rod, had gone home in the real face behind. Instead of slaying an embodied ghost, a madman's dream, I had murdered a living man. Last night, the killing and the atrocious manner of it had been enough. This morning, thought had a wider scope. I perceived that the isolated horror of the act itself was less than all. I must now take up the heavy burden of consequences. The hard bed on which I lay, the narrow walls and the bars that encompassed me, these were the symbols by which I forread my fate. I, Clayton Barber, was a murderer, and that grey, early, clear-headedness I made no bones about the word or the fact. True, I had been tricked, trapped into murder, but who would believe that? Alicia, perhaps. And how would Alicia's weird testimony be received in a court of justice, even should she prove willing to give it? I perceived that I was finished, done for. Life, as I was familiar with, it had already ended, and the short, ugly course that remained to be run would end soon enough. Then, for the first time, I learned what the love of life is. Life, not as consciousness, nor a state of being, nor a thought, but the warm, precious thing we are born to, and carry lightly till the time of its losses upon us. Afterward, what were dim afterwards to me? Grant that I, of all men, had reason to know that the dying body cast forth its spirit as a persistent entity. Grant that the thin shadows of ourselves survive the flesh. That was not life. Let me grow old in life till its vital flutter and low, and its blood thinned, and its flesh rivalled. And weariness came to release me from desire. Then, perhaps, I should be glad of that leap into the cold world of shadows. Now, now, I was young. And, oh God, the injustice of it. I sprang up, driven to express revolt in action. For lack of a better outlet, I beat with closed fists against the wall, the bars. A lumpish, besotted creature in the cell next to mine rose, and snarled like a beast at the noise. Ark, its slobbered, and thereafter established its fellow humanity by a protest that was a verbal river of filth. That rose to companion, and another. As among caged animals, the contagion of resentment spread. I was in one of a single tire of cells that faced a blank, white-washed wall. I could see only the wall. It was rather appalling to hear that invisible line of rank life froth into clamour on the right and left of me. Presently, one of the beast's keepers came tramping along the narrow alley between wall and cages. Reaching my steel grate, he halted, said something inaudible, and turned his head to a yellow thread that carried over all the other racket. Some of the beasts quieted, and some did not. At least, the tumult diminished enough so that he could speak to me and be understood. I had retreated a little from the bars. I was not sure how this water would look at me a murderer. My new character was strange to me. Instinctively, I shrank from being seen in it. He peered through, then jerked his thumb down the line. Fierce bunch they raided in here last night, he observed. Demse raided the fish I joined and the couple of other dumps over in the old fifth. This here's a overflow meeting from a station. Guess you didn't get much rest, huh? I slept, said I. Good work! Want to send out for some breakfast? Or would you rather wait till you're out? Don't reckon to spend the day here, do you? The question seemed a needless and malicious mockery. It stiffened my spine by making me angry. But it would not satisfy the mockers' spleen by showing that. I would like some coffee, I said steadily. That is all I care for just now. Suit yourself. Let's say you don't want none of the slop they dough-bought here. I can get just some real good from Franks across the street. I suddenly understood. Behind his railway, the man was hoping to be paid for the service he offered. What did you care whether I was a murderer, a pickpocket or an innocent man? Probably when I was brought in, he had noticed that I was well dressed and regarded me not with moral horror, but as a possible purveyor of small change. I thrust a hand in my pocket, but it came out empty. He grinned. That's all right. You'll get your comb back from the sergeant as you go out, and you can slip it to megonical for me then. I go off duty a half hour or more. Sure you don't want nothing to eat? Only the coffee, but what? He had slipped out of range with the stealthy agility of movement that belied his rather clumsy figure. In a few seconds he was back again, chest against the greater door. Come here, he hissed softly, puzzled and moved nearer. Take it! Then I saw that through one of the square patches of cross-grating a folded bit of paper had been thrust. I drew it through to my side, though with no notion of what it could be. The man drew off again. I'll see that there got your coffee, barber. He said in a loud, off-hand voice. Morning, Mike. Early, Andrew. He turned to me again. This year's Mike megonical. Slip him a dollar familiar as you pass out, and then you won't owe me nothing. A red-faced, bull-necked individual had trimmed into few. He stared heavily from my grating to the night water and back again. It's all right, Mike, the letter asserted. This year's Mr. Barber, pal of his croaked a guy last night. Barber ain't implicated, just a witness. He'll be getting his bond pretty quick, and when he goes out you collect that dollar for me, Mike. Can't afford to lose that dollar and not me, huh? He winked jovially in my direction, waved a hand on one finger of which something glitted brightly and was gone. The other guard, granted, stared after him for a long minute and moved on up the passage, still speechless and shaking his head in a slow, puzzled manner, like a bewildered ox. But his bewilderment could not have been so great as my own. The thing that glittered on the nightguard's finger had attracted my attention before he waved it. It was a ring that had a strangely familiar look. The setting was an oval bit of lapis lazuli, cut flat, incised with a tiny device, the scrolls of which had been filled with gold and surrounded by small diamonds. Niels Bergwist wore a ring like that. It was the one possession I had ever known him to price, and that was because it had been in his family for generations. It was very old and different from modern rings. A duplicate? Nonsense. Why was that water wearing Niels' ring, and what had he meant by describing me as a witness? But I think some of the truth had begun to dawn on me even before I unfolded the paper that had been thrust through my grate. The inner side carried the lead pencil scroll written in French. As the light in the cell was bad and Bergwist's handwriting worse, I had more than a little trouble in deciphering it. I've read it all, however, before the return of the Nightwater. Let's apparently corrupt official who took a bribe to deliver a message, honestly delivered it, and thereafter brazenly wore the bribe about his duties. He returned with my coffee. I was facedown on the shelf that served for a bed. He rattled the grate, spoke, and as I didn't answer, shoved the coffee under the door and went off, whistling, I fancy. I couldn't have spoken to him if I had wished, because I was crying like a girl. The reaction from Frendler's solitude in a world mid-new and terrible had hit me that way. It was not that I meant to accept Niels' sacrifice. I really hadn't thought about the practical side of it yet. But to discover that a man who had actually seen me do that awful thing in spite of it remained my friend and loyal to the amazing degree of taking the burden on himself, that changed the world round again, some way, and made it almost right again. Why, the mere fact that Niels could think of me without apporance was enough, to start to me all the love and friendship that had been mine, and from which last night's deed had seemed to irrevocably cut me off. If Niels, then those nearer and dearer than Niels, robert her, but there are halted and gringed back, that way there loom the dreadful and inevitable loss, that contemplation of it weighed a while. With wet eyes I set up and again held Niels' message and the bared light that fell through the grating. He had protected his meaning by using a safer language than English, safe from the water at least, and couching it in terms of his real import would be obscure if it fell into other hands. At that his sacrifice was endangered in the sending, but not so much as by leaving me to blurt out the truth unworn. My dear friend, this to you who last night were past understanding. May the morning have brought you a clear mind. I take the chance and write. I killed James Moore. Understand me when I say this. He struck at me, but I rested away the weapon and killed in self-defense and not in intent. There followed a rather circumstantial account of his supposed struggle with Moore. Niels' sprain had not been numbed last night like mine. Into the story which he had made for us both to tell, he had fitted the least possible fiction. Questioned on details, up to almost the moment of Moore's death, we had only to stick to the truth, and we could not disagree. It was a clever, a noble lie that he had arranged. You will bear witness to all this, and they will not convict me of murder. Alicia Moore had swooned. She did not witness Moore's death. I rely on you, therefore, as my soul witness, and it is fortunate that Moore and his anger turned not on you but attacked me. I know you, dear friend, and that you would take my place and bear all for me, if that were possible. But I have not won in the world save you to suffer the anguish for my trouble. I have little to lose. Not for your own sake, then, but for the sake of those to whom you are all, for the sake of her whose life happiness rests with you to hold sacred or shatter, I command you to be glad that I and not you have this to go through with. For that I shall not think the less of you. I only ask that in your heart I be held always as a friend, Niels Bergwist. Niels was no sentimentalist, but the French, language of love and friendship, had lent its phrases touchingly to his purpose. In my heart he would indeed dwell from this day. To accept would be dishonour unthinkable. Even the weight of the thinly wailed argument he put forward must be outbalanced by the shame of allowing an innocent man to risk the most disgraceful of deaths in my stead. I could not accept, yet though I died, the wonder of Niels Bergwist's attempted loyalty should go with me, out there, out there, into that dim-gested coldness with its shadowy mocking inhabitants. You are right, said a voice. That world is to yours as the shadow to reality, but why cast the real life away? Had one of the warriors entered Marcel and addressed me, his voice could have echoed no more distinctly in my brain. Before I looked up, however, I knew what I should see. When, raising my own eyes, they met those clear, light blue ones, I felt no surprise. They floated the face, bodyless again, but aside from that, with an appearance of substantiality which equaled, it could not exceed, that of its last tragic visitation. The undimensional flatness had given way to the solidly modelled curves of living flesh. The point of my improvised weapon, however, had left not even a mark on the face it was meant for. That material aspect was false. Though I hated him now with an added loathing, I had learned bitterly that combat with him must be on other than physical ground. I said sternly quiet, hoping that if I did not answer, the presence would vanish. Your wild and temper, he continued pleasantly, but with a trace of kindly reproach, has placed you in danger. Fortunately, we, you and I, are not as other men. We need not be overborn. Tell me, which of all the forces that influence life is the strongest? Hate. Springing erect, I thrust forward, till my face almost touched that of the presence. Such hate as I feel for you. He did not retreat. I could, I could almost have sworn that I felt the warmth of his flesh close to mine. Ah, cut it out, wailed the dweller in the next cell. Aren't you never going to let a guy get his beauty sleep? You need not speak aloud, smite the face, and I would suggest that you sit down. Consider the feelings of others. Consideration is a beautiful quality, and well worth cultivating. Speech between you and me need disturb no one. It can be silent as thought, for it is thought. My thought to yours. Sit down. A sudden weakening of the knees made me obey him, revilings I could have withstood, curses or threads of evil. But there was an awful sweetness and beauty in the face, a calm assurance about his preaching phrases that frightened me as threats could not have done. Could it be that I had misjudged this serene being from beyond the border? Then I looked in his eyes and knew that I had not. They were too like my own. I understood them. Another he might have deceived, but never me. Hate, he continued, in his blessed, leisurely manner, is a futile, boomerang force that invariably reacts on itself. It is the scorpion among forces, stinging itself to destruction. No, I did not come here to preach. You understand, know that I spoke the truth and can read your unvoiced thoughts with perfect readiness. Our conversations are thus safe from eavesdroppers. As I was saying, hate is its own enemy, and the enemy of life. There is but one invincible power offered by God to man, and which God has commanded man to use. You mean love. Armored in love, your life will be a sacred guarded joy to you. Believe me, I am far older than I appear, and wiser than I am old. Guided by me, guarded by love, you have a beautiful future at your command. Begun with murder, I snarled. The presence beamed patiently upon me. That was a mistake. Don't blame yourself too severely. Blame me, if you like. Though I had no idea that your foolish animosity would bring forth the red impulse of murder. Yes, we, who have passed beyond, can commit blunders. Amid one in appearing when I did. Can't we forgive one another and forget? Not while I am in a jail for it, and facing electrocution, said I grimly. But you are not. Very shortly you will walk out a free man. Under bond it is true, but only never. I was on my feet again at that. Let Nielsberg was suffer in my place, never. But he won't suffer, or at least not as you would, come. Trust all that to me, who can see far, and have a certain power. Won't you trust me? You mean that you can influence a jury to acquit him? I have power. And think, would you cast back his friendship in his face? Would you hurl your father into his grave, killed by horror? Would you drag your sister, your mother, through the mire of notoriety, that surrounds a criminal? Would you leave them destitute? Would you step through the very heart of the girl who loves you? Your friend has none of these to care. The opprobrium will not hurt him. He is by nature an isolated soul, and moreover, he is innocent. He has that strength and the glory of sacrifice to sustain him. Once freed yourself, you can do much to bring about his release. It is well known that Mure had an evil temper. The plea of self-defense will be borne out by you. Engage a clever legal advisor for your friend, and in the end your pitiful mistake will have brought harm to no one except Mure himself, who deserved it. He was a very selfish, disagreeable man. He was not loved by anyone, even his wife. What? Oh, leave Alicia out of it, my dear boy. You won't find our plans upset by her. And now, I should advise that before seeking a bondsman elsewhere, you telephone to the man whose friendship you have already won at the bank. Your immediate superior there is a kindly good man. The presence got no further with his advice. As he had talked quietly, soothingly, I had found my thoughts beginning to follow the smooth current of his. But his reference to Mr. Towne had been another of those errors to which he claimed that even the disembodied were prone. It had recalled to me that scene in the president's office, Vance's desperate face, and the ignominy into which I had been betrayed. Repulsion, loathing, searched mightily through my veins again. No, no, no, in the name of God leave me, I cried aloud. To my amazed relief, the presence obeyed. He had faded and gone in an instant. Though by the last impression I had of him, he still smiled. Drembling, I looked down at Neil's letter in my hand. From the beard grating, a shadow was cast upon it, and the form of that shadow was a cross. End of chapter 13, Recording by der Fraguerdige. Chapter 14 of the Rapion. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by der Fraguerdige. Serapion by Francis Stevens. Chapter 14. So like him. Around 2 p.m. I was taken before Magistrate Patterson, and my bail set in the sum of $3,500. After a turn, Second Vice President of the Colossus Trust Company, having appeared as my bondsman, the matter of my liberty pending the inquest to be held the following morning was soon arranged. I left the court in Mr. Tern's company. Neil Speckwist I had not seen, but was given to understand that he had been remanded without bail. I had pleaded in vain for a chance to talk with him. Mr. Tern was kindness personified, though I inferred from one utter remark he let fall that the colossus Leonine President was not pleased. The morning papers had featured the affair with blood and headlines. They had got my name. The barber and Hutchinson failure was resurrected. The colossus itself stalked in massive dignity across one column, irrelevantally capping a brutal slaying in haunted house, and when I saw that I knew that not pleased was a mild description for when it hurts probable emotions. The bizarre character of Alicia, the nature of the wound, and the ghastly and appropriateness of the weapon which affected it, had appealed to the reportorial fancy with diversely pictoresque results. A plain murder with no more apparent mystery attached than this one would have passed with slight attention. But though Alicia was not a professional medium, it appeared that she and Moore had a certain reputation. In hinting to me of the latter's tempestuous exit from the Psychic Research Association, Neil said spare mentioning Alicia as the bone of contention. I now learned that she had been a country girl, the daughter of a hotelkeeper in a tiny virginian village where Moore had spent two or three autumn weeks. Discovering in her what she regarded as supernormal powers, he wished to bring her north for further study. On her father strangely objecting to the treatment of his daughter as a specimen, Moore had settled the difficulty by offering marriage. After the wedding he did bring her north, educated her, and finally presented her to the association as a prodigy well worth their attention. Unfortunately after several remarkable sciences, she was convicted of fraud and flagrant degree. It was through the slightly heated arguments ensuing that Moore was asked to resign his directorship. The fantastic dispute had amused the lay public intermittently through adult summer, but I was often the mountains that year with van, and what news we read was mostly on the spotting pages, whether the prose and cons of spiritualistic debate are not one to penetrate. But all that was raked up now as source for the news of Moore's sensational death and having acquired a certain personal interest in spiritualism, I read it. Following Mr. Tern's advice and my own inclination I went straight home. No need to rehearse all I endured that day. Roberta's smilingly tearful consolations were the worst, I think, for my fathers. Clay, son, you're right to stand by your friend. Reneklose second. He said it because I refused to hear a word against Niels and insisted that the fault had not been his. Though I would not go into the details of what had taken place in Moore's library, I stuck at that one truth, and dad at least, who had taken a fancy to Niels the evening he dined at our house, believed me. All together, however, it was a bad afternoon, and that night in my bedroom the faith came again. I knew it was he, though the room was dark, and I could not see him clearly. He had become so like as that to a material being. You have done well, he began, but to make one small criticism you must learn not to blush so easily. When your father commanded your loyalty, you reddened and stammered till if you had not been among friends suspicion might have been rose. My confusion only lasted a moment, I defended. Then I remembered. You go, I said. What do I want of you and your criticisms or advice? You have brought me enough unhappiness. I am a sneak and a criminal and all through you. In gratitude is the only real crime, he retorted sententiously. Always be grateful and show it. You have brought unhappiness on yourself, and it is I who point the way out. So far you have followed my advice. Why turn on me now? Liar, I fairly hissed. If you can read my thoughts, you know that I have planned otherwise than you would have me. I am doing as Niels wished without regard to you and not for the sake of myself. And let me tell you this, if there arises the slightest prospect that my friend will not be cleared, I shall confess. Tomorrow I will decide it. If things go badly for him at the inquest, my people will have to suffer. The shame and loss he is trying to save them from would be nothing then, to the shame involved by silence. Had the face possessed shoulders, I know he would have shrugged them. You are wrong, but we need not discuss that. I tell you in advance that your friend will be held for willful murder. Did you know quite all that I know you would not hope for a different indignant? The strings of my heart contracted. I passed a breathless moment of realization. Then, tomorrow I confess, I said firmly. Tomorrow you will choose a lawyer for your friend and begin the work which will surely achieve his release. You do not know that, you have admitted that you are capable of mistakes. Not in a case of this kind. I possess a white knowledge of facts which enables to be very sure that your friend will get his release. I am your unswerving ally, and remember that I have not only wisdom, but some power. Oh, you are, leave me! I cried aloud. In God's name, go! The faintly seen oval of his smooth face faded, though more slowly than in the cell at the station house. I heard a soft swish of slippered feet in the hall. Someone wrapped lightly and opened my door. Clay, dear, said my mother. Did you call? Are you ill? No, I had a bad dream and a woe crying out because of it. One can't wonder at that. She came and said on the edge of my bed, such an awful thing for you to be involved in. Please, dear son, keep to your own class after this. Trouble always comes of mingling with queer bohemian people who have no standards or or morals. Niels Bergwist has the highest standard of any man I know. I was fiercely defensive. There was a pause of silence. Then in the dark she leaned and kissed my forehead. You are so like him, she murmured. I groaned, if only that were true. But you are, with those blue, clear eyes of his, that saw only beauty and love, he would never hear a word against a friend. Mother, you meant that I am like? Your uncle, yes, and in some strange way I feel sure that his guarding influence is really about us. Why, when I came into the room just now, I had the queerest feeling, as if it were a room in a dream, or no, I can't convey the feeling in words. But the sense of his presence was in it. I do truly believe that he has returned to guard us in the midst of so much trouble. At least it would be like him. Dear faithful, loving, lovable, the rapion. End of chapter 14, recording by der Fraquitiker.