The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 44

The full moon was streaming into the room when he awoke.

He was on his feet in the middle of the floor in a flash.

He could have sworn a cry had awakened him. A woman's voice calling for help--A woman's voice that had been strangely like Kathleen's.

He went to the window and looked out. A cloud had drifted across the surface of the full moon. The whole garden lay blotched with shadows.

And there beyond the garden was the forest. Black, sinister, mysterious.

The dark depth of it sickened him. Kathleen had spoken only that afternoon of the forest. The Wood of Living Trees. She had told him it was called The Wood of Living Trees.

In Heaven's name, where did the horrible, appalling significance of the Wood of Living Trees come from? What was this ghastly knowledge that sought for recognition in his own mind? What did the Wood of Living Trees mean to him?

And then he heard the faint, far cry--

His shoes--his trousers--hatless and coatless he was out in the garden.

The cloud had pa.s.sed from off the face of the moon. The garden lay in the bright moonlight; even the separate flowers were visible. Beyond was the sinister depth of that black forest.

He felt it then. Sensed the insidious evil of something that emanated from the wood. Something which lurked there beneath the trees--something which clung to the tall trunks of them--something which rose and expanded among the leaves and reached out to him in evil menace. And at some time he had felt it all before.

He ran quickly through the garden; over the rosebeds; cras.h.i.+ng through the high boxwood hedge at the farther end; and then into the forest.

His feet sank into the moss-covered slime. The trees were gigantic. He felt as if they were closing in on him. Their branches stretched out like living arms, hindering his progress. Thorns caught at his clothing, at his hands, his face. He had a vague, half-formed thought that the forest was advancing to achieve his destruction. His only clear determination was to protect his eyes.

He knew then, he had always known, that the wood was some live, evil thing--the Wood of Living Trees; and that it hid the presence of something infinitely more foul.

A queer odor a.s.sailed his nostrils. An odor that was not only of the damp, dank underbrush; an odor that, in its putridness, almost suffocated him.

Breathless and half crazed with an unexplainable dread, he fought the forest, beating his way with his naked hands through the dense bushes.

And then he heard a sound. The first sound he had heard since entering the forest. It was quite distinct. Vibrating loudly through the deadly stillness of the wood, came the steady patter of a four-footed thing.

The next instant something leaped out of the darkness--something huge and strong that tried to catch at his neck. He fought for his life then.

Fought this horrible thing that had been concealed by the forest. Fought with the darkness shutting down on him and that putrid odor smothering his breathing. Panting and blinded, he and the thing swayed to and fro, cras.h.i.+ng against the tree-trunks, springing again and again at each other from the tangled underbrush. He never knew how long he struggled there in the blackness of the wood. It might have been hours; it might have been minutes. And then he had the beast by its great, hairy throat.

The infuriated snarling grew weaker--

He felt the body become rigid.

Silence.

He threw the thing from him.

He staggered farther into the wood.

He had not gone far when he came upon Kathleen.

She was walking uncertainly toward him.

The moonlight trickled clear and yellow through the branches now.

He could see her lips moving--moving--He knew that she was praying. Her eyes looked out at him dazed and unseeing; and in her right hand that was reached before her he saw the little, silver crucifix.

He did not dare speak to her. He was afraid. He sank back against the bushes and let her pa.s.s. The moonlight flooded the place with its haunting golden light. A strange feeling of relief came over him and with it a vast calm. And very quietly he followed her.

She went a bit further. And she came to that spot where he had killed the thing. He heard her shriek. The wild cry that had awakened him.

"The wolf--Gregory--the wolf!"

He caught her in his arms as she fainted. Then he looked down.

There at his feet lay the body of the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch.

_This will I prove. At some unknown time will I show that in this world a certain devilish influence worketh most evilly against the high Heavens and the good in man. I do confess the knowing of this to be true, and many times and oft have I convinced myself that this Satanic thing hath the power to become incarnate._

_In the morning I hang. G.o.d, the Father, Christ, the Son, come unto me in purgatory that I may fulfill my sacred oath and that the soul of her I love may find peace within the seven golden gates of Heaven._

BEFORE THE DAWN

He had gotten as far as the cross-roads. He could not go on. His feet ached; his eyes hurt with the incessant effort of trying to penetrate the obliterating dark. Where the three roads met he stopped.

Above him the black, unlighted skies. Before him mile upon mile of deep, shadow-stained plain. Somewhere beyond the plain, at the foot of the hills, lay Charvel. Jans was waiting for him at Charvel. His orders to meet Jans were urgent; but now he could not go further. Jans would have to wait until morning, when, by the light of day, he could again find the way which he had so completely lost in the night.

He sank down at the base of the crucifix. It loomed in a ghostly, gray ma.s.s against the muddy white of the wind-driven clouds. He pulled his coat collar up about his ears. His eyes were raised to where he thought to see the dimly defined Christ figure; but the pitch black gloom drenched opaquely over everything. There was something mysterious; something remote, about the cross. He imagined peasants kneeling before it in awed reverence, gabbling their prayers. The ignorance of such idolatry! Their prayers had not been proof against the enemies'

bullets; and still they prayed. Tired as he was, he laughed aloud.

"Why do you laugh?"

He started to his feet. The voice, quiet and deep, came from directly behind him. He had not conceived the possibility of any human thing lurking so dangerously near. He peered blindly through the obscuring dark.

"Who's there?" He questioned, his fingers involuntarily closing tautly about the b.u.t.t of the revolver at his belt.

"You, too, ask questions, eh?" The voice went on. "I can almost make out the shape of you. Do you see me?"

It seemed to him then that by carefully tracing the sound of the voice he could dimly define the outline of a man's form lying close within the murked, smudging shadow of the crucifix.

"Yes, I think now I almost see you." His tone was anything but a.s.sured.

"What are you doing here?"

"What is there to do but sleep?" The muttered words were half defiant.

"Name of a dog! it was your laughter that woke me. Why did you laugh?"

"If I weren't so tired, I might explain it to you." He hesitated a second, playing for time. "I was thinking--drawing up a mental picture of the ignorant peasant praying here before your back-rest."

"My back-rest?" The man's voice was sleepily puzzled. "It's this cross you mean, eh? Well, never mind, my fine fellow. It has comfort--And that's something to be grateful for."