The Slayer Of souls Part 53

"No longer afraid to slay him?" he asked quietly.

A blue light flashed in her eyes and her face grew still and white and terrible.

"Death to the body? That is nothing, my lord!" she said, in a hard, sweet voice. "It is written that we belong to G.o.d and that we return to Him. All living things must die, Heart of the World! It is only the death of souls that matters. And it has arrived at a time in the history of mankind, I think, when the Slayer of Souls shall slay no more."

She looked at him, flushed, withdrew her hand and went slowly across the room to the big bay window where potted flowers were in bloom.

From a window-box she took a pinch of dry soil and dropped it into the bosom of her gown.

Then, facing the East, with lowered arms and palms turned outward:

"There is no G.o.d but G.o.d," she whispered--"the merciful, the long-suffering, the compa.s.sionate, the just.

"For it is written that when the heavens are rolled together like a scroll, every soul shall know what it hath wrought.

"And those souls that are dead in Jehannum shall arise from the dead, and shall have their day in court. Nor shall Erlik stay them till all has been said.

"And on that day the soul of a girl that hath been put to death shall ask for what reason it was slain.

"Thus it has been written."

Then Tressa dropped to her knees, touched the carpet with her forehead, straightened her lithe body and, looking over her shoulder, clapped her hands together sharply.

Her maid opened the door. "Hasten with my lord's luggage!" she cried happily; and, still kneeling, lifted her head to her husband and laughed up into his eyes.

"You should call the porter for we are nearly ready. Shall we go to the station in a sleigh? Oh, wonderful!"

She leaped to her feet, extended her hand and caught his.

"Horses for the lord of the Yiort!" she cried, laughingly. "Kos.h.!.+ Take me out into this new white world that has been born to-day of the ten purities and the ten thousand felicities! It has been made anew for you and me who also have been born this day!"

He scarcely knew this sparkling, laughing girl with her quick grace and her thousand swift little moods and gaieties.

Porters came to take his luggage from his own room; and then her trunk and bags were ready, and were taken away.

The baggage sleigh drove off. Their own jingling sleigh followed; and Tressa, buried in furs, looked out upon a dazzling, unblemished world, lying silvery white under a sky as azure as her eyes.

"Keuke Mongol--Heavenly Azure," he whispered close to her crimsoned cheek, "do you know how I have loved you--always--always?"

"No, I did not know that," she said.

"Nor I, in the beginning. Yet it happened, also, from the beginning when I first saw you."

"That is a delicious thing to be told. Within me a most heavenly glow is spreading.... Unglove your hand."

She slipped the glove from her own white fingers and felt for his under the furs.

"Aie," she sighed, "you are more beautiful than Ali; more wonderful than the Flaming Pearl. Out of ice and fire a new world has been made for us."

"Heavenly Azure--my darling!"

"Oh-h," she sighed, "your words are sweeter than the breeze in Yian! I shall be a bride to you such as there never has been since the days of the Blessed Companions--may their names be perfumed and sweet-scented!... Shall I truly be one with you, my lord?"

"Mind, soul, and body, one being, you and I, little Heavenly Azure."

"Between your two hands you hold me like a burning rose, my lord."

"Your sweetness and fire penetrate my soul."

"We shall burn together then till the sky-carpet be rolled up. Kos.h.!.+ We shall be one, and on that day I shall not be afraid."

The sleigh came to a clas.h.i.+ng, jingling halt; the train plowed into the depot buried in vast clouds of snowy steam.

But when they had taken the places reserved for them, and the train was moving swifter and more swiftly toward New York, fear suddenly overwhelmed Victor Cleves, and his face grew grey with the menacing tumult of his thoughts.

The girl seemed to comprehend him, too, and her own features became still and serious as she leaned forward in her chair.

"It is in G.o.d's hands, Heart of the World," she said in a low voice. "We are one, thou and I,--or nearly so. Nothing can harm my soul."

"No.... But the danger--to your life----"

"I fear no Yezidee."

"The beast will surely try to kill you. And what can I do? You say my pistol is useless."

"Yes.... But I want you near me."

"Do you imagine I'd leave you for a second? Good G.o.d," he added in a strangled voice, "isn't there any way I can kill this wild beast? With my naked hands----?"

"You must leave him to me, Victor."

"And you believe you can slay him? _Do_ you?"

She remained silent for a long while, bent forward in her armchair, and her hands clasped tightly on her knees.

"My husband," she said at last, "what your astronomers have but just begun to suspect is true, and has long, long been known to the Sheiks-el-Djebel.

"For, near to this world we live in, are other worlds--planets that do not reflect light. And there is a dark world called Yrimid, close to the earth--a planet wrapped in darkness--a black star.... And upon it Erlik dwells.... And it is peopled by demons.... And from it comes sickness and evil----"

She moistened her lips; sat for a while gazing vaguely straight before her.

"From this black planet comes all evil upon earth," she resumed in a hushed voice. "For it is very near to the earth. It is not a hundred miles away. All strange phenomena for which our scientists can not account are due to this invisible planet,--all new and sudden pestilences; all convulsions of nature; the newly noticed radio disturbances; the new, so-called inter-planetary signals--all--all have their hidden causes within that black and demon-haunted planet long known to the Yezidees, and by them called Yrimid, or Erlik's World.

And--it is to this black planet that I shall send Sanang, Slayer of Souls. I shall tear him from this earth, though he cling to it with every claw; and I shall fling his soul into darkness--out across the gulf--drive his soul forth--hurl it toward Erlik like a swift rocket charred and falling from the sky into endless night.

"So shall I strive to deal with Prince Sanang, Sorcerer of Mount Alamout, the last of the a.s.sa.s.sins, Sheik-el-Djebel, and Slayer of Souls.... May G.o.d remember him in h.e.l.l."

Already their train was rolling into the great terminal.