I gave a startled, incredulous exclamation.
It was true, Gola averred. Always the footprints of a man led away from the scene of the murder. Then why did the natives not tell the Big Massa that he might hunt down the fiend? Here Gola assumed a crafty expression and whispered in my ear, the footprints were of a man who wore shoes!
Even assuming that Gola was lying, I felt a thrill of unexplainable horror. Who, then, did the natives believe was doing these frightful murders?
And he answered: Dom Vincente!
By this time, Messieurs, my mind was in a whirl.
What was the meaning of all this? Who slew the German and sought to ravish Marcita? And as I reviewed the crime, it appeared to me that murder rather than rape was the object of the attack.
Why did de Montour warn us, and then appear to have knowledge of the crime, telling us that Desmarte was innocent and then proving it?
It was all beyond me.
The tale of the slaughter got among the natives, in spite of all we could do, and they appeared restless and nervous, and thrice that day Dom Vincente had a black lashed for insolence. A brooding atmosphere pervaded the castle.
I considered going to Dom Vincente with Gola’s tale, but decided to wait awhile.
The women kept to their chambers that day, the men were restless and moody. Dom Vincente announced that the sentries would be doubled and some would patrol the corridors of the castle itself. I found myself musing cynically that if Gola’s suspicions were true, sentries would be of little good.
I am not, Messieurs, a man to brook such a situation with patience. And I was young then. So as we drank before retiring, I flung my goblet on the table and angrily announced that in spite of man, beast or devil, I slept that night with doors flung wide. And I tramped angrily to my chamber.
Again, as on the first night, de Montour came. And his face was as a man who has looked into the gaping gates of Hell.
“I have come,” he said, “to ask you — nay, Monsieur, to implore you — to reconsider your rash determination.”
I shook my head impatiently.
“You are resolved? Yes? Then I ask you to do this for me, that after I enter my chamber, you will bolt my doors from the outside.”
I did as he asked, and then made my way back to my chamber, my mind in a maze of wonderment. I had sent Gola to the slave quarters, and I laid rapier and dagger close at hand. Nor did I go to bed, but crouched in a great chair, in the darkness. Then I had much ado to keep from sleeping. To keep myself awake, I fell to musing on the strange words of de Montour. He seemed to be laboring under great excitement; his eyes hinted of ghastly mysteries known to him alone. And yet his face was not that of a wicked man.
Suddenly the notion took me to go to his chamber and talk with him.
Walking those dark passages was a shuddersome task, but eventually I stood before de Montour’s door. I called softly. Silence. I reached out a hand and felt splintered fragments of wood. Hastily I struck flint and steel which I carried, and the flaming tinder showed the great oaken door sagging on its mighty hinges; showed a door smashed and splintered from the inside. And the chamber of de Montour was unoccupied.
Some instinct prompted me to hurry back to my room, swiftly but silently, shoeless feet treading softly. And as I neared the door, I was aware of something in the darkness before me. Something which crept in from a side corridor and glided stealthily along.
In a wild panic of fear I leaped, striking wildly and aimlessly in the darkness. My clenched fist encountered a human head, and something went down with a crash. Again I struck alight; a man lay senseless on the floor, and he was de Montour.
I thrust a candle into a niche in the wall, and just then de Montour’s eyes opened and he rose uncertainly.
“You!” I exclaimed, hardly knowing what I said. “You, of all men!”
He merely nodded.
“You killed von Schiller?”
“Yes.”
I recoiled with a gasp of horror.
“Listen.” He raised his hand. “Take your rapier and run me through. No man will touch you.”
“No,” I exclaimed. “I can not.”
“Then, quick,” he said hurriedly, “get into your chamber and bolt the door. Haste! It will return!”
“What will return?” I asked, with a thrill of horror. “If it will harm me, it will harm you. Come into the chamber with me.”
“No, no!” he fairly shrieked, springing back from my outstretched arm. “Haste, haste! It left me for an instant, but it will return.” Then in a low-pitched voice of indescribable horror: “It is returning. It is here now!”
And I felt a something, a formless, shapeless presence near. A thing of frightfulness.
De Montour was standing, legs braced, arms thrown back, fists clenched. The muscles bulged beneath his skin, his eyes widened and narrowed, the veins stood out upon his forehead as if in great physical effort. As I looked, to my horror, out of nothing, a shapeless, nameless something took vague form! Like a shadow it moved upon de Montour.
It was hovering about him! Good God, it was merging, becoming one with the man!
De Montour swayed; a great gasp escaped him. The dim thing vanished. De Montour wavered. Then he turned toward me, and may God grant that I never look on a face like that again!
It was a hideous, a bestial face. The eyes gleamed with a frightful ferocity; the snarling lips were drawn back from gleaming teeth, which to my startled gaze appeared more like bestial fangs than human teeth.
Silently the thing (I can not call it a human) slunk toward me. Gasping with horror I sprang back and through the door, just as the thing launched itself through the air, with a sinuous motion which even then made me think of a leaping wolf. I slammed the door, holding it against the frightful thing which hurled itself again and again against it.
Finally it desisted and I heard it slink stealthily off down the corridor. Faint and exhausted I sat down, waiting, listening. Through the open window wafted the breeze, bearing all the scents of Africa, the spicy and the foul. From the native village came the sound of a native drum. Other drums answered farther up the river and back in the bush. Then from somewhere in the jungle, horridly incongruous, sounded the long, high-pitched call of a timber wolf. My soul revolted.
Dawn brought a tale of terrified villagers, of a Negro woman torn by some fiend of the night, barely escaping. And to de Montour I went.
On the way I met Dom Vincente. He was perplexed and angry.
“Some hellish thing is at work in this castle,” he said. “Last night, though I have said naught of it to anyone, something leaped upon the back of one of the arquebusiers, tore the leather jerkin from his shoulders and pursued him to the barbican. More, someone locked de Montour into his room last night, and he was forced to smash the door to get out.”
He strode on, muttering to himself, and I proceeded down the stairs, more puzzled than ever.
De Montour sat upon a stool, gazing out the window. An indescribable air of weariness was about him.
His long hair was uncombed and tousled, his garments were tattered. With a shudder I saw faint crimson stains upon his hands, and noted that the nails were torn and broken.
He looked up as I came in, and waved me to a seat. His face was worn and haggard, but was that of a man.
After a moment’s silence, he spoke.
“I will tell you my strange tale. Never before has it passed my lips, and why I tell you, knowing that you will not believe me, I can not say.”
And then I listened to what was surely the wildest, the most fantastic, the weirdest tale ever heard by man.
“Years ago,” said de Montour, “I was upon a military mission in northern France. Alone, I was forced to pass through the fiend-haunted woodlands of VillefPre. In those frightful forests I was beset by an inhuman, a ghastly thing — a werewolf. Beneath a midnight moon we fought, and I slew it. Now this is the truth: that if a werewolf is slain in the half-form of a man, its ghost wi
ll haunt its slayer through eternity. But if it is slain as a wolf, Hell gapes to receive it. The true werewolf is not (as many think) a man who may take the form of a wolf, but a wolf who takes the form of a man!
“Now listen, my friend, and I will tell you of the wisdom, the hellish knowledge that is mine, gained through many a frightful deed, imparted to me amid the ghastly shadows of midnight forests where fiends and half-beasts roamed.
“In the beginning, the world was strange, misshapen. Grotesque beasts wandered through its jungles. Driven from another world, ancient demons and fiends came in great numbers and settled upon this newer, younger world. Long the forces of good and evil warred.
“A strange beast, known as man, wandered among the other beasts, and since good or bad must have a concrete form ere either accomplishes its desire, the spirits of good entered man. The fiends entered other beast, reptiles and birds; and long and fiercely waged the age-old battle. But man conquered. The great dragons and serpents were slain and with them the demons. Finally, Solomon, wise beyond the ken of man, made great war upon them, and by virtue of his wisdom, slew, seized and bound. But there were some which were the fiercest, the boldest, and though Solomon drove them out he could not conquer them. Those had taken the form of wolves. As the ages passed, wolf and demon became merged. No longer could the fiend leave the body of the wolf at will. In many instances, the savagery of the wolf overcame the subtlety of the demon and enslaved him, so the wolf became again only a beast, a fierce, cunning beast, but merely a beast. But of the werewolves, there are many, even yet.
“And during the time of the full moon, the wolf may take the form, or the half-form, of a man. When the moon hovers at her zenith, however, the wolf-spirit again takes ascendancy and the werewolf becomes a true wolf once more. But if it is slain in the form of a man, then the spirit is free to haunt its slayer through the ages.
“Harken now. I had thought to have slain the thing after it had changed to its true shape. But I slew it an instant too soon. The moon, though it approached the zenith, had not yet reached it, nor had the thing taken on fully the wolf-form.
“Of this I knew nothing and went my way. But when the next time approached for the full moon, I began to be aware of a strange, malicious influence. An atmosphere of horror hovered in the air and I was aware of inexplicable, uncanny impulses.
“One night in a small village in the center of a great forest, the influence came upon me with full power. It was night, and the moon, nearly full, was rising over the forest. And between the moon and me, I saw, floating in the upper air, ghostly and barely discernible, the outline of a wolf’s head!
“I remember little of what happened thereafter. I remember, dimly, clambering into the silent street, remember struggling, resisting briefly, vainly, and the rest is a crimson maze, until I came to myself the next morning and found my garments and hands caked and stained crimson; and heard the horrified chattering of the villagers, telling of a pair of clandestine lovers, slaughtered in a ghastly manner, scarcely outside the village, torn to pieces as if by wild beasts, as if by wolves.
“From that village I fled aghast, but I fled not alone. In the day I could not feel the drive of my fearful captor, but when night fell and the moon rose, I ranged the silent forest, a frightful thing, a slayer of humans, a fiend in a man’s body.
“God, the battles I have fought! But always it overcame me and drove me ravening after some new victim. But after the moon had passed its fullness, the thing’s power over me ceased suddenly. Nor did it return until three nights before the moon was full again.
“Since then I have roamed the world — fleeing, fleeing, seeking to escape. Always the thing follows, taking possession of my body when the moon is full. Gods, the frightful deeds I have done!
“I would have slain myself long ago, but I dare not. For the soul of a suicide is accurst, and my soul would be forever hunted through the flames of Hell. And harken, most frightful of all, my slain body would forever roam the earth, moved and inhabited by the soul of the werewolf! Can any thought be more ghastly?
“And I seem immune to the weapons of man. Swords have pierced me, daggers have hacked me. I am covered with scars. Yet never have they struck me down. In Germany they bound and led me to the block. There would I have willingly placed my head, but the thing came upon me, and breaking my bonds, I slew and fled. Up and down the world I have wandered, leaving horror and slaughter in my trail. Chains, cells, can not hold me. The thing is fastened to me through all eternity.
“In desperation I accepted Dom Vincente’s invitation, for look you, none knows of my frightful double life, since no one could recognize me in the clutch of the demon; and few, seeing me, live to tell of it.
“My hands are red, my soul doomed to everlasting flames, my mind is torn with remorse for my crimes. And yet I can do nothing to help myself. Surely, Pierre, no man ever knew the hell that I have known.
“Yes, I slew von Schiller, and I sought to destroy the girl Marcita. Why I did not, I can not say, for I have slain both women and men.
“Now, if you will, take your sword and slay me, and with my last breath I will give you the good God’s blessing. No?
“You know now my tale and you see before you a man, fiend-haunted for all eternity.”
My mind was spinning with wonderment as I left the room of de Montour. What to do, I knew not. It seemed likely that he would yet murder us all, and yet I could not bring myself to tell Dom Vincente all. From the bottom of my soul I pitied de Montour.
So I kept my peace, and in the days that followed I made occasion to seek him out and converse with him. A real friendship sprang up between us.
About this time that black devil, Gola, began to wear an air of suppressed excitement, as if he knew something he wished desperately to tell, but would not or else dared not.
So the days passed in feasting, drinking and hunting, until one night de Montour came to my chamber and pointed silently at the moon which was just rising.
“Look ye,” he said, “I have a plan. I will give it out that I am going into the jungle for hunting and will go forth, apparently for several days. But at night I will return to the castle, and you must lock me into the dungeon which is used as a storeroom.”
This we did, and I managed to slip down twice a day and carry food and drink to my friend. He insisted on remaining in the dungeon even in the day, for though the fiend had never exerted its influence over him in the daytime, and he believed it powerless then, yet he would take no chances.
It was during this time that I began to notice that Dom Vincente’s mink-faced cousin, Carlos, was forcing his attentions upon Ysabel, who was his second cousin, and who seemed to resent those attentions.
Myself, I would have challenged him for a duel for the toss of a coin, for I despised him, but it was really none of my affair. However, it seemed that Ysabel feared him.
My friend Luigi, by the way, had become enamored of the dainty Portuguese girl, and was making swift love to her daily.
And de Montour sat in his cell and reviewed his ghastly deeds until he battered the bars with his bare hands.
And Don Florenzo wandered about the castle grounds like a dour Mephistopheles.
And the other guests rode and quarreled and drank.
And Gola slithered about, eyeing me if always on the point of imparting momentous information. What wonder if my nerves became rasped to the shrieking point?
Each day the natives grew surlier and more and more sullen and intractable.
One night, not long before the full of the moon, I entered the dungeon where de Montour sat.
He looked up quickly.
“You dare much, coming to me in the night.”
I shrugged my shoulders, seating myself.
A small barred window let in the night scents and sounds of Africa.
“Hark to the native drums,” I said. “For the past week they have sounded almost incessantly.”
De Montour assented.
The natives are restless. Methinks ’tis deviltry they are planning. Have you noticed that Carlos is much among them?”
“No,” I answered, “but ’tis like there will be a break between him and Luigi. Luigi is paying court to Ysabel.”
So we talked, when suddenly de Montour became silent and moody, answering only in monosyllables.
The moon rose and peered in at the barred windows. De Montour’s face was illuminated by its beams.
And then the hand of horror grasped me. On the wall behind de Montour appeared a shadow, a shadow clearly defined of a wolf’s head!
At the same instant de Montour felt its influence. With a shriek he bounded from his stool.
He pointed fiercely, and as with trembling hands I slammed and bolted the door behind me, I felt him hurl his weight against it. As I fled up the stairway I heard a wild raving and battering at the iron-bound door. But with all the werewolf’s might the great door held.
As I entered my room, Gola dashed in and gasped out the tale he had been keeping for days.
I listened, incredulously, and then dashed forth to find Dom Vincente.
I was told that Carlos had asked him to accompany him to the village to arrange a sale of slaves.
My informer was Don Florenzo of Seville, and when I gave him a brief outline of Gola’s tale, he accompanied me.
Together we dashed through the castle gate, flinging a word to the guards, and down the landing toward the village.
Dom Vincente, Dom Vincente, walk with care, keep sword loosened in its sheath! Fool, fool, to walk in the night with Carlos, the traitor!
They were nearing the village when we caught up with them. “Dom Vincente!” I exclaimed; “Return instantly to the castle. Carlos is selling you into the hands of the natives! Gola has told me that he lusts for your wealth and for Ysabel! A terrified native babbled to him of booted footprints near the places where the woodcutters were murdered, and Carlos has made the blacks believe that the slayer was you! Tonight the natives were to rise and slay every man in the castle except Carlos! Do you not believe me, Dom Vincente?”