CHAPTER VII
THE BRIDAL
Over the United States stretched an unseen network of secretintrigue woven tirelessly night and day by the busy enemies ofcivilisation--Reds, parlour-socialists, enemy-aliens, terrorists,Bolsheviki, pseudo-intellectuals, I. W. W.'s, social faddists, andamateur meddlers of every nuance--all the various varieties of thevicious, witless, and mentally unhinged--brought together through the"cohesive power of plunder" and the degeneration of cranial tissue.
All over the United States the various departmental divisions of theSecret Service were busily following up these threads of intrigueleading everywhere through the obscurity of this vast and secret maze.
To meet the constantly increasing danger of physical violence and touncover secret plots threatening sabotage and revolution, there werecapable agents in every branch of the Secret Service, both Federal andState.
But in the first months of 1919 something more terrifying than physicalviolence suddenly threatened civilised America,--a wild, grotesque,incredible threat of a _war on human minds_!
And, little by little, the United States Government became convincedthat this ghastly menace was no dream of a disordered imagination, butthat it was real: that among the enemies of civilisation there actuallyexisted a few powerful but perverted minds capable of wielding psychicforces as terrific weapons: that by the sinister use of psychicknowledge controlling these mighty forces the very minds of mankindcould be stealthily approached, seized, controlled and turned uponcivilisation to aid in the world's destruction.
In terrible alarm the Government turned to England for advice. But SirWilliam Crookes was dead.
However, in England, Sir Conan Doyle immediately took up the matter, andin America Professor Hyslop was called into consultation.
And then, when the Government was beginning to realise what this awfulmenace meant, and that there were actually in the United States possiblyhalf a dozen people who already had begun to carry on a diabolicalwarfare by means of psychic power, for the purpose of enslaving andcontrolling the very minds of men,--then, in the terrible moment ofdiscovery, a young girl landed in America after fourteen years' absencein Asia.
And this was the amazing girl that Victor Cleves had just married, atRecklow's suggestion, and in the line of professional duty,--and moralduty, perhaps.
It had been a brief, matter-of-fact ceremony. John Recklow, of theSecret Service, was there; also Benton and Selden of the same service.
The bride's lips were unresponsive; cold as the touch of the groom'sunsteady hand.
She looked down at her new ring in a blank sort of way, gave her handlistlessly to Recklow and to the others in turn, whispered a timidlycomprehensive "Thank you," and walked away beside Cleves as thoughdazed.
There was a taxicab waiting. Tressa entered. Recklow came out and spoketo Cleves in a low voice.
"Don't worry," replied Cleves dryly. "That's why I married her."
"Where are you going now?" inquired Recklow.
"Back to my apartment."
"Why don't you take her away for a month?"
Cleves flushed with annoyance: "This is no occasion for a wedding trip.You understand that, Recklow."
"I understand. But we ought to give her a breathing space. She's hadnothing but trouble. She's worn out."
Cleves hesitated: "I can guard her better in the apartment. Isn't itsafer to go back there, where your people are always watching the streetand house day and night?"
"In a way it might be safer, perhaps. But that girl is nearly exhausted.And her value to us is unlimited. She may be the vital factor in thisfight with anarchy. Her weapon is her mind. And it's got to have achance to rest."
Cleves, with one hand on the cab door, looked around impatiently.
"Do _you_, also, conclude that the psychic factor is actually part ofthis damned problem of Bolshevism?"
Recklow's cool eyes measured him: "Do _you_?"
"My God, Recklow, I don't know--after what my own eyes have seen."
"I don't know either," said the other calmly, "but I am takingno chances. I don't attempt to explain certain things that haveoccurred. But if it be true that a misuse of psychic ability byforeigners--Asiatics--among the anarchists is responsible for some ofthe devilish things being done in the United States, then your wife'sunparalleled knowledge of the occult East is absolutely vital to us. Andso I say, better take her away somewhere and give her mind a chance torecover from the incessant strain of these tragic years."
The two men stood silent for a moment, then Recklow went to the windowof the taxicab.
"I have been suggesting a trip into the country, Mrs. Cleves," he saidpleasantly, "--into the real country, somewhere,--a month's quiet in thewoods, perhaps. Wouldn't it appeal to you?"
Cleves turned to catch her low-voiced answer.
"I should like it very much," she said in that odd, hushed way ofspeaking, which seemed to have altered her own voice and manner sincethe ceremony a little while before.
Driving back to his apartment beside her, he strove to realise that thisgirl was his wife.
One of her gloves lay across her lap, and on it rested a slender hand.And on one finger was his ring.
But Victor Cleves could not bring himself to believe that this brand-newring really signified anything to him,--that it had altered his own lifein any way. But always his incredulous eyes returned to that slim fingerresting there, unstirring, banded with a narrow circlet of virgin gold.
In the apartment they did not seem to know exactly what to do orsay--what attitude to assume--what effort to make.
Tressa went into her own room, removed her hat and furs, and came slowlyback into the living-room, where Cleves still stood gazing absently outof the window.
A fine rain was falling.
They seated themselves. There seemed nothing better to do.
He said, politely: "In regard to going away for a rest, you wouldn'tcare for the North Woods, I fancy, unless you like winter sports. Doyou?"
"I like sunlight and green leaves," she said in that odd, still voice.
"Then, if it would please you to go South for a few weeks' rest----"
"Would it inconvenience you?"
Her manner touched him.
"My dear Miss Norne," he began, and checked himself, flushing painfully.The girl blushed, too; then, when he began to laugh, her lovely, bashfulsmile glimmered for the first time.
"I really can't bring myself to realise that you and I are married," heexplained, still embarrassed, though smiling.
Her smile became an endeavour. "I can't believe it either, Mr. Cleves,"she said. "I feel rather stunned."
"Hadn't you better call me Victor--under the circumstances?" hesuggested, striving to speak lightly.
"Yes.... It will not be very easy to say it--not for some time, Ithink."
"Tressa?"
"Yes."
"Yes--_what_?"
"Yes--Victor."
"That's the idea," he insisted with forced gaiety.
"The thing to do is to face this rather funny situation and take itamiably and with good humour. You'll have your freedom some day, youknow."
"Yes--I--know."
"And we're already on very good terms. We find each other interesting,don't we?"
"Yes."
"It even seems to me," he ventured, "it certainly seems to me, at times,as though we are approaching a common basis of--of mutual--er--esteem."
"Yes. I--I do esteem you, Mr. Cleves."
"In point of fact," he concluded, surprised, "we _are_ friends--in away. Wouldn't you call it--friendship?"
"I think so, I think I'd call it that," she admitted.
"I think so, too. And that is lucky for us. That makes this crazysituation more comfortable--less--well, perhaps less ponderous."
The girl assented with a vague smile, but her eyes remained lowered.
"You see," he went on, "when two people are as oddly situated as we are,they're likely to be afraid of being in each othe
r's way. But they oughtto get on without being unhappy as long as they are quite confident ofeach other's friendly consideration. Don't you think so, Tressa?"
Her lowered eyes rested steadily on her ring-finger. "Yes," she said."And I am not--unhappy, or--afraid."
She lifted her blue gaze to his; and, somehow, he thought of herbarbaric name, Keuke,--and its Yezidee significance, "heavenly--azure."
"Are we really going away together?" she asked timidly.
"Certainly, if you wish."
"If you, also, wish it, Mr. Cleves."
He found himself saying with emphasis that he always wished to do whatshe desired. And he added, more gently:
"You _are_ tired, Tressa--tired and lonely and unhappy."
"Tired, but not the--others."
"Not unhappy?"
"No."
"Aren't you lonely?"
"Not with you."
The answer came so naturally, so calmly, that the slight sensation ofpleasure it gave him arrived only as an agreeable afterglow.
"We'll go South," he said.... "I'm so glad that you don't feel lonelywith me."
"Will it be warmer where we are going, Mr. Cleves?"
"Yes--you poor child! You need warmth and sunshine, don't you? Was itwarm in Yian, where you lived so many years?"
"It was always June in Yian," she said under her breath.
She seemed to have fallen into a revery; he watched the sensitive face.Almost imperceptibly it changed; became altered, younger, strangelylovely.
Presently she looked up--and it seemed to him that it was not TressaNorne at all he saw, but little Keuke--Heavenly Azure--of the Yezideetemple, as she dropped one slim knee over the other and crossed herhands above it.
"It was very beautiful in Yian," she said, "--Yian of the thousandbridges and scented gardens so full of lilies. Even after they took meto the temple, and I thought the world was ending, God's skies stillremained soft overhead, and His weather fair and golden.... And when, inthe month of the Snake, the Eight Sheiks-el-Djebel came to the temple tospread their shrouds on the rose-marble steps, then, after they haddeparted, chanting the Prayers for the Dead, each to his Tower ofSilence, we temple girls were free for a week.... And once I went withTchagane--a girl--and with Yulun--another girl--and we took our keutch,which is our luggage, and we went to the yailak, or summer pavilion onthe Lake of the Ghost. Oh, wonderful,--a silvery world of pale-gilt sunsand of moons so frail that the cloud-fleece at high-noon has moresubstance!"
Her voice died out; she sat gazing down at her spread fingers, on one ofwhich gleamed her wedding-ring.
After a little, she went on dreamily:
"On that week, each three months, we were free.... If a young man shouldplease us...."
"Free?" he repeated.
"To love," she explained coolly.
"Oh." He nodded, but his face became rather grim.
"There came to me at the yailak," she went on carelessly, "one KhassarNoiane--Noiane means Prince--all in a surcoat of gold tissue with greenvines embroidered, and wearing a green cap trimmed with dormouse, andgreen boots inlaid with stiff gold....
"He was so young ... a boy. I laughed. I said: 'Is this a Yacaoul? AnUrdu-envoy of Prince Erlik?'--mocking him as young and thoughtless girlsmock--not in unfriendly manner--though I would not endure the touch ofany man at all.
"And when I laughed at him, this Eighur boy flew into such a rage! Kai!I was amazed.
"'Sou-sou! Squirrel!' he cried angrily at me. 'Learn the Yacaz, littlechatterer! Little mocker of men, it is ten blows with a stick yourequire, not kisses!'
"At that I whistled my two dogs, Bars and Alaga, for I did not thinkwhat he said was funny.
"I said to him: 'You had better go home, Khassar Noiane, for if no manhas ever pleased me where I am at liberty to please myself, here on theLake of the Ghost, then be very certain that no boy can pleaseKeuke-Mongol here or anywhere!'
"And at that--kai! What did he say--that monkey?" She looked at herhusband, her splendid eyes ablaze with wrathful laughter, and made agesture full of angry grace:
"'Squirrel!' he cries--'little malignant sorceress of Yian! Mayeverything high about you become a sandstorm, and everything long aserpent, and everything broad a toad, and everything----'
"But I had had enough, Victor," she added excitedly, "and I made a wildbee bite him on the lip! WHAT do you think of such a courtship?" shecried, laughing. But Cleves's face was a study in emotions.
And then, suddenly, the laughing mask seemed to slip from the bewitchingfeatures of Keuke Mongol; and there was Tressa Norne--TressaCleves--disconcerted, paling a little as the memory of her impulsiveconfidence in this man beside her began to dawn on her more clearly.
"I--I'm sorry----" she faltered.... "You'll think me silly--think evilof me, perhaps----"
She looked into his troubled eyes, then suddenly she took her face intoboth hands and covered it, sitting very still.
"We'll go South together," he said in an uncertain voice.... "I hope youwill try to think of me as a friend.... I'm just troubled because I amso anxious to understand you. That is all.... I'm--I'm troubled, too,because I am anxious that you should think well of me. Will you try,always?"
She nodded.
"I want to be your friend, always," he said.
"Thank you, Mr. Cleves."
* * * * *
It was a strange spot he chose for Tressa--strange but lovely in its ownunreal and rather spectral fashion--where a pearl-tinted mist veiled theSt. Johns, and made exquisite ghosts of the palmettos, and softened thesun to a silver-gilt wafer pasted on a nacre sky.
It was a still country, where giant water-oaks towered, fantastic undertheir misty camouflage of moss, and swarming with small birds.
Among the trees the wood-ibis stole; without on the placid glass of thestream the eared grebe floated. There was no wind, no stirring ofleaves, no sound save the muffled splash of silver mullet, thebreathless whirr of a humming-bird, or the hushed rustle of lizards inthe woods.
For Tressa this was the blessed balm that heals,--the balm of silence.And, for the first week, she slept most of the time, or lay in herhammock watching the swarms of small birds creeping and flitting amidthe moss-draped labyrinths of the live-oaks at her very door.
It had been a little club house before the war, this bungalow on the St.Johns at Orchid Hammock. Its members had been few and wealthy; but somewere dead in France and Flanders, and some still remained overseas, andothers continued busy in the North.
And these two young people were quite alone there, save for a negro cookand a maid, and an aged negro kennel-master who wore a scarlet waistcoatand cords too large for his shrunken body, and who pottered, potteredthrough the fields all day, with his whip clasped behind his bent backand the pointers ranging wide, or plodding in at heel with red tongueslolling.
Twice Cleves went a little way for quail, using Benton's dogs; but evenhere in this remote spot he dared not move out of view of the littlehouse where Tressa lay asleep.
So he picked up only a few brace of birds, and confined his sport toimpaling too-familiar scorpions on the blade of his knife.
And all the while life remained unreal for him; his marriage seemedutterly unbelievable; he could not realise it, could not reconcilehimself to conditions so incomprehensible.
Also, ever latent in his mind, was knowledge that made him restless--theknowledge that the young girl he had married had been in love withanother man: Sanang.
And there were other thoughts--thoughts which had scarcely even takenthe shape of questions.
One morning he came from his room and found Tressa on the veranda in herhammock. She had her moon-lute in her lap.
"You feel better--much better!" he said gaily, saluting her extendedhand.
"Yes. Isn't this heavenly? I begin to believe it is life to me, thispearl-tinted world, and the scent of orange bloom and the stillness ofparadise itself."
She gazed out over the ghostly river. No
t a wing stirred its glassysurface.
"Is this dull for you?" she asked in a low voice.
"Not if you are contented, Tressa."
"You're so nice about it. Don't you think you might venture a day's realshooting?"
"No, I think I won't," he replied.
"On my account?"
"Well--yes."
"I'm so sorry."
"It's all right as long as you're getting rested. What is thatinstrument?"
"My moon-lute."
"Oh, is that what it's called?"
She nodded, touched the strings. He watched her exquisite hands.
"Shall I?" she inquired a little shyly.
"Go ahead. I'd like to hear it!"
"I haven't touched it in months--not since I was on the steamer." Shesat up in her hammock and began to swing there; and played and sangwhile swinging in the flecked shadow of the orange bloom:
"_Little Isle of Cispangou, Isle of iris, isle of cherry, Tell your tiny maidens merry Clouds are looming over you! La-[=e]-la! La-[=e]-la! All your ocean's but a ferry; Ships are bringing death to you! La-[=e]-lou! La-[=e]-lou!_
"_Little Isle of Cispangou, Half a thousand ships are sailing; Captain Death commands each crew; Lo! the ruddy moon is paling! La-[=e]-la! La-[=e]-la! Clouds the dying moon are veiling, Every cloud a shroud for you! La-[=e]-lou! La-[=e]-lou!_"
"Cispangou," she explained, "is the very, very ancient name, among theMongols, for Japan."
"It's not exactly a gay song," he said. "What's it about?"
"Oh, it's a very ancient song about the Mongol invasion of Japan. I knowscores and scores of such songs."
She sang some other songs. Afterward she descended from the hammock andcame and sat down beside him on the veranda steps.
"I wish I could amuse you," she said wistfully.
"Why do you think I'm bored, Tressa? I'm not at all."
But she only sighed, lightly, and gathered her knees in both arms.
"I don't know how young men in the Western world are entertained," sheremarked presently.
"You don't have to entertain me," he said, smiling.
"I should be happy to, if I knew how."
"How are young men entertained in the Orient?"
"Oh, they like songs and stories. But I don't think you do."
He laughed in spite of himself.
"Do you really wish to entertain me?"
"I do," she said seriously.
"Then please perform some of those tricks of magic which you can do soamazingly well."
Her dawning smile faded a trifle. "I don't--I haven't----" Shehesitated.
"You haven't your professional paraphernalia with you," he suggested.
"Oh--as for that----"
"Don't you need it?"
"For some things--some kinds of things.... I _could_ do--otherthings----"
He waited. She seemed disconcerted. "Don't do anything you don't wish todo, Tressa," he said.
"I was only--only afraid--that if I should do some little things toamuse you, I might stir--stir up--interfere--encounter some sinistercurrent--and betray myself--betray my whereabouts----"
"Well, for heaven's sake don't venture then!" he said with emphasis."Don't do anything to stir up any other wireless--any Yezidee----"
"I am wondering," she reflected, "just what I dare venture to do toamuse you."
"Don't bother about me. I wouldn't have you try any psychic stunt downhere, and run the chance of stirring up some Asiatic devil somewhere!"
She nodded absently, occupied with her own thoughts, sitting there, chinon hand, her musing eyes intensely blue.
"I think I can amuse you," she concluded, "without bringing any harm tomyself."
"Don't try it, Tressa!----"
"I'll be very careful. Now, sit quite still--closer to me, please."
He edged closer; and became conscious of an indefinable freshness in theair that enveloped him, like the scent of something young and growing.But it was no magic odour,--merely the virginal scent of her hair andskin that even clung to her summer gown.
He heard her singing under her breath to herself:
"La-[=e]-la! La-[=e]-la!"
and murmuring caressingly in an unknown tongue.
Then, suddenly in the pale sunshine, scores of little birds camehovering around them, alighting all over them. And he saw them swarmingout of the mossy festoons of the water-oaks--scores and scores of tinybirds--Parula warblers, mostly--all flitting fearlessly down to alightupon his shoulders and knees, all keeping up their sweet, dreamy littletwittering sound.
"This is wonderful," he whispered.
The girl laughed, took several birds on her forefinger.
"This is nothing," she said. "If I only dared--wait a moment!----" And,to the Parula warblers:
"Go home, little friends of God!"
The air was filled with the musical whisper of wings. She passed herright arm around her husband's neck.
"Look at the river," she said.
"Good God!" he blurted out. And sat dumb.
For, over the St. John's misty surface, there was the span of abridge--a strange, marble bridge humped up high in the centre.
And over it were passing thousands of people--he could make them outvaguely--see them passing in two never-ending streams--tinted shapes onthe marble bridge.
And now, on the farther shore of the river, he was aware of a city--avast one, with spectral pagoda shapes against the sky----
Her arm tightened around his neck.
He saw boats on the river--like the grotesque shapes that decorateancient lacquer.
She rested her face lightly against his cheek.
In his ears was a far confusion of voices--the stir and movement ofmultitudes--noises on ships, boatmen's cries, the creak of oars.
Then, far and sonorous, quavering across the water from the city, thedin of a temple gong.
There were bells, too--very sweet and silvery--camel bells, bells fromthe Buddhist temples.
He strained his eyes, and thought, amid the pagodas, that there wereminarets, also.
Suddenly, clear and ringing came the distant muezzin's cry: "There is noother god but God!... It is noon. Mussulmans, pray!"
The girl's arm slipped from his neck and she shuddered and pushed himfrom her.
There was nothing, now, on the river or beyond it but the curtain ofhanging mist; no sound except the cry of a gull, sharp and querulous inthe vapours overhead.
"Have--have you been amused?" she asked.
"What did you do to me!" he demanded harshly.
She smiled and drew a light breath like a sigh.
"God knows what we living do to one another,--or to ourselves," shesaid. "I only tried to amuse you--after taking counsel with the birds."
"What was that bridge I saw!"
"The Bridge of Ten Thousand Felicities."
"And the city?"
"Yian."
"You lived there?"
"Yes."
He moistened his dry lips and stole another glance at this verycommonplace Florida river. Sky and water were blank and still, and theghostly trees stood tall, reflected palely in the translucent tide.
"You merely made me visualise what you were thinking about," heconcluded in a voice which still remained unsteady.
"Did you _hear_ nothing?"
He was silent, remembering the bells and the enormous murmur of a livingmultitude.
"And--there were the birds, too." She added, with an uncertain smile: "Ido not mean to worry you.... And you did ask me to amuse you."
"I don't know how you did it," he said harshly. "And the details--thosethousands and thousands of people on the bridge!... And there was one,quite near this end of the bridge, who looked back.... A young girl whoturned and laughed at us--"
"That was Yulun."
"Who?"
"Yulun. I taught her English."
"A temple girl?"<
br />
"Yes. From Black China."
"How could you make _me_ see _her_!" he demanded.
"Why do you ask such things? I do not know how to tell you how I do it."
"It's a dangerous, uncanny knowledge!" he blurted out; and suddenlychecked himself, for the girl's face went white.
"I don't mean uncanny," he hastened to add. "Because it seems to me thatwhat you did by juggling with invisible currents to which, when attuned,our five senses respond, is on the same lines as the wireless telegraphand telephone."
She said nothing, but her colour slowly returned.
"You mustn't be so sensitive," he added. "I've no doubt that it's allquite normal--quite explicable on a perfectly scientific basis. Probablyit's no more mysterious than a man in an airplane over midoceanconversing with people ashore on two continents."
* * * * *
For the remainder of the day and evening Tressa seemed subdued--notrestless, not nervous, but so quiet that, sometimes, glancing at heraskance, Cleves involuntarily was reminded of some lithe young creatureof the wilds, intensely alert and still, immersed in fixed and dangerousmeditation.
About five in the afternoon they took their golf sticks, went down tothe river, and embarked in the canoe.
The water was glassy and still. There was not a ripple ahead, save whena sleeping gull awoke and leisurely steered out of their way.
Tressa's arms and throat were bare and she wore no hat. She sat forward,wielding the bow paddle and singing to herself in a low voice.
"You feel all right, don't you?" he asked.
"Oh, I am so well, physically, now! It's really wonderful, Victor--likebeing a child again," she replied happily.
"You're not much more," he muttered.
She heard him: "Not very much more--in years," she said.... "DoesScripture tell us how old Our Lord was when He descended into Hell?"
"I don't know," he replied, startled.
After a little while Tressa tranquilly resumed her paddling and singing:
"_--And eight tall towers Guard the route Of human life, Where at all hours Death looks out, Holding a knife Rolled in a shroud._
_For every man, Humble or proud, Mighty or bowed, Death has a shroud;--for every man,-- Even for Tchingniz Khan! Behold them pass!--lancer. Baroulass, Temple dancer In tissue gold, Khiounnou, Karlik bold,_
_Christian, Jew,-- Nations swarm to the great Urdu. Yacaoul, with your kettledrum, Warn your Khan that his hour is come! Shroud and knife at his spurred feet throw, And bid him stretch his neck for the blow!--_"
"You know," remarked Cleves, "that some of those songs you sing aredevilish creepy."
Tressa looked around at him over her shoulder, saw he was smiling,smiled faintly in return.
They were off Orchid Cove now. The hotel and cottages loomed dimly inthe silver mist. Voices came distinctly across the water. There werepeople on the golf course paralleling the river; laughter sounded fromthe club-house veranda.
They went ashore.