{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_70899/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_70899","id":"gutenberg_70899","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70899","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Horror tales","Missouri -- Fiction"],"text":"Medusa's Coil\n\n                            By Z. B. BISHOP\n\n              _A powerful and compelling tale of brooding\n             horror that deepens and broadens to the final\n           catastrophe--an unusual and engrossing novelette\n                 by the author of \"The Curse of Yig.\"_\n\n           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n                       Weird Tales January 1939.\n         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\n\nThe drive toward Cape Girardeau had been through unfamiliar country;\nand as the late afternoon light grew golden and half dream-like\nI realized that I must have directions if I expected to reach the\ntown before night. I did not care to be wandering about these bleak\nsouthern Missouri lowlands after dark, for roads were poor and the\nNovember cold rather formidable in an open roadster. Black clouds, too,\nwere massing on the horizon; so I looked about among the long gray and\nblue shadows that streaked the flat, brownish fields, hoping to glimpse\nsome house where I might get the needed information.\n\nIt was a lonely and deserted country, but at last I spied a roof\namong a clump of trees near the small river on my right; perhaps a\nfull half-mile from the road, and probably reachable by some path or\ndrive upon which I would presently come. In the absence of any nearer\ndwelling, I resolved to try my luck there; and was glad when the bushes\nby the roadside revealed the ruin of a carved stone gateway, covered\nwith dry, dead vines and choked with undergrowth which explained why\nI had not been able to trace the path across the fields in my first\ndistant view. I saw that I could not drive the car in; so I parked it\nvery carefully near the gate--where a thick evergreen would shield it\nin case of rain--and got out for the long walk to the house.\n\nTraversing that brush-grown path in the gathering twilight I was\nconscious of a distinct sense of foreboding, probably induced by the\nair of sinister decay hovering about the gate and the former driveway.\nFrom the carvings on the old stone pillars I inferred that this place\nwas once an estate of manorial dignity; and I could clearly see that\nthe driveway had originally boasted guardian lines of linden trees,\nsome of which had died, while others had lost their special identity\namong the wild scrub growths of the region.\n\nAs I plowed onward, cockleburrs and stickers clung to my clothes, and\nI began to wonder whether the place could be inhabited after all. Was\nI tramping on a vain errand? For a moment I was tempted to go back and\ntry some farm farther along the road, when a view of the house ahead\naroused my curiosity and stimulated my venturesome spirit.\n\nThere was something provocatively fascinating in the tree-girt,\ndecrepit pile before me, for it spoke of the graces and spaciousness\nof a bygone era and a far more southerly environment. It was a typical\nwooden plantation house of the classic, early Nineteenth Century\npattern, with two and a half stories and a great Ionic portico whose\npillars reached up as far as the attic and supported a triangular\npediment. Its state of decay was extreme and obvious: one of the vast\ncolumns having rotted and fallen to the ground, while the upper piazza\nor balcony had sagged dangerously low. Other buildings, I judged, had\nformerly stood near it.\n\nAs I mounted the broad stone steps to the low porch and the carved and\nfour-lighted doorway I felt distinctly nervous, and started to light\na cigarette--desisting when I saw how dry and inflammable everything\nabout me was. Though now convinced that the house was deserted, I\nnevertheless hesitated to violate its dignity without knocking; so I\ntugged at the rusty iron knocker until I could get it to move, and\nfinally set up a cautious rapping which seemed to make the whole\nplace shake and rattle. There was no response; yet once more I plied\nthe cumbrous, creaking device, as much to dispel the sense of unholy\nsilence and solitude as to arouse any possible occupant of the ruin.\n\nSomewhere near the river I heard the mournful note of a dove, and it\nseemed as if the coursing water itself were faintly audible. Half in\na dream, I seized and rattled the ancient latch, and finally gave the\ngreat six-paneled door a frank trying. It was unlocked, as I could see\nin a moment; and though it stuck and grated on its hinges I began to\npush it open, stepping through it into a vast shadowy hall as I did so.\n\nBut the moment I took this step I regretted it. It was not that a\nlegion of specters confronted me in that dim and dusty hall with the\nghostly Empire furniture, but that I knew at once that the place was\nnot deserted after all. There was a creaking on the great curved\nstaircase, and the sound of faltering footsteps slowly descending. Then\nI saw a tall, bent figure silhouetted for an instant against the great\nPalladian window on the landing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy first terror was soon over, and as the figure descended the final\nflight I was ready to greet the house-holder whose privacy I had\ninvaded. In the semi-darkness I could see him reach into his pocket\nfor a match. There came a flare as he lighted a small kerosene lamp\nwhich stood on a rickety console table near the foot of the stairs. The\nfeeble glow revealed the stooping figure of a very tall, emaciated old\nman, disordered in dress and unshaven as to face, yet for all that with\nthe bearing and expression of a gentleman.\n\nI did not wait for him to speak, but at once began to explain my\npresence.\n\n\"You'll pardon my coming in like this, but when my knocking didn't\nraise anybody I concluded that no one lived here. I wanted to know the\nshortest road to Cape Girardeau. I wanted to get there before dark, but\nnow, of course----\"\n\nAs I paused, the man spoke, in exactly the cultivated tone I had\nexpected, and with a mellow accent as unmistakably Southern as the\nhouse he inhabited.\n\n\"Rather, you must pardon me for not answering your knock more promptly.\nI live in a very retired way, and am not usually expecting visitors.\nAt first I thought you were a mere curiosity-seeker. When you knocked\nagain I started to answer, but I am not well and have to move very\nslowly, owing to spinal neuritis--very troublesome case.\n\n\"As for your getting to town before dark--you can't do that. The road\nyou are on isn't the best or shortest way. What you must do is to take\nthe first real road to your left after you leave the gate. There are\nthree or four cart-paths you can ignore, but you can't mistake the real\nroad because of the large willow tree on the right just opposite it.\n\n\"When once you've turned, keep on past two roads and turn to the right\nalong the third. After that----\"\n\nPerplexed by these elaborate directions, confusing indeed to a total\nstranger, I could not help interrupting.\n\n\"Please, how can I follow all these clues in pitch-darkness, without\never having been near here before, and with only an indifferent pair of\nheadlights to tell me what is and what isn't a road? Besides, I think\nit's going to storm pretty soon, and my car is an open one. It looks\nas if I were in a bad fix if I want to get to Cape Girardeau tonight.\nThe fact is, I don't think I'd better try. I don't like to impose, but\nin view of the circumstances, do you suppose you could put me up for\nthe night? I won't be any trouble. Just let me have a corner to sleep\nin till daylight, and I'm all right. I can leave the car in the road\nwhere it is; wet weather won't hurt it.\"\n\nAs I made my sudden request I could see the old man's face lose its\nformer expression of quiet resignation and take on an odd, surprised\nlook.\n\n\"Sleep _here_?\"\n\nHe seemed so astonished at my request that I repeated it.\n\n\"Yes, why not? I assure you I won't be any trouble. What else can I do?\nI'm a stranger hereabouts, these roads are a labyrinth in the dark, and\nI'll wager it'll be raining torrents inside of an hour----\"\n\nThis time it was my host's turn to interrupt, and as he did so I could\nfeel a peculiar quality in his deep, musical voice.\n\n\"A stranger--of course you must be, else you wouldn't think of sleeping\nhere; wouldn't think of coming here at all. People don't come here\nnowadays.\"\n\nHe paused, and my desire to stay was increased a thousandfold by the\nsense of mystery his laconic words seemed to evoke. There was something\nqueer about this place, and the pervasive musty smell seemed to cloak a\nthousand secrets. Again I noticed the extreme decrepitude of everything\nabout me; manifest even in the feeble rays of the single small lamp.\nI felt woefully chilly, and saw with regret that no heating seemed to\nbe provided; yet so great was my curiosity that I still wished most\nardently to stay and learn something of the recluse and his dismal\nabode.\n\n\"You may stay if you really wish to; you can come to no harm that\nI know of. Others claim there are certain peculiarly undesirable\ninfluences here. As for me, I stay because I have to.\"\n\nWith my curiosity still more heightened, I prepared to take my host\nat his word, and followed him slowly upstairs when he motioned me to\ndo so. It was very dark now, and faint pattering outside told me that\nthe threatened rain had come. I would have been glad of any shelter,\nbut this was doubly welcome because of the hints of mystery about the\nplace and its master. For an incurable lover of the grotesque, no more\nfitting haven could have been provided.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere was a second-floor corner room in less unkempt shape than the\nrest of the house, and into this my host led me, setting down his\nsmall lamp and lighting a somewhat larger one. From the cleanliness\nand contents of the room, and from the books ranged along the walls, I\ncould see that I had not guessed amiss in thinking the man a gentleman\nof taste and breeding. He was a hermit and eccentric, no doubt, but\nstill had standards and intellectual interests. As he waved me to a\nseat I began a conversation on general topics, and was pleased to find\nhim not at all taciturn. If anything, he seemed glad of someone to talk\nto, and did not attempt to swerve the discourse from personal topics.\n\nHe was, I learned, one Antoine de Russy, of an ancient, powerful\nand cultivated line of Louisiana planters. More than a century ago\nhis grandfather, a younger son, had migrated to southern Missouri\nand founded a new estate in the lavish ancestral manner; building\nthis pillared mansion and surrounding it with all the accessories\nof a great plantation. There had been, at one time, as many as two\nhundred negroes in the cabins which stood on the flat ground in the\nrear--ground that the river had now invaded--and to hear them singing\nand laughing and playing the banjo at night was to know the fullest\ncharm of a civilization and social order now sadly extinct. In front of\nthe house, where the great guardian oaks and willows stood, there had\nbeen a lawn like a broad green carpet, always watered and trimmed and\nwith flag-stoned, flower-bordered walks curving through it. Riverside\n(for such the place was called) had been a lovely and idyllic homestead\nin its day; and my host could recall it when many traces of its best\nperiod still lingered.\n\nIt was raining hard now, with dense sheets of water beating against\nthe insecure roof, walls, and windows, and sending in drops through\na thousand chinks and crevices. Moisture trickled down to the floor\nfrom unsuspected places, and the mounting wind rattled the rotting,\nloose-hinged shutters outside. But I minded none of this, nor even\nthought of my roadster outside beneath the trees, for I saw that a\nstory was coming. Incited to reminiscence, my host made a move to show\nme to sleeping-quarters, but kept on recalling older, better days.\nSoon, I saw, I might learn why he lived alone in that ancient place,\nand why his neighbors thought it full of undesirable influences. His\nvoice was very musical as he spoke on, and his tale soon took a turn\nwhich left me no chance to grow drowsy.\n\n\"Yes, Riverside was built in 1816, and my father was born here in 1828.\nHe died young, so young I can just barely remember him. In '64, he was\nkilled in the war--Seventh Louisiana Infantry, C.S.A.--for he went\nback to the old home to enlist. My grandfather was too old to fight,\nyet he lived on to be ninety-five, and helped my mother bring me up:\ngood bringing-up, too, I'll give them credit. We always had strong\ntraditions, high notions of honor, and my grandfather saw to it that I\ngrew up the way de Russys have grown up, generation after generation,\never since the Crusades. We weren't quite wiped out financially, and\nmanaged to get on very comfortably after the war. I went to a good\nschool in Louisiana, and later to Princeton. Later on I was able to get\nthe plantation on a fairly profitable basis, though you see what it's\ncome to now.\n\n\"My mother died when I was twenty, and my grandfather two years later.\nIt was rather lonely after that; and in '85 I married a distant cousin\nin New Orleans. Things might have been different if she'd lived, but\nshe died when my son Denis was born. Then I had only Denis. I didn't\ntry marriage again, but gave all my time to the boy. He was like me,\nlike all the de Russys, darkish and tall and thin, and with the devil\nof a temper. I gave him the same training my grandfather had given\nme, but he didn't need much training when it came to points of honor.\nIt was in him. Never saw such high spirit--all I could do to keep him\nfrom running away to the Spanish War when he was eleven! Romantic young\ndevil, too full of high notions--you'd call 'em Victorian, now--no\ntrouble at all to make him let the nigger wenches alone. I sent him to\nthe same school I'd gone to, and to Princeton, too. He was Class of\n1909.\n\n\"In the end he decided to be a doctor, and went a year to the Harvard\nMedical School. Then he hit on the idea of keeping to the old French\ntradition of the family, and argued me into sending him to the\nSorbonne. I did--and proudly enough, though I knew how lonely I'd\nbe with him so far off. Would to God I hadn't! I thought he was the\nsafest kind of a boy to be in Paris. He had a room in the Rue St.\nJacques--that's near the University in the Latin Quarter--but according\nto his letters and his friends he didn't cut up with the gayer dogs at\nall. The people he knew were mostly young fellows from home--serious\nstudents and artists who thought more of their work than of striking\nattitudes and painting the town red.\n\n\"But of course there were lots of fellows who were on a sort of\ndividing line between serious study and the devil: the esthetes, the\ndecadents, experimenters in life and sensation; the Baudelaire kind\nof a chap. Naturally, Denis ran up against a good many of these, and\nsaw a good deal of their life. They had all sorts of crazy circles and\ncults--imitation devil-worship, false Black Masses, and the like. Doubt\nif it did them much harm on the whole--probably most of 'em forgot all\nabout it in a year or two. One of the deepest in this queer stuff was\na fellow Denis had known at school--for that matter, whose father I'd\nknown myself. Frank Marsh, of New Orleans. Disciple of Lafcadio Hearn\nand Gauguin and Van Gogh--regular epitome of the yellow nineties. Poor\ndevil--he had the makings of a great artist, at that.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Marsh was the oldest friend Denis had in Paris; so as a matter of\ncourse they saw a good deal of each other, to talk over old times at\nSt. Clair Academy, and all that. The boy wrote me a good deal about\nhim, and I didn't see any especial harm when he spoke of the group of\nmystics Marsh ran with. It seems there was some cult of prehistoric\nEgyptian and Carthaginian magic having a rage among the Bohemian\nelement on the left bank; some nonsensical thing that pretended to\nreach back to forgotten sources of hidden truth in lost African\ncivilizations--the great Zimbabwe, and dead Atlantean cities in the\nHoggar region of the Sahara--and that had a lot of gibberish connected\nwith snakes and human hair. At least, I called it gibberish then. Denis\nused to quote Marsh as saying odd things about the veiled facts behind\nthe legend of Medusa's snaky locks--and behind the later Ptolemaic myth\nof Berenice, who offered up her hair to save her husband-brother, and\nhad it set in the sky as the constellation Coma Berenices.\n\n\"I don't think this business made much impression on Denis until the\nnight of the queer ritual at Marsh's rooms when he met the priestess.\nMost of the devotees of this cult were young fellows, but the head\nof it was a young woman who called herself _Tanit-Isis_, letting it\nbe know that her real name--her name in this latest incarnation, as\nshe put it--was Marceline Bedard. She claimed to be the left-handed\ndaughter of Marquis de Chameaux, and seemed to have been both a petty\nartist and an artist's model before adopting this more lucrative\nmagical profession. Someone said she had lived for a time in the West\nIndies--Martinique, I think--but she was very reticent about herself.\nPart of her pose was a great show of austerity and holiness, but I\ndon't think the more experienced students took that very seriously.\n\n\"Denis, though, was far from experienced, and wrote me fully ten pages\nof slush about the goddess he had discovered. If I'd only realized his\nsimplicity I might have done something, but I never thought a puppy\ninfatuation like that could mean much. I felt absurdly sure that Denis'\ntouchy personal honor and family pride would always keep him out of the\nmost serious complications.\n\n\"As time went on, though, his letters began to make me nervous. He\nmentioned this Marceline more and more, and his friends less and less;\nand began talking about the 'cruel and silly way' they declined to\nintroduce her to their mothers and sisters. He seems to have asked her\nno questions about herself, and I don't doubt but that she filled him\nfull of romantic legendry concerning her origin and divine revelations\nand the way people slighted her. At length I could see that Denis was\naltogether cutting his own crowd and spending the bulk of his time with\nthis alluring priestess. At her especial request he never told the old\ncrowd of their continual meetings; so nobody over there tried to break\nthe affair up.\n\n\"I suppose she thought he was fabulously rich; for he had the air of\na patrician, and people of a certain class think all aristocratic\nAmericans are wealthy. In any case, she probably thought this a rare\nchance to contract a genuine right-handed alliance with a really\neligible young man. By the time my nervousness burst into open advice,\nit was too late. The boy had lawfully married her, and wrote that\nhe was dropping his studies and bringing the woman to Riverside. He\nsaid she had made a great sacrifice and resigned her leadership of\nthe magical cult, and that henceforth she would be merely a private\ngentlewoman--the future mistress of Riverside, and mother of de Russys\nto come.\n\n\"Well, sir, I took it the best way I could. I knew that sophisticated\nContinentals have different standards from our old American ones, and\nanyway, I really knew nothing against the woman. A charlatan, perhaps,\nbut why necessarily any worse? I suppose I tried to keep as na\u00efve as\npossible about such things in those days, for the boy's sake. Clearly,\nthere was nothing for a man of sense to do but to let Denis alone so\nlong as his new wife conformed to de Russy ways. Let her have a chance\nto prove herself--perhaps she wouldn't hurt the family as much as some\nmight fear. So I didn't raise any objections or ask any penitence. The\nthing was done, and I stood ready to welcome the boy back, whatever he\nbrought with him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"They got here three weeks after the telegram telling of the marriage.\nMarceline was beautiful, and I could see how the boy might very well\nget foolish about her. She did have an air of breeding, and I think\nto this day she must have had some strain of good blood in her. She\nwas apparently not much over twenty; of medium size, fairly slim, and\nas graceful as a tigress in posture and motions. Her complexion was\na deep olive, and her eyes were large and very dark. She had small,\nclassically regular features, though not quite clean-cut enough to suit\nmy taste, and the most singular head of jet-black hair that I ever saw.\n\n\"I didn't wonder that she had dragged the subject of hair into her\nmagical cult, for with that heavy profusion of it the idea must have\noccurred to her naturally. Coiled up, it made her look like some\nOriental princess in a drawing of Aubrey Beardsley's. Hanging down her\nback, it came well below her knees and shone in the light as if it\npossessed some separate, unholy vitality of its own. I would almost\nhave thought of Medusa or Berenice myself without having such things\nsuggested to me, upon seeing and studying that hair.\n\n\"Sometimes I thought it moved slightly of itself, and tended to arrange\nitself in distinct ropes or strands, but this may have been sheer\nillusion. She brushed it incessantly, and seemed to use some sort of\npreparation on it. I got the notion once, a curious, whimsical notion,\nthat it was a living thing which she had to feed in some strange way.\nAll nonsense--but it added to my feeling of constraint about her and\nher hair.\n\n\"For I can't deny that I failed to like her wholly, no matter how hard\nI tried. Something about her repelled me subtly, and I could not help\nweaving morbid and macabre associations about everything connected\nwith her. Her complexion called up thoughts of Babylon, Atlantis,\nLemuria, and the terrible forgotten dominations of an elder world; her\neyes struck me sometimes as the eyes of some unholy forest creature\nor animal-goddess too immeasurably ancient to be fully human; and her\nhair--that dense, exotic, overnourished growth of oily jet--made one\nshiver as a great black python might have done. There was no doubt but\nthat she realized my involuntary attitude, though I tried to hide it,\nand she tried to hide the fact that she noticed it.\n\n\"Yet the boy's infatuation lasted. He positively fawned on her, and\noverdid all the little gallantries of daily life to a sickening\ndegree. She appeared to return the feeling, though I could see it\ntook a conscious effort to make her duplicate his enthusiasms and\nextravagances. For one thing, I think she was piqued to learn that we\nweren't as wealthy as she had expected.\n\n\"It was a bad business all told. I could see that sad undercurrents\nwere arising. Denis was half hypnotized with puppy-love, and began to\ngrow away from me as he felt my shrinking from his wife. This kind of\nthing went on for months, and I saw that I was losing my only son, the\nboy who had formed the center of all my thoughts and acts for the past\nquarter of a century.\n\n\"Marceline seemed to be a good wife enough in those early months, and\nour friends received her without any quibbling or questioning. I was\nalways nervous, though, about what some of the young fellows in Paris\nmight write home to their relatives after the news of the marriage\nspread around. Despite the woman's love of secrecy, it couldn't remain\nhidden forever; indeed Denis had written a few of his closest friends,\nin strict confidence, as soon as he was settled with her at Riverside.\n\n\"I got to staying more and more alone in my room with my failing health\nas an excuse. It was about that time that my present spinal neuritis\nbegan to develop. Denis didn't seem to notice the trouble, or take any\ninterest in me and my habits and affairs; and it hurt me to see how\ncallous he was getting. I began to get sleepless, and often racked my\nbrain in the night to try to find out what really was the matter--what\nit really was that made my new daughter-in-law so repulsive and even\ndimly horrible to me.\n\n\"Oddly, the only ones who seemed to share my uneasiness were the\nservants. The darkies around the house seemed very sullen in their\nattitude toward her, and in a few weeks all save the few who were\nstrongly attached to our family had left. These few--old Scipio and\nhis wife Sarah, the cook Delilah, and Mary, Scipio's daughter, were\nas civil as possible, but plainly revealed that their new mistress\ncommanded their duty rather than their affection. They stayed in their\nown remote part of the house as much as possible. McCabe, our white\nchauffeur, was insolently admiring rather than hostile; and another\nexception was a very old Zulu woman, said to have come from Africa over\na hundred years before, who had been a sort of leader in her small\ncabin as a kind of family pensioner. Old Sophonisba always showed\nreverence whenever Marceline came near her, and one time I saw her kiss\nthe ground where her mistress had walked. Blacks are superstitious\nanimals, and I wondered whether Marceline had been talking any of her\nmystical nonsense to our hands in order to overcome their evident\ndislike.\n\n\"Well, that's how we went on for nearly half a year. Then, in the\nsummer of 1916, things began to happen. Toward the middle of June\nDenis got a note from his old friend Frank Marsh, telling of a sort of\nnervous breakdown which made him want to take a rest in the country. It\nwas post-marked New Orleans, for Marsh had gone home from Paris when he\nfelt the collapse coming on, and seemed a very plain though polite bid\nfor an invitation from us. Marsh, of course, knew that Marceline was\nhere, and asked very courteously after her. Denis was sorry to hear of\nhis trouble and told him at once to come along for an indefinite visit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Marsh came, and I was shocked to notice how he had changed since I\nhad seen him in his earlier days. He was a smallish, lightish fellow,\nwith blue eyes and an undecided chin; and now I could see the effects\nof drink and I don't know what else in his puffy eye-lids, enlarged\nnose-pores, and heavy lines around the mouth. I reckon he had taken\nhis pose of decadence pretty seriously, and set out to be as much\nof a Rimbaud, Baudelaire, or Lautremont as he could. And yet he was\ndelightful to talk to, for like all decadents he was exquisitely\nsensitive to the color and atmosphere and names of things; admirably,\nthoroughly alive, and with whole records of conscious experience in\nobscure, shadowy fields of living and feeling which most of us pass\nover without knowing they exist.\n\n\"I was glad of the visit, for I felt it would help to set up a normal\natmosphere in the house again. And that's what it really seemed to\ndo at first; for, as I said, Marsh was a delight to have around. He\nwas as sincere and profound an artist as I ever saw in my life, and\nI certainly believe that nothing on earth mattered to him except the\nperception and expression of beauty. When he saw an exquisite thing,\nor was creating one, his eyes would dilate until the light irises went\nnearly out of sight, leaving two mystical black pits in that weak,\ndelicate, chalk-like face; black pits opening on strange worlds which\nnone of us could guess about.\n\n\"When he reached here, though, he didn't have any chances to show this\ntendency; for he had (as he told Denis) gone quite stale. It seems he\nhad been very successful as an artist of a bizarre kind--like Fuseli or\nGoya or Sime or Clark Ashton Smith--but had suddenly become played out.\nThe world of ordinary things around him had ceased to hold anything he\ncould recognize as beauty of enough force and poignancy to arouse his\ncreative faculty. He had often been this way before, but this time he\ncould not invent any new, strange, or outr\u00e9 sensation or experience\nwhich would supply the needed illusion of fresh beauty or stimulating\nadventurous expectancy. He was like a Durtal or a des Esseintes at the\nmost jaded point of his curious orbit.\n\n\"Marceline was away when Marsh arrived. She hadn't been enthusiastic\nabout his coming, and had refused to decline an invitation from some of\nour friends in St. Louis which came about that time for her and Denis.\nDenis, of course, stayed to receive his guest, but Marceline had gone\non alone. It was the first time they had ever been separated, and I\nhoped the interval would help dispel the sort of daze that was making\nsuch a fool of the boy. Marceline showed no hurry to get back, but\nseemed to me to prolong her absence as much as she could. Denis stood\nit better than one would have expected from such a doting husband, and\nseemed more like his old self as he talked over other days with Marsh\nand tried to cheer the listless esthete up.\n\n\"It was Marsh who seemed most impatient to see the woman; perhaps\nbecause he thought her strange beauty, or some phase of the mysticism\nwhich had gone into her one-time magical cult, might help to reawaken\nhis interest in things and give him another start toward artistic\ncreation. That there was no baser reason, I was absolutely certain\nfrom what I knew of Marsh's character. With all his weaknesses, he\nwas a gentleman, and it had indeed relieved me when I first learned\nthat he wanted to come here because his willingness to accept Denis'\nhospitality proved that there was no reason why he shouldn't.\n\n\"When, at last, Marceline did return, I could see that Marsh was\ntremendously affected. He did not attempt to make her talk of the\nbizarre thing which she had so definitely abandoned, but was unable\nto hide a powerful admiration which kept his eyes--now dilated in\nthat curious way for the first time during his visit--riveted to her\nevery moment she was in the room. She, however, seemed uneasy rather\nthan pleased by his steady scrutiny; that is, she seemed so at first,\nthough this feeling of hers wore away in a few days, and left the two\non a basis of the most cordial and voluble congeniality. I could see\nMarsh studying her constantly when he thought no one was watching,\nand I wondered how long it would be that only the artist, and not the\nprimitive man, would be aroused by her mysterious graces.\n\n\"Denis naturally felt some irritation at this turn of affairs; though\nhe realized that his guest was a man of honor and that, as kindred\nmystics and esthetes, Marceline and Marsh would naturally have things\nand interests to discuss in which a more or less conventional person\ncould have no part. He didn't hold anything against anybody, but merely\nregretted that his own imagination was too limited and traditional to\nlet him talk with Marceline as Marsh talked. At this stage of things\nI began to see more of the boy. With his wife otherwise busy, he had\ntime to remember that he had a father, who was ready to help him in any\ndifficulty.\n\n\"We often sat together on the veranda watching Marsh and Marceline as\nthey rode up or down the drive on horseback, or played tennis on the\ncourt that used to stretch south of the house. They talked mostly in\nFrench, which Marsh, though he hadn't more than a quarter-portion of\nFrench blood, handled more glibly than either Denis or I could speak\nit. Marceline's English, always academically correct, was rapidly\nimproving in accent; but it was plain that she relished dropping back\ninto her mother-tongue. As we looked at the congenial couple they made,\nI could see the boy's cheek and throat muscles tighten; though he\nwasn't a whit less ideal a host to Marsh, or a whit less considerate a\nhusband to Marceline.\n\n\"All this was generally in the afternoon; for Marceline rose very late,\nhad breakfast in bed, and took an immense amount of time preparing to\ncome downstairs. It was in these morning hours that Denis and Marsh did\ntheir real visiting, and exchanged the close confidences which kept\ntheir friendship up despite the strain that jealousy imposed.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Well, it was in one of those morning talks on the veranda that Marsh\nmade the proposition which brought on the end. I was laid up, but\nhad managed to get downstairs and stretch out on the front parlor\nsofa near the long window. Denis and Marsh were just outside; so I\ncouldn't help hearing all they said. They had been talking about art,\nand the curious, capricious environmental elements needed to jolt an\nartist into producing work of merit, when Marsh suddenly swerved from\nabstractions to the personal application he must have had in mind from\nthe start.\n\n\"'I suppose,' he was saying, 'that nobody can tell just what it is in\nsome scenes or objects that makes them esthetic stimuli for certain\nindividuals. Basically, of course, it must have some reference to each\nman's background of stored-up mental associations; for no two people\nhave the same scale of sensitiveness and responses. For some of us\nall ordinary things have ceased to have any emotional or imaginative\nsignificance, but no one responds in the same way to exactly the same\nextraordinary thing. Now take me, for instance....\n\n\"'I know, Denny, that I can say these things to you because you have\nsuch a preternaturally unspoiled mind--clean, objective, and all that.\nYou won't misunderstand. The fact is, I think I know what's needed to\nset my imagination working again. I've had a dim idea of it ever since\nwe were in Paris, but I'm sure now. It's Marceline, old chap; that face\nand that hair, and the train of shadowy images they bring up. Not\nmerely visible beauty--though God knows there's enough of that--but\nsomething peculiar and individualized, that can't exactly be explained.\nDo you know, in the last few days I've felt the existence of such a\nstimulus so keenly that I honestly think I could outdo myself, if I\ncould get hold of paint and canvas at just the time when her face and\nhair set my fancy stirring and weaving.\n\n\"'There is something weird and other-worldly about it, something joined\nup with the dim ancient thing Marceline represents. I don't know how\nmuch she's told you about that side of her, but I can assure you\nthere's plenty to it. She has some marvelous links with the outside.'\n\n\"Some change in Denis' expression must have halted the speaker here,\nfor there was a considerable spell of silence before the words went on.\nI was utterly taken aback, for I'd expected no such overt development\nas this, and I wondered what my son could be thinking. My heart\nbegan to pound violently, and I strained my ears in the frankest of\nintentional eavesdropping. Then Marsh resumed.\n\n\"'Of course you're jealous--I know how a speech like mine must\nsound--but I can swear to you that you needn't be.'\n\n\"Denis did not answer, and Marsh went on.\n\n\"'To tell the truth, I could never be in love with Marceline--I\ncouldn't even be a cordial friend of hers in the warmest sense. Why,\ndamn it all, I feel like a hypocrite talking with her these days as\nI've been doing.\n\n\"'The case simply is, that one phase of her half hypnotizes me in a\ncertain way--a very strange, fantastic, and dimly terrible way--just\nas another phase half hypnotizes you in a much more normal way. I see\nsomething in her--or to be psychologically exact, something through\nher or beyond her--that you don't see at all; something that brings up\na vast pageantry of shapes from forgotten abysses, and makes me want\nto paint incredible things whose outlines vanish the instant I try to\nenvisage them clearly. Don't mistake, Denny: your wife is a magnificent\nbeing, a splendid focus of cosmic forces who has a right to be called\ndivine if anything on earth has!'\n\n\"I felt a clearing of the situation at this point, for the abstract\nstrangeness of Marsh's expressed sentiment, plus the flattery he was\nnow heaping on Marceline, could not fail to disarm and mollify one as\nfondly proud of his consort as Denis always was. Marsh evidently caught\nthe change himself, for there was more confidence in his tone as he\ncontinued.\n\n\"'I must paint her, Denny, must paint that hair, and you won't regret\nit. There's something more than mortal about that hair, something more\nthan beautiful----'\n\n\"He paused, and I wondered what Denis could be thinking. Was Marsh's\ninterest actually that of the artist alone, or was he merely infatuated\nas Denis had been? I had thought, in their school days, that he had\nenvied my boy, and I dimly felt that it might be the same now. On\nthe other hand, something in that talk of artistic stimulus had rung\namazingly true; so that the more I pondered, the more I was inclined to\ntake the stuff at face value. Denis seemed to do so, too, for although\nI could not catch his low-spoken reply, I could tell by the effect it\nproduced that it must have been affirmative.\n\n\"There was a sound of someone slapping another on the back, and then a\ngrateful speech from Marsh that I was long to remember.\n\n\"'That's great, Denny; and just as I told you, you'll never regret\nit. In a sense, I'm half doing it for you. You'll be a different man\nwhen you see it. It'll put you back where you used to be--give you a\nwaking-up and a sort of salvation--but you can't see what I mean as\nyet. Just remember old friendship, and don't get the idea that I'm not\nthe same old bird!'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I rose perplexedly as I saw the two stroll off across the lawn, arm\nin arm. What could Marsh have meant by his strange and almost ominous\nreassurance? The more my fears were quieted in one direction, the more\nthey were aroused in another. Look at it in any way I could, it seemed\nto be rather a bad business.\n\n\"But matters got started just the same. Denis fixed up an attic room\nwith skylights, and Marsh sent for all sorts of painting equipment.\nEveryone was rather excited about the new venture, and I was at least\nglad that something was on foot to break the brooding tension.\n\n\"Soon the sittings began, and we all took them quite seriously, for we\ncould see that Marsh regarded them as important artistic events. Denny\nand I used to go quietly about the house as though something sacred\nwere occurring.\n\n\"With Marceline, though, it was a different matter, as I began to see\nat once. Whatever Marsh's reactions to the sittings may have been, hers\nwere painfully obvious. Every possible way she betrayed a frank and\ncommonplace infatuation for the artist, and would repulse Denis' marks\nof affection whenever she dared. Oddly, I noticed this more vividly\nthan Denis himself, and tried to devise some plan for keeping the\nboy's mind easy until the matter could be straightened out. There was\nno use in having him excited about it if it could be helped.\n\n\"In the end I decided that Denis had better be away while the\ndisagreeable situation existed. I could represent his interests well\nenough at this end, and sooner or later Marsh would finish the picture\nand go. My view of Marsh's honor was such that I did not look for any\nworse developments. When the matter had blown over, and Marceline had\nforgotten about her new infatuation, it would be time enough to have\nDenis on hand again.\n\n\"So I wrote a long letter to my marketing and financial agent in New\nYork, and cooked up a plan to have the boy summoned there for an\nindefinite time. I had the agent write him that our affairs absolutely\nrequired one of us to go East, and of course my illness made it clear\nthat I could not be the one. It was arranged that when Denis got to New\nYork he would find enough plausible matters to keep him busy as long as\nI thought he ought to be away.\n\n\"The plan worked perfectly, and Denis started for New York without\nthe least suspicion. Marceline and Marsh went with him in the car to\nCape Girardeau, where he caught the afternoon train to St. Louis. They\nreturned about dark, and as McCabe drove the car back to the stables I\ncould hear them talking on the veranda. This time I resolved to do some\nintentional eavesdropping, so quietly went down to the front parlor and\nstretched out on the sofa near the window.\n\n\"At first I could hear nothing, but very shortly there came a sound as\nof a chair being shifted, followed by a short, sharp breath and a sort\nof inarticulately hurt exclamation from Marceline. Then I heard Marsh\nspeaking in a strained, almost formal voice.\n\n\"'I'd enjoy working tonight--if you're not too tired.'\n\n\"Marceline's reply was in the same hurt tone which had marked her\nexclamation. She used English, as he had done.\n\n\"'Oh, Frank, is that really all you care about? Forever working! Can't\nwe just sit out in this glorious moonlight?'\n\n\"He answered impatiently, his voice showing a certain contempt beneath\nthe dominant quality of artistic enthusiasm.\n\n\"'Moonlight! Good God, what cheap sentimentality! For a supposedly\nsophisticated person you surely do hang on to some of the crudest\nclaptrap that ever escaped from the dime novels. With art at your\nelbow, you have to think of the moon! Or perhaps it makes you think of\nthe Roodmus dance around the stone pillars at Auteuil; hell! how you\nused to make those goggle-eyed yaps stare! But no, I suppose you've\ndropped all that now. No more Atlantean magic or hair-snake rites for\nMadame de Russy! I'm the only one to remember the old things, the\nthings that came down through the temples of Tanit and called on the\nramparts of Zimbabwe. But I won't be cheated of that remembrance--all\nthat is weaving itself into the thing on my canvas--the thing that is\ngoing to capture wonder and crystallize the secrets of seventy-five\nthousand years.'\n\n\"Marceline interrupted in a voice full of mixed emotions.\n\n\"'It's you who are cheaply sentimental now! You know well that the old\nthings had better be let alone. All of you had better look out if ever\nI chant the old rites or try to call up what lies hidden in Yuggoth,\nZimbabwe, and Rl'yeh. I thought you had more sense!\n\n\"'You lack logic. You want me to be interested in this precious\npainting of yours, yet you never let me see what you're doing. Always\nthat black cloth over it! It's of me--I shouldn't think it would matter\nif I saw it.'\n\n\"Marsh was interrupting this time, his voice curiously hard and\nstrained.\n\n\"'No. Not now. You'll see it in due time. You say it's of you--yes,\nit's that, but it's more. If you knew, you mightn't be so impatient.\nPoor Denis! My God, it's a shame!'\n\n\"My throat went suddenly dry as the words rose to an almost febrile\npitch. What could Marsh mean? Suddenly I saw that he had stopped and\nwas entering the house alone. I heard the front door slam, and listened\nas his footsteps ascended the stairs. Outside on the veranda I could\nstill hear Marceline's heavy, angry breathing. I crept away sick at\nheart, feeling that there were grave things to ferret out before I\ncould safely let Denis come back.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"After that evening the tension around the place was even worse than\nbefore. Marceline had always lived on flattery and fawning, and\nthe shock of those few blunt words from Marsh was too much for her\ntemperament.\n\n\"There was no living in the house with her any more, for with poor\nDenis gone she took out her abusiveness on everybody. When she could\nfind no one indoors to quarrel with she would go out to Sophonisba's\ncabin and spend hours talking with the queer old Zulu woman. Aunt Sophy\nwas the only person who would fawn abjectly enough to suit her, and\nwhen I tried once to overhear their conversation I found Marceline\nwhispering about _elder secrets_ and _unknown_ Kadath while the\nNegress rocked to and fro in her chair, making inarticulate sounds of\nreverence and admiration every now and then.\n\n\"But nothing could break her dog-like infatuation for Marsh. She\nwould talk bitterly and sullenly to him, yet was getting more and\nmore obedient to his wishes. It was very convenient for him, since\nhe now became able to make her pose for the picture whenever he felt\nlike painting. He tried to show gratitude for this willingness, but I\nthought I could detect a kind of contempt or even loathing beneath his\ncareful politeness. For my part, I frankly hated Marceline! There was\nno use in calling my attitude anything as mild as mere dislike these\ndays. Certainly, I was glad Denis was away. His letters, not nearly so\nfrequent as I wished, showed signs of strain and worry.\n\n\"As the middle of August went by I gathered from Marsh's remarks that\nthe portrait was nearly done. His mood seemed increasingly sardonic,\nthough Marceline's temper improved a bit, as the prospect of seeing the\nthing tickled her vanity. I can still recall the day when Marsh said\nhe'd have everything finished within a week. Marceline brightened up\nperceptibly, though not without a venomous look at me. It seemed as if\nher coiled hair visibly tightened about her head.\n\n\"'I'm to be the first to see it!' she snapped. Then, smiling at Marsh,\nshe added, 'And if I don't like it I shall slash it to pieces!'\n\n\"Marsh's face took on the most curious look I had ever seen it wear as\nhe answered her.\n\n\"'I can't vouch for your taste, Marceline, but I swear it will\nbe magnificent! Not that I want to take much credit--art creates\nitself--and this thing had to be done. Just wait!'\n\n\"During the next few days I felt a queer sense of foreboding, as if\nthe completion of the picture meant a kind of catastrophe instead of a\nrelief. Denis, too, had not written me, and my agent in New York said\nhe was planning some trip to the country. I wondered what the outcome\nof the whole thing would be. What a queer mixture of elements--Marsh\nand Marceline, Denis and I! How would all these ultimately react on one\nanother? When my fears grew too great I tried to lay them all to my\ninfirmity, but that explanation never quite satisfied me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Well, the thing exploded on Tuesday, the 26th of August. I had risen\nat my usual time and had breakfast, but was not good for much because\nof the pain in my spine. It had been troubling me badly of late, and\nforcing me to take opiates when it got too unbearable; nobody else was\ndownstairs except the servants, though I could hear Marceline moving\nabout in her room. Marsh slept in the attic next his studio, and had\nbegun to keep such late hours that he was seldom up till noon. About\nten o'clock the pain got the better of me, so that I took a double dose\nof my opiate and lay down on the parlor sofa. The last I heard was\nMarceline's pacing overhead. Poor creature--if I had known! She must\nhave been walking before the long mirror admiring herself. That was\nlike her--vain from start to finish, reveling in her own beauty, just\nas she reveled in all the little luxuries Denis was able to give her.\n\n\"I didn't wake up till near sunset, and knew instantly how long I had\nslept from the golden light and long shadows outside the window. Nobody\nwas about, and a sort of unnatural stillness seemed to be hovering over\neverything. From afar, though, I thought I could sense a faint howling,\nwild and intermittent, whose quality had a slight but baffling\nfamiliarity about it. I'm not much for psychic premonitions, but I was\nfrightfully uneasy from the start. There had been dreams, even worse\nthan the ones I had been dreaming in the weeks before; and this time\nthey seemed hideously linked to some black and festering reality. The\nwhole place had a poisonous air. Afterward I reflected that certain\nsounds must have filtered through to my unconscious brain during those\nhours of drugged sleep. My pain, though, was very much eased, and I\nrose and walked without difficulty.\n\n\"Soon enough I began to see that something was wrong. Marsh and\nMarceline might have been riding, but someone ought to have been\ngetting dinner in the kitchen. Instead there was only silence, except\nfor that faint distant howl or wail, and nobody answered when I pulled\nthe old-fashioned bell-cord to summon Scipio. Then, chancing to look\nup, I saw the spreading stain on the ceiling--the bright red stain,\nthat must have come through the floor of Marceline's room.\n\n\"In an instant I forgot my crippled back and hurried upstairs to find\nout the worst. Everything under the sun raced through my mind as I\nstruggled with the dampness-warped door of that silent chamber, and\nmost hideous of all was a terrible sense of malign fulfilment and\nfatal expectedness. I had, it struck me, known all along that nameless\nhorrors were gathering; that something profoundly evil had gained a\nfoothold under my roof from which only blood and tragedy could result.\n\n\"The door gave at last, and I stumbled into the large room beyond--all\ndim from the branches of the great trees outside the windows. For a\nmoment I could do nothing but flinch at the faint evil odor that\nimmediately struck my nostrils. Then, turning on the electric light and\nglancing around, I glimpsed a nameless blasphemy on the yellow and blue\nrug.\n\n\"It lay face down in a great pool of dark, thickened blood, and had\nthe gory print of a shod human foot in the middle of its naked back.\nBlood was spattered everywhere--on the walls, furniture and floor. My\nknees gave way as I took in the sight, so that I had to stumble to\na chair and slump down. The thing had obviously been a human being,\nthough its identity was not easy to establish at first, since it was\nwithout clothes and had most of its hair hacked and torn from the\nscalp in a very crude way. It was of a deep ivory color, and I knew\nthat it must have been Marceline. The shoeprint on the back made the\nthing seem all the more hellish. I could not even picture the strange,\nloathsome tragedy which must have taken place while I slept in the room\nbelow. When I raised my hand to wipe my dripping forehead I saw that\nmy fingers were sticky with blood. I shuddered, then realized that it\nmust have come from the knob of the door which the unknown murderer had\nforced shut behind him as he left. He had taken his weapon with him, it\nseemed, for no instrument of death was visible here.\n\n\"As I studied the floor I saw that a line of sticky footprints like the\none on the body led away from the horror to the door. There was another\nblood-trail, too, and of a less easily explainable kind; a broadish,\ncontinuous line, as if marking the path of some huge snake. At first\nI concluded it must be due to something the murderer had dragged\nafter him. Then, noting the way some of the footprints seemed to be\nsuperimposed on it, I was forced to believe that it had been there when\nthe murderer left. But what crawling entity could have been in that\nroom with the victim and her assassin, leaving before the killer when\nthe deed was done? As I asked myself this question, I thought I heard\nfresh bursts of that faint, distant wailing.\n\n\"Finally, rousing myself from a lethargy of horror, I got on my feet\nagain and began following the footprints. Who the murderer was, I\ncould not even faintly guess, nor could I try to explain the absence\nof the servants. I vaguely felt that I ought to go up to Marsh's attic\nquarters, but before I had fully formulated the idea I saw that the\nbloody trail was indeed taking me there. Was he himself the murderer?\nHad he gone mad under the strain of the morbid situation and suddenly\nrun amok?\n\n\"In the attic corridor the trail became faint, the prints almost\nceasing as they merged with the dark carpet. I could still, however,\ndiscern the strange single path of the entity which had gone first, and\nthis led straight to the closed door of Marsh's studio, disappearing\nbeneath it at a point about halfway from side to side. Evidently it had\ncrossed the threshold at a time when the door was wide open.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Sick at heart, I tried the knob and found the door unlocked. Opening\nit, I paused in the waning north light to see what fresh nightmare\nmight be waiting me. There was certainly something human on the floor,\nand I reached for the switch to turn on the chandelier.\n\n\"But as the light flashed up, my gaze left the floor and its\nhorror--that was Marsh, poor devil!--to fix itself frantically and\nincredulously upon the living thing that cowered and stared in the open\ndoorway leading to Marsh's bedroom. It was a tousled, wild-eyed thing,\ncrusted with the dried blood and carrying in its hand a wicked machete\nwhich had been one of the ornaments of the studio wall. Yet even in\nthat awful moment I recognized it as one whom I had thought more than\na thousand miles away. It was my own boy Denis--or the maddened wreck\nwhich had once been Denis.\n\n\"The sight of me seemed to bring back a trifle of sanity--or at least\nof memory--in the poor boy. He straightened up and began to toss his\nhead about as if trying to shake free from some enveloping influence.\nI could not speak a word, but moved my lips in an effort to get back\nmy voice. My eyes wandered for a moment to the figure on the floor in\nfront of the heavily draped easel--the figure toward which the strange\nblood-trail led, and which seemed to be tangled in the coils of some\ndark, ropy object. The shifting of my glance apparently produced some\nimpression in the twisted brain of the boy, for suddenly he began to\nmutter in a hoarse whisper, the purport of which I was soon able to\ncatch.\n\n\"'I had to exterminate her--she was the devil!--the summit of\nhigh-priestess of all evil--the spawn of the pit--Marsh knew, and tried\nto warn me. Good old Frank! I didn't kill him, though I was ready to\nbefore I realized. But I went down there and killed her--then that\ncursed hair----'\n\n\"I listened in horror as Denis choked, paused, and began again.\n\n\"'You didn't know--her letters got queer and I knew she was with\nMarsh. Then she nearly stopped writing. He never mentioned her--I felt\nsomething was wrong, and thought I ought to come back and find out.\nCouldn't tell you--your manner would have given it away. Wanted to\nsurprise them. Got here about noon today--came in a cab and sent the\nhouse-servants all off--let the field hands alone, for their cabins are\nall out of earshot. Told McCabe to get me some things in Cape Girardeau\nand not bother to come back till tomorrow. Had all the niggers take the\nold car and let Mary drive them to Bend Village for a vacation--told\n'em we were all going on some sort of outing and wouldn't need help.\nSaid they'd better stay all night with Uncle Scip's cousin, who keeps\nthat nigger boarding-house.'\n\n\"Denis was getting very coherent now, and I strained my ears to grasp\nevery word. Again I thought I heard that wild, far-off wail, but the\nstory had first place for the present.\n\n\"'Saw you sleeping in the parlor, and took a chance you wouldn't wake\nup. Then went upstairs on the quiet to hunt up Marsh and--that woman!'\n\n\"The boy shuddered as he avoided pronouncing Marceline's name. At\nthe same time I saw his eyes dilate in unison with a bursting of the\ndistant crying, whose vague familiarity had now become very great.\n\n\"'She was not in her room, so I went up to the studio. Door was shut,\nand I could hear voices inside. Didn't knock--just burst in and found\nher posing for the picture. Nude, but with that hellish hair all draped\naround her. And making all sorts of sheep's-eyes at Marsh. He had the\neasel turned half away from the door, so I couldn't see the picture.\nBoth of them were pretty well jolted when I showed up, and Marsh\ndropped his brush. I was in a rage and told him he'd have to show me\nthe portrait, but he got calmer every minute--told me it wasn't quite\ndone, but would be in a day or two--said I could see it then--she\nhadn't seen it.\n\n\"'But that didn't go with me. I stepped up, and he dropped a velvet\ncurtain over the thing before I could see it. He was ready to fight\nbefore letting me see it, but that--that--she--stepped up and sided\nwith me. Said we ought to see it. Frank got horribly worked up, and\ngave me a punch when I tried to get at the curtain. I punched back and\nseemed to have knocked him out. Then I was almost knocked out myself by\nthe shriek that--that creature--gave. She'd drawn aside the hangings\nherself, and had caught a look at what Marsh had been painting. I\nwheeled around and saw her rushing like mad out of the room. _Then I\nsaw the picture._'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Madness flared up in the boy's eyes again as he got to this place, and\nI thought for a minute he was going to spring at me with his machete.\nBut after a pause he partly steadied himself.\n\n\"'O God--that thing! Don't ever look at it! Burn it with the hangings\naround it and throw the ashes into the river! Marsh knew--and was\nwarning me. He knew what it was--what that woman--that leopardess, or\ngorgon, or lamia, or whatever she was--actually represented. He'd tried\nto hint to me ever since I met her in his Paris studio, but it couldn't\nbe told in words. I thought they all wronged her when they whispered\nhorrors about her, but this picture has caught the whole secret--the\nwhole monstrous background!\n\n\"'God, but Frank is an artist! That thing is the greatest piece of work\nany living soul has produced since Rembrandt! It's a crime to burn\nit, but it would be a greater crime to let it exist--just as it would\nhave been an abhorrent sin to let that she-demon exist any longer. The\nminute I saw it I understood what she was, and what part she played\nin the frightful secret that has come down from the days of Cthulhu\nand the Elder Ones--the secret that was nearly wiped out when Atlantis\nsunk, but that kept half alive in hidden traditions and allegorical\nmyths and furtive, midnight cult-practises. She was the real thing. It\nwasn't any fake. It would have been merciful if it had been a fake. It\nwas the old, hideous shadow that philosophers never dared mention--the\nthing hinted of in the _Necronomicon_ and symbolized in the Easter\nIsland colossi.\n\n\"'She thought we couldn't see through--that the false front would\nhold till we had bartered away our immortal souls. And she was half\nright--she'd have got me in the end. She was only--waiting. But\nFrank--good old Frank--was too much for her. _He knew what it all\nmeant, and painted it._ I don't wonder she shrieked and ran off when\nshe saw it. It wasn't quite done, but God knows _enough was there_.\n\n\"'Then I knew I'd got to kill her--kill her, and everything connected\nwith her. It was a taint that wholesome human blood couldn't bear.\nThere was something else, too--but you'll never know that if you burn\nthe picture without looking. I staggered down to her room with this\nmachete that I got off the wall here, leaving Frank still knocked out.\nHe was breathing, though, and I knew and thanked heaven that I hadn't\nkilled him.\n\n\"'I found her in front of the mirror braiding that accursed hair. She\nturned on me like a wild beast, and began spitting out her hatred of\nMarsh. The fact that she'd been in love with him (and I knew she had)\nonly made it worse. For a minute I couldn't move, and she came within\nan ace of completely hypnotizing me. Then I thought of the picture,\nand the spell broke. She saw the breaking in my eyes, and must have\nnoticed the machete too. I never saw anything but a wild jungle\nbeast look as she did then. She sprang for me with claws out like a\nleopard's, but I was too quick. I swung the machete, and it was all\nover.'\n\n\"Denis had to stop again there, and I saw the perspiration running down\nhis forehead through the spattered blood. But in a moment he hoarsely\nresumed.\n\n\"'I said it was all over--but God! some of it had only just begun! I\nfelt I had fought the legions of Satan, and put my foot on the back\nof the thing I had annihilated. _Then I saw that blasphemous braid of\ncoarse black hair began to twist and squirm of itself._\n\n\"'I might have known it. It was all in the old tales. That damnable\nhair had a life of its own, that couldn't be ended by killing the\ncreature herself. I knew I'd have to burn it, so I started to hack it\noff with the machete. God, but it was devilish work! Tough--like iron\nwires--but I managed to do it. And it was loathsome the way the big\nbraid writhed and struggled in my grasp.\n\n\"'About the time I had the last strand cut or pulled off I heard the\neldritch wailing from behind the house. It's still going, off and on.\nI don't know what it is, but it must be something springing from this\nhellish business. It half seems like something I ought to know but\ncan't quite place. It got my nerves the first time I heard it, and I\ndropped the severed braid in my fright. Then I got a worse fright,\nfor in another second the braid had turned on me and began to strike\nvenomously with one of its ends which had knotted itself up like a\nsort of grotesque head. I struck out with the machete, and it turned\naway. Then, when I had my breath again, I saw that the monstrous thing\nwas crawling along the floor by itself like a great black snake. I\ncouldn't do anything for a while, but when it vanished through the door\nI managed to pull myself together and stumble after it. I could follow\nthe broad, bloody trail, and I saw it led upstairs. It brought me\nhere--and may heaven curse me if I didn't see it through the doorway,\nstriking at poor dazed Marsh like a maddened rattler as it had struck\nat me, finally coiling around him as a python would. He had begun to\ncome to, but that abominable serpent thing got him before he was on\nhis feet. I knew that all of that woman's hatred was behind it, but\nI hadn't the power to pull it off. I tried, but it was too much for\nme. Even the machete was no good--I couldn't swing it freely or it\nwould have slashed Frank to pieces. So I saw those monstrous coils\ntighten--saw poor Frank crushed to death before my eyes--and all the\ntime that awful faint howling came from somewhere beyond the fields.\n\n[Illustration: \"I saw those monstrous coils tighten--saw poor Frank\ncrushed to death before my eyes.\"]\n\n\"'That's all. I pulled the velvet cloth over the picture, and I hope\nit'll never be lifted. The thing must be burnt. I couldn't pry the\ncoils off poor, dead Frank--they clung to him like a leech, and seemed\nto have lost their motion altogether. It's as if that snaky rope of\nhair had a kind of perverse fondness for the man it killed--it's\nclinging to him--embracing him. You'll have to burn poor Frank with\nit--but for God's sake don't forget to see it in ashes! That and the\npicture. They must both go. The safety of the world demands that they\ngo!'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Denis might have whispered more, but a fresh burst of distant wailing\ncut us short. For the first time we knew what it was, for a westerly\nveering wind brought articulate words at last. We ought to have known\nlong before, since sounds much like it had often come from the same\nsource. It was wrinkled Sophonisba, the ancient Zulu witchwoman who\nhad fawned on Marceline, keening from her cabin in a way which crowned\nthe horrors of this nightmare tragedy. We could both hear some of the\nthings she howled, and knew that secret and primordial bonds linked\nthis savage sorceress with that other inheritor of Elder secrets who\nhad just been extirpated. Some of the words she used betrayed her\ncloseness to demonic and palesgean traditions.\n\n\"'_I\u00e4! I\u00e4! Shub-Niggurath! Ya-R'lyeh! N'gagi n'bulu bwana n'lolo!_ Ya,\nyo, pore Missy Tanit, pore Missy Isis! Marse Clooloo, come up outen\nde water an' git yo' chile--she done daid! She done daid! De har ain'\ngot no missus no mo', Marse Clooloo. Ol' Sophy, she know! Ol' Sophy,\nshe done got de black stone outen Big Zimbabwe in ol' Affriky! Ol'\nSophy, she done dance in de moonshine roun' de crocodile-stone befo' de\nN'bangus cotch her and sell her to de ship folks! No mo' Tanit! No mo'\nIsis! No mo' witchwoman to keep de fire a-goin' in de big stone place!\nYa, yo! _N'gagi 'bulu bwana m'lolo! I\u00e4! Shub-Niggurath!_ She daid! Ol'\nSophy know!'\n\n\"That wasn't the end of the wailing, but it was all I could pay\nattention to. The expression on my boy's face showed that it had\nreminded him of something frightful, and the tightening of his hand\non the machete boded no good. I knew he was desperate, and sprang to\ndisarm him if possible before he could do anything more.\n\n\"But I was too late. An old man with a bad spine doesn't count for much\nphysically. There was a struggle, but he had done for himself before\nmany seconds were over. I'm not sure yet but that he tried to kill me,\ntoo. His last panting words were something about the need of wiping out\neverything that had ever been connected with Marceline, either by blood\nor marriage.\n\n\"I wonder to this day that I didn't go stark mad in that instant, or in\nthe moments and hours afterward. In front of me was the slain body of\nmy boy, the only human being I had to cherish, and ten feet away, in\nfront of that shrouded easel, was the body of his best friend, with a\nnameless coil of horror wound around it. Below was the scalped corpse\nof that she-monster, about whom I was half ready to believe anything. I\nwas too dazed to analyze the probability of the hair story, and even if\nI had not been, that dismal howling from Aunt Sophy's cabin would have\nbeen enough to quiet doubt.\n\n\"If I'd been wise, I'd have done just what poor Denis told me\nto--burned the picture and the body-grasping hair at once and without\ncuriosity--but I was too shaken to be wise. I suppose I muttered\nfoolish things over my boy--and then I remembered that the night was\nwearing on and that the servants would be back in the morning. It was\nplain that a matter like this could never be explained, and I knew that\nI must cover things up and invent a story.\n\n\"That coil of hair around Marsh was a monstrous thing. I didn't dare\ntouch it, and the longer I looked at it the more horrible things I\nnoticed about it. One thing gave me a start. I won't mention it, but\nit partly explained the need for feeding the hair with queer oils as\nMarceline had always done.\n\n\"In the end I decided to bury all three bodies in the cellar, with\nquicklime, which I knew we had in the storehouse. It was a night of\nhellish work. I dug three graves--my boy's a long way from the other\ntwo, for I didn't want him to be near either the woman's body or her\nhair. I was sorry I couldn't get the coil from around poor Marsh. It\nwas terrible work getting them all down to the cellar. I used blankets\nin carting the woman and the poor devil with the coil around him. Then\nI had to get two barrels of lime from the storehouse. God must have\ngiven me strength, for I not only moved them both but filled all three\ngraves without a hitch.\n\n\"Some of the lime I made into white-wash. I had to take a stepladder\nand fix over the parlor ceiling where the blood had oozed through. And\nI burned nearly everything in Marceline's room, scrubbing the walls\nand floor and heavy furniture. I washed up the attic studio, too, and\nthe trail and footprints that led there. And all the time I could hear\nold Sophy's wailing in the distance. The devil must have been in that\ncreature to let her voice go on like that. But she always was howling\nqueer things. That's why the field niggers didn't get scared or curious\nthat night. I locked the studio door and took the key to my room. Then\nI burned all my stained clothes in the fire-place. By dawn the whole\nhouse looked quite normal, so far as any casual eye could tell. I\nhadn't dared touch the covered easel, but meant to attend to that later.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Well, the servants came back next day, and I told them all the young\nfolks had gone to St. Louis. None of the field hands seemed to have\nseen or heard anything, and old Sophonisba's wailing had stopped at the\ninstant of sunrise. She was like a sphinx after that, and never let out\na word of what had been on her brooding witch-brain the day and night\nbefore.\n\n\"Later on I pretended that Denis and Marsh and Marceline had gone\nback to Paris and had a certain discreet agency mail me letters from\nthere--letters I had fixed up in forged handwriting. I had the deaths\nof Marsh and Denis reported during the war, and later said Marceline\nhad entered a convent. Fortunately Marsh was an orphan whose eccentric\nways had alienated him from his people in Louisiana. Things might have\nbeen patched up a good deal better for me if I had had the sense to\nburn the picture, sell the plantation, and give up trying to manage\nthings with a shaken and overstrained mind. You see what my folly\nhas brought me to. Failing crops, hands discharged one by one, place\nfalling to ruin, and myself a hermit and a target for dozens of\nqueer countryside stories. Nobody will come around here after dark\nnowadays--or any other time if it can be helped. That's why I knew you\nmust be a stranger.\n\n\"And why do I stay here? I can't wholly tell you that. It's bound up\ntoo closely with things at the very rim of sane reality. It wouldn't\nhave been so, perhaps, if I hadn't looked at the picture. I ought to\nhave done as poor Denis told me. I honestly meant to burn it when I\nwent up to that locked studio a week after the horror, but I looked\nfirst--and that changed everything.\n\n\"No--there's no use telling what I saw. You can, in a way, see for\nyourself presently; though time and dampness have done their work. I\ndon't think it can hurt you if you want to take a look, but it was\ndifferent with me. I knew too much of what it all meant.\n\n\"Denis had been right--it was the greatest triumph of human art since\nRembrandt, even though still unfinished. I grasped that at the start,\nand knew that poor Marsh had justified his decadent philosophy. He was\nto painting what Baudelaire was to poetry, and Marceline was the key\nthat had unlocked his inmost genius.\n\n\"The thing almost stunned me when I pulled aside the hangings--stunned\nme before I half knew what the whole thing was. You know, it's only\npartly a portrait. Marsh had been pretty literal when he hinted that he\nwasn't painting Marceline alone, but what he saw through her and beyond\nher.\n\n\"Of course she was in it--was the key to it, in a sense--but her figure\nonly formed one point in a vast composition. She was nude except for\nthat hideous web of hair spun around her, and was half seated, half\nreclining on a sort of bench or divan, carved in patterns unlike those\nof any known decorative tradition. There was a monstrously shaped\ngoblet in one hand, from which was spilling fluid whose color I haven't\nbeen able to place or classify to this day.\n\n\"The figure and the divan were in the left-hand foreground of the\nstrangest sort of scene I ever saw in my life. I think there was a\nfaint suggestion of its all being a kind of emanation from the woman's\nbrain; yet there was also a directly opposite suggestion--as if she\nwere just an evil image or hallucination conjured up by the scene\nitself.\n\n\"I can't tell you now whether it's an exterior or an interior, whether\nthose hellish cyclopean vaultings are seen from the outside or the\ninside, or whether they are indeed carven stone and not merely a morbid\nfungous arborescence. The geometry of the whole thing is crazy--one\ngets the acute and obtuse angles all mixed up.\n\n\"And God! The shapes of nightmare that float around in that perpetual\ndemon twilight! The blasphemies that lurk and leer and hold a witches'\nsabbat with that woman as a high priestess! The black shaggy entities\nthat are not quite goats--the crocodile-headed beast with three legs\nand a dorsal row of tentacles--and the flat-nosed \u00c6gipans dancing in a\npattern that Egypt's priests knew and called accursed!\n\n\"But the scene wasn't Egypt--it was _behind_ Egypt; behind even\nAtlantis; behind fabled Mu, and myth-whispered Lemuria. It was the\nultimate fountainhead of all horror on this earth, and the symbolism\nshowed only too clearly how integral a part of it Marceline was. I\nthink it must be the unmentionable R'lyeh, that was not built by any\ncreatures of our planet--the thing Marsh and Denis used to talk about\nin the shadows with hushed voices. In the picture it appears that the\nwhole scene is deep under water, though everybody seems to be breathing\nfreely.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Well, I couldn't do anything but look and shudder, and finally I saw\nthat Marceline was watching me craftily out of those monstrous, dilated\neyes on the canvas. It was no mere superstition--Marsh had actually\ncaught something of her horrible vitality in his symphonies of line and\ncolor; so that she still brooded and stared and hated, just as if most\nof her weren't down in the cellar under quicklime. _And it was worst of\nall when some of those Hecate-born snaky strands of hair began to lift\nthemselves up from the surface and grope out into the room toward me!_\n\n\"Then it was that I knew the last final horror, and realized I was a\nguardian and a prisoner for ever. She was the thing from which the\nfirst dim legends of Medusa and the Gorgons had sprung, and something\nin my shaken will had been captured and turned to stone at last.\nNever again would I be safe from those coiling snaky strands--the\nstrands in the picture, and those that lay brooding under the lime\nnear the wine casks. All too late I recalled the tales of the virtual\nindestructibility, even through centuries of burial, of the hair of the\ndead.\n\n\"My life since has been nothing but horror and slavery. Always there\nhas lurked the fear of what broods down in the cellar. In less than a\nmonth the niggers began whispering about the great black snake that\ncrawled around near the wine casks after dark, and about the curious\nway its trail would lead to another spot six feet away. Finally I had\nto move everything to another part of the cellar, for not a darky could\nbe induced to go near the place where the snake was seen.\n\n\"Then the field hands began talking about the black snake that visited\nold Sophonisba's cabin every night after midnight. One of them showed\nme its trail, and not long afterward I found out that Aunt Sophy\nherself had begun to pay strange visits to the cellar of the big house,\nlingering and muttering for hours in the very spot where none of the\nother blacks would go. God, but I was glad when that old witch died! I\nhonestly believe she had been a priestess of some ancient and terrible\ntradition back in Africa. She must have lived to be almost a hundred\nand fifty years old.\n\n\"Sometimes I think I hear something gliding around the house at night.\nThere will be a queer noise on the stairs, where the boards are loose,\nand the latch of my room will rattle as if with an inward pressure. I\nalways keep my door locked, of course. Then there are certain mornings\nwhen I seem to catch a sickish musty odor in the corridors, and notice\na faint, ropy trail through the dust of the floors. I know I must\nguard the hair in the picture, for if anything were to happen to it,\nthere are entities in this house which would take a sure and terrible\nrevenge. I don't even dare to die; for life and death are all one to\nthose in the clutch of what came out of R'lyeh. Something would be on\nhand to punish my neglect. Medusa's coil has got me, and it will always\nbe the same. Never mix up with secret and ultimate horror, young man,\nif you value your immortal soul.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs the old man finished his story I saw that the small lamp had long\nsince burned dry, and that the large one was nearly empty. It must, I\nknew, be near dawn; and my ears told me that the storm was over. The\ntale had held me in a half-daze, and I almost feared to glance at the\ndoor lest it reveal an inward pressure from some unnameable source. It\nwould be hard to say which had the greatest hold on me--stark horror,\nincredulity, or a kind of morbid fantastic curiosity. I was wholly\nbeyond speech and had to wait for my strange host to break the spell.\n\n\"Do you want to see--the thing?\"\n\nHis voice was very low and hesitant, and I saw he was tremendously in\nearnest. Of my various emotions, curiosity gained the upper hand, and\nI nodded silently. He rose, lighting a candle on a near-by table and\nholding it high before him as he opened the door.\n\n\"Come with me--upstairs.\"\n\nI dreaded to brave those musty corridors again, but fascination downed\nall my qualms. The boards creaked beneath our feet, and I trembled once\nwhen I thought I saw a faint, rope-like line traced in the dust near\nthe staircase.\n\nThe steps of the attic were noisy and rickety, with several of the\ntreads missing. I was glad of the need of looking sharply to my\nfooting, for it gave me an excuse not to glance about. The attic\ncorridor was pitch-black and heavily cobwebbed, and inch-deep with dust\nexcept where a beaten trail led to a door on the left at the farther\nend. As I noticed the rotting remains of a thick carpet, I thought of\nthe other feet which had pressed it in bygone decades--of these, and of\none thing which did not have feet.\n\nThe old man took me straight to the door at the end of the beaten path,\nand fumbled a second with the rusty latch. I was acutely frightened now\nthat I knew the picture was so close, yet dared not retreat at this\nstage. In another moment my host was ushering me into the deserted\nstudio.\n\nThe candlelight was very faint, yet served to show most of the\nprincipal features. I noticed the low, slanting roof, the huge enlarged\ndormer, the curios and trophies hung on the walls, and most of all, the\ngreat shrouded easel in the center of the floor. To that easel de Russy\nnow walked, drawing aside the dusty velvet hangings on the side turned\naway from me, and motioning me silently to approach. It took a good\ndeal of courage to make me obey, especially when I saw how my guide's\neyes dilated in the wavering candlelight as he looked at the unveiled\ncanvas. But again curiosity conquered everything, and I walked around\nto where de Russy stood. Then I saw the damnable thing.\n\nI did not faint, though no reader can possibly realize the effort it\ntook to keep me from doing so. I did cry out, but stopped short when\nI saw the frightened look on the old man's face. As I had expected,\nthe canvas was warped, moldy, and scabrous from dampness and neglect;\nbut for all that I could trace the monstrous hints of evil cosmic\noutsideness that lurked all through the nameless scene's morbid content\nand perverted geometry.\n\nIt was as the old man had said: a vaulted, columned hell of mingled\nBlack Masses and witches' sabbats, and what perfect completion could\nhave added to it was beyond my power to guess. Decay had only increased\nthe utter hideousness of its wicked symbolism and diseased suggestion;\nfor the parts most affected by time were just these parts of the\npicture which in nature--or in that extra-cosmic realm that mocked\nnature--would be likely to decay or disintegrate.\n\nThe utmost horror of all, of course, was Marceline; and as I saw the\nbloated, discolored flesh I formed the odd fancy that perhaps the\nfigure on the canvas had some obscure, occult linkage with the figure\nwhich lay in quicklime under the cellar floor. Perhaps the lime had\npreserved the corpse instead of destroying it--but could it have\npreserved those black, malign eyes that glared and mocked at me from\ntheir painted hell?\n\nAnd there was something else about the creature which I could not fail\nto notice--something which de Russy had not been able to put into\nwords, but which perhaps had something to do with Denis' wish to kill\nall those of his blood who had dwelt under the same roof with her.\nWhether Marsh knew, or whether the genius in him painted it without his\nknowing, none could say. But Denis and his father could not have known\ntill they saw the picture.\n\nSurpassing all in horror was the streaming black hair, which covered\nthe rotting body, _but which was itself not even slightly decayed_.\nAll I had heard of it was amply verified. It was nothing human, this\nropy, sinuous, half-oily, half-crinkly flood of serpent darkness.\nVile, independent life proclaimed itself at every unnatural twist and\nconvolution, and the suggestion of numberless _reptilian_ heads at the\nout-turned ends was far too marked to be illusory or accidental.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe blasphemous thing held me like a magnet. I was helpless, and\ndid not wonder at the myth of the gorgon's glance which turned all\nbeholders to stone. Then I thought I saw a change come over the thing.\nThe leering features perceptibly moved, so that the rotting jaw fell,\nallowing the thick, beast-like lips to disclose a row of pointed yellow\nfangs. The pupils of the fiendish eyes dilated, and the eyes themselves\nseemed to bulge outward. And the hair--that accursed hair! _It had\nbegun to rustle and wave perceptibly, the snake-heads all turning\ntoward de Russy and vibrating as if to strike!_\n\nReason deserted me altogether, and before I knew what I was doing\nI drew my revolver and sent a shower of six steel-jacketed bullets\nthrough the shocking canvas. The whole thing at once fell to pieces,\neven the frame toppling from the easel and clattering to the\ndust-covered floor. But though this horror was shattered, another had\nrisen before me in the form of de Russy himself, whose maddened shrieks\nas he saw the picture vanish were almost as terrible as the picture\nitself had been.\n\nWith a half-articulate scream of \"God, now you've done it!\" the frantic\nold man seized me violently by the arm and commenced to drag me out of\nthe room and down the rickety stairs. He had dropped the candle in his\npanic, but dawn was near, and some faint gray light was filtering in\nthrough the dust-covered windows. I tripped and stumbled repeatedly,\nbut never for a moment would my guide slacken his pace.\n\n\"Run!\" he shrieked, \"run for your life! You don't know what you've\ndone! I never told you the whole thing! There were things I had to\ndo--_the picture talked to me and told me_. I had to guard and keep\nit--now the worst will happen! _She and that hair will come up out of\ntheir graves, for God knows what purpose!_\n\n\"Hurry, man! For God's sake let's get out of here while there's time.\nIf you have a car, take me along to Cape Girardeau with you. It may get\nme in the end, anywhere, but I'll give it a run for its money. Out of\nhere--quick!\"\n\nAs we reached the ground floor I became aware of a slow, curious\nthumping from the rear of the house, followed by the sound of a door\nshutting. De Russy had not heard the thumping, but the other noise\ncaught his ear and drew from him the most terrible shriek that ever\nsounded in human throat.\n\n\"_Oh, God--great God--that was the cellar door--she's coming_----\"\n\nBy this time I was desperately wrestling with the rusty latch and\nsagging hinges of the great front door--almost as frantic as my host,\nnow that I heard the slow, thumping tread approaching from the unknown\nrear rooms of the accursed mansion. The night's rain had warped the\noaken planks, and the heavy door stuck and resisted even more strongly\nthan it had when I forced an entrance the evening before.\n\nSomewhere a plank creaked beneath the foot of whatever was walking, and\nthe sound seemed to snap the last cord of sanity in the poor old man.\nWith a roar like that of a maddened bull he released his grip on me\nand made a plunge to the right, through the open door of a room which\nI judged had been a parlor. A second later, just as I got the front\ndoor open and was making my own escape, I heard the tinkling clatter of\nbroken glass and knew he had leapt through a window. And as I bounded\noff the sagging porch to commence my mad race down the long, weed-grown\ndrive I thought I could catch the thud of dead, dogged footfalls which\ndid not follow me, but which kept leadenly on through the door of the\ncobwebbed parlor.\n\nI looked backward only twice as I plunged heedlessly through the\nburrs and briars of that abandoned drive, past the dying lindens and\ngrotesque scrub-oaks, in the gray pallor of a cloudy November dawn.\nThe first time was when an acrid smell overtook me, and I thought of\nthe candle de Russy had dropped in the attic studio. By then I was\ncomfortably near the road, on the high place from which the roof of\nthe distant house was clearly visible above its encircling trees; and\njust as I expected, thick clouds of smoke were billowing out of the\nattic dormers and curling upward into the leaden heavens. I thanked the\npowers of creation that an immemorial curse was about to be purged by\nfire and blotted from the earth.\n\nBut in the next instant came that second backward look in which I\nglimpsed two other things--things that canceled most of the relief\nand gave me a supreme shock from which I shall never recover. I have\nsaid that I was on a high part of the drive, from which much of the\nplantation behind me was visible. This vista included not only the\nhouse and its trees but some of the abandoned and partly flooded flat\nland beside the river, and several bends of the weed-choked drive I\nhad been so hastily traversing. In both of these latter places I now\nbeheld sights--or suspicions of sights--which I wish devoutly I could\ndeny.\n\nIt was a faint, distant scream which made me turn back again, and as I\ndid so I caught a trace of motion on the dull gray marshy plain behind\nthe house. At that distance human figures are very small; yet I thought\nthe motion resolved itself into two of these, pursuer and pursued. I\neven thought I saw the dark-clothed leading figure overtaken and seized\nby the bald, naked figure in the rear--overtaken, seized, and dragged\nviolently in the direction of the now burning house.\n\nBut I could not watch the outcome, for at once a nearer sight obtruded\nitself--a suggestion of motion among the underbrush at a point some\ndistance back along the deserted drive. _Unmistakably, the weeds and\nbushes and briars were swaying as no wind could sway them; swaying as\nif some large, swift serpent were wriggling purposefully along on the\nground in pursuit of me._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat was all I could stand. I scrambled along madly for the gate,\nheedless of torn clothing and bleeding scratches, and jumped into the\nroadster parked under the great evergreen tree. It was a bedraggled,\nrain-drenched sight, but the works were unharmed and I had no trouble\nin starting the thing. I went on blindly in the direction the car was\nheaded for. Nothing was in my mind but to get away from that frightful\nregion of nightmares and cacodemons--to get away as quickly and as far\nas gasoline could take me.\n\nAbout three or four miles along the road a farmer hailed me--a kindly,\ndrawling fellow of middle age and considerable native intelligence.\nI was glad to slow down and ask directions, though I knew I must\npresent a strange enough aspect. The man readily told me the way to\nCape Girardeau, and inquired where I had come from in such a state at\nsuch an early hour. Thinking it best to say little, I merely mentioned\nthat I had been caught in the night's rain and had taken shelter at a\nnear-by farmhouse, afterward losing my way in the underbrush trying to\nfind my car.\n\n\"At a farmhouse, eh? Wonder whose it coulda ben. Ain't nothin' standin'\nthis side o' Jim Ferris' place acrost Barker's Crick, an' that's all o'\ntwenty miles by the rud.\"\n\nI gave a start, and wondered what fresh mystery this portended, then\nasked my informant if he had overlooked the large ruined plantation\nhouse whose ancient gate bordered the road not far back.\n\n\"Funny ye sh'd recolleck that, stranger! Musta ben here afore sometime.\nBut that house ain't there now. Burnt down five or six years ago--and\nthey did tell some queer stories about it.\"\n\nI shuddered.\n\n\"You mean Riverside--ol' man de Russy's place. Queer goin's on there\nfifteen or twenty years ago. Ol' man's boy married a gal from abroad,\nand some folks thought she was a mighty odd sort. Didn't like the\nlooks of her. Then she and the boy went off sudden, and later on the\nol' man said he was kilt in the war. But some o' the niggers hinted\nqueer things. Got around at last that the ol' fellow fell in love with\nthe gal himself and kilt her and the boy. That place was sure enough\nha'nted by a black snake, mean that what it may.\n\n\"Then five or six years ago the ol' man disappeared and the house\nburned down. Some do say he was burnt up in it. It was a mornin'\nafter a rainy night just like this, when lots o' folks heard an awful\nyellin' acrost the fields in ol' de Russy's voice. When they stopped\nand looked, they see the house goin' up in smoke quick as a wink--that\nplace was all like tinder anyhow, rain or no rain. Nobody never seen\nthe ol' man agin, but onct in a while they tell of the ghost of that\nbig black snake glidin' aroun'.\n\n\"What d'you make of it, anyhow? You seem to hev knowed the place.\nDidn't ye ever hear tell of the de Russys? What d'ye reckon was the\ntrouble with that gal young Denis married? She kinder made everybody\nshiver and feel hateful, though ye couldn't never tell why.\"\n\nI was trying to think, but that process was almost beyond me now. The\nhouse burned years ago? Then where, and under what conditions, had I\npassed the night? And why did I know what I knew of these things? Even\nas I pondered I saw a hair on my coat sleeve--the short, gray hair of\nan old man.\n\nIn the end I drove on without telling anything. But I did hint that\ngossip was wronging the poor old planter who had suffered so much. I\nmade it clear--as if from distant but authentic reports wafted among\nfriends--that if anyone was to blame for the trouble at Riverside it\nwas the woman, Marceline. She was not suited to Missouri ways, I said,\nand it was too bad that Denis had ever married her.\n\nMore I did not intimate, for I felt that the de Russys, with their\nproudly cherished honor and high, sensitive spirits, would not wish me\nto say more. They had borne enough, God knows, without the countryside\nguessing what a demon of the pit, what a gorgon of the Elder\nblasphemies, had come to flaunt their ancient and stainless name.\n\nNor was it right that the neighbors should know that other horror which\nmy strange host of the night could not bring himself to tell me--that\nhorror which he must have learned as I learned it, from details in the\nlost masterpiece of poor Frank Marsh.\n\nIt would be too hideous if they knew that the one-time heiress of\nRiverside--the accursed gorgon or lamia whose hateful crinkly coil\nof serpent-hair must even now be brooding and twining vampirically\naround an artist's skeleton in a lime-packed grave beneath a charred\nfoundation--was faintly, subtly, yet unmistakably the scion of\nZimbabwe's most primal grovelers. No wonder she owned a link with\nthe old witchwoman Sophonisba--for, though in deceitfully slight\nproportion, Marceline was a loathsome, bestial thing, and her forebears\nhad come from Africa.","title":"Medusa's coil","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":16300}