Dracula's Guest And Other Weird Tales (41 page)

‘Much death here – big death. Many deaths. Good, good!’

He sniffed round as if he was enjoying a scent. The matter and manner of his speech were so revolting that instinctively Adam’s hand wandered to his revolver, and, with his finger on the trigger, rested satisfied that he was ready for any emergency.

Oolanga seemed more ‘crawly’ than ever in his movements. He unslung the box from his shoulder and put it on a stone ledge which ran along the side of the room to the right of the iron door, saying as he looked towards Adam:

‘I have brought your box, master, as I thought you would want it. Also the key which I got from your servant.’

He laid this beside the box, and began to sniff again with an excellent pretence of enjoyment, raising his nose as he turned his head round as if to breathe all the fragrance he could.

There was certainly opportunity for such enjoyment, for the open well-hole was almost under his nose, sending up such a stench as almost made Adam sick, though Lady Arabella seemed not to mind it at all. It was like nothing that Adam had
ever met with. He compared it with all the noxious experiences he ever had – the drainage of war hospitals, of slaughter-houses, the refuse of dissecting rooms. None of these were like it, though it had something of them all, with, added, the sourness of chemical waste and the poisonous effluvium of the bilge of a water-logged ship whereon a multitude of rats had been drowned. However, he was content not to go any further in a search for analogy; it was quite bad enough to have to endure even for a moment, without thinking of it. Besides, he was lost in wonder at a physical peculiarity of Lady Arabella. She seemed to be able to see as well in the dark as in the light. In the gloom under the trees, she had followed every movement of Oolanga. In the Cimmerian darkness
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of the inner room she had not been for a moment at a loss. It was wonderful. He determined to watch for developments of this strange power – when such should arrive. In the meantime, he had plenty of use for his eyesight to notice what was going on around him. The movements of Oolanga alone were enough to keep his eyes employed. Since the African had laid down the box and the key, Adam had only taken his eyes off it to watch anything seemingly more pressing. He had an idea or an intuition that before long that box would be of overwhelming importance. It was by an intuition also that he grasped his revolver and held it tight. He could see that Oolanga was making up his mind to take some step of which he was at present doubtful. All in a moment it explained itself. He pulled out from his breast Lady Arabella’s pistol and shot at him, happily missing. Adam was himself usually a quick shot, but this time his mind had been on something else and he was not ready. However, he was quick to carry out an intention, and he was not a coward. In another second both men were in grips. Beside them was the dark well-hole, with that horrid effluvium stealing up from its mysterious depths. Adam and Oolanga both had pistols. Lady Arabella, who had not one, was probably the most ready of them all in the theory of shooting, but that being impossible, she made her effort in another way. Gliding forward with inconceivable rapidity, she tried to seize the African; but he eluded her grasp, just missing, in doing so, falling into the mysterious
hole. As he swayed back to firm foothold, he turned her own gun on her and shot. Instinctively Adam leaped at her assailant; clutching at each other, they tottered on the very brink. Lady Arabella’s anger, now fully awake, was all for Oolanga. She moved forward towards him with her bare hands extended, and had just seized him when the catch of the locked box from some movement from within flew open, and the king-cobra-killer flew at her with a venomous fury impossible to describe. As it seized her throat she caught hold of it, and, with a fury superior to its own, actually tore it in two just as if it had been a sheet of paper. The strength used for such an act must have been terrific. In an instant, it seemed to spout blood and entrails, and was hurled into the well-hole. In another instant she had seized Oolanga, and with a swift rush had drawn him, her white arms encircling him, with her down into the gaping aperture. As the forms flashed by him Adam saw a medley of green and red lights blaze in a whirling circle, and as it sank down into the well a pair of blazing green eyes became fixed, sank lower and lower with frightful rapidity, and disappeared, throwing upward the green light which grew more and more vivid every second. As the light sank into the noisome depths, there came a shriek which chilled Adam’s very blood – a prolonged agony of pain and terror which seemed to have no end.

Adam Salton felt that he would never be able to free his mind from the memory of those last dreadful moments. The gloom which surrounded that horrible charnel pit, which seemed to go down to the very bowels of the earth, conveyed from far down the sights and sounds of the nethermost hell. The ghastly fate of the African as he sank down to his terrible doom, his black face growing grey with terror, his white eyeballs, now like veined bloodstone,
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rolling in the helpless extremity of fear. The mysterious green light was in itself a
milieu
of horror. And through it all the awful cry came up from that fathomless pit, whose entrance was flooded with gouts of fresh blood. Even the death of the fearless little snake-killer – so fierce, so frightful, as if stained with a ferocity which told of no living force above earth, but only of the devils of the pit – was only an incident. Adam was in a state of intellectual tumult, which had no peer
in his existence. He tried to rush away from the horrible place; even the baleful green light thrown up through the gloomy well-shaft was dying away as its source sank deeper into the primeval ooze. The darkness was closing in on him in overwhelming density. Darkness in such a place and with such a memory of it! He made a wild rush forward – slipt on the steps in some sticky, acrid-smelling mass that felt and smelt like blood, and, falling forward, felt his way into the inner room, where the well-shaft was not. A faint green light began to grow around him until it was sufficient to see by. And then he rubbed his eyes in sheer amazement. Up the stone steps from the narrow door by which he had entered, glided the thin white-clad figure of Lady Arabella, the only colour to be seen on her being blood-marks on her face and hands and throat. Otherwise, she was calm and unruffled, as when earlier she stood aside for him to pass in through the narrow iron door.

Adam Salton went for a walk before returning to Lesser Hill; he felt that it might be well, not only to steady his nerves, shaken by the horrible scene, but to get his thoughts into some sort of order, so as to be ready to enter on the matter with Sir Nathaniel. He was a little embarrassed as to telling his uncle, for already affairs had so vastly progressed beyond his original view that he felt a little doubtful as to what would be the old gentleman’s attitude when he should hear of the strange events for the first time. He might take umbrage that he had not been consulted or, at least, told of the earlier happenings. At first there had only been inferences from circumstances altogether outside his uncle and his household. Now there were examples of half the crimes in the calendar, of which there was already indisputable proof, together with dark and bloody mysteries, enough to shake the nerves of the whole country-side. Mr Salton would certainly not be satisfied at being treated as an outsider with regard to such things, most of which had points of contact with the interior of his own house. It was with an immense sense of relief that Adam heard that he had telegraphed to the housekeeper that he was detained by business at Walsall, where he would remain for the night; and that he would be back in the morning in time for breakfast. When Adam got home after his walk, he found Sir Nathaniel just going to bed. He did not say anything to him then of what had happened, but contented himself with arranging that they would walk together in the early morning, as he had much to say that would require serious attention.

Strangely enough he slept well, and awoke at dawn with his
mind clear and his nerves in their usual unshaken condition. The maid brought up, with his early morning cup of tea, a note which had been found in the letter-box. It was from Lady Arabella, and was evidently intended to put him on his guard as to what he should say about the previous evening. He read it over carefully several times before he was satisfied that he had taken in its full import.

‘D
EAR
M
R
S
ALTON
, – I cannot go to bed until I have written to you, so you must forgive me if I disturb you, and at an unseemly time. Indeed, you must also forgive me if, in trying to do what is right, I err in saying too much or too little. The fact is that I am quite upset and unnerved by all that has happened in this terrible night. I find it difficult even to write; my hands shake so that they are not under control, and I am trembling all over with memory of the horrors we saw enacted before our eyes. I am grieved beyond measure that I should be, however partially or remotely, a cause of this shock and horror coming on you. Forgive me if you can, and do not think too hardly of me. This I ask with confidence, for since we shared together the danger – the very pangs – of death, I feel that we should be to one another something more than mere friends, that I may lean on you and trust you, assured that your sympathy and pity are for me. A common danger draws, they say, even men together. How close, then, must be the grasp of a poor, weak woman to you, a brave, strong man, and we have together looked into the eyes of Death. You really must let me thank you for the friendliness, the help, the confidence, the real aid at a time of deadly danger and deadly fear which you showed me. That awful man – I shall see him for ever in my dreams. His black, malignant face will shut out all memory of sunshine and happiness. I shall eternally see his evil eyes as he threw himself into that well-hole in a vain effort to escape from the inevitable consequences of his own misdoing. The more I think of it, the more apparent it seems to me that he had premeditated the whole thing – of course, except his own horrible death. He must have intended to murder me, else why did he take away from me my pistol, the only weapon I had? He probably intended to murder you too. If he had known you had
a revolver, he would have tried to get that also, I am sure. You know that women do not reason – we know – that he meant to seize that occasion also for stealing my emeralds.’

When next Adam saw her he asked:

‘How did it all come about?’

She explained simply, sweetly, and seeming to say what she could in the man’s favour, but doubly damning him whilst she did so.

‘Perhaps you have noticed – of course, I do not blame if you have not; men are not supposed to remember such trivial things – a fur collar I occasionally wear – or rather wore, it is now. It is one of my most valued treasures – an ermine collar studded with emeralds. They are very fine ones, if that is any justification to anything. It is an old collar, with hanging pieces as well as those of the collar proper. I had often seen the nigger’s eyes gleam covetously when he looked at it. Unhappily, I wore it yesterday. That may have been the last cause that lured the poor man to his doom. I hope you do not think me altogether hard-hearted. Of course, as a Christian, I ought to forgive my enemies, and this individual was my enemy – he tried to murder me, and did rob me; but it is above my nature to forgive him stealing my emeralds, which were an heirloom, and, though valuable, in themselves of greater value to me from historical association. I mention these things now, for I may not have an opportunity of referring to them again.’

The letter went on:

   ‘I saw a look on your face as the nigger sank into that terrible pit which I – probably wrongly – mistook; but it seemed to me you were surprised at seeing what seemed to be my arms round his neck. The fact is, on the very brink of the abyss he tore the collar from my neck and threw it over his own shoulder. That was the last thing of him that I saw. When he sank into the hole, I was rushing from the iron door, which I pulled behind me. I am glad to say I did, for it shut out from me the awful sight. When I heard that soul-sickening yell, which marked his disappearance in the deep, darkling chasm, I was more glad than I
can say that my eyes were spared the pain and horror which my ears had to endure. Even with the fear and horror which I had so recently endured, and the last awful moments which, although it was through his own act, he had to suffer, I could not forgive him – I have prayed ever since, and will ever pray, for forgiveness of my unchristian spirit. And it may one day come in God’s mercy. I have endured the punishment; the sweetness of forgiveness of such an error may come in time. Won’t you pray for me too?

‘When I tore myself out of the villain’s grasp as he sank into the well-hole, I flew upstairs to be safe with you again. But it was not till I was out in the night, and saw the blessed stars gleaming and flashing above me in their myriad beauty, that I could realise what freedom meant. Freedom! Freedom! Not only from that noisome prison-house, which has now such a memory, but from the more noisome embrace of that hideous monster. Whilst I live I shall always thank you for my freedom. You must let me. A woman must sometimes express her gratitude; otherwise it is too great to bear. I am not a sentimental girl who merely likes to thank a man. I am a woman who knows all, of bad as well as good, that life can give. I have known what it is to love and to lose. But there, you must not let me bring any unhappiness into your life. I must live on – as I have lived – alone, and, in addition, bear with other woes the memory of this latest insult and horror. I hardly know which is greatest or worst. In the meantime, I must get away as quickly as possible from Diana’s Grove. In the morning I shall go up to town, where I shall remain for a week – I cannot stay longer, as certain business affairs demand my presence here after that time. I think, however, that a week in the rush of busy London, surrounded with multitudes of busy, commonplace people, will help to wear out – I cannot expect total obliteration – the terrible images of the bygone night. When I can sleep easily – which will be, I expect, after a day or two – I shall be fit to return home and take up again the burden which will, I suppose, be always with me.