The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker (pdf ebook reader TXT) 📗

trying to escape.  When they had come out on the roadway Adam held the mongoose tight to him, and, lifting his hat to his companion, moved quickly towards Lesser Hill; he and Lady Arabella lost sight of each other in the thickening gloom.

When Adam got home, he put the mongoose in his box, and locked the door of the room.  The other mongoose—the one from Nepaul—was safely locked in his own box, but he lay quiet and did not stir.  When he got to his study Sir Nathaniel came in, shutting the door behind him.

“I have come,” he said, “while we have an opportunity of being alone, to tell you something of the Caswall family which I think will interest you.  There is, or used to be, a belief in this part of the world that the Caswall family had some strange power of making the wills of other persons subservient to their own.  There are many allusions to the subject in memoirs and other unimportant works, but I only know of one where the subject is spoken of definitely.  It is Mercia and its Worthies, written by Ezra Toms more than a hundred years ago.  The author goes into the question of the close association of the then Edgar Caswall with Mesmer in Paris.  He speaks of Caswall being a pupil and the fellow worker of Mesmer, and states that though, when the latter left France, he took away with him a vast quantity of philosophical and electric instruments, he was never known to use them again.  He once made it known to a friend that he had given them to his old pupil.  The term he used was odd, for it was ‘bequeathed,’ but no such bequest of Mesmer was ever made known.  At any rate the instruments were missing, and never turned up.”

A servant came into the room to tell Adam that there was some strange noise coming from the locked room into which he had gone when he came in.  He hurried off to the place at once, Sir Nathaniel going with him.  Having locked the door behind them, Adam opened the packing-case where the boxes of the two mongooses were locked up.  There was no sound from one of them, but from the other a queer restless struggling.  Having opened both boxes, he found that the noise was from the Nepaul animal, which, however, became quiet at once.  In the other box the new mongoose lay dead, with every appearance of having been strangled!

CHAPTER X—THE KITE

On the following day, a little after four o’clock, Adam set out for Mercy.

He was home just as the clocks were striking six.  He was pale and upset, but otherwise looked strong and alert.  The old man summed up his appearance and manner thus: “Braced up for battle.”

“Now!” said Sir Nathaniel, and settled down to listen, looking at Adam steadily and listening attentively that he might miss nothing—even the inflection of a word.

“I found Lilla and Mimi at home.  Watford had been detained by business on the farm.  Miss Watford received me as kindly as before; Mimi, too, seemed glad to see me.  Mr. Caswall came so soon after I arrived, that he, or someone on his behalf, must have been watching for me.  He was followed closely by the negro, who was puffing hard as if he had been running—so it was probably he who watched.  Mr. Caswall was very cool and collected, but there was a more than usually iron look about his face that I did not like.  However, we got on very well.  He talked pleasantly on all sorts of questions.  The nigger waited a while and then disappeared as on the other occasion.  Mr. Caswall’s eyes were as usual fixed on Lilla.  True, they seemed to be very deep and earnest, but there was no offence in them.  Had it not been for the drawing down of the brows and the stern set of the jaws, I should not at first have noticed anything.  But the stare, when presently it began, increased in intensity.  I could see that Lilla began to suffer from nervousness, as on the first occasion; but she carried herself bravely.  However, the more nervous she grew, the harder Mr. Caswall stared.  It was evident to me that he had come prepared for some sort of mesmeric or hypnotic battle.  After a while he began to throw glances round him and then raised his hand, without letting either Lilla or Mimi see the action.  It was evidently intended to give some sign to the negro, for he came, in his usual stealthy way, quietly in by the hall door, which was open.  Then Mr. Caswall’s efforts at staring became intensified, and poor Lilla’s nervousness grew greater.  Mimi, seeing that her cousin was distressed, came close to her, as if to comfort or strengthen her with the consciousness of her presence.  This evidently made a difficulty for Mr. Caswall, for his efforts, without appearing to get feebler, seemed less effective.  This continued for a little while, to the gain of both Lilla and Mimi.  Then there was a diversion.  Without word or apology the door opened, and Lady Arabella March entered the room.  I had seen her coming through the great window.  Without a word she crossed the room and stood beside Mr. Caswall.  It really was very like a fight of a peculiar kind; and the longer it was sustained the more earnest—the fiercer—it grew.  That combination of forces—the over-lord, the white woman, and the black man—would have cost some—probably all of them—their lives in the Southern States of America.  To us it was simply horrible.  But all that you can understand.  This time, to go on in sporting phrase, it was understood by all to be a ‘fight to a finish,’ and the mixed group did not slacken a moment or relax their efforts.  On Lilla the strain began to tell disastrously.  She grew pale—a patchy pallor, which meant that her nerves were out of order.  She trembled like an aspen, and though she struggled bravely, I noticed that her legs would hardly support her.  A dozen times she seemed about to collapse in a faint, but each time, on catching sight of Mimi’s eyes, she made a fresh struggle and pulled through.

“By now Mr. Caswall’s face had lost its appearance of passivity.  His eyes glowed with a fiery light.  He was still the old Roman in inflexibility of purpose; but grafted on to the Roman was a new Berserker fury.  His companions in the baleful work seemed to have taken on something of his feeling.  Lady Arabella looked like a soulless, pitiless being, not human, unless it revived old legends of transformed human beings who had lost their humanity in some transformation or in the sweep of natural savagery.  As for the negro—well, I can only say that it was solely due to the self-restraint which you impressed on me that I did not wipe him out as he stood—without warning, without fair play—without a single one of the graces of life and death.  Lilla was silent in the helpless concentration of deadly fear; Mimi was all resolve and self-forgetfulness, so intent on the soul-struggle in which she was engaged that there was no possibility of any other thought.  As for myself, the bonds of will which held me inactive seemed like bands of steel which numbed all my faculties, except sight and hearing.  We seemed fixed in an impasse.  Something must happen, though the power of guessing was inactive.  As in a dream, I saw Mimi’s hand move restlessly, as if groping for something.  Mechanically it touched that of Lilla, and in that instant she was transformed.  It was as if youth and strength entered afresh into something already dead to sensibility and intention.  As if by inspiration, she grasped the other’s band with a force which blenched the knuckles.  Her face suddenly flamed, as if some divine light shone through it.  Her form expanded till it stood out majestically.  Lifting her right hand, she stepped forward towards Caswall, and with a bold sweep of her arm seemed to drive some strange force towards him.  Again and again was the gesture repeated, the man falling back from her at each movement.  Towards the door he retreated, she following.  There was a sound as of the cooing sob of doves, which seemed to multiply and intensify with each second.  The sound from the unseen source rose and rose as he retreated, till finally it swelled out in a triumphant peal, as she with a fierce sweep of her arm, seemed to hurl something at her foe, and he, moving his hands blindly before his face, appeared to be swept through the doorway and out into the open sunlight.

“All at once my own faculties were fully restored; I could see and hear everything, and be fully conscious of what was going on.  Even the figures of the baleful group were there, though dimly seen as through a veil—a shadowy veil.  I saw Lilla sink down in a swoon, and Mimi throw up her arms in a gesture of triumph.  As I saw her through the great window, the sunshine flooded the landscape, which, however, was momentarily becoming eclipsed by an onrush of a myriad birds.”

By the next morning, daylight showed the actual danger which threatened.  From every part of the eastern counties reports were received concerning the enormous immigration of birds.  Experts were sending—on their own account, on behalf of learned societies, and through local and imperial governing bodies—reports dealing with the matter, and suggesting remedies.

The reports closer to home were even more disturbing.  All day long it would seem that the birds were coming thicker from all quarters.  Doubtless many were going as well as coming, but the mass seemed never to get less.  Each bird seemed to sound some note of fear or anger or seeking, and the whirring of wings never ceased nor lessened.  The air was full of a muttered throb.  No window or barrier could shut out the sound, till the ears of any listener became dulled by the ceaseless murmur.  So monotonous it was, so cheerless, so disheartening, so melancholy, that all longed, but in vain, for any variety, no matter how terrible it might be.

The second morning the reports from all the districts round were more alarming than ever.  Farmers began to dread the coming of winter as they saw the dwindling of the timely fruitfulness of the earth.  And as yet it was only a warning of evil, not the evil accomplished; the ground began to look bare whenever some passing sound temporarily frightened the birds.

Edgar Caswall tortured his brain for a long time unavailingly, to think of some means of getting rid of what he, as well as his neighbours, had come to regard as a plague of birds.  At last he recalled a circumstance which promised a solution of the difficulty.  The experience was of some years ago in China, far up-country, towards the head-waters of the Yang-tze-kiang, where the smaller tributaries spread out in a sort of natural irrigation scheme to supply the wilderness of paddy-fields.  It was at the time of the ripening rice, and the myriads of birds which came to feed on the coming crop was a serious menace, not only to the district, but to the country at large.  The farmers, who were more or less afflicted with the same trouble every season, knew how to deal with it.  They made a vast kite, which they caused to be flown over the centre spot of the incursion.  The kite was shaped like a great hawk; and the moment it rose into the air the birds began to cower and seek protection—and then to disappear.  So long as that kite was flying overhead the birds lay low and the crop was saved.  Accordingly Caswall ordered his men to construct an immense kite, adhering as well as they could to the lines of a hawk.  Then he and his men, with a sufficiency of cord, began to fly it high overhead.  The experience of China was repeated.  The moment the kite rose, the birds hid or sought shelter.  The following morning, the kite was still flying high, no bird was to be seen as far as the eye could reach from Castra Regis.  But there followed in turn what proved even a worse evil.  All the birds were cowed; their sounds stopped.  Neither song nor chirp was heard—silence seemed to have taken the place of the normal voices of bird life.  But that was not all.  The silence spread to all animals.

The fear and restraint which brooded amongst the denizens of the air began to affect all life.  Not only did the birds cease song or chirp, but the lowing of the cattle ceased in the fields and the varied sounds of life died away.  In place of these things was only a soundless gloom, more dreadful, more disheartening, more soul-killing than any concourse