Cursed be the treasure
As for me, I went off to bed. But my mind was in a confused whirl.
For to me the story was more than a story. The thing had taken on a
colour of reality. I knew it was no mere tale, but a truth; and a truth
which was somehow of the utmost moment to my father and myself. For
throughout the narrative many pictures had woven themselves into my
thoughts. I could see the Mad Captain as my father had envisaged him
to me that night in the woods; and I saw the curse not as an abstract
thing, but as a concrete reality, embodied in that dreadful hag who had
pursued us to the hut. I could see her slipping back the knife into
the folds of her dress, waiting to spring. I could see her feeling for
me in the straw and behind the cloak. And again the red flames lit up
those terrible eye-balls of hers in their black hollow sockets. She
became for me not a creature of flesh and blood, but a curse embodied;
a thing that couldn't be killed by powder or by fire. And then old
words of my father's came back to me: "Shadow-of-Fear can never die."
I seemed to understand as I had never understood before the meaning of
the destiny which had enmeshed us. For there was no doubt of it now.
I knew my father was seeking for that unhallowed gold; perhaps he had
even found it, for I remembered of a sudden the words of the host of
the _Snow Man_ saying my father had given him a purse in compensation
for his loss as though he had been a lord. The curse was certainly upon
us; it was that, and no mere earthly enemy, that was hounding us from
place to place. And as though in confirmation of my fears, throughout
the course of the story, in letters that glowed ever brighter and
more menacing, shuddered the words as though written in blood:
MALEDICTUS SIT THESAURUS.
White as were the faces of some of my companions, my face must have
been whiter still; for I remember how shaken I felt as I crept upstairs
to the great dark bedroom, walking slowly so that my candle might throw
its light the farther into the blackness ahead; and how entering the
room, and passing round to my side of the bed, I came with a shock
of horror face to face with my spectral self in the great mirror. I
remember how my nerves seemed to freeze into sudden numbness, for my
eyes were staring fearfully and my face was drawn and white, so that at
first I didn't know myself. And then the blood gushed back to my heart,
enough almost to choke me; and setting down the candle I sat on the bed
and gazed at myself in the glass, shaking as though in a fever.
But at this moment I remembered the pistol my father had given me in
the morning. I had been true to my word, and hadn't taken it out during
the day; but now, so unreasoning was I, it brought me extraordinary
relief as I drew it from its hiding-place, and carefully loading it
slipped it under my pillow; though what protection it could be against
the impalpable destiny that overshadowed me I didn't stay to consider.
I only know I was very much eased at heart, and was soon out of my
clothes and in bed.
My father had at last told me the tale of the mysterious manuscript,
as he had promised me he would some day do; and also, as he had said
it would, it made me dream. Indeed it would have been strange if such
a story with such associations to give it body and shape and presence
hadn't made me dream, for my mind was full of vivid pictures, not
merely half-formed filmy mists of imagination. There were eyes looking
at me, there were hands feeling for me; and the eyes and the hands were
those of the old witch, Bite-in-the-Dark. They were very real, for I
had seen them. And all the strange terror of the circumstances under
which I had seen them stirred my soul to a foreboding uneasiness of
imminent things. And even the pistol which I fingered under my pillow
recalled that awful moment when my father's pistol had roared out in
my hand, and the hut had filled with screams and clamour. What wonder
then, that with everything focusing back upon that night, I returned in
dreams to the child I had been, and was once again wrapped in the rug
before the fire, while my father's voice waned and strengthened through
my dozing, and the face of the Mad Captain, horrified by the haunting
voices of the murdered men, glared at me insanely from the darkness,
distorted by the leaping firelight into a frantic picture of fear and
madness and remorse. But I can't say what my dreams were, for they
were inextricably entangled; but I know that I awoke more than once
in a sweat of terror, trying to shake off some nameless thing which
had fastened about my throat. And now I was away with the doomed party
seeking for the treasure in the valley of the kings, and now I was on
that fever-stricken ship waiting dumbly for my hour to strike, and now
I was the priest himself hiding that cursed gold deep under the earth;
and turning to flee I came face to face with that hateful hag with the
black hollow sockets and the flaming eyes, and the knife cunningly
hidden in the folds of her dress. For always my dreams came back to
that. Her evil presence haunted me in all my mazed wanderings, either
visibly at some unexpected turn, or shadowingly so that I knew she was
beside me or behind me though I couldn't see her. And that was the
worse evil of the two; for at such times the agony was lingering, and
the enemy seemed too powerful for me, fighting with unearthly weapons
against which my knife and pistol were useless as thistledown; but when
she appeared before me, it might be from behind some black and awful
crag, or rising like an emanation from the very earth at my feet, or
just suddenly there in front of me coming as it were from nowhere--when
she appeared, terrified as I might be, the impalpable horror which had
wrapped me about fell away, and with a cry of hate I was at her with
my knife, or, drawing my pistol, blazed full into her evil face. And
at such moments I awoke, and took comfort in the knowledge that it
was merely a dream, and soon the night would pass, though it seemed
interminable, for each dream seemed the passage of a lifetime.
But once I awoke from one of these struggles with the image of the old
witch so clearly before me that I thought I must still be sleeping. I
lay perfectly motionless, gazing into the darkness, and with clearing
consciousness came slowly to the realization that I was awake, and yet
the creature of my dreams was there before me. I closed my eyes, then
looked again. Still there; not to my hand, but clear and unmistakable,
the very creature as I had seen her with the firelight on her face,
except that now it was the moon that lit up that ghastly countenance
white instead of red, and with a steady glow instead of lurchingly like
the leaping flames. The night was very quiet; but outside a faint wind
was crooning gently, and breathing thin clouds across the sky. And with
the waning of the moon the face sank slowly back into the blackness,
and with its brightening it grew again, white and luminous against the
dark. I couldn't see it move; but once it faded into the night, and
when it appeared again it was nearer.
How long I lay and watched I don't know. It seemed an age, but I think
it must have been but a moment, though my head swarmed with a confusion
of ideas. My father saying, "I haven't seen her ghost," caught at my
memory; and I thought how glad he would be when I told him in the
morning that her ghost had appeared to me; for somehow it seemed to
me that the revelation would bring him ease. I remember wondering too
why a ghost should fade and grow with the moonlight; for I had always
thought of ghosts as glowing with a radiance of their own. What it
was that stirred me to action I can't say. It might have been the
realization that the thing was drawing nearer; or, as I believe, the
many visionary contests of the night, mingled perhaps with a stirring
memory deep in my mind, had unconsciously led my hand beneath the
pillow where I suddenly realized that my fingers had closed upon my
pistol. Then indeed I knew what I would do. Slowly I drew the weapon
out, and with infinite caution levelled it at the creature's face. And
now I could see it visibly drawing nearer with a gliding stealth. Its
arm was raised, and I caught the glitter of steel. But just then I
pulled the trigger.
There was a splintering crash and a cry and the clang as of a door
heavily closing; and my father was awake and shouting, "Why, what,
Tommy?" I was out of bed and had the candle lit; and there before me
was the great mirror with a wide jagged hole smashed in the middle of
it, and with cracks like the threads of a spider's web running out in
every direction across its face.
I stood looking at it stupidly, and said, "I don't quite know, daddy. I
thought it was her ghost."
"Ghost?" he cried.
"Bite-in-the-Dark," I answered. "I saw her ghost."
"Ha!" he exclaimed.
"Yes," I said growing bolder. "She was there. She was coming towards
me. She had her hand raised. She came very slowly. I could see her
face. I know it was her."
But my father was looking away from the mirror towards his end of the
room, where the large old oaken wardrobe filled the recess between the
fireplace and the door. His attention seemed absorbed. And then he
leapt out of bed and flung the wardrobe open, springing back quickly as
though expecting something to jump out at him. But there was nothing
unusual there.
"What is it, daddy?" I asked.
But he took no notice of me, still investigating the wardrobe,
rummaging among the coats that were hung there, and tapping at
the sides. Then he stepped away from it and looked all about it,
scrutinizing it as though it held a secret, while I watched him at a
loss to understand. And presently he went up to it again, and putting
out his full strength tried to shift it; but it wouldn't stir.
"Come and help me, Tommy," he said; and I lent him what strength I had,
but to no purpose.
"You see, it's fixed," he said, as though that solved the mystery.
"But ..." I began.
"What, Tommy, can't you see?" he asked with a smile.
And then I saw what I had done. I had fired at a reflection, while the
substance had escaped. And evidently my father thought he knew which
way; yet there was no clue to the trail.
We didn't go to bed again that night, but went downstairs to the
dining-room and rekindled the embers of the fire, and roasted ourselves
before it till the morning. And then my father, breaking a long
silence, said, "Tommy, I must leave you. The time has come. The game's
against me."
"Is it the curse?" I asked.
He nodded.
So before evening I found myself an inmate of Rancey Bridge, feeling
inexpressibly disconsolate with my father gone out of my life. And I
know I cried bitterly to myself that night; for I pictured him fleeing
alone into the darkness, and behind him the shadow of a closing doom.
PART II
CAPTAIN FIELD
CHAPTER XII
THE WAY OF A FRIEND
I soon found that life had changed for me. I was under an authority
now, rigorous and uncompromising, which didn't seem to understand in
the least the natural instincts for freedom and self-expression of a
half-wild boy like me. Already before the new term opened I had had two
days' experience of the school cells, where I was shut up in solitude
and darkness for some offence against the regulations, which I suppose
was serious enough to the minds of the pedants who imprisoned me, but
which to me seemed merely the natural corollary of my whole upbringing.
And of course I was soon dispossessed of my knife; but learning caution
I managed to keep my pistol safely hidden. It was Staggers who robbed