The black kiss
was refused he had dropped out of sight for a time. And now came this
inexplicable cablegram.
Dean was tired from his long drive, and the unsatisfactory interview
with the doctor had irritated him more than he had realized. Nor was he
in the mood to follow his uncle's cabled request and undertake the long
journey to Buena Street, which was miles away. The drowsiness which he
felt, however, was normal healthy exhaustion, unlike the languor of
recent weeks. The tonic he had taken was of some value after all.
He dropped into his favorite chair by the window that overlooked
the sea, rousing himself to watch the flaming colors of the sunset.
Presently the sun dropped below the horizon, and gray dusk crept in.
Stars appeared, and far to the north he could see the dim lights of
the gambling-ships off Venice. The mountains shut off his view of San
Pedro, but a diffused pale glow in that direction told him that the
New Barbary was wakening into roaring, brawling life. Slowly the face
of the Pacific brightened. A full moon was rising above the San Pedro
hills.
* * * * *
For a long time Dean sat quietly by the window, his pipe forgotten in
his hand, staring down at the slow swells of the ocean, which seemed
to pulse with a mighty and alien life. Gradually drowsiness crept up
and overwhelmed him. Just before he dropped into the abyss of sleep
there flashed into his mind da Vinci's saying, "The two most wonderful
things in the world are a woman's smile and the motion of mighty
waters."
He dreamed, and this time it was a different dream. At first only
blackness, and a roaring and thundering as of angry seas, and oddly
mingled with this was the hazy thought of a woman's smile ... and a
woman's lips ... pouting lips, softly alluring ... but strangely the
lips were not red--no! They were very pale, bloodless, like the lips of
a thing that had long rested beneath the sea....
The misty vision changed, and for a flashing instant Dean seemed to see
the green and silent place of his earlier visions. The shadowy black
shapes were moving more quickly behind the veil, but this picture was
of but a second's duration. It flashed out and vanished, and Dean was
standing alone on a beach; a beach he recognized in his dream--the
sandy cove beneath the house.
The salt breeze blew coldly across his face, and the sea glistened like
silver in the moonlight. A faint splash told of a sea-thing that broke
the surface of the waters. To the north the sea washed against the
rugged surface of the cliff, barred and speckled with black shadows.
Dean felt a sudden, inexplicable impulse to move in that direction. He
yielded.
As he clambered over the rocks he was suddenly conscious of a strange
sensation, as though keen eyes were focussed upon him--eyes that
watched and warned! Vaguely in his mind rose up the gaunt face of his
uncle, Michael Leigh, the deep-set eyes glowing. But swiftly this was
gone, and he found himself before a deeper niche of blackness in the
cliff face. Into it he knew he must go.
He squeezed himself between two jutting points of rock, and found
himself in utter, dismal darkness. Yet somehow he was conscious that he
was in a cave, and he could hear water lapping near by. All about him
was a musty salt odor of sea-decay, the fetid smell of sunless ocean
caves and holds of ancient ships. He stepped forward, and, as the floor
shelved sharply downward, stumbled and fell headlong into icy, shallow
water. He felt, rather than saw, a flicker of swift movement, and then
abruptly hot lips were pressed against his.
Human lips, Dean thought, at first.
He lay on his side in the chill water, his lips against those
responsive ones. He could see nothing, for all was lost in the
blackness of the cave. The unearthly lure of those invisible lips
thrilled through him.
He responded to them, pressed them fiercely, gave them what they were
avidly seeking. The unseen waters crawled against the rocks, whispering
warning.
And in that kiss strangeness flooded him. He felt a shock and a
tingling go through him, and then a thrill of sudden ecstasy, and swift
on its heels came horror. Black loathsome foulness seemed to wash
his brain, indescribable but fearfully real, making him shudder with
nausea. It was as though unutterable evil were pouring into his body,
his mind, his very soul, through the blasphemous kiss on his lips. He
felt loathsome, contaminated. He fell back. He sprang to his feet.
And Dean saw, for the first time, the ghastly thing he had kissed,
as the sinking moon sent a pale shaft of radiance creeping through
the cave mouth. For something rose up before him, a serpentine and
seal-like bulk that coiled and twisted and moved toward him, glistening
with foul slime; and Dean screamed and turned to flee with nightmare
fear tearing at his brain, hearing behind him a quiet splashing as
though some bulky creature had slid back into the water....
_2. A Visit from Doctor Yamada_
He awoke. He was still in his chair before the window, and the moon was
paling before the grayness of dawn. He was shaken with nausea, sick
and shuddering with the shocking realism of his dream. His clothing
was drenched with perspiration, and his heart hammered furiously. An
immense lethargy seemed to have overwhelmed him, making it an intense
effort to rise from the chair and stagger to a couch, on which he flung
himself to doze fitfully for several hours.
A sharp pealing of the door-bell roused him. He still felt weak and
dizzy, but the frightening lethargy had somewhat abated. When Dean
opened the door, a Japanese standing on the porch began a bobbing
little bow, a gesture that was abruptly arrested as the sharp black
eyes focussed on Dean's face. A little hiss of indrawn breath came from
the visitor.
Dean said irritably, "Well? Do you want to see me?"
The other was still staring, his thin face sallow beneath a stiff
thatch of gray hair. He was a small, slender man, with his face covered
with a fine-spun web of wrinkles. After a pause he said, "I am Doctor
Yamada."
Dean frowned, puzzled. Abruptly he remembered his uncle's cable of
the day before. An odd, unreasonable irritation began to mount within
him, and he said, more bruskly than he had intended, "This isn't a
professional call, I hope. I've already----"
"Your uncle--you are Mr. Dean?--cabled me. He was rather worried."
Doctor Yamada glanced around almost furtively.
Dean felt distaste stir within him, and his irritation increased.
"My uncle is rather eccentric, I'm afraid. There's nothing for him to
worry about. I'm sorry you had your trip for nothing."
Doctor Yamada did not seem to take offense at Dean's attitude. Rather,
a strange expression of sympathy showed for a moment on his small face.
"Do you mind if I come in?" he asked, and moved forward confidently.
Short of barring his way, Dean had no means of stopping him, and
ungraciously led his guest to the room where he had spent the night,
motioning him to a chair while he busied himself with a coffee-pot.
Yamada sat motionless, silently watching Dean. Then without preamble he
said, "Your uncle is a great man, Mr. Dean."
Dean made a noncommittal gesture. "I have seen him only once."
"He is one of the greatest occultists of this day. I, too, have studied
psychic lore, but beside your uncle I am a novice."
Dean said, "He is eccentric. Occultism, as you term it, has never
interested me."
The little Japanese watched him impassively. "You make a common error,
Mr. Dean. You consider occultism a hobby for cranks. No"--he held up
a slender hand--"your disbelief is written in your face. Well, it is
understandable. It is an anachronism, an attitude handed down from the
earliest times, when scientists were called alchemists and sorcerers
and burned for making pacts with the devil. But actually there are no
sorcerers, no--witches. Not in the sense that man understands these
terms. There are men and women who have acquired mastery over certain
sciences which are not wholly subject to mundane physical laws."
There was a little smile of disbelief on Dean's face. Yamada went on
quietly. "You do not believe because you do not understand. There are
not many who can comprehend, or who wish to comprehend, this greater
science which is not bound by earthly laws. But here is a problem for
you, Mr. Dean." A little spark of irony flickered in the black eyes.
"Can you tell me how I know you have suffered from nightmares recently?"
Dean jerked around and stood staring. Then he smiled.
"As it happens, I know the answer, Doctor Yamada. You physicians have a
way of hanging together--and I must have let something slip to Doctor
Hedwig yesterday." His tone was offensive, but Yamada merely shrugged
slightly.
"Do you know your Homer?" he asked, apparently irrelevantly, and at
Dean's surprized nod went on, "And Proteus? You remember the Old Man of
the Sea who possessed the power of changing his shape? I do not wish
to strain your credulity, Mr. Dean, but for a long time students of
the dark lore have known that behind this legend there exists a very
terrible truth. All the tales of spirit-possession, of reincarnation,
even the comparatively innocuous experiments in thought-transference,
point to the truth. Why do you suppose folklore abounds with tales of
men who have been able to change themselves into beasts--werewolves,
hyenas, tigers, the seal-men of the Eskimos? Because these tales are
founded on truth!
"I do not mean," he went on, "that the actual physical metamorphosis
of the body is possible, so far as we know. But it has long been known
that the intelligence--the mind--of an adept can be transferred to the
brain and body of a satisfactory subject. Animals' brains are weak,
lacking the power of resistance. But men are different, unless there
are certain circumstances----"
As he hesitated, Dean proffered the Japanese a cup of coffee--coffee
was generally brewing in the percolator these days--and Yamada accepted
it with a formal little bow of acknowledgment. Dean drank his coffee
in three hasty gulps, and poured more. Yamada, after a polite sip, put
the cup aside and leaned forward earnestly.
* * * * *
"I must ask you to make your mind receptive, Mr. Dean. Don't allow
your conventional ideas of life to influence you in this matter. It
is vitally to your interest that you listen carefully to me, and
understand. Then--perhaps----"
He hesitated, and again threw that oddly furtive glance at the window.
"Life in the sea has followed different lines from life on land.
Evolution has followed a different course. In the great deeps of
the ocean, life utterly alien to ours has been discovered--luminous
creatures which burst when exposed to the lighter pressure of the
air--and in those tremendous depths forms of life completely inhuman
have been developed, life forms that the uninitiated mind may think
impossible. In Japan, an island country, we have known of these
sea-dwellers for generations. Your English writer, Arthur Machen, has
told a deep truth in his statement that man, afraid of these strange
beings, has attributed to them beautiful or pleasantly grotesque
forms which in reality they do not possess. Thus we have the nereids
and oceanids--but nevertheless man could not fully disguise the true
foulness of these creatures. Therefore there are legends of the
Gorgons, of Scylla and the harpies--and, significantly, of the mermaids
and their soullessness. No doubt you know the mermaid tale--how they
long to steal the soul of a man, and draw it out by means of their
kiss."
Dean was at the window now, his back to the Japanese. As Yamada paused
he said tonelessly, "Go on."