The life-eater
was a virgin vein of folklore and heterodoxies, witchcraft and bizarre
customs. Lamontaine had deliberately thrown himself into the midst of
the lives of these near-barbarians. He had ingratiated himself to them
and, by degrees, had been accepted as one of them. Eventually he had
become not only their physician, but their confessor as well.
The day had brought more than its accustomed load of suffering. The
heat had made the afflicted ones worse. Making his evening rounds,
Lamontaine was filled with a premonition of death lurking close at
hand. He had the narrow street to himself. Men and women talked in
low, hushed whispers, huddling together, sheep-like, fearful of the
darkness that had dropped like a pall. Frightened children clung to
their mothers' skirts, their black eyes beady with terror. From inside
a tiny cottage came the sound of muffled sobs as a young mother rocked
her first-born, slowly wasting away.
The bell in the little schoolhouse at the end of the lane clanged
dolefully. Lamontaine halted in his tracks, his broad shoulders
drooping like those of a defeated man. For the schoolhouse was also the
church.
"_Bong! ... bong! ... bong! ... bong!_"
He counted the strokes. When they passed sixteen, he breathed a deep
sigh of relief. It meant that little Evelyn l'Brest was not the victim.
"_Bong! ... bong! ... bong!_"
He counted on until the strokes passed fifty. Then, as they continued
their doleful monody, he lifted his shoulders and took up his walk
again. It would be old Kenny Tolan, he told himself--Kenny Tolan,
eighty-two and long ago marked as a victim by the grim reaper.
And deep in his pagan heart, Doctor Hugo Lamontaine breathed a little
prayer of thanksgiving.
Evelyn l'Brest, the schoolmaster's sweetheart, still lived. There was
yet a chance.
Again he was halted by an agonized scream. It came from a cottage close
at hand--the abode of Jacques d'Arcy, at the end of the side road. He
whirled and dashed through the darkness in the direction of the low,
thatched house with its single lighted window. A white, scared face
stared at him through the darkness as a man rushed around the corner,
his gun drawn, almost colliding with him in his mad rush. It was Pierre
Le Front, the village constable.
"_Mon Dieu!_" the little man exclaimed. "You heard it, doctaire?"
Lamontaine nodded grimly. The constable by his side, he padded
noiselessly over the soft earth between the rows of trees, covered with
Spanish moss, that led to the d'Arcy home.
A man dashed toward them from the direction of the house. He saw them
and, whirling, leaped into the thicket that banked the roadside. As he
disappeared, he turned. Even though the moon was dead in the leaden
sky, Lamontaine caught a glimpse of a lean, cadaverous face, of teeth
over which the lips were drawn in a wolfish snarl, of deeply sunken
eyes that glittered ominously.
The big physician seized the little constable by the shoulder, halting
him with a violence that almost jerked him off his feet.
"Your gun! Quick!" he snarled.
He jerked the weapon from the officer's hand and emptied it in
the direction the fleeing man had taken. Then, dropping it at the
astonished constable's feet, he dashed madly in the same direction.
Le Front followed. He heard Lamontaine crash through the dank grass
and underbrush that bordered the fetid swamp. Then came the sound of a
bâteau as it swung out into the water ... the creak of oars in their
locks....
* * * * *
Lamontaine, his feet bogged by the mud, met the little man as he
struggled through the tangled growth, and cursed fluently.
"_Mon Dieu!_" the constable panted.
"Who was it? And what happened?"
"It was Aaron Kronk!" Lamontaine snarled.
From far out in the fetid waters of the swamp came a harsh, sinister
laugh.
Constable Le Front dropped to his knees and crossed himself.
Aaron Kronk! Little wonder Pierre Le Front turned a shade paler under
his coating of tan. Aaron Kronk! Master of _diablerie_ and king of
devils! He it was who, only a few weeks earlier, masquerading as the
infamous Gilles de Laval, Baron de Retz, the blue-bearded monster of
the Middle Ages, had involved himself in a saturnalia of blood from
which only the bravery and occult knowledge of Lamontaine had rescued
the community. Even now, two of his intended victims were in the
hospital at New Orleans recovering from their injuries; the old house
on the peninsula where he had made his headquarters was a mass of
charred embers and smoke-stained masonry.
* * * * *
They hurried back toward the house of Jacques d'Arcy. Once more the
wild shrieks assailed their ears, speeding their footsteps. Mingled
with the screams was a low, gurgling moaning. It grew fainter as they
approached. By the time they reached the low, whitewashed gate, it had
ceased.
The front door was thrown hurriedly open and a white face peered out at
them, terror written in every lineament.
In a rustic wicker chair in the low-ceilinged room an old woman was
weaving backward and forward, shrieking hysterically. Around her stood
three other women--two of them neighbors, one a daughter. A fourth had
opened the door.
They greeted the newcomers with gasps of relief.
"_On connait l'ami au besoin_--a friend is known in time of need!" the
younger woman exclaimed. "Eet ees ze doctaire!"
Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder.
"What happened?" he snapped.
She twisted her tattered handkerchief about her fingers nervously.
"Zat I do not rightly know," she finally managed to ejaculate. "Père
d'Arcy, he ees dying, we theenk. We were weeth heem. We hear a noise
outside. We look through ze window. Zere was a face peering een at
us--a horrible face, doctaire. Eet was ze face of _le Diable_."
She stopped, shuddering like one who suffers from the ague. Lamontaine
glared at her and she continued.
"We scream. Zen ze awful face disappear and through ze window come ze
shape--ze shapeless shape! Lak' a ghos' eet was--wizout form, yet eet
had ze form! _Oui_, I cannot explain eet, doctaire!"
She broke off her recital and gave way to shuddering sobs, her face
buried in her hands. Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder again and
shook her roughly. The old woman recommenced her hysterical howling.
"Talk!" Lamontaine snapped, shaking the woman until her teeth
chattered. "Time is of value now. Talk!"
The woman ceased her convulsive sobbing and looked at the big physician
pathetically.
"Eet was awful--horrible!" she said finally. "Père d'Arcy, he give ze
wild scream. Ze theeng--ze awful theeng--drop upon heem like ze great
veil. Jacques, he moan again and again. Zen, ze moan, eet, too, stop.
We have rush out and we are here. We are afraid of ze theeng. Zen you
come----"
Lamontaine shoved her aside and, darting to the door of the sickroom,
seized the knob and jerked it open.
The room was in darkness, yet the light, shining through the open
door from the outer room, was strong enough to reveal the scene that
was being enacted. Even Lamontaine, inured though he was to death and
violence, shrank back.
Old Jacques d'Arcy lay upon the floor by the side of the bed. His face,
glaring up at them, was twisted into a horrible contortion, the eyes
protruding as if they had been squeezed from their sockets. His body
was shriveled into a million wrinkles; it was like a toy balloon that
has been deflated.
Over the dead man was a form--a strange, gossamer-like wraith, vague,
shadowy, indistinct. The physician had an impression of malignant eyes
glaring at him--of a slit of a mouth drawn back into a wolfish snarl.
Yet there were no eyes--no mouth. The thing was shapeless.
Recovering himself, Lamontaine took a step forward. The hellish thing
seemed about to spring at him. Then it drew back as if reluctant to
leave the body of its victim.
Slowly it dissolved itself--floating away like a bit of vapor, through
the open window.
Lamontaine turned to the others who stood shuddering in the doorway.
The old woman took up her hysterical wailing again.
A faint odor filled the room. It was strange, indistinguishable,
horrible, nauseating. It was the odor of death.
The thing from beyond, gorged with vitality, had reached a point in its
development where it was visible to human eyes.
_3. Out of the Night_
It was apparent to Lamontaine that Aaron Kronk was the medium by which
the horrific spirit form from the other world had been materialized.
Yet the burly physician was puzzled. What sinister motive did the
diabolical Kronk have in thus wreaking his vengeance upon the
inoffensive, simple-minded inhabitants of the sleepy little village?
They had done him no harm. Until a few weeks earlier, when Lamontaine
had met and bested him in his struggle for the de Laval fortune, these
people had never known of his existence.
Yet in Lamontaine's mind there was no doubt that Kronk was possessed of
more than ordinary mediumistic ability and that it was through him that
the terrible primal force had been developed. But why? He asked himself
the question a hundred times as he completed his rounds of the sick,
following the horrible death of Jacques d'Arcy.
It was late when he had finished. Now, even though it was well past
midnight, he still sat in his darkened office, his feet upon the desk,
his eyes, half closed, gazing out of the open window. He had kicked
off his shoes and thrust his toes into carpet slippers. His shirt was
tossed carelessly into the corner and his suspenders hung down over his
hips.
The little village had long since quieted down for the night. Here and
there a dim light glimmered in a curtained window, marking the home of
some helpless victim who was fighting the horror that was hovering over
the peaceful little hamlet like a great pall--a horror that he, the man
in whom these simple village folk had learned to place their trust, was
unable to combat.
Lamontaine cursed aloud as he realized the futility of his struggle
against the thing from beyond. He had found in his books no surcease of
sorrow--no way to scotch the demon. It was something that he must think
out--reason out for himself.
His only chance lay in the trap he had laid by means of the little
schoolmaster. Had he done right in thus exposing Noel Pelletier to the
terrible danger? There was no other way. He consoled himself with the
thought that Pelletier had no desire to live if Evelyn l'Brest died.
And unless he was successful in his assault on the malevolent spirit
through the little dominie, Evelyn l'Brest must surely go.
And yet he had no set plan. He was trusting to luck--blind luck--hoping
against hope that he would succeed.
There was a light footstep on the gravel outside the window. He looked
out. It was Pierre Le Front, the constable, making his midnight rounds.
Seeing the physician sitting in the open window, he had entered the
yard. Now, at Lamontaine's invitation, he stepped inside.
The physician picked the rum-jug from the floor and, filling a cup for
himself, tossed another across the desk to the officer and jerked his
thumb toward the jug.
"Drink?" he growled. "Jamaica rum. It'll do you good on a night like
this--a night when the very atmosphere tingles with death."
"_Mon Dieu!_ Yes, yes!" Le Front ejaculated. "I, too, feel eet een ze
air, doctaire."
He filled the cup and tossed off the contents with an appreciative
smack of his lips.
"Ze dominie ees worse," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand. "I am go zere and stay ze night weeth heem w'en I feenish my
round. He ees fear to stay alone."
Lamontaine cursed again--full, man-sized oaths.
"And there's not a damned thing that I can do," he mourned. "Not a
damned thing!"