_An eery tale of the American Civil War, and the uncanny evil being
who called himself Persil Mandifer, and his lovely daughter--a tale
of dark powers and weird happenings._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales February, March, April 1939.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_1. The Sacrifice_
Enid Mandifer tried to stand up under what she had just heard. She
managed it, but her ears rang, her eyes misted. She felt as if she were
drowning.
The voice of Persil Mandifer came through the fog, level and slow, with
the hint of that foreign accent which nobody could identify:
"Now that you know that you are not really my daughter, perhaps you are
curious as to why I adopted you."
Curious ... was that the word to use? But this man who was not her
father after all, he delighted in understatements. Enid's eyes had
grown clearer now. She was able to move, to obey Persil Mandifer's
invitation to seat herself. She saw him, half sprawling in his
rocking-chair against the plastered wall of the parlor, under the
painting of his ancient friend Aaron Burr. Was the rumor true, she
mused, that Burr had not really died, that he still lived and planned
ambitiously to make himself a throne in America? But Aaron Burr would
have to be an old, old man--a hundred years old, or more than a hundred.
Persil Mandifer's own age might have been anything, but probably he
was nearer seventy than fifty. Physically he was the narrowest of
men, in shoulders, hips, temples and legs alike, so that he appeared
distorted and compressed. White hair, like combed thistledown, fitted
itself in ordered streaks to his high skull. His eyes, dull and dark as
musket-balls, peered expressionlessly above the nose like a stiletto,
the chin like the pointed toe of a fancy boot. The fleshlessness of his
legs was accentuated by tight trousers, strapped under the insteps. At
his throat sprouted a frill of lace, after a fashion twenty-five years
old.
At his left, on a stool, crouched his enormous son Larue. Larue's body
was a collection of soft-looking globes and bladders--a tremendous
belly, round-kneed short legs, puffy hands, a gross bald head between
fat shoulders. His white linen suit was only a shade paler than his
skin, and his loose, faded-pink lips moved incessantly. Once Enid had
heard him talking to himself, had been close enough to distinguish the
words. Over and over he had said: "I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll
kill you."
These two men had reared her from babyhood, here in this low, spacious
manor of brick and timber in the Ozark country. Sixteen or eighteen
years ago there had been Indians hereabouts, but they were gone, and
the few settlers were on remote farms. The Mandifers dwelt alone with
their slaves, who were unusually solemn and taciturn for Negroes.
Persil Mandifer was continuing: "I have brought you up as a gentleman
would bring up his real daughter--for the sole and simple end of
making her a good wife. That explains, my dear, the governess,
the finishing-school at St. Louis, the books, the journeys we have
undertaken to New Orleans and elsewhere. I regret that this distressing
war between the states," and he paused to draw from his pocket his
enameled snuff-box, "should have made recent junkets impracticable.
However, the time has come, and you are not to be despised. Your
marriage is now to befall you."
"Marriage," mumbled Larue, in a voice that Enid was barely able to
hear. His fingers interlaced, like fat white worms in a jumble. His
eyes were for Enid, his ears for his father.
Enid saw that she must respond. She did so: "You have--chosen a husband
for me?"
Persil Mandifer's lips crawled into a smile, very wide on his narrow
blade of a face, and he took a pinch of snuff. "Your husband, my dear,
was chosen before ever you came into this world," he replied. The smile
grew broader, but Enid did not think it cheerful. "Does your mirror do
you justice?" he teased her. "Enid, my foster-daughter, does it tell
you truly that you are a beauty, with a face all lustrous and oval,
eyes full of tender fire, a cascade of golden-brown curls to frame the
whole?" His gaze wandered upon her body, and his eyelids drooped. "Does
it convince you, Enid, that your figure combines rarely those traits of
fragility and rondure that are never so desirable as when they occur
together? Ah, Enid, had I myself met you, or one like you, thirty years
ago----"
"Father!" growled Larue, as though at sacrilege. Persil Mandifer
chuckled. His left hand, white and slender with a dark cameo upon
the forefinger, extended and patted Larue's repellent bald pate, in
superior affection.
"Never fear, son," crooned Persil Mandifer. "Enid shall go a pure bride
to him who waits her." His other hand crept into the breast of his coat
and drew forth something on a chain. It looked like a crucifix.
"Tell me," pleaded the girl, "tell me, fa----" She broke off, for she
could not call him father. "What is the name of the one I am to marry?"
"His name?" said Larue, as though aghast at her ignorance.
"His name?" repeated the lean man in the rocking-chair. The
crucifix-like object in his hands began to swing idly and rhythmically,
while he paid out chain to make its pendulum motion wider and slower.
"He has no name."
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