the club we were always running across one another--in the houses of
friends at lunch or dinner; at race meetings; all over the place; in
fact, I even had some trouble to avoid being introduced to him. And
every time we met our eyes betrayed us. He felt in his heart what I felt
in mine. Ugh! He was as loathsome to me as leprosy, and as dangerous.
Odd, isn't it? The most intense feeling, except love, I've ever known. I
remember"--he laughed gruffly--"I used to feel quite sorry for him. If
he felt what I felt, and I'm convinced he did, he must have suffered.
His one object--to get me out of the way for good--was so impossible.
Then Fate played a hand in the game. I'll tell you how.
"My brother died a year or two later, and I went abroad to try and
forget it. I went salmon fishing in Canada. But, though the sport was
good, it was not like the old times with Jack. The camp never felt the
same without him. I missed him badly. But I forgot Hazel for the time;
hating did not seem worth while, somehow.
"When the best of the fishing was over on the Atlantic side, I took a
run back to Vancouver and fished there for a bit. I went up the Campbell
River, which was not so crowded then as it is now, and had some rattling
sport. Then I grew tired of the rod and decided to go after wapiti for a
change. I came back to Victoria and learned what I could about the best
places, and decided finally to go up the west coast of the island. By
luck I happened to pick up a good guide, who was in the town at the
moment on business, and we started off together in one of the little
Canadian Pacific Railway boats that ply along that coast.
"Outfitting two days later at a small place the steamer stopped at, the
guide said we needed another man to help pack our kit over portages,
and so forth, but the only fellow available was a Siwash of whom he
disapproved. My guide would not have him at any price; he was lazy, a
drunkard, a liar, and even worse, for on one occasion he came back
without the sportsman he had taken up country on a shooting trip, and
his story was not convincing, to say the least. These disappearances are
always awkward, of course, as you both know. We preferred, anyhow, to go
without the Siwash, and off we started.
"At first our luck was bad. I saw many wapiti, but no good heads; only
after a fortnight's hunting did I manage to get a decent head, though
even that was not so good as I should have liked.
"We were then near the head waters of a little river that ran down into
the Inlet; heavy rains had made the river rise; running downstream was a
risky job, what with old log-jams shifting and new ones forming; and,
after many narrow escapes, we upset one afternoon and had the misfortune
to lose a lot of our kit, amongst it most of our cartridges. We could
only muster a few between us. The guide had a dozen; I had two--just
enough, we considered, to take us out all right. Still, it was an
infernal nuisance. We camped at once to dry out our soaked things in
front of a big fire, and while this laundry work was going on, the guide
suggested my filling in the time by taking a look at the next little
valley, which ran parallel to ours. He had seen some good heads over
there a few weeks ago. Possibly I might come upon the herd. I started at
once, taking my two cartridges with me.
"It was the devil of a job getting over the divide, for it was a badly
bushed-up place, and where there were no bushes there were boulders and
fallen trees, and the going was slow and tiring. But I got across at
last and came out upon another stream at the bottom of the new valley.
Signs of wapiti were plentiful, though I never came up with a single
beast all the afternoon. Blacktail deer were everywhere, but the wapiti
remained invisible. Providence, or whatever you like to call that which
there is no escaping in our lives, made me save my two cartridges."
Ericssen stopped a minute then. It was not to light his pipe or sip his
whisky. Nor was it because the remainder of his story failed in the
recollection of any vivid detail. He paused a moment to think.
"Tell us the lot," pleaded Lawson. "Don't leave out anything."
Ericssen looked up. His friend's remark had helped him to make up his
mind apparently. He _had_ hesitated about something or other, but the
hesitation passed. He glanced at both his listeners.
"Right," he said. "I'll tell you everything. I'm not imaginative, as you
know, and my amount of superstition, I should judge, is microscopic." He
took a longer breath, then lowered his voice a trifle. "Anyhow," he went
on, "it's true, so I don't see why I should feel shy about admitting
it--but as I stood there in that lonely valley, where only the noises of
wind and water were audible, and no human being, except my guide, some
miles away, was within reach, a curious feeling came over me I find
difficult to describe. I felt"--obviously he made an effort to get the
word out--"I felt creepy."
"You," murmured Lawson, with an incredulous smile--"you creepy?" he
repeated under his breath.
"I felt creepy and afraid," continued the other, with conviction. "I
had the sensation of being seen by someone--as if someone, I mean,
was watching me. It was so unlikely that anyone was near me in that
God-forsaken bit of wilderness, that I simply couldn't believe it at
first. But the feeling persisted. I felt absolutely positive somebody
was not far away among the red maples, behind a boulder, across the
little stream, perhaps, somewhere, at any rate, so near that I was
plainly visible to him. It was not an animal. It was human. Also, it
was hostile.
"I was in danger.
"You may laugh, both of you, but I assure you the feeling was so
positive that I crouched down instinctively to hide myself behind a
rock. My first thought, that the guide had followed me for some reason
or other, I at once discarded. It was not the guide. It was an enemy.
"No, no, I thought of no one in particular. No name, no face occurred to
me. Merely that an enemy was on my trail, that he saw me, and I did not
see him, and that he was near enough to me to--well, to take instant
action. This deep instinctive feeling of danger, of fear, of anything
you like to call it, was simply overwhelming.
"Another curious detail I must also mention. About half an hour before,
having given up all hope of seeing wapiti, I had decided to kill a
blacktail deer for meat. A good shot offered itself, not thirty yards
away. I aimed. But just as I was going to pull the trigger a queer
emotion touched me, and I lowered the rifle. It was exactly as though a
voice said, 'Don't!' I heard no voice, mind you; it was an emotion only,
a feeling, a sudden inexplicable change of mind--a warning, if you
like. I didn't fire, anyhow.
"But now, as I crouched behind that rock, I remembered this curious
little incident, and was glad I had not used up my last two cartridges.
More than that I cannot tell you. Things of that kind are new to me.
They're difficult enough to tell, let alone to explain. But they were
_real_.
"I crouched there, wondering what on earth was happening to me, and,
feeling a bit of a fool, if you want to know, when suddenly, over the
top of the boulder, I saw something moving. It was a man's hat. I peered
cautiously. Some sixty yards away the bushes parted, and two men came
out on to the river's bank, and I knew them both. One was the Siwash I
had seen at the store. The other was Hazel. Before I had time to think
I cocked my rifle."
"Hazel. Good Lord!" exclaimed the listeners.
"For a moment I was too surprised to do anything but cock that rifle. I
waited, for what puzzled me was that, after all, Hazel had _not_ seen
me. It was only the feeling of his beastly proximity that had made me
feel I was seen and watched by him. There was something else, too, that
made me pause before--er--doing anything. Two other things, in fact. One
was that I was so intensely interested in watching the fellow's actions.
Obviously he had the same uneasy sensation that I had. He shared with me
the nasty feeling that danger was about. His rifle, I saw, was cocked
and ready; he kept looking behind him, over his shoulder, peering this
way and that, and sometimes addressing a remark to the Siwash at his
side. I caught the laughter of the latter. The Siwash evidently did not
think there was danger anywhere. It was, of course, unlikely enough----"
"And the other thing that stopped you?" urged Lawson, impatiently
interrupting.
Ericssen turned with a look of grim humour on his face.
"Some confounded or perverted sense of chivalry in me, I suppose," he
said, "that made it impossible to shoot him down in cold blood, or,
rather, without letting him have a chance. For my blood, as a matter of
fact, was far from cold at the moment. Perhaps, too, I wanted the added
satisfaction of letting him know who fired the shot that was to end his
vile existence."
He laughed again. "It was rat and ferret in the human kingdom," he went
on, "but I wanted my rat to have a chance, I suppose. Anyhow, though I
had a perfect shot in front of me at easy distance, I did not fire.
Instead I got up, holding my cocked rifle ready, finger on trigger, and
came out of my hiding place. I called to him. 'Hazel, you beast! So
there you are--at last!'
"He turned, but turned away from me, offering his horrid back. The
direction of the voice he misjudged. He pointed down stream, and the
Siwash turned to look. Neither of them had seen me yet. There was a big
log-jam below them. The roar of the water in their ears concealed my
footsteps. I was, perhaps, twenty paces from them when Hazel, with a
jerk of his whole body, abruptly turned clean round and faced me. We
stared into each other's eyes.
"The amazement on his face changed instantly to hatred and resolve. He
acted with incredible rapidity. I think the unexpected suddenness of his
turn made me lose a precious second or two. Anyhow he was ahead of me.
He flung his rifle to his shoulder. 'You devil!' I heard his voice.
'I've got you at last!' His rifle cracked, for he let drive the same
instant. The hair stirred just above my ear.
"He had missed!
"Before he could draw back his bolt for another shot I had acted.
"'You're not fit to live!' I shouted, as my bullet crashed into his
temple. I had the satisfaction, too, of knowing that he heard my words.
I saw the swift expression of frustrated loathing in his eyes.
"He fell like an ox, his face splashing in the stream. I shoved the body
out. I saw it sucked beneath the log-jam instantly. It disappeared.
There could be no inquest on him, I reflected comfortably. Hazel was
gone--gone from this earth, from my life, our mutual hatred over at
last."
The speaker paused a moment. "Odd," he continued presently--"very odd
indeed." He turned to the others. "I felt quite sorry for him suddenly.
I suppose," he added, "the philosophers are right when they gas about
hate being very close to love."
His friends contributed no remark.
"Then I came away," he resumed shortly. "My wife--well, you know the
rest, don't you? I told her the whole thing. She--she said nothing. But
she married me, you see."
There was a moment's silence. Baynes was the first to break it.
"But--the Siwash?" he asked. "The witness?"
Lawson turned upon him with something of contemptuous impatience.
"He told you he had _two_ cartridges."
Ericssen, smiling grimly, said nothing at all.
V
THE TARN OF SACRIFICE
John Holt, a vague excitement in him, stood at the door of the little
inn, listening to the landlord's directions as to the best way of
reaching Scarsdale. He was on a walking tour through the Lake District,
exploring the smaller dales that lie away from the beaten track and are
accessible only on foot.
The landlord, a hard-featured north countryman, half innkeeper, half
sheep farmer, pointed up the valley. His deep voice had a friendly burr
in it.
"You go straight on till you reach the head," he said, "then take to the
fell. Follow the 'sheep-trod' past the Crag. Directly you're over the
top you'll strike the road."
"A road up there!" exclaimed his customer incredulously.
"Aye," was the steady reply. "The old Roman road. The same road," he
added, "the savages came down when they burst through the Wall and burnt
everything right up to Lancaster----"
"They were held--weren't they--at Lancaster?" asked the other, yet not
knowing quite why he asked it.
"I don't rightly know," came the answer slowly. "Some say they were. But
the old town has been that built over since, it's hard to tell." He
paused a moment. "At Ambleside," he went on presently, "you can still
see the marks of the burning, and at the little fort on the way to
Ravenglass."
Holt strained his eyes into the sunlit distance, for he would soon have
to walk that road and he was anxious to be off. But the landlord was
communicative and interesting. "You can't miss it," he told him. "It
runs straight as a spear along the fell top till it meets the Wall. You
must hold to it for about eight miles. Then you'll come to the Standing
Stone on the left of the track----"
"The Standing Stone, yes?" broke in the other a little eagerly.
"You'll see the Stone right enough. It was where the Romans came. Then
bear to the left down another 'trod' that comes into the road there.
They say it was the war-trail of the folk that set up the Stone."
"And what did they use the Stone for?" Holt inquired, more as though he
asked it of himself than of his companion.
The old man paused to reflect. He spoke at length.
"I mind an old fellow who seemed to know about such things called it a
Sighting Stone. He reckoned the sun shone over it at dawn on the longest
day right on to the little holm in Blood Tarn. He said they held
sacrifices in a stone circle there." He stopped a moment to puff at his
black pipe. "Maybe he was right. I have seen stones lying about that may
well be that."
The man was pleased and willing to talk to so good a listener. Either he
had not noticed the curious gesture the other made, or he read it as a
sign of eagerness to start. The sun was warm, but a sharp wind from the
bare hills went between them with a sighing sound. Holt buttoned his
coat about him. "An odd name for a mountain lake--Blood Tarn," he
remarked, watching the landlord's face expectantly.
"Aye, but a good one," was the measured reply. "When I was a boy the old
folk had a tale that the savages flung three Roman captives from that
crag into the water. There's a book been written about it; they say it
was a sacrifice, but most likely they were tired of dragging them along,
_I_ say. Anyway, that's what the writer said. One, I mind, now you ask
me, was a priest of some heathen temple that stood near the Wall, and
the other two were his daughter and her lover." He guffawed. At least he
made a strange noise in his throat. Evidently, thought Holt, he was
sceptical yet superstitious. "It's just an old tale handed down,
whatever the learned folk may say," the old man added.
"A lonely place," began Holt, aware that a fleeting touch of awe was
added suddenly to his interest.
"Aye," said the other, "and a bad spot too. Every year the Crag takes
its toll of sheep, and sometimes a man goes over in the mist. It's right
beside the track and very slippery. Ninety foot of a drop before you hit
the water. Best keep round the tarn and leave the Crag alone if there's
any mist about. Fishing? Yes, there's some quite fair trout in the tarn,
but it's not much fished. Happen one of the shepherd lads from Tyson's
farm may give it a turn with an 'otter,'" he went on, "once in a while,
but he won't stay for the evening. He'll clear out before sunset."
"Ah! Superstitious, I suppose?"
"It's a gloomy, chancy spot--and with the dusk falling," agreed the
innkeeper eventually. "None of our folk care to be caught up there with
night coming on. Most handy for a shepherd, too--but Tyson can't get
a man to bide there." He paused again, then added significantly:
"Strangers don't seem to mind it though. It's only our own folk----"
"Strangers!" repeated the other sharply, as though he had been waiting
all along for this special bit of information. "You don't mean to say
there are people living up there?" A curious thrill ran over him.
"Aye," replied the landlord, "but they're daft folk--a man and his
daughter. They come every spring. It's early in the year yet, but I mind
Jim Backhouse, one of Tyson's men, talking about them last week." He
stopped to think. "So they've come back," he went on decidedly. "They
get milk from the farm."
"And what on earth are they doing up there?" Holt asked.
He asked many other questions as well, but the answers were poor, the
information not forthcoming. The landlord would talk for hours about
the Crag, the tarn, the legends and the Romans, but concerning the two
strangers he was uncommunicative. Either he knew little, or he did not
want to discuss them; Holt felt it was probably the former. They were
educated town-folk, he gathered with difficulty, rich apparently, and
they spent their time wandering about the fell, or fishing. The man was
often seen upon the Crag, his girl beside him, bare-legged, dressed as
a peasant. "Happen they come for their health, happen the father is a
learned man studying the Wall"--exact information was not forthcoming.
The landlord "minded his own business," and inhabitants were too few and
far between for gossip. All Holt could extract amounted to this: the
couple had been in a motor accident some years before, and as a result
they came every spring to spend a month or two in absolute solitude,
away from cities and the excitement of modern life. They troubled no one
and no one troubled them.
"Perhaps I may see them as I go by the tarn," remarked the walker
finally, making ready to go. He gave up questioning in despair. The
morning hours were passing.
"Happen you may," was the reply, "for your track goes past their door
and leads straight down to Scarsdale. The other way over the Crag saves
half a mile, but it's rough going along the scree." He stopped dead.
Then he added, in reply to Holt's good-bye: "In my opinion it's not
worth it," yet what he meant exactly by "it" was not quite clear.
* * * * *
The walker shouldered his knapsack. Instinctively he gave the little
hitch to settle it on his shoulders--much as he used to give to his pack
in France. The pain that shot through him as he did so was another
reminder of France. The bullet he had stopped on the Somme still made
its presence felt at times.... Yet he knew, as he walked off briskly,
that he was one of the lucky ones. How many of his old pals would never
walk again, condemned to hobble on crutches for the rest of their lives!
How many, again, would never even hobble! More terrible still, he
remembered, were the blind.... The dead, it seemed to him, had been more
fortunate....
He swung up the narrowing valley at a good pace and was soon climbing
the fell. It proved far steeper than it had appeared from the door of
the inn, and he was glad enough to reach the top and fling himself down
on the coarse springy turf to admire the view below.
The spring day was delicious. It stirred his blood. The world beneath
looked young and stainless. Emotion rose through him in a wave of
optimistic happiness. The bare hills were half hidden by a soft blue
haze that made them look bigger, vaster, less earthly than they really
were. He saw silver streaks in the valleys that he knew were distant
streams and lakes. Birds soared between. The dazzling air seemed painted
with exhilarating light and colour. The very clouds were floating
gossamer that he could touch. There were bees and dragon-flies and
fluttering thistle-down. Heat vibrated. His body, his physical
sensations, so-called, retired into almost nothing. He felt himself,
like his surroundings, made of air and sunlight. A delicious sense of
resignation poured upon him. He, too, like his surroundings, was
composed of air and sunshine, of insect wings, of soft, fluttering
vibrations that the gorgeous spring day produced.... It seemed that he
renounced the heavy dues of bodily life, and enjoyed the delights,
momentarily at any rate, of a more ethereal consciousness.
Near at hand, the hills were covered with the faded gold of last year's
bracken, which ran down in a brimming flood till it was lost in the
fresh green of the familiar woods below. Far in the hazy distance swam
the sea of ash and hazel. The silver birch sprinkled that lower world
with fairy light.
Yes, it was all natural enough. He could see the road quite clearly now,
only a hundred yards away from where he lay. How straight it ran along
the top of the hill! The landlord's expression recurred to him:
"Straight as a spear." Somehow, the phrase seemed to describe exactly
the Romans and all their works.... The Romans, yes, and all their
works....
He became aware of a sudden sympathy with these long dead conquerors of
the world. With them, he felt sure, there had been no useless, foolish
talk. They had known no empty words, no bandying of foolish phrases.
"War to end war," and "Regeneration of the race"--no hypocritical
nonsense of that sort had troubled their minds and purposes. They had
not attempted to cover up the horrible in words. With them had been no
childish, vain pretence. They had gone straight to their ends.
Other thoughts, too, stole over him, as he sat gazing down upon the
track of that ancient road; strange thoughts, not wholly welcome. New,
yet old, emotions rose in a tide upon him. He began to wonder.... Had
he, after all, become brutalized by the War? He knew quite well that the
little "Christianity" he inherited had soon fallen from him like a
garment in France. In his attitude to Life and Death he had become,
frankly, pagan. He now realized, abruptly, another thing as well: in
reality he had never been a "Christian" at any time. Given to him with
his mother's milk, he had never accepted, felt at home with Christian
dogmas. To him they had always been an alien creed. Christianity met
none of his requirements....
But what were his "requirements"? He found it difficult to answer.
Something, at any rate, different and more primitive, he thought....
Even up here, alone on the mountain-top, it was hard to be absolutely
frank with himself. With a kind of savage, honest determination, he bent
himself to the task. It became suddenly important for him. He must know
exactly where he stood. It seemed he had reached a turning point in his
life. The War, in the objective world, had been one such turning point;
now he had reached another, in the subjective life, and it was more
important than the first.
As he lay there in the pleasant sunshine, his thoughts went back to
the fighting. A friend, he recalled, had divided people into those who
enjoyed the War and those who didn't. He was obliged to admit that he
had been one of the former--he had thoroughly enjoyed it. Brought up
from a youth as an engineer, he had taken to a soldier's life as a
duck takes to water. There had been plenty of misery, discomfort,
wretchedness; but there had been compensations that, for him, outweighed
them. The fierce excitement, the primitive, naked passions, the wild
fury, the reckless indifference to pain and death, with the loss of the
normal, cautious, pettifogging little daily self all these involved, had
satisfied him. Even the actual killing....
He started. A slight shudder ran down his back as the cool wind from the
open moorlands came sighing across the soft spring sunshine. Sitting up
straight, he looked behind him a moment, as with an effort to turn away
from something he disliked and dreaded because it was, he knew, too
strong for him. But the same instant he turned round again. He faced the
vile and dreadful thing in himself he had hitherto sought to deny,
evade. Pretence fell away. He could not disguise from himself, that he
had thoroughly enjoyed the killing; or, at any rate, had not been
shocked by it as by an unnatural and ghastly duty. The shooting and
bombing he performed with an effort always, but the rarer moments when
he had been able to use the bayonet ... the joy of feeling the steel go
home....
He started again, hiding his face a moment in his hands, but he did not
try to evade the hideous memories that surged. At times, he knew, he had
gone quite mad with the lust of slaughter; he had gone on long after he
should have stopped. Once an officer had pulled him up sharply for it,
but the next instant had been killed by a bullet. He thought he had gone
on killing, but he did not know. It was all a red mist before his eyes
and he could only remember the sticky feeling of the blood on his hands
when he gripped his rifle....