THE DOOM
It was the last night of February, the bitterest night perhaps of all
that sad winter, when at length Hugh de Cressi, Grey Dick, and David
Day rode into the town of Dunwich. Only that morning they had landed at
Yarmouth after a long, long journey whereof the perils and the horrors
may be guessed but need not be written. France, through which they had
passed, seemed to be but one vast grave over which the wail of those who
still survived went up without cease to the cold, unpitying heavens.
Here in England the tale was still the same. Thus in the great seaport
of Yarmouth scarcely enough people were left alive to inter the
unshriven dead, nor of these would any stay to speak with them, fearing
lest they had brought a fresh curse from overseas. Even the horses that
they rode they took from a stable where they whinnied hungrily, none
being there to feed them, leaving in their place a writing of the debt.
Betwixt Yarmouth and Dunwich they had travelled through smitten towns
and villages, where a few wandered fearfully, distraught with sorrow or
seeking food. In the streets the very dogs lay dead and in the fields
they saw the carcasses of cattle dragged from the smokeless and deserted
steadings and half hidden in a winding-sheet of snow. For the Black
Plague spared neither man nor beast.
At the little port of Lowestoft they met a sullen sailorman who stood
staring at the beach whereon his fishing boat lay overturned and awash
for lack of hands to drag it out of reach of the angry sea. They asked
him if he knew of how it fared with Dunwich.
By way of answer he cursed them, adding:
“Must I be forever pestered as to Dunwich? This is the third time of
late that I have heard of Dunwich from wandering folk. Begone thither
and gather tidings for yourselves, which I hope will please you as well
as they do me.”
“Now, if I were not in haste I would stay a while to teach you manners,
you foul-mouthed churl,” muttered Grey Dick between his teeth.
“Let the fellow be,” said Hugh wearily; “the men of Lowestoft have ever
hated those of Dunwich, and it seems that a common woe does not soften
hearts. Soon enough we shall learn the truth.”
“Ay, you’ll learn it soon enough,” shouted the brute after them.
“Dunwich boats won’t steel Lowestoft herrings for many a year!”
So they rode on through Kessland, which they reached as night was
closing in, through Benacre and Wrentham, also past houses in which none
seemed to dwell.
“Murgh has been here before us, I think,” said Dick at length.
“Then I hope that we may overtake him,” answered Hugh with a smile, “for
I need his tidings--or his rest. Oh! Dick, Dick,” he added, “I wonder
has ever man borne a heavier burden for all this weary while? If I were
sure, it would not be so bad, for when earthly hope is done we may turn
to other comfort. But I’m not sure; Basil may have lied. The priest
by the pit could only swear to the red cloak, of which there are many,
though few be buried in them. And, Dick, there are worse things than
that. Perchance Acour got her after all.”
“And perchance he didn’t,” answered Dick. “Well, fret on if you will;
the thing does not trouble me who for my part am sure enough.”
“Of what, man, of what?”
“Of seeing the lady Eve ere long.”
“In this world or the next, Dick?”
“In this. I don’t reckon of the next, mayhap there we shall be blind and
not see. Besides, of what use is that world to you where it is written
that they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the
angels? You’ll make no good angel, I’m thinking, while as for the lady
Eve, she’s too human for it as yet.”
“Why do you think we shall see her on earth?” asked Hugh, ignoring these
reflections.
“Because he who is called the Helper said as much, and whatever he may
be he is no liar. Do you not remember what Red Eve told you when she
awoke from that dream of hers, which was no dream? And do you not
remember what Sir Andrew told you as to a certain meeting in the
snow--pest upon it!” and he wiped some of the driving flakes from his
face--“Sir Andrew, who is a saint, and, therefore, like Murgh, can be no
liar?”
“If you think thus,” said Hugh in a new voice, “why did you not say so
before?”
“Because I love not argument, master, and if I had, you would ever have
reasoned with me from Avignon to Yarmouth town and spoilt my sleep of
nights. Oh! where is your faith?”
“What is faith, Dick?”
“The gift of belief, master. A very great gift, seeing what a man
believes is and will be true for him, however false it may prove for
others. He who believes nothing, sows nothing, and therefore reaps
nothing, good or ill.”
“Who taught you these things, Dick?”
“One whom I am not likely to forget, or you, either. One who is my
master at archery and whose words, like his arrows, though they be few,
yet strike the heart of hidden truth. Oh, fear not, doubtless sorrow
waits you yonder,” and he pointed toward Dunwich. “Yet it comes to
my lips that there’s joy beyond the sorrows, the joy of battle and of
love--for those who care for love, which I think foolishness. There
stands a farm, and the farmer is a friend of mine, or used to be. Let us
go thither and feed these poor beasts and ourselves, or I think we will
never come to Dunwich through this cold and snow. Moreover,” he added
thoughtfully, “joy or sorrow or both of them are best met by full men,
and I wish to look to your harness and my own, for sword and axe are
rusted with the sea. Who knows but that we may need them in Dunwich, or
beyond, when we meet with Murgh, as he promised that we should.”
So they rode up to the house and found Dick’s friend, the farmer, lying
dead there in his own yard, whither his family had dragged him ere they
determined to fly the place. Still, there was fodder in the stable and
they lit a fire in the kitchen hearth and drank of the wine which they
had brought with them from the ship, and ate of the bacon which still
hung from the rafters. This done, they lay down to sleep a while. About
one in the morning, however, Hugh roused Dick and David, saying that he
could rest no more and that something in his heart bade him push on to
Dunwich.
“Then let us follow your heart, master,” said Dick, yawning. “Yet I wish
it had waited till dawn to move you. Yes, let us follow your heart to
good or evil. David, go you out and saddle up those nags.”
For Dick had worked late at their mail and weapons, which now were
bright and sharp again, and was very weary.
It was after three in the morning when at length, leaving the heath,
they rode up to Dunwich Middlegate, expecting to find it shut against
them at such an hour. But it stood open, nor did any challenge them from
the guardhouse.
“They keep an ill watch in Dunwich now-a-days,” grumbled Dick. “Well,
perchance there is one here to whom they can trust that business.”
Hugh made no answer, only pressed on down the narrow street, that was
deep and dumb with snow, till at length they drew reign before the door
of his father’s house, in the market-place, the great house where he
was born. He looked at the windows and noted that, although they were
unshuttered, no friendly light shone in them. He called aloud, but echo
was his only answer, echo and the moan of the bitter wind and the sullen
roar of the sea.
“Doubtless all men are asleep,” he said. “Why should it be otherwise at
such an hour? Let us enter and waken them.”
“Yes, yes,” answered Dick as he dismounted and threw the reins of his
horse to David. “They are like the rest of Dunwich--asleep.”
So they entered and began to search the house by the dim light of the
moon. First they searched the lower chambers, then those where Hugh’s
father and his brothers had slept, and lastly the attics. Here they
found the pallets of the serving-folk upon the floor, but none at rest
upon them.
“The house is deserted,” said Hugh heavily.
“Yes, yes,” answered Dick again, in a cheerful voice; “doubtless Master
de Cressi and your brothers have moved away to escape the pest.”
“Pray God they have escaped it!” muttered Hugh. “This place stifles me,”
he added. “Let us out.”
“Whither shall we go, master?”
“To Blythburgh Manor,” he answered, “for there I may win tidings. David,
bide you here, and if you can learn aught follow us across the moor. The
manor cannot be missed.”
So once more Hugh and Dick mounted their horses and rode away through
the town, stopping now and again before some house they knew and calling
to its inmates. But though they called loudly none answered. Soon they
grew sure that this was because there were none to answer, since of
those houses many of the doors stood open. Only one living creature did
they see in Dunwich. As they turned the corner near to the Blythburgh
Gate they met a grey-haired man wrapped up in tattered blankets which
were tied about him with haybands. He carried in his hand a beautiful
flagon of silver. Doubtless he had stolen it from some church.
Seeing them, he cast this flagon into the snow and began to whimper like
a dog.
“Mad Tom,” said Dick, recognizing the poor fellow. “Tell us, Thomas,
where are the folk of Dunwich?”
“Dead, dead; all dead!” he wailed, and fled away.
“Stay! What of Master de Cressi?” called Hugh. But the tower of the
church round which he had vanished only echoed back across the snow,
“What of Master de Cressi?”
Then at last Hugh understood the awful truth.
It was that, save those who had fled, the people of Dunwich were slain
with the Sword of Pestilence, and all his kin among them.
They were on the Blythburgh Marshes, travelling thither by the shortest
road. The moon was down and the darkness dense, for the snow-clouds hid
the stars.
“Let us bide here a while,” said Grey Dick as their horses blundered
through the thick reeds. “It will soon be sunrise, and if we go on in
this gloom we shall fall into some boghole or into the river, which I
hear running on our left.”
So they halted their weary horses and sat still, for in his wretchedness
Hugh cared not what he did.
At length the east began to lighten, turning the sky to a smoky red.
Then the rim of the sun rising out of the white-flecked ocean, threw
athwart the desolate marsh a fierce ray that lay upon the snows like a
sword of blood. They were standing on the crest of a little mound, and
Dick, looking about him, knew the place.
“See,” he said, pointing toward the river that ran near by, “it is just
here that you killed young Clavering this day two years ago. Yonder also
I shot the French knights, and Red Eve and you leapt into the Blythe and
swam it.”
“Ay,” said Hugh, looking up idly, “but did you say two years, Dick? Nay,
surely ‘tis a score. Why,” he added in a changed voice, “who may that be
in the hollow?” and he pointed to a tall figure which stood beneath them
at a distance, half-hidden by the dank snow-mists.
“Let us go and see,” said Dick, speaking almost in a whisper, for
there was that about this figure which sent the blood to his throat and
cheeks.
He drove the spurs into his tired horse’s sides, causing it to leap
forward.
Half a minute later they had ridden down the slope of the hollow. A
puff of wind that came with the sun drove away the mist. Dick uttered
a choking cry and leapt from his saddle. For there, calm, terrible,
mighty, clothed in his red and yellow cap and robe of ebon furs, stood
he who was named Murgh the Fire, Murgh the Sword, Murgh the Helper,
Murgh, Gateway of the Gods!
They knelt before him in the snow, while, screaming in their fright, the
horses fled away.
“Knight and Archer,” said Murgh, in his icy voice, counting with the
thumb of his white-gloved right hand upon the hidden fingers of his
left. “Friends, you keep your tryst, but there are more to come. Have
patience, there are more to come.”
Then he became quiet, nor dared they ask him any questions. Only at a
motion of his arm they rose from their knees and stood before him.
A long while they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh’s dreadful
gaze Hugh’s brain began to swim. He looked about him, seeking some
natural thing to feed his eyes. Lo! yonder was that which he might
watch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant. See, out of
the reeds crept a great red fox. The hare smelt or saw, and leaped
away. The fox sprang at it, too late, for the white fangs closed emptily
behind its scut. Then with a little snarl of hungry rage it turned and
vanished into the brake.
The hare and the fox, the dead reeds, the rising sun, the snow--oh, who
had told him of these things?
Ah! he remembered now, and that memory set the blood pulsing in his
veins. For where these creatures were should be more besides Grey Dick
and himself and the Man of many names.
He looked toward Murgh to see that he had bent himself and with his
gloved hand was drawing lines upon the snow. Those lines when they were
done enclosed the shape of a grave!
“Archer,” said Murgh, “unsheath your axe and dig.”
As though he understood, Dick obeyed, and began to hollow out a grave in
the soft and boggy soil.
Hugh watched him like one who dreams, wondering who was destined to fill
that grave. Presently a sound behind caused him to turn his head.
Oh! certainly he was mad, for there over the rise not a dozen yards away
came the beautiful ghost of Eve Clavering, clad in her red cloak. With
her was another ghost, that of old Sir Andrew Arnold, blood running down
the armour beneath his robe and in his hand the hilt of a broken sword.
Hugh tried to speak, but his lips were dumb, nor did these ghosts take
any heed of him, for their eyes were fixed elsewhere. To Murgh they went
and stood before him silent. For a while he looked at them, then asked
in his cold voice:
“Who am I, Eve Clavering?”
“The Man who came to visit me in my dream at Avignon and told me that I
should live,” she answered slowly.
“And who say you that I am, Andrew Arnold, priest of Christ the God?”
“He whom I visited in my youth in far Cathay,” answered the old
knight in an awed whisper. “He who sat beside the pool behind the
dragon-guarded doors and was named Gateway of the Gods. He who showed to
me that we should meet again in such a place and hour as this.”
“Whence come you now, priest and woman, and why?”
“We come from Avignon. We fled thence from one who would have done this
maiden grievous wrong. He followed us. Not an hour gone he overtook
us with his knaves. He set them on to seize this woman, hanging back
himself. Old as I am I slew them both and got my death in it,” and he
touched the great wound in his side with the hilt of the broken sword.
“Our horses were the better; we fled across the swamp for Blythburgh, he
hunting us and seeking my life and her honour. Thus we found you as it
was appointed.”
Murgh turned his eyes. Following their glance, for the first time they
saw Hugh de Cressi and near him Grey Dick labouring at the grave. Eve
stretched out her arms and so stood with head thrown back, the light of
the daybreak shining in her lovely eyes and on her outspread hair. Hugh
opened his lips to speak but Murgh lifted his hand and pointed behind
them.
They turned and there, not twenty paces from them, clad in armour
and seated on a horse was Edmund Acour, Count de Noyon, Seigneur of
Cattrina.
He saw, then wheeled round to fly.
“Archer, to your work!” said Murgh, “you know it.”
Ere the words had left his lips the great black bow was bent and ere the
echoes died away the horse, struck in its side by the keen arrow, sank
dying to the ground.
Then Murgh beckoned to the rider and he came as a man who must. But,
throwing down the bow, Grey Dick once more began to labour at the grave
like one who takes no further heed of aught save his allotted task.
Acour stood before Murgh like a criminal before his judge.
“Man,” said the awful figure addressing him, “where have you been and
what have you done since last we spoke together in the midday dark at
Venice?”
Now, dragged word by slow word from his unwilling lips, came the answer
of the traitor’s heart.
“I fled from the field at Venice because I feared this knight, and you,
O Spirit of Death. I journeyed to Avignon, in France, and there strove
to possess myself of yonder woman whom here in England, with the help
of one Nicholas, I had wed, when she was foully drugged. I strove
to possess myself of her by fraud and by violence. But some fate was
against me. She and that aged priest bribed the knave whom I trusted. He
caused a dead man and woman dressed in their garments to be borne from
their lodging to the plague pit while they fled from Avignon disguised.”
Here for a moment Grey Dick paused from his labours at the grave and
looked up at Hugh. Then he fell to them again, throwing out the peaty
soil with both hands.
“My enemy and his familiar, for man he can scarcely be,” went on Acour,
pointing first to Hugh and then to Dick, “survived all my plans to kill
them and instead killed those whom I had sent after them. I learned that
the woman and the priest were not dead, but fled, and followed them, and
after me came my enemy and his familiar. Twice we passed each other on
the road, once we slept in the same house. I knew them but they knew me
not and the Fate which blinded me from them, saved them also from all my
plots to bring them to their doom. The woman and the priest took ship to
England, and I followed in another ship, being made mad with desire and
with jealous rage, for there I knew my enemy would find and win her. In
the darkness before this very dawn I overtook the woman and the priest
at last and set my fellows on to kill the man. Myself I would strike
no blow, fearing lest my death should come upon me, and so I should be
robbed of her. But God fought with His aged servant who in his youth was
the first of knights. He slew my men, then fled on with the woman, Eve
of Clavering. I followed, knowing that he was sore wounded and must die,
and that then the beauty which has lured me to shame and ruin would be
mine, if only for an hour. I followed, and here at this place of evil
omen, where first I saw my foe, I found _you_, O Incarnate Sword of
Vengeance.”
Murgh unfolded his bare arms and lifted his head, which was sunk upon
his breast.
“Your pardon,” he said gently, “my name is Hand of Fate and not Sword
of Vengeance. There is no vengeance save that which men work upon
themselves. What fate may be and vengeance may be I know not fully,
and none will ever know until they have passed the Gateway of the Gods.
Archer the grave is deep enough. Come forth now and let us learn who it
is decreed shall fill it. Knights, the hour is at hand for you to finish
that which you began at Crecy and at Venice.”
Hugh heard and drew his sword. Acour drew his sword also, then cried
out, pointing to Grey Dick:
“Here be two against one. If I conquer he will shoot me with his bow.”
“Have no fear, Sir Thief and Liar,” hissed Grey Dick, “for that shaft
will not be needed. Slay the master if you can and go safe from the
squire,” and he unstrung his black bow and hid it in its case.
Now Hugh stepped to where Red Eve stood, the wounded Sir Andrew leaning
on her shoulder. Bending down he kissed her on the lips, saying:
“Soon, very soon, my sweet, whom I have lost and found again, you will
be mine on earth, or I shall be yours in heaven. This, then, in greeting
or farewell.”
“In greeting, beloved, not in farewell,” she answered as she kissed him
back, “for if you die, know that I follow hard upon your road. Yet I say
that yonder grave was not dug for you.”
“Nay, not for you, son, not for you,” said Sir Andrew lifting his faint
head. “One fights for you whom you do not see, and against Him Satan and
his servant cannot stand,” and letting fall the sword hilt he stretched
out his thin hand and blessed him.
Now when Acour saw that embrace his jealous fury prevailed against his
fears. With a curse upon his lips he leapt at Hugh and smote, thinking
to take him unawares. But Hugh was watching, and sprang back, and then
the fray began, if fray it can be called.
A wild joy shining in his eyes, Hugh grasped his long sword with both
hands and struck. So great was that blow that it bit through Acour’s
armour, beneath his right arm, deep into the flesh and sent him
staggering back. Again he struck and wounded him in the shoulder; a
third time and clove his helm so that the blood poured down into his
eyes and blinded him.
Back reeled Acour, back to the very edge of the grave, and stood there
swaying to and fro. At the sight of his helplessness Hugh’s fury seemed
to leave him. His lifted sword sank downward.
“Let God deal with you, knave,” he said, “for I cannot.”
For a while there was silence. There they stood and stared at the
smitten man waiting the end, whatever it might be. They all stared save
Murgh, who fixed his stony eyes upon the sky.
Presently it came. The sword, falling from Acour’s hand into the grave,
rested there point upward. With a last effort he drew his dagger.
Dashing the blood from his eyes, he hurled it with all his dying
strength, not at Hugh, but at Red Eve. Past her ear it hissed, severing
a little tress of her long hair, which floated down on to the snow.
Then Acour threw his arms wide and fell backward--fell backward and
vanished in the grave.
Dick ran to look. There he lay dead, pierced through back and bosom by
the point of his own sword.
For one brief flash of time a black dove-shaped bird was seen hovering
round the head of Murgh.
“Finished!” said Dick straightening himself. “Well, I had hoped to see a
better fight, but cowards die as cowards live.”
Leaning on Red Eve’s shoulder Sir Andrew limped to the side of the
grave. They both looked down on that which lay therein.
“Daughter,” said the old man, “through many dangers it has come about
as I foretold. The bond that in your drugged sleep bound you to this
highborn knave is severed by God’s sword of death. Christ have pity on
his sinful soul. Now, Sir Hugh de Cressi, come hither and be swift, for
my time is short.”
Hugh obeyed, and at a sign took Eve by the hand. Then, speaking very
low and as quickly as he might for all his life was draining from him
through the red wound in his side, the old priest spoke the hallowed
words that bound these two together till death should part them. Yes,
there by the graveside, over the body of the dead Acour, there in the
red light of the morning, amidst the lonely snows, was celebrated the
strangest marriage the world has ever seen. In nature’s church it was
celebrated, with the grim, grey Archer for a clerk, and Death’s own
fearful minister for congregation.
It was done and with uplifted, trembling hands Sir Andrew blessed them
both--them and the fruit of their bodies which was to be. He blessed
them in the name of the all-seeing God he served. He bade them put aside
their grief for those whom they had lost. Soon, he said, their short
day done, the lost would be found again, made glorious, and with
them himself, who, loving them both on earth, would love them through
eternity.
Then, while their eyes grew blind with tears, and even the fierce archer
turned aside his face, Sir Andrew staggered to where he stood who in the
Land of Sunrise had been called Gateway of the Gods. Before him he bent
his grey and ancient head.
“O thou who dwellest here below to do the will of heaven, to thee I come
as once thou badest me,” he said, and was silent.
Murgh let his eyes rest on him. Then stretching out his hand, he touched
him very gently on the breast, and as he touched him smiled a sweet and
wondrous smile.
“Good and faithful servant,” he said, “thy work is done on earth. Now I,
whom all men fear, though I be their friend and helper, am bidden by the
Lord of life and death to call thee home. Look up and pass!”
The old priest obeyed. It seemed to those who watched that the radiance
on the face of Murgh had fallen upon him also. He smiled, he stretched
his arms upward as though to clasp what they might not see. Then down he
sank gently, as though upon a bed, and lay white and still in the white,
still snow.
The Helper turned to the three who remained alive.
“Farewell for a little time,” he said. “I must be gone. But when we meet
again, as meet we shall, then fear me not, for have you not seen that to
those who love me I am gentle?”
Hugh de Cressi and Red Eve made no answer, for they knew not what to
say. But Grey Dick spoke out boldly.
“Sir Lord, or Sir Spirit,” he said, “save once at the beginning, when
the arrow burst upon my string, I never feared you. Nor do I fear your
gifts,” and he pointed to the grave and to dead Sir Andrew, “which of
late have been plentiful throughout the world, as we of Dunwich know.
Therefore I dare to ask you one question ere we part for a while. Why do
you take one and leave another? Is it because you must, or because every
shaft does not hit its mark?”
Now Murgh looked him up and down with his sunken eyes, then answered:
“Come hither, archer, and I will lay my hand upon your heart also and
you shall learn.”
“Nay,” cried Grey Dick, “for now I have the answer to the riddle, since
I know you cannot lie. When we die we still live and know; therefore I’m
content to wait.”
Again that smile swept across Murgh’s awful face though that smile was
cold as the winter dawn. Then he turned and slowly walked away toward
the west.
They watched him go till he became but a blot of fantastic colour that
soon vanished on the moorland.
Hugh spoke to Red Eve and said:
“Wife, let us away from this haunted place and take what joy we can. Who
knows when Murgh may return again and make us as are all the others whom
we love!”
“Ay, husband won at last,” she answered, “who knows? Yet, after so much
fear and sorrow, first I would rest a while with you.”
So hand in hand they went till they, too, grew small and vanished on the
snowy marsh.
But Grey Dick stayed there alone with the dead, and presently spoke
aloud for company.
“The woman has him heart and soul,” he said, “as is fitting, and where’s
the room between the two for an archer-churl to lodge? Mayhap, after
all, I should have done well to take yonder Murgh for lord when I had
the chance. Man, or god, or ghost, he’s a fellow to my liking, and once
he had led me through the Gates no woman would have dared to come to
part us. Well, good-bye, Hugh de Cressi, till you are sick of kisses and
the long shafts begin to fly again, for then you will bethink you of a
certain bow and of him who alone can bend it.”
Having spoken thus in his hissing voice, whereof the sound resembled
that of an arrow in its flight, Grey Dick descended into the grave and
trod the earth over Acour’s false and handsome face, hiding it from the
sight of men forever.
Then he lifted up the dead Sir Andrew in his strong arms and slowly bore
him thence to burial.