THE ELEMENTAL
At dusk that evening, Dr. Cairn, his son, and Myra Duquesne met
together in the library. The girl looked rather pale.
An odour of incense pervaded the house, coming from the doctor's
study, wherein he had locked himself early in the evening, issuing
instructions that he was not to be disturbed. The exact nature of the
preparations which he had been making, Robert Cairn was unable to
conjecture; and some instinct warned him that his father would not
welcome any inquiry upon the matter. He realised that Dr. Cairn
proposed to fight Antony Ferrara with his own weapons, and now, when
something in the very air of the house seemed to warn them of a
tremendous attack impending, that the doctor, much against his will,
was entering the arena in the character of a practical magician--a
character new to him, and obviously abhorrent.
At half-past ten, the servants all retired in accordance With Dr.
Cairn's orders. From where he stood by the tall mantel-piece, Robert
Cairn could watch Myra Duquesne, a dainty picture in her simple
evening-gown, where she sat reading in a distant corner, her delicate
beauty forming a strong contrast to the background of sombre volumes.
Dr. Cairn sat by the big table, smoking, and apparently listening. A
strange device which he had adopted every evening for the past week,
he had adopted again to-night--there were little white seals, bearing
a curious figure, consisting in interlaced triangles, upon the insides
of every window in the house, upon the doors, and even upon the
fire-grates.
Robert Cairn at another time might have thought his father mad,
childish, thus to play at wizardry; but he had had experiences which
had taught him to recognise that upon such seemingly trivial matters,
great issues might turn, that in the strange land over the Border,
there were stranger laws--laws which he could but dimly understand.
There he acknowledged the superior wisdom of Dr. Cairn; and did not
question it.
At eleven o'clock a comparative quiet had come upon Half-Moon Street.
The sound of the traffic had gradually subsided, until it seemed to
him that the house stood, not in the busy West End of London, but
isolated, apart from its neighbours; it seemed to him an abode, marked
out and separated from the other abodes of man, a house enveloped in
an impalpable cloud, a cloud of evil, summoned up and directed by the
wizard hand of Antony Ferrara, son of the Witch-Queen.
Although Myra pretended to read, and Dr. Cairn, from his fixed
expression, might have been supposed to be pre-occupied, in point of
fact they were all waiting, with nerves at highest tension, for the
opening of the attack. In what form it would come--whether it would be
vague moanings and tappings upon the windows, such as they had already
experienced, whether it would be a phantasmal storm, a clap of
phenomenal thunder--they could not conjecture, if the enemy would
attack suddenly, or if his menace would grow, threatening from afar
off, and then gradually penetrating into the heart of the garrison.
It came, then, suddenly and dramatically.
Dropping her book, Myra uttered a piercing scream, and with eyes
glaring madly, fell forward on the carpet, unconscious!
Robert Cairn leapt to his feet with clenched fists. His father stood
up so rapidly as to overset his chair, which fell crashingly upon the
floor.
Together they turned and looked in the direction in which the girl had
been looking. They fixed their eyes upon the drapery of the library
window--which was drawn together. The whole window was luminous as
though a bright light shone outside, but luminous, as though that
light were the light of some unholy fire!
Involuntarily they both stepped back, and Robert Cairn clutched his
father's arm convulsively.
The curtains seemed to be rendered transparent, as if some powerful
ray were directed upon them; the window appeared through them as a
rectangular blue patch. Only two lamps were burning in the library,
that in the corner by which Myra had been reading, and the green
shaded lamp upon the table. The best end of the room by the window,
then, was in shadow, against which this unnatural light shone
brilliantly.
"My God!" whispered Robert Cairn--"that's Half-Moon Street--outside.
There can be no light--"
He broke off, for now he perceived the Thing which had occasioned the
girl's scream of horror.
In the middle of the rectangular patch of light, a grey shape, but
partially opaque, moved--shifting, luminous clouds about it--was
taking form, growing momentarily more substantial!
It had some remote semblance of a man; but its unique characteristic
was its awful _greyness_. It had the greyness of a rain cloud, yet
rather that of a column of smoke. And from the centre of the dimly
defined head, two eyes--balls of living fire--glared out into the
room!
Heat was beating into the library from the window--physical heat, as
though a furnace door had been opened ... and the shape, ever growing
more palpable, was moving forward towards them--approaching--the heat
every instant growing greater.
It was impossible to look at those two eyes of fire; it was almost
impossible to move. Indeed Robert Cairn was transfixed in such horror
as, in all his dealings with the monstrous Ferrara, he had never known
before. But his father, shaking off the dread which possessed him
also, leapt at one bound to the library table.
Robert Cairn vaguely perceived that a small group of objects, looking
like balls of wax, lay there. Dr. Cairn had evidently been preparing
them in the locked study. Now he took them all up in his left hand,
and confronted the Thing--which seemed to be _growing_ into the
room--for it did not advance in the ordinary sense of the word.
One by one he threw the white pellets into that vapoury greyness. As
they touched the curtain, they hissed as if they had been thrown into
a fire; they melted; and upon the transparency of the drapings, as
upon a sheet of gauze, showed faint streaks, where, melting, they
trickled down the tapestry.
As he cast each pellet from his hand, Dr. Cairn took a step forward,
and cried out certain words in a loud voice--words which Robert Cairn
knew he had never heard uttered before, words in a language which some
instinct told him to be Ancient Egyptian.
Their effect was to force that dreadful shape gradually to disperse,
as a cloud of smoke might disperse when the fire which occasions it is
extinguished slowly. Seven pellets in all he threw towards the
window--and the seventh struck the curtains, now once more visible in
their proper form.
The Fire Elemental had been vanquished!
Robert Cairn clutched his hair in a sort of frenzy. He glared at the
draped window, feeling that he was making a supreme effort to retain
his sanity. Had it ever looked otherwise? Had the tapestry ever faded
before him, becoming visible in a great light which had shone through
it from behind? Had the Thing, a Thing unnameable, indescribable,
stood there?
He read his answer upon the tapestry.
Whitening streaks showed where the pellets, melting, had trickled down
the curtain!
"Lift Myra on the settee!"
It was Dr. Cairn speaking, calmly, but in a strained voice.
Robert Cairn, as if emerging from a mist, turned to the recumbent
white form upon the carpet. Then, with a great cry, he leapt forward
and raised the girl's head.
"Myra!" he groaned. "Myra, speak to me."
"Control yourself, boy," rapped Dr. Cairn, sternly; "she cannot speak
until you have revived her! She has swooned--nothing worse."
"And--"
"We have conquered!"