THE “SPECTER HOUND.”
That night when the flood waters rose to a head was a terrible one for
Winton--one ghastly in the extreme for all lost souls whose black
destinies guided their footsteps to the mill.
Perhaps a terror of being trapped--to what hideous fate, who
knows?--somewhere in the tortuous darkness of the building, sent my
brother leaping by a mad impulse into the waste uproar of the night.
Anyhow, before my confused senses could fully grasp the dread nature
of the situation, he had rushed past me, plunged into and up the yard,
and was racing for his life.
As he sprang by, the cripple made a frantic clutch at him, nipped the
flying skirt of his coat, staggered and rolled over, actually with a
fragment of torn cloth in his hand. He was up on his feet directly,
however, and off in pursuit, though I in my turn vainly grasped at him
as he fled by.
Then reason returned to me and I followed.
It all happened in a moment, and there were we three hotly engaged in
such a tragic game of follow-my-leader as surely had never before been
played in the old city. And there was no fear of comment or
interference. We had the streets, the wind and rain, the night to
ourselves, and, before our eyes, if these failed us, the wastes of
eternity.
Racing in the tracks of the cripple, as he followed in Jason’s, I
managed to keep measured pace with him, and that was all. How he made
such time over the ground with his crooked limbs was matter for
marvel, yet, I think, in that mad brief burst I never lessened the
distance between us by a yard. It was a comparative test of the
fearful, the revengeful and the apprehensive impulses, and sorely I
dreaded in the whirling scurry of the chase that the second would win.
Across the yard--to the left over the short stone bridge, under whose
arch the choked mill-tail tumbled and snarled--a little further and up
Chis’ll street, with a sharp swerve to the right, the hunted man
rushed with Duke at his heels. Then a hundred yards on, in one
lightning-like moment, Jason, giving out in a breathless impulse of
despair, as it seemed, threw himself against the shadowy buttress of a
wall, crouching with his back to the angle of it; Duke, checking his
flying footsteps some paces short of his victim, came to a sudden
stop; and I, carried forward by my own impetus, almost fell against
the cripple, and, staggering, seized him by the arms from behind, and
so held him fiercely, my lungs pumping like piston rods. Suddenly I
marveled to find my captive offering no resistance.
Seeking for the reason of this collapse, I raised my eyes and
wondered: “Can this account for it?”
We stood outside Dr. Crackenthorpe’s house. Light came through a lower
window, immediately opposite us, and set in the luminous square, like
an ugly shadow on a wall, was the profile and upper half of the body
of the doctor himself. He seemed to be bending over some task and the
outline of his face was clearly defined.
Suddenly the clothed flesh of the arms I grasped seemed to flicker, as
it were, with shuddering convulsion, and from the lips of the man held
against me the breath came sibilant like the breath of one caught in a
horror of nightmare.
Before I could think how to act the figure of the doctor rose erect,
and I saw him fix his hat on his head. Evidently he was preparing to
leave the house.
I felt myself drawn irresistibly to one side. Helpless as a child, I
stumbled in the wake of the cripple, tripping over his heels at every
step. He hardly seemed to notice the drag set upon him, but stole into
a patch of deep shadow, without the dim wedge of light cast through
the window, and I had to go, too, if I would keep my hold on him.
Crouching there, with what secret terror on one side and marvel on the
other it is impossible to describe, we saw the dark street and the
driving rain traversed by a shaft of light as the hall door was pulled
open, and become blackness again with its closing. Then, descending
the shallow flight of steps, his head bent to the storm, and one hand
raised to his hat, the doctor came into view and the whole body of the
cripple seemed to shoot rigid with sudden tension.
This fourth actor on the scene, turning away from us, walked,
unconscious of Jason hidden in the shadow as he passed him, up the
street, his hand still to his head, his long skirts driven in front of
him by the wind, so that he looked as if his destiny were pulling him
reluctant forward by all-embracing leading strings.
As he went up the slope and vanished in the darkness, a groan as if of
pent-up agony issued from Duke, and immediately he drew me from the
shadow and round to the foot of the steps.
A chink of light that divided the blackness above us, showed that the
door had not been closed to. Probably the doctor had gone forth on
some brief errand only, and would return in a moment.
Suddenly I became conscious that Duke was mounting the steps--that
some strange spirit, in which his first mission of hate was absorbed,
was moving him to enter the house.
“Where are you going?” I cried, struggling with him. He gave no
answer; took not the least notice of me. What response could I expect
from a madman like this? Staring before him--panting like one at the
end of a race--he slowly ascended, dragging me with him. Then on the
turn of a thought, I quitted my hold of him and he staggered forward.
The next instant he had recovered himself, had pushed open the door
and was in the hall.
I hurried to where Jason yet stood motionless, his face white as a
patch of plaster set against the darkness of the wall.
“Keep off!” he cried, in a wavering voice.
“You fool! It’s I! Didn’t you see him go into that house? Some insane
fancy had drawn him off the scent. Run back to the mill--do you hear?
I won’t leave him--he shan’t follow.”
He came from his corner and clutched me with shaking hands.
“Where’s there money? It’s all useless without that, I tell you. Give
it to me or I’ll kill you. I’ve as much right to it as you. My God!
Why didn’t you tell me the old man was dead? It was devilish to let me
go in on him like that. Tell me where to find money and I’ll take it
and be off!”
“Listen to me. If he comes out again while you talk I won’t answer for
the result. We’ll discuss money matters by and by. Go now--back to the
mill, do you understand? And wait till I come!”
He was about to retort, but some sound, real or fancied, strangled the
words in his throat. He leaped from me--glanced fearfully at the light
streaming from the open door--crossed the street, his body bent
double, and, keeping this posture, hurried with a rapid shuffling
motion back in the direction of the mill.
Standing with one foot on the lowest step leading up to the house, I
watched till he was out of sight, then turned and looked into the
dimly lighted hall. What should I do? How act with the surest safety
and promptitude in so immediate a crisis? I could not guess what
unspeakable attraction had so strangely drawn the hunter from his
trembling quarry at the supreme moment; only I saw that he had
vanished and that the hall was empty of him.
A quick, odd sound coming from the interior of the house decided me. I
sprung up the steps and softly entered the hall. The door leading to
the doctor’s private room, where the murderous busts grinned down,
stood open; and from here issued the noise, that was like the bestial
sputtering growl of some tigerish thing mouthing and mangling its
prey.
I stepped hastily over the threshold and stopped with a jerk of
terror.
Something was there, in the dully lighted room--down on the rug before
the fire. Something had rolled and raved and tore at the material
beneath it--an animal’s skin, judged by the whisps of ragged hair that
stuck in the creature’s claws and between his teeth that had rent them
out--something--Duke, who foamed and raged as he lay sprawled on his
hands and knees and snarled like a wild beast in his frenzy of
insanity.
“He’s mad--mad!” I whispered to myself in an awful voice; and yet he
heard me and paused in the height of his fury, and looked round and up
at me standing white-lipped by the door.
Then suddenly, while I was striving, amid the wild heat of my brain,
to identify some hooded memory that raised its head in darkness, the
maniac sprung to his feet, gripped me by the wrist and pointed down at
the huddled heap beneath him.
“Look!” he shrieked, the firelight dancing in his glittering eyes.
“Look! we’ve met at last! The dog that scared and tortured the
wretched sick boy--the dog, the devil! Into the fire with him to blaze
and writhe and scream as a devil should!”
He plunged again, snarling; and, before I could gather sense to stop
him, had seized and flung the whole mass upon the burning coals.
Flames shot out and around, and the room in a moment was sick with the
stench of flaring pelt. I rushed to tear the heap away; but he met and
struggled with me like a fiend inspired, and helpless I saw the flames
lick higher.
Straining against me, he laughed and yelled: “He wants water! He
shrieks to Abraham--but not a drop--not one! Look at his red tongue,
shooting out in agony! They fall before me--at last, at last! My time
has come!”
His voice rose to a scream--there was a responsive shout from the
door. I slewed my head round and saw the white face of the servant
girl peering through the opening behind the figure of Dr.
Crackenthorpe standing there in black, blank amazement.
“Help!” I cried; “he’s mad!”
With a deep oath the doctor strode forward, and Duke saw him. In an
instant, with a cry of different tone--a shriek of terror--he spun me
from him, sprung past the other, drove the girl screaming into the
passage, and was gone.
“Stop! By all----”
The doctor’s exclamation was for me. I had staggered back, but an
immediate fear drove me, with no time for explanation, to hurried
pursuit.
“Out of the way!” I cried, violently; “he mustn’t escape!”
He would have barred my passage. I came against him with a shock that
sent him reeling. As his hands clutched vainly in the air I rushed
from the room and from the house.
With my first plunge into the street a weltering stream of fire ran
across the sky, and in a moment an explosive crash shook the city like
the bursting open of the gates of torment.
Amid flood and storm and the numbing slam of thunder the tragedy of
the night was drawing to its close.