of Price seemed to recede from my mind. I neither heard nor saw
anything, nor did that sense of the unseen presence lurking about the
house, come to me. I was beginning to hope that the spell of the bronze
statue had passed away for good. But one night after this interval I
again felt fear looking whitely on me again. If I were to describe all
the incidents of the next few days in their order my story would never
come to an end, and your patience would be exhausted. Wherever I went
after dark had fallen the shadow of the unseen followed me. I had a
passion for inviting people to stay with me, and I longed for
companionship of my kind which I had never known before; I was eager to
throw myself into the realities of life. The sense of a certain kind of
separateness is hell! Just you ask anybody who knows. I called on
people, lived in my car, and dined out on the slightest provocation. I
remember I spent one evening, (after my desperate efforts to find some
good Samaritan to bear me company), with a party of road-menders; I
helped them break up the stones and all that kind of thing. But after
they had packed up their tools and tea cans and bid me 'thanks and good
night,' I met fear on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows. It
would be almost impossible to describe the swerves that my mind took
from that time till the end. The presence of the Albertus Magnus filled
me by turns with dread, blind fear, an overshadowed sort of pleasure,
and utter hopelessness. I dare not have it taken away; and I knew that
its presence was driving me mad. The vicar told me that if I could make
up my mind to have the statue removed or destroyed, it might dispel all
my troubles. I ought to make an application to the authority on bronzes
at the British Museum, who would be only too pleased to accept it. An
application to escape the company of Albertus Magnus! A request that the
British Museum would graciously take over a bronze statue, the soul of
departed Ombos, and a blind terror that walked at twilight! The vicar's
proposal sent me into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter.
"I'd gone into the library one afternoon about four, as I had heavy
arrears of letter-writing to make up. It was surprising that I should
choose that room where Albertus Magnus towered in his corner--and (I
don't know why) I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too
long from him. By half past six I had finished. I went to the door to
ring for Clayton to post my letters, and turned to light up the
candelabra (I forgot to say that it was a fad of my father's all through
his life to use candelabra in preference to electric light or gas), when
I heard, I thought I heard a chuckle behind me--low, faint, but
unmistakably malicious. The fate of poor Price flashed into my mind, and
at the same time, I myself was watching myself fight on that same
chesterfield with something horrible, unclean, intangible. I turned
round instantaneously, feeling that the Albertus Magnus was at his
hellish game again. With sudden horror I saw where the chuckle had come
from. The statue had changed from the bronze-green to a fleshy-green. It
was alive, and the great muscles were twitching and quivering. To my
unutterable horror, I perceived it was not Albertus Magnus.... _It was
Ombos!_ His breath came in horrid little flutters, with seconds between
each one, as if he had just come to life and was not quite used to it. A
dreadful viciousness and vitality shone from his green eyes, and his
demon-like mouth was twisted into a grin of unimaginable evil.
"'Gods don't grow in one night like mushrooms,' he said with a leer.
(There was no mistake about his voice--it was Ombos; the words rang
through my brain as if they had been shouted.) 'You can't expect a
statue to turn into a god in a breath, or to come down and skip about
... it takes time and faith.'
"At that moment I must have gone mad. I snatched the heavy candelabra
and with a howl of rage I hurled it with all my force at his narrow
leering eyes. It struck the solid bronze with a terrific crash and fell
at the base of the pedestal whereon Ombos had stood a moment before.
"Clayton rushed in at this juncture, and we went into the sitting-room.
I saw him wipe his forehead with the back of his hand.
"'He's been here again, sir,' he said. 'I was standing on the gravel
path by the library, a minute ago, when I saw him close by me in the
bushes. He came across the water-meadow, I think. And any way he made
off back that way when I shouted at him. Begad, though, it'll be worth a
trifle to see who this rascal is, sir. I wonder what he's after. Not the
common kind of assassin. What?'
* * * * *
"This was the climax; I felt that another such encounter would drive me
raving mad. Somewhere there must be a natural explanation; it was only a
question of finding it. Among other things it occurred to me that
someone, for reason unknown, might be playing a series of practical
jokes upon me, but it was hard to believe a hoax of such malignant and
serious intent. Besides, it did not explain the death of Price which, I
felt more and more convinced, was in some way connected with the bronze
statue. I felt it would be my own fault if I did not get some part of
the mystery cleared up soon. It was plain, too, that I must virtually
act alone. The first thing was to find a helper, and after casting about
me I thought of a member of my company, John Travers, who had lost two
fingers at Charleroi at the first stage of the war. He was a giant in
stature, his muscular force would have warranted him in contesting a
fall or two with a full-grown lion.
"I wrote to Travers the same evening and his answer came a couple of
days later, saying that he would be down by the first train that he
could catch. I said nothing in my letter about the bronze statue, but
merely mentioned that I feared a gang of thieves had marked my house
down, and I wanted his help to guard the place for a week or so.
"Well, Travers arrived. Armed with two new service rifles, we each in
turn kept watch over the statue, agreeing that a shot out of the window
should warn the other, were any sudden danger to arise.
"On the second night of our vigil I retired to bed hugely sleepy. I had
left Travers on guard in the library. He was seated in an armchair under
my Albertus Magnus, with his rifle over his knees. I did not take off my
clothes, but threw myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed. Determining
to make sure of some rest I took a stiff glass of hot brandy. I slept--I
could scarcely help sleeping--but not for long, for I suddenly awoke
from a tumultuous dream, my limbs atremble, and my forehead sticky with
cold sweat. It seemed as though somebody was calling my name from a vast
distance. The room was full of whisperings and moanings and strange
uncanny things. Something was evidently at work in my sub-consciousness.
Nothing was wrong with Travers or I should have heard the report of his
rifle. Yet something _was_ wrong! The conviction grew stronger and
stronger within me. Then came the faint sound of rattling at the brass
knob, and with sudden horror I saw the door open a couple of inches. A
pause of some seconds and it was pushed open still farther. For a space
of five seconds my heart seemed to stop beating, and then the worst
came. You will think I was beside myself; but as the door was pushed
open a face peeped round behind it, and I saw two green eyes looking at
me! I had at once recognised the face, and the face was that of Ombos!
He appeared to smile at me, but it was a leer of inscrutable evil and
malevolence, and I took up my rifle and fired at a venture. A howl of
pain, hoarse with anger, rent the air, and the face vanished.... I
rushed downstairs and into the library. As I entered, the body of
Travers came twisting across the room like a penny whirligig. His head
struck the marble fire-place with a frightful dull thud, and he fell a
motionless heap on the floor. I struck straight in front of me with a
rifle--and hit something--something that pushed past me. Then the front
door opened and shut with a deafening clang. A sudden qualm of real fear
took hold of my heart, but, mastering it as best I could, I opened the
front door and tore madly down the drive. I looked down the hushed
street. Past the lamp-posts, skipping from the gloom into the light and
from light into shadow, with a series of bounds, sped a horrible apish
form. It bounded along with incredible fleetness, and was soon lost to
view in the distant gloom. Just at that moment Clayton came down the
drive. I could not speak. I pointed to the library.... I beckoned him to
follow. On the floor lay the dead body of John Travers. The statue of
Albertus Magnus had vanished!
"And there the story ends. I can give no explanation whatever, beyond
what I have related. The bronze figure has never, so far as I know, been
seen again, nor has the restless spirit of poor Ombos walked again in
our garden and library. But, taking the circumstances into
consideration, the whole train of events points to the fact that Ombos
_had_ in some occult way passed his ethereal body into that statue, and
for that very reason he was unable to rest quietly in his grave."
"You will continue to live in the house at Abbot's Ely, of course," said
Duckford.
Crabbe shook his head. "Never! I wrote a week ago putting it in the
agent's hands for sale. There may be nothing in it, but I hardly want to
make any new experiments now. The bronze statue has disappeared. I
should like to think it was stolen by a gang of burglars. But I
remember that chuckle--the malicious mirth of some unearthly thing, it
seemed. And I remember ... let us leave it at that. I want to forget, to
walk in the Sunshine, in the crowded Strand, away from the darknesses
and silences. As I say, there the story ends.... I have told you all of
it."
* * * * *
But Captain Crabbe did not tell it all. The best part was "strictly
private." He married Margot at half-past ten on the following Saturday
morning but one, at St. George's, Hart Street, Bloomsbury.
II
THE DE GAMELYN TRADITIONS
He was just an Irish soldier's son; a real boy in real life, and his
name was Tim, and that was the only name he had besides his surname
which was Gamelyn. And somehow he was perfectly happy. But one day he
found an old book and read about a boy whose name was Victor; and the
more he read about Victor the more ardent was his wish to be like
Victor, and he wished that he had been called Victor--for Victor was a
genius and a gentleman, and all things which Victor put his hands to
were crowned with success. But Tim's name _was_ Tim Gamelyn, which was
unfortunate; and when he went to an English school at Margate they
called him, because his hair was red, "Carrots" which was heartbreaking.
In the book nobody had ever jeered at Victor or called him nicknames;
they would have been dealt with very severely, besides they would not
have dared; he was far too heroic. So Tim became very furious when the
other fellows called him "Carrots." But the more he showed his dislike
for this name the more the boys made use of it, also when they had time
to spare--they warmed their hands in the imaginary heat radiated by his
ruddy hair. It was impossible to uphold any dignity under the
circumstances, and he began to wonder what Victor would have done in a
like predicament. But then Victor's hair was rich and brown and curly,
and no one could have said a word against it; Tim's was red and of the
kind that fate keeps in stock of the humble and low, and it made a
little lump come up in his throat when he realized it. Then the football
season on, Victor, Tim well remembered, had gone in for every kind of
athletic sport. When he had first arrived at a strange boarding school
he had refused, with a heedless laugh, to say whether he could play or
not. Victor did not even deign to go near the football field for a
month. But ten minutes before the Match of the year commenced he
suddenly made up his mind to play. During the first half of the game
Victor had "laid low"; he was waiting. Then his eyes flashed, and his
lithe, active figure flashed up the field sending the ball into the
posts like a shot from a gun, thus scoring the first and only goal. He
had then fainted away; and a beautiful girl had exclaimed "A-a-a-a-a-h,"
and had hurried to him with a smelling-bottle and much sympathy. When he
recovered, he sat up and made an apology for stopping the game and was
loudly cheered by both teams. This was the model which Tim had to keep
in his mind's eye. In one or two ways he succeeded, and in others he
failed--failed dismally.
When Tim came to ask questions about football at Thetford Grammar School
he found it was quite another thing. In the first place the boys all
spoke to him in that specially offensive you're-only-a-little-kid sort
of way. They also took it for granted that he had never seen a football
in his life. He found it impossible to refuse (with a careless laugh) to
say whether he had ever kicked a ball before. He was told that he would
have to play in the next school practice match, and that if he could
kick a ball, he might be allowed to play in a _real_ match one fine day.
When the first practice game commenced, Tim remembered that an
enthusiastic crowd had run by Victor's side, shouting wildly: "Hurrah!
hurrah for Victor." It is true that a few of the smaller boys shouted at
him. But what they shouted was: "Put a bit of life into it, old
Carrots!" and "Go it, Rufus! You'll never score a goal if you kick the
ball in that mother-may-I-have-an-orange style." During the first part
of the game Tim was rather quiet--he was waiting for a golden
opportunity, just as Victor had waited. It came when the forwards were
in full movement, and the ball came travelling neatly along the line on
the right wing. It finally came to rest at Tim's feet, and he, avoiding
a man who darted at him, raced forward a few yards. Then something,
which came through the air like a Whitehead Torpedo, sent him spinning
backwards on the grass. Amidst roars of laughter from the other fellows,
the Whitehead Torpedo, (who was a boy and smaller than Tim), spun round,
ran the ball a few dozen yards, and sent it soaring away with a vent
kick straight for the goal. There was a moment of silence. The ball
pitched fair and square on the top bar, and then trickled gently between
the posts.
A howl of joy went up from the small fry who had been "ragging" Tim all
the time.
Tim sat up and looked about him. He had not fainted, but he felt very
sick and dizzy, and nobody sympathised with him. A small freckle-faced
boy was standing over him.
"The ground _is_ slippery to-day," he grinned, extending a hand to the
unfortunate Tim, who lay on the sludgy, squdgy mud gasping like a
recently-landed trout.
Tim accepted, and scrambled painfully to his feet. The pomp of battle
had departed from him.
A few weeks afterwards, as Tim was walking across the water meadows, he
saw a youth of serious and agricultural appearance throwing a poor,
defenceless little terrier into the mill stream. Every time the
miserable little animal crawled up on to the river bank the youth
hurled it into the deep water again. Now, that was the kind of thing
that Victor was very down on. In every chapter Victor punished people
for cruelty to animals. Victor's blood always boiled at such a
sight--moreover, his strong arm always shot out, his eyes always
flashed, and the great hulking coward _always_ lay prone at his feet
begging for mercy with clasped hands. So Tim gathered together his
recollections of Victor's stock phrases, and advanced on the stolid
youth:
"You cowardly ruffian! Have you no feelings that you ill-treat a man's
best friend in that way?"
The stolid-looking youth seemed slightly astonished. He thrust his face
forward and shook his fist under Tim's nose. "Not your blooming
business," he said. "You shift."
"You've got no right," began Tim.
"Right!" The youth's note was fierce. Then he took poor Tim by the
scruff of his neck, and observed that he had been teaching the pup to
swim because he was water-shy, and that it was good for all kinds of
pups to know how to swim. Then he pushed Tim into the water after the
pup in order to teach him to keep his mouth shut and mind his own
business.
Tim went away with the idea (perfectly correct) that the stolid-looking
youth's hands that had gripped his neck and the seat of his knickers
were very strong, and another impression that even Victor would not have
stood an earthly chance against such a fellow. And it was just then that
he was aware of a little grey idea floating in the background of his
mind that Victor was a bit of a prig--also a fraud. It annoyed him that
any such notion should occur to him that the glory of his hero was an
illusion, and he shook his head to get rid of it. Then his brain sent a
"wireless" that Victor might be all right in a little toy world of his
own, peopled entirely by heroes and scoundrels, and with all the
scoundrels physically contemptible; but that he would have done less
brilliantly in the mixed-up old world that we have got at present.
Suddenly, as from a clear sky, came a bolt of common-sense to Tim, and
he realized he had been a fond and foolish jay. And that was why, when
he had finished prep that evening, he exchanged a copy, bound in calf,
of _Victor the Valiant_ for two oranges and a catapult.
Of course, the reaction set in. Tim was sent up to the station to bring
home a new bicycle for the head master, and he was especially warned
_not_ to ride it--just to walk it. Of course he tried to ride it down
Castle Hill, and collided violently with a milk cart. He returned with
what had been a new machine. So the Head made him write out one hundred
times:
And since he cannot spend or use aright
The little time here given in his trust;
But wasteth it in weary underlight
Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust,
He naturally clamours to inherit
The Everlasting Future that his merit
May have full scope--as surely is most just.
And Tim muttered, "All right, keep your hair on, Ben!"
"H'm;" said the Head, overhearing Tim. "Write it out _two_ hundred times
for your insolent conduct."
That was the start of his demoralisation. According to the laws of the
Medes and Persians, and the laws of Victor the Valiant, disaster and
dishonour would be the end of _this_! It was not at all the way Victor
would have behaved. As a matter of fact on one occasion when a master
had been idiotic enough to give Victor a hundred lines, the valiant one
had replied: "Pardon me, sir, but if I may be so presumptuous I think I
can call your attention to the fact that you--unintentionally, of
course--are treating me too severely." And the master had at once seen
the error of his ways and relieved Victor of the imposition.
Tim failed to get the verse written out in the stipulated time and the
imposition was trebled. Also he gathered up another hundred lines for
"failure to attend prayers" and this placed him in a state of hopeless
bankruptcy.
When he wrote home to his mother. Here is what he said:
"DEAREST MOTHER:
"I got two hundred lines for breaking the Head's bicycle yesterday.
Give my love to Dad. I got another hundred lines to-day for not
being present at prayers. But don't you worry--I am not really
bad--God has forgotten me, that is all.
"Your loving Son,
"TIM."
And Tim--such was his natural depravity--did not much care. So callous
and indifferent did he become that he ceased to be hurt when the boys
called him "Carrots." In fact he laughed. And as he no longer objected
when he was called "Carrots" the boys dropped that name, and the
shortest one survived. The boys started to call him "Tims" and in a few
months he had won their affection from the lowest fag to the highest lad
in the school.
Two years afterwards, by dint of practice and pluck he had so far
advanced that he ran second in the quarter-mile at the Sports. Of course
this was not very heroic. He was rewarded for this feat of strength with
a patent egg-boiler, which was of no sort of use to him, and, as he
discovered afterwards, of no use to anybody else. But he was exceedingly
proud of the thing and also exceedingly careful to conceal this fact
from the other boys.
He became, to sum up his attitude, less and less like Victor. But it is
not to be presumed that he was sinking into mental nothingness. He was
not perhaps quite so refined in his language as he might have been, he
used slang, and sometimes was inclined to hang his hat on the floor and
talk back. He was rather untidy in his dress. But certain compensating
qualities of the highest value were appearing in Tim. He had gathered to
himself a plentiful supply of gumption--genius is all right, but if it
comes to a slow-down gumption is better. His hatred of "swank" reached
the point of unreasoning prejudice. He made many mistakes; but depend
upon this: the man who has never made a mistake has never made anything
else worth having.
And Tim never became a great soldier, or a great sailor, or anything
great. But he had good spirits, and he concealed about his person a
heart of gold; and after he left Thetford Grammar School, boys found
that somehow the games in the old playground seemed flat and spiritless.
They said that things weren't as they used to be in Tim's time.
I have told the reader that Tim Gamelyn's father was a retired
non-commissioned officer who lived near Dublin on a small private income
and a pension. It will be seen that Tim's people did not roll in wealth
any to speak of. They owned a small farm with five cows, twenty pigs and
a flock of hens. There was beer always in the cellar, bacon hanging up
in the kitchen and a bucket of soft soap in the out-house. In the top
lean-to room where Tim slept, in the winter time the rain and sleet
drifted cheerily in through the cracks and covered the army blankets
which covered him. But he didn't lie awake thinking about it--boys like
Tim who help on farms start playing shut-eye as soon as they hit the
pillow.
Old Sergeant Gamelyn came of an ancestry which, somebody or other of
distinction once said--and very truly--is the backbone of the British
Army. To put it briefly, if not gracefully, "what old Gamelyn didn't
know about soldiering weren't worth knowin'!" He had the ten thousand
and ten commandments of the King's Regulations always at his finger
tips, and he and his people had served in the same battalion, under the
same officers or descendants for generations. There was Michael Gamelyn
who fell at Malplaquet; there was another Gamelyn who had served at
Minden; four Gamelyns served through the Peninsular. But only one came
through to Waterloo. Balaclava, the Indian Mutiny and Spion Kop each
claimed a Gamelyn, and when the British troops returned from Lhasa in
1904 they left one Sergeant Royden Gamelyn--resting in peace ten paces
to the rear of the Pargo Keeling Gate. Of course Tim Gamelyn grew up in
the shadow of these things. There was an old book in his father's oak
kit box which Tim loved. In it he read about forgotten drill and manual
exercises, the uncomfortable and graceless man[oe]uvres of the rigid but
redoubtable men who fought at Waterloo. Also there were pictures in
colour of warriors in three-cornered hats, high stocks and powdered
wigs. These men Tim worshipped. He had by heart the quaint words of
command in which Wellington's men were told to charge a musket with
powder and ball. And I doubt not that he could have taken a brigade and
marched them to the attack with the best of the old-time sergeants.
Then in August 1914 came the great war, and when Tim suggested going
into Dublin to see Colonel Arbuthnot about joining up to that battalion
through which all the best of the Gamelyn men had passed, his mother
tried to laugh. But Tim saw the tears running down her cheeks, as she
threw her apron over her head and went out to bring the clothes in off
the line. His father then flung out his hand to him and said:
"Good boy, I thought 'twas in you. Good luck."
But when Tim joined his regiment soldiering had taken many new turns.
The modern rifle would not allow men to march into battle with colours
flying and bands playing: the old brave way was impossible in the face
of machine guns. The pomp and pageantry of battle had departed and there
was nothing left but for the attacking party to crawl in a most
inelegant fashion upon the ground.
"Down!" cried the sergeant-instructor to poor Tim, who started his
lessons in field training with some vague idea about marching on the foe
with "head and eyes erect" and with "pace unfaltering and slow." "When
you get out to Flanders you will have to get right down on your belly if
you want to _live_ a little longer than ten minutes. Extend to
five-six-ten paces and get as close to old mother earth as possible and
hide your bloomin' selves!"
"Hide yourselves!" thought Tim. "Not thus is it written in my father's
book of drill! It plainly said therein that the duty of a soldier was to
learn how to die, not to hide from death."
Crushed and dejected he returned that morning to breakfast to wolf a
chunk of bread and butter, washed down by dishwater, misnamed tea.
After breakfast he retired to a corner and thought it all out. The words
of the Sergeant came back to him: "_Hide yourself if yer want to live!_"