Passing to a window, he looked up to the moon, and, a moment later, lowered the blind. Dimly visible in his white garment, he crossed the room. He might be heard unfastening the door of the inner chamber, and a faint, church-like smell crept to our nostrils. The door closed.
Immediately the harp sounded.
Its tone was peculiar--uncomfortable. The strain which Ailsa played was a mere repetition of three notes. Then she began to sing.
Our eyes becoming more accustomed to the gloom, we could vaguely discern her now; the soft outlines of her figure; the white, ghost-like fingers straying over the strings of the instrument. The music of the chant was very monotonous, and weird to a marked degree. The sound of that ancient tongue, dead for many ages, chanted softly by Ailsa Brearley’s beautiful voice, was almost incredibly eerie. I found myself gripped hard by a powerful sense of the uncanny.
No other sound was audible. Throughout the rambling old house intense silence prevailed. A slight breeze stirred the cedars outside. Every now and again it came--like a series of broken sighs.
How long the chant lasted I cannot pretend to state. It seemed interminable. I became aware of a curious sense of physical loss. I found myself drawn to high tension, as though the continuance of the chant demanded a vast effort on my part. Though I told myself that imagination was tricking me, the music seemed to be draining my nerve force!
Ailsa’s voice grew louder and clearer, until the queer words, of unknown purport, rang out passionately, imperatively.
She ceased.
In the ensuing silence I could hear distinctly Moris Klaw’s heavy breathing. A compelling atmosphere of mystery had grown up about us. Repel it how we might, it was there--commanding acknowledgment.
Fairbank, who sat nearest, was the first to see Ailsa Brearley rise, unsteadily, and move in the direction of the study door.
Something in her manner alarmed us all, and the doctor quietly left his seat and followed her. As she quitted the room, he came out behind her; and in the better light on the landing, as he told us later, saw that she was deathly pale.
“Miss Brearley!” he said.
She turned.
“Ssh!” she whispered, anxiously, “it is nothing--Doctor Fairbank. The excitement has made me rather faint, that is all. I shall go to my room and lie down. Believe me, I am quite well!”
“But there is no servant in the house,” he whispered, “if you should become worse----”
“If I need anything I shall not hesitate to ring,” she answered. “It is so still, you will hear the bell. Please go back! He has hoped for so much from this.”
Fairbank was nonplussed. But the appeal was so obviously sincere, and the situation so difficult, that he saw no alternative. Ailsa Brearley passed along the corridor. Fairbank slipped back into the study, where Moris Klaw and I anxiously awaited him.
From the inner room came Brearley’s voice, muffled.
The long vigil began.
I found myself claimed by the all-pervading spirit of mystery. For some little time I listened in expectation of hearing Ailsa Brearley returning. But soon the strange business of the night claimed my mind, to the exclusion of every other idea. I found myself listening only for Brearley’s muffled voice. Although the half-audible words were meaningless, their sound assumed, as time wore on, a curious significance. They seemed potent with a strange power proceeding not from them, but to them.
Then I heard a new sound.
Fairbank heard it--for I saw him start, and Moris Klaw muttered something.
It did not come from the trees outside, nor from the inner room. It was somewhere in the house.
A faint rattling it was, bell-like but toneless.
Brearley’s voice had ceased.
Again the sound rose--nearer.
I turned my head toward Fairbank, and seemed to perceive him more clearly. I had less difficulty in distinguishing the objects about.
Again it came--the shivering, bell-like sound.
Even the strings of the harp were visible now.
“Curse me!” came Moris Klaw’s hoarse whisper; “it seems to grow light! That is a delusion of the mind, my friends--repel it--repel it!”
Fairbank drew a quick, sibilant breath. A half-suppressed exclamation from Klaw followed; for the high-pitched rattle came from close at hand! The sense of the supernormal had grown unbearable. Fairbank’s science and my own semi-scepticism were but weapons of sand against it.
The door opened silently, admitting a flood of the soft moon-like radiance. And Ailsa Brearley entered!
Her slim figure was bathed in light; her fair hair, unbound, swept like a gleaming torrent about her shoulders. She looked magnificently, unnaturally beautiful. A diaphanous veil was draped over her face. From her radiant figure I turned away my head in sudden, stark fear!
Fairbank, clutching the arms of his chair, seemed to strive to look away, too.
Her widely opened eyes, visible even through the veil, were awful in their supernormal, significant beauty. Was it Ailsa Brearley? I clenched my fists convulsively; I felt my reason tottering. As the luminous figure, so terrible in its perfect loveliness, moved slowly toward the inner door, with set gaze that was not for any about her, Doctor Fairbank wrenched himself from his chair and leapt forward.
“Ailsa!”
His voice came in a hoarse shriek. But it was drowned by a rumbling roar from Moris Klaw.
“Look away! Look away!” he shouted. “The good God! Do not look at her! Look away!”
The warning came too late. Fairbank had all but reached her side, when she turned her eyes upon him--looking fully in his face.
With no sound or cry he went down as though felled with a mighty blow!
She passed to the door of the inner room. It swung open noiselessly. A stifling cloud of some pungent perfume swept into the study; and the door reclosed.
“Fairbank!” I whispered, huskily. “My God! he’s dead!”
Moris Klaw sprang forward to where Fairbank, clearly visible in the soft light, lay huddled upon the floor.
“Lift him!” he hissed. “We must get him out--before she returns--you understand?--before she returns!”
Bending together, we raised the doctor’s inanimate body and half dragged, half carried him from the room. On the landing we laid him down and stood panting. A voice, clear and sweet, was speaking. I recognized neither the language nor the voice. But each liquid syllable thrilled me like an icy shock. I met Moris Klaw’s gaze, set upon me through the pince-nez.
“Do not listen, my friend!” he said.
Raising Fairbank, we dragged him into the first room we came to--and Klaw locked the door.
“Here we remain,” he rumbled, “until something has gone back where it came from!”
Fairbank lay motionless at our feet.
Presently came the rattling.
“It is the sistrum,” whispered Moris Klaw, “the sacred instrument of the Isis temples.”
The sound passed--and faded.
“Searles! Fairbank!”--it was Brearley’s voice, sobbingly intense--“do not touch her! Do not look at her!”
The study door crashed open and I heard his sandals pattering on the landing.
“Fairbank! Mr. Klaw! Good God! Answer me! Tell me you are safe!”
Moris Klaw unlocked the door.
Brearley, his face white as death and bathed in perspiration, stood outside. As Klaw appeared, he leapt forward, wild-eyed.
“Quick! Did any one----”
“Fairbank!” I said, huskily.
Brearley pushed into the room and turned on the light. Fairbank, very pale, lay propped against an armchair. Moris Klaw immediately dropped on his knee beside him and felt his heart.
“Ah, the good God! He is alive!” he whispered. “Get some water--no brandy, my friend--water. Then look to your sister!”
Brearley plunged his trembling hands into his hair and tugged at it distractedly.
“How was I to know!” he moaned, “how was I to know! There is water in the bottle, Mr. Klaw. Searles will come with me. I must look for Ailsa!”
A bizarre figure, in his linen robe, he ran off. Moris Klaw waved me to follow him.
The door of his sister’s room was closed.
He knocked, but there was no reply. He turned the knob and went in, whilst I waited in the corridor.
“Ailsa!” I heard him call, and again, “Ailsa!” then, following an interval, “Are you all right, dear?” he whispered.
“Oh, thank Heaven it is finished!” came a murmur in Ailsa Brearley’s soft voice. “It is finished, is it not?”
“Quite finished,” he answered.
“Just look at my hair!” she went on, with returning animation. “My head was so bad--I think that was why I took it down. Then I must have dropped off to sleep.”
“All right, dear,” said Brearley. “I want you to come downstairs; be as quick as you can.”
He rejoined me in the corridor.
“She was lying with her hair strewn all over the pillow!” he whispered, “and she had been burning something--ashes in the hearth----”
Ailsa came out. She seemed suddenly to observe her brother’s haggard face.
“Is there anything the matter?” she said, quickly. “Oh! has something dreadful happened?”
“No, dear,” he answered, reassuringly. “Only Doctor Fairbank was overcome----”
She turned very pale.
“He is not ill?”
“No. He became faint. You can come and see for yourself.”
Very quickly we all hurried downstairs. Moris Klaw, on his knees beside the doctor, was trying to force something between his clenched teeth. Ailsa, with a little cry, ran forward and knelt upon the other side of him.
“Ralph!” she whispered; “Ralph!”--and smoothed the hair back from his forehead.
He sighed deeply, and with an effort swallowed the draught which Klaw held to his lips. A moment later he opened his eyes, glaring wildly into Ailsa’s face.
“Ralph!” she said, brokenly.
Then, realizing how tenderly she had spoken--using his Christian name--she hung her graceful head in hot confusion. But he had heard her. And the wild light died from his eyes. He took both her hands in his own and held them fast; then, rather unsteadily, he stood up.
As his features came more fully into the light, we all saw that a small bruise discoloured his forehead, squarely between the brows.
Then Brearley, who had been back into the study, came running, crying:
