The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 41

"You--" His voice was low; "you--!"

The words were smothered in his anger.

She smiled then. She thought that she still could hear the even, padded patter of the dog jogging to his freedom.

"So you turned on me;--you--! D'you know what's going to happen to you;--d'you dare to think?"

Her voice was filled with a strange calm.

"I don't care, James;--I don't care--none. I set China-Ching loose."

His face leered at her evilly in the moonlight.

"You ain't got no excuses;--you don't even make no excuses to me;--huh?"

"No, James;--no!"

Her tone was exultant.

The even, padded patter was still in her ears. It seemed so near. She saw the man's raised fist. The coa.r.s.e, bulging hammer of it. She felt that something was behind her. She turned.

The chow stood there--His ears back; his coat bristling, the hairs standing on end in tremendous bus.h.i.+ness; his fangs laid bare. There he crouched, drawn together, ready to spring.

The man took a step toward her. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see the huge taut fist.

"I wouldn't do that, James;" she said quietly. "I just--wouldn't!"

"You'll live to rue the day." The words came hoa.r.s.ely, gutturally. "I'm going to beat you, woman. I'm going to beat you,--d.a.m.n good!"

"You ain't;" she said. "Look, James!"

She pointed to the chow.

"Call him off;" the man shrieked. "D'you want him to kill me?"

She saw him trembling with fear, paralyzed with terror so that his clenched hand still reached above his head,--shaking. She thought then of the pistol he always carried with him. For the second time she smiled. She saw him try to take a step backwards. His knees almost gave way under him. The chow wormed a bit nearer.

"Call him off;--take him away. d.a.m.n you, speak to him--! For Gawd's sake,--do something;--" he whined.

She looked at the man, cowed; abjectly afraid. She had nothing more to fear from him. He was beaten. Her hand went out until it rested on the dog's head.

"It's all right, China-Ching. It's all right,--now." She felt the chow's great eyes fixed on her face; she felt that he was waiting. "You can go on, James;--go on into the house!"

"What--what d'you mean?"

He stuttered.

"I'm going," she said. "Me, and China-Ching. I told you I'd go when I was ready;--but I wasn't going alone. That's what you ain't understood, James. Now we're both going. And you better be meandering up to your house, or maybe China-Ching he'll be getting tired of waiting."

Slowly the man turned; ponderously, his figure huddled together, he started back stumbling along in the full path of the moonlight.

She thought she saw his fingers fumbling to his hip-pocket.

"Stop!" She called. "None of that, James. This here's one time when that there gun don't work."

"I ain't got no gun." The mumbled words came back to her indistinctly.

"D'you think if I'd have had--"

"Stand where you are. And don't you make no move from there. We'll be on our way,--now."

He stood still.

"Come on, China-Ching."

She started toward the road, the dog at her heels. Once as she went she turned to look at the emptied, quiet kennels, at the moonlight drenched waste that had once been a garden; at the huddled figure of the man standing there so silently.

"Good-by, James," she called.

Out in the road she paused to look up and down the long, white stretch of it. The chow stopped at her side. His great, liquid brown eyes were raised to hers. She could feel his impatience to be off. Suddenly he started.

Her feet followed those padded, pattering feet.

"Aw, China-Ching," she whispered, "aw, China-Ching--"

THE WOOD OF LIVING TREES

_And I do hereby swear and take unto myself right solemnly and in most sacred oath before the Lord G.o.d to prove myself innocent of this most awful and hideous crime, for the which, in the morning, I do swing by the neck. I, Cedric of Hampden, do swear to show with the righteous help of most high G.o.d, that it is not I who beareth the blood guilt of the murther of the Lady Beatrix._

_There is in this world a certain devilish influence that worketh most evilly against the high Heavens and the good in man, and the which doeth foully with the flesh of man and bringeth the soul of him unto the stinking depths of h.e.l.l. I, Cedric of Hampden, having scant knowledge of the meanings of witchcraft, or of magic, either black or white, have many times and oft felt the spell which lyeth so infernally o'er the Wood of Living Trees. I, who loveth the Lady Beatrix, who did meet her death the while she wandered within the confines of the Wood of Living Trees, searching therein for the Crucifix which she did lose from off her neck, do accuse no one of the killing of her whom I loved. Yet unto myself I do confess the knowledge of this evil thing, the which I have a.s.sured myself hath the power at all times to become incarnate._

_This will I prove. At some unknown time will I show that in this world a certain devilish influence worketh most evilly against the high Heavens and the good in man. I do confess the knowing of this to be true, and many times and oft have I convinced myself that this Satanic thing hath the power to become incarnate._

_In the morning I hang. G.o.d, the Father, Christ, the Son, come unto me in purgatory that I may fulfill my sacred oath and that the soul of her I love may find peace within the seven golden gates of Heaven._

At first there was not one of them who noticed it. Strange that people who are forever entertaining are so very apt to disregard the congeniality of their guests. Perhaps they become calloused; probably they grow tired of a ceaseless picking and choosing.

After a while they caught on to it. It was one of those things that could not be avoided. Gregory Manners never was the sort of chap to conceal his feelings, and very evidently he had most decided ones in regard to the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch.

He was much in vogue, was Andreyvitch. It was considered rather a stunt to get him to come to one of your dinners. He was tremendously in demand. Not that Andreyvitch had ever done anything to make himself famous. It was just the personality of the man. Women would tell you that he was fascinating, different. Of course there were some of them, the stupid, fastidious ones, who took offense at his looks. No one could ever say they were in any way prepossessing. He was fairly well built, extremely sinewy. His arms were noticeably long and he had an odd fas.h.i.+on of always walking on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. Add to that a rather narrow face, a heavy nose, deep-set eyes, a bit too close together, and a shock of reddish-brown hair, which grew over his head and face in great abundance. Most men would not pretend to understand him. He was at all times courteous. Perhaps even too suavely polite for the Anglo-Saxon temperament. He aired his views with a wonderful a.s.surance; views that had to do chiefly with aestheticism and a violent disregard of all conventional thought. When Andreyvitch spoke, one had the feeling that he feared to express himself too well; that after all his wicked disbelief in the things in which most men placed their entire faith was something actually a part of him; something which might even cause the amazing heathenism of his talk to be somewhat subdued. And when Stephanof Andreyvitch spoke, one could not help but notice his teeth.

Yellow, horridly decayed things they were, with the two eye-teeth on either side surprisingly pointed, like fangs.

Of course, in his way Gregory Manners was a bit of a lion. It was that which undoubtedly made them attribute his dislike of the Russian to jealousy. At least at first. Afterwards they found plenty of other reasons. Naturally one of them was Kathleen. But that came much later on.

He had traveled all over the world, had Manners, and he wrote charmingly vague bits that one read and then forgot. He took himself very seriously. He was one of those men who believe firmly and basically that they are sent into this world with a mission to perform. One could not actually tell whether Manners really thought his writing to be his life work. His best friends maintained that he had not as yet found himself. But no one bothered to ask him the question. His work was good; he was a distinctly decent sort of chap, utterly British, and he was above all else exceedingly interesting. For the most part, people were really fond of Manners, and he fond of them.