第46章

He ran round the tower, crooning to himself, and flinging wild arms to the skies.Sometimes the crooning changed to a shrill cry of passion, such as a manad may have uttered in the train of Bacchus.I could make out no words, but the sound told its own tale.He was absorbed in some infernal ecstasy.And as he ran, he drew his right hand across his breast and arms, and I saw that it held a knife.

I grew sick with disgust,--not terror, but honest physical loathing.Lawson, gashing his fat body, affected me with an overpowering repugnance.I wanted to go forward and stop him, and I wanted, too, to be a hundred miles away.And the result was that I stayed still.I believe my own will held me there, but I doubt if in any case I could have moved my legs.

The dance grew swifter and fiercer.I saw the blood dripping from Lawson's body, and his face ghastly white above his scarred breast.And then suddenly the horror left me; my head swam;and for one second--one brief second--I seemed to peer into a new world.A strange passion surged up in my heart.I seemed to see the earth peopled with forms not human, scarcely divine, but more desirable than man or god.The calm face of Nature broke up for me into wrinkles of wild knowledge.I saw the things which brush against the soul in dreams, and found them lovely.There seemed no cruelty in the knife or the blood.It was a delicate mystery of worship, as wholesome as the morning song of birds.I do not know how the Semites found Ashtaroth's ritual; to them it may well have been more rapt and passionate than it seemed to me.

For I saw in it only the sweet simplicity of Nature, and all riddles of lust and terror soothed away as a child's nightmares are calmed by a mother.I found my legs able to move, and Ithink I took two steps through the dusk towards the tower.

And then it all ended.A cock crew, and the homely noises of earth were renewed.While I stood dazed and shivering, Lawson plunged through the Grove toward me.The impetus carried him to the edge, and he fell fainting just outside the shade.

My wits and common-sense came back to me with my bodily strength.

I got my friend on my back, and staggered with him towards the house.I was afraid in real earnest now, and what frightened me most was the thought that I had not been afraid sooner.I had come very near the "abomination of the Zidonians."At the door I found the scared valet waiting.He had apparently done this sort of thing before"Your master has been sleep-walking and has had a fall," I said.

"We must get him to bed at once."

We bathed the wounds as he lay in a deep stupor, and I dressed them as well as I could.The only danger lay in his utter exhaustion, for happily the gashes were not serious, and no artery had been touched.Sleep and rest would make him well, for he had the constitution of a strong man.I was leaving the room when he opened his eyes and spoke.He did not recognize me, but I noticed that his face had lost its strangeness, and was once more that of the friend I had known.Then I suddenly bethought me of an old hunting remedy which he and I always carried on our expeditions.It is a pill made up from an ancient Portuguese prescription.One is an excellent specific for fever.Two are invaluable if you are lost in the bush, for they send a man for many hours into a deep sleep, which prevents suffering and madness, till help comes.Three give a painless death.I went to my room and found the little box in my jewel-case.Lawson swallowed two, and turned wearily on his side.I bade his man let him sleep till he woke, and went off in search of food.

IV

I had business on hand which would not wait.By seven, Jobson, who had been sent for, was waiting for me in the library.I knew by his grim face that here I had a very good substitute for a prophet of the Lord.

"You were right," I said."I have read the IIth chapter of Ist Kings, and I have spent such a night as I pray God I shall never spend again.

"I thought you would," he replied."I've had the same experience myself.""The Grove?" I said.

"Ay, the wud," was the answer in broad Scots.

I wanted to see how much he understood."Mr.Lawson's family is from the Scottish Border?""Ay.I understand they come off Borthwick Water side," he replied, but I saw by his eyes that he knew what I meant.

"Mr.Lawson is my oldest friend," I went on, "and I am going to take measures to cure him.For what I am going to do I take the sole responsibility.I will make that plain to your master.

But if I am to succeed I want your help.Will you give it me? It sounds like madness and you are a sensible man and may like to keep out of it.I leave it to your discretion."Jobson looked me straight in the face."Have no fear for me," he said; "there is an unholy thing in that place, and if I have the strength in me I will destroy it.He has been a good master to me, and, forbye I am a believing Christian.So say on, sir."There was no mistaking the air.I had found my Tishbite.

"I want men," I said, "--as many as we can get."Jobson mused."The Kaffirs will no' gang near the place, but there's some thirty white men on the tobacco farm.They'll do your will, if you give them an indemnity in writing.""Good," said I."Then we will take our instructions from the only authority which meets the case.We will follow the example of King Josiah.I turned up the 23rd chapter of end Kings, and read--"And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtaroth the abomination of the Zidonians...did the king defile.

"And he brake in Pieces the images, and cut down the groves.

and filled their places with the bones of men....'