A Thunder of Trumpets Read online

  “Look!” Griswell could barely make his voice intelligible. “There—over there in the corner!”

  The light moved, halted.

  “Was that thing a woman once?” whispered Griswell. “God, look at that face, even in death. Look at those claw-like hands, with black talons like those of a beast. Yes, it was human, though—even the rags of an old ballroom gown. Why should a mulatto maid wear such a dress, I wonder?”

  “This has been her lair for over forty years,” muttered Buckner, brooding over the grinning grisly thing sprawling in the corner. “This clears you, Griswell—a crazy woman with a hatchet—that’s all the authorities need to know. God, what a revenge!—what a foul revenge! Yet what a bestial nature she must have had, in the beginnin’, to delve into voodoo as she must have done—”

  “The mulatto woman?” whispered Griswell, dimly sensing a horror that overshadowed all the rest of the terror.

  Buckner shook his head. “We misunderstood old Jacob’s maunderin’s, and the things Miss Elizabeth wrote—she must have known, but family pride sealed her lips. Griswell, I understand now; the mulatto woman had her revenge, but not as we supposed. She didn’t drink the Black Brew old Jacob fixed for her. It was for somebody else, to be given secretly in her food, or coffee, no doubt. Then Joan ran away, leavin’ the seeds of the hell she’d sowed to grow.”

  “That—that’s not the mulatto woman?” whispered Griswell.

  “When I saw her out there in the hallway I knew she was no mulatto. And those distorted features still reflect a family likeness. I’ve seen her portrait, and I can’t be mistaken. There lies the creature that was once Celia Blassenville.”

  THE LAST HOUR

  Weird Tales, June 1938

  Hinged in the brooding west a black sun hung,

  And Titan shadows barred the dying world.

  The blind black oceans groped; their tendrils curled

  And writhed and fell in feathered spray, and clung,

  Climbing the granite ladders, rung by rung,

  Which held them from the tribes whose death-cries skirled.

  Above, unholy fires red wings unfurled—

  Gray ashes floated down from where they swung.

  A demon crouched, chin propped on brutish fist,

  Gripping a crystal ball between his knees;

  His skull-mouth gaped, and icy shone his eye.

  Down crashed the crystal globe—beneath the seas

  The dark lands sank—lone in a fire-shot mist

  A painted sun hung in a starless sky.

  SHIPS

  Weird Tales, July 1938

  There’s a far, lone island in the dim, red west,

  Where the sea-waves are crimson with the red of burnished gold

  (Sapphire in the billows, gold upon the crest),

  An island that is older than the continents are old.

  Sailing-ships are anchored about that ancient isle,

  Ships that sailed the oceans in the dim dawn days,

  Coracles from Britain, triremes from the Nile.

  Anchored round the harbors, anchored mile on mile,

  Ships and ships and shades of ships fading in the haze.

  And there’s a Roman galley with its seven banks of oars,

  And there’s a golden bargeboat that knew the Caesar’s hand,

  And there’s a somber pirate craft with shattered cabin doors,

  And there’s a sturdy bireme that sailed to Holy Land.

  Main-trees lifting like a forest of the south,

  Beaked prows looming, and the wide courses furled,

  Dim decks heel-marked, marked by rain and drouth,

  Spindrift in the cross-trees, drift of southern seas,

  Dim ships, strong ships from all about the world.

  High ships, proud ships, towering at their poops,

  Galleons flaunting their pinnacles of pride,

  Schooners and merchantmen, and long, lean sloops,

  Kings’ ships riding with galleys on the tide.

  LINES WRITTEN IN THE REALIZATION THAT I MUST DIE

  Weird Tales, Aug. 1938

  The Black Door gapes and the Black Wall rises;

  Twilight gasps in the grip of Night.

  Paper and dust are the gems man prizes—

  Torches toss in my waning sight.

  Drums of glory are lost in the ages,

  Bare feet fail on a broken trail—

  Let my name fade from the printed pages;

  Dreams and visions are growing pale.

  Twilight gathers and none can save me.

  Well and well, for I would not stay:

  Let me speak through the stone you gave me:

  He never could say what he wished to say.

  Why should I shrink from the sign of leaving?

  My brain is wrapped in a darkened cloud;

  Now in the Night are the Sisters weaving

  For me a shroud.

  Towers shake and the stars reel under,

  Skulls are heaped in the Devil’s fane;

  My feet are wrapped in a rolling thunder,

  Jets of agony lance my brain.

  What of the world that I leave for ever?

  Phantom forms in a fading sight—

  Carry me out on the ebon river

  Into the Night.

  A THUNDER OF TRUMPETS

  Weird Tales, Sept. 1938

  (written with Frank Thurston Torbett)

  “She is fire in his blood, and a thunder of trumpets; her voice is beyond all music in his ears; and she can shake his soul that else stands steadfast in the drafty presence of the Titans of the Light and of the Dark.”

  —Jack London.

  * * * *

  Allah might have sent the crash of thunder that startled Bernice Andover’s horse into the wild bolt that unseated its rider; but surely Shaitan sent the tiger. No beast so old, smelling and depraved could possibly have any other than an infernal connection. So Bernice told herself as she sat up, still dizzy from her tumble into the cushioning bushes, and fascinatedly watched that snarling, striped, whiskered face emerging from the underbrush. She was not frightened, yet. Her wits were still a bit addled from the unexpected fall, when a low hanging limb had brushed her out of the saddle. And her pampered, ultra-civilized reflexes, having never before encountered physical peril, were slow now in recognizing it as a fact.

  She watched like a spectator at a play while the evil-smelling old scoundrel surveyed her with the suspicious caution of all cat-things, which she herself should have been able to understand. He was not an aristocrat of his kind. He was ancient, slouchy and disreputable. When he curled back his lip and snarled silently, gaps showed in the rows of his yellow fangs. And this, she realized in a detached sort of way, indicated her deadly peril. Only infirm and decrepit beasts ordinarily turned man-eater. A fine commentary on man’s “domination over the beasts of the field!” When a tiger sank so low in the social scale of his own kind that he was in danger of starvation, he turned to devouring those superior beings that claimed kinship to deity.

  Now a big mangy paw came into sight, and next a moth-eaten pair of shoulders, too creaky with age to damage anything except a member of the dominant human race. Latent instincts in Bernice, submerged beneath many generations of artificial security and guaranteed protection, began to stir. This, she hurriedly told herself, could not really be happening to her! Tigers ate people only in books, and then only fat priests and ignorant peasants. It was ridiculous to suppose that she, or any other beautiful white woman, should go into the uneasy belly of such a thing as that. So her artificial reflexes told her, even while her naked, primitive instincts (which strikingly resembled a cave-woman with a leopard hide bound about her flanks) were shrieking of terror and despair and physical agony, and all the unpleasant, basic realities of the universe that civilized people try to submerge with silk frocks, philosophical theories and policemen.

  This couldn’t be happening to her! she cried out silently. This was the ju
ngle, true; but scarcely out of sight of the palace of Jhundra Singh, whose guests she and her party were. But plain common sense told her she might as well be a thousand leagues away from ballroom dresses, hot and cold running water, and soldiers with machine-guns. The jungle she had braved had engulfed her, and when they came looking for Bernice Andover, they would find only a heap of bones, with bits of raw flesh adhering to them—this thought was so revolting that she screamed, and screamed again.

  The beast was sinking into a crouch, his wicked old eyes blazing with hunger and fear, strikingly like the expression of an old roué whose wife holds the purse-strings, when he sights a lovely young thing in petticoats. He knew he was violating a beastly taboo; had known it every time he struck down a human being. But necessity knows no law; the hunger of a starving tiger is as important to the tiger as the hunger which impels a striker to break a scab’s head is to the striker. And like all forbidden fruit, human flesh produced a strange delirium of ecstasy, setting up wild vibrations in the shadowy thing that is a tiger’s soul.

  Her screams roused him to madness. His tail lashed the grasses, his stringy old muscles coiled; then, just as Bernice threw up her hands to shut out the sight of doom, she caught a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. That sense which is politely called the feminine instinct told her it was a male human even before she got a good look at him.

  The quick, harried glance showed her it was a tall man, apparently a native, clad in whites and a turban. Her heart sank as she saw he was apparently unarmed; though it must be admitted that this emotion was prompted by the fear that he would be unable to rescue her, rather than by the realization of the peril he was stepping into.

  But he showed no sign of perturbation. His strong, dark face was tranquil, reflecting neither fear nor passion as he walked toward the crouching brute, which had checked its spring and now snarled up at him, whiskers quivering with outraged resentment. The man folded his arms, almost wearily, and stood looking down at the brute. And then a strange thing happened. Bernice felt a distinct vibration in the air, almost like a faint electric shock. The man had drawn no weapon. He had made no hostile move, but she saw a change steal into the great shining eyes of the crouching tiger. They glowed weirdly, then flared wildly with the shadow of fear. And with a rustle of the tall grass, the beast was gone, sudden and silent as a shadow itself.

  The man turned back to the girl, who scrambled up and faced him, instinctively brushing back her hair and arranging her riding-habit. He saw an image of loveliness as nearly perfect as natural beauty and all the artifices of feminine lore could make it, from her reddish-gold hair to her trim little feet in their soft riding-boots. His eyes were inscrutable as they dwelt on her, but in their dark depths a tiny flame seemed to flicker, faintly and momentarily, like the reflection of a long burnt-out fire.

  He was tall, supplely built. His complexion was no darker than that of the average Anglo-Indian, his features distinctly Aryan. His face held her fascinated gaze; it might have been a mask carved from bronze, so powerful were its lines, had it not been for the intense virility and vitality which animated it. Its reflected strength, faced squarely, was almost like a physical impact—stimulating in its effect. As their eyes met, Bernice felt her heart pound suddenly and briefly, not from fright, but as if from some exciting anticipation felt by her subconscious instincts but not recognized by her consciousness. For a fleeting instant she felt naked under that impersonal gaze, as if casually and impassively he had denuded her with one glance, not only of body but of soul as well. Then the sensation passed so swiftly she all but forgot it.

  All these feelings and sensations passed through her mind during the brief seconds in which she was rising and facing him. Then reaction swept over her. The glade swam giddily to her gaze and she staggered. In an instant of blindness she felt a strong arm about her, steadying her, and with the contact a powerful surge of vitality seemed to flow into her body. It was like contact with a living dynamo. Fully poised again, though tingling from that contact, she lifted her head, and instantly the man released her and drew back.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “I’m all right. It was just the fright and excitement. I guess I fainted.”

  “Come,” he said in a voice as soothing as the mellow chime of a temple bell. His English had no trace of an accent. “I’ll take you back to the palace.”

  “But I haven’t thanked you—”

  “Please don’t.”

  She found herself walking along at his side, hardly knowing how she got there. He moved with an effortless ease that reminded her of the beast he had driven away. They walked a while in silence. The need of words, the usual conventional trivialities, did not occur to her. She felt a blissful sensation of utter security that she did not try to explain. But presently she said: “What did you do to the tiger?”

  “Nothing.” He glanced down at her from his greater height. “I only let him look into my eyes and see himself in the mirror of reality. The sight terrified him, made him forget even his hunger, poor devil! He ran away to forget the revelation of his own reality.”

  “You’re making fun of me!” she protested bewilderedly.

  He shook his head without mockery.

  “How many of us human animals could endure the sight of our own selves, stripped of the garments of illusion with which we cloak them? In our infancy others begin to garb us in conventional illusions to spare their own sight, and later we ourselves continue the process—we carefully deck ourselves out in elaborate regalia of pretense to hide the raw nakedness of our souls, not only from others, but from ourselves as well. We hate most of those who strip us bare—and their motive is generally one of self-protection, as a man points out deformities in others to draw attention away from his own defects.”

  There was nothing pedantic or pompous, nothing self-complacent or rhetorical in his tone; it was, indeed, almost as if he were musing aloud.

  “I don’t see what a tiger—” she began, and for the first time he smiled, and in that powerful face his smile was a marvel of gentleness.

  “Truly, we humans fancy ourselves alone not only in virtues but in faults likewise. But I think your horse is coming to meet us.”

  She glanced at him, startled, but the next instant saw the high-strung beast coming toward them through the trees, his head lowered as if in contrition. He rolled his eyes toward them, then nuzzled the man and whinnied softly.

  The man smiled, caressed the moist muzzle, and then lifted Bernice into the saddle, with a lack of effort that caught her breath. She was scarcely aware of his hands upon her; she went up like a feather wafted in the wind. She gathered the reins in her hands and looked down at him. This was a veritable adventure out of the Arabian Nights, with a handsome magician from whom tigers fled and to whom runaway steeds returned in obedience to a silent command. It was fantastic and ridiculous—yet this was India, the ancient and mysterious, where anything might happen. She refused to be swayed by Western skepticism; this was her adventure, and she meant to extract the last least thrill from it.

  “Who are you?” she asked abrubtly.

  “Call me Ranjit.”

  “I am Bernice Andover of New York. I came to Sawlpore with my Aunt Cecelia and my fiancé, Sir Hugh Bradberry. We’re guests of Jhundra Singh. I must go back to the palace at once. Sir Hugh and my aunt will be worried about me. He told me not to ride away from the palace alone, but I disobeyed him.”

  “Naturally!” he smiled.

  “Of course! But it’s lucky, isn’t it? For if I hadn’t disobeyed, we’d never have met, and I wouldn’t have had the most thrilling adventure of my life!”

  She regretted it the instant she said it—the silly, conventional, artificial thing—how cheap it sounded! She turned her head quickly to hide a flush, and then said: “Won’t you return to the palace with me?”

  “I’ll walk beside you until we meet your friends,” he answered.

  “Are you afoot?”

  “What right have
I to impose my weight on the back of a living creature?”

  “Man was given dominion over the beasts of the field—” she began hazily.

  “Why did you not tell the tiger that?” he asked, smiling.

  “I couldn’t speak his language,” she retorted, and he laughed as he swung in beside her with his long smooth stride that was a beauty to behold in the rhythm of motion.

  The brief jungle shower, short and stormy as a woman’s temper, had passed over, leaving only a splattering of great raindrops glistening on the broad green leaves. Through the dusky emerald arches the blue sky shone, clean and clear and tranquil. Dim, untamed emotions stirred in Bernice, like the memories of shameless pagan worship; in such dim leafy aisles as these, in the blue-black shadows, the first gods of men were born. She glanced at the man striding beside her; he might have been a high priest of some primeval forest god. Was there something of the lawless pagan in him? Yes—but something more; something not outside, but above the Law; something firm and immovable, yet not hard or callous. She recalled the strange tales she had heard of Hindu holy men—men who dwelt in jungle places and had strange powers over wild beasts. She had imagined them as wild, unkempt prophets, flame-eyed and matted-haired and naked—not like this young god.