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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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MESMER MILANN, Mediator, pressed a bell-button upon the massive ebony table at which he sat and leaned forward in his great chair, awaiting the entrance of the client whose card had borne the name Tarronhall—Mr. George Tarronhall.
Save for the deep purple curtains which were hung round the room so that they shrouded the walls and windows completely, the number and odd placing of the electric bulbs—only one of which was burning—and a huge centaur, savagely sculptured in shining, slate-hued marble, there was nothing in the room to suggest that this was a temple of the occult. Nor was there in the appearance of Milann any studied effect to hint that he dealt in mystery and—many said and believed—magic. He wore a well-fitting black frock-coat which served better than any "robes" to intensify the extraordinary pallor of his square, powerful, hard-chiselled face, and yet did not lessen the strange fire that glowed steadily in his eyes—eyes so intensely dark that no iris was visible. His head was bare, and there was a singular quality of immobility pervading the man, so that he looked as though he had been sitting there precisely in that attitude, without any movement whatever, for many years—frozen into everlasting stillness—a carven man, with eyes that burned. It was impossible to tell from that marble mask the age of the man. He may have been thirty—forty—fifty—anything; there was nothing to be gleaned from the cold, unsmiling face but the evident fact that here was a man possessing extraordinary power of will, and probably profound knowledge of strange and terrifying and secret things.
Indeed, it is certain that he knew many secret things, for he had been recipient of the more weighty secrets of thousands of the class of people likely to possess secrets. And as to his knowledge of strange lore, there are in London at this moment hundreds of educated people, both hard-headed men and highly intelligent women, who are unalterably convinced that Mesmer Milann is, seriously, one of those extraordinary men who have been favoured or cursed by the gods with knowledge that is granted to few.
This was the man from whom George Tarronhall, newly returned from his successful crossing of the great Australian desert (world famous for that alone, even if he had not been one of the most famous of English explorers before), had requested and received an appointment almost before he was comfortably settled in town again.
Tarronhall had never seen Mesmer Milann until now, and strong, rigidly calm, iron-nerved as he was and an explorer needs to be, he was conscious at the instant of his entry, at the first meeting of their glances, that here was a man awaiting him whom, whether he was a charlatan or not, it would be wise to approach seriously—a man who was competent to deal quickly and effectively with those who came for merely frivolous reasons, expecting to amuse themselves for a few moments at the cost of a piece of gold, or those who came with any intention of "exposing" him. Here at any rate was no police-hounded, semi-illiterate palmist. If it were possible for any man to "mediate" between human, living people and those that were neither human nor living, it occurred instantly to Tarronhall that here, indeed, was such a man... even as he claimed to be...
Tarronhall realised before he was seated that he was to traffic with no small man. "If I am to be swindled," he thought, dryly whimsical, "I shall be thoroughly swindled. This man is no—piker, as the Americans say."
His deep, far-seeing eyes—sailors' eyes—took in every detail of the big, smooth, dead-white face that jutted, hung forward, as it were out of the purple-black background as he advanced to the chair facing the mediator's table.
Tarronhall was a little man, slim, dried-up, grizzled, but under his short, close-clipped greyish-yellow beard, Mesmer Milann judged swiftly, was the right kind of chin and jaw.
"Be seated, Mr. Tarronhall," he said without moving.
A faintly perplexed look dulled the explorer's eyes for a moment. He was wondering exactly where he had heard just that deep, vibrant note in a voice before. Then his eyes cleared. He remembered it—but it was not in any human voice. He had heard it in the low, rolling, cavernous note of the growl of some of the big African and Asian carnivores he had shot—except that where the note of the lion or the tiger had hinted at harshness behind it, Milann's promised a sort of deep, organ-like harmony.
"Thank you," he said.
There was a momentary silence, then Tarronhall spoke—directly, to the point.
"I bring you a very strange story," he said. "Strange to me, though I understand that what may seem inexplicable to me may not appear so to you. I have just returned from Australia; but no doubt you know." He smiled faintly; for the newspapers had worn his exploit threadbare.
The mediator moved his hand in assent.
But Tarronhall hesitated a little, began to speak, stopped, and finally chose another opening.
"I am not an imaginative man, or, to make it perfectly clear, my imagination, such as it is, concerns itself more with areas, countries and peoples rather than with—fragments, shall I say? Perhaps that is not clear to you. I mean that I can imagine a country, a mountain range, a desert, and, in my mind's eye, even people it; but I cannot, or am not prone to, imagine incidents such as that about which I am anxious to consult you."
Mesmer Milann smiled gravely.
"That is hardly imagination, Mr. Tarronhall," he said in his strange vibrant voice. "You get your country, mountain range, desert, or your people by deduction; you base it, perhaps almost subconsciously, upon certain facts—for instance, points of longitude and latitude, climate, the course of rivers, the trend of forests in that direction, and such things. It is a sort of sketchy deduction rather than imagination!"
Tarronhall answered readily.
"You are right. I am glad you emphasise the distinction. Good. I am not an imaginative man in the ordinary sense, and that makes the affair I shall describe more puzzling than ever... I crossed the Australian desert from north to south. There is nothing much to say of the actual exploration work—nothing, I think, that would peculiarly interest you—until it was practically finished, when I was within three days' march of the southern edge of the desert.
"I had camped early in the afternoon by an unexpected waterhole. There were ten people, all but Rivers, the scientist of the expedition, and myself being blacks." The explorer's face grew bleak for a moment. "You will remember, probably, that we lost Kerman and De Vigne en route, both of snakebite.
"Towards evening Rivers and I strolled out from the camp, perhaps with no definite purpose in view, and almost immediately came upon the ravine or small valley, where the events I shall describe took place. It was a quite ordinary formation, a long narrow depression, through which on one side pierced a small outcrop of softish slaty rock, a sort of shale. It was as though the rock had grown up through the sand, and the action of the wind, checked by the rock, had scooped out the ravine in the course of years. There are thousands of such places. The floor of the valley was of the shale, lightly powdered with the coarser, heavier particles of sand. It was the sort of place that might appeal to a gem prospector as being worth examination.
"But it was not that aspect of the place which interested us. No doubt the newspapers will have told you that we made immense finds of minerals, precious metals and gems in the heart of the desert, and I may tell you that those finds had been huge enough to enable us both to feel that it was hardly worth our while to examine this little valley with any view to our own profit... And yet"—Tarronhall's voice became extraordinarily impressive, the more so because the explorer was plainly unconscious of any change of tone—"and yet of all the strange places I have passed through, of all the odd corners of the world I have seen, that little insignificant valley is the one place that remains, and will remain always, in my mind... It was haunted—if ever any place in the world is haunted."
The explorer glanced with a sort of deprecatory, half-apologetic smile at Milann, as though a little ashamed. But there was no answering smile on the white, carven face of the mediator.
"There was a sense of oppression weighing down upon the place?" he asked quietly. "In spite of the sunlight, you felt, perhaps, what you might feel when passing a jungle thicket at night, in which you could see nothing, but wherein, you felt quite sure, lurked some big dangerous beast watching you go by?"
"Exactly. You have described it exactly," said Tarronhall with a sort of relief. "It was... odd, you know. Rivers, my companion, felt it instantly.
"'What is wrong with this place?' he said, looking at me rather queerly.
"I was about to answer him when I saw the skeletons... At first I thought they were skulls only. There were two of them at the foot of the miniature cliff on which we stood. I leaned over to see them better, and found that they were skeletons, lying on their sides, with the skulls half turned upwards, so that we looked down straight into the empty eye-sockets. It may have been my fancy—probably it was—but it seemed to me that there was a queer craning look about the poise of the skulls, exactly as though they were watching us. Picture two people lying at the foot of a little, slightly overhung cliff, craning out from under to peer up at two people at the top. Well, that would be the effect. Only the hollowness of the eye-sockets gave to the skeletons a grotesque look of angry watchful alarm.
"Angry watchful alarm," repeated Mesmer Milann quietly, half to himself. "You choose your words well, Mr. Tarronhall. I understand perfectly."
"Well, that was the impression... But, of course, a man exploring in desert places becomes used to skeletons, and for a place to possess an atmosphere of oppression—to be forbidding—is to render it inviting to an explorer rather than otherwise. So Rivers and I went down into the valley.
"As I said, it was quite ordinary—to an explorer. The presence of the two skeletons, perhaps, would put it out of the common to the mind of the average Londoner, but—no, perhaps I shouldn't say that. The skeletons put the place out of the ordinary for us also. You see, they seemed to be watching us. It may have been the angle at which they lay—no?"
Milann had shaken his head.
"Well, at any rate we went over and examined them. As nearly as we could judge they were all that was left of two men; probably under middle-age, well built, one short with fair hair, the other unusually tall with darker hair. The left shoulder-blade of the dark-haired one was shattered, as though by a bullet passing through the left breast. There was no sign of any belongings, no scraps of clothing, weapons, utensils, or tent. Nothing but the bones, with the dry ligaments still holding them together.
"Rivers, guided by the different height of the men and the probable upward flight of the bullet through the broken shoulder-blade, suggested that the short, fair-haired one had shot the other; but beyond that it was difficult to form any conclusion as to how they had come to their end there. It was not thirst—the usual cause—for, as I said, there was a waterhole not more than five hundred yards away.
"No doubt they came there with stores; it would be impossible without them, for that is a barren country—not even rabbits. Blacks may have taken away the stores. It's possible; really, it's the only conceivable explanation. However, that hardly matters. We will for the moment, if you like, leave it at that; these were two prospectors who quarrelled, fought, killed each other, and whose stores, weapons, and so on were taken away later by a party of blacks.
"The first point I want to emphasise to you is the extraordinary sensation of menace that pervaded the place. I—we were acutely uncomfortable, uneasy there. Within sight of our own camp, and in broad daylight! I do not claim to be a brave man, but nevertheless I may say, I think, that I should have the right to protest against any imputation of cowardice or even timidity. Indeed, at the risk of being considered boastful, I will say that I am not afraid of death, and that I could face without terror any physical pain I know of; but"—the little explorer's face was suddenly pale and hard and grim—"but I confess that I could not have camped alone in that place. It weighed me down, chilled me... It was eerie. And yet, save for those two poor bleached skeletons, there was nothing there, nor even a cranny where anything could hide. Remember that I was, as I am now in perfect health, fit to retrace my steps back across that desert if necessary... Perhaps I repeat myself; if so let me explain that I am very anxious to make you see quite clearly that there was distinctly a—what shall I say?—a quality of malignity in the atmosphere of that place. Do I convey it to you?"
The mediator nodded slowly.
"Perfectly," he said. "It was your first encounter with the Unseen, and your spiritual rather than your physical side was perturbed—distressed."
Tarronhall thought for a moment, then nodded.
"That was it precisely," he agreed.
"Then we turned to leave the ravine, and as I turned I kicked against a bag, the corner of a small canvas bag that protruded from a litter of broken, crumbling shale at my feet.
"I bent, cleared away the rubbish, and took out the bag—a sort of little sack—very well made, it proved, with a soft, thick chamois leather lining.
"Rivers bent over curiously as I cut the thong that bound the mouth of the sack. I noticed him glance over his shoulder furtively at the skeletons as he bent, and he is not a man who ordinarily is furtive. And, for myself, I was conscious, even as I drew my knife across the leather, that the oppression had redoubled. It weighed upon my shoulders, enveloped me like tangible stuff—horrible. Like a huge, choking mass of wool—damp, poisonous stuff. I felt a sensation of cold. But when instinctively I looked up the sunlight was there, and I could see the heat waves quivering low down on the sand.
"I heard Rivers say, to himself rather than to me, 'I could have sworn the thing moved.' And he was looking at one of the skeletons behind him.
"I affected not to hear, and turned up the bag, pouring out on the sand such a collection of precious stones as Australia, or any other country, has never before produced. Sapphires, emeralds and rubies, for the most part, with a slab of wonderful opal, dirty and uncut, of course, but magnificent. We have brought home some remarkable gems, some of them we had believed unique until then. But the stones in the sack surpassed ours to an extent that made comparisons ludicrous. The worst of these outrivalled the best of ours... Well, they were of no use to the skeletons, and so we took them back with us to the camp. You understand that? It may be a hundred years before anyone sets foot in that particular valley again—we were entitled to take them."
Mesmer Milann nodded again.
"Yes, of course," he said. "And where are they now?"
There was a sort of restrained expectancy in his voice.
Tarronhall looked at him curiously.
"They are still in the sack, and the sack is lying half buried in the loose litter of shale in the valley—exactly as we found it," he answered slowly, looking for the mediator's surprise.
But Mesmer Milann gave no sign of surprise at all. It was almost as though he had expected the answer. Yet he had one other question, but he asked it in the tone which a teacher may use when leading a child to the answer of its first sum.
"And who put the gems back in the place where they were found?" he said.
Tarronhall half rose, a little excited.
"A—ah! That is the question I have come to ask you!" he said.
The mediator nodded.
"I imagined so," he replied. "When you have finished your story I may be able to tell you," and leaned forward, waiting for the explorer to continue his narrative.
"WE took the bag of gems back to our camp, and I was glad to get out of that valley. That evening we looked them over carefully. They were priceless, unique; but there is no necessity to go into that now. In view of a long march on the following day, Rivers and I turned in early. We shared a tent, and the jewels we left in the bag under a rug between us. Once free from the valley the sense of oppression had left us, and we slept quickly enough.
"There had been a moon when we turned in. It was midnight when I woke, suddenly, sharply, with a sort of shock; and the moon was gone, and it was extraordinarily dark.
"I am as quick to sense danger as most men who have lived in the wilds; one learns the knack of it there, or dies for his ignorance, and before my lids were fully opened I was aware that something was wrong—dangerously wrong... At these moments it is not always wise to make haste in the darkness. It is better to lie very still, to keep breathing steadily, and to listen—to listen, and while you are listening to run over in your mind quickly just exactly the things you must remember; for instance, to recall the exact spot at which your revolver should be lying, so that at the first thrust in the dark your hand will seize it; to re-locate in your mind precisely where the entrance to the tent door is. Also one must remember the sense of smell, and use it, silently, stealthily, slowly. If it is a snake or a beast, one will smell it, even though one may not see it. Things like that...
"I listened, but I heard nothing. I smelt nothing. I lay there for a long time—a long time—tense, strung like a banjo-wire. Nothing happened. I was like a mechanical thing that was being tuned up, screwed up, to an impossible pitch. Audible things, of course, became magnified; the sound of Rivers' breathing was like a regular succession of long, slow waves breaking on sand; my heart-beats were like a series of immensely muffled explosions; the blood traversing its regular round of my veins was like the everlasting roar of a waterfall. But that was all I heard.
"Well, I couldn't stand it. I began to edge my hand up and out towards my automatic pistol. I knew that there was something, somebody, in the tent watching us. Something strange, malevolent. And at the first fractional movement of my hand it acted.
"Something clashed—clashed—a dull, dry, rattling sort of sound. Understand me, please, Mr. Milann. I have thought of the word carefully; it was a clashing sound, exactly as though someone had clashed two or more bones together. (I have since tested that sound for myself.) At the same instant something flat and knotted and hard pressed for an instant on my neck. It was cold but dry, and hurt. And it was removed at once. And, if you can imagine it, the darkness became charged as it were with warning—most horrible. Warning; it poured down on me, into me, like an electric current, enveloped me like water, paralysed me momentarily. I was frightened too— terror-stricken. You have heard how a serpent is supposed to fascinate a squirrel? Well, there was something Unseen, some Force, in the darkness that fascinated me then. I lay still, every nerve in my body wrung and vibrating and excruciated. And, save for that one clashing noise, not a sound... God knows how long I lay there—quite helpless. But it was Rivers' voice that galvanised me into life. It came across the darkness like a man calling in a tiny voice, across a great abyss, and it quivered in a sort of tremulous falsetto.
"Tarronhall—Tarronhall—Tarronhall," said Rivers, three times. It sounded exactly as though he was about to start crying. But it unlocked me, as it were. He went on:
"Get a light, Tarronhall—get a light, for God's sake!"
"I picked up the matches near my pistol and we lit a lamp. Rivers' face was greyish white; he says mine was, too. No doubt it was.
"The tent was exactly as we had seen it last, except for two things. The bag of gems was gone, and the rug which had covered it was at the other side of the tent. We sat staring at the place where the bag had lain; it had made a little depression in the sand...
"We spent the hour remaining before the dawn talking it over; talking rather at random, carefully avoiding any mention of what was in our minds. We were extraordinarily careful to suggest commonplace reasons for the disappearance of the bag. We pretended to believe that the clashing sound had been caused by two spears coming in contact—black fellows' spears, or, possibly, boomerangs. It was absurd, but no doubt you will understand better than I do the sort of 'shyness,' the hesitancy to countenance any acceptance of the occult that sometimes obtains between men. Why, it needed quite an effort on my part to come here to you with this story.
"So we talked about black fellows' spears—boomerangs—anything plausible—until the dawn, when I called in one of the black trackers, and told him to pick up any strange trail in the sand. You have heard of these bush-trackers, of course? They are really wonderful, you know—better than blood-hounds.
"It was loose, dry sand that would not take any definite footprint—the fine dry stuff you can pour like water. But the tracker found some trail that interested him and seemed to puzzle him. He followed it out of the tent. It always seems a little uncanny—to me, at any rate—to watch a black tracker at work. They seem to read the desert as easily as you would read a book. But there is effort there, in reality a sort of exalted concentration. I have seen a tracker sweat over his work like a coalheaver. White men can't do it, you know. And a black tracker can't teach a white man to do it as he can do it. It's a little eerie, I think—like someone reading aloud from a blank page... However, our man followed the tracks, or whatever he saw, from the tent to the edge of the valley of the skeletons. He stopped on the cliff edge and looked down, muttering to himself. He saw the skeletons, and the man went grey with fear. Grey... I urged him on, but he wouldn't stir a foot. He grinned in a nerveless sort of way, like a frightened dog, but he wouldn't move. What he had read on the unreadable—to us—sand I don't know, and what he feared in the valley I don't know; but I do know that that black tracker would not have set a foot in the valley, even though I had jammed the muzzle of my automatic between his shoulder blades and ordered him to move on or die.
"So we sent him back to the camp, and when he was gone Rivers pointed out something to me that sent a chill down my spine.
"It was one corner of a little sack sticking out from a litter of loose, crumbly shale on the floor of the valley. The sack, Mr. Milann, in exactly the place where we had found it and from which we had taken it!..."
He paused for an impressive moment.
"We spoke with the tracker later, took him back to the valley edge, and he searched the cliff-top—quartered it like a hound—but he would not go down into the valley. But he swore that no men except ourselves had approached the valley for many days. We asked whom it was he had tracked from the tent to the valley-edge. He said it was no man, but something that was not good. And that was all we could get from him. The man was scared to the roots of his soul...
"We left the gems there—they are there to this day, for all I know. Frankly, I and Rivers were afraid to go in after them again... But that's all right. What I want you to tell me are three things. One is: Were we in any real danger in the tent that night? The second is: Who or what returned the gems to their place where we found them? And the last is the least important: a question of vanity, self-esteem. I don't like to feel conquered—routed. I feel as though I've left my reputation for courage behind in that infernal valley, and I'm thinking of going back to regain it. It's only hurt pride, I know; but it really hurts—galls. I want those gems, not for their intrinsic value, but as a trophy. Still, I hope I am not a fool, and while I don't understand these matters in the least, I am not prepared to deny that there may be in or near this life of ours things that are not to be dealt with by a rifle or pistol. That brings me to my last question. Have I, do you think, a sporting chance of retrieving my trophy from that valley?"
The little explorer's face was grim and his grey eyes were hot as he put his concluding question.
Mesmer Milann did not answer at once. He stared straight before him, apparently lost in thought. But when he spoke it was in a voice of extraordinary gravity.
"You ask me if you were in any real danger that night. I say to you, in the most solemn earnest, that you never have been before, and probably never will be again, in such a fearful peril as you were in the tent that night. I, too, am weighing my words with the utmost care. And I say to you now that you were beyond the reach of human aid had that which was in the tent with you cared to molest you."
There was something in the mediator's tone that drained the blood from Tarronhall's face and set his scalp pringling.
Milann continued.
"You ask: Who removed the gems? For the moment I will content myself with saying they were restored to their hiding-place by certain Forces, unseen but none the less existent and powerful to inflict harm upon humans. And, for your last question, if you return to that valley with the intention of 'tampering'—that is the right word, believe me—with these Forces, or that which they guard, then I"—the deep voice vibrated in that still room like a great quivering blade—"I, Mesmer Milann, say to you, God help you, for you are a doomed man!"
He ceased abruptly, and the purple room seemed of a sudden to be strangely quiet with a vast and tomb-like silence...
Tarronhall stared. He was so tremendously impressed as to appear almost horrified.
Then he recovered himself.
"You—gave me a shock—for a moment," he said. "Are there really these Forces? But, of course, there are. After what I felt out there I can readily believe it. But I don't quite see even now. Why, for instance, should Forces—spirits, or whatever they are—guard those gems? What good are sapphires and emeralds to spirits?"
The mediator stared at his client with thoughtful, sombre eyes.
"That is what I shall discover," he said slowly.
Tarronhall looked a little uneasy, for there was that in Milann's voice which strangely discomposed him. He was a man of the open air, direct, simple, unimaginative, very wholesome, a man's man; but now, physically intrepid though he was, his spirit recoiled a little from the idea that he was involving himself in a matter that had to do with things not of this world—dark, dangerous, and unguessable things.
"May I ask how you hope to discover it?" he inquired uneasily.
Mesmer Milann spoke softly in a voice that, for all its softness, was vibrant with latent power.
"Tonight I shall be in the valley, and, later, in another and a more perilous place," he said.
Tarronhall felt a momentary relief. This was obviously impossible. This man was a swindler, then, for all his impressive personality.
"But that's impossible, of course," he said, his eyes hardening.
"For my body, yes," responded Mesmer Milann. "But I shall not need my body. I shall go in the spirit!" His voice was softer than ever. But Tarronhall shivered.
"I—I—you—that's impossible, too," he said.
The mediator smiled slowly.
"You think so?" he said in a voice so slow and cold that it seemed to drip upon the silence of the room, as water drips from a stalactite in the profound darkness of some great cavern. "Then come with me. You and your fellow-explorers have exhausted the globe; soon enough, now, the arc-lights of civilisation will illuminate the darkest corners of this world. Come with me tonight to another—to the Sub-World. There are sights to test the courage of the bolder spirit. I will free you from the gross flesh, and we will traverse together the dim Tracts of the Elementals, enter the Red Fogs of the Tentacle-Spirits, pass over the Place of the Were-Wolves, look upon the Craters of the Unicorns, the Plains of the Centaurs, the Morass of Minotaurs!" His eyes glittered and flamed like jewels, and his voice rolled like distant thunder. "We will adventure through the Haunts of the Vampires together—"
But Tarronhall thrust out his hand. And it was trembling.
"No," he said, not without a certain dignity. "God knows whether you can do these things, whether you—your spirit—are familiar with these places. I do not deny it. I don't question it; but it sounds to me unholy. I am a plain man. Let me alone to deal with men."
The mediator nodded.
"You are wise. To you is your own channel in life; follow it. And to me is mine, and I follow it—where few can follow me!" he said. Then, "You used the word 'unholy' wrongly. You meant 'strange.' Yet the world of which I spoke is unholy, but I go there to war upon it." He rose suddenly to his full height, and with a dignity and simplicity which remained in Tarronhall's memory for his whole life, added, "To war upon it, unarmed, save only by the faith in holy things which is God's armour."
Tarronhall, feeling strangely humble in the presence of this man, rose after a moment.
"You have made me ashamed of the—yes—the curiosity that impelled me to consult you," he said. "Let us forget the matter."
But Mesmer Milann shook his head, smiling faintly.
"The matter has now fallen into the channel of my life," he said. "And I must investigate it."
He held out his hand.
"You shall hear from me again," he concluded.
Tarronhall gazed at him for a second, then shook hands, and quietly went out. Once in the busy, sunlit London street he turned and looked at the door from which he had come.
But he turned away with an air of uncertainty.
"I don't know—I don't know. I don't understand," he muttered to himself. "The man impressed me, if it's all true."
He stared blankly before him, then impatiently shrugged his shoulders and proceeded down the street. "If he is not an impostor... if all that is true..." he repeated, then started a little. "'The Faith in Holy Things which is God's Armour.' By Jove! that's true, at any rate..."
For he was a simple man and a brave man; his soul was a clean soul, and so he was able to recognise a great truth when he heard it.
He nodded vigorously, and his keen grey eyes began to clear from their perplexity as he nodded.
WHETHER Mesmer Milann really possessed the well- nigh incredible power of projecting his soul into that boundless unknown which we call Space, I, who write, do not care to say with any pretence of authority. Personally, I believe that he could do the thing, but I cannot prove it in the least degree.
It is quite certain that in connection with this case of the haunted valley, on the evening of the day he interviewed Tarronhall his body lay upon a couch in his chambers from eight o'clock until past midnight, utterly unconscious, not asleep, but in a still trance too deathly for sleep. So much his valet has told—unwittingly, be it said, but, once told, not denied.
And it is equally certain that upon waking he wrote at once a letter to Miss Pilar Steyne, asking her to call upon him on the following morning.
It says something for the great influence of Mesmer Milann that Pilar Steyne went unhesitating to him, for at that time she was unquestionably the most famous, most spoiled and petulant "star" of musical comedy in London.
But she went, and broke three appointments to go.
The interview was not long. Miss Steyne, extremely pretty—though her prettiness, like her manner and her clothes, was a shade too pronounced—had visited Mesmer Milann before, and had learned to be serious in the purple room. Indeed, like most of the mediator's clients, she had no desire to be anything but serious. There was that about the man, as about the room, that quenched the frivolity of the most thoughtless.
"You came to me on the ninth of May last year, and described a very vivid dream which you had dreamed some two days before, Miss Steyne. Do you remember it?" asked Milann.
The musical comedy star frowned with an air of perplexity.
"Yes, I did, didn't I?" she said. "I always come to you when things like that happen. But I can't remember what the dream was. I have hundreds of dreams, and they get mixed up."
She stared at him with the wide blue eyes of a child. Clearly, she had forgotten; what happened a year before was ancient history, dim, vague, misty to a woman such as this, who lived only for the sensations and excitements of the moment, rarely thought seriously of anything for five consecutive minutes, and, beyond her knack of looking chic and pretty in all circumstances, possessed no real intelligence at all. One might as well have looked for sustained and useful thought, or even memory, in a marmoset as in this physically exquisite and hopelessly spoiled girl.
But Mesmer Milann had anticipated this.
"You have forgotten," he said gently. "Wasn't it a dream of two men fighting somewhere—one with a pistol and the other with a long knife? Trampling over sand, somewhere?"
Her face lighted up.
"Yes, yes," she said; "I remember telling you. Oh, yes, it was dreadful—horrible! There were two men struggling together. One had a pistol—it kept exploding. The smoke looked like a feather duster made of grey feathers. He shot the other man, the man with the knife, and they both fell down under a sort of cliff. I suppose the man with the pistol was stabbed. Then I woke up."
"You said at the time that you thought you 'recognised' one of the men. It was all dim and dream-like, but he reminded you of a Mr. James Westby whom you had known."
"Jimmy Westby. Yes, I remember Jimmy."
"And the other man—you did not know the other man, or, at any rate, you did not definitely recognise him in the dream as anyone you knew. He might have been—he rather resembled—a Sir Percy Talbot, with whom you had once been friends. But you were not sure."
"Yes, I think I said that."
Her eyes were doubtful again.
"I made notes of it, Miss Steyne," he reminded her. (He noted everything, and his collection of press-cuttings was unique.) "Nothing came of that interview; you were called away by telephone halfway through. You were very busy with a new comedy, I think, and when, some months later, you came again it was in connection with another matter. The affair of the dream, or vision, was dropped."
"Yes," she agreed, without much interest.
She was not in the mood for difficult things this morning, and her thoughts were at her milliner's.
Mesmer Milann was patient with her.
"Can you tell me, Miss Steyne, where Mr. Westby and Sir Percy Talbot are now?"
She shook her head.
"They went broke, poor boys," she said, not without sympathy. "First Percy, and then Jimmy Westby. They went abroad, I think. I know Jimmy did. I had a letter from him—from Australia—and he said he was going to make another fortune and come home and marry me. He was very fond of me, I think. Both of them were. They were rather extravagant about me. I wasn't in love with either of them, of course, but they were nice boys, and we used to go about quite a lot."
"Were they friends?"
Her eyes opened again.
"Oh, no! I don't think they knew each other at all. Jimmy Westby came after Sir Percy, I think. Yes, I am sure."
"You never heard from Sir Percy Talbot after he went abroad?"
"Yes, two or three times. Just love-letters; nothing much. I get thousands of them. He went to New Zealand... Why, did my dream mean anything, Mr. Milann?" She began to get interested. "Was it a sort of vision? Or telepathy, don't they call it?"
Mesmer Milann smiled slightly at her, as he would have smiled at a butterfly that alighted on his hand. Indeed, that is what she was to him—a brightly-coloured, pretty, transient, empty-headed thing, floating easily and pleasantly along in her brief gleam of the sunshine of popularity, caring nothing for the past, thinking nothing of the future, as incapable of real grief as of real enjoyment. He realised that these two men—Westby and Talbot—who probably had ruined themselves for her, were only two out of scores who had sought, pursued, and possibly held her in a brief captivity. They meant nothing to her, and probably never had. No doubt they were two of those innumerable, young, pleasant-looking, well-groomed youths about town, as useless, thoughtless, and heedless as herself.
She spoke of a "vision" and "telepathy" as she would of a new conjuring trick...
"Yes," he said tolerantly, gently, "I think it did."
"Really! Oh, do tell me!"
His smile died out.
"In good time... Miss Steyne, are you fond of jewels?"
She laughed gaily.
"Am I? Try me Mr. Milann!"
"If I tell you that there is in a desolate but easily accessible place on the edge of the Australian desert a small sack of jewels, each one of which is unique—sapphires, emeralds, rubies—which belong to you, and only await your taking, would you go and get them?"
"I would send for them," she said promptly. "Somebody trustworthy," she added.
"But if I say that those who are caring for the jewels will only give them up to you personally, what then?" asked Mesmer Milann.
She hesitated, and he saw that all her instincts were at war with each other. She hated the thought of leaving London and the frothy homage which a section of Londoners paid her; but she had a passion for jewels. She possessed a good many—very valuable, but by no means incomparable.
Her eyes gleamed.
"Oh, yes, I would go and get them myself! I could take a friend or two, I suppose? How did it all happen? I haven't got any rich relatives in Australia, Mr. Milann. Do tell me; it's exciting."
"I am not at liberty to tell you yet, Miss Steyne," replied the mediator. "Yes, you can have friends. It will be necessary, I think, for Mr. Tarronhall, the explorer, and myself to accompany you. When can you start for Australia?"
She rose. She knew it was useless to attempt to extract more from Milann than he was inclined to tell her.
"Oh, soon, I expect. I will let you know. I must go now."
She shook hands.
"I suppose these jewels really are all right?—unique, you know," she inquired.
"I have Mr. Tarronhall's word that they are," said Mesmer Milann gravely.
"That's all right, then. I like the sound of this Tarronhall man. Goodbye, Mr. Milann. I'll let you know."
And Miss Steyne hurried out to the immense car which was awaiting her. Mesmer Milann sat thinking for a moment, his eyes on the door through which she had gone. There was a smile on his lips, but it was a little sad and bitter. He was thinking of the hopeless folly of a world which permitted a girl like Pilar Steyne to sway, as she did, the destinies of so many men.
Then, slightly shrugging his shoulders, he rang for his secretary, instructing him to telephone to Tarronhall.
IT was three months later, and another camp was pitched near the valley—a larger and altogether more imposing and extravagant camp than that to which George Tarronhall was accustomed.
It was like a little town of tents, with that of Pilar Steyne, fringed, tasselled, beflagged, with carpets and awnings, looming high in the midst of all. Round about the big tent were pitched others, many of them. For it was no part of the inclinations or customs of the actress to travel upon such a quest in any sort of discomfort, nor of the policy of her manager and press agent to allow her to engage in such an enterprise without extracting the last possible word of publicity and advertisement out of it. They had made the most of the affair from the moment the girl had left Mesmer Milann on the day he had told her of the jewels. They were men who knew their business, and so thoroughly had they engineered the thing that, when three months later the expedition camped near the valley, it was accompanied by an oddly assorted retinue that included several of Pilar Steyne's men friends, two other actresses, some maids, two newspaper men and a newspaper photographer, servants, cooks, camel-men (Miss Steyne had insisted upon the camels, though they were not essential), and an official-looking quiet man who had described himself rather vaguely as a representative of the Australian authorities, and had joined the expedition without showing any papers or being requested to produce them. He had given Tarronhall, who nominally was in charge, his name as Burroughs—Inspector Burroughs—but had asked the explorer to drop the "Inspector" in favour of plain "Mr."
Tarronhall, aware of the wide publicity which the affair had attracted, had readily agreed, and thereafter Mr. Burroughs had been an unobtrusive but ever present member of the party.
It was about an hour before full dawn on the day after the arrival of the company, and Mesmer Milann was sitting at the entrance to his tent, talking quietly with Tarronhall over a cigarette. Save for the servant who had just made them some coffee, none other of the camp was stirring.
Mesmer Milann, with his usual wide tolerance, had neither objected to nor encouraged the swelling of the party by Pilar Steyne, her friends and supporters, though during the journey he had kept somewhat aloof, conversing little with anyone except Tarronhall and the actress herself.
But, the evening before, he had agreed with Tarronhall's suggestion that they two should walk over to see the valley again; in the early dawn, before the little crowd of sightseers were awake, they were drinking a cup of coffee before going.
Milann's face was very serious, and Tarronhall was manifestly uneasy.
"But if your theories, your researches have been faulty, what then?" he was saying anxiously.
The mediator smiled slightly, a brief, evanescent smile that was gone in an instant.
"It would probably mean that the instant Miss Steyne sets foot in the valley she will be destroyed, annihilated. If I am wrong. But I am not. You will see presently. I fancy you will discover a difference in the valley already. And I am quite certain that, not even excepting myself, there is no person in all this party save Pilar Steyne who can enter that valley today and live five seconds after entering it!"
The explorer looked at him with a sort of awe in his keen, hard eyes, and shook his head slowly.
"You convince me against my will—against my experience, Mr. Milann. I thought I had courage—I believe I have—but it is only the courage of the gun-muzzle." He took out a heavy automatic pistol of unusually large calibre, well oiled, beautifully kept, and looked at it thoughtfully. "I have believed for so many years that these things"—he tapped the sinister-looking weapon gently—"represented the last word in matters of brute force, that it is difficult to readjust my ideas. There is practically nothing in life that this pistol cannot deal with effectively; at short range it would kill an elephant, skilfully used. That is definite, hard-and-fast knowledge. Mathematical, practically... And you tell me that the thing would be as useless and ineffective as a paper fan against the unseen perils that haunt that valley yonder. And I believe it implicitly. Yet you tell me that that child, that frail butterfly girl, can walk unarmed in that valley where she will and how she will! Incredible! It offends every instinct of self-protection, of enterprise, of logic, of common sense I possess. And the bewildering part of it all is that I believe you, and am afraid."
Mesmer Milann nodded.
"Don't worry, Mr. Tarronhall," he said. "You, like the vast majority of people, have dealt all your life with the physical side of life. This affair is not primarily concerned with the physical side at all; but you will see for yourself."
He drained his cup and rose.
"The dawn is at hand," he said. "Let us go."
They left the sleeping camp and moved silently through the dim light towards the valley. Before they had covered a third of the two hundred yards or so between the camps and the valley Tarronhall halted, turning troubled eyes upon his companion.
Mesmer Milann nodded.
"You feel it?" he asked.
"Yes. It is as though we were walking through the outer zone of some fever belt, where you can feel the danger as you walk. Only this is worse."
"The Forces within the valley are roused and watchful; the depression you feel emanates from them. It will be worse as we go on," said Mesmer Milann absently.
But they went on.
The air, the atmosphere, was dull and heavy, with a queer oppression that was not a result of climatic or weather conditions. It was full of a sense of menace—immense, all-pervading.
The explorer's eyes were very keen and quick, searching the dimness all about them. Once his hand dropped almost unconsciously to the pistol at his belt, and Milann, noting the instinctive movement, smiled slightly.
So, moving through the grim, clogged atmosphere, they came to the valley edge, and there paused, looking down. It was still dark down there, almost black, but from the darkness the sense of malignity came up to them in waves, as heat rolls up from a furnace.
Tarronhall's face showed whitely through the vague light of the coming dawn.
"It feels as though some monster, some giant alligator thing, were crouching down there watching us, waiting for us."
He peered down into the slowly paling, pit-like hollow.
"Good God!" he said suddenly under his breath. "There is something there. It moved—"
Milann was staring down with a little fixed smile.
"Keep well back from the edge," he told Tarronhall. "There is sometimes a—fascination... Beyond a certain point these things cease to exercise a repellent force, and lure instead. There is no hope for the man who leaves himself open to that spell... this fearful fascination is at the back of the mythology concerning the Sirens of old..." he added musingly. Then started to swift action.
"Back, man! Didn't you hear?"—he tore at Tarronhall's arm, jerking him back with a force that seemed almost savage—for Tarronhall, his face set and his eyes blank and rapt, had moved swiftly forward as though to walk over the cliff edge.
It was like waking a sleep-walker; a cold sweat burst on the explorer's forehead, and he looked dazedly at the mediator.
"I—I—felt a sudden impulse," he said weakly.
"Yes, I know. It is all right—" began Milann, but broke off sharply. "Listen!" he said.
They were silent.
Away to the right of them, in the shallow entrance to the valley, where the sides ran down like the ends of a railway cutting, and the valley floor and the desert merged on the same level, someone was moving over the sand. They could hear the soft, dull slither of his feet in the fine, dry stuff. He was muttering to himself, this one, as he came on into the denser shadows of the valley, just under the two men who were watching.
"This is a h—l of a place—a h—l of a place," he was muttering over and over again, with a sort of resentful anguish. "But I'll have the stones—I'll have the stones."
"Stop him—stop him!" said Tarronhall. But even as he opened his mouth to shout a wild warning, a sudden and appalling cry for help went up, followed instantly by the report, seeming curiously muffled, of a revolver.
Where the weapon had darted its pinkish-orange, snake-swift tongue of flame, the watchers saw a whirling blur. Then immediately there followed a low, wailing cry, the soft thud of an inert body falling on sand, and silence.
The deep shadows in the valley seemed to billow and eddy, strangely agitated. Tarronhall, staring down horrified, saw a transient, fugitive gleam, gone in an instant, as of dreadful eyes glancing up at him...
"Milann," he said, horribly shaken, "there is some poor devil down there. We must—do something."
But the mediator's fingers were clamped on his wrists like hooks of steel.
"We can do nothing," said Mesmer Milann. "That was Burroughs. He was an impostor—a thief. He came to steal the jewels. He is dead. They killed him even as he fired. We must wait."
Then the dawn broke swiftly, and all that waste and desolate region was flooded with sunlight as they watched.
But though they waited long no sunlight brightened the valley. The darkness down there cleared away, but left behind a blurred, intangible greyness, vaguely fog-like, as though the place was hung with filmy veils, or full of shapeless shadows. Through these strange veils the two men, peering over, saw the wreck-like ribs of the skeletons, bone-white. Tarronhall pointed out the dimly seen outline of the corner of the jewel sack where it protruded from its loose covering of shale; and further along the valley they saw the crumpled body of a man lying upon his face, curiously still.
And from the valley there arose that terrible emanation, that outpouring of Menace and of Warning.
"This—this is—shocking," said Tarronhall. It sounded queerly, that word "shocking" applied to the fearful place into which they were looking. "It—the sensation of threat and secret terror and peril—it grows worse. It's a thousand times worse than it was."
There was an odd, grim look on the pale face of the mediator as he replied:
"With the lapse of time the Forces grow stronger. But this is an unusual development. Already they are suggesting themselves to the human eye. As yet they are no more than faint, formless veils of shadow, but, left undisturbed for a space of years, it is probable that they would take shape and become material, solid things, infinitely dangerous, capable of being seen."
Tarronhall looked a little awed.
"But—what shapes? What would they be like?"
Milann shook his head.
"I cannot say. But try and imagine what mortal anger or jealousy or deadly hatred would look like if one of these suddenly took visible form..."
Then he turned.
"Let us get back to the camp," he said. "After breakfast Miss Steyne will take the jewels, and we can leave this place."
"But the body, man. That chap, Burroughs—we can't leave him lying there—" began Tarronhall.
"His body is beyond human aid until the jewels are moved by Pilar Steyne," said Mesmer Milann in a voice of singular authority. He stared at the pitiful heap where it lay under the veils of shadowy fog that hung about it. "It would be safer for an unarmed man to try to take the carcase of an antelope or a deer-calf from out of the paws of a hunger-mad tigress than for anyone in this world—except Pilar Steyne—to approach that man's body and live."
Tarronhall said no more, but turning his back on the valley set out with the mediator towards the camp.
Before they had gone twenty yards they stopped suddenly, for Pilar Steyne, her friends, and the newspaper men were coming towards them.
They waited for them to come up, and Tarronhall became suddenly uneasy again.
"Forgive me, Mr. Milann," he said half apologetically—and this was the man whose name was a byword for courage, and whose reputation was established from one pole to the other—"forgive me, but—you are sure that your calculations—theories—are right? It would be too appalling for that butterfly to meet with the same fate as Burroughs."
"There is no danger—to her, Mr. Tarronhall," said Milann. But the explorer had never seen his face so white and grim as now... The little party came up, laughing, eager, very curious.
"Good morning, Mr. Milann," said Pilar Steyne. "We have come to get the jewels—before breakfast. May we, please?"
The woman giggled slightly. But the newspaper men looked curiously at the white face of the mediator. The photographer was already at work, quickly, deftly.
Mesmer Milann bowed, without smiling.
"Yes," he said. "They are here," and led the way to the valley. The whole party ranged along the top of the little cliff, looking down.
And, suddenly, the laughter and chattering died—swiftly, instantly, as a candle-flame vanishes when blown out. The fell influence of the place gripped them at once, all except Pilar Steyne.
She glanced carelessly down into the valley, and then turned to her friends in amazement.
"Why, what is the matter with you all?" she cried, her astonishment evidently unfeigned. "Kitty, you're as white as paper! You, too, Jack. Why, you all are! What is the matter?"
"This—this awful place, Pilar dear," began one of the women, and stopped abruptly, shuddering.
"It's full of fog—poisonous-looking place," said the man called Jack. "Look! The stuff is moving—swirling."
And indeed the veils of greyness were swaying with a long, slow, sinuous, deliberate motion, with something in it vaguely suggestive of the muscular, rippling movements of a great cat stalking its prey.
And wave upon wave there poured up over the cliff edge that overwhelming, sinister sense of peril. The photographer, with a pale, rigid face, was already taking picture after picture of the valley.
One of the women shrieked that she could not stand it, and went back towards the camp.
Milann was watching Pilar Steyne, who was obviously bewildered.
"What is it? What is the matter?" she was saying. "Why are you all frightened? There's nothing there—nothing but a lot of silly mist... Is it a joke?"
She turned on Jack angrily.
"Are you frightened too? Yes, you are. Come, now, I'll dare you to come down into the place with me. Are you afraid?"
A flush ran into the face of the young man. He was a good-looking, soldierly type of youth, and he started as though stung.
"Afraid, Pilar! No. It seems a detestable sort of place, but I'm not afraid. I will come down."
He moved forward to climb down the cliff, but Milann put out his arm.
"No!" he said, in a cold, quiet voice of complete authority. "The place is haunted. Look to the right! That is the body of Burroughs—a thief. He tried to steal the jewels this morning, and he is dead. I will permit no member of this party except Miss Steyne to enter the valley. She alone can do it in safety... Listen! In that valley lie two skeletons—all that is left of the bodies of two men whom I believe to have been Mr. James Westby and Sir Percy Talbot. Near them lies, half-buried, the sack of jewels of which you have all heard. These two men went prospecting in the desert together. They were successful—incredibly successful. Returning, they quarrelled, possibly about the division of their jewels—more probably about Miss Pilar Steyne whom they both loved, and for whose sake mainly they had toiled for the jewels. They quarrelled and fought. Men do strange things after long living together in the wilderness, and both were killed. The jewels remained where they had put them probably when they camped here, or it may be they dug them here. But despite their quarrel, they died filled chiefly with the same desire that Miss Steyne should have the jewels. And from the moment of their deaths they—their spirits, to put it quite simply—have been guarding the jewels from anyone and everyone but—Pilar Steyne. I have put it as simply as possible, so that there should be no misunderstanding. You have all felt, you are all conscious of the lurking terror in the valley, except Miss Steyne. There is not one of you, save Miss Steyne, who would willingly enter the valley. And you are wise, for you would go inevitably to your death. Yet I say that Pilar Steyne can walk in that fearful place, take up the jewels, and bring them away, with no more risk or danger than she would experience in walking across a lawn in some secluded English village. It is for her to choose."
He ceased, and they all stared at him in silence.
Then Pilar Steyne laughed. She had felt nothing of the brooding terror, the loosed menace, of the place, for these things were not directed upon her. The Forces of the Unseen were her friends—were on guard for her sake.
So she laughed, and she was the only one of that company who could laugh.
"Well, I hope the jewels aren't spirit ones, too," she said, incurably frivolous. "But I will see. I don't believe in ghosts"—(It was as though a butterfly said, "I don't believe in battleships.")—"and if they are the ghosts of poor Jimmy Westby and Percy Talbot, I'm quite sure they won't hurt me!"
One of the women began to cry softly at that...
But Pilar Steyne ran a few yards along the cliff to a sloping place which gave fairly easy access to the valley floor, and without the slightest hesitation scrambled down, laughing, as children playing on sand cliffs may laugh.
And all the grey and fatal shadows swung up, monstrously, fantastically, veiling her, wrapping themselves about her, so that, it seemed to the watchers on the cliff, she was under a grey bridal veil, as of one who weds the Spectre of Death himself. And the shadows thickened and grew denser and darker, until she was hidden from sight of the watchers entirely.
And at that there hung upon them all one second of vast silence, of unendurable suspense. Pilar Steyne was gone...
And then, while they waited, hardly daring to breathe, a gay, ringing voice came up to them.
"Is it this little sack tied at the corner, Mr. Milann?"
"Yes!"
For all his self-control the mediator's voice was hoarse.
"Ah! I have them."
Another pause.
Then the voice came again.
"Oh! Oh! What beauties!"...
And then the sentinel shadows, the grey veils, disappeared, floated out like smoke, and the watchers staring down into the sunlit valley saw Pilar Steyne kneeling by the little sack of jewels, pouring them out on the sand, laughing innocently, like a playing child who has passed within an inch of a venomous snake.
Mesmer Milann drew in a long breath.
"She will never know, never realise what has happened... she does not 'believe in ghosts'... not even the poor, faithful, lingering ghosts of those who loved her, and watched over the treasure they gained for her," he said to Tarronhall, smiling oddly.
Tarronhall shook his head, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and threw out his hands, saying nothing.
"How the place has changed! It's bright again—sunny—as though Pilar were the sun," said one of the women as they hurried down to see the jewels.
They would have been glad to laugh after the stress of the last few minutes, but the sight of the skeletons, stark, white, eyeless, sobered them.
Then Pilar Steyne, her eyes lighting on those grim relics, went across to the bones and looked down at them silently for a moment.
"You were always kind to me," she said strangely. "I knew that you would never hurt me, not even frighten me. Thank you, boys!"
Her eyes shone wet as she turned away. Milann liked her the better for that, though her sorrow was quite transient, like all her moods...
Then Pilar Steyne's party went, with the jewels, back to the camp. Mesmer Milann, Tarronhall, and the other men went to examine the pseudo-official Burroughs.
Milann was the only one neither surprised nor horrified to find that practically every bone in the man's body was broken; he must have been whirled out of existence in an instant of time. But Milann was the only one who knew anything at all of the Forces with which Burroughs had come into conflict...
Later they discovered that the forehead of one of the skeletons had been newly pierced, as by a revolver bullet... and the body of Burroughs they buried some distance from the valley, but the skeletons they buried together in the valley. It was Mesmer Milann who ordered this to be done; but he volunteered no reason therefor, and none asked him why. For he was skilled in a lore that was strange and terrible and secret to them; he stood alone, inscrutable, darkling, Egyptian. And they were glad, each man of them, after what they had seen with their own eyes, to leave him in his lonely and terrible eminence. Even Tarronhall.
The newspaper men wrote their "stories" of the affair, but the accounts never appeared as they wrote them. They made the mistake of describing things as they saw and felt them, and since the things they saw and felt seemed in cold print hopelessly incredible, the articles were "edited" into something that satisfied the public without giving the most timorous reader more than a momentary uneasiness.
And the photographic plates which were exposed to take the valley while the shadows were there were found to be empty of anything at all; they were developed with extreme care, but came out simply as transparent sheets of glass. The other pictures were perfect. Some months later the photographer called on Mesmer Milann and questioned him as to this.
Milann took him into another room and showed him a drawer crammed with photographic plates and films.
"These are photographs I have taken under similar conditions," he said.
The photographer-reporter looked at them.
"But they are like mine; they show nothing!" he exclaimed. "What is wrong with them?"
Mesmer Milann closed the drawer.
"Nothing is wrong with them," he said slowly and very gravely. "It is our human vision that is at fault. There are upon those plates pictures—images—of something more than vapour and grey shadows. But it is something that no living eye will ever see. Be glad of that."
"But you—you have seen—" began the other excitedly.
"I have seen what I have seen," replied Mesmer Milann solemnly.
And that was the last word.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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