The life-eater Chapter 3: Part 3

the futility of his struggle against the thing from beyond. He had found in his books no surcease of sorrow--no way to scotch the demon. It was something that he must think out--reason out for himself. His only chance lay in the trap he had laid by means of the little schoolmaster. Had he done right in thus exposing Noel Pelletier to the terrible danger? There was no other way. He consoled himself with the thought that Pelletier had no desire to live if Evelyn l'Brest died. And unless he was successful in his assault on the malevolent spirit through the little dominie, Evelyn l'Brest must surely go. And yet he had no set plan. He was trusting to luck--blind luck--hoping against hope that he would succeed. There was a light footstep on the gravel outside the window. He looked out. It was Pierre Le Front, the constable, making his midnight rounds. Seeing the physician sitting in the open window, he had entered the yard. Now, at Lamontaine's invitation, he stepped inside. The physician picked the rum-jug from the floor and, filling a cup for himself, tossed another across the desk to the officer and jerked his thumb toward the jug. "Drink?" he growled. "Jamaica rum. It'll do you good on a night like this--a night when the very atmosphere tingles with death." "_Mon Dieu!_ Yes, yes!" Le Front ejaculated. "I, too, feel eet een ze air, doctaire." He filled the cup and tossed off the contents with an appreciative smack of his lips. "Ze dominie ees worse," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I am go zere and stay ze night weeth heem w'en I feenish my round. He ees fear to stay alone." Lamontaine cursed again--full, man-sized oaths. "And there's not a damned thing that I can do," he mourned. "Not a damned thing!" Le Front leaned forward, the better to see through the darkness the face of the man on the other side of the desk. "Zen eet ees true, zat wheech ze dominie wheesper to me--zat ze theeng wheech we see awhile ago at d'Arcy's ees not a ghost--zat eet navaire lived lak' you an' me?" For a moment Lamontaine made no answer. Then he nodded solemnly. "True," he answered finally. "And the thing that's agitating my mind, my friend, is the reason for all this? Why should Kronk wreak such diabolical vengeance upon this little village?" Le Front helped himself to the rum. Then, as the fiery liquor raced through his veins, he grew more loquacious. "I theenk I know," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. He leaned forward and poured forth his story to Doctor Lamontaine. The big man listened quietly; then, when Le Front had finished, he burst forth. "May a just God burn his damned soul in hell!" he snarled. "God! Le Front! Can a man be so cold-blooded for the sake of gold?" "Zat ees my opinion," the constable said earnestly. "I haff reason' eet out een my head." Lamontaine wagged his long red beard solemnly. That for which he had been groping for so long was gradually filtering through his brain. He was beginning to see a bright and shining light. "In the morning I will go to N'Orleans and look into that," he promised. The little constable nodded and, helping himself to the rum again, left to take up his lonely vigil in the bachelor quarters of the schoolmaster. Neither of them noticed the sinister figure that had been standing in the darkness close beside the open window listening to their conversation. Now, as the constable left, he darted to the shadow of a near-by bush, his sunken eyes gleaming malevolently at the big man who sat just inside the window, his long beard resting on his breast, his head bowed in thought. It was Aaron Kronk. * * * * * Lamontaine was weary--horribly so. All of the night before he had sat by the bedside of one of the dying villagers. The day had been spent in study and in making his rounds. Now, sitting with his feet upon the desk again, his chair tilted backward, he tried to concentrate--to reason out the horrible events of the past few days. What Le Front told him had placed things in a new light. If it proved correct, he might be able to win yet over the monster from beyond the pale. Then outraged nature finally gave way, and he slept. Someone was looking at him. He knew it--_felt_ it. He was aware, too, of a feeling of bodily discomfort--a peculiar sensation that, beginning in his brain, crept down through his nerves and muscles, leaving him cramped and paralyzed. His subconscious physician's mind automatically analyzed it as a sort of _rigor_. It constricted his throat, twisting itself around his huge limbs like hoops of steel, crushing him like an incubus. He fought with himself in an effort to open his eyes. A voice was commanding him to sleep. He mastered the desire and raised his eye-lids. A mocking face was glaring into his own. It was that of Aaron Kronk. Hugo Lamontaine had yet to know the meaning of fear. He had faced death laughingly in a thousand ways on modern battlefields. Yet, gazing into the malevolent eyes of Aaron Kronk, bound hand and foot by invisible bands, he realized now what it meant. The thin man was gazing at him with malignant ferocity. His eyes, bearing a message of hatred, seemed to tear the physician's brain from its very roots. He tried to struggle against them, but in vain. They dissolved themselves into a single, glittering orb--an eye that whirled and grew closer and closer like the headlight of an oncoming locomotive. A voice commanded him to sleep ... sleep ... sleep.... Then consciousness left him. In spite of the command that had chiseled itself into his brain, he was subconsciously fighting against it. He floated back from his hebetude ... wondered if he was dreaming. At first he believed that he was--that he would soon wake up and find that he suffered from a nightmare. Then, by slow gradations, realization crept over him.... He was surrounded by something. It enveloped him like a thin cloud, pressing him down like a weight, inhibiting his breathing. He tried to struggle against it--to open his eyes. But that commanding voice continued to order him to sleep ... _sleep_.... His throat and chest seemed to constrict. He attempted to summon his laggard will-power--in vain. The slow, relentless pressure continued. The breath was being slowly pumped from his body, from his lungs, his heart.... He knew that he was on the verge of asphyxiation--that his huge frame was being slowly deflated--robbed of its vitality as surely and inexorably as it had been stolen from the emaciated body of old Jacques d'Arcy. He tried to open his eyes. They were held down by invisible fingers. He did not realize that he had succeeded. Yet he suddenly found himself looking into two gleaming orbs--red, blood-shot, filled with hatred and demoniac fury. Upon his breast rested a _thing_--a horrible, nauseous, formless monstrosity, shapeless, faceless, headless. Yet it had a face and head, for its eyes were the eyes that were glaring into his own. And, too, it had a mouth--a red gash framed by leathery lips. It was pressed against his own in a clammy, vacuum-like kiss. It was lapping his breath, sucking the vitality from his great body, deflating it until it was rapidly growing as flat as a bursted tire. Its long, sinuous arms were fastened about him, its legs wrapped, leech-like, about his own. [Illustration: "Upon his breast rested a thing."] And, knowing these things, Lamontaine brought to his aid all of the tremendous will-power that was his heritage. He tried to push the incubus from him, but he could not lift his arms. But as he struggled, he felt the mental influence that was oppressing him gradually lessen. A sort of inertia swept over him and he ceased his struggles for an instant. The incubus, which had been driven back a pace, sprang forward again, once more pressing him to his chair. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dolefully. It awakened him from his lethargy. Subconsciously he knew that it foretold the death of someone. Was he to be the victim? Like a man in a dream, he threw his arms about. His twitching fingers came in contact with something cold and hard. A thrill went through his benumbed body. It was his gun snugly tucked away in the open drawer of his desk. His fingers clutched the weapon spasmodically. He felt the thing that was smothering him shrink away. With a tremendous effort of will, he drew the weapon from the drawer, pressed it protectingly to his breast. Again the loathsome spirit form shrank back. His breath was returning to him now. And with the fresh night air came realization. He remembered that elementals fear the touch of iron; the steel from which the gun was made had been manufactured from this element. He thrust the weapon forward until it touched the horrible monstrosity pressing him down--passed through its vaporish body. It squeaked like a cornered rat as it darted away. Then it slowly floated out through the open window, leaving him gasping and panting.... _4. Exorcism_ Consciousness returned to Doctor Lamontaine slowly. For a few moments he lay in a daze trying to recollect what had happened. He opened his eyes. The first gray of dawn was breaking in the east. He straightened up, almost over-turning the chair in which he was still sitting. He wondered if it had all been a dream. The sight of the gun lying on the floor beside the chair told him that such was not the case. His throat and lungs ached; the pressure on his windpipe had been such that breathing was still difficult. He leaned across the desk, and picking up the rum-jug, managed to pour himself a drink. The potion strengthened him. He staggered back to the living-quarters in the rear of the house and brewed himself a pot of strong coffee. Mixing rum with the black coffee, he gulped down several cupfuls. Feeling better, he returned to his little office and, filling and lighting his pipe, sat down to think the problem out. Bit by bit the happenings of the night were coming back to him. Somewhere in the hidden fastness of the fetid swamp the man who called himself Aaron Kronk had his habitat. From this hiding-place he was directing the campaign which was rapidly laying waste the little hamlet of La Foubelle and which would, unless speedily checked, make of it another deserted village. In the red-headed physician he