No leopard. But always footmarks of a man! "
I gave a startled, incredulous exclamation.
It was true, Gola averred. Always the footprints of a man led away from the scene of the murder. Then why did the natives not tell the Big Massa that he might hunt down the fiend? Here Gola assumed a crafty expression and whispered in my ear, "The footprints were of a man who wore shoes!"
Even assuming that Gola was lying, I felt a thrill of unexplainable horror. Who, then, did the natives believe was doing these frightful murders?
And he answered: Dom Vincente!
By this time, Messieurs, my mind was in a whirl.
What was the meaning of all this? Who slew the German and sought to ravish Marcita? And as I reviewed the crime, it appeared to me that murder rather than rape was the object of the attack.
Why did de Montour warn us, and then appear to have knowledge of the crime, telling us that Desmarte was innocent and then proving it?
It was all beyond me.
The tale of the slaughter got among the natives, in spite of all we could do, and they appeared restless and nervous, and thrice that day Dom Vincente had a black lashed for insolence. A brooding atmosphere pervaded the castle.
I considered going to Dom Vincente with Gola's tale, but decided to wait awhile.
The women kept their chambers that day, the men were restless and moody. Dom Vincente announced that the sentries would be doubled and some would patrol the corridors of the castle itself. I found myself musing cynically that if Gola's suspicions were true, sentries would be of little good.
I am not, Messieurs, a man to brook such a situation with patience. And I was young then. So as we drank before retiring, I flung my goblet on the table and angrily announced that in spite of man, beast or devil, I slept that night with doors flung wide. And I tramped angrily to my chamber.
Again, as on the first night, de Montour came. And his face was as a man who has looked into the gaping gates of hell.
"I have come," he said, "to ask you--nay, Monsieur, to implore you--to reconsider your rash determination."
I shook my head impatiently.
"You are resolved? Yes? Then I ask you to do this for me, that after I enter my chamber, you will bolt my doors from the outside."
I did as he asked, and then made my way back to my chamber, my mind in a maze of wonderment. I had sent Gola to the slave quarters, and I laid rapier and dagger close at hand. Nor did I go to bed, but crouched in a great chair, in the darkness. Then I had much ado to keep from sleeping. To keep myself awake, I fell to musing on the strange words of de Montour. He seemed to be laboring under great excitement; his eyes hinted of ghastly mysteries known to him alone. And yet his face was not that of a wicked man.
Suddenly the notion took me to go to his chamber and talk with him.
Walking those dark passages was a shuddersome task, but eventually I stood before de Montour's door. I called softly. Silence. I reached out a hand and felt splintered fragments of wood. Hastily I struck flint and steel which I carried, and the flaming tinder showed the great oaken door sagging on its mighty hinges; showed a door smashed and splintered from the inside. And the chamber of de Montour was unoccupied.
Some instinct prompted me to hurry back to my room, swiftly but silently, shoeless feet treading softly.
And as I neared the door, I was aware of something in the darkness before me. Something which crept in from a side corridor and glided stealthily along.
In a wild panic of fear I leaped, striking wildly and aimlessly in the darkness. My clenched fist encountered a human head, and something went down with a crash. Again I struck a light; a man lay senseless on the floor, and he was de Montour.
I thrust a candle into a niche in the wall, and just then de Montour's eyes opened and he rose uncertainly.
"You!" I exclaimed, hardly knowing what I said. "You, of all men!"
He merely nodded.
"You killed von Schiller?"
"Yes."
I recoiled with a gasp of horror.
"Listen." He raised his hand. "Take your rapier and run me through. No man will touch you."
"No," I exclaimed. "I can not."
"Then, quick," he said hurriedly, "get into your chamber and bolt the door. Haste! It will return!"
"What will return?" I asked, with a thrill of horror. "If it will harm me, it will harm you. Come into the chamber with me."
"No, no!" he fairly shrieked, springing back from my outstretched arm. "Haste, haste! It left me for an instant, but it will return." Then in a low-pitched voice of indescribable horror: "It is returning. It is here now! "
And I felt a something, a formless, shapeless presence near. A thing of frightfulness.
De Montour was standing, legs braced, arms thrown back, fists clenched. The muscles bulged beneath his skin, his eyes widened and narrowed, the veins stood out upon his forehead as if in great physical effort. As I looked, to my horror, out of nothing, a shapeless, nameless something took vague form!
Like a shadow it moved upon de Montour.
It was hovering about him! Good God, it was merging, becoming one with the man!
De Montour swayed; a great gasp escaped him. The dim thing vanished. De Montour wavered. Then he turned toward me, and may God grant that I never look on a face like that again!
It was a hideous, a bestial face. The eyes gleamed with a frightful ferocity; the snarling lips were drawn back from gleaming teeth, which to my startled gaze appeared more like bestial fangs than human teeth.
Silently the thing (I can not call it a human) slunk toward me. Gasping with horror I sprang back and through the door, just as the thing launched itself through the air, with a sinuous motion which even then made me think of a leaping wolf. I slammed the door, holding it against the frightful thing which hurled itself again and again against it.
Finally it desisted and I heard it slink stealthily off down the corridor. Faint and exhausted I sat down, waiting, listening. Through the open window wafted the breeze, bearing all the scents of Africa, the spicy and the foul. From the native village came the sound of a native drum. Other drums answered farther up the river and back in the bush. Then from somewhere in the jungle, horridly incongruous, sounded the long, high-pitched call of a timber wolf. My soul revolted.
Dawn brought a tale of terrified villagers, of a negro woman torn by some fiend of the night, barely escaping. And to de Montour I went.
On the way I met Dom Vincente. He was perplexed and angry.
"Some hellish thing is at work in this castle," he said. "Last night, though I have said naught of it to anyone, something leaped upon the back of one of the arquebusiers, tore the leather jerkin from his shoulders and pursued him to the barbican. More, someone locked de Montour into his room last night, and he was forced to smash the door to get out."
He strode on, muttering to himself, and I proceeded down the stairs, more puzzled than ever.
De Montour sat upon a stool, gazing out the window. An indescribable air of weariness was about him.
His long hair was uncombed and tousled, his garments were tattered. With a shudder I saw faint crimson stains upon his hands, and noted that the nails were torn and broken.
He looked up as I came in, and waved me to a seat. His face was worn and haggard, but was that of a man.
After a moment's silence, he spoke.
"I will tell you my strange tale. Never before has it passed my lips, and why I tell you, knowing that you will not believe me, I can not say."
And then I listened to what was surely the wildest, the most fantastic, the weirdest tale ever heard by man.