She saw the Satanists strip off their dominoes and shuddered afreshalmost retchingas she watched them tumbling upon each other in the disgusting nudity of their ritual dance. Old Madame D’Urfe, huge-buttocked and swollen, prancing by some satanic power with all the vigour of a young girl who had only just reached maturity; the Babu, dark-skinned, fleshy, hideous; the American woman, scraggy, lean-flanked and hag-like with empty, hanging breasts; the Eurasian, waving the severed stump of his arm in the air as he gavotted beside the unwieldy figure of the Irish bard, whose paunch stood out like the grotesque belly of a Chinese god.
‘They are mad, mad, mad,’ she found herself saying over and over again, as she rocked to and fro where she stood, weeping bitterly, beating her hands together and her teeth chattering in the icy wind.
The dance ceased on a high wail of those discordant instruments and then the whole of that ghastly ghoul-like crew sank down together in a tangled heap before the Satanic throne. Tanith wondered for a second what was about to happen next, even as she made a fresh effort to drag herself away. Then Simon was led out from among the rest and she knew all too soon that the time of baptism was at hand. As she realised it, a new menace came upon her. Without her own volition, her feet began to move.
In a panic of fear she found herself setting one before the other and advancing slowly down the hill. She tried to scream, but her voice would not come. She tried to throw herself backward, but her body was held rigid, and an irresistible suction dragged at each of her feet in turn, lifting it a few inches from the ground and pulling it forward, so that, despite her uttermost effort of will to resist the evil force, she was being drawn slowly but surely to receive her own baptism.
The weird unearthly music had ceased. An utter silence filled the valley. She was no more than ten yards from the nearest of those debased creatures who hovered gibbering about the throne. Suddenly she whimpered with fright for, although she was still hidden by the darkness, the great horned head of the Goat turned and its fiery eyes became fixed upon her.
She knew then that there was no escape. The warnings from Rex and her mother had come too late. Those powers which she had sought to suborne now held her in their grip and she must submit to this loathsome ritual despite the shrinking of her body and her soul, with all the added horror of full knowledge that it meant final and utter condemnation to the bottomless pit.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE POWER OF LIGHT
At the sight of De Richleau’s breakdown Rex almost gave in too. The cold sweat of terror had broken out on his own forehead, yet he was still fighting down his fear and, after a moment, the collapse of that indomitable leader to whom he had looked so often and with such certain faith in the worst emergencies brought him a new feeling of responsibility. His generous nature was great enough to realise that the Duke’s courage had only proved less than his own on this occasion because of his greater understanding of the peril they were called upon to face. Now, it was as though the elder man had been wounded and put out of action, so Rex felt that it was up to him to take command.
‘We can’t let this thing be,’ he said with sudden firmness, stooping to place an arm round De Richleau’s shaking shoulders. ‘You stay here. I’m going down to face the music’
‘Nono, Rex.’ The Duke grabbed at his coat. ‘They’ll murder you without a second thought.’
‘Will they? We’ll see!’ Rex gave a grating laugh. ‘Well, if they do you’ll have something you can fix on them that the police will understand. It’ll be some consolation to think you’ll see to it that these devils swing for my murder if they do me in.’
‘Wait! I won’t let you go alone,’ the Duke stumbled to his feet. ‘Don’t you realise that death is the least thing I fear? One look from the eyes of that Goat could send you madthen where is the case to put before the police ? Half the people in our asylums may be suffering from a physical lesion of the brain but the others are unaccountably insane. The real reason is demoniac possession brought about by looking upon terrible things that they were never meant to see.’
‘I’ll risk it.’ Rex was desperate now. He held up the crucifix. ‘This is going to protect me, because I’ve got faith that it will.’
‘All right thenbut even madness isn’t the worst that can happen to us. This life is nothingI’m thinking of the next. Oh, God, if only dawn would come or we had some form of Light that we could bring to bear on these worshippers of Darkness.’
Rex took a pace forward. ‘If we’d known what we were going to be up against we’d have brought a searchlight on a truck. That would have given this bunch something to think about if light has the power you say. But it’s no good worrying about that now. We’ve got to hurry.’
‘Nowait!’ the Duke exclaimed with sudden excitement. ‘I’ve got it. This way quick!’ He turned and set off up the hill at a swift crouching run.
Rex followed, and when they reached the brow easily overtook him. ‘What’s the idea,’ he cried, using his normal voice for the first time for hours.
‘The car!’ De Richleau panted, as he pelted over the rough grass to the place where they had left the Hispano. ‘To attack them is a ghastly risk in any case, but this will give us a sporting chance.’
Rex reached it first and flung open the door. The Duke tumbled in and got the engine going. It purred on a low note as they bumped forward in the darkness to the brow of the hill.
‘Out on the running-board, Rex,’ snapped De Richleau as he thrust out the clutch. He seemed in those few moments to have recovered all his old steel-like indomitable purpose. ‘It’s a madman’s chance because it’s ten to one we’ll get stuck going up the hill on the other side, but we must risk that. When I use the engine again, snap on the lights. As we go past, throw your crucifix straight at the thing on the throne. Then try and grab Simon by the neck.’
‘Fine!’ Rex laughed suddenly, all his tension gone now that he was at last going into action. ‘Go to it!’
The car slid forward, silently gathering momentum as it rushed down the steep slope. Next second they were almost upon the nearest of the Satanists. The Duke let in the clutch and Rex switched on the powerful headlights of the Hispano.
With the suddenness of a thunderclap a shattering roar burst upon the silence of the valleyas though some monster plane was driving full upon that loathsome company from the cloudy sky. At the same instant, the whole scene was lit in all its ghastliness by a blinding glare which swept towards them at terrifying speed. The great car bounded forward, the dazzling beams threw into sharp relief the naked forms gathered in the hollow. De Richleau jammed his foot down on the accelerator and, calling with all his will upon the higher powers for their protection, charged straight for the Goat of Mendes upon his Satanic throne.
At the first flash of those blinding lights which struck full upon them, the Satanists rushed screaming for cover. It was as though two giant eyes of some nightmare monster leapt at them from the surrounding darkness and the effect was as that of a fire-hose turned suddenly upon an angry threatening mob.
Their maniacal exaltation died away. The false exhilaration of the alcohol, the pungent herbal incense and the drug-laden ointments which they had smeared upon their bodies, drained from them. They woke as from an intoxicated nightmare to the realisation of their nakedness and helplessness.
For a moment some of them thought that the end had come and that the Power of Darkness had cashed in their bond, claiming them for its own upon this last Walpurgis-Nacht. Others, less deeply imbued with the mysteries of the Evil cult, forgot the terrible entity whose powers they had come to beg in return for their homage and, reverting to their normal thoughts, saw themselves caught and ruined in some ghastly scandal, believing those blinding shafts of light from the great Hispano to herald the coming of the police.