"The first Duroque died and his son. Henry, followed him and made peace with the King. The second Duroque took a wife from the Court, but the lady sickened in the house of Bas-Fenelle and complained and said to her husband that she was wasted by the poison waters and air of the countryside where the house of Bas-Fenelle stood. And being a young and delightsome lady her plaint had weight with the second Duroque, who resolved to drain his lands and make them sweet and, seeing that the mine stood beside his house, a great hole in the ground, gave orders that his serfs should divert all the pools to this catch-pit and also drive all the foul life of the waters into this place. And the serfs were loathe to obey, knowing that to go into the foul ditches and breathe the vapers there was death, but they were forced by Duroque's armed men.
"And Duroque's soldiery came behind the serfs, advancing only when the ground was dried and made sweet by their labours, but keeping the circle at all times closed, so that no man could desist from the labour. And he who paused or turned away was shot down by the arquebusiers. And the master of Bas-Fenelle sat upon his wall in a great chair and drank wine and gave this order and that and witnessed the cleansing of his land.
"At the end of many days, those of his serfs which were still alive, having survived both the pestilential waters and the arrows of the arquebusiers came close to the mouth of the mine and made sluices and the last of the poisoned waters ran down into the mine and Duroque's steward came to the master upon the wall and said: 'Messire, are you satisfied? Shall we close the pit now and send these men home?' And Duroque shook his head and said: 'No. These men are all tainted. They are no better than receptacles of the foulness which is otherwise gone. Have them slain and thrown into the pit.' Which was done, and the men were slain and thrown into the pit to the number of more than forty score and there was no male of the people left over the age of ten. The pit was sealed then by the men-at-arms and when the earth was firm Duroque came down off the wall and stamped upon it and beat the air with his arms and cried: 'For the first time a Duroque may walk on his own soil and breathe his own air and be in health!' And even as he cried out in pride, he fell prone, stricken by a curse for what he had done in the slaying of fortyscore souls, and he lay upon the ground a full night in torment and was carried then into his house and put upon his bed as one dead.
"Then there came a physician who had knowledge of many things and he saw and declared that the curse upon Duroque was that what was sweet to other men was foul to him and what was foul to other men was the breath of life to him, and, even, that the mine must be opened up again to let him breathe the vapours and revive. The mine was opened as the physician did recommend and a stench issued from the hole and everyone fled from the foul place, but Duroque, upon his bed, breathed of the foulness and was awakened from his stupor and was filled with strength, for his blood had taken on the foulness of his deed and of the fruits of it sealed in the mine, and this blood is the blood of the Duroques, generation atfer generation.
"And the Duroques must live in their ancestral home above the lake of poison which lingers underground, being the liquid of the pestilential waters and of toads and of forty-score dead men. They must live there and replenish the foul blood in their veins always from the vapours which rise out of the accursed ground. And other penalties put upon them are that they are friends of no men but only of crawling and swimming things and that no woman of warm blood will willingly mate with them and perpetuate the breed but must be constrained or bought, nor never give her consent nor show a Duroque amiability."
I finished the reading in a cold sweat. The credulous and ghastly legend cast a numbing spell over my brain. Try as I would, I could not evoke the smile of tolerant disbelief in a witch's tale which the effusion merited.
In the end I was forced to leap out of bed and switch on the lights in the room. Hurriedly dressing, I decided to take a walk in the gardens. I was shaking like a child awake from nightmare. I went to the wash-handstand and dashed cold water over my face and neck. I was ashamed to look at my reflection in the mirror and when I did, I saw a livid caricature of myself staring back at me. I saw more. I saw the contorted face, as Drurock had described it. In the glass it was reflected beside my own. The horrible apparition to whom it belonged was standing, I judged, just outside my open bedroom door, in the low-lit hall. As I stared, the creature seemed to lose its strength to stand erect, and it sank to the floor, collapsing slowly and clawing at the doorpost as it sank.
I had to straighten up to see the floor in the mirror. No power could have turned me to face the thing direct.
The landing lights were low and remote so the area beyond my door lay in comparative darkness. But there, crawling slowly into the lighted area within my room, progressing serpent-fashion, inch by inch, silently, intently, so that the head, throat and hands were actually across the threshold, came a creature out of hideous nightmare. It had the form of a man and so much of it as I could see was naked. The dreadful head was being pushed slowly across the carpet, held sideways, so that one ear all but touched the floor. Then the face came into the light. But this was not a face — not within the ordinary meaning of the word, although it had the elements of a face and was the fleshy covering of the frontal surface of the skull.
The chin and lower lip seemed to be drawn up to meet the nose, entirely covering the upper lip. The nostrils were distended to an incredible and wholly unnatural degree. The skin had a kind of purple irridescent sheen unlike anything I have ever seen. The effect was grotesque in the truest sense of the word, for the thing was clearly grinning at me, though God knows there was nothing in the situation to provoke that grin.
Nearer it came, and nearer. T could hear the heavy body being drawn across the floor. I could hear the beating of my own heart. At the moment when the awful thing seemed to coil for a spring, there suddenly intruded on the ghastly silence the sound of whispered conversation rising from the garden below.
In the same instant, the sound seemed to impinge on the monster's hearing likewise. The hideous mask became bloated with a grimace that was legibly rage. The protruding eyes twisted in the head. Even in this dreadful moment, a monitor section of my brain registered an outside impression. I identified the source of the whispered conversation in the garden and the whispers — Aubrey and Margery.
In that moment I believe I guessed the truth. The thought was but a flash, and then it was gone, dispelled by the necessity for action. By a backward slithering, movement the thing which had been in my room was gone and swallowed up in the darkness of the hall. I turned and sprang. I had my nerves fairly in hand again and a fear for those two below galvanised me.
On the landing I paused and listened intently. No sound came up from the darkened stair and when, stepping quietly forward and leaning over the rail, I peered into the hall below, nothing stirred.
Again I heard the whispers in the garden. I crept back to my window and leaned out. Over to my left and on a level with me, a shaft of light shone out from our host's bedroom. Otherwise there was no light except the ghostly faint one falling from a moon veiled by racing clouds.
Between my window and the new wing, and on a level with my eyes, was the window of Mrs Drurock's room; and in the bright moonlight I could see her leaning out, her elbows on the ledge. Her bare arms gleamed like marble in the cold light, and she looked statuesquely beautiful. Wales I could not see, for a thick, square-clipped hedge obstructed my view… but I saw something else.