Page:Weird Tales Volume 09 Issue 02 (1927-02).djvu/112

 It was fifteen minutes past 10 by Randeur's watch when it started. Randeur did not notice the splashing of the waves until after some time had passed. Then suddenly a shutter banged against the side of the cottage, and he started up from his blueprints and peered anxiously out into the night. The full moon rode high in the sky, and there was not even a fleece in the blue as far as he could see. But the shutter had banged; he had heard it. And even as he looked wonderingly out, the shutter banged against the house-wall for the second time, and immediately after another shutter banged, and another and another, until Randeur rushed madly for the door, but before he reached it, it was flung violently open. He halted for a moment; then ran out, and, turning, looked fearfully back at the accursed cottage. But now all was silent; the shutters sagged listlessly on their ill-fastened hinges, and the door stood half open. There was no hint of a breeze; the night was oppressively hot.

He stared at the cottage until some inner sense beating upon his mind turned his head slowly toward the river. And there he saw a multitude of white shapes, indistinguishable, fantastic, ominous. And as he looked at them moving slowly up the river toward the dam, he became conscious of a loud sound as of the beating of the waves, and he saw the river rise and swell, and a thousand white, foamy waves lashed the air in fury. And from some far point in the distance came the low sound of a hymn.

Randeur listened, terror-stricken. And as he stared at the white shapes almost at the dam, his ears seemed to open, and he heard in mighty chorus:

Randeur clapped his hands over his ears so that he might not hear that presentiment of death, the song of the Volga boatmen; but the toilers mocked his efforts, and raised their voices, and sang louder, louder, louder. And the waves rose higher and higher, and the song increased in volume, and Randeur stood rooted to the ground upon the knoll on which he had foolishly supposed himself to be safe.

Suddenly that same inner sense turned his head upward so that he could see the right side of the dam, and he saw it crumble and vanish in the upheaval of water that followed. And it seemed as if his eyes were suddenly opened, for he saw the spirits of the river pushing the water toward him; and he saw, too, the moon shining tranquilly down upon the seething water's before he closed his eyes in a vain effort to shut out the scenes before him. And he heard the song of the boatmen, rising and falling, ominous, terrible:

did I hear during the night, but the river has avenged itself for the wrong that has been done to it." The professor pointed to the jagged spar that was caught in the crotch of a giant willow that stood upon the knoll where a cottage had once been. "It is all that is left of everything that has been here. Death has come and gone."

And from somewhere in back of the crowd of peasants that gazed in silent awe upon the calm river came the voice of the mad hunchback in wild echo to the professor:

"Death! Death! Death."

It was the mad hunchback who found Randeur two days later far down the river among the reeds and rushes that grew thickly there. Randeur's bloated face told of the ghastly things he had seen; his bloodless lips were parted and tightly drawn; his hair was torn as if in a frenzy of despair; and his widely opened eyes stared upward in mute, nameless horror.