Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 6 (1925-06).djvu/26

 and adventure. Romance, too, held its allure for him, and romance was typified in the person of Nona Ledyard.

During the ensuing days he wandered much in the woods with her. She told him all the superstitions pertaining to Black Hill, of the phantom noises, the mistlike wraiths that haunted the mountain fastnesses, and of the girl who had gone insane on her honeymoon in "The Castle".

"It is all very interesting," commented Stark Laurier, "but fiction purely. The phantom noises are undoubtedly merely a natural phenomenon. The girl who went insane would probably have done so whether she dwelt in 'The Castle' or not. Perhaps insanity runs in her family. Did anyone ever take the trouble to trace her antecedents?"

"Perhaps you are right," said Nona reluctantly, "but even I seem to feel as if there is something sinister about Black Hill. At night when I gaze off into the shadows of the forest it is not hard for me to imagine that all sorts of weird, fantastic monstrosities are lurking in among those velvet shrouds of blackness. Every night, or almost every night, my father rushes off as if all the terrors of earth are following right at his heels. I wish more than anything else in the world that I had seen the last of Black Hill forever."

Although Stark Laurier did not admit it to Nona, he, too, felt as if some terrible weight were crushing down on his shoulders, some impending disaster too frightful to dwell upon. Perhaps the gloom of "The Castle" added to his general depression, for it was seldom lighted cheerfully. Cass Ledyard would not permit more than one room to be lighted at a time, and as the lights were rather dull in any case because the shades were made of antique colored glass, the gloom of the halls and the other rooms seemed intensified by the single light. Stark Laurier would have preferred that the entire house remain dark rather than have this travesty of brilliance. Once when he disregarded instructions and turned on the light in the hall he encountered such a look of diabolical hatred in the glaring eyes of Cass Ledyard that he never repeated the indiscretion.

For the most part Cass Ledyard kept to his own room, but occasionally he joined Stark Laurier before the open hearth in the library. At such times he was the most agreeable of companions and a most interesting conversationist. He seemed familiar with every quarter of the globe and could talk intelligently on almost any subject. He was particularly interested in the lore of precious stones and in the science of color. Once he told a peculiar story about an old soothsayer of the East who was well versed in all the arts, black, white and gray. He knew the science of color more definitely than any other man that ever lived. And he had a theory with which he wished to experiment. One day he enticed his enemy to his dwelling, which was fitted out with enough paraphernalia to shock a ghost. He placed his enemy in a certain spot, then turned on two rays of light of his own invention, which clashed so violently that his enemy, who sat in the exact spot where the color forces met, was shattered to atoms. Not even a vestige of him remained. Of course it was purely a bit of Persian fantasy, but to Stark Laurier it was interesting nevertheless.

Then he told all sorts of odd little stories about the power of precious stones—how the opal has grown to be an omen of ill-luck—how melted pearls in vinegar can cure illness, how the amethyst is the most soothing of gems because it blends best with the sun.

Thus would he keep on telling almost endless anecdotes. At such