Page:Weird Tales v01n04 (1923-06).djvu/104

 HELEN ROWE HENZE Spins a Compelling Yarn

RE YOU sure?"

The doctor nodded briefly.

"Very sure, and the quicker the better!"

Donaldson gripped the back of the chair beside him till his knuckles showed white.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," the doctor spoke a trifle contemptuously. "Appendicitis is quite commonplace. We operate for it as many as a hundred times a year at the hospital."

Donaldson rose slowly to his feet.

"I'll let you know sometime soon," he said, staring about him vaguely.

"All right. But I'd advise you to have it done quickly."

Donaldson shuffled toward the door.

"I'll let you know," he murmured, and went out.

He descended to the street. He was a man of average height, and rather thin. He was dressed respectably in clothes of a few years back, but still good. One felt that he was careful of them, timidly careful. His blue eyes wandered in odd moments from one object to another, and his thin lips tried to maintain a firm line, but drooped weakly, if, perchance, he forgot. Then he twitched them up, reining them hard, trying to appear casual, indifferent. But his step would drop into its habitual short uncertainty, his shoulders slump down a bit, his eyes begin their covert roving, his whole figure expressing a desire to occupy as small a space as possible, as though his soul and body were squeezed in with a wish to be inconspicuous.

As he emerged from the doctor's office, his pale eyes shifted as he gazed at the moving throng on the street. Why couldn't it have been some one else? Here they were, all so gay, so unconscious of him and the shadow that hung over him. Unconscious! That was the word which had so terrified his mind for ten long years. And that was what the anesthetic meant—unconsciousness!

Donaldson threaded his way along and turned into a little side street until he came to his house. He let himself in with his key. The bare hall resounded dismally to his footsteps. The gaunt, shadowy room gave him only a chilly welcome. When Mrs. Saunders had kept house for him, it had been more cheerful. There was not that deathlike stillness when he came in. That had been several years ago, and since then his fear had increased through long keeping, like some great, lank brute, gnawing in the darkness. It was a sly, suspicious fear that shunned companionship. He had lived for ten years all alone, except for Mrs. Saunders, the housekeeper, but finally even her presence had become too much, and he had sent her away.

He began stupidly preparing dinner. There was some ham, cheese, a half loaf of bread, and a few potatoes which he peeled, standing by the sink. There was also a small pie that one of the neighbors had sent him a few days ago. Kindly people they were, unable to understand Donaldson's solitary life, and who took pity on him and occasionally sent him little bits of pastry or jelly to freshen his meal.

Once, when he was sick with a cold, the husband had brought him over half a tumbler of whisky, but Donaldson had shuddered and held up his arms as if to ward off the other, crying, "None of that! Go away! Let me alone!"

And the neighbor had withdrawn, attributing this strange behavior to the sickness. But no, Donaldson's fear of whisky was almost equal to that of the beastlike fear that dogged his footsteps or lurked in the shadows ahead of him.

Ever since that terrible, unforgettable night when he had drunk it for the first and last time, he had had a wild terror of it. Even the sight of it recalled more vividly the white, strained face of his wife as she fell to the floor, and the red mark of the fender across her temple. He remembered how he had gone away and brought Jack Dingler home with him a few hours later, and they had found her. The neighbors had been so sympathetic toward him in his calamity. Even the same neighbors that brought him the whisky and went home saying sorrowfully, "Poor Mr. Donaldson. He's never been quite himself since the missus was murdered. It seems to have turned his mind."

They were right. His mind was turned. John Donaldson knew what it was to be afraid. For ten terrible years, fear had skulked behind him. His composure and his self-reliance vanished. He had become a coward with the ever-present fear that in some way, by some word or action, he would reveal his secret. He had kept ever alert. Fear, the driving power that would not let him slumber. He always kept his door bolted at night, and the room next to his empty, for fear that he might talk in his sleep.

That was his greatest dread, that sometime, in an unconscious state, he would talk. He learned to take the greatest precautions in regard to his personal safety. He never went on long journeys, nor took an unnecessary risk. And now—appendicitis!

NE NIGHT, a week later, Donaldson woke up with a start, his body wet with perspiration. He had been dreaming a terrible dream. It seemed as though he saw the white face of his wife with the red mark across the temple, only she was standing up and looking at him with an unfamiliar, ghastly expression in her eyes, and behind her, looking over her shoulder, was a satyr's face, long and yellow.

Then this figure stepped out and came toward him, holding chains in its hands. Chains for him, Donaldson! He had had dreams like this before, varying slightly in detail sometimes, but always with the same terrible suggestion. And always he had waked up as he did now, wet and cold, with the same monstrous fear clutching him, pricking him like a thousand needles, drawing up his flesh, paralyzing him with a queer, uncanny thrill.

He wondered if he had talked in his sleep. Of course, there was no one to hear, still he wondered. It was something he could never know, an awful, threatening uncertainty that hung over him, that would always hang over him.

And those chains! He had a mental vision of himself in the penal stone quarries, chained to an iron ball.

He looked at his watch. It was later than he had thought—six o'clock. He got out of bed and dressed quickly. He knew from experience the only way to work off the stultifying effect of his dreams. It was physical action, to walk and walk until he tired himself out. Then his mind would be loosed from this crazy, nervous terror, and he would relapse into the steady, dogged fear from which he knew no respite.

He opened the door and stepped into the street. The morning sun was beginning to lighten the grey, deserted court. Some one across the way closed a