Page:Weird Tales volume 02 number 03.djvu/20

Rh skilled in neither of these rainy day diversions, I put on a waterproof and patrolled the veranda for exercise.

On my third or fourth trip around the house I ran into old Geronte shuffling across the porch, wagging his head and muttering portentiouslyportentously [sic] to himself.

"See here, Pierre," I accosted him, "what sort of nonsense have you been telling Miss Leahy about those pine woods down the South road?"

The old fellow regarded me unwinkingly with his beady eyes, wrinkling his age-yellowed forehead for all the world like an elderly baboon inspecting a new sort of edible. "M’sieur goes out alone much at nights, n’est-ce-pas?" he asked, at length.

"Yes, Monsieur goes out alone much at night," I echoed, "but what Monsieur particularly desires to know is what sort of tales you have been telling Mademoiselle Leahy. Comprenez vous?"

The network of wrinkles about his lips multiplied as he smiled enigmatically, regarding me askance from the corners of his eyes.

"M’sieur is Anglaise," he replied. "He would not understand—or believe."

"Never mind what I’d believe," I retorted. "What is this story about murder and robbery being committed in those woods? Who were the murderers, and where did they live? Hein?"

For a few seconds he looked fixedly at me, chewing the cud of senility between his toothless gums, then, glancing carefully about, as if he feared being overheard, he tip-toed up to me and whispered:

"M’sieur mus’ stay indoors these nights. W’en the moon, she shine, yes; w’en she not show her face, no. There are evil things abroad at the dark of the moon, M’sieur. Even las’ night they keel t’ree of my bes’ sheep. Remembair, M’sieur, the loup-garou, he is out when the moon hide her light."

And with that he turned and left me; nor could I get another word from him save his cryptic warning, "Remembair, M’sieur; the loup-garou. Remembair."

In spite of my annoyance, I could not get rid of the unpleasant sensation the old man’s words left with me. "The loup-garou — werewolf — he had said, and to prove his goblin-wolf’s presence, he had cited the death of his three sheep.

As I paced the rain-washed porch I thought of the scene I had witnessed the night before, when the sheep-killers were at their work.

"Well," I reflected, "I’ve seen the loup-garou on his native heath at last. From causes as slight as this, no doubt, the horrible legend of the werewolf had sprung. Time was when all France quaked at the sound of the loup-garou’s hunting call and the bravest knights in Christendom trembled in their castles and crossed themselves fearfully because some renegade shepherd dog quested his prey in the night. On such a foundation are the legends of a people built.

Whistling a snatch from Pinafore and looking skyward in search of a patch of blue in the clouds, I felt a tug at my raincoat sleeve, such as a neglected terrier might give. It was Geronte again.

"M’sieur," he began in the same mysterious whisper, "the loup-garou is a verity, certainly. I, myself, have nevair seen him—" he paused to bless himself—"but my cousin, Baptiste, was once pursued by him. Yes.

"It was near the shrine of the good Sainte Anne that Baptiste lived. One night he was sent to fetch the curé for a dying woman. They rode fast through the trees, the curé and my cousin Baptiste, for it was at the dark of the moon, and the evil forest folk were abroad. And as they galloped, there came a loup-garou from the woods, with eyes as bright as hell-fire. It followed hard, this tailless hound from the devil’s kennel; but they reached the house before it, and the curé put his book, with the Holy Cross on its cover, at the doorstep. The loup-garou wailed under the windows like a child in pain until the sun rose; then it slunk back to the forest.

"When my cousin Baptiste and the curé came out, they found its hand marks in the soft earth around the door. Very like your hand, or mine, they were, M’sieur, save that the first finger was longer than the others."

"And did they find the loup-garou?" I asked, something of the old man’s earnestness communicated to me.

"Yes, M’sieur; but of course," he replied gravely.

"T'ree weeks before a stranger, drowned in the river, had been buried without the office of the Church. W’en they opened his grave they found his finger nails as red as blood, and sharp. Then they knew. The good curé read the burial office over him, and the poor soul that had been snatched away in sin slept peacefully at last."

He looked quizzically at me, as if speculating whether to tell me more; then, apparently fearing I would laugh at his outburst of confidence, started away toward the kitchen.

"Well, what else, Pierre?" I asked, feeling he had more to say.

"Non, non, non," he replied. "There is nothing more, M’sieur. I did but want M’sieur should know my own cousin, Baptiste Geronte, had seen the loup-garou with his very eyes."

"Hearsay evidence," I commented, as I went in to dinner.

URING the rainy week that followed I chafed at my confinement like a privileged convict suddenly deprived of his liberties, and looked as wistfully down the South road as any prisoned gipsy ever gazed upon the open trail.

The quiet home circle at the farmhouse, the unforced conversation of the old folks, Mildred’s sweet companionship, all beckoned me with an almost irresistible force. For in this period of enforced separation I discovered what I had dimly suspected for some time. I loved Mildred Squires. And, loving her, I longed to tell her of it.

No lad intent on visiting his first sweetheart ever urged his feet more eagerly than I when, the curtains of rain at last drawn up, I hastened toward the house at the turn of the road.

As I hoped, yet hardly dared expect, Mildred was standing at the gate to meet me as I rounded the curve, and I yearned toward her like a humming bird seeking its nest.

She must have read my heart in my eyes, for her greeting smile was as tender as a mother’s as she bends above her babe.

"At last you have come, my friend," she said, putting out both hands in welcome. "I am very glad."

We walked silently up the path, her fingers still resting in mine, her face averted. At the steps she paused, a little embarrassment in her voice as she explained, "Father and mother are out: they have gone to a—meeting. But you will stay?"

"Surely,’’ I acquiesced. And to myself I admitted my gratitude for this chance of Mildred’s unalloyed company.

We talked but little that night. Mildred was strangely distrait, and, much as I longed to, I could not force a confession of my love from my lips. Once, in the midst of a long pause between our words, the cry of the sheep-killers came faintly to us, echoed across the fields and woods, and as the weird, shrill sound fell on our ears; she threw back her head, with something of the gesture of a hunting dog scenting its quarry.

Toward midnight she turned to me, a panic of fear having apparently laid hold of her.

"You must go," she exclaimed, rising and laying her hand on my shoulder.

"But your father and mother have not returned" I objected. "Won’t you let me stay until they get back?"

"Oh, no, no;" she answered, her agitation increasing. "You must go at once—please." She increased her pressure