Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 06 (1942-07).djvu/17

here, also gave you a message to deliver. They spoke the words for you to repeat, making passes before your eyes—thus, eh?”

Slowly he drew his open hand through the air, as if stroking invisible fur. Susan nodded, and bit her lip.

“Several names for that,” Jaeger commented to me over his shoulder. “Mesmerism, animal magnetism, hypnotism. Most occult dabblers know a little of it, would God they did not! But I had no fear of Susan, even when I saw that she was entranced. In the book of James Braid I read that nobody will do things when hypnotized that he would not do in his right mind; and, whatever her father’s sad delusions, Susan is healthy and good.”

Susan began to weep. “I would never have hurt you, Mr. Jaeger,” she managed to protest.

“Certainly not.” He touched her head again, comfortingly. “That spell was to make us both stand like posts, while the prowlers came in and did what they pleased with us.

Even had she said it in full, however, it would not work. It already failed on you, Wickett. For myself, I was silently saying the counter-charm, from this book.”

He again produced a volume from his shelf, this time a sort of pamphlet in gray paper. On its cover was the title:

And, underneath, the picture of an owl. Jaeger flipped it open—I saw the page number, 69—and began to patter nimbly:

“Like unto the cup and the wine—may we be guarded in daytime and nightime—that no wild beast may tear us, no weapons wound us, no false tongues injure us—and no witchcraft or enchantment harm us. Amen.”

I took it that such was the counter-spell he mentioned, and thought it odd that a minister should use such a device. But scant time for philosophy was left us. Outside voices began to laugh.

I say voices, not men. To this day I do not know just what sort of throats uttered that merriment. At the time it seemed to me that human beings were trying to sound like beasts, or beasts were trying to sound like human beings. The blending of beast and human was imperfect, and horrid to hear. Jaeger laid down the little book on the table, and again took up his revolver.

“Wickett,” he said softly, “there is a window where you can watch the door. Take your post there. Watch. If they enter—and they probably will—stand still, as if the charm had worked. Because we can trap them so, as they meant to trap us.”

He had no more time to prepare me, for outside there came a new chorus, this time of rhythmic recital:

“I strolled through a red forest, and in the red forest was a red church. In the red church stood a red altar, and upon the red altar lay a red knife.”

A breathless moment of silence. Then a single booming voice, strangely accented, as if it echoed in a deformed mouth:

“Take the red knife and cut red bread!”

Jaeger sniffed. “Their sacrament ritual,” he muttered. “A vile blasphemy. The window, Wickett.”

He jerked his bearded chin toward an alcove by the door, and I moved into it. The window there looked upon the entrance from one side. Beneath the sill hung an old Chicopee saber, such as the Yankees once carried, and such as the Southern cavalry filched from enemy dead or captives. I started to draw it.

“No,” Jaeger warned. “Only stay near, and seize it when they least expect. They will expect Susan to put out the light before they venture any nearer.”

He bent toward the lamp, and blew strongly down its glass chimney. Its flame went out, and we were left in a sort of