“What?”
“They have been getting at him too.”
“God help us if they have!”
“He will, James, never fear.”
Valerie had a strange dream that night: she dreamed she was in an endless winding passage, cut out of the solid rock, whose walls dripped with slime and were rotten with luminous fungi. She dreamed, moreover, that something abominable was pursuing her, some nightmare creature that slithered along the rocky floor at lightning speed. She tried to run, but her feet were like lead; she could only drag them painfully, a few inches at a time. She opened her mouth to scream, but her throat dried up, and her tongue refused its office. Half crazed with terror, she looked behind her to see the horror assume the form and features of Simon Vaughan. The sensual lips leered wickedly at her, the podgy hands outstretched to clutch. Then Anthony Lovell caught her in his arms, and the pursuer vanished. She clung to her rescuer, sobbing incoherently, while he stroked her hair and whispered endearments to her. Presently she became calm; he kissed her lips, and she found his kisses strangely sweet.
When she woke the narrow windows of her room still framed only darkness, but the dying fire lit the room with a warm glow. The impression that Tony was still near her was so strong that she sat up, staring round, but the room was empty save for herself. Smiling sleepily at her own foolishness, she lay down and slept dreamlessly till dawn.
But in his distant room Tony lay on his back, staring wide-eyed into the darkness. Using the powers which he now possessed, he had deliberately projected himself into her dreams, but the vision had been brief and unsatisfying.
Ever since he had dragged her back from the jaws of death two nights ago, he had known that there was no other woman in the world for him, and he was greatly troubled. He could see quite plainly that Hamilton loved her, but whether she returned his friend’s love he could not tell. He wanted her desperately, and for the first time since he had begun this new life of his he began to wonder whether it were everything that he had imagined.
He possessed the power, he knew, to subject her to his will and to bring her, even now, to him; but his soul revolted from the thought of making her an unwilling victim to his desire. She must come willingly, or not at all. But the temptation was great, and he lay wrestling with it until the first grey light of dawn, when at last he fell asleep, worn out by his struggle, but so far victorious.
The next day passed very much like its predecessor. The storm had abated somewhat, but the sea was still far too rough to attempt the crossing.
In the afternoon Hamilton, Valerie, and Tony went for a scramble across the island, laughing breathlessly as they struggled over the uneven ground in the teeth of the gale.
While they were gone Gaunt and Vaughan held a council of war.
“I am greatly troubled, Simon,” announced the doctor. “There is but a week to go before the anniversary, and he has not yet assisted at the Mass.”
“The girl, Doctor.”
“Precisely. She is affecting his whole outlook on the situation. From being his whole life, it has become quite secondary. He has fallen in love with her.”
“She must be removed.”
“Yes, and not only from this island, but from his life altogether. Since she will stay at Pentock with her uncle when she leaves us, she must be destroyed utterly.”
“How?” Vaughan leaned forward, his coarse face ablaze with eagerness.
Gaunt placed his fingertips carefully together and replied in measured tones:
“I propose to work upon her expressed desire to visit the caves beneath the crypt, and to send her down there, tonight, alone. The monstrosity will make short work of her, and no one will be the wiser.”
“Could I not have her first, Doctor?” Vaughan passed the tip of his tongue over his thick red lips. “Her naked body would be a most suitable adornment for the altar.”
“No!” said Gaunt curtly. “We have no time for such frivolities. It must be done quickly.”
A shade of disappointment passed over the other’s face.
“Very well, Doctor,” he sighed. “At what hour?”
“At 1 a.m. tomorrow. You will be ready?”
“Yes, Doctor, I will be ready.”
And so it came about that, when Valerie had been in bed and asleep for a couple of hours, she awoke with one consuming idea in her mind: to see for herself what lay beneath the altar in the crypt.
She got up and slipped on the heavy woolen dressing-gown which Mrs. Lorrimer had lent her, thrusting her feet into a pair of slippers. Lighting the oil-lamp which stood by her bed, she took it up and went silently out, down the staircase to the warm kitchen and along the cold passage to the great hall. The fact that the stone trap which gave access to the crypt stood open did not appear to surprise her unduly, and she made her way down the spiral stairs. There was no fear in her heart, no foreboding of the frightful danger she was walking into, but only that one burning desire which dominated her whole being and must be fulfilled.
With unerring steps she went straight to the altar. The seals were broken, and the upper slab stood on end. She went up the low steps, set her lamp on the broad edge of the altar-side, and climbed lithely over. Taking up the lamp once more, she fearlessly descended the steps within.
When the last faint reflection of her lamp was gone Gaunt and his colleague emerged from their hiding-place behind one of the near-by pillars, lowered the altar-stone into place, and, without a word, returned to the doctor’s room. There on the table Gaunt’s crystal stood ready, and they sat down, one on either side. Gazing into its opalescent depths, they followed Valerie’s progress through the caves.
The girl was walking cautiously along, holding the lamp in her left hand and with her right drawing her gown close about her, for the air was bitterly cold. Her eyes were fixed on the uneven floor. She did not hesitate at the division of the tunnel, but turned to the left and went boldly on. As she penetrated deeper, so the cold grew more intense, and the peculiar odour which she had noticed from the first grew stronger; but still she went on, driven by the will behind those glittering eyes which stared unwinkingly into the crystal as they watched her fatal progress.
She was approaching the bend which came before the opening into the great cavern when she encountered a wave of cold so intense that she stopped involuntarily, gasping for breath. So violent was the shock that her numbed fingers loosed their hold upon the lamp and it fell to the ground, smashing into fragments and plunging her into total darkness.
As this catastrophe occurred the spell which had held her was broken, and she regained full possession of her faculties. She realized at once where she was, for she could remember her journey thither with perfect clarity, though what had made her undertake such a foolhardy expedition she was at a loss to understand. Even then she was not particularly frightened, for her upbringing had left her singularly free from superstitious fears. And, merely wondering if she would ever be able to find her way back in the dark, she began to retrace her steps, feeling her way along the slippery wall.
The watchers looked at each other.
“She is not afraid,” Vaughan whispered, incredulous wonder in his heart. “It cannot feel her presence if she is not afraid… She will escape.”
“No!” Gaunt fairly spat out the monosyllable and bent his gaze once more on the crystal.
Instantly Valerie’s eyes were opened and she remembered all that she had forgotten about Kestrel, all that Gaunt had made her forget and which he now willed her to remember. She realized that she and Hamilton were in the very stronghold of the Satanists; sleeping under the same roof, breaking bread, laughing and talking with the forgotten of God, the Devil-worshipers, the accursed. She remembered that this island was under interdict, bereft of grace; that for four centuries the sacraments had been absent from this soil; and that in the bowels of the Abbey rock, where she now stood, a horror of great darkness dwelt. With a little broken cry she sank to the ground and huddled against the wall, praying frantically for help.