Chapter 3

Quietly taking the breakfast served by stone-deaf old Margarita, the
Mexican cook, she read the morning paper and seated herself with some
needlework by the sitting-room window overlooking the great yard. All
was silent out there, and she could see that the last of the animal
cages had been emptied. Science was served, and the lime pit held all
that was left of the once pretty and lively little creatures. This
slaughter had always grieved her, but she had never complained, since
she knew it was all for humanity. Being a scientist's sister, she used
to say to herself, was like being the sister of a soldier who kills to
save his countrymen from their foes.

After luncheon Georgina resumed her post by the window, and had been
busily sewing for some time when the sound of a pistol shot from the
yard caused her to look out in alarm. There, not far from the clinic,
she saw the ghastly form of Surama, a revolver in his hand, and his
skull-face twisted into a strange expression as he chuckled at a
cowering figure robed in black silk and carrying a long Tibetan knife.
It was the servant Tsanpo, and as she recognized the shriveled face,
Georgina remembered horribly what she had overheard the night before.
The sun flashed on the polished blade, and suddenly Surama's revolver
spat once more. This time the knife flew from the Mongol's hand, and
Surama glanced greedily at his shaking and bewildered prey.

Then Tsanpo, glancing quickly at his unhurt hand and at the fallen
knife, sprang nimbly away from the stealthily approaching clinic-man
and made a dash for the house. Surama, however, was too swift for
him, and caught him in a single leap, seizing his shoulder and almost
crushing him. For a moment the Tibetan tried to struggle, but Surama
lifted him like an animal by the scruff of the neck and bore him off
toward the clinic. Georgina heard him chuckling and taunting the man
in his own tongue, and saw the yellow face of the victim twist and
quiver with fright. Suddenly realizing against her own will what was
taking place, a great horror mastered her and she fainted for the
second time within twenty-four hours.

When consciousness returned, the golden light of late afternoon was
flooding the room. Georgina, picking up her fallen work-basket and
scattered materials, was lost in a daze of doubt; but finally felt
convinced that the scene which had overcome her must have been all too
tragically real. Her worst fears, then, were horrible truths. What
to do about it, nothing in her experience could tell her; and she
was vaguely thankful that her brother did not appear. She must talk
to him, but not now. She could not talk to anybody now. And thinking
shudderingly of the monstrous happening behind those barred clinic
windows, she crept into bed for a long night of anguished sleeplessness.

* * * * *

Rising haggardly on the following day, Georgina saw the doctor for the
first time since his recovery. He was bustling about preoccupiedly,
circulating between the house and the clinic, and paying little
attention to anything besides his work. There was no chance for the
dreaded interview, and Clarendon did not even notice his sister's
worn-out aspect and hesitant manner.

In the evening she heard him in the library, talking to himself in a
fashion most unusual for him, and she felt that he was under a great
strain which might culminate in the return of his apathy. Entering
the room, she tried to calm him without referring to any trying
subject, and forced a steadying cup of bouillon upon him. Finally she
asked gently what was distressing him, and waited anxiously for his
reply, hoping to hear that Surama's treatment of the poor Tibetan had
horrified and outraged him.

There was a note of fretfulness in his voice as he responded.

"What's distressing me? Good God, Georgina, what _isn't_? Look at the
cages and see if you have to ask again! Cleaned out--milked dry--not
a cursed specimen left; and a line of the most important bacterial
cultures incubating in their tubes without a chance to do an ounce of
good! Days' work wasted--whole program set back--it's enough to drive a
man mad! How shall I ever get anywhere if I can't scrape up some decent
subjects?"

Georgina stroked his forehead.

"I think you ought to rest a while, Al dear."

He moved away.

"Rest? That's good! That's damn good! What else have I been doing but
resting and vegetating and staring blankly into space for the last
fifty or a hundred or a thousand years? Just as I manage to shake off
the clouds, I have to run short of material--and then I'm told to lapse
back again into drooling stupefaction! God! And all the while some
sneaking thief is probably working with my data and getting ready to
come out ahead of me with the credit for my own work. I'll lose by a
neck--some fool with the proper specimens will get the prize, when one
week more with even half-adequate facilities would see me through with
flying colors!"

His voice rose querulously, and there was an overtone of mental strain
which Georgina did not like. She answered softly, yet not so softly as
to hint at the soothing of a psychopathic case.

"But you're killing yourself with this worry and tension, and if you're
dead, how can you do your work?"

He gave a smile that was almost a sneer.

"I guess a week or a month--all the time I need--wouldn't quite
finish me, and it doesn't much matter what becomes of me or any other
individual in the end. Science is what must be served--science--the
austere cause of human knowledge. I'm like the monkeys and birds
and guinea-pigs I use--just a cog in the machine, to be used to the
advantage of the whole. They had to be killed--I may have to be
killed--what of it? Isn't the cause we serve worth that and more?"

Georgina sighed. For a moment she wondered whether, after all, this
ceaseless round of slaughter really was worth while.

"But are you absolutely sure your discovery will be enough of a boon to
humanity to warrant these sacrifices?"

Clarendon's eyes flashed dangerously.

"Humanity! What the deuce is humanity? Science! Dolts! Just
individuals over and over again! Humanity is made for preachers
to whom it means the blindly credulous. Humanity is made for the
predatory rich to whom it speaks in terms of dollars and cents.
Humanity is made for the politician to whom it signifies collective
power to be used to his advantage. What is humanity? Nothing! Thank
God that crude illusion doesn't last! What a grown man worships is
truth--knowledge--science--light--the rending of the veil and the
pushing back of the shadow. Knowledge, the juggernaut! There is death
in our own ritual. We must kill--dissect--destroy--and all for the sake
of discovery--the worship of the ineffable light. The goddess Science
demands it. We test a doubtful poison by killing. How else? No thought
for self--just knowledge--the effect must be known."

His voice trailed off in a kind of temporary exhaustion, and Georgina
shuddered slightly.

"But this is horrible, Al! You shouldn't think of it that way!"

Clarendon cackled sardonically, in a manner which stirred odd and
repugnant associations in his sister's mind.

"Horrible? You think what _I_ say is horrible? You ought to hear
Surama! I tell you, things were known to the priests of Atlantis
that would make you drop dead of fright if you heard a hint of them.
Knowledge was knowledge a hundred thousand years ago, when our especial
forebears were shambling about Asia as speechless semi-apes! They know
something of it in the Hoggar region--there are rumors in the farther
uplands of Tibet--and once I heard an old man in China calling on
Yog-Sothoth----"

He turned pale, and made a curious sign in the air with his extended
forefinger. Georgina felt genuinely alarmed, but became somewhat calmer
as his speech took a less fantastic form.

"Yes, it may be horrible, but it's glorious, too. The pursuit of
knowledge, I mean. Certainly, there's no slovenly sentiment connected
with it. Doesn't nature kill--constantly and remorselessly--and are
any but fools horrified at the struggle? Killings are necessary.
They are the glory of science. We learn something from them, and we
can't sacrifice learning to sentiment. Hear the sentimentalists howl
against vaccination! They fear it will kill the child. Well, what if
it does? How else can we discover the laws of disease concerned? As a
scientist's sister you ought to know better than to prate sentiment.
You ought to help my work instead of hindering it!"

"But Al," protested Georgina, "I haven't the slightest intention of
hindering your work. Haven't I always tried to help as much as I could?
I am ignorant, I suppose, and can't help very actively; but at least
I'm proud of you--proud for my own sake and for the family's sake--and
I've always tried to smooth the way. You've given me credit for that
many a time."

Clarendon looked at her keenly.

"Yes," he said jerkily as he rose and strode from the room, "you're
right. You've always tried to help as best you knew. You may yet have a
chance to help still more."

Georgina, seeing him disappear through the front door, followed him
into the yard. Some distance away a lantern was shining through the
trees, and as they approached it they saw Surama bending over a large
object stretched on the ground. Clarendon, advancing, gave a short
grunt; but when Georgina saw what it was she rushed up with a shriek.
It was Dick, the great St. Bernard, and he was lying still with
reddened eyes and protruding tongue.

"He's sick, Al!" she cried. "Do something for him, quick!"

The doctor looked at Surama, who had uttered something in a tongue
unknown to Georgina.

"Take him to the clinic," he ordered; "I'm afraid Dick's caught the
fever."

Surama took up the dog as he had taken poor Tsanpo the day before, and
carried him silently to the building near the mall. He did not chuckle
this time, but glanced at Clarendon with what appeared to be real
anxiety. It almost seemed to Georgina that Surama was asking the doctor
to save her pet.

Clarendon, however, made no move to follow, but stood still for a
moment and then sauntered slowly toward the house. Georgina, astonished
at such callousness, kept up a running fire of entreaties on Dick's
behalf, but it was of no use. Without paying the slightest attention
to her pleas he made directly for the library and began to read in a
large old book which had lain face down on the table. She put her hand
on his shoulder as he sat there, but he did not speak or turn his head.
He only kept on reading, and Georgina, glancing curiously over his
shoulder, wondered in what strange alphabet this brass-bound tome was
written.

In the cavernous parlor across the hall, sitting alone in the dark a
quarter of an hour later, Georgina came to her decision. Something
was gravely wrong--just what, and to what extent, she scarcely dared
formulate to herself--and it was time that she called in some stronger
force to help her. Of course it must be James. He was powerful and
capable, and his sympathy and affection would show him the right thing
to do. He had known Al always, and would understand.

It was by this time rather late, but Georgina had resolved on action.
Across the hall the light still shone from the library, and she looked
wistfully at the doorway as she quietly donned a hat and left the
house. Outside the gloomy mansion and forbidding grounds, it was only a
short walk to Jackson Street, where by good luck she found a carriage
to take her to the Western Union telegraph office. There she carefully
wrote out a message to James Dalton in Sacramento, asking him to come
at once to San Francisco on a matter of the greatest importance to them
all.

5

Dalton was frankly perplexed by Georgina's sudden message. He had had
no word from the Clarendons since that stormy February evening when
Alfred had declared him an outsider to his home; and he in turn had
studiously refrained from communicating, even when he had longed to
express sympathy after the doctor's summary ousting from office. He had
fought hard to frustrate the politicians and keep the appointive power,
and was bitterly sorry to watch the unseating of a man who, despite
recent estrangements, still represented to him the ultimate ideal of
scientific competence.

Now, with this clearly frightened summons before him, he could not
imagine what had happened. He knew, though, that Georgina was not
one to lose her head or send forth a needless alarm; hence he wasted
no time, but took the Overland which left Sacramento within the hour,
going at once to his club and sending word to Georgina by a messenger
that he was in town and wholly at her service.

Meanwhile things had been quiescent at the Clarendon home,
notwithstanding the doctor's continued taciturnity and his absolute
refusal to report on the dog's condition. Shadows of evil seemed
omnipresent and thickening, but for the moment there was a lull.
Georgina was relieved to get Dalton's message and learn that he
was close at hand, and sent back word that she would call him
when necessity arose. Amidst all the gathering tension some faint
compensating element seemed manifest, and Georgina finally decided that
it was the absence of the lean Tibetans, whose stealthy, sinuous ways
and disturbing exotic aspect had always annoyed her. They had vanished
all at once; and old Margarita, the sole visible servant left in the
house, told her they were helping their master and Surama at the clinic.

The following morning--the 28th of May--long to be remembered--was dark
and lowering, and Georgina felt the precarious calm wearing thin. She
did not see her brother at all, but knew he was in the clinic hard at
work at something despite the lack of specimens he had bewailed. She
wondered how poor Tsanpo was getting along, and whether he had really
been subjected to any serious inoculation, but it must be confessed
that she wondered more about Dick. She longed to know whether Surama
had done anything for the faithful dog amidst his master's oddly
callous indifference. Surama's apparent solicitude on the night of
Dick's seizure had impressed her greatly, giving her perhaps the
kindliest feeling she had ever had for the detested clinic-man. Now,
as the day advanced, she found herself thinking more and more of Dick;
till at last her harassed nerves, finding in this one detail a sort of
symbolic summation of the whole horror that lay upon the household,
could stand the suspense no longer.

Up to that time she had always respected Alfred's imperious wish that
he be never approached or disturbed at the clinic; but as this fateful
afternoon advanced, her resolution to break through the barrier grew
stronger and stronger. Finally she set out with determined face,
crossing the yard and entering the unlocked vestibule of the forbidden
structure with the fixed intention of discovering how the dog was or of
knowing the reason for her brother's secrecy.

The inner door, as usual, was locked; and behind it she heard voices
in heated conversation. When her knocking brought no response she
rattled the knob as loudly as possible, but still the voices argued on
unheeding. They belonged, of course, to Surama and her brother; and as
she stood there trying to attract attention she could not help catch
something of their drift. Fate had made her for the second time an
eavesdropper, and once more the matter she overheard seemed likely to
tax her mental poise and nervous endurance to their ultimate bounds.
Alfred and Surama were plainly quarreling with increasing violence, and
the purport of their speech was enough to arouse the wildest fears and
confirm the gravest apprehensions. Georgina shivered as her brother's
voice mounted shrilly to dangerous heights of fanatical tension.

"You, damn you--you're a fine one to talk defeat and moderation to me!
Who started all this, anyway? Did _I_ have any idea of your cursed
devil-gods and elder world? Did _I_ ever in my life think of your
damned spaces beyond the stars and your crawling chaos Nyarlathotep?
I was a normal scientific man, confound you, till I was fool enough
to drag you out of the vaults with your devilish Atlantean secrets.
You egged me on, and now you want to cut me off! You loaf around doing
nothing and telling me to go slow when you might just as well as not be
going out and getting material. You know damn well that I don't know
how to go about such things, whereas you must have been an old hand at
it before the earth was made. It's like you, you damned walking corpse,
to start something you won't or can't finish!"

Surama's evil chuckle came.

"You're insane, Clarendon. That's the only reason I let you rave on
when I could send you to hell in three minutes. Enough is enough, and
you've certainly had enough material for any novice at your stage.
You've had all I'm going to get you, anyhow! You're only a maniac on
the subject now--what a cheap, crazy thing to sacrifice even your poor
sister's pet dog, when you could have spared him as well as not! You
can't look at any living thing now without wanting to jab that gold
syringe into it. No--Dick had to go where the Mexican boy went--where
Tsanpo and the other seven went--where all the animals went! What a
pupil! You're no fun any more--you've lost your nerve. You set out to
control things, and they're controlling you. I'm about done with you,
Clarendon. I thought you had the stuff in you, but you haven't. It's
about time I tried somebody else. I'm afraid you'll have to go!"

In the doctor's shouted reply there was both fear and frenzy.

"Be careful, you ----! There are powers against your powers--I didn't
go to China for nothing, and there are things in Alhazred's _Azif_
which weren't known in Atlantis! We've both meddled in dangerous
things, but you needn't think you know all my resources. How about the
Nemesis of Flame? I talked in Yemen with an old man who had come back
alive from the Crimson Desert--he had seen Irem, the City of Pillars,
and had worshiped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb--Ia!
Shub-Niggurath!"

Through Clarendon's shrieking falsetto cut the deep chuckle of the
clinic-man.

"Shut up, you fool! Do you suppose your grotesque nonsense has any
weight with me? Words and formulæ--words and formulæ--what do they all
mean to one who has the substance behind them? We're in a material
sphere now, and subject to material laws. You have your fever; I have
my revolver. You'll get no specimens, and I'll get no fever so long as
I have you in front of me with this gun between!"

That was all Georgina could hear. She felt her senses reeling, and
staggered out of the vestibule for a saving breath of the lowering
outside air. She saw that the crisis had come at last, and that help
must now arrive quickly if her brother was to be saved from unknown
gulfs of madness and mystery. Summoning up all her reserve energy, she
managed to reach the house and get to the library, where she scrawled a
hasty note for Margarita to take to James Dalton.

* * * * *

When the old woman had gone, Georgina had just strength enough to cross
to the lounge and sink weakly down into a sort of semi-stupor. There
she lay for what seemed like years, conscious only of the fantastic
creeping up of the twilight from the lower corners of the great, dismal
room, and plagued by a thousand shadowy shapes of terror which filed
with fantasmal, half-limned pageantry through her tortured and stifled
brain. Dusk deepened into darkness, and still the spell held. Then a
firm tread sounded in the hall, and she heard someone enter the room
and fumble at the match-safe. Her heart almost stopped beating as the
gas-jets of the chandelier flared up one by one, but then she saw that
the arrival was her brother. Relieved to the bottom of her heart that
he was still alive, she gave vent to an involuntary sigh, profound,
long-drawn, and tremulous, and lapsed at last into kindly oblivion.

At the sound of that sigh Clarendon turned in alarm toward the lounge,
and was inexpressibly shocked to see the pale and unconscious form of
his sister there. Her face had a deathlike quality that frightened his
inmost spirit, and he flung himself on his knees by her side, awake to
a realization of what her passing away would mean to him. Long unused
to private practise amidst his ceaseless quest for truth, he had lost
the physician's instinct of first aid, and could only call out her name
and chafe her wrists mechanically as fear and grief possessed him. Then
he thought of water, and ran to the dining-room for a carafe. Stumbling
about in a darkness which seemed to harbor vague terrors, he was some
time in finding what he sought; but at last he clutched it in shaking
hand and hastened back to dash the cold fluid in Georgina's face. The
method was crude but effective. She stirred, sighed a second time, and
finally opened her eyes.

"You are alive!" he cried, and put his cheek to hers as she stroked
his head maternally. She was almost glad she had fainted, for the
circumstance seemed to have dispelled the strange Alfred and brought
her own brother back to her. She sat up slowly and tried to reassure
him.

"I'm all right, Al. Just give me a glass of water. It's a sin to waste
it this way--to say nothing of spoiling my waist! Is that the way to
behave every time your sister drops off for a nap? You needn't think
I'm going to be sick, for I haven't time for such nonsense!"

Alfred's eyes showed that her cool, common-sense speech had had its
effect. His brotherly panic dissolved in an instant, and instead
there came into his face a vague, calculating expression, as if
some marvelous possibility had just dawned upon him. As she watched
the subtle waves of cunning and appraisal pass fleetingly over
his countenance she became less and less certain that her mode of
reassurance had been a wise one, and before he spoke she found herself
shivering at something she could not define. A keen medical instinct
almost told her that his moment of sanity had passed, and that he was
now once more the unrestrained fanatic for scientific research. There
was something morbid in the quick narrowing of his eyes at her casual
mention of good health. What was he thinking? To what unnatural extreme
was his passion for experiment about to be pushed? Wherein lay the
special significance of her pure blood and absolutely flawless organic
state? None of these misgivings, however, troubled Georgina for more
than a second, and she was quite natural and unsuspicious as she felt
her brother's steady fingers at her pulse.

"You're a bit feverish, Georgie," he said in a precise, elaborately
restrained voice as he looked professionally into her eyes.

"Why, nonsense, I'm all right," she replied. "One would think you were
on the watch for fever patients just for the sake of showing off your
discovery! It _would_ be poetic, though, if you could make your final
proof and demonstration by curing your own sister!"

Clarendon started violently and guiltily. Had she suspected his wish?
Had he muttered anything aloud? He looked at her closely, and saw that
she had no inkling of the truth. She smiled up sweetly into his face
and patted his hand as he stood by the side of the lounge. Then he
took a small oblong leather case from his vest pocket, and taking out
a little gold syringe, he began fingering it thoughtfully, pushing the
piston speculatively in and out of the empty cylinder.

"I wonder," he began with suave sententiousness, "whether you would
really be willing to help science in--something like that way--if the
need arose? Whether you would have the devotion to offer yourself to
the cause of medicine as a sort of Jephthah's daughter if you knew it
meant the absolute perfection and completion of my work?"

Georgina, catching the odd and unmistakable glitter in her brother's
eyes, knew at last that her worst fears were true. There was nothing to
do now but keep him quiet at all hazards and to pray that Margarita had
found James Dalton at his club.

"You look tired, Al dear," she said gently. "Why not take a little
morphia and get some of the sleep you need so badly?"

He replied with a kind of crafty deliberation.

"Yes, you're right. I'm worn out, and so are you. Each of us needs a
good sleep. Morphine is just the thing--wait till I go and fill the
syringe and we'll both take a proper dose."

Still fingering the empty syringe, he walked softly out of the room.
Georgina looked about her with the aimlessness of desperation, ears
alert for any sign of possible help. She thought she heard Margarita
again in the basement kitchen, and rose to ring the bell, in an effort
to learn of the fate of her message. The old servant answered her
summons at once, and declared she had given the message at the club
hours ago. Governor Dalton had been out, but the clerk had promised to
deliver the note at the very moment of his arrival.

Margarita waddled below stairs again, but still Clarendon did not
reappear. What was he doing? What was he planning? She had heard the
outer door slam, so knew he must be at the clinic. Had he forgotten his
original intention with the vacillating mind of madness? The suspense
grew almost unbearable, and Georgina had to keep her teeth clenched
tightly to avoid screaming.

* * * * *

It was the gate bell, which rang simultaneously in house and clinic,
that broke the tension at last. She heard the catlike tread of Surama
on the walk as he left the clinic to answer it; and then, with an
almost hysterical sigh of relief, she caught the firm, familiar accents
of Dalton in conversation with the sinister attendant. Rising, she
almost tottered to meet him as he loomed up in the library doorway;
and for a moment no word was spoken while he kissed her hand in his
courtly, old-school fashion. Then Georgina burst forth into a torrent
of hurried explanation, telling all that had happened, all she had
glimpsed and overheard, and all she feared and suspected.

Dalton listened gravely and comprehendingly, his first bewilderment
gradually giving place to astonishment, sympathy, and resolution. The
message, held by a careless clerk, had been slightly delayed, and had
found him appropriately enough in the midst of a warm lounging-room
discussion about Clarendon. A fellow-member, Dr. MacNeil, had brought
in a medical journal with an article well calculated to disturb the
devoted scientist, and Dalton had just asked to keep the paper for
future reference when the message was handed him at last. Abandoning
his half-formed plan to take Dr. MacNeil into his confidence regarding
Alfred, he called at once for his hat and stick, and lost not a moment
in getting a cab for the Clarendon home.

Surama, he thought, appeared alarmed at recognizing him; though he had
chuckled as usual when striding off again toward the clinic. Dalton
always recalled Surama's stride and chuckle on this ominous night,
for he was never to see the unearthly creature again. As the chuckler
entered the clinic vestibule his deep, guttural gurgles seemed to blend
with some low mutterings of thunder which troubled the far horizon.

When Dalton had heard all Georgina had to say, and learned that Alfred
was expected back at any moment with an hypodermic dose of morphine,
he decided he had better talk with the doctor alone. Advising Georgina
to retire to her room and await developments, he walked about the
gloomy library, scanning the shelves and listening for Clarendon's
nervous footstep on the clinic path outside. The vast room's corners
were dismal despite the chandelier, and the closer Dalton looked at
his friend's choice of books the less he liked them. It was not the
balanced collection of a normal physician, biologist, or man of general
culture. There were too many volumes on doubtful borderland themes;
dark speculations and forbidden rituals of the Middle Ages, and strange
exotic mysteries in alien alphabets both known and unknown.

The great notebook of observations on the table was unwholesome, too.
The handwriting had a neurotic cast, and the spirit of the entries was
far from reassuring. Long passages were inscribed in crabbed Greek
characters, and as Dalton marshaled his linguistic memory for their
translation he gave a sudden start, and wished his college struggles
with Xenophon and Homer had been more conscientious. There was
something wrong--something hideously wrong--here, and the governor sank
limply into the chair by the table as he pored more and more closely
over the doctor's barbarous Greek. Then a sound came, startlingly near,
and he jumped nervously at a hand laid sharply on his shoulder.

"What, may I ask, is the cause of this intrusion? You might have stated
your business to Surama."

Clarendon was standing icily by the chair, the little gold syringe in
one hand. He seemed very calm and rational, and Dalton fancied for a
moment that Georgina must have exaggerated his condition.