The Slayer of Souls

There was a painful silence. The President joined his finger tips and stared palely into space.

"May I not say," he suggested, "that I think it a vital necessity that these Yezidees be caught and destroyed before they do any damage to the minds of myself and my cabinet?"

"God grant it, sir," said Recklow grimly.

"Mine," murmured the President, "is a single-track mind. I should be very much annoyed if anybody tampered with the rails – very much annoyed indeed, Mr. Recklow."

"They mustn't murder that girl," said the Secretary of the Navy. "Do you need any Marines, Mr. Recklow? Why not ask your Government for a few?"

Recklow rose: "Mr. President," he said, "I shall not deny that my Government is very deeply disturbed by this situation. In the beginning, these eight Assassins, and Sanang, came here for the purpose of attacking, overpowering, and enslaving the minds of the people of the United States and of the South American Republics.

"But now, after four of their infamous colleagues have been destroyed, the ferocious survivors, thoroughly alarmed, have turned their every energy toward accomplishing the death of Mrs. Cleves! Why, sir, scarcely a day passes but that some attempt upon her life is made by these Yezidees.

"Scarcely a day passes that this young girl is not suddenly summoned to defend her mind as well as her body against the occult attacks of these Mongol Sorcerers. Yes, sir, Sorcerers!" repeated Recklow, his calm voice deep with controlled passion, " – whatever your honourable Secretary of War may think about it!"

His cold, grey eyes measured the President as he stood there.

"Mr. President, I am at my wits' end to protect her from assassination! Her husband is always with her – Victor Cleves, sir, of our Secret Service. But wherever he takes her these devils follow and send their emissaries to watch her, to follow, to attempt her mental destruction or her physical death.

"There is no end to their stealthy cunning, to their devilish devices, to their hellish ingenuity!

"And all we can do is to guard her person from the approach of strangers, and stand ready, physically, to aid her.

"She is our only barrier —your only defence – between civilisation and horrors worse than Bolshevism.

"I believe, Mr. President, that civilisation in North and South America – in your own Republic as well as in ours – depends, literally, upon the safety of Tressa Cleves. For, if the Yezidees kill her, then I do not see what is to save civilisation from utter disintegration and total destruction."

There was a silence. Recklow was not certain that the President had been listening.

His Excellency sat with finger tips joined, gazing pallidly into space; and Recklow heard him murmuring under his breath and all to himself, as though to fix the deathless thought forever in his brain:

"May I not say that mine is a single-track mind? May I not say it? May I not, – may I not, – not, not, not – "

CHAPTER XIII

SA-N'SA

June sunshine poured through the window of his bedroom in the Ritz; and Cleves had just finished dressing when he heard his wife's voice in the adjoining sitting-room.

He had not supposed that Tressa was awake. He hastened to tie his tie and pull on a smoking jacket, listening all the while to his wife's modulated but gay young voice.

Then he opened the sitting-room door and went in. And found his wife entirely alone.

She looked up at him, her lips still parted as though checked in what she had been saying, the smile still visible in her blue eyes.

"Who on earth are you talking to?" he asked, his bewildered glance sweeping the sunny room again.

She did not reply; her smile faded as a spot of sunlight wanes, veiled by a cloud – yet a glimmer of it remained in her gaze as he came over to her.

"I thought they'd brought our breakfast," he said, " – hearing your voice… Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, Victor."

He seated himself, and his perplexed scrutiny included her frail morning robe of China silk, her lovely bare arms, and her splendid hair twisted up and pegged down with a jade dagger. Around her bare throat and shoulders, too, was a magnificent necklace of imperial jade which he had never before seen; and on one slim, white finger a superb jade ring.

"By Jove!" he said, "you're very exotic this morning, Tressa. I never before saw that negligee effect."

The girl laughed, glanced at her ring, lifted a frail silken fold and examined the amazing embroidery.

"I wore it at the Lake of the Ghosts," she said.

The name of that place always chilled him. He had begun to hate it, perhaps because of all that he did not know about it – about his wife's strange girlhood – about Yian and the devil's Temple there – and about Sanang.

He said coldly but politely that the robe was unusual and the jade very wonderful.

The alteration in his voice and expression did not escape her. It meant merely masculine jealousy, but Tressa never dreamed he cared in that way.

Breakfast was brought, served; and presently these two young people were busy with their melons, coffee, and toast in the sunny room high above the softened racket of traffic echoing through avenue and street below.

"Recklow telephoned me this morning," he remarked.

She looked up, her face serious.

"Recklow says that Yezidee mischief is taking visible shape. The Socialist Party is going to be split into bits and a new party, impudently and publicly announcing itself as the Communist Party of America, is being organised. Did you ever hear of anything as shameless – as outrageous – in this Republic?"

She said very quietly: "Sanang has taken prisoner the minds of these wretched people. He and his remaining Yezidees are giving battle to the unarmed minds of our American people."

"Gutchlug is dead," said Cleves, " – and Yarghouz and Djamouk, and Yaddin."

"But Tiyang Khan is alive, and Togrul, and that cunning demon Arrak Sou-Sou, called The Squirrel," she said. She bent her head, considering the jade ring on her finger. " – And Prince Sanang," she added in a low voice.

"Why didn't you let me shoot him when I had the chance?" said Cleves harshly.

So abrupt was his question, so rough his sudden manner, that the girl looked up in dismayed surprise. Then a deep colour stained her face.

"Once," she said, "Prince Sanang held my heart prisoner – as Erlik held my soul… I told you that."

"Is that the reason you gave the fellow a chance?"

"Yes."

"Oh… And possibly you gave Sanang a chance because he still holds your – affections!"

She said, crimson with the pain of the accusation: "I tore my heart out of his keeping… I told you that… And, believing – trying to believe what you say to me, I have tried to tear my soul out of the claws of Erlik… Why are you angry?"

"I don't know… I'm not angry… The whole horrible situation is breaking my nerve, I guess… With whom were you talking before I came in?"

After a silence the girl's smile glimmered.