The Slayer of Souls

"Miss Norne?"

The girl who had been watching the show turned in her chair and looked back at him.

"Your magic is by far the most wonderful I have ever seen or heard of. Even in India such things are not done."

"No, not in India," she said, indifferently.

"Where then?"

"In China."

"You learned to do such things there?"

"Yes."

"Where, in China, did you learn such amazing magic?"

"In Yian."

"I never heard of it. Is it a province?"

"A city."

"And you lived there?"

"Fourteen years."

"When?"

"From 1904 to 1918."

"During the great war," he remarked, "you were in China?"

"Yes."

"Then you arrived here very recently."

"In November, from the Coast."

"I see. You played the theatres from the Coast eastward."

"And went to pieces in New York," she added calmly, finishing her glass of champagne.

"Have you any family?" he asked.

"No."

"Do you care to say anything further?" he inquired, pleasantly.

"About my family? Yes, if you wish. My father was in the spice trade in Yian. The Yezidees took Yian in 1910, threw him into a well in his own compound and filled it up with dead imperial troops. I was thirteen years old… The Hassani did that. They held Yian nearly eight years, and I lived with my mother, in a garden pagoda, until 1914. In January of that year Germans got through from Kiaou-Chou. They had been six months on the way. I think they were Hassanis. Anyway, they persuaded the Hassanis to massacre every English-speaking prisoner. And so – my mother died in the garden pagoda of Yian… I was not told for four years."

"Why did they spare you?" he asked, astonished at her story so quietly told, so utterly destitute of emotion.

"I was seventeen. A certain person had placed me among the temple girls in the temple of Erlik. It pleased this person to make of me a Mongol temple girl as a mockery at Christ. They gave me the name Keuke Mongol. I asked to serve the shrine of Kwann-an – she being like to our Madonna. But this person gave me the choice between the halberds of the Tchortchas and the sorcery of Erlik."

She lifted her sombre eyes. "So I learned how to do the things you saw. But – what I did there on the stage is not – respectable."

An odd shiver passed over him. For a second he took her literally, suddenly convinced that her magic was not white but black as the demon at whose shrine she had learned it. Then he smiled and asked her pleasantly, whether indeed she employed hypnosis in her miraculous exhibitions.

But her eyes became more sombre still, and, "I don't care to talk about it," she said. "I have already said too much."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry into professional secrets – "

"I can't talk about it," she repeated. "… Please – my glass is quite empty."

When he had refilled it:

"How did you get away from Yian?" he asked.

"The Japanese."

"What luck!"

"Yes. One battle was fought at Buldak. The Hassanis and Blue Flags were terribly cut up. Then, outside the walls of Yian, Prince Sanang's Tchortcha infantry made a stand. He was there with his Yezidee horsemen, all in leather and silk armour with casques and corselets of black Indian steel.

"I could see them from the temple – saw the Japanese gunners open fire. The Tchortchas were blown to shreds in the blast of the Japanese guns… Sanang got away with some of his Yezidee horsemen."

"Where was that battle?"

"I told you, outside the walls of Yian."

"The newspapers never mentioned any such trouble in China," he said, suspiciously.

"Nobody knows about it except the Germans and the Japanese."

"Who is this Sanang?" he demanded.

"A Yezidee-Mongol. He is one of the Sheiks-el-Djebel – a servant of The Old Man of Mount Alamout."

"What is he?"

"A sorcerer – assassin."

"What!" exclaimed Cleves incredulously.

"Why, yes," she said, calmly. "Have you never heard of The Old Man of Mount Alamout?"

"Well, yes – "