And beyond it all, waking a hideous thought, the
monotonous beating of the distant tom-toms came incessantly across the
black plains on which a cloudy half-moon had set. "Walker--s'pose it's--the--the--curse o' Yig?" She could feel him tremble. "No, gal, I don't reckon he comes thataway. He's shapen like a man,
except ye look at him clost. That's what Chief Gray Eagle says. This
here's some varmints come in outen the cold--not crickets, I calc'late,
but summat like 'em. I'd orter git up and' stomp 'em out afore they
make much headway or git at the cupboard." He rose, felt for the lantern that hung within easy reach, and rattled
the tin match-box nailed to the wall beside it. Audrey sat up in bed
and watched the flare of the match grow into the steady glow of the
lantern. Then, as their eyes began to take in the whole of the room,
the crude rafters shook with the frenzy of their simultaneous shriek. For the flat, rocky floor, revealed in the new-born illumination, was
one seething brown-speckled mass of wriggling rattlesnakes, slithering
toward the fire, and even now turning their loathsome heads to menace
the fright-blasted lantern-bearer. It was only for an instant that Audrey saw the things. The reptiles
were of every size, of uncountable numbers, and apparently of several
varieties; and even as she looked, two or three of them reared their
heads as if to strike at Walker. She did not faint--it was Walker's
crash to the floor that extinguished the lantern and plunged her into
blackness. He had not screamed a second time--fright had paralyzed
him, and he fell as if shot by a silent arrow from no mortal's bow. To
Audrey the entire world seemed to whirl about fantastically, mingling
with the nightmare from which she had started. Voluntary motion of any sort was impossible, for will and the sense of
reality had left her. She fell back inertly on her pillow, hoping that
she would wake soon. No actual sense of what had happened penetrated
her mind for some time. Then, little by little, the suspicion that she
was really awake began to dawn on her; and she was convulsed with a
mounting blend of panic and grief which made her long to shriek out
despite the inhibiting spell which kept her mute. Walker was gone, and she had not been able to help him. He had died of
snakes, just as the old witch-woman had predicted when he was a little
boy. Poor Wolf had not been able to help, either--probably he had not
even awaked from his senile stupor. And now the crawling things must be
coming for her, writhing closer and closer every moment in the dark,
perhaps even now twining slipperily about the bed-posts and oozing up
over the coarse woolen blankets. Unconsciously she crept under the
clothes and trembled. It must be the curse of Yig. He had sent his monstrous children
on All-Hallows' Night, and they had taken Walker first. Why was
that--wasn't he innocent enough? Why not come straight for her--hadn't
she killed those little rattlers alone? Then she thought of the curse's
form as told by the Indians. She wouldn't be killed--just turned to a
spotted snake. Ugh! So she would be like those things she had glimpsed
on the floor--those things which Yig had sent to get her and enroll her
among their number! She tried to mumble a charm that Walker had taught
her, but found she could not utter a single sound. The noisy ticking of the alarm-clock sounded above the maddening beat
of the distant tom-toms. The snakes were taking a long time--did they
mean to delay on purpose to play on her nerves? Every now and then she
thought she felt a stealthy, insidious pressure on the bedclothes, but
each time it turned out to be only the automatic twitchings of her
overwrought nerves. The clock ticked on in the dark, and a change came
slowly over her thoughts. Those snakes _couldn't_ have taken so long! They couldn't be Yig's
messengers after all, but just natural rattlers that were nested below
the rock and had been drawn there by the fire. They weren't coming
for her, perhaps--perhaps they had sated themselves on poor Walker. Where were they now? Gone? Coiled by the fire? Still crawling over the
prone corpse of their victim? The clock ticked, and the distant drums
throbbed on. At the thought of her husband's body lying there in the pitch blackness
a thrill of purely physical horror passed over Audrey. That story of
Sally Compton's about the man back in Scott County! He, too, had been
bitten by a whole bunch of rattlesnakes, and what had happened to him? The poison had rotted the flesh and swelled the whole corpse, and in
the end the bloated thing had _burst_ horribly--burst horribly with a
detestable _popping_ noise. Was that what was happening to Walker down
there on the rock floor? Instinctively she felt that she had begun to
_listen_ for something too terrible even to name to herself. The clock ticked on, keeping a kind of mocking, sardonic time with
the far-off drumming that the night-wind brought. She wished it were
a striking clock, so that she could know how long this eldritch vigil
must last. She cursed the toughness of fiber that kept her from
fainting, and wondered what sort of relief the dawn could bring, after
all. Probably neighbors would pass--no doubt somebody would call--would
they find her still sane? Was she still sane now? Morbidly listening, Audrey all at once became aware of something
which she had to verify with every effort of her will before she
could believe it; and which, once verified, she did not know whether
to welcome or dread. _The distant beating of the Indian tom-toms had
ceased._ They had always maddened her--but had not Walker regarded them
as a bulwark against nameless evil from outside the universe? What were
some of those things he had repeated to her in whispers after talking
with Gray Eagle and the Wichita medicine-men? She did not relish this new and sudden silence, after all! There was
something sinister about it. The loud-ticking clock seemed abnormal in
its new loneliness. Capable at last of conscious motion, she shook the
covers from her face and looked into the darkness toward the window. It
must have cleared after the moon set, for she saw the square aperture
distinctly against the background of stars. Then without warning came that shocking, unutterable sound--ugh!--that
dull, putrid _pop_ of cleft skin and escaping poison in the dark. God!--Sally's story--that obscene stench, and this gnawing, clawing
silence! It was too much. The bonds of muteness snapped, and the black
night waxed reverberant with Audrey's screams of stark unbridled frenzy. Consciousness did not pass away with the shock. How merciful if only
it had! Amidst the echoes of her shrieking Audrey still saw the
star-sprinkled square of window ahead, and heard the doom-boding
ticking of that frightful clock. Did she hear another sound? Was
that square window still a perfect square? She was in no condition
to weigh the evidence of her senses or distinguish between fact and
hallucination.