It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold soft
grasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands were
useless and he tore the onyx clasp from my coat and struck me full in the
face. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie's soft cry and her spirit fled: and
even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in
Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to
now. I could tell more, but I cannot see what help it will be to the world. As
for me, I am past human help or hope. As I lie here, writing, careless
even whether or not I die before I finish, I can see the doctor gathering
up his powders and phials with a vague gesture to the good priest beside
me, which I understand. They will be very curious to know the tragedy--they of the outside world
who write books and print millions of newspapers, but I shall write no
more, and the father confessor will seal my last words with the seal of
sanctity when his holy office is done. They of the outside world may send
their creatures into wrecked homes and death-smitten firesides, and their
newspapers will batten on blood and tears, but with me their spies must
halt before the confessional. They know that Tessie is dead and that I am
dying. They know how the people in the house, aroused by an infernal
scream, rushed into my room and found one living and two dead, but they
do not know what I shall tell them now; they do not know that the doctor
said as he pointed to a horrible decomposed heap on the floor--the livid
corpse of the watchman from the church: "I have no theory, no explanation. That man must have been dead for months!" I think I am dying. I wish the priest would--




THE DEMOISELLE D'YS

  "Mais je croy que je
  Suis descendu on puiz
  Ténébreux onquel disoit
  Heraclytus estre Vereté cachée." "There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I
know not:

"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the
way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid." I

The utter desolation of the scene began to have its effect; I sat down to
face the situation and, if possible, recall to mind some landmark which
might aid me in extricating myself from my present position. If I could
only find the ocean again all would be clear, for I knew one could see
the island of Groix from the cliffs. I laid down my gun, and kneeling behind a rock lighted a pipe. Then I
looked at my watch. It was nearly four o'clock. I might have wandered far
from Kerselec since daybreak. Standing the day before on the cliffs below Kerselec with Goulven,
looking out over the sombre moors among which I had now lost my way,
these downs had appeared to me level as a meadow, stretching to the
horizon, and although I knew how deceptive is distance, I could not
realize that what from Kerselec seemed to be mere grassy hollows were
great valleys covered with gorse and heather, and what looked like
scattered boulders were in reality enormous cliffs of granite. "It's a bad place for a stranger," old Goulven had said: "you'd better
take a guide;" and I had replied, "I shall not lose myself." Now I knew
that I had lost myself, as I sat there smoking, with the sea-wind blowing
in my face. On every side stretched the moorland, covered with flowering
gorse and heath and granite boulders. There was not a tree in sight, much
less a house. After a while, I picked up the gun, and turning my back on
the sun tramped on again. There was little use in following any of the brawling streams which every
now and then crossed my path, for, instead of flowing into the sea, they
ran inland to reedy pools in the hollows of the moors. I had followed
several, but they all led me to swamps or silent little ponds from which
the snipe rose peeping and wheeled away in an ecstasy of fright I began
to feel fatigued, and the gun galled my shoulder in spite of the double
pads. The sun sank lower and lower, shining level across yellow gorse and
the moorland pools. As I walked my own gigantic shadow led me on, seeming to lengthen at
every step. The gorse scraped against my leggings, crackled beneath my
feet, showering the brown earth with blossoms, and the brake bowed and
billowed along my path. From tufts of heath rabbits scurried away through
the bracken, and among the swamp grass I heard the wild duck's drowsy
quack. Once a fox stole across my path, and again, as I stooped to drink
at a hurrying rill, a heron flapped heavily from the reeds beside me. I
turned to look at the sun. It seemed to touch the edges of the plain. When at last I decided that it was useless to go on, and that I must make
up my mind to spend at least one night on the moors, I threw myself down
thoroughly fagged out. The evening sunlight slanted warm across my body,
but the sea-winds began to rise, and I felt a chill strike through me
from my wet shooting-boots. High overhead gulls were wheeling and tossing
like bits of white paper; from some distant marsh a solitary curlew
called. Little by little the sun sank into the plain, and the zenith
flushed with the after-glow. I watched the sky change from palest gold to
pink and then to smouldering fire. Clouds of midges danced above me, and
high in the calm air a bat dipped and soared. My eyelids began to droop. Then as I shook off the drowsiness a sudden crash among the bracken
roused me. I raised my eyes. A great bird hung quivering in the air above
my face. For an instant I stared, incapable of motion; then something
leaped past me in the ferns and the bird rose, wheeled, and pitched
headlong into the brake. I was on my feet in an instant peering through the gorse. There came the
sound of a struggle from a bunch of heather close by, and then all was
quiet. I stepped forward, my gun poised, but when I came to the heather
the gun fell under my arm again, and I stood motionless in silent
astonishment A dead hare lay on the ground, and on the hare stood a
magnificent falcon, one talon buried in the creature's neck, the other
planted firmly on its limp flank. But what astonished me, was not the
mere sight of a falcon sitting upon its prey. I had seen that more than
once. It was that the falcon was fitted with a sort of leash about both
talons, and from the leash hung a round bit of metal like a sleigh-bell. The bird turned its fierce yellow eyes on me, and then stooped and struck
its curved beak into the quarry. At the same instant hurried steps
sounded among the heather, and a girl sprang into the covert in front. Without a glance at me she walked up to the falcon, and passing her
gloved hand under its breast, raised it from the quarry. Then she deftly
slipped a small hood over the bird's head, and holding it out on her
gauntlet, stooped and picked up the hare. She passed a cord about the animal's legs and fastened the end of the
thong to her girdle.