III
The Image in the Cellar
Lanark, a young, serious-minded bachelor in an era when women swaddled themselves inches deep in fabric, had never seen such a sight before; and to his credit be it said that his first and strongest emotion was proper embarrassment for the girl in the stream. He had a momentary impulse to slip back and away. Then he remembered that he had ordered a patrol to explore this place; it would be here within moments.
Therefore he stepped into the open, wondering at the time, as well as later, if he did well.
“Miss,” he said gently. “Miss, you’d better put on your things. My men—”
She stared, squeaked in fear, dropped the mirror and stood motionless. Then she seemed to gather herself for flight. Lanark realized that the trees beyond her were thick and might hide enemies, that she was probably a resident of this rebel-inclined region and might be a decoy for such as himself. He whipped out his revolver, holding it at the ready but not pointing it.
“Don’t run,” he warned her sharply. “Are those your clothes beside you? Put them on at once.”
She caught up a dress of flowered calico and fairly flung it on over her head. His embarrassment subsided a little, and he came another pace or two into the open. She was pushing her feet—very small feet they were—into heelless shoes. Her hands quickly gathered up some underthings and wadded them into a bundle. She gazed at him apprehensively, questioningly. Her hastily-donned dress remained unfastened at the throat, and he could see the panicky stir of her heart in her half-bared bosom.
“I’m sorry,” he went on, “but I think you’d better come up to the house with me.”
“House?” she repeated fearfully, and her dark, wide eyes turned to look beyond him. Plainly she knew which house he meant. “You—live there?”
“I’m staying there at this time.”
“You—came for me?” Apparently she had expected someone to come.
But instead of answering, he put a question of his own. “To whom were you talking just now? I could hear you.”
“I—I said the words. The words my faith—” She broke off, wretchedly, and Lanark was forced to think how pretty she was in her confusion. “The words that Persil Mandifer told me to say.” Her eyes on his, she continued softly: “I came to meet the Nameless One. Are you the—Nameless One?”
“I am certainly not nameless,” he replied. “I am Lieutenant Lanark, of the Federal Army of the Frontier, at your service.” He bowed slightly, which made it more formal. “Now, come along with me.”
He took her by the wrist, which shook in his big left hand. Together they went back eastward through the ravine, in the direction of the house.
Before they reached it, she told him her name, and that the big natural pillar was called Fearful Rock. She also assured him that she knew nothing of Quantrill and his guerrillas; and a fourth item of news shook Lanark to his spurred heels, the first nonmilitary matter that had impressed him in more than a year.
An hour later, Lanark and Jager finished an interview with her in the parlor. They called Suggs, who conducted the young woman up to one of the bedrooms. Then lieutenant and sergeant faced each other. The light was dim, but each saw bafflement and uneasiness in the face of the other.
“Well?” challenged Lanark.
Jager produced a clasp-knife, opened it, and pared thoughtfully at a thumbnail. “I’ll take my oath,” he ventured, “that this Miss Enid Mandifer is telling the gospel truth.”
“Truth!” exploded Lanark scornfully. “Mountain-folk ignorance, I call it. Nobody believes in those devil-things these days.”
“Oh, yes, somebody does,” said Jager, mildly but definitely. “I do.” He put away his knife and fumbled within his blue army shirt. “Look here, Lieutenant.”
It was a small book he held out, little more than a pamphlet in size and thickness. On its cover of gray paper appeared the smudged woodcut of an owl against a full moon, and the title:
John George Hohman’s
Powwows
or
Long Lost Friend
“I got it when I was a young lad in Pennsylvania,” explained Jager, almost reverently. “Lots of Pennsylvania people carry this book, as I do.” He opened the little volume, and read from the back of the title page:
“ ‘Whosoever carries this book with him is safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible; and whoever has this book with him cannot die without the holy corpse of Jesus Christ, nor drown in any water nor burn up in any fire, nor can any unjust sentence be passed upon him.’ ”
Lanark put out his hand for the book, and Jager surrendered it, somewhat hesitantly. “I’ve heard of supposed witches in Pennsylvania,” said the officer. “Hexes, I believe they’re called. Is this a witch book?”
“No, sir. Nothing about black magic. See the cross on that page? It’s a protection against witches.”
“I thought that only Catholics used the cross,” said Lanark.
“No. Not only Catholics.”
“Hmm.” Lanark passed the thing back. “Superstition, I call it. Nevertheless, you speak this much truth: that girl is in earnest, she believes what she told us. Her father, or stepfather, or whoever he is, sent her up here on some ridiculous errand—perhaps a dangerous one.” He paused. “Or I may be misjudging her. It may be a clever scheme, Jager—a scheme to get a spy in among us.”
The sergeant’s big bearded head wagged negation. “No, sir. If she was telling a lie, it’d be a more believable one, wouldn’t it?” He opened his talisman book again. “If the lieutenant please, there’s a charm in here, against being shot or stabbed. It might be a good thing, seeing there’s a war going on—perhaps the lieutenant would like me to copy it out?”
“No, thanks.” Lanark drew forth his own charm against evil and nervousness, a leather case that contained cheroots. Jager, who had convictions against the use of tobacco, turned away disapprovingly as his superior bit off the end of a fragrant brown cylinder and kindled a match.
“Let me look at that what-do-you-call-it book again,” he requested, and for a second time Jager passed the little volume over, then saluted and retired.
Darkness was gathering early, what with the position of the house in the grassy hollow, and the pinnacle of Fearful Rock standing between it and the sinking sun to westward. Lanark called for Suggs to bring a candle, and, when the orderly obeyed, directed him to take some kind of supper upstairs to Enid Mandifer. Left alone, the young officer seated himself in a newly dusted armchair of massive dark wood, emitted a cloud of blue tobacco smoke, and opened the Long Lost Friend.
It had no publication date, but John George Hohman, the author, dated his preface from Berks County, Pennsylvania, on July 31, 1819. In the secondary preface filled with testimonials as to the success of Hohman’s miraculous cures, was included the pious ejaculation: “The Lord bless the beginning and the end of this little work, and be with us, that we may not misuse it, and thus commit a heavy sin!”
“Amen to that!” said Lanark to himself, quite soberly. Despite his assured remarks to Jager, he was somewhat repelled and nervous because of the things Enid Mandifer had told him.
Was there, then, potentiality for such supernatural evil in this enlightened Nineteenth Century, even in the pages of the book he held? He read further, and came upon a charm to be recited against violence and danger, perhaps the very one Jager had offered to copy for him. It began rather sonorously: “The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with me. Oh shot, stand still! In the name of the mighty prophets Agtion and Elias, and do not kill me. …”
Lanark remembered the name of Elias from his boyhood Sunday schooling, but Agtion’s identity, as a prophet or otherwise, escaped him. He resolved to ask Jager; and, as though the thought had acted as a summons, Jager came almost running into the room.
“Lieutenant, sir! Lieutenant!” he said hoarsely.
“Yes, Sergeant Jager?” Lanark rose, stared questioningly, and held out the book. Jager took it automatically, and as automatically stowed it inside his shirt.
“I can prove, sir, that there’s a real devil here,” he mouthed unsteadily.
“What?” demanded Lanark. “Do you realize what you’re saying, man? Explain yourself.”
“Come, sir,” Jager almost pleaded, and led the way into the kitchen. “It’s down in the cellar.”
From a little heap on a table he picked up a candle, and then opened a door full of darkness.
The stairs to the cellar were shaky to Lanark’s feet, and beneath him was solid black shadow, smelling strongly of damp earth. Jager, stamping heavily ahead, looked back and upward. That broad, bearded face, that had not lost its full-blooded flush in the hottest fighting at Pea Ridge, had grown so pallid as almost to give off sickly light. Lanark began to wonder if all this theatrical approach would not make the promised devil seem ridiculous, anticlimactic—the flutter of an owl, the scamper of a rat, or something of that sort.
“You have the candle, sergeant,” he reminded, and the echo of his voice momentarily startled him. “Strike a match, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” Jager had raised a knee to tighten his stripe-sided trousers. A snapping scrape, a burst of flame, and the candle glow illuminated them both. It revealed, too, the cellar, walled with stones but floored with clay. As they finished the descent, Lanark could feel the soft grittiness of that clay under his boot-soles. All around them lay rubbish—boxes, casks, stacks of broken pots and dishes, bundles of kindling.
“Here,” Jager was saying, “here is what I found.”
He walked around the foot of the stairs. Beneath the slope of the flight lay a long, narrow case, made of plain, heavy boards. It was unpainted and appeared ancient. As Jager lowered the light in his hand, Lanark saw that the joinings were secured with huge nails, apparently forged by hand. Such nails had been used in building the older sheds on his father’s Maryland estate. Now there was a creak of wooden protest as Jager pried up the loosened lid of the coffin-like box.
Inside lay something long and ruddy. Lanark saw a head and shoulders, and started violently. Jager spoke again:
“An image, sir. A heathen image.” The light made grotesque the sergeant’s face, one heavy half fully illumined, the other secret and lost in the black shadow. “Look at it.”
Lanark, too, stooped for a closer examination. The form was of human length, or rather more; but it was not finished, was neither divided into legs below nor extended into arms at the roughly shaped shoulders. The head, too, had been molded without features, though from either side, where the ears should have been it sprouted upcurved horns like a bison’s. Lanark felt a chill creep upon him, whence he knew not.
“It’s Satan’s own image,” Jager was mouthing deeply. “ ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image—’ ”
With one foot he turned the coffin-box upon its side. Lanark took a quick stride backward, just in time to prevent the ruddy form from dropping out upon his toes. A moment later, Jager had spurned the thing. It broke, with a crashing sound like crockery, and two more trampling kicks of the sergeant’s heavy boots smashed it to bits.
“Stop!” cried Lanark, too late. “Why did you break it? I wanted to have a good look at the thing.”
“But it is not good for men to look upon the devil’s works,” responded Jager, almost pontifically.
“Don’t advise me, sergeant,” said Lanark bleakly. “Remember that I am your officer, and that I don’t need instruction as to what I may look at.” He looked down at the fragments. “Hmm, the thing was hollow, and quite brittle. It seems to have been stuffed with straw—no, excelsior. Wood shavings, anyway.” He investigated the fluffy inner mass with a toe. “Hullo, there’s something inside of the stuff.”
“I wouldn’t touch it, sir,” warned Jager, but this time it was he who spoke too late. Lanark’s boot-toe had nudged the object into plain sight, and Lanark had put down his gauntleted left hand and picked it up.
“What is this?” he asked himself aloud. “Looks rather like some sort of strongbox—foreign, I’d say, and quite cold. Come on, Jager, we’ll go upstairs.”
In the kitchen, with a strong light from several candles, they examined the find quite closely. It was a dark oblong, like a small dispatch-case or, as Lanark had commented, a strongbox. Though as hard as iron, it was not iron, nor any metal either of them had ever known.
“How does it open?” was Lanark’s next question, turning the case over in his hands. “It doesn’t seem to have hinges on it. Is this the lid—or this?”
“I couldn’t say.” Jager peered, his eyes growing narrow with perplexity. “No hinges, as the lieutenant just said.”
“None visible, nor yet a lock.” Lanark thumped the box experimentally, and proved it hollow. Then he lifted it close to his ear and shook it. There was a faint rustle, as of papers loosely rolled or folded. “Perhaps,” the officer went on, “this separate slice isn’t a lid at all. There may be a spring to press, or something that slides back and lets another plate come loose.”
But Suggs was entering from the front of the house. “Lieutenant, sir! Something’s happened to Newton—he was watching on the rock. Will the lieutenant come? And Sergeant Jager, too.”
The suggestion of duty brought back the color and self-control that Jager had lost. “What’s happened to Newton?” he demanded at once, and hurried away with Suggs.
Lanark waited in the kitchen for only a moment. He wanted to leave the box, but did not want his troopers meddling with it. He spied, beside the heavy iron stove, a fireplace, and in its side the metal door to an old brick oven. He pulled that door open, thrust the box in, closed the door again, and followed Suggs and Jager.
They had gone out upon the front porch. There, with Corporal Gray and a blank-faced trooper on guard, lay the silent form of Newton, its face covered with a newspaper.
Almost every man of the gathered patrol knew a corpse when he saw one, and it took no second glance to know that Newton was quite dead.