The Collected SF & Fantasy Works. Abraham Merritt

      He paused again and then, softly, with that curiously sweet, high voice that only the Irish seem to have, he sang:

      Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh;

       Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan,

       Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft,

       Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest, Eilidh.

      CHAPTER VIII

       OLAF’S STORY

       Table of Contents

      There was a little silence. I looked upon him with wonder. Clearly he was in deepest earnest. I know the psychology of the Gael is a curious one and that deep in all their hearts their ancient traditions and beliefs have strong and living roots. And I was both amused and touched.

      Here was this soldier, who had faced war and its ugly realities open-eyed and fearless, picking, indeed, the most dangerous branch of service for his own, a modern if ever there was one, appreciative of most unmystical Broadway, and yet soberly and earnestly attesting to his belief in banshee, in shadowy people of the woods, and phantom harpers! I wondered what he would think if he could see the Dweller and then, with a pang, that perhaps his superstitions might make him an easy prey.

      He shook his head half impatiently and ran a hand over his eyes; turned to me and grinned:

      “Don’t think I’m cracked, Professor,” he said. “I’m not. But it takes me that way now and then. It’s the Irish in me. And, believe it or not, I’m telling you the truth.”

      I looked eastward where the moon, now nearly a week past the full, was mounting.

      “You can’t make me see what you’ve seen, Lieutenant,” I laughed. “But you can make me hear. I’ve always wondered what kind of a noise a disembodied spirit could make without any vocal cords or breath or any other earthly sound-producing mechanism. How does the banshee sound?”

      O’Keefe looked at me seriously.

      “All right,” he said. “I’ll show you.” From deep down in his throat came first a low, weird sobbing that mounted steadily into a keening whose mournfulness made my skin creep. And then his hand shot out and gripped my shoulder, and I stiffened like stone in my chair — for from behind us, like an echo, and then taking up the cry, swelled a wail that seemed to hold within it a sublimation of the sorrows of centuries! It gathered itself into one heartbroken, sobbing note and died away! O’Keefe’s grip loosened, and he rose swiftly to his feet.

      “It’s all right, Professor,” he said. “It’s for me. It found me — all this way from Ireland.”

      Again the silence was rent by the cry. But now I had located it. It came from my room, and it could mean only one thing — Huldricksson had wakened.

      “Forget your banshee!” I gasped, and made a jump for the cabin.

      Out of the corner of my eye I noted a look of half-sheepish relief flit over O’Keefe’s face, and then he was beside me. Da Costa shouted an order from the wheel, the Cantonese ran up and took it from his hands and the little Portuguese pattered down toward us. My hand on the door, ready to throw it open, I stopped. What if the Dweller were within — what if we had been wrong and it was not dependent for its power upon that full flood of moon ray which Throckmartin had thought essential to draw it from the blue pool!

      From within, the sobbing wail began once more to rise. O’Keefe pushed me aside, threw open the door and crouched low within it. I saw an automatic flash dully in his hand; saw it cover the cabin from side to side, following the swift sweep of his eyes around it. Then he straightened and his face, turned toward the berth, was filled with wondering pity.

      Through the window streamed a shaft of the moonlight. It fell upon Huldricksson’s staring eyes; in them great tears slowly gathered and rolled down his cheeks; from his opened mouth came the woe-laden wailing. I ran to the port and drew the curtains. Da Costa snapped the lights.

      The Norseman’s dolorous crying stopped as abruptly as though cut. His gaze rolled toward us. And at one bound he broke through the leashes I had buckled round him and faced us, his eyes glaring, his yellow hair almost erect with the force of the rage visibly surging through him. Da Costa shrunk behind me. O’Keefe, coolly watchful, took a quick step that brought him in front of me.

      “Where do you take me?” said Huldricksson, and his voice was like the growl of a beast. “Where is my boat?”

      I touched O’Keefe gently and stood before the giant.

      “Listen, Olaf Huldricksson,” I said. “We take you to where the sparkling devil took your Helma and your Freda. We follow the sparkling devil that came down from the moon. Do you hear me?” I spoke slowly, distinctly, striving to pierce the mists that I knew swirled around the strained brain. And the words did pierce.

      He thrust out a shaking hand.

      “You say you follow?” he asked falteringly. “You know where to follow? Where it took my Helma and my little Freda?”

      “Just that, Olaf Huldricksson,” I answered. “Just that! I pledge you my life that I know.”

      Da Costa stepped forward. “He speaks true, Olaf. You go faster on the Suwarna than on the Br-rw-un’ilda, Olaf, yes.”

      The giant Norseman, still gripping my hand, looked at him. “I know you, Da Costa,” he muttered. “You are all right. Ja! You are a fair man. Where is the Brunhilda?”

      “She follow be’ind on a big rope, Olaf,” soothed the Portuguese. “Soon you see her. But now lie down an’ tell us, if you can, why you tie yourself to your wheel an’ what it is that happen, Olaf.”

      “If you’ll tell us how the sparkling devil came it will help us all when we get to where it is, Huldricksson,” I said.

      On O’Keefe’s face there was an expression of well-nigh ludicrous doubt and amazement. He glanced from one to the other. The giant shifted his own tense look from me to the Irishman. A gleam of approval lighted in his eyes. He loosed me, and gripped O’Keefe’s arm. “Staerk!” he said. “Ja — strong, and with a strong heart. A man — ja! He comes too — we shall need him — ja!”

      “I tell,” he muttered, and seated himself on the side of the bunk. “It was four nights ago. My Freda”— his voice shook —“Mine Yndling! She loved the moonlight. I was at the wheel and my Freda and my Helma they were behind me. The moon was behind us and the Brunhilda was like a swanboat sailing down with the moonlight sending her, ja.

      “I heard my Freda say: ‘I see a nisse coming down the track of the moon.’ And I hear her mother laugh, low, like a mother does when her Yndling dreams. I was happy — that night — with my Helma and my Freda, and the Brunhilda sailing like a swan-boat, ja. I heard the child say, ‘The nisse comes fast!’ And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a great scream — like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw —” He covered his eyes with his hands.

      The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a frightened dog.

      “I saw a white fire spring over the rail,” whispered Olaf Huldricksson. “It whirled round and round, and it shone like — like stars in a whirlwind mist. There was a noise in my ears. It sounded like bells — little bells, ja! Like the music you make when you run your finger round goblets. It made me sick and dizzy — the hell noise.

      “My Helma was — indeholde — what you say — in the middle of the white fire. She turned her face to me and she turned it on the child, and my Helma’s face burned into my heart. Because it was full of fear, and it was full of happiness — of glaede. I tell you that the fear in my Helma’s face made me ice here”— he beat his breast with clenched hand —“but the happiness