“That rat was tough, though. Think I’ll finish this digging and go back to my regiment in a day or two.”
* * * * *
“Heaven have mercy! I must be out of my head half the time now.
“I have absolutely no recollection of having written that last entry. And I feel feverish and weak.
“If I had my strength, I think I could finish clearing the entrance in a day or two. But I can only work a short time at a stretch.
“I am beginning to give up hope.”
* * * * *
“Wild spells come on me oftener now. I awake tired out from exertions, which I cannot remember.
“Bones of rats, picked clean, are scattered about, yet I do not remember eating them. In my lucid moments I don’t seem to be able to catch them, for they are too wary and I am too weak.
“I get some relief by chewing the candles, but I dare not eat them all. I am afraid of the dark, I am afraid of the rats, but worst of all is the hideous fear of myself.
“My mind is breaking down. I must escape soon, or I will be little better than a wild animal. Oh, God, send help! I am going mad!”
“Terror, desperation, despair--is this the end?”
* * * * *
“For a long time I have been resting.
“I have had a brilliant idea. Rest brings back strength. The longer a person rests the stronger they should get. I have been resting a long time now. Weeks or months, I don’t know which. So I must be very strong. I feel strong. My fever has left me. So listen! There is only a little dirt left in the entrance way. I am going out and crawl through it. Just like a mole. Right out into the sunlight. I feel much stronger than a mole. So this is the end of my little tale. A sad tale, but one with a happy ending. Sunlight! A very happy ending.”
* * * * *
And that was the end of the manuscript. There only remains to tell Fromwiller’s tale.
At first, I didn’t believe it. But now I do. I put it down, though, just as Fromwiller told it to me, and you can take it or leave it as you choose.
“Soon after we were billeted at Watou,” said Fromwiller, “I decided to go out and see Mount Kemmel. I had heard that things were rather gruesome out there, but I was really not prepared for the conditions that I found. I had seen unburied dead around Roulers and in the Argonne, but it had been almost two months since the fighting on Mount Kemmel and there were still many unburied dead. But there was another thing that I had never seen, and that was the _buried living_!
“As I came up to the highest point of the Mount, I was attracted by a movement of loose dirt on the edge of a huge shell hole. The dirt seemed to be falling in to a common center, as if the dirt below was being removed. As I watched, suddenly I was horrified to see a long, skinny human arm emerge from the ground.
“It disappeared, drawing back some of the earth with it. There was a movement of dirt over a larger area, and the arm reappeared, together with a man’s head and shoulders. He pulled himself up out of the very ground, as it seemed, shook the dirt from his body like a huge, gaunt dog, and stood erect. I never want to see such another creature!
“Hardly a strip of clothing was visible, and, what little there was, was so torn and dirty that it was impossible to tell what kind it had been. The skin was drawn tightly over the bones, and there was a vacant stare in the protruding eyes. It looked like a corpse that had lain in the grave a long time.
“This apparition looked directly at me, and yet did not appear to see me. He looked as if the light bothered him. I spoke, and a look of fear came over his face. He seemed filled with terror.
“I stepped toward him, shaking loose a piece of barbed wire which had caught in my puttees. Quick as a flash, he turned and started to run from me.
“For a second I was too astonished to move. Then I started to follow him. In a straight line he ran, looking neither to the right or left. Directly ahead of him was a deep and wide trench. He was running straight toward it. Suddenly it dawned on me that he did not see it.
“I called out, but it seemed to terrify him all the more, and with one last lunge he stepped into the trench and fell. I heard his body strike the other side of the trench and fell with a splash into the water at the bottom.
“I followed and looked down into the trench. There he lay, with his head bent back in such a position that I was sure his neck was broken. He was half in and half out of the water, and as I looked at him I could scarcely believe what I had seen. Surely he looked as if he had been dead as long as some of the other corpses, scattered over the hillside. I turned and left him as he was.
“Buried while living, I left him unburied when dead.”
_A Fantastic Story With An Odd Twist At The End_
Hark! The Rattle!
_By_ Joel Townsley Rogers
We sat in the Purple Lily--Tain Dirk, that far too handsome young man, with me.
I drank coffee; Tain Dirk drank liquor--secretly and alone. The night was drenched with sweating summer heat, but I felt cold as ice. Presently we went up to the Palm Grove Roof, where Bimi Tal was to dance.
“Who is this Bimi Tal, Hammer?” Dirk asked me, drumming his fingers.
“A woman.”
“You’re a queer one, Jerry Hammer!” said Dirk, narrowing his cold yellow eyes.
Still he drummed his blunt fingers. Sharp--_tat! tat! tat!_ Something deep inside me--my liver, perhaps--shivered and grew white at hearing that klirring sound.
I didn’t answer him right away. Slowly I sent up smoke rings to circle the huge stars. We sat in a cave of potted palms close by the dancing floor. Over us lay blue-black night, strange and deep. Yellow as roses were the splotches of stars swimming down the sky.
“It shows you’ve been away from New York, Dirk, if you don’t know Bimi Tal. She’s made herself more famous as a dancer than ever was Ynecita. Some mystery is supposed to hang about her; and these simple children of New York love mysteries.”
“I’ve been away three years,” said Dirk sulkily, his eyes contracting....
“That long? It was three years ago that Ynecita was killed.”
“Well?” asked Dirk. His finger-drumming droned away.
“I thought you might have known her, Dirk.”
“I?” His wide, thin lips twitched. “Why, Ynecita was common to half New York!”
“But once,” I said, “once, it may be assumed, she was true to one man only, Tain Dirk.”
“I’m not interested in women,” said Dirk.
That was like him. He drank liquor only--secretly and alone.
“I was interested in Ynecita, Dirk. We used to talk together--”
“She talked to you?” repeated Dirk.
“Strange how she died! No trace, no one arrested. Yet she’d had her lovers. Sometimes I think, Dirk, we’ll find the beast who killed Ynecita.”
Tain Dirk touched my wrist. His blunt fingers were cold and clammy. Incomprehensible that women had loved his hands! Yet they were artist’s hands, and could mold and chisel. Wet clay, his hands!
“What makes you say that, Hammer?”
I looked up at the stars. “It was a beast who killed Ynecita, Dirk. Some vile snake with blood as cold as this lemon ice. Those marks of teeth on her upper arm! Deep in, bringing blood! What madman killed that girl? _Mad_, I say!”
Dirk twisted. He wiped his brown forehead, on which sweat glistened in little beads like scales. “Too hot a night to talk about such things, Hammer. Let’s talk of something else. Tell me about this Bimi Tal.”
“You’ll see her soon enough,” I said, watching him. “A girl of about your own age; you’re not more than twenty-four, are you?”
“Born first of January, ’99.”
“And famous already!”
“Yes,” said Tain Dirk. “I guess you’ve heard of me.”
“Oh, I’ve heard lots of you,” I said; and saw he didn’t like it.
“You’ve heard I’m fast with women, eh?” asked Dirk, after a pause.
“But Ynecita--”
“Why do you talk of _her_?” asked Dirk, irritably. “I never knew her.”
“Those marks of teeth on Ynecita’s arm--two sharp canines, sharp and hooked; barely scratching the skin--like fangs of a snake, Dirk--”
Tain Dirk’s hand crept to his lips, which were thin, red, and dry. The light in his eyes darkened from yellow to purple. Softly his blunt fingers began to drum his lips. _Tat! tat! tat!_ But silent as a snake in grass.
“A curious thing about teeth, Dirk--you’re a sculptor; maybe you’ve observed it--a curious thing that no two are quite alike. We took prints, Dirk, of those marks in the arm of Ynecita--”
Dirk’s thin lips opened. His coarsely-formed, but marvelously sensitive, fingers felt the hardness of his teeth. That gesture was sly. At once he knew I’d seen him. He crouched back in his chair, his strong, broad head drawn in between his shoulders.
“Who are you?” he hissed.
Again the klirring of his fingertips--a dusty drumming.
“Why, I am only Jerry Hammer--a wanderer, and a soldier of bad fortune.”
“_Who are you!_”
“Brother of Stella Hammer, who was known as Ynecita, the dancer.”
Upon the Palm Grove Roof, beneath those gigantic stars the orchestra began to play. A brass and cymbal tune. The air was hot. From far in the pit of streets rose up the noises of the city. Loud! Discord shot with flames. I trembled.