Chapter 14: A Death Trail

The way to Fool’s Acre was under a tangled canopy of thorns, under rotting windfalls of grey mirch, through tunnel after tunnel of fallen débris woven solidly by millions of strands of tough cat-briers which cut the flesh like barbed wire.

There was blood on Tressa, where her flannel shirt had been pierced in a score of places. Cleves and Selden had been painfully slashed.

Silent, thread-like streams flowed darkling under the tangled mass that roofed them. Sometimes they could move upright; more often they were bent double; and there were long stretches where they had to creep forward on hands and knees through sparse wild grasses, soft, rotten soil, or paths of sphagnum which cooled their feverish skin in velvety, icy depths.

At noon they rested and ate, lying prone under the matted roof of their tunnel.

Cleves and Selden had their rifles. Tressa lay like a slender boy, her brier-torn hands empty.

And, as she lay there, her husband made a sponge of a handful of sphagnum moss, and bathed her face and her arms, cleansing the dried blood from the skin, while the girl looked up at him out of grave, inscrutable eyes.

The sun hung low over the wilderness when they came to the woods of Fool’s Acre. They crept cautiously out of the briers, among ferns and open spots carpeted with pine needles and dead leaves which were beginning to burn ruddy gold under the level rays of the sun.

Lying flat behind an enormous oak, they remained listening for a while. Selden pointed through the woods, eastward, whispering that the house stood there not far away.

“Don’t you think we might risk the chance and use our rifles?” asked Cleves in a low voice.

“No. It is the Tchor-Dagh that confronts us. I wish to talk to Sansa,” she murmured.

A moment later Selden touched her arm.

“My God,” he breathed, “who is that!”

“It is Sansa,” said Tressa calmly, and sat up among the ferns. And the next instant Sansa stepped daintily out of the red sunlight and seated herself among them without a sound.

Nobody spoke. The newcomer glanced at Selden, smiled slightly, blushed, then caught a glimpse of Cleves where he lay in the brake, and a mischievous glimmer came into her slanting eyes.

“Did I not tell my lord truths?” she inquired in a demure whisper. “As surely as the sun is a dragon, and the flaming pearl burns between his claws, so surely burns the soul of Heart of Flame between thy guarding hands. There are as many words as there are demons, my lord, but it is written that Niaz is the greatest of all words save only the name of God.”

She laughed without any sound, sweetly malicious where she sat among the ferns.

“Heart of Flame,” she said to Tressa, “you called me and I made the effort.”

“Darling,” said Tressa in her thrilling voice, “the Yezidees are making living things out of dust, --as Sanang Noïane made that thing in the Temple ... And slew it before our eyes.”

“The Tchor-Dagh,” said Sansa calmly.

“The Tchor-Dagh,” whispered Tressa.

Sansa’s smooth little hands crept up to the collar of her odd, blue tunic; grasped it.

“In the name of God the Merciful,” she said without a tremor, “listen to me, Heart of Flame, and may my soul be ransom for yours!”

“I hear you, Sansa.”

Sansa said, her fingers still grasping the embroidered collar of her tunic:

“Yonder, behind walls, two Tower Chiefs meddle with the Tchor-Dagh, making living things out of the senseless dust they scrape from the garden.”

Selden moistened his dry lips. Sansa said:

“The Yezidees who have come into this wilderness are Arrak Sou-Sou, the Squirrel; and Tiyang Khan ... May God remember them in Hell!”

“May God remember them,” said Tressa mechanically.

“And these two Yezidee Sorcerers,” continued Sansa coolly, “have advanced thus far in the Tchor-Dagh; for they now roam these woods, digging like demons, for the roots of Ginseng; and thou knowest, O Heart of Flame, what that indicates.”

“Does Ginseng grow in these woods!” exclaimed Tressa with a new terror in her widening eyes.

“Ginseng grows here, little Rose-Heart, and the roots are as perfect as human bodies. And Tiyang Khan squats in the walled garden moulding the Ginseng roots in his unclean hands, while Sou-Sou the Squirrel scratches among the dead leaves of the woods for roots as perfect as a naked human body.

“All day long the Sou-Sou rummages among the trees; all day long Tiyang pats and rubs and moulds the Ginseng roots in his skinny fingers. It is the Tchor-Dagh, Heart of Flame. And these Sorcerers must be destroyed.”

“Are their bodies here?”

“Arrak is in the body. And thus it shall be accomplished: listen attentively, Rose Heart Afire!--I shall remain here with--” she looked at Selden and flushed a trifle, “--with you, my lord. And when the Squirrel comes a-digging, so shall my lord slay him with a bullet ... And when I hear his soul bidding his body farewell, then I shall make prisoner his soul ... And send it to the Dark Star ... And the rest shall be in the hands of Allah.”

She turned to Tressa and caught her hands in both of her own:

“It is written on the Iron Pages,” she whispered, “that we belong to Erlik and we return to him. But in the Book of Gold it is written otherwise: ‘God preserve us from Satan who was stoned!’ ... Therefore, in the name of Allah! Now then, Heart of Flame, do your duty!”

A burning flush leaped over Tressa’s features.

“Is my soul, then, my own!”

“It belongs to God,” said Sansa gravely.

“And--Sanang?”

“God is greatest.”

“But--was God there--at the Lake of the Ghosts?”

“God is everywhere. It is so written in the Book of Gold,” replied Sansa, pressing her hands tenderly.

“Recite the Fatha, Heart of Flame. Thy lips shall not stiffen; God listens.”

Tressa rose in the sunset glory and stood as though dazed, and all crimsoned in the last fiery bars of the declining sun.

Cleves also rose.

Sansa laughed noiselessly: “My lord would go whither thou goest, Heart of Fire!” she whispered. “And thy ways shall be his ways!”

Tressa’s cheeks flamed and she turned and looked at Cleves.

Then Sansa rose and laid a hand on Tressa’s arm and on her husband’s:

“Listen attentively. Tiyang Khan must be destroyed. The signal sounds when my lord’s rifle-shot makes a loud noise here among these trees.”

“Can I prevail against the Tchor-Dagh?” asked Tressa, steadily.

“Is not that event already in God’s hands, darling?” said Sansa softly. She smiled and resumed her seat beside Selden, amid the drooping fern fronds.