The ARROW by NIGHT

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 288, 5 December 1932, Page 15

The ARROW by NIGHT

by LESLIE GARGILL

CHAPTER XII. Verenov did not answer for a time) and 1 Was surprised, to find my head nodding. In fact it was as much as I could do to keep my eyes open, which \vas hardly to be wondered at in view of "the way we had beeh badgered from pillar io post, sleepless and unresting for hour after hour.

A voice began to drone on but Ij was not really conscious of the import of the sentences until Verenov gave a short laugh. "You demonstrate your story now," ho said. , ■ I pulled myself together.. "What do you mo;in ?" "Well it is plain to sec that you cannot keep awake while 1 relate quite a long story. It would be better if you slept first. You would be poor helpers at the moment —and I have decided to trust you."

I looked at Helmuth, nodding owl-like in hi* chair, but trying hard to comprehend what waa being aaid. "Surely," he remarked, "wo have no time, to waste?" .."Nothing can be done during the (laylight, " Verenov assured us. "I suggest a little food —then bed. , ' It was a noble programme. I don't know whether I was more hungry than tired or more tired than hiingry. Anyhow we botlx tucked into a huge dish of eggs and bacon which Verenov prepared for ourselves, adding steaming coffee which, by the way, was good enough to earn praise from Helmuth, who thought it reminiscent of the brews he got at

home. So can men discuss -trivialities when there is desperate work to be done. . We chattered—somewhat sleepily—about thq merits of continental coffee and the horrore of English samples, and afterwards we were shown into a bedroonx where two single beds tempted us to lay aside all cares and troubles. /

How I slept. And how dreamier/sly. For hours I must have lain like a log; "dead to the world," tihe saying So well puts it, but not always with so much justification as on that warm summer day.

, The shadows were lengthevring towards sunset when I roused to find Helmuth already astir and jribilant because hot water and shaving utensils had been provided by our host, wrho Bad even taken the trouble to b/iish up our clothes, as well as he- coiild, while we made up for the sleepless; nburs endured during our country wanttei'inss.

After removing the -stubble and indulging in a thorough wash I felt a new man, ready for aaything—and incidentally prepared to; do justice to an other meal. .' We were net expeeted to carry on with empty stomachs, for Verenov had a npble repast ready for us downstairs. Again we showed him a, few . tricks in the art of putting away appetising food, and then, with pipes and cigarettes aglow w,e settled down to hear what our new friend had to say, with the list golden rays of lingering day flitting in Through tSe windows to remind i:e that before lfeg the adventure was to take' on a new, and, I sihcerely hoped, a final phase. • Plans to Rsscue.

;"The furnishing of Verenov's cottage was comfortable, with gay curtains and bowls of flowers, set here and there, telling of a woman's touch. Now that our host had dispensed with his firearm the scene became prosaic-*—even peaceful—so that it would have been possible to forget thfe forbidding defences that cut us off from inimical forces. But as the tale uftfolded we were taken right out of the ordinariness of the present and plunged

into matters so extraordinary as to chill us physically as we listened. Verenov sat" facing the window, his changing expressions telling of his own sincerity, whatever Helmuth and myself might think. From gold the evening turned to silver, Nature matching her mood what was being told—changing her summer mellowness for the coolness of the coming night.

Perhaps it was the changing temperature that made meshiVer now and again. Or it might have been the intensity of Verenov as he threw hie whole soul into some particularly pregnant sentence. It was full daylight when he began.

, Years ago, he began, I lived with my parents in Kharijni, a small Russian town, whefe hiy father enjoyed some comfort as a landowner of medium circumstances. That must have been thirty—yes; for,t!y yeare ago. Time hasnt worried me for long years now, and I do not care to calculate how long ago it was that I really knew happiness. Life was very. pleasant in those far-off days, with contented people round about, good friends, love and carefree living. In our little corner of great Russia the fret of St. Petersburg and Moscow did not penetmte. Rumours of uprisings and persecutions came to us sometimes, but we were, too far away and too quiet to be drawn into these affairs. Out , political problems were concerned more with seeing to the betterment of the people in the , ■immediate neighbourhood than to throwing off chains that bound far-off brothel-s. Siberia was only a name. I do not remember that anybody from Kliarijhi earned the disapproval of the authorities sufficiently keenly to cause banishment to the dreaded salt mines.

The police concerned themselves with evildoers, which is their business, and they Weie no more dreaded than" most men in uniform—not so much as the tax-gatherers, whose demands were sometimes hard at the instigation of officials far away. That was Russia as I knfcw it in my youth.

I tell you all this that you may know my upbringing was normal, and my expectations of happiness the right of a young man in my position. By tJie time I was twenty I was married, and my first baby, a son, came to bless the union. Paul was growing into a fine boy, and two girls—Sonia and Olga—made up the familv.

Paissia is a huge country. The wolf still roams the steppes, carrying off children and defenceless travellers when winter sharpens the hunger of the pack. And there was, many miles out in the great wastes, a monastery, said to be peopled with very holy men, whose vows of silence led them to shun their fellows. Even the reverend father of the Orthodox Church held them in high regard, though it was eaid that they did not subscribe to the true faith.

But even in Russia there was some toleration, and they were left to live their lives as they thought best. Sometimes they would come into Kharijni for food and stores —sombre men in red habits. You need not start in surprise, my friends. I am describing the garb of men dressed- exactly like those you have met with.

I think that the. order had been founded in faith, and the earlier brothers had meditated piously, until something very strange came over the later adherents. But of that I cannot tell, for evil as scarlet as the robe of the brotherhood, walked with them all, from the hooded abbot to the lowest grades who tilled the fields, and that before I came into contact with them.

Winter had been long and bitter that yeatj and the wolves had taken bigger toll than usual. My own darling Sonia disappeared, just as the snows were giving way before the warm south wind, which blows over the steppes in the Russian spring.

Everybody said it was useless making a search, although, like the good neighbours they were, they scoured tLe countryside for many miles around. Myself I could not rest content with that, but must saddle a horse and go farther afield, hoping that the child had survived after all. .

To my surprise there was no sign of wolves. Not once did I hear the howl that should have betrayed the presence of the animals, and the melting snow had no fresh gpoor. From the wooded parts foXes were venturing into the open —and the fox: keeps out of the way when the wolves are abroad.

During the night I slept at the hut of a charcoal burner, a strange man whose mind was unhinged. He babbled of dreadful things, but the hunting of wolves was not among them. Many times he crossed himself and turned to the ikon hanging on the wall, but there was no sense in anything he said.

Xot even when I knew things myself could I find reason in what the man had told me. His brain wae very childish, for which he mignt give thanks to his Creator, or he would long since have given up burning charcoal for the Scarlet Brotherhood —ae you, my friends, have named this organisation.

Despite the madness of the charcoal burner I began to have suspicions; not that they were one-hundredth part of the truth, for who could imagine such things as I was about to discover?

One thing was very clear, and that thing was the fear of the old man for the monks —a very remarkable circumstance when reverence would have been expected. And hie fear communicated itself to me until I wondered if they could have been concerned in the disappearance of my Sonia.

That might seem a strange conclusion to arrive at, and to understand it you must remember that Russia was a land of superstition, where all those not of the orthodox faith were often suspected Of all kinds of queer practices —a belief that was, I believe, fostered to some extent by the priests, who jealously guarded their own rights and customs.

I made up my mind that I would conduct my further investigations with the utmost caution, and as a vieit to the monastery was included in my plane I determined, that this should be made unknown to the residente, if that was at all possible.

For a whole day I stayed quietly with the charcoal burner, and after dark I rode on until I came to the place I sought, halting some way off and tying up the horse in the shelter of a convenient cluster of stunted trees euch as one finds in this dreary land.

How I got into the place Is a long story, and one I will not bother you with, except to eay that it was not so apparently impregnable as the building near here. Pious founders had no need to make their abode of peace a fortress, and succeeding generations had been for so long unmolested that there had been a certain amount of careleesness. Art old wall, with worn stones, was fairly easy for climbing, and after wandering round a little I found a place that euited my purpose and so made entry into the monastery.

Had I the time I could tell you much about that haunt of wickedness, and what I saw that night as I crept softly about, uneeen but seeing. I could tell you in detail how I found a peephole in the stained glass windows of the chapel, and how I looked down on rites that made me eick to my very soul to watch. You would not believe these things, or conceive them possible in this era of

supposed civilisation—not even possible of Russia, which you consider still in a barbarous state. So I will not detail them, except to say that they travestied the things that even the most depraved of men hold sacred.

I wae not an uncultured man, having read many books in Russian and in French, and I had an inkling of the meaning of what wae going on —but only the faintest glimmering. Of Sonia there was no sign, and from that day she disappeared from her home to this no trace of her was ever found.

But there was no trace or so many young villagers in those years, while I was holding my peace about what befell on that cold midnight. Would to God I had .tried to find help, instead of fearing that what I had to reveal would be laughed at and disbelieved! Sometimes I trembled at my own knowledge, and the knowledge that I gained by studying secrete that I had stumbled upon. Books had been written by learned men on that subject, and it frightened me to think that the world could hold even the thoughts of such wickedness.

Paul disappeared one summer day, at a time when the wolves could not possibly be blamed. He was the seventh child that year to wander out of mortal ken, and the villagers were growing terrorised, knowing not how to account for the misfortunes that caet a blight over the whole community.

It was then I went to the priest, a noble eoul and a true friend of all men, and he believed that I had seen a celebration of the Black Mass, believed that a great evil was upon us. And.he prayed. We both prayed for help and guidance, and after that we tried to rouse the authorities to action. But they laughed at us—laughed while my wife wae dying of grief over the disappearance of" her child. They laughed, I tell you. Laughed. I shall not forget that"as long ae I live, and from that moment I swore vengeance, asking that mine be the hands to end the wicked-

ii ass. My wife was dead, and Olga was sent away-rfar away—to friends, where she would be safely cared for. And I perfected my plana for dealing with the Scarlet Brotherhood. I went away from Ruseia,-into France, to study all there wae to be known of the vile cult, and while I was abroad the war came, to be followed By the revolution of 1017. At last I got back to Kharijni, to find that the monastery was no more. The tide of revolt had engulfed it in a redder wave than the crimson evil iteelf, although the spilled blood of war was cleaner than the blood it had washed out.

You must forgive me, my new friends, if I seem to become melodramatic. I cannot help beng carried away by my feelings. The Slav in me comes uppermost at these times, and your own eay ; ing is that if you scratch a Slav you find a Tartar.

I can tell you how I traced the brethren, who had fled to Finland, where they institued their hellish rites so thoroughly that they spread outside the sphere of the initiates and affected ordi; nary people.

Lately you will have read of terrible doings in Finland. Of black magic and bruesome superstitions which have given much concern to the authorities. They were revived by the Scarlet Brethren—■ you eee how I accept your name for them —although they, are innocuous compared with the full ritual of the Devil Worshippers.

Tracing the leaders of the cult was not an easy matter, and by the time I got on their track they had established themselves here in England, with elaborate camouflage to avoid exciting the smepicioiKS of the authorities. By what devilish means they got to know about me ie one of those mysteries that are part of this whole business, but suffice

it to say that they did acquire this knowledge. Also they were aware that my daughter, Olga, had joined me. Three nights ago the blow fell —Olga also disappeared, like her brother and sister. Until to-day I believed her dead, but now I know that there is still hope. To-night we attempt the rescue. (To be continued daily.)