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But, as if in response to Herne’s appeal, he freed one hand momentarily, and pushed back the covering from his face. And in the dim light Herne looked, looked closely; then shut his eyes and sank back with an uncontrollable shudder.

“Merciful Heaven!” he said.

VIII

“Monty, I say! Monty!”

Again the gulf of years was bridged; again the voice he knew came down to him. Herne wrestled with himself, and opened his eyes.

The man in Arab dress was still kneeling by his side, the skeleton hands still supported him, but the face was veiled again.

He suppressed another violent shudder.

“In Heaven’s name,” he said, “what are you?”

“I am a dead man,” came the answer. “Don’t move! I will call your man in a moment, but I must speak to you first. Do you feel all right?”

“Bobby!” Herne said.

“No, I am not Bobby. He died, you know, ages ago. They cut him up and burned him. Don’t move. I have stopped the bleeding, but it will easily start again. Lean back–so! You needn’t look at me. You will never see me again. But if I hadn’t shown you–once, you would never have understood. Are you comfortable? Can you listen?”

“Bobby!” Herne said again.

He seemed incapable of anything but that one word, spoken over and over, as though trying to make himself believe the incredible.

“I am not Bobby,” the voice reiterated. “Put that out of your mind for ever! He belonged to another life, another world. Don’t you believe me? Must I show you–again? Do you really want to talk with me face to face?”

“Yes,” Herne said, with abrupt resolution. “I will see you–talk with you–as you are.”

There was a brief pause, and he braced himself to face, without blenching, the thing that a moment before, his soldier’s training notwithstanding, had turned him sick with horror. But he was spared the ordeal.

“There is no need,” said the familiar voice. “You have seen enough. I don’t want to haunt you, even though I am dead. What put it into your head to come in search of me? You must have known I should be long past any help from you.”

“I–wanted to know,” Herne said. He was feeling curiously helpless, as if, in truth, he were talking with a mummy. All the questions he desired to put remained unuttered. He was confronted with the impossible, and he was powerless to deal with it.

“What did you want to know? How I died? And when? It was a thousand years ago, when those damned Wandis swallowed up the Zambas. They took me first–by treachery. Then they wiped out the entire tribe. The poor devils were lost without me. I always knew they would be–but they made a gallant fight for it.” A thrill of feeling crept into the monotonous voice, a tinge of the old abounding pride, but it was gone on the instant, as if it had not been. “They slaughtered them all in the end,” came in level, dispassionate tones, “and, last of all, they killed me. It was a slow process, but very complete. I needn’t harrow your feelings. Only be quite sure I am dead! The thing that used to be my body was turned into an abomination that no sane creature could look upon without a shudder. And as for my soul, devils took possession, so that even the Wandis were afraid. They dare not touch me now. I have trampled them, I have tortured them, I have killed them. They fly from me like sheep. Yet, if I lead, they follow. They think, because I have conquered them, that I am invincible, invulnerable, immortal. They cringe before me as if I were a god. They would offer me human sacrifice if I would have it. I am their talisman, their mascot, their safeguard from defeat, their luck–a dead man, Herne, a dead man! Can’t you see the joke? Why don’t you laugh?”

Again the grim voice thrilled as if some fiendish mirth stirred it to life.