“May I ask, sir, how I come to have the honour of being your host?” asked Faull sullenly. He thought that the evening was not proceeding as smoothly as he had anticipated.
The newcomer looked at him for a second, and then broke into a great, roaring guffaw. He thumped Faull on the back playfully—but the play was rather rough, for the victim was sent staggering against the wall before he could recover his balance.
“Good evening, my host!”
“And good evening to you too, my lad!” he went on, addressing the supernatural youth, who was now beginning to wander about the room, in apparent unconsciousness of his surroundings. “I have seen someone very like you before, I think.”
There was no response.
The intruder thrust his head almost up to the phantom’s face. “You have no right here, as you know.”
The shape looked back at him with a smile full of significance, which, however, no one could understand.
“Be careful what you are doing,” said Backhouse quickly.
“What’s the matter, spirit usher?”
“I don’t know who you are, but if you use physical violence toward that, as you seem inclined to do, the consequences may prove very unpleasant.”
“And without pleasure our evening would be spoiled, wouldn’t it, my little mercenary friend?”
Humour vanished from his face, like sunlight from a landscape, leaving it hard and rocky. Before anyone realised what he was doing, he encircled the soft, white neck of the materialised shape with his hairy hands and, with a double turn, twisted it completely round. A faint, unearthly shriek sounded, and the body fell in a heap to the floor. Its face was uppermost. The guests were unutterably shocked to observe that its expression had changed from the mysterious but fascinating smile to a vulgar, sordid, bestial grin, which cast a cold shadow of moral nastiness into every heart. The transformation was accompanied by a sickening stench of the graveyard.
The features faded rapidly away, the body lost its consistence, passing from the solid to the shadowy condition, and, before two minutes had elapsed, the spirit-form had entirely disappeared.
The short stranger turned and confronted the party, with a long, loud laugh, like nothing in nature.
The professor talked excitedly to Kent-Smith in low tones. Faull beckoned Backhouse behind a wing of scenery, and handed him his check without a word. The medium put it in his pocket, buttoned his coat, and walked out of the room. Lang followed him, in order to get a drink.
The stranger poked his face up into Maskull’s.
“Well, giant, what do you think of it all? Wouldn’t you like to see the land where this sort of fruit grows wild?”
“What sort of fruit?”
“That specimen goblin.”
Maskull waved him away with his huge hand. “Who are you, and how did you come here?”
“Call up your friend. Perhaps he may recognise me.” Nightspore had moved a chair to the fire, and was watching the embers with a set, fanatical expression.
“Let Krag come to me, if he wants me,” he said, in his strange voice.
“You see, he does know me,” uttered Krag, with a humorous look. Walking over to Nightspore, he put a hand on the back of his chair.
“Still the same old gnawing hunger?”
“What is doing these days?” demanded Nightspore disdainfully, without altering his attitude.
“Surtur has gone, and we are to follow him.”
“How do you two come to know each other, and of whom are you speaking?” asked Maskull, looking from one to the other in perplexity.
“Krag has something for us. Let us go outside,” replied Nightspore. He got up, and glanced over his shoulder. Maskull, following the direction of his eye, observed that the few remaining men were watching their little group attentively.
Chapter 2. IN THE STREET
The three men gathered in the street outside the house. The night was slightly frosty, but particularly clear, with an east wind blowing. The multitude of blazing stars caused the sky to appear like a vast scroll of hieroglyphic symbols. Maskull felt oddly excited; he had a sense that something extraordinary was about to happen. “What brought you to this house tonight, Krag, and what made you do what you did? How are we understand that apparition?”
“That must have been Crystalman’s expression on its face,” muttered Nightspore.
“We have discussed that, haven’t we, Maskull? Maskull is anxious to behold that rare fruit in its native wilds.”
Maskull looked at Krag carefully, trying to analyse his own feelings toward him. He was distinctly repelled by the man’s personality, yet side by side with this aversion a savage, living energy seemed to spring up in his heart that in some strange fashion was attributable to Krag.
“Why do you insist on this simile?” he asked.
“Because it is apropos. Nightspore’s quite right. That was Crystalman’s face, and we are going to Crystalman’s country.”
“And where is this mysterious country?”
“Tormance.”
“That’s a quaint name. But where is it?”
Krag grinned, showing his yellow teeth in the light of the street lamp.
“It is the residential suburb of Arcturus.”
“What is he talking about, Nightspore? … Do you mean the star of that name?” he went on, to Krag.
“Which you have in front of you at this very minute,” said Krag, pointing a thick finger toward the brightest star in the south-eastern sky. “There you see Arcturus, and Tormance is its one inhabited planet.”
Maskull looked at the heavy, gleaming star, and again at Krag. Then he pulled out a pipe, and began to fill it.
“You must have cultivated a new form of humour, Krag.”
“I am glad if I can amuse you, Maskull, if only for a few days.”
“I meant to ask you—how do you know my name?”
“It would be odd if I didn’t, seeing that I only came here on your account. As a matter of fact, Nightspore and I are old friends.”
Maskull paused with his suspended match. “You came here on my account?”
“Surely. On your account and Nightspore’s. We three are to be fellow travellers.”
Maskull now lit his pipe and puffed away coolly for a few moments.
“I’m sorry, Krag, but I must assume you are mad.”
Krag threw his head back, and gave a scraping laugh. “Am I mad, Nightspore?”
“Has Surtur gone to Tormance?” ejaculated Nightspore in a strangled voice, fixing his eyes on Krag’s face.
“Yes, and he requires that we follow him at once.”
Maskull’s heart began to beat strangely. It all sounded to him like a dream conversation.
“And since how long, Krag, have I been required to do things by a total stranger.