Read Online The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes by Sterling E. Lanier - Free Book Online
Authors: Sterling E. Lanier
Tags: Short Stories; English
Ads: Link
men to see. You should know, for you have seen one!'
"I had sat spellbound while this rigmarole went on, and some of the disbelief must have shown in my eyes, because he spoke rather sharply all at once.
" 'What do you think the Watcher in the Sea was, the "animal" that seized you? If it had been anyone else in that car but myself—!'
"I nodded, because after recalling my experience on my swim, I was less ready to dismiss his story, and I had been in danger of forgetting my adventure. I apologized and he went on talking.
" 'The woman you spoke to was my father's much younger sister, a vain and arrogant woman of no brainpower at all. She lived a life in what is now thought of as society, in Stockholm, on a generous allowance from me, and I have never liked her. Somewhere, perhaps as a child, she learned more than she should about the family secret, which is ordinarily never revealed to our women.
" 'She wished me to marry and tried ceaselessly to entrap me with female idiots of good family whom she had selected.
" 'It is true that I must someday marry, but my aunt irritated me beyond measure, and I finally ordered her out of the house and told her that her allowance would cease if she did not stop troubling me. She was always using the place for house parties for her vapid friends, until I put a stop to it.
" 'I knew when I saw her body what she had done. She must have found out that the servants were away and that I would be gone for the day. She sent men from Stockholm. The local folk would not obey such an order from her, in my absence. She must have had duplicate keys, and she went in and down and had moved what she should never have seen, let alone touched. It was sacrilege, no less, and of a very real and dangerous kind. The fool thought the things she took held me to the house, I imagine.
" 'You see,' he went on, with more passion in his voice than I had previously heard. 'They are not responsible. They do not see things as we do. They regarded the moving of those things as the breaking of a trust, and they struck back. You appeared, because of the time element, to have some connection, and they struck at you. You do see what I mean, don't you?'
"His green eyes fixed themselves on me in an open appeal. He actually wanted sympathy for what, if his words were true, must be the damnedest set of beings this side of madness. And even odder, you know, he had got it. I had begun to make a twisted sense of what he said, and on that quiet evening in the big shadowed room, I seemed to feel an ancient and undying wrong, moreover one which badly needed putting right.
"He seemed to sense this and went on, more quietly.
" 'You know, I still need your help. Your silence later, but more immediate help now. Soon that lorry will be here and the things it took must be restored.
" 'I am not now sure if I can heal the breach. It will depend on the Others. If they believe me, all will go as before. If not—well, it was my family who kept the trust, but also who broke it. I will be in great danger, not only to my body but also to my soul. Their power is not all of the body.
" 'We have never known,' he went on softly, 'why they love this strip of coast. It is not used so far as we know, for any of their purposes, and they are subject to our emotions or desires in any case. But they do, and so the trust is honored.'
"He looked at his watch and murmured 'six o'clock.' He got up and went to the telephone, but as his hand met the receiver, we both heard something.
"It was a
"I had sat spellbound while this rigmarole went on, and some of the disbelief must have shown in my eyes, because he spoke rather sharply all at once.
" 'What do you think the Watcher in the Sea was, the "animal" that seized you? If it had been anyone else in that car but myself—!'
"I nodded, because after recalling my experience on my swim, I was less ready to dismiss his story, and I had been in danger of forgetting my adventure. I apologized and he went on talking.
" 'The woman you spoke to was my father's much younger sister, a vain and arrogant woman of no brainpower at all. She lived a life in what is now thought of as society, in Stockholm, on a generous allowance from me, and I have never liked her. Somewhere, perhaps as a child, she learned more than she should about the family secret, which is ordinarily never revealed to our women.
" 'She wished me to marry and tried ceaselessly to entrap me with female idiots of good family whom she had selected.
" 'It is true that I must someday marry, but my aunt irritated me beyond measure, and I finally ordered her out of the house and told her that her allowance would cease if she did not stop troubling me. She was always using the place for house parties for her vapid friends, until I put a stop to it.
" 'I knew when I saw her body what she had done. She must have found out that the servants were away and that I would be gone for the day. She sent men from Stockholm. The local folk would not obey such an order from her, in my absence. She must have had duplicate keys, and she went in and down and had moved what she should never have seen, let alone touched. It was sacrilege, no less, and of a very real and dangerous kind. The fool thought the things she took held me to the house, I imagine.
" 'You see,' he went on, with more passion in his voice than I had previously heard. 'They are not responsible. They do not see things as we do. They regarded the moving of those things as the breaking of a trust, and they struck back. You appeared, because of the time element, to have some connection, and they struck at you. You do see what I mean, don't you?'
"His green eyes fixed themselves on me in an open appeal. He actually wanted sympathy for what, if his words were true, must be the damnedest set of beings this side of madness. And even odder, you know, he had got it. I had begun to make a twisted sense of what he said, and on that quiet evening in the big shadowed room, I seemed to feel an ancient and undying wrong, moreover one which badly needed putting right.
"He seemed to sense this and went on, more quietly.
" 'You know, I still need your help. Your silence later, but more immediate help now. Soon that lorry will be here and the things it took must be restored.
" 'I am not now sure if I can heal the breach. It will depend on the Others. If they believe me, all will go as before. If not—well, it was my family who kept the trust, but also who broke it. I will be in great danger, not only to my body but also to my soul. Their power is not all of the body.
" 'We have never known,' he went on softly, 'why they love this strip of coast. It is not used so far as we know, for any of their purposes, and they are subject to our emotions or desires in any case. But they do, and so the trust is honored.'
"He looked at his watch and murmured 'six o'clock.' He got up and went to the telephone, but as his hand met the receiver, we both heard something.
"It was a
Similar Books
