IV
The Mandifers
Jager, bending, lifted the newspaper and then dropped it back. He said something that, for all his religiosity, might have been an oath.
“What’s the matter, sergeant?” demanded Lanark.
Jager’s brows were clamped in a tense frown, and his beard was actually trembling. “His face, sir. It’s terrible.”
“A wound?” asked Lanark, and lifted the paper in turn. He, too, let it fall back, and his exclamation of horror and amazement was unquestionably profane.
“There ain’t no wound on him, Lieutenant Lanark,” offered Suggs, pushing his wan, plump face to the forefront of the troopers. “We heard Newton yell—heard him from the top of the rock yonder.”
All eyes turned gingerly toward the promontory.
“That’s right, sir,” added Corporal Gray. “I’d just sent Newton up, to relieve Josserand.”
“You heard him yell,” prompted Lanark. “Go on, what happened?”
“I hailed him back,” said the corporal, “but he said nothing. So I climbed up—that north side’s the easiest to climb. Newton was standing at the top, standing straight up with his carbine at the ready. He must have been dead right then.”
“You mean, he was struck somehow as you watched?”
Gray shook his head. “No, sir. I think he was dead as he stood up. He didn’t move or speak, and when I touched him he sort of coiled down—like an empty coat falling off a clothesline.” Gray’s hand made a downward-floating gesture in illustration. “When I turned him over I saw his face, all twisted and scared-looking, like—like what the lieutenant has seen. And I sung out for Suggs and McSween to come up and help me bring him down.”
Lanark gazed at Newton’s body. “He was looking which way?”
“Over yonder, eastward.” Gray pointed unsteadily. “Like it might have been beyond the draw and them trees in it.”
Lanark and Jager peered into the waning light, that was now dusk. Jager mumbled what Lanark had already been thinking—that Newton had died without wounds, at or near the moment when the horned image had been shattered upon the cellar floor.
Lanark nodded, and dismissed several vague but disturbing inspirations. “You say he died standing up, Gray. Was he leaning on his gun?”
“No, sir. He stood on his two feet, and held his carbine at the ready. Sounds impossible, a dead man standing up like that, but that’s how it was.”
“Bring his blanket and cover him up,” said Lanark. “Put a guard over him, and we’ll bury him tomorrow. Don’t let any of the men look at his face. We’ve got to give him some kind of funeral.” He turned to Jager. “Have you a prayerbook, sergeant?”
Jager had fished out the Long Lost Friend volume. He was reading something aloud, as though it were a prayer: “… and be and remain with us on the water and upon the land,” he pattered out. “May the Eternal Godhead also—”
“Stop that heathen nonsense,” Lanark almost roared. “You’re supposed to be an example to the men, sergeant. Put that book away.”
Jager obeyed, his big face reproachful. “It was a spell against evil spirits,” he explained, and for a moment Lanark wished that he had waited for the end. He shrugged and issued further orders.
“I want all the lamps lighted in the house, and perhaps a fire out here in the yard,” he told the men. “We’ll keep guard both here and in that gulley to the east. If there is a mystery, we’ll solve it.”
“Pardon me, sir,” volunteered a well-bred voice, in which one felt rather than heard the tiny touch of foreign accent. “I can solve the mystery for you, though you may not thank me.”
Two men had come into view, were drawing up beside the little knot of troopers. How had they approached? Through the patroled brush of the ravine? Around the corner of the house? Nobody had seen them coming, and Lanark, at least, started violently. He glowered at this new enigma.
The man who had spoken paused at the foot of the porch steps, so that lamplight shone upon him through the open front door. He was skeleton-gaunt, in face and body, and even his bones were small. His eyes burned forth from deep pits in his narrow, high skull, and his clothing was that of a dandy of the forties. In his twig-like fingers he clasped bunches of herbs.
His companion stood to one side in the shadow, and could be seen only as a huge coarse lump of a man.
“I am Persil Mandifer,” the thin creature introduced himself. “I came here to gather from the gardens,” and he held out his handfuls of leaves and stalks. “You, sir, you are in command of these soldiers, are you not? Then know that you are trespassing.”
“The expediencies of war,” replied Lanark easily, for he had seen Suggs and Corporal Gray bring their carbines forward in their hands. “You’ll have to forgive our intrusion.”
A scornful mouth opened in the emaciated face, and a soft, superior chuckle made itself heard. “Oh, but this is not my estate. I am allowed here, yes—but it is not mine. The real Master—” The gaunt figure shrugged, and the voice paused for a moment. The bright eyes sought Newton’s body. “From what I see and what I heard as I came up to you, there has been trouble. You have transgressed somehow, and have begun to suffer.”
“To you Southerners, all Union soldiers are trespassers and transgressors,” suggested Lanark, but the other laughed and shook his fleshless white head.
“You misunderstand, I fear. I care nothing about this war, except that I am amused to see so many people killed. I bear no part in it. Of course, when I came to pluck herbs, and saw your sentry at the top of Fearful Rock—” Persil Mandifer eyed again the corpse of Newton. “There he lies, eh? It was my privilege and power to project a vision up to him in his loneliness that, I think, put an end to his part of this puerile strife.”
Lanark’s own face grew
