The Place Called Dagon

enough to handle a man like that. One had but to keep an eye on him. That was all. And yet⁠ ⁠… Dreeme was not so sure. Westcott’s actions were unpredictable. The actions of any lunatic were unpredictable. He might be smiling and suave one minute and a ferocious beast the next. What had he desired with Deborah, for instance? In what way could she serve to strengthen that will that was apparently his only god? It was too much to believe that he desired her only as an aid to his wife in the farmhouse. In some way Deborah entered into his crazy scheme. Well, he would keep his eyes open and his wits sharpened. He would stand between Westcott and Deborah to the end of time. The end of time. That was a long period but it was not long enough for him to watch over Deborah.

His mind reverted to the interview with Westcott. It was funny. Why had the farmer shown so little rage at the idea of Martha Westcott’s meeting with him? Was Martha playing her game with the connivance of her husband? Dreeme was inclined to think that this was not so, that Westcott, sure of his power over his wife, let her run to the end of the rope which he held and then pulled her back when he thought she had gone far enough. Perhaps he practised his will upon her, forcing her to do the things which he did not want her to do only for the pleasure of stopping her when he felt like it. Dreeme turned in at his gate still brooding and was about to open his door when he heard the creak-creak of Walden Slater’s rocker. He would go around the house and see if he could engage the taciturn farmer in conversation.

Walden Slater sat slumped in his chair, a corncob pipe stuck at a crazy angle in his wide mouth. He was looking at the moon.

“It’s bright tonight,” remarked Dreeme, sinking down on the stair to the little back piazza.

Walden Slater grunted, removed his pipe, and rubbed his long upper lip with a huge hand.

“Aren’t you up late?” asked Dreeme.

“Uh-huh,” said the farmer.

“It must be about eleven o’clock,” continued Dreeme.

“Ten-thirty,” said the farmer. “I just heard the kitchen clock.”

“What’s wrong?” questioned the young doctor.

Walden Slater rocked slowly. Creak-creak. Creak-creak.

“I dunno’s there’s anything wrong,” he said mildly.

“Have they done anything about Wagner?” asked Dreeme.

Walden Slater squirmed about in his chair and put his pipe down on the floor.

“Took him to Leeminster,” he said ungraciously.

Dreeme laughed aloud. He said:

“You old curmudgeon!”

Walden Slater grinned with some difficulty and then remarked:

“I’m thinking.”

Dreeme rose to his feet, still smiling.

“This is a nice social neighborhood,” he said to the moon.

Walden Slater thrust his pipe back in his mouth and resumed his inspection of the great white globe that floated in the heavens above him. Dreeme turned the corner of the house slowly.

He didn’t feel sleepy. The night was too fine, too exhilarating. It was like a heady wine, some mystic vintage that ran through his body and sharpened every impulse, every wit. It was on a night like this that the imagination might spring hawk-like into the air and bring down fair and impossible prey. Dreeme wondered how far the mind might travel through the starry immensities above him, through the glittering star-fields unplowed by Time, before it reached⁠ ⁠… something. Humphrey Lathrop did not believe in the supernatural. He clung to the theory of the supernormal, of mysteries that might be explained as the intelligence of man lifted itself higher and higher and even of mysteries that might never be explained but which were yet felt in the intuitive senses as supernormal and not supernatural. Poor old Humphrey! The dear old frog swelling larger and larger! He sat in his cottage retired from Time and Lucinda squabbled about his frequent potations of applejack. He was happy, though. As happy as anybody could be who had long ago put ambition behind him and had not very much before him to expect.

Dreeme paused before his own door and half-put out a hand to turn the knob. The door was ajar. That was funny. He was sure he had closed it carefully when he started out for the burned mill. He stood looking at the door vacantly, his mind wheeling about elsewhere, wheeling through the enormous starry arc that revolved in the sky above him, wheeling through the cool and quiet expanse of the sleeping valley. Why should he go in and sleep when there was no sleep in his eyes? He was not tired. He would continue to walk until he was wearier than he was now. He turned from the door and retraced his steps along the path to the road. As he turned into the sandy stretch he heard the creak-creak of Walden Slater’s rocker. The farmer was thinking, doggedly following some faint light that glimmered before him. Poor Walden! Dreeme smiled to himself as he stood in the sandy road and listened to the faint protest of the rocking chair. He was beginning to pity everybody. Was this a testimony of his own exhilaration, a sign of his unsought superiority? He began to whistle softly some old tune that crept back into his consciousness. He didn’t know what it was but it seemed to fit the night.

The sound of the Slater front door softly opening caused him to turn his head. Who would dare to walk through that blank closed parlor stiff with its horsehair stuffed chairs and its lumpy sofa and its colored portraits of dead and vanished Slaters? He stood by the fence, his face turned toward the door and waited. A slender form came down the steps and along the path toward him. She walked slowly, almost with diffidence, and she did not speak until she was standing close beside him. He noticed that her dress was white, her party dress undoubtedly. The moon poured its silver light over her