He paused and stared before him. For an instant Dreeme thought that the piercing black eyes of the preacher threaded the heavy leaves of the bush behind which the young doctor lay and he tightened his muscles, preparing to spring forward at the first word. Burroughs made no gesture, however. His eyes reverted to the farmers before him. He was patently searching for new words, for further demonstration of his Manichean doctrine of an evil god controlling an evil world. Apparently he found the words for his neighing voice rose again in the stillness.
“We have been chosen out of all the people in this land for we are the children of our fathers. I am the child of my fathers and if you will read the withered records you will find that my name is not unknown among the disciples who followed the Master. I have lived and died many times. I have walked through many centuries. I have listened to the Voice in many lands and the Voice has told me many things. I carry the wisdom of the decades within me. I have told you these things before, in your houses, in the fields, in the dark places of the forest. You have listened to me. You are here. Together we shall discipline our wills until they become a part of the major Will that controls all things. We shall persecute our enemies in the darkness. We shall achieve our ends, our desires, through the malefic intensity of our wills. We shall dance at the full of the moon and sink into divine trances where we shall discover all things. The Past and the Future will become like open books to us. To reach this desirable plane we must murder the pale sick consciences, inheritances of the god of mist, that murmur weakly within us. We shall cleanse ourselves by charms and sacrifices.”
His voice changed to a deeper tone and he gazed significantly at the absorbed farmers.
“The one sin in our decalogue is weakness,” he said. “There was a man amongst us who was weak. He was shaken by qualms. Through his stupid brain crept the faint messages of conscience. He listened to a woman and became her willing tool. He drew into our secret circle a stranger, an obtuse fool from the outer world whose curiosity was like that of a gossiping woman. What became of that man?”
He glanced savagely about him.
“The will of the Master came into me,” he cried, “and I struck him down by the river. With my own hands I drove the pegs into the eyes that had seen too much!”
Dreeme heard Walden Slater’s suddenly indrawn breath.
“And the obtuse fool!” neighed Burroughs, “What about the obtuse fool?”
“Let him leave the valley,” said Jeffrey Westcott suddenly. “Let him leave the valley and forget us.”
“Too late!” cried Burroughs, still facing the farmers and paying no attention to Westcott. “He must not leave the valley. He must be buried in the valley.”
Dreeme’s mouth was a sharply drawn line. They would have to catch their bird first.
“The will of the Master is ruthless,” declared the preacher, stretching out a long skinny hand toward the silent group of farmers. The men mumbled and muttered among themselves. Dreeme could see that they were still crazed, that they were like men in a trance half-knowing what they were doing but without the power of asserting themselves. Both Westcott and Burroughs had these victims semi-mesmerized. They had ceased to be rational men but were fanatics oblivious of consequences and moved by a common spirit.
The insensible boy lying near the circle of lanterns moaned. He lifted a hand weakly and it fell with a wet thud to the dark trampled soil.
“Sacrifice!” he cried, “Sacrifice!”
The glittering-eyed farmers surged about the rock. They lifted up their hands to the night and bayed like lost hounds. Bidwell began to shake rapidly and then to perform an awkward dance before the Devil Stone. His eyes were closed. Suddenly Lacy lifted his snout up and laughed, a long high-pitched mad laugh that sounded like a scream. The white-haired Corey was clapping his hands together rhythmically. Neither Westcott nor Burroughs moved. They stood by the rock watching the insane farmers and once Dreeme thought he caught a significant glance that passed between the two men. It was impossible to tell how sincere these two leaders were, how much faith they placed in the crazy doctrine they enunciated. Dreeme was certain that Westcott was driven by his theory of the omnipotent will, that it had unhinged him, that one half of his brain was diseased, but Burroughs was different. He might just be a great charlatan, a born criminal who saw a way of controlling the community by urging it into crime. Ostensibly he was a minister of the gospel but inwardly he was a ferocious beast, a furious figure all the more to be feared because of his saintly mask so well worn in public. There was a bloodlust in him but whether or not this bloodlust was propped up by the knowledge that he was a direct descendant of the Salem witches was a mystery. Perhaps one would never know. As Dreeme watched the swaying madness of the farmers he recalled how, for two years, he had sat at a common table with the Reverend George Burroughs and given him no more attention than he had the back of the chair against which he had leaned. It was amazing, something that either gave proof of the preacher’s skill at self-concealment or his own stupidity as an observer. However, it was too late now to wonder at these things or to berate one’s self
