I

The twisting path through Briony Wood had never been traveled at such a speedy pace before. Walden Slater, carrying Deborah in his arms much as he might carry a small baby, maintained his dog-trot over the hummocky path, through puddles, across deceptive roots. As Dreeme, close behind him, running, too, in his bare feet, observed the square back of the farmer, a back against which the water-soaked shirt clung tightly and so revealed the contours of the great sliding back-muscles much as a skin might, a feeling of wonder and intense indebtedness crept over him. He had never known Walden Slater but now he knew him, knew him for a determined and relentless machine bent on justice. He had seen him in previous years bowed by the killing toil of his stony acres, eating gluttonously at table, sagging in his creaking rocker on the back porch, always silent, always (now that he came to think of it) self-contained. The young doctor’s mind swept back over the past few days. Walden Slater eating cabbage. Walden Slater rocking in the darkness. Walden Slater finding words with difficulty, announcing that Deborah might stay with him as long as she pleased. Dreeme knew now that this statement was a secret challenge to Westcott and Burroughs. Walden Slater whittling on the back porch, asking the preacher for a knife. The knife was dull. How easily he had achieved this bit of detective acumen. Walden Slater thinking, reaching conclusions in that slow dogged mind that was, after all, so far from stupidity. Walden Slater watching night after night, keeping guard under the bright moon. Walden Slater like an enormous hound on the scent. Walden Slater rising like justice with the smoking gun in his hand. The figure of the farmer grew to colossal dimensions in the young doctor’s estimation.

All this while they were hurrying through Briony Wood, hurrying through trees that were no longer malevolent spectres of a diseased fancy but merely slender birches and pines. Though the branches whipped across his face, though he stumbled into muddy hollows, though sharp thorns tore at his soiled and soaking garments, Dreeme no longer experienced that instinctive fear that had haunted him so short a time before. His body was emptied of fright. It was almost emptied of exertion as well for a growing hollowness within him, a tightening at the pit of his stomach, a painful numbness in his legs informed him that he was approaching the end of his endurance. Still, an implacable nervous energy pushed him forward, a febrile comprehension of one more important thing to be done. He knew what it was but he did not permit his mind to dwell upon it too fiercely. After all, what had he to do with the peculiar ideas of justice in the valley. He had seen what could be accomplished by established authority during the day following the murder of Wagner. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There had been evasion, then, a deliberate slowness, a maddening deflection of proper proceedings. But this time it would be different. Justice would secure its own and would even the balance. He hurried on at the heels of Walden Slater serious but determined. He could see the loose hair of Deborah resting against the stout shoulder of the farmer and the sight of it filled him with a vast pity. It would be justice accomplished for her sake so far as he was concerned. She, the innocent victim, would be furiously avenged. Walden Slater might have the future of the whole valley in his thoughts, its complete release from an evil domination, but the safety of Deborah was enough for him to think about. There was only one way in which to fight madness.

They were at the height of Briony Wood now and the soughing wind was a cold lance against their faces. It was remarkable how swiftly they had proceeded on their return journey. The way to Dagon had seemed much longer. As they pressed forward the heavens seemed to split apart like two halves of a dark shell and out of the break sprang the moon like a great white seed. A milky light flooded the black shining leaves and the tall thin tree-trunks. It was like a miracle, a glittering phenomenon that translated the dripping environment into a place of mingled silver and tossed diamonds. There had been a moon like this when he had held Deborah’s slight figure close against him and understood that she was an absolute part of his life. He had walked home that night from Humphrey Lathrop’s cottage and phantoms had walked on either side of him. One of them had said: “I had a very good lawyer, Mr. Stopes.” He had forgotten what the other phantom said. It did not exist any longer. It had been a world of glittering jewelry. It was marvelous, the way in which the earth changed. It was the slave of imagination, the willing Genie that brought whatsoever the dreamer desired. Though he was surrounded by trees and following a path that permitted no view of the country on either side he yet experienced the sensation that he was on a sort of Mount of Vision, that everything was being made clear to him here without words, that the answers to all he had been asking were in the sparkling moonlight and among the dark wet green leaves of the trees. He felt immeasurably grown in spiritual dimensions, enlarged so that he might contain all the love and wonder that abounded in the world. The uneven stones cut his feet but he was oblivious of them. Malicious branches lashed across his face like small whips but he laughed to himself as he thrust them aside. It was all right now.

The path turned and slanted downward and he understood that they were on the final stretch that led into Jeffrey Westcott’s land. The name sprang back into his intelligence ominously and his lips tightened at the thought. There was still justice to be accomplished. Glancing back, he wondered vaguely what had become of the score of farmers who had gathered about the Devil Stone in that hollow which he should never see again. What justice could there be for those deluded men? He strove to remember what had actually happened but all he could recollect was the report of a gun, the log-like fall of Burroughs, and his own mad rush when he had snatched Deborah up from the stone and darted into the bushes with her. A vague idea of scattered running forms lingered in the back of his consciousness but he could not verify it by any reasoning. Had those men fled into the swamp or were they now slowly returning along the path which Walden Slater and he had followed? Were they, even now, lurking among the trees to the rearward of him, watching him with fanatic eyes, planning among themselves some secret onslaught? He could not tell and he did not care. He knew that the head of the serpent had been crushed in the Reverend George Burroughs and that the heart of the serpent would be stilled when justice was accomplished on Jeffrey Westcott. After that, the blind body could do what it desired. He understood that the frenzied farmers had been controlled by a malicious power of will and that when that will was destroyed there would be, as Walden Slater had said, “Nothing to fight about.” Comforted by this thought, he plodded on, Walden Slater’s dog-trot having dwindled to a fast walk on the downward grade.

The last stretch of woods passed swiftly and as the path turned and they faced the thinning trees Dreeme became aware of a reddish glow that lit up the heavens before him. It was not the light of the moon for that great white miracle hung directly above his head in the wide cleft of the split storm-cloud. It was something else, something that glowed upward from the ground, and as they burst through the final fringe of bushes into Westcott’s back meadow, he saw that the mysterious farm-house was a mass of high leaping flames. At the same instant Walden Slater started forward in a run and the young doctor, accelerating his pace, followed closely at his heels. As he ran his mind automatically snapped back to a lighted lamp with a protector and a flying end of curtain that ever blew closer and closer to that lamp. Had they put that lamp out? He knew that they had done nothing of the sort, that, in their hurry, they had left it burning just as they had left the window open regardless of the wind that puffed the curtain inward. His first thought was one of relief that the farm-house, a hive of malevolence, was burning up with its books, its sacrilegious altar, and its memories. The lair of the serpent was destroyed. Then he remembered the purpose that brought them back here. Where would Jeffrey Westcott be? Would he hide in the swamp while his years of evil knowledge went up in thick smoke and spurting flame? Walden Slater shifted Deborah from one shoulder to the other and ran all the faster.

II

A few men and women were gathered about the Westcott farm-house, gazing helplessly at the flame that thrust sudden tongues of fierce yellow through the shattered windows. Mrs. Slater, among them, moved, a small fluttering-eyed plump woman, back and forth, gesticulating but saying nothing. Her mouth opened and shut, a round black hole in the light of conflagration, but no sounds issued forth. In the first place, she could find nobody with whom to converse. There was Lucinda, sitting awkwardly in Humphrey Lathrop’s old buggy, holding the somewhat startled horse tight-reined, as she watched the burning house, but Lucinda was speechless. She had nothing to say and she conveyed this to Mrs. Slater by a cold vinegary downward stare whenever the plump little woman wandered near the buggy. She was there to observe and then to report to Humphrey Lathrop who sat at home, a helpless mountain, waiting eagerly for news. As Dreeme and Walden Slater circled the house and came out on the Leeminster Road below it Mrs. Slater ran toward them.

“Where in the land’s sake....” she began.

Walden Slater silenced her with a look.

He brushed by her speechless and she followed in his wake, a small fluttering-eyed creature. Behind them came Dreeme, unshaven, mud-splashed, soaked, bare-footed. The farmer walked directly to Humphrey Lathrop’s buggy.

“Get out, Lucinda,” he said.

Lucinda turned her thin face down at him in wrathful amazement. She opened her mouth to retort and then she saw the senseless form of Deborah. Without a word she climbed from the buggy and, turning, lifted a rug to draw over Deborah as the farmer deposited her in the seat.

“I’ll drive her down to Humphrey’s,” said Lathrop’s housekeeper.

“Will she be safe?” interposed Dreeme hastily. He had visions of men leaping out from the side of the road. “Perhaps I’d ...”

“She’ll be safe,” snapped Lucinda.

Without another word she climbed back into the buggy, picked up the reins, clucked to the horse, and the revolving wheels grated on the road. Dreeme stood watching the retreating carriage dubiously until he felt Walden Slater touch him on the arm. He turned with the farmer and they walked up the road toward the burning house.

“What time?” said Slater laconically to the group of watchers.

“’Bout two-thirty,” answered one of the men.

“What time is it now?” questioned the farmer.

“’Bout three,” the man returned.

Dreeme turned with Slater and watched the fire.

The flames, darting out of the windows, licked upward against the walls and the white paint sweated and bubbled in the fierce heat. A low roaring like the roaring in a wood-furnace reached the ears of the watchers. It was obviously too late to do anything. The entire interior of the farm-house was burning. Dreeme could imagine the books in the library blackening in the smoke, their pages flaming along the edges and then spurting up furiously as the tomes tumbled forward to the floor. Small fiends screamed in the heat of those books. The wax figures were melting, running into mere blobs, then vanishing as the fire ate them up. The table at which Westcott had studied night after night was festooned with a dazzling magic. Even the window through which Martha Westcott had gazed was ringed with a bright frame of splendor. Low crashes reached the ears of the helpless watchers as objects within the cauldron of the building fell before the buffets of victorious flame. The wind blew; the flames darted up to heaven; a bellying scarlet-hued balloon of heavy smoke seemed attached to the house by ropes of yellow flame. It tugged at the dwelling, strove to lift it upward with an enormous strength. The house groaned and cracked. The rumbling of destruction continued within the white blistered walls.

It seemed as though any minute the house would be torn from its foundations and lifted high in the air leaving beneath it a flickering-tongued bonfire, a bonfire gigantic in size and unbearable in heat. The long ell of the kitchen was a mass of ochre flame now, a dancing madness against the darkness of the sky. Showers of sparks shot upward, dipped, and veered downward again like fire-works. With a rumbling crash the roof of the kitchen fell in and the detonation of the collapse was like a discharge of cannon in Dreeme’s ears. These old houses burned quickly. Time had seasoned the wood for destruction, dried it out, honeycombed it with the tiny tunnels of wood-borers so that the bright spirit of destruction might dart along it. It was all going now, chairs, tables, wax flowers beneath glass, family portraits. The spirit of things was turning all this into a heap of smoking débris, of blackened jagged beams and heaps of fuming ashes. Dreeme stood in the glare of the flame beside Walden Slater and his face burned with the heat. His few garments smoked and dried. His skin seemed crawling and parched. He felt as though he were watching the fires of Tophet. He glanced about him at the group of sober-faced observers and suddenly caught his breath in his throat. Leaning sideways he struck his hand against Walden Slater’s arm and when the farmer turned his slow eyes toward him he indicated an eddying knot of men some distance from the conflagration. The farmer studied them with narrowed lids but said nothing. Then, with the utmost calm, he resumed his attention of the burning house. He seemed to be watching the second-floor windows, windows through which wisps of curling smoke projected like lost snakes. Dreeme was faintly astonished at his lack of interest in the men toward whom he had directed Walden Slater’s attention. For his own part, he continued to keep a watch on them, observing them sideways through the corners of his eyes.

These men were not so far away but what he could recognize them. They were muddy and distracted in demeanor, uncertain of themselves, self-conscious of their presence in the light of the burning building. They clung together as though for common strength. In the center of the small group Dreeme could see the lanky figure of Bidwell and beside him was the white-haired Corey. Threading the clustered group, talking first to one man and then to another, was Lacy, his carbuncular nose glowing in the fierce light of the flames. How they had emerged on the road, whether they had followed along the narrow path from Nigger Swamp or found some secret passage directly across the sunken marsh were mysteries to Dreeme. He did not care greatly how they had reached this spot. The main thing was that they were here, that they dared show themselves in public. He wondered if others in that mad group had followed Lathrop’s buggy to town and this conjecture aroused an angry fear in him. He stared boldly at the group and scowled. These men were equally aware of him and Walden Slater for they persisted in glancing toward them as they continued their nervous conversation. Once Bidwell gesticulated openly toward the young doctor. They were strong men, broad-shouldered, browned by changing seasons, hard-sinewed and tight-lipped. Still Dreeme felt no fear, nothing but a righteous fury. A loud crash before him diverted his attention to the farm-house. The right wall of the kitchen had fallen in. When, after observing the shower of flame and sparks, he resumed his observation of the self-conscious knot of men the white-haired Corey was walking slowly toward him. The grave old man continued his approach until he was within a yard of Dreeme and then he turned and surveyed the fire. The young doctor, trembling at the nearness of this man whom he had seen so shortly before in the grasp of a mystic delirium, said nothing although a flood of recriminatory words rose in his throat and quivered on his lips. He thought it peculiar that Walden Slater made no gesture of recognition, that he stood so easily with his attention apparently confined to the blazing building before him. Corey moved a single step sideways toward Dreeme and still keeping his eyes directed before him began to speak. He said:

“Doctor Dreeme, after a great madness comes a great sanity.”

Walden Slater, beside the young doctor, was listening, too, although his expressionless face did not shift from its steadfast inspection of the burning farm-house. Dreeme made no answer to Corey. The old farmer spoke again. He said:

“You have evidently seen what you have seen. You can never see it again.”

He extended one hand as though he were discussing the fire. At a distance the little knot of farmers observed them fixedly. Corey said:

“There are no explanations. The chain is broken. I am an old man, Doctor Dreeme, and I know what I am talking about. I am speaking for a score of men who were lost and who, through a great shock, have found themselves. I cannot tell you what dominated us but the domination has ceased. The valley is cleansed. We are cleansed. We ask for silence.”

There was something behind his words that impressed Dreeme. He opened his mouth to speak but Walden Slater forestalled him. The farmer said:

“We lost our tongues in Nigger Swamp.”

Corey observed the fire fiercely.

“What’s done is done,” added Slater mildly.

“Let what’s done rot with the body by the stone,” said Corey softly.

After a moment he withdrew quietly and a second later Dreeme saw him back among the little knot of perturbed men. There was a brief conversation and then calm blank faces resumed their observation of the flame-wreathed Westcott farm-house.

“What does this mean?” inquired Dreeme of Walden Slater.

The farmer shifted his feet.

“It means what it means,” he said. “Let that be enough for you, Doctor.”

Dreeme wondered if it meant no retribution for these men who were willing to connive at the destruction of a human being. He opened his mouth to say something to this effect when the farmer snatched at him. At the same time an exclamation of mingled surprise and horror rose from the group of people in the road. Dreeme turned hastily toward the burning house.

In one of the upper windows through which the thin snakes of curling smoke had crept stood a man. There was flame in that window now and he was silhouetted against the bright flare. He seemed just about to leap for one foot was on the sill of the window and one heavy arm was raised against the side of the house. Dreeme saw the fierce light play over a cloven skull and lowered forehead. He saw, in the man’s other hand, a black book clutched tightly. All this he saw in an instant for even as he looked the window-sill seemed to cave inward to crumbling fire and the figure, black against the light, fell backward, one hand snatching desperately at the air. The next instant a great puff of flame surged through the vacant window. There was nothing there, nothing but a roaring cauldron that devoured its own. The destroyed building seemed to emit a great sigh of relief, a hoarse gasp that soared upward and spread out over Marlborough. Dreeme imagined that sigh of relief permeating the air as far as Leeminster, sweeping through the moonlit heavens and driving the intangible mists of mystery before it, cleansing the valley of an old horror. He even pictured a calmness and relief on the attentive and wide-eyed faces that watched, as he did, this instantaneous tragedy. There seemed to be nothing left to say, nothing to do but watch or go home. Walden Slater, after his first instinctive grasp at the young doctor, had said nothing. He stood with his great shoulders bowed, his long lip dangling loose, his coat gaping and, through its opening, the revolver glistening. Dreeme suddenly felt exhausted, a complete exhaustion that was flesh-weariness and great relief mingled.

III

Humphrey Lathrop put his tea-cup down and wiped his huge pursing lips. He nodded slowly.

“Yes, sir,” he said, “Walden’s right. Walden’s a great fellow. He knows where justice is due.”

The bright sunlight of the early afternoon plucked at the curtains. A refreshed and neatly shaved Dreeme sat before the ancient oracle, toying with his cup of tea.

“Perhaps you’d like apple-jack, Daniel?” The old doctor was solicitous. Dreeme shook his head slowly.

“No,” he said. “I don’t understand it all.”

“You never will,” replied Humphrey Lathrop. “You are too young to understand anything.”

He said it pleasantly.

“And why shouldn’t the farmers get off scot-free?” asked Lathrop, pursuing the thread of the conversation. “They haven’t done anything.”

Dreeme opened his eyes very wide.

“No, they haven’t,” persisted the old doctor. “Corey was right. Corey is a good man. They’re all good men.”

Dreeme sat looking at him in amazement. Humphrey Lathrop chuckled wheezily, leaned over, and prodded the young doctor.

“Use your head, Daniel,” he said. “Use your head even if you have lost it.”

He wheezed again merrily at that.

“Do you hold a sick man accountable for what he does when he’s out of his head?” asked the old doctor.

Dreeme shook his head negatively.

“All right,” said Humphrey Lathrop conclusively. That seemed to settle it for the old doctor looked in his empty tea-cup, wheezed mournfully, and then chuckled.

“I never felt so young in eighty years,” he remarked blandly to the room in general.

Dreeme had to smile at that.

“Now, say!” exclaimed Lathrop. He pounded vigorously with his cane. An instant later Lucinda’s vinegary visage thrust itself through the door.

“The apple-jack bottle and two glasses,” ordered the old doctor. Lucinda’s visage wrinkled into an absurd map. She started to withdraw her head when Lathrop shook his huge cane.

“Y’d better make it three glasses,” he declared, winking in a knowing manner at Dreeme.

“I’ll bring four,” announced Lucinda in nasal tones. “I believe a teeny mite ’ud do me good.”

She withdrew the wrinkled map of her visage after strangely contorting it. Lathrop stared after her with his mouth open.

“I believe the old fool was laughing,” he said in a husky whisper. Then he chuckled. He beamed. His three chins shook waggishly. He added:

“Well, well, well!”

It seemed a period to Dreeme’s adventures. Suddenly Lathrop’s crinkling face sobered. He leaned forward and said to Dreeme hastily:

“I heard this morning from young Barnson. He’d been over to Leeminster. He saw a tall dark woman come into town. She had no luggage. She engaged a buggy to take her over to Pittsfield. She....”

Dreeme raised his hand.

“She’s gone,” he said. “And that’s that.”

“That’s that,” agreed the old doctor cheerfully.

The door was pushed open and Lucinda stalked in balancing a tray on which reposed a bottle and four tumblers. Dreeme did not see her. He had risen to his feet and was gazing past her at the slight figure that came smilingly at her heels.

The girl’s eyes were like wet violets, a soaked blue so deep as to be astonishing.

Finis.