Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 5 (1927-11).djvu/52

[Coral Deane to Miles Warriner]

Dear Miles:—

What soul-searching questions you ask! I can't answer them now because I have so much to tell you about the music I have been doing.

Torkel Yarl is marvelous! Even the great Casals seems to fade into a mere amateur beside him! It's not only his playing—he improvises superbly, too; it quite frightens me sometimes, for I can't understand how any man can do what he does!

He plays from memory everything you and I have ever done. Not only cello solos, but arrangements of big orchestral things as well. The Lalo Concerto, Boellmann's Variations, Saint-Saens' Allegro and Chopin's Polonaise in C are a few examples of his repertory!

Do you remember the Mendelssohn Fugue in E flat for strings? He produced a piano part for me in script and he does the rest! Don't ask me how—it is quite beyond me! His genius is so great that it is almost terrible. Particularly in his own compositions. They are more like the wildest sort of Slav music than anything else I have heard, but far more barbaric! I always dread playing his own works, though I don't know why I do!

Torkel says I have a certain amount of genius, but am too sentimental to use it properly. I was furious when he said this, but he only laughed, and then took up his bow and played so divinely that I forgot to be angry any more.

Of course I love you and miss you, Miles! Why do you ask me so often?

I went up to the Red Tarn on Monk's Rock last week—that place has an extraordinary attraction for me now. I got a nasty deep scratch on my arm when I was by the tarn which won't heal up. I can't remember how I did it though.

P. S. Did I tell you Torkel has a finger missing on his left hand? I can't imagine how he does the stretches.

[Sir Donald Fremling to Miles Warriner.]

My dear boy:—

As I have often told you, it gives me the greatest happiness whenever you turn to me for help. Your pride and independence make it difficult for me, now that you are no longer a schoolboy.

You have been quite frank with me about Coral, and I will be equally frank with you—chiefly because you must be prepared to play the hardest part in the awful little drama which Torkel Yarl has staged. Your part is to wait and do nothing! No matter how desperate the crisis, you can not help—only hinder.

Torkel Yarl is not a man as you and I understand the word! He is not a human being—but superhuman, literally superhuman.

Physically he has all the characteristics of his Danish forefathers (his name—Yarl or Eorl—gives you the clue to his ancestry, of course). He is powerfully built and tall in proportion, and moves with the ease and grace of a panther. His eyes add to this illusion, they are unnaturally bright and gleam under drooped eyelids in a horribly compelling fashion.

As to his music—it is a weapon of such supreme power that it would rouse the dead to follow him over the edge of the world!

Why am I not under his spell, you ask? Ah, because years ago I learnt what Power inspires such as Torkel Yarl—and behind those gleaming