Page:Weird Tales Volume 3 Number 1 (1923-12).djvu/40

THE CAT CALLED CARLOS 39 silence, silence broken only by the hollow beating of the old clock in the corner. Then she would drop her hand and shake her head, and mumble, “Not tonight.”

And the clock would echo her words— Not... tonight! Not... tonight!

As I grew older, my nameless dread to enter the place grew upon me; yet through the formless pattern of my fears ran a thread of prickling curiosity. I could not dispel the fancy that I was an unwilling spectator of some weird drama stretching through the years, waiting for some terrifying climax.

There came a night when I was later than usual with the milking, and it was full dark before I set out for the Melotte place. It was a soundless night in mid-August, sultry, oppressive with the promise of approaching storm. There was continuous play of lightning in the western sky, with never a rumble of thunder to break the ominous quiet.

The whole world seemed muffled when I came in sight of the Melotte place. I paused, tried to moisten my dry lips with a dryer tongue while I watched the play of the lightning over the dull gray of the barn and the sullen red of the house itself. The weird glimmer played over the curtainless windows like torchlight over oily pools of stagnant water.

As I drew close to the house, reluctant feet dragging, I saw the old woman’s face at the open window, listening—listening for something in the soundless night! So tense was her posture, so wild her staring eyes, that I caught myself listening, too, with bated breath, while a cold hand seemed to brush my spine when I saw the gleaming eyes of the cat close beside her—the cat she called Carlos.

I had never seen the woman smile; but now a slow grimace came writhing over her withered face, a smile of malevolent triumph that made my flesh crawl. Then she nodded her head decisively—and in that dead silence I could hear the muffled beating of the old clock behind the walls, beating words into my straining ears with each measured swing of the pendulum:

Tonight...tonight! Tonight... tonight!

Like a sleeper powerless in the grip of some fantastic dream, I stood there beside the great elm tree. I saw the woman throw back her head and laugh—but no sound came from her throat. She rose from her chair, paused a moment with that unholy smile twisting over her features; then she passed into black shadow beyond my vision. I heard her crutch clatter sharply to the floor.

That sound seemed to break the chains that held me. Like a swimmer up from a deep dive, I shook my head and gasped. I turned to flee the place.

But another sound came to my nervously acute senses, halted my flight before it had begun. It was a cadence of song far down the road, faint upon the still air. It stirred me with elusive memory... The tongue of the singer was thick, maudlin the song. Nearer—louder—and in a flash of memory I recognized the voice, the song! I had heard it twenty years ago, drifting down the ledge.

Vint Willis was coming back!

Sudden weakness seized my legs; I sank down in the tall grass of the dooryard.

The man passed through the hollow, mounted the gentle hill and came into view. There was stumble and drag to his legs, and little puffs of road dust curled up around his ankles as his feet came heavily down.

My attention was brought back sharply to the house by the click of a latch. The door swung slowly open and the woman faltered into view. Her crutch was discarded, and she was clad in a dress of white—a bridal dress! Across her shrunken shoulders, over the shimmering gown, lay a mantilla of black lace. A jeweled Spanish comb sparkled in her hair, and on her hands were castanets! Beside her crouched the gaunt white cat, his green-yellow eyes flaming with baleful fire upon the man weaving his unsteady way along the road.

She stepped out upon the door-rock, unsteadily down to the grass of the path. Then her hands went up, and I heard the click of castanets. There was no breath of air astir in the sultry oppressiveness of the night, yet the leaves of the great elm above me seemed to stir with whispering melody, a whisper that set my scalp atingle. Again the castanets clicked sharply—and the strains of a Spanish dance sang through my dizzy brain while those castanets tapped out the emphasis!

Slowly she moved down the path. Slowly... Then she whirled out into the dust of the road in the figure of a dance, directly in the path of the approaching man.

He halted, passed a bewildered hand across his eyes, tried to speak. Twice his mouth opened, but no sound came. She was close to him. A tremor raced through his body, and he found his voice, laughed drunkenly and put out his hands to grasp her. But she eluded him, whirled away while he mounted an oath and stumbled after her.

Elusive as the figure of a dream; across the road, into the looming shadow of the ledge, up the winding path that led to the top she made her way and he followed, stumbling, cursing.... And there, on the rim of the ledge against the dark backdrop of the pines, she danced in her wedding dress—danced as she must have danced on her wedding night!

On the dangerous edge of the fall she danced, tantalized the man with mocking shoulders and beckoning arms like two white snakes weaving in the lightning glare....

He leaped for her. She swung away from him. He lurched past her, stumbled on the brink of the ledge, fell to his knees and tottered there—swayed out—out—

In that breathless moment the muffled voice of the old clock came through the walls...

The man recovered his balance, dragged himself erect, stood with feet braced wide.

In silent fury the woman hurled herself toward him. He gave back a step. She faltered, swayed; then her arms dropped and she collapsed like a bit of white cloth unsupported.

The man laughed with drunken exultation, bent to put his hands upon her. Then a sudden cry broke from his throat, blood-chilling in that weird silence:

“My God—Carlos! Carlos!”

He staggered back, futile hands clutching at the gaunt white demon of a cat that leaped upon him from the shadows and fastened at his face. He floundered back—back and over the rim of the ledge.

I found my legs then. The suffocating terror that had held me loosed its grip, and I hurried up the path to the top of the ledge.

The Widow Melotte was dead. I found Willis broken on the ragged rocks below, a look of ghastly terror fixed in his glassy eyes and on his ugly, twisted face.

The gaunt white cat—the cat Carlos had vanished!