Short Fiction, Leonid Andreyev [good e books to read .TXT] 📗

it high over his head⁠—he covers his terrible face with fire and smoke.

“Look, here I am! Do you see? Now ask me, if you dare!”

He flings the torch away. What does the abbot dream in this land full of monstrous dreams? Terrified, his heavy frame trembling, helplessly pushing the people aside with his hands, he retreats. He turns around. Now he sees the glitter of the metal, the dark and terrible faces; he hears the angry splashing of the waters⁠—and he covers his head with his hands and walks off quickly. Then Khorre jumps up and strikes him with a knife in his back.

“Why have you done it?”⁠—the abbot clutches the hand that struck him down.

“Just so⁠—for nothing!”

The abbot falls to the ground and dies.

“Why have you done it?” cries Mariet.

“Why have you done it?” roars Haggart.

And a strange voice, coming from some unknown depths, answers with Khorre’s lips:

“You commanded me to do it.”

Haggart looks around and sees the stern, dark faces, the quivering glitter of the metal, the motionless body; he hears the mysterious, merry dashing of the waves. And he clasps his head in a fit of terror.

“Who commanded? It was the roaring of the sea. I did not want to kill him⁠—no, no!”

Sombre voices answer:

“You commanded. We heard it. You commanded.”

Haggart listens, his head thrown back. Suddenly he bursts into loud laughter:

“Oh, devils, devils! Do you think that I have two ears in order that you may lie in each one? Go down on your knees, rascal!”

He hurls Khorre to the ground.

“String him up with a rope! I would have crushed your venomous head myself⁠—but let them do it. Oh, devils, devils! String him up with a rope.”

Khorre whines harshly:

“Me, Captain! I was your nurse, Noni.”

“Silence! Rascal!”

“I? Noni! Your nurse? You squealed like a little pig in the cook’s room. Have you forgotten it, Noni?” mutters the sailor plaintively.

“Eh,” shouts Haggart to the stern crowd. “Take him!”

Several men advance to him. Khorre rises.

“If you do it to me, to your own nurse⁠—then you have recovered, Noni! Eh, obey the captain! Take me! I’ll make you cry enough, Tommy! You are always the mischief-maker!”

Grim laughter. Several sailors surround Khorre as Haggart watches them sternly. A dissatisfied voice says:

“There is no place where to hang him here. There isn’t a single tree around.”

“Let us wait till we get aboard ship! Let him die honestly on the mast.”

“I know of a tree around here, but I won’t tell you,” roars Khorre hoarsely. “Look for it yourself! Well, you have astonished me, Noni. How you shouted, ‘String him up with a rope!’ Exactly like your father⁠—he almost hanged me, too. Goodbye, Noni, now I understand your actions. Eh, gin! and then⁠—on the rope!”

Khorre goes off. No one dares approach Haggart; still enraged, he paces back and forth with long strides. He pauses, glances at the body and paces again. Then he calls:

“Flerio! Did you hear me give orders to kill this man?”

“No, Captain.”

“You may go.”

He paces back and forth again, and then calls:

“Flerio! Have you ever heard the sea lying?”

“No.”

“If they can’t find a tree, order them to choke him with their hands.”

He paces back and forth again. Mariet is laughing quietly.

“Who is laughing?” asks Haggart in fury.

“I,” answers Mariet. “I am thinking of how they are hanging him and I am laughing. O, Haggart, O, my noble Haggart! Your wrath is the wrath of God, do you know it? No. You are strange, you are dear, you are terrible, Haggart, but I am not afraid of you. Give me your hand, Haggart, press it firmly, firmly. Here is a powerful hand!”

“Flerio, my friend, did you hear what he said? He says the sea never lies.”

“You are powerful and you are just⁠—I was insane when I feared your power, Gart. May I shout to the sea: ‘Haggart, the Just’?”

“That is not true. Be silent, Mariet, you are intoxicated with blood. I don’t know what justice is.”

“Who, then, knows it? You, you, Haggart! You are God’s justice, Haggart. Is it true that he was your nurse? Oh, I know what it means to be a nurse; a nurse feeds you, teaches you to walk⁠—you love a nurse as your mother. Isn’t that true, Gart⁠—you love a nurse as a mother? And yet⁠—‘string him up with a rope, Khorre’!”

She laughs quietly.

A loud, ringing laughter resounds from the side where Khorre was led away. Haggart stops, perplexed.

“What is it?”

“The devil is meeting his soul there,” says Mariet.

“No. Let go of my hand! Eh, who’s there?”

A crowd is coming. They are laughing and grinning, showing their teeth. But noticing the captain, they become serious. The people are repeating one and the same name:

“Khorre! Khorre! Khorre!”

And then Khorre himself appears, dishevelled, crushed, but happy⁠—the rope has broken. Knitting his brow, Haggart is waiting in silence.

“The rope broke, Noni,” mutters Khorre hoarsely, modestly, yet with dignity. “There are the ends! Eh, you there, keep quiet! There is nothing to laugh at⁠—they started to hang me, and the rope broke, Noni.”

Haggart looks at his old, drunken, frightened, and happy face, and he laughs like a madman. And the sailors respond with roaring laughter. The reflected lights are dancing more merrily upon the waves⁠—as if they are also laughing with the people.

“Just look at him, Mariet, what a face he has,” Haggart is almost choking with laughter. “Are you happy? Speak⁠—are you happy? Look, Mariet, what a happy face he has! The rope broke⁠—that’s very strong⁠—it is stronger even than what I said: ‘String him up with a rope.’ Who said it? Don’t you know, Khorre? You are out of your wits, and you don’t know anything⁠—well, never mind, you needn’t know. Eh, give him gin! I am glad, very glad that you are not altogether through with your gin. Drink, Khorre!”

Voices shout:

“Gin!”

“Eh, the boatswain wants a drink! Gin!”

Khorre drinks it with dignity, amid laughter and shouts of approval. Suddenly all the noise dies down and a sombre silence reigns⁠—a woman’s strange voice drowns the noise⁠—so strange and unfamiliar,