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Those Who SeekJason Phillips had no intention of going to the abbey, but when young Arnsley discovered that he was an artist, he had to go — there was no getting out of it. He had protested mildly at first. He had still to finish the painting of the castle, and he had promised himself a few spare moments in which to ramble around the estate of Lord Leveredge, Arnsley's father. But his objections were overruled by a wave of the hand, and consequently Phillips found himself on this October morning seated before his easel, staring miserably at the ruins of the abbey that had so caught young Arnsley's fancy. It was very old, and quite like many other abbeys that Phillips had had the pleasure of seeing. However, Phillips noticed at once that the building was fairly well preserved for its age — which Arnsley said, dated back into the Roman invasion period, some said long before. The second and third floors of the building were almost gone; only a few supports projected into the air here and there. But the first floor, hidden for the most part by a dense growth of vines and bushes, was remarkably well preserved. Deep-set windows could be seen through the bushes, and over toward the cloister walk was a huge door which so engaged the artist's fancy that he decided to paint the abbey so as to feature the cloister walk and the door. Phillips started his charcoal drawing. He made a few tentative strokes and erased them. After a moment of study, he repeated the process. There was something about the view of the cloister walk that escaped him. He leaned away from the canvas and regarded the abbey in silent irritation. He tried the charcoal drawing again, with more precision this time. After a short time he put down his charcoal. He did not seem to be able to sketch the abbey as he saw it — there was a feeling as of someone guiding the charcoal. Phillips felt vaguely and unreasonably ill at ease. It was due perhaps to the gruesome history of the abbey with which Arnsley had regaled him on the way up, added to his own previous knowledge. Of the actual building of the abbey, little seemed to be known. There was one date, the earliest, at 477 A.D., which Lord Leveredge had given out as the date the abbey was taken from the Celts by the Saxons. It was Lord Leveredge’s idea that the Celts had erected the abbey first as a temple of Druidic worship, and recent discoveries about the grounds had unearthed nothing to oppose the theory. Indeed, several of the leading authorities were in agreement with Lord Leveredge, and in a subsequent history of the place, this point was emphasized beyond all proportions. There was then a gap of three hundred years in the abbey's history. In 777 A.D. the abbey appeared in contemporary histories once more. There was a curious story of the strange disappearance of a party of Danes who besieged the place, at the time still a temple. Phillips recalled that he had read of old-time bards who sang about this legend. This was perhaps the first of the incidents that gave the abbey a sinister reputation. Another occurred in 1537, during the time of Henry VIII, when the temple, then an abbey, was raided by a band of His Majesty's Reformation mercenaries. The abbey was at the time unoccupied, but strange unaccountable rumors had reached from generation to generation hinting at the awful things that happened there at the time of the raid. Arnsley recalled newspaper accounts of the "dark people" of the abbey, the ghosts of long-dead monks who marched forever along the cloister walk, telling their beads and reading their breviaries. The abbey had, in consequence, got a reputation of being haunted. There was, too, a story not so legendary, that had happened only four years before. A fisherman had wandered into the abbey to sleep. It was common for these fisher folk to sleep in secluded places along the nearby coast where they plied their trade. The following morning this man was found wandering in a dazed condition on the seacoast. At first he could say nothing, and later, when some semblance of speech had been restored, he mumbled incoherently about songs and prayers, and there had been something of green eyes watching him. Two days after he had partly recovered, he disappeared. When a searching-party had been sent out, he was found dead and horribly mangled in the abbey. Of the means by which he came by his death, nothing was subsequently discovered. There were curious marks on the man's body, deep claw-like tears in the flesh, and a ghastly whiteness led to the examination which showed that there was little blood in the body — the man had apparently bled profusely. But this rumination was taking time, and Phillips, suddenly coming back to reality, reached quickly for his charcoal and again began his sketch, which seemed to go somewhat more easily this time. He had just completed his charcoal drawing when Arnsley appeared from inside the abbey and called to the artist to come in for a moment. With an annoyed smile, Phillips rose and made his way slowly through the bushes to the spot where Arnsley stood. "Well, what is it?" There was a petulant note of vexation in his voice which quite escaped Arnsley. "I came across an inscription, old man, and I wonder if you could read it. It's Latin, I think, but so curiously wrought and so old that I'm not sure if I'm reading it rightly — though I seem to be able to make out the lettering." "Oh!" said Phillips, somewhat nettled. "Just follow me," said Arnsley. He turned and entered the abbey and progressed swiftly along the corridor parallel to the cloister walk. "It's along in the corridor here." His voice came over his shoulder to Phillips, and he half turned to regard the artist in the subdued light of the corridor walk. "Go on," said Phillips quickly, thinking of the charcoal drawing he was about to paint. "Seems to be on some sort of slab, I should say," continued Arnsley, as if he had not heard. "And it's almost obliterated — you'd expect, that, wouldn't you?" He stopped suddenly. "Here we are." Arnsley had come up before a rectangular slab of stone, set, as closely as the artist could determine, directly in the center of the corridor. Phillips bent to peer at the inscription that Arnsley indicated with his cane. "What is it?" asked Arnsley after a moment. "It's Latin, of course — just as you thought." "Well, that seems to indicate that this place has Roman beginnings after all, eh?" Phillips grunted irritably. He remembered that despite the authorities, Arnsley had held to his belief regarding the abbey as a product of the Roman invasion. "If this building was founded by the Romans of the first invasion, that inscription was put on a considerable time after. As nearly as I can make it out it reads: QUI. PETIVERENT. INVENTIENT. And that, literally translated, is a quotation from the Christian Bible: 'Those Who Seek Shall Find.' Where did you get the idea that this place is Roman, Arnsley?" "Oh! I strike upon that as the best bet," said Arnsley, shrugging his shoulders. ''I'm told, though, that there's a priest over in Wallington who's got an old paper on the abbey, and he seems to think much as I do. I went over once to see his paper, but the old fellow wasn't at home, and his housekeeper was pretty chary about letting strangers mess about the priest's papers. The name's Richards, Father Richards. I've an idea you could get quite a bit of material from him if you want it. He's an authority on old abbeys and cathedrals." Phillips raised his eyebrows. "Surely your father must have something on the abbey?" Arnsley shook his head. "Though he's custodian of the abbey for the government, he hasn't anything in his library pertaining to this place. Nor, curiously enough, has he ever cared to discuss the abbey with me. Off and on, he's given me a few vague facts, but most of what I know I've picked up from hearing conversations with archaeologists who visit him. He clings pretty strongly to the Druidic beginning of the place, but when I said something to him about it one day, he dismissed the subject pretty sharply. Also, he seems to believe that there's something pretty much wrong about this place. I daresay that grows out of an experience he had here himself. "He was up and around this region hunting one day. Coming by here after dark, he swears he heard someone chanting here, and saw in a yellowish-gray half-light a procession of black cowled figures. He recalled that there were stories of the ghostly monks who haunted this place. None of us pays any attention to the story. His flask was perfectly empty when he reached home — and he can't usually carry that much in him." Phillips laughed cautiously. Arnsley looked down at the slab. "Do you suppose it means anything?" he asked. "Perhaps it refers to some definite thing?" "It's quite probable that the monks had that inscription put there. You'll find others, I daresay, if you look." Arnsley looked at Phillips with a curious smile on his face. "It's odd that you should think of that at once. I thought so, too, and I took the trouble to look around before I called you. There aren't any other inscriptions." "You see that this inscription is almost obliterated. Perhaps those others were not so fortunate," returned Phillips imperturbably, shrugging his shoulders and clumping out of the building to where his easel stood. Arnsley, however, remained behind. He sank to his knees and began to examine the slab in the most minute detail. Contrary to Phillips, he did not believe that the inscription had been put there merely as a matter of devotion, so that the monks who walked this path hour after hour in years long gone by, heads cast down, lips moving in silent prayer, should see as they passed, this eternal word, and seeing, hope and seek to penetrate the veil. But nothing came of the scrutiny Arnsley gave the slab. He rose at last, and, filled with a sudden hope, cast his eye about for a lost stone, or an old worn bracket. He had suddenly conceived the idea that this slab might hide some secret passage, long forgotten — probably even now impassable. A stone about three times the size of his clenched fist, almost hidden in the semi- darkness of the corridor, rewarded his search. Without hesitation, he seized it and began to pound upon the slab. After some moments he stopped. The effort seemed quite futile. He thought he detected a hollow sound from beneath the slab, but he could not be sure. The difference that had caught his attention was at all events very slight. Then, too, he argued, the stone must be very thick — so thick that the pounding of this small instrument would not establish much. He stood up and dropped the stone, throwing it over toward the corridor wall. Through a cloister window he caught sight of Phillips industriously daubing his canvas. He began to wish that they had not planned to stay here during the night, so as to give the artist ample time to put the finishing touches to his picture the following day. If only Phillips had protested against carrying the blanket rolls! Arnsley could not explain his attitude. It was he, in the first place, who had suggested staying the night. It was perhaps the impending heaviness in the atmosphere that depressed him — so at least he concluded, after looking at the ominous black clouds low on the horizon. With an impatient sigh, he went out and got the blanket rolls and the little kit of tools they had brought, and took them into the abbey. He deposited them in the corner of one of the most sheltered rooms. Then he came out toward Phillips, who had painted in his background, and was starting now on the cloister walk, which he could not do completely because the background might mix with its color at the edges. It was late afternoon before Phillips put aside the painting. Then Arnsley and he had a light lunch, after which they spent the remaining hour of daylight wandering about the abbey and the surrounding woodland. They had decided to retire early, so that they could leave the abbey before noon of the following day. Consequently there was still a faint red line on the western horizon when they disrobed and rolled themselves into their blankets. Although Arnsley fell asleep immediately, Phillips tossed restlessly about for almost an hour. He could not rid himself of an uneasy feeling of impending disaster, and fear crept upon him from the darkness of the starless night. He sank at last into a state of dream-haunted slumber. He dreamed of vast expanses of blackness, where life crept about shrouded forever in the darkness of the pit. He saw immense black landscapes, where great gaunt figures of ancient Saxons, whose hard, cruel faces gleamed beneath their hoods, were arrayed like giant colossi. From the blackness a shape took form: a great gray stone building, crude as only the hands of far past ancestors could make it. And there were rows upon rows of cowled figures marching in triumphant procession about the stone circle, and away into the blackness of the sky. There was a huge stone pillar, from the flat top of which great streams of red ran into black maws open to receive it. There was a sudden flash of white, and Phillips saw in his dream a great green thing, faint against the sky, that flailed the air with long red tentacles, suckers dripping blood and spattering it over the kneeling figures of supplicating worshippers. There was a haze again, that dropped like a velvet curtain, and again came the black ones, moving in and out among the worshippers, here and there signing to one to follow. Then this, too, was gone, covered with a great whiteness, like an impenetrable fog that swirled impotently about. There was a familiar landscape now, and there were figures of men running wildly from something that slobbered and gibbered as it came after them, catching them one after the other with its swinging tentacles. In his dream Phillips saw suddenly the whiteness of fear-stricken faces. There were great towering hulks of men who cringed in abject fear. From the far north these Danes had come to conquer, but a sudden, awful death had come forth to meet them. There were others, too, smaller, frailer men, arrayed in the colors of the Tudors, who gibbered and frothed, thrown flat upon the ground. Some, maddened, beat their heads upon the rocks on the countryside, while ever there loomed that great green-black thing that flailed these helpless men with reddened tentacles. Then there came a single face, a countenance so horrible in its fear that it caused Phillips to move uneasily in his sleep. The face vanished suddenly, and there was a man running, stumbling over the fields, fleeing aimlessly, and coming at last upon the place from which he had started — the ghoul-haunted ruins of the abbey! Again, flight, and black-robed priests who sat and waited, watching for the return of him who fled away into the night. There was an unholy light about the faces of the watchers. Gradually, now, other things took shape. In his dream Phillips recognized the cloister walk of the abbey, and he saw in flaming letters the inscription on the slab — forming out of nothingness, one by one: QUI. PETlVERENT. INVENTIENT. There was an endless dancing motion of the letters, and a brightness of flames, and a timelessness of meaning that awed the haunted mind of the sleeping artist. The letters stood alone in whiteness, but there were suddenly great clouds of swirling mist, and a blackness of figures impinged again upon Phillips' dream vision. From the darkness below he saw a long greenish-red thing licking out into the mist, where now formed the fear-drawn faces of men — Saxons, Danes, and there were the round faces of monks, grotesque with fear. There was a great redness, as of blood, and a chanting, a mumbling indescribable, came up from below. There was a knowledge in his dream that enabled Phillips to know this ancient chant, this ceremonial prayer which was wafted to him. There now arose a ghastly ululation, and out of the cloister windows floated a loathsome, putrid blue-gray light. Out of the earth came eerie mad chanting that crept away into the night. The mist that hovered above resolved itself into a long hand, that swayed to and fro in the air above the slab and at last descended gracefully toward the low windows of the cloister. Down, down, it came, and at last it touched with sudden pressure upon the second of the three low sills just opposite the slab. Immediately the slab was flung upward, like the rebound of a trapdoor. Then, from nowhere, came the black ones again, descending into the blackness beneath the opened walk. There were hundreds of them — it seemed as if the procession would never end. Phillips had no knowledge of that time of the night he was disturbed. He knew only that it was a sudden sharp cry that brought him out of his sleep. He sat up and looked over at his companion's bed. Arnsley was not there. He jumped up and began to search around in the half-light for his trousers. He had just got hold of them when the cry was repeated. It sounded very much like a cry for help, and it arose from nearby, from within the abbey itself. Phillips hastily clothed himself, took hold of the hammer in the small tool kit they had brought along — the only weapon that came to hand — and crept warily out into the corridor, for it was from there that the cry seemed to come. He stood for a moment listening. From along the corridor came a succession of faint sounds, as of someone walking slowly into the distance — some heavy thing, someone carrying a bulky object, or a mass of creatures moving in rhythmic unison. Tightening his grip on the hammer, Phillips went resolutely forward. As he advanced, he saw in the moonlight filtering through the slits of windows that the inscribed slab had been moved. It lay to one side of the black gap in the walk. He paused. Could Arnsley have dreamed as he had? He shot a quick glance toward the windowsills. The second was depressed — but Arnsley could not have known unless he'd had the same dream! He was seized with a sudden, horrible dread. For a moment he stood as if grown to the spot. He was afraid to move. Something seemed to warn him not to go farther. He felt a sudden, unaccountable urge to turn and flee, but he thought again of Arnsley and of the cries he had heard in the stillness. In the night his frightened mind conjured up before him the vision of the fisherman he had heard about. He went tentatively forward, his hand tightly closed about the handle of the small hammer. He crept closer and closer to the opening. He was still horribly afraid, but he was possessed of an awful curiosity, stimulated by his fear, that drove him forward to the opening. Faintly now, he could still hear the weird rhythmic walking sound, but it came from afar, and Phillips wondered whether it could not be the far-off beating of the sea waves against the rocky coast. Absorbed by the idea, he almost forgot Arnsley. Then, suddenly recalling his companion, the artist called loudly: "Arnsley!" and again, "Arnsley!" But there was no response, and the silence became unbearable. He threw himself to the floor — and bent his head to look into the black, yawning chasm below the corridor's stone floor. What happened next remained very vague in Phillips' mind. He maintained that he saw nothing, but there was an awful, ghastly stench that met him full as he looked into the blackness. There came a sharp succession of faint screams, and a low, horrible moaning that sent the artist stumbling and blinded out onto the highway, where he fell prone in the welcome glare of an oncoming Daimler. Phillips lay for weeks in a state of delirium. From scraps of mumblings that the artist gave issue to while delirious, investigators directed their search to the abbey on Lord Leveredge's estate. The inscribed slab was in its place, but by depression of a stone in the sill of one of the windows, the inscribed slab was forced upward. In a moldy crypt below, the barely recognizable body of Arnsley was found. There were peculiar marks all over the body, as if tiny suckers had attached themselves to its pores. He was devoid of blood, and most of the bones of his body were crushed. The coroner's inquest decided that he had met his death at the hands of persons or things unknown. The equipment found in the abbey, together with the artist's canvas, was returned to Phillips. Phillips hardly recognized the canvas as his work. It was two months before the artist, still weak, was released from the hospital. he immediately entrained from Manchester to Wallington, to call upon Father Richards, from whom he hoped to gain some slight knowledge of the horror at the abbey. There was something about the painting, too, that Phillips had discovered after a close scrutiny. Phillips found the priest quite willing to talk, and the artist let him ramble on for some little time before he came to the canvas. He produced it suddenly, and showed it to the priest, whose chubby face plainly showed his utter astonishment. "Why, my dear sir," he said in awe, casting a suspicious glance at the artist, "this is an almost perfect reproduction of a scene that YOU could never have seen. There is a reversal of the cloister walk and door. You have painted it as it was in the old temple, not as it is now — and there are a hundred. other odd details. The picture you have here is that of an old Briton- Romanized temple to a strange pagan deity — the God of Life, more often called the God of Blood by the worshippers and present-day archaeologists. I have a picture of the god somewhere — one drawn from imagination, you understand. It makes me shudder. It's in color, and shows the god with his black-robbed attendants. The god is like a huge black-green jelly, and seems equipped with minute suckers and tentacles, much like an octopus. It resembles a sea creature very much, giving off a blue-gray light, and flaring a bright green from its eyes. "Since the abbey is not far from the coast, there are many archaeologists who maintain that there was once an underground passage from the sea to the abbey, connecting, they say, to a crypt below the corridor. I don't know, of course. However, one thing puzzles me about the whole business. Did the Christians know of this devilish worship or not? "If not, who then was it that put the Latin inscription on that slab in the corridor?" |
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