Chapter XIV: Battle Renewed

by Bram Stoker

　　The consequences of that meeting in the dusk of Diana's Grove wereacute and far-reaching, and not only to the two engaged in it. FromOolanga, this might have been expected by anyone who knew thecharacter of the tropical African savage. To such, there are twopassions that are inexhaustible and insatiable--vanity and thatwhich they are pleased to call love. Oolanga left the Grove with anabsorbing hatred in his heart. His lust and greed were afire, whilehis vanity had been wounded to the core. Lady Arabella's icy naturewas not so deeply stirred, though she was in a seething passion.More than ever she was set upon bringing Edgar Caswall to her feet.The obstacles she had encountered, the insults she had endured, wereonly as fuel to the purpose of revenge which consumed her.As she sought her own rooms in Diana's Grove, she went over thewhole subject again and again, always finding in the face of LillaWatford a key to a problem which puzzled her--the problem of a wayto turn Caswall's powers--his very existence--to aid her purpose.When in her boudoir, she wrote a note, taking so much trouble overit that she destroyed, and rewrote, till her dainty waste-basket washalf-full of torn sheets of notepaper. When quite satisfied, shecopied out the last sheet afresh, and then carefully burned all thespoiled fragments. She put the copied note in an emblazonedenvelope, and directed it to Edgar Caswall at Castra Regis. Thisshe sent off by one of her grooms. The letter ran:"Dear Mr. Caswall,"I want to have a chat with you on a subject in which I believe youare interested. Will you kindly call for me one day after lunch--say at three or four o'clock, and we can walk a little way together.Only as far as Mercy Farm, where I want to see Lilla and MimiWatford. We can take a cup of tea at the Farm. Do not bring yourAfrican servant with you, as I am afraid his face frightens thegirls. After all, he is not pretty, is he? I have an idea you willbe pleased with your visit this time."Yours sincerely,"Arabella March."At half-past three next day, Edgar Caswall called at Diana's Grove.Lady Arabella met him on the roadway outside the gate. She wishedto take the servants into her confidence as little as possible. Sheturned when she saw him coming, and walked beside him towards MercyFarm, keeping step with him as they walked. When they got nearMercy, she turned and looked around her, expecting to see Oolanga orsome sign of him. He was, however, not visible. He had receivedfrom his master peremptory orders to keep out of sight--an order forwhich the African scored a new offence up against her. They foundLilla and Mimi at home and seemingly glad to see them, though boththe girls were surprised at the visit coming so soon after theother.The proceedings were a repetition of the battle of souls of theformer visit. On this occasion, however, Edgar Caswall had only thepresence of Lady Arabella to support him--Oolanga being absent; butMimi lacked the support of Adam Salton, which had been of sucheffective service before. This time the struggle for supremacy ofwill was longer and more determined. Caswall felt that if he couldnot achieve supremacy he had better give up the idea, so all hispride was enlisted against Mimi. When they had been waiting for thedoor to be opened, Lady Arabella, believing in a sudden attack, hadsaid to him in a low voice, which somehow carried conviction:"This time you should win. Mimi is, after all, only a woman. Showher no mercy. That is weakness. Fight her, beat her, trample onher--kill her if need be. She stands in your way, and I hate her.Never take your eyes off her. Never mind Lilla--she is afraid ofyou. You are already her master. Mimi will try to make you look ather cousin. There lies defeat. Let nothing take your attentionfrom Mimi, and you will win. If she is overcoming you, take my handand hold it hard whilst you are looking into her eyes. If she istoo strong for you, I shall interfere. I'll make a diversion, andunder cover of it you must retire unbeaten, even if not victorious.Hush! they are coming."The two girls came to the door together. Strange sounds were comingup over the Brow from the west. It was the rustling and cracklingof the dry reeds and rushes from the low lands. The season had beenan unusually dry one. Also the strong east wind was helping forwardenormous flocks of birds, most of them pigeons with white cowls.Not only were their wings whirring, but their cooing was plainlyaudible. From such a multitude of birds the mass of sound,individually small, assumed the volume of a storm. Surprised at theinflux of birds, to which they had been strangers so long, they alllooked towards Castra Regis, from whose high tower the great kitehad been flying as usual. But even as they looked, the cord broke,and the great kite fell headlong in a series of sweeping dives. Itsown weight, and the aerial force opposed to it, which caused it torise, combined with the strong easterly breeze, had been too muchfor the great length of cord holding it.Somehow, the mishap to the kite gave new hope to Mimi. It was asthough the side issues had been shorn away, so that the mainstruggle was thenceforth on simpler lines. She had a feeling in herheart, as though some religious chord had been newly touched. Itmay, of course, have been that with the renewal of the bird voices afresh courage, a fresh belief in the good issue of the struggle cametoo. In the misery of silence, from which they had all suffered forso long, any new train of thought was almost bound to be a boon. Asthe inrush of birds continued, their wings beating against thecrackling rushes, Lady Arabella grew pale, and almost fainted."What is that?" she asked suddenly.To Mimi, born and bred in Siam, the sound was strangely like anexaggeration of the sound produced by a snake-charmer.Edgar Caswall was the first to recover from the interruption of thefalling kite. After a few minutes he seemed to have quite recoveredhis sang froid, and was able to use his brains to the end which hehad in view. Mimi too quickly recovered herself, but from adifferent cause. With her it was a deep religious conviction thatthe struggle round her was of the powers of Good and Evil, and thatGood was triumphing. The very appearance of the snowy birds, withthe cowls of Saint Columba, heightened the impression. With thisconviction strong upon her, she continued the strange battle withfresh vigour. She seemed to tower over Caswall, and he to give backbefore her oncoming. Once again her vigorous passes drove him tothe door. He was just going out backward when Lady Arabella, whohad been gazing at him with fixed eyes, caught his hand and tried tostop his movement. She was, however, unable to do any good, and so,holding hands, they passed out together. As they did so, thestrange music which had so alarmed Lady Arabella suddenly stopped.Instinctively they all looked towards the tower of Castra Regis, andsaw that the workmen had refixed the kite, which had risen again andwas beginning to float out to its former station.As they were looking, the door opened and Michael Watford came intothe room. By that time all had recovered their self-possession, andthere was nothing out of the common to attract his attention. As hecame in, seeing inquiring looks all around him, he said:"The new influx of birds is only the annual migration of pigeonsfrom Africa. I am told that it will soon be over."The second victory of Mimi Watford made Edgar Caswall more moodythan ever. He felt thrown back on himself, and this, added to hisabsorbing interest in the hope of a victory of his mesmeric powers,became a deep and settled purpose of revenge. The chief object ofhis animosity was, of course, Mimi, whose will had overcome his, butit was obscured in greater or lesser degree by all who had opposedhim. Lilla was next to Mimi in his hate--Lilla, the harmless,tender-hearted, sweet-natured girl, whose heart was so full of lovefor all things that in it was no room for the passions of ordinarylife--whose nature resembled those doves of St. Columba, whosecolour she wore, whose appearance she reflected. Adam Salton camenext--after a gap; for against him Caswall had no direct animosity.He regarded him as an interference, a difficulty to be got rid of ordestroyed. The young Australian had been so discreet that the mosthe had against him was his knowledge of what had been. Caswall didnot understand him, and to such a nature as his, ignorance was acause of alarm, of dread.Caswall resumed his habit of watching the great kite straining atits cord, varying his vigils in this way by a further examination ofthe mysterious treasures of his house, especially Mesmer's chest.He sat much on the roof of the tower, brooding over his thwartedpassion. The vast extent of his possessions, visible to him at thataltitude, might, one would have thought, have restored some of hiscomplacency. But the very extent of his ownership, thus perpetuallybrought before him, created a fresh sense of grievance. How was it,he thought, that with so much at command that others wished for, hecould not achieve the dearest wishes of his heart?In this state of intellectual and moral depravity, he found a solacein the renewal of his experiments with the mechanical powers of thekite. For a couple of weeks he did not see Lady Arabella, who wasalways on the watch for a chance of meeting him; neither did he seethe Watford girls, who studiously kept out of his way. Adam Saltonsimply marked time, keeping ready to deal with anything that mightaffect his friends. He called at the farm and heard from Mimi ofthe last battle of wills, but it had only one consequence. He gotfrom Ross several more mongooses, including a second king-cobra-killer, which he generally carried with him in its box whenever hewalked out.Mr. Caswall's experiments with the kite went on successfully. Eachday he tried the lifting of greater weight, and it seemed almost asif the machine had a sentience of its own, which was increasing withthe obstacles placed before it. All this time the kite hung in thesky at an enormous height. The wind was steadily from the north, sothe trend of the kite was to the south. All day long, runners ofincreasing magnitude were sent up. These were only of paper or thincardboard, or leather, or other flexible materials. The greatheight at which the kite hung made a great concave curve in thestring, so that as the runners went up they made a flapping sound.If one laid a finger on the string, the sound answered to theflapping of the runner in a sort of hollow intermittent murmur.Edgar Caswall, who was now wholly obsessed by the kite and allbelonging to it, found a distinct resemblance between thatintermittent rumble and the snake-charming music produced by thepigeons flying through the dry reeds.One day he made a discovery in Mesmer's chest which he thought hewould utilise with regard to the runners. This was a great lengthof wire, "fine as human hair," coiled round a finely made wheel,which ran to a wondrous distance freely, and as lightly. He triedthis on runners, and found it work admirably. Whether the runnerwas alone, or carried something much more weighty than itself, itworked equally well. Also it was strong enough and light enough todraw back the runner without undue strain. He tried this a goodmany times successfully, but it was now growing dusk and he foundsome difficulty in keeping the runner in sight. So he looked forsomething heavy enough to keep it still. He placed the Egyptianimage of Bes on the fine wire, which crossed the wooden ledge whichprotected it. Then, the darkness growing, he went indoors andforgot all about it.He had a strange feeling of uneasiness that night--notsleeplessness, for he seemed conscious of being asleep. At daylighthe rose, and as usual looked out for the kite. He did not see it inits usual position in the sky, so looked round the points of thecompass. He was more than astonished when presently he saw themissing kite struggling as usual against the controlling cord. Butit had gone to the further side of the tower, and now hung andstrained against the wind to the north. He thought it so strangethat he determined to investigate the phenomenon, and to say nothingabout it in the meantime.In his many travels, Edgar Caswall had been accustomed to use thesextant, and was now an expert in the matter. By the aid of thisand other instruments, he was able to fix the position of the kiteand the point over which it hung. He was startled to find thatexactly under it--so far as he could ascertain--was Diana's Grove.He had an inclination to take Lady Arabella into his confidence inthe matter, but he thought better of it and wisely refrained. Forsome reason which he did not try to explain to himself, he was gladof his silence, when, on the following morning, he found, on lookingout, that the point over which the kite then hovered was Mercy Farm.When he had verified this with his instruments, he sat before thewindow of the tower, looking out and thinking. The new locality wasmore to his liking than the other; but the why of it puzzled him,all the same. He spent the rest of the day in the turret-room,which he did not leave all day. It seemed to him that he was nowdrawn by forces which he could not control--of which, indeed, he hadno knowledge--in directions which he did not understand, and whichwere without his own volition. In sheer helpless inability to thinkthe problem out satisfactorily, he called up a servant and told himto tell Oolanga that he wanted to see him at once in the turret-room. The answer came back that the African had not been seen sincethe previous evening.Caswall was now so irritable that even this small thing upset him.As he was distrait and wanted to talk to somebody, he sent for SimonChester, who came at once, breathless with hurrying and upset by theunexpected summons. Caswall bade him sit down, and when the old manwas in a less uneasy frame of mind, he again asked him if he hadever seen what was in Mesmer's chest or heard it spoken about.Chester admitted that he had once, in the time of "the then Mr.Edgar," seen the chest open, which, knowing something of its historyand guessing more, so upset him that he had fainted. When herecovered, the chest was closed. From that time the then Mr. Edgarhad never spoken about it again.When Caswall asked him to describe what he had seen when the chestwas open, he got very agitated, and, despite all his efforts toremain calm, he suddenly went off into a faint. Caswall summonedservants, who applied the usual remedies. Still the old man did notrecover. After the lapse of a considerable time, the doctor who hadbeen summoned made his appearance. A glance was sufficient for himto make up his mind. Still, he knelt down by the old man, and madea careful examination. Then he rose to his feet, and in a hushedvoice said:"I grieve to say, sir, that he has passed away."