Free The vampire nemesis and other weird stories of the China coast by Dolly Page A

a strange reluctance to remain there any longer; I felt I wanted to go home to my waiting wife. So I rang the bell again, and returned the proofs, dirty as when they had been brought to me, to the astonished devil and hurried out.

    The door of the editor's sanctum was ajar, so I sneaked past, loth to be asked for an explanation of my early departure when I had none to give. Thus I gained the street, and, hailing a rickshaw, was soon trotting down Szechuen Road ; but, once in the air, I felt vaguely uneasy. What had been the cause of my sudden desire to leave the office ? I had a chill feeling that this sudden move had nothing to do with a wish of my own—that it was something outside of me. So, troubled and ill-atease, the rickshaw took me down Szechuen Road to the bridge that spans Soochow Creek, when just as we were about to mount the incline, I felt myself gripped by the force that of late had dominated my being. What little will had hitherto controlled my actions was suddenly wrenched from me; I felt the terrible power, like an iron hand, compressing my heart as though it would silence its throbbing.
    I tried to tell the rickshaw-coolie to go faster ; instead I bade him stop, and stepped out. I knew now what it was. That fiend had thrown his baleful influence over me again, and was dragging me off to some fresh devilment. My God! what was I going to do now ? I asked myself wildly as I hurried along, breaking every now and then into a short run. I was skirting the creek, making for the gardens, and beyond them the river. Was this irresistible force, that was dragging and pushing me along as helplessly as though I were bound fast to a traction-engine, going to drag me headlong over the Bund and into the water ? For the moment I hoped it was. Life like this had grown intolerable. Death, anything, was better than being the sport of a devil incarnate.

    I crossed the approach to the Broadway Bridge and turned into the gardens, walking straight toward the summer-house that stands facing the river. As I approached, the violent trembling to which my frame was growing so accustomed shook me, and I did the last few paces at a run. It seemed but the logical result of a natural law of causation that as I approached I should see Arnold Rawdon seated on the bench in the semiobscurity within. There was the usual intense yet far-away look in his eyes, as he held poised between finger and thumb the stump of a cigar that had long since gone out for lack of attention.
    I say I was not surprised, for I realised with an inward groan of anguish that it was for this I had come. I appeared now to have known it all along ; it was for this I had paid off my rickshaw at the creek and hurried to the rendezvous. My master had called me, and I had come. As my form cut off the light in the doorway his eyes focussed themselves upon me, and he gave a little gasp of relief and sat erect, a faint colour tinging the ghastly pallor of his cheeks and lips.

    I ran eagerly forward with outstretched hand. " Did you want me, Rawdon ? I am come." He rose and took my hand, looking at me with those terrible eyes in which lurked so much expression, a vindictive sneer of malice curving his lips.
    " Oh, yes ! " he answered quietly. " I am very glad to see you here, of course. You know I am always glad to avail myself of the benefit of your society."
    I felt a fierce longing to use the hand that was so cordially shaking his to strike him down at my feet. Instead, I stood gazing at him with the servile look a spaniel bends on his master. He continued—
    " I am glad, too, to see you are sober. It must be fearfully harassing to dear Mrs. Keith to see her husband straying so recklessly from the paths of moderation and virtue."
    He stopped suddenly and seemed to be making an effort to concentrate his mind, while the pupils of his eyes, that had been so horribly dilated, narrowed and contracted almost to their normal size. I could see the iris drawing together as one sees