The Watchers: A Novel

by A. E. W. Mason

Even then I did not understand. I wondered what it was on which she stood. I noticed a streak of white which ran straight up towards the ceiling from behind her head, and I wondered what that was. And then suddenly her body swung against my legs. She was standing on nothing whatever! Again the queer gasping coughing noise broke from her lips, and at last I understood it. It was a gasp of a woman strangling to death. That white stiff streak above her head--I knew what it was too. I caught her by the waist and lifted her up till her weight rested upon my arm. With the other arm I felt about her neck. A thick soft scarf--silk it seemed to the touch--was knotted tightly round it, and the end of the scarf ran up to the cross-beam above the bed-posts. The scarf was the streak of white.

I fumbled at the knot with my fingers. It was a slip knot, and now that no weight kept it taut, it loosened easily. I slipped the noose back over her head and left it dangling. The woman I laid down upon the bed, where she lay choking and moaning.

I flung up the window and the cold fog poured into the room. I had no candle to light and nothing wherewith to light it. But I remembered that my foot had knocked against a chair to the right of the window, as I climbed into the room. I groped for the chair and set it to face the open night. Then I carried the woman to the window and placed her in the chair, and supported her so that she might not fall. Outside I could hear the surf booming upon the sand almost within arm's reach, and the air was brisk with the salt of the sea.

Such light as there was, glimmered upon the woman's face. I saw that she was young, little more than a girl indeed, with hair and eyes of an extreme blackness. She was of a slight figure as I knew from the ease with which I carried her, but tall. I could not doubt who it was, for one thing the white dress she wore was of some fine soft fabric, and even in that light it was easy to see that she was beautiful.

I held her thus with the cold salt air blowing upon her face, and in a little, she began to recover. She moved her hands upon her lap, and finally lifted one and held her throat with it.

"Very likely there will be some water in the room," said I. "If you are safe, if you will not fall, I will look for it."

"Thank you," she murmured.

My presence occasioned her no surprise and this I thought was no more than natural at the moment. I took my arm from her waist and groped about the room for the water-jug. I found it at last and a glass beside it. These I carried back to the window.

The girl was still seated on the chair, but she had changed her attitude. She had leaned her arms upon the sill and her head upon her arms. I poured out the water from the jug into the tumbler. She did not raise her head. I spoke to her. She did not answer me. A horrible fear turned me cold. I knelt down by her side, and setting down the water gently lifted her head. She did not resist but sank back with a natural movement into my arms. Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. I could feel her breath upon my cheek and it came steadily and regular. I cannot describe my astonishment; she was in a deep sleep.

I pondered for a moment what I should do! Should I wake the household? Should I explain what had happened and my presence in the house? For Helen Mayle's sake I must not do that, since Helen Mayle it surely was whom I held in my arms.