“What way’s that?”
“Well,” and Hal once more glanced at the paper, “well, this is what the book says:
“‘The curse must be fulfilled, to the last breath, for by Shiva and the Trimurthi, what is written is written. But if he through whom the curse descendeth on another is stricken to horror and to death, then the Almighty Vishnu, merciful, closes that page. And he who through another’s sin was cursed, is cleansed. Thus may the curse be fulfilled. But always one of two must die. Tuan Allah poonia krajah! It is the work of the Almighty One! One of two must die!’”
“Gosh!” ejaculated Ezra. “I reckon that’ll be about enough fer me, Master Hal. Awful, ain’t it?”
“Don’t like Malay, after all?” laughed Hal.
“Can’t say as I’m pinin’ fer it. But you got some head on you, to read it off like that. I s’pose it’s all right in its way, but I don’t relish it overly, as the feller said when he spilled sugar on his oysters. Well,” and he glanced at the lowering clouds and the indrifting sea-fog that with the characteristic suddenness of the north shore had already begun to throw its chilly blanket over the world, “well, this ain’t gittin’ to Dudley’s store, is it? Lord, sir, what a head you got on you!”
With admiring ejaculations the old man started down the path once more. The doctor, filled with stern thoughts, remained watching Hal, who had now gone back to his writing.
“What a fatality!” pondered the doctor, unable to suppress a certain superstitious dread. Not all his scientific training could quite overcome the deep-rooted superstition that lies in the bottom of every human heart. “The black curse of Vishnu again, with this new feature: ‘One of two must die!’ What the devil does all this mean now?”
A crawling sensation manifested itself along his spine. Silent shapes seemed standing behind him in the corners of the room darkened by the closing of the blinds. Trained thinker though he was, he could not shake off this feeling, but remained crouching at the window, a prey to inexplicable fear. The words Hal had spoken, echoing along dim corridors of the past, still seemed vibrating in his heart with unaccustomed pain.
“Nonsense!” he growled at last. “It’s all nonsense—nothing but a sheer coincidence!” He tried to put the words away, but still they sounded in his ears: “One of two must die! Always one of two must die!”