She stared again, paralysed with horror. The fiery eyes mocked her fright and astonishment. Then the expression changed: the face seemed to appeal and smile half sadly at the girl.
It was not a monstrous Nothing that gazed upon her. She turned to flee from the terrible presence. But in a second it had leapt out of the mirror—had sprung at her! So it seemed to the terrified girl; but the figure was standing behind her, staring into the mirror over her shoulders like some relentless, cruel Nemesis from her helpless past, a hideous thing that had searched for centuries—and found her at last!
Old Everard slept on. He heard nothing of the terrible conflict in the room three steps up, where his daughter struggled in the awful grip of that temptress who had found her—a woman from some long-forgotten forest grave in the Malay Archipelago.
It was not madness; nor did the struggle exist only in her imagination. The sheets were torn, the counterpane rent in twain, as that merciless phantom tried to overpower the girl.
Only those who have been true worshippers in the great Papuan tambu temples who have seen and heard the magic of the heritage rites, can guess what really happened in the girl’s room. Only those who have experienced a like experience secretly know how she felt as she attempted to overthrow that deadly visitant. For a few seconds their two figures swayed in the dark. The oil lamp had been knocked over! Then the small door of the bungalow suddenly opened: Gabrielle had escaped. She ran out into the moon-lit night! Just for a second she stood under the windless palms, staring first one way and then another, as though she longed to leap over her own shoulders—escape from herself. Up the slopes she ran, and down into the distant hollows by Fallamboco. She passed the derelict hut where the high priest dreamed before he died and was buried just in front of his front door. The broken, crumbling wooden idol still stood on his grave, its bulged glass eyes staring in immutable insolence as Gabrielle rushed by. She stopped by the lagoons at Felisi, where the huddled waters lay, the sacred waters that washed the beautiful bodies of the dead brides ere they were buried safe in the highest mahogany-tree of Bougainville.
She was not surprised when she stooped and gazed on her reflection in the waters and saw a second image beside her own in those silent depths. Standing there in her hastily donned night attire, her hair outblown, her chemise torn to rags at one shoulder, her blue robe clinging to her delicate figure, she looked around in despair. Only the mountains looked on silently as their giant stone heads seemed to stare like Fate across the desolate landscape and out to the moon-lit seas. She looked at the sky and groped in some blindness, lifting her hands in mute appeal. Some past heathen life possessed her. A crawling, half-human-shaped cloud blurred the moon’s face, failing suddenly, like a dark hand. It was not a cloud to Gabrielle’s changed eyes as the shadow fell over the weird landscape; it was a big thumb busily tattooing the sky, as one by one the dim constellations rebrightened on their darkened background.
She stood alert and peered over her shoulder, her face and eyes bright with startled delight—she heard the tribal drums beating.
Those sounds were real enough. Even the young apprentice in his room over the hills jumped as he heard the booming, then put his head out of his window and bobbed it back, startled like a frightened child.
Gabrielle recognised those sounds. The long, low-drawn chant was familiar to her ears. Softly they came, weird undertones drifting across the silence. Like a monstrous rat that had wings, something whirred across the sky and gave a wretched groan as it swept out of sight.
“Ta Savoo! Ta Savoo!” (“Come on! Come on!”) said a voice beside her. A shadowy hand was laid upon her shoulder. The horror of that presence had already vanished. She startled the hills by bursting into a silvery peal of laughter; then away she ran, on, on, into the depths of the forest.