The House of Baltazar

by William John Locke

What could have happened? A thunderstorm? The place struck by lightning? He gripped his temples. He had never heard of a thunderstorm in a dense fog. Besides, thunder never occurred in the long, continuous, rhythmical acceleration of volume of sound. Yet what else but thunder and lightning could account for the blasted homestead that reeked before his eyes?

He looked around. The stone enclosure was strewn with unspeakable wreckage; great blocks of masonry, unrecognizable shafts of timber, bits of twisted iron railing, ashes, charred wood. . . . He rose dizzily to his feet. His head was one agony. He felt something wet on his neck, and realized that the wound evidently caused by the concussion of his head against a stone, had begun to bleed afresh. Before he could tie around his brows the handkerchief which he mechanically drew out, he saw, close by, the dead body of the dog Brutus, and he returned the handkerchief to his pocket. The dog seemed to have been killed outright by a great piece of granite that had been hurled upon him. Then for the first time his mind grew quite clear. The unknown convulsion had dealt not only destruction but death. Where was Quong Ho?

He started forthwith on an agonized search. They had been standing together a few paces away from the front door. Thither he went, but could find no trace of him among the wreckage. From the roofless enclosure of granite and through the windows poured black volumes of smoke. It was useless, even impossible, to look inside. Baltazar called out loudly the Chinaman’s name, as he made a circuit of the devastated house, only to find fresh evidences of complete catastrophe. Here and there lay fragments of iron, unfamiliar to him, which in his anxiety for Quong Ho’s safety he did not speculate on or examine. He nearly tripped over something by the burned-down stable. Looking down, to his sickening horror, he found it to be the head of the old grey mare. He went on. No sign of Quong Ho. In the little enclosed grass patch, now foul with rubbish, the very goats lay dead, mostly dismembered. He stared at them stupidly. A sudden shrill noise caused him to jump aside in terror. A second later he realized that it came from a solitary cockerel, strutting about in the sunshine, the sole survivor of the poultry-run, cynically proclaiming his lust of life.

Wherever he turned was ruin utter and final. But where was Quong Ho? Had he not, after all, remained outside, but re-entered the house? If so—he shuddered. Creeping back, he peered through the windows on the windward side, as long as the smart in his eyes would allow him. There was nothing there but fragments of stone and smouldering, indistinguishable ash that mounted nearly to the sill. Whatever had been the cause, the dry thatch had been set alight—the roof had fallen in, and nothing of the interior remained save a few charred books on the upper shelves of blackened and crazily precarious sections of bookcase. He strode away, came to the front of the house again, and continued his search there, with horror in his soul. The front door had been blown out. On his first inspection he had passed it by. Now he stood wondering at the supernatural explosion that could have burst it from its hinges and thrown its great oaken weight bodily forth; and, looking at it, suddenly became conscious of a foot, shod in a Chinese shoe, protruding from beneath it. He bent down swiftly and touched the foot. Shouted “Quong Ho!” But there was no reply. He rose, remained for a moment with the horror of the old mare’s head, and other things he had seen in the goats’ enclosure, racking his nerves. Then he braced himself, bent and lifted the door, and under it lay the body of Quong Ho. To lever the heavy mass and set it upright without treading on the motionless man, taxed all his strength. At last he got a footing on the further side of Quong Ho, which enabled him to set the door on edge, and a push sent it clattering clear. Then he saw that the corner had rested on a stone by Quong Ho’s head and so had not crushed his face.

He bent down, made a rapid examination; then sank back on his heels, and thanked God that Quong Ho was still alive. There was a wound on his head, somewhat like his own, which until then he had all but forgotten. As far as he could make out the leg was broken in one or two places. Possibly ribs. He did not know. He took off his grey flannel jacket, the back of which was drenched in blood, and, rolling it up, put it beneath Quong Ho’s head. The obvious thing to do next was to fetch water, bandages, stimulant—there was a medicine-chest and brandy in the house. After a few impulsive strides he stopped short. There were no bandages, no brandy. What remained of them lay in the burning filth within the house walls. But water? He prayed God there might be some in the scullery. He found the pump that worked the well broken, but the blessed stream ran from the tap, showing that there was still some reserve in the fortunately undamaged cistern. As best he might he cleaned out and filled a pail; found an unbroken yellow bowl, and took them out to where Quong Ho lay. He went back to search for linen or rag; but in that welter of destruction he could find nothing. His own handkerchief was absurdly inadequate. Luckily, the day before being warm, he had changed before lunch into a thin undervest and a linen shirt. The latter he removed and tore into strips, and so he bathed and bandaged Quong Ho’s head. He also ripped up the man’s trousers and cut shoes and socks from the swollen feet, and with the remainder of the shirt made compresses. And all the time Quong Ho showed no sign of returning consciousness. Evidently he was suffering from severe concussion.

It was only when he had finished his rough dressings that the ghastliness of his isolation smote him. He must leave Quong Ho there alone, uncared for, and go across the moor in search of help. Suppose his own leg had been broken. The sweat stood on his forehead. They would have lain there and starved to death, like stricken animals in a wilderness. Meanwhile the sun was rising higher in the sky and was beating down upon Quong Ho. With a mighty effort he raised him in his arms and staggered with him to the other side of the house, where there would be shade for some hours: where, too, the evil smoke could not eddy over him. Placing the jacket again beneath his head and the bowl filled with fresh water by his side, on the off chance of his recovering consciousness, he left the scene of desolation and horror.

About a mile away he realized that he had not tended his own wounded head, which, without any covering from the sun, was throbbing in exquisite agony. His handkerchief he had left with the remainder of the shirt. He also realized that he was bare-armed, clad only in the summer undervest and flannel trousers and the light gym shoes in which he used to fence. He reeked all over, hands and arms and body, with soot and blood. All this soon passed from his mind. Things whirred in his brain, so that he feared lest he were growing lightheaded. Also, although he had drunk a little water before starting, he began to be tormented with a burning thirst. He lost sense of the vastness of the calamity that had befallen him, lost the power, too, of speculating on its cause. All his mind was concentrated on battling against tortured nerves and reeling brain, in order to achieve one object. He kept on repeating to himself what he should say to the first human being he should meet; fortified himself with the reflection: “Three miles to the road; three-quarters of an hour.” But only having traversed the barely distinguishable track thrice before, once when he made the return journey from Water-End to view the hermitage, and on the other occasion when he drove thither to take up residence, he missed it and strayed diagonally across the moor. At last, after a couple of hours wandering, he reached a ditch beyond which stretched the dazzling white ribbon of road. He fell into the ditch like a drunken man, managed to clamber out and, on the further side, stumbled and lay exhausted, unable to move. After a few minutes he staggered to his feet, and swayed down the road, which was as lonely as the moorland.

Suddenly he became aware of a difference; of trees and laurels and verdure on his left; and in the midst of them stood a couple of tall granite pillars with a gateway between. It was a house. He had won through. Inside was human aid. He made his way to the gate and clutched the top bar to steady himself and looked down a well-ordered drive. As he looked a man appeared from a side path, who, after regarding the haggard apparition grotesquely clad, covered with grime and blood, for a few gasping seconds, rushed up.

“Hello! Hello! What’s the matter? Why—I’m jiggered! It’s Mr. Baltazar!”

Baltazar swept a hand towards the moor, and said hoarsely: