“Skull-Face” chapters 5 and 6 by Robert E. Howard (in English)

Chapter 5. The Man on the Couch

"What dam of lances sent thee forth to jest at dawn with Death?"

  Kipling

At the expiration of two days, Hassim beckoned me as I stood in the opium room. I advanced with a springy, resilient tread, secure in the confidence that I had culled the Morley papers of all their worth. I was a new man; my mental swiftness and physical readiness surprized me--sometimes it seemed unnatural.

            Hassim eyed me through narrowed lids and motioned me to follow, as usual. As we crossed the room, my gaze fell upon a man who lay on a couch close to the wall, smoking opium. There was nothing at all suspicious about his ragged, unkempt clothes, his dirty, bearded face or the blank stare, but my eyes, sharpened to an abnormal point, seemed to sense a certain incongruity in the clean-cut limbs which not even the slouchy garments could efface.

            Hassim spoke impatiently and I turned away. We entered the rear room, and as he shut the door and turned to the table, it moved of itself and a figure bulked up through the hidden doorway. The Sikh, Ganra Singh, a lean sinister-eyed giant, emerged and proceeded to the door opening into the opium room, where he halted until we should have descended and closed the secret doorway.

            Again I stood amid the billowing yellow smoke and listened to the hidden voice.

            "Do you think you know enough about Major Morley to impersonate him successfully?"

            Startled, I answered, "No doubt I could, unless I met someone who  was intimate with him."

            "I will take care of that. Follow me closely. Tomorrow you sail on the first boat for Calais. There you will meet an agent of mine who will accost you the instant you step upon the wharfs, and give you further instructions. You will sail second class and avoid all conversation with strangers or anyone. Take the papers with you. The

agent will aid you in making up and your masquerade will start in Calais. That is all. Go!"

            I departed, my wonder growing. All this rigmarole evidently had a meaning, but one which I could not fathom. Back in the opium room Hassim bade me be seated on some cushions to await his return. To my question he snarled that he was going forth as he had been ordered, to buy me a ticket on the Channel boat. He departed and I sat down, leaning my back against the wall. As I  ruminated, it seemed suddenly that eyes were fixed on me so intensely as to disturb my sub-mind. I glanced up quickly but no one seemed to be looking at me. The smoke

drifted through the hot atmosphere as usual; Yussef Ali and the Chinese glided back and forth tending to the wants of the sleepers.

            Suddenly the door to the rear room opened and a strange and hideous figure came haltingly out. Not all of those who found entrance to Yun Shatu's back room were aristocrats and society members. This was one of the exceptions, and one whom I remembered as having often entered and emerged therefrom. A tall, gaunt figure, shapeless and ragged wrappings and nondescript garments, face entirely hidden. Better that the face be hidden, I thought, for without doubt the wrapping concealed a grisly sight. The man was a leper, who had somehow managed to escape the attention of the public guardians and who was occasionally seen haunting the lower and more mysterious regions of East End - a mystery even to the lowest denizens of Limehouse.

            Suddenly my supersensitive mind was aware of a swift tension in the air. The leper hobbled out the door, closed it behind him. My eyes instinctively sought the couch whereon lay the man who had aroused my suspicions earlier in the day. I could have sworn that cold steely eyes glared menacingly before they flickered shut. I crossed to the couch in one stride and bent over the prostrate man. Something about

his face seemed unnatural--a healthy bronze seemed to underlie the pallor of complexion.

            "Yun Shatu!" I shouted. "A spy is in the house!"

            Things happened then with bewildering speed. The man on the couch with one tigerish movement leaped erect and a revolver gleamed in his hand. One sinewy arm flung me aside as I sought to grapple with him and a sharp decisive voice sounded over the babble which broke forth.

            "You there! Halt! Halt!"

            The pistol in the stranger's hand was leveled at the leper, who was making for the door in long strides!

            All about was confusion; Yun Shatu was shrieking volubly in Chinese and the four China boys and Yussef Ali were rushing in from all sides, knives glittering in their hands.

            All this I saw with unnatural clearness even as I marked the stranger's face. As the fleeing leper gave no evidence of halting, I saw the eyes harden to steely points of determination, sighting along the pistol barrel--the features set with the grim purpose of the slayer. The leper was almost to the outer door, but death would strike him down ere he could reach it.

            And then, just as the finger of the stranger tightened on the trigger, I hurled myself forward and my right fist crashed against his chin. He went down as though struck by a trip-hammer, the revolver exploding harmlessly in the air.

            In that instant, with the blinding flare of light that sometimes comes to one, I knew that the leper was none other than the Man Behind the Screen!

            I bent over the fallen man, who though not entirely senseless had been rendered temporarily helpless by that terrific blow. He was struggling dazedly to rise but I shoved him roughly down again and seizing the false beard he wore, tore it away. A lean bronzed face was revealed, the strong lines of which not even the artificial dirt and grease-paint could alter.

            Yussef Ali leaned above him now, dagger in hand, eyes slits of murder. The brown sinewy hand went up - I caught the wrist.

            "Not so fast, you black devil! What are you about to do?"

            "This is John Gordon," he hissed, "the Master's greatest foe! He must die, curse you!"

            John Gordon! The name was familiar somehow, and yet I did not seem to connect it with the London police nor account for the man's presence in Yun Shatu's dope-joint. However, on one point I was determined.

            "You don't kill him, at any rate. Up with you!" This last to Gordon, who with my aid staggered up, still very dizzy.

            "That punch would have dropped a bull," I said in wonderment; "I didn't know I had it in me."

            The false leper had vanished. Yun Shatu stood gazing at me as immobile as an idol, hands in his wide sleeves, and Yussef Ali stood back, muttering murderously and thumbing his dagger edge, as I led Gordon out of the opium room and through the innocent-appearing bar which lay between that room and the street.

            Out in the street I said to him: "I have no idea as to who you are or what you are doing here, but you see what an unhealthful place it is for you. Hereafter be advised by me and stay away."

            His only answer was a searching glance, and then he turned and walked swiftly though somewhat unsteadily up the street.

Chapter 6. The Dream Girl

 "I have reached these lands but newly

From an ultimate dim Thule."

Poe

Outside my room sounded a light footstep. The doorknob turned cautiously and slowly; the door opened. I sprang erect with a gasp. Red lips, half-parted, dark eyes like limpid seas of wonder, a mass of shimmering hair--framed in my drab doorway stood the girl of my dreams!

            She entered, and half-turning with a sinuous motion, closed the door. I sprang forward, my hands outstretched, then halted as she put a finger to her lips.

            "You must not talk loudly," she almost whispered. "He did not say I could not come; yet -"

            Her voice was soft and musical, with just a touch of foreign accent which I found delightful. As for the girl herself, every intonation, every movement proclaimed the Orient. She was a fragrant breath from the East. From her night-black hair, piled high above her alabaster forehead, to her little feet, encased in high-heeled pointed slippers, she portrayed the highest ideal of Asiatic loveliness - an effect which was heightened rather than lessened by the English blouse and skirt which she wore.

            "You are beautiful!" I said dazedly. "Who are you?"

            "I am Zuleika," she answered with a shy smile. "I - I am glad you like me. I am glad you no longer dream hashish dreams."

            Strange that so small a thing should set my heart to leaping wildly!

            "I owe it all to you, Zuleika," I said huskily. "Had not I dreamed of you every hour since you first lifted me from the gutter, I had lacked the power of even hoping to be freed from my curse."

            She blushed prettily and intertwined her white fingers as if in nervousness.

            "You leave England tomorrow?" she said suddenly.

            "Yes. Hassim has not returned with my ticket - " I hesitated suddenly, remembering the command of silence.

            "Yes, I know, I know!" she whispered swiftly, her eyes widening. "And John Gordon has been here! He saw you!"

            "Yes!"

            She came close to me with a quick lithe movement.

            "You are to impersonate some man! Listen, while you are doing this, you must not ever let Gordon see you! He would know you, no matter what your disguise! He is a terrible man!"

            "I don't understand," I said, completely bewildered. "How did the Master break me of my hashish craving? Who is this Gordon and why did he come here? Why does the Master go disguised as a leper - and who is he? Above all, why am I to impersonate a man I never saw or heard of?"

            "I cannot - I dare not tell you!" she whispered, her face paling. "I -"

            Somewhere in the house sounded the faint tones of a Chinese gong. The girl started like a frightened gazelle.

            "I must go! _ He _ summons me!"

            She opened the door, darted through, halted a moment to electrify me with her passionate exclamation: "Oh, be careful, be very careful, sahib!"

            Then she was gone.