The life-eater

Doctor Lamontaine, sipping rum from a battered tin cup and poring over a volume of Cagliostro, noted the shadow that fell across the book as a man entered the cubbyhole of an office.

"Drink?" he growled without looking up, and shoved a second cup across the desk. "Rum. Good Jamaica rum. Help yourself."

The green-and-yellow parrot, swinging on its perch at his elbow, opened its filmy eyes and echoed its master's invitation.

"_Rum!_" it shrieked drowsily. "_Good Jamaica rum! Hotter'n hell! Hotter'n hell!_"

Lamontaine looked up when his visitor made no response to the double overture. Then he leaped to his feet, his hand outstretched, his eyes smiling a welcome under their bushy red brows.

"The dominie, by all that's holy!" he roared.

He dumped a pile of magazines from a chair, kicked them into the corner, and shoved it to his guest.

"No wonder you refused my invitation to guzzle," he chuckled. "You, the only teetotaler in the village. Sit down, my friend, and take a load off your feet."

The schoolmaster dropped wearily into the proffered seat and gazed at his host curiously.

"Will you never grow up?" he demanded whimsically.

Lamontaine shrugged his shoulders and returned the other's smile with a broad grin.

"I hope not," he chuckled. "The devil of it, dominie, is that I've sipped the nectar from the cup of knowledge and now all that's left for me is the dregs. But come, my friend, what brings you, a sick man, out in the heat of the day? Have I not warned you repeatedly against it?"

The little dominie smiled wanly.

"Evelyn l'Brest was stricken today," he said finally. "She is like--the others...."

There was silence for a moment. Lamontaine wagged his big head sagely; then he drew himself into his shell of professional reserve, for he knew that Noel Pelletier loved this slip of a girl who had been his pupil.

"I have already seen her," he said finally.

"There is nothing that you can do for her?"

Again the physician was silent. Then he arose and took a short turn about the tiny room. Returning to his desk, he dropped back into his seat and, filling the tin cup from the rum-jug at his elbow, he downed the contents at a gulp.

"I have told you before, my friend," he said finally, "that this is a case for a priest and not a physician."

The schoolmaster crossed himself.

"_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed. "Then you still insist?"

Lamontaine nodded.

"It is a question of exorcism, not physic," he growled. "All night and all this day, when I have had the opportunity, I have pored over my books. I am more convinced now than before. Listen, my friend."

He leaned across the desk and tapped the jumble of books with his long fore-finger.

"There is much knowledge in these," he said quietly, "knowledge that you men with religion in your souls will not admit. Black Magic? Certainly. You say that there is no such thing. I insist that it exists today just as it did in the beginning. True, the church has stamped it out to a large degree. But, nevertheless, there are many isolated cases--places far from the ken of men, such as here in La Foubelle--where it flourishes like the grass after a spring rain. Your people here are superstitious. They have given the devil fertile soil in which to plant his seeds."

"Admitted! Admitted!" the little schoolmaster said excitedly. "Against such ignorance one man can do nothing; a dozen could not handle the situation efficiently. Yet----"

Lamontaine held up a restraining hand.

"Books such as these of mine tell of strange, weird things," he interrupted, "horrible things--things of which the average man never dreams. Our ancestors knew more about spirit life--the life beyond the veil--than we shall ever know. Why? Because they lived closer to it.

"I have traveled in many lands and I have studied in innumerable out-of-the-way places," he went on heatedly, "but never have I seen such a rare opportunity for the devil and his imps as here in La Foubelle. And he has taken advantage of it, dominie. There is a terrible influence at work here--under our very noses."

The schoolmaster crossed himself again.

"_Désorienté!_" he exclaimed with a shudder. "Do you mean----"

"That there are many things the average man cannot--will not--understand," Lamontaine interrupted. "There are innumerable forms of spirit life--forms that function in various ways. Some of them--most of them, I might say--are kindly disposed toward us. Others are malignant. We have to deal with one of the latter in this case."

He filled and lighted his pipe, the little schoolmaster gazing at him with eyes that betrayed his horror and astonishment.

"_Désorienté!_" he said again. "You are beyond my depth, my friend. Explain yourself."

Lamontaine scratched his red beard reflectively.

"Primal earth forces," he said shortly, "elementals--spirit forms that have never evolved--subhuman nature spirits. They exist, together with innumerable other spirit forms, on the other side of the veil."

"_Mon Dieu!_" the schoolmaster gasped. "I can hardly believe it, my doctaire."

"These things are jealous of mankind, hating living beings because mankind has evolved," Lamontaine went on. "Why? Because they have never developed beyond the rudimentary stages. Consequently, they consider mankind their natural prey. One of these things is loose in our peaceful little village. Because it is out of its natural habitat, it must have vitality on which to live--human vitality. Otherwise, it ceases to be. So it feeds upon the vitality of those with whom it comes in contact, just as a vampire feeds upon human blood."