1
The Slayer of Souls
Robert W. Chambers
1920
To My Friend George Armsby
I
Mirror of Fashion,
Admiral of Finance,
Don't, in a passion,
Denounce this poor Romance;
For, while I dare not hope it might
Enthuse you,
Perhaps it will, some rainy night,
Amuse you.
II
So, your attention,
In poetry polite,
To my invention
I bashfully invite.
Don't hurl the book at Eddie's head
Deep laden,
Or Messmore's; you might hit instead
Will Braden.
III
Kahn among Canners,
And Grand Vizier of style,
Emir of Manners,
Accept--and place on file--
This tribute, which I proffer while
I grovel,
And honor with thy matchless Smile
My novel.
R. W. C.
CHAPTER I.
THE YEZIDEE
Only when the Nan-yang Maru sailed from Yuen-San did her terrible sense of foreboding begin to subside.
For four years, waking and sleeping, the awful subconsciousness of supreme evil had never left her.
But now, as the Korean shore, receding into darkness, grew dimmer and dimmer, fear subsided and grew vague as the half-forgotten memory of horror in a dream.
She stood near the steamer's stern apart from other passengers, a slender, lonely figure in her silver-fox furs, her ulster and smart little hat, watching the lights of Yuen-San grow paler and smaller along the horizon until they looked like a level row of stars.
Under her haunted eyes Asia was slowly dissolving to a streak of vapour in the misty lustre o