Circles of Dread by Jean Ray

Author:Jean Ray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Weybridge made a tour of the kennel and carefully inspected the splendid animals that barked loudly when they saw him ready for the hunt.

The game he was undertaking was risky, and he knew that instinct turned dogs away from the perilous lands where quicksand and deep mud slumbered.

He could count on neither Snow nor Flame, the setters, one white as snow, the other red as a bonfire, intelligent and cautious beasts. His gaze paused for a long time on Tempest.

He was a pointer of the highest breed, supple as a whip and obeyed naught but his violent desire to hunt down beasts.

Weybridge loved him like an indulgent father with a soft spot for his wayward son.

“He is the only one of my dogs who is not a slave,” he would say, “and not only is he not that, he is hardly a servant!”

Those who did not understand the hunter would ask:

“And what is he, your Tempest?”

“He is a friend,” replied Weybridge gravely, “and an ally.”

He opened the gate of the cage, and the pointer shot out like an arrow in furious pursuit of the hens pecking in the yard. The other dogs began a long complaint of disappointment and jealousy.

“Tem,” whispered the master, “either the day will be splendid, or it will be terrible …”

After a moment’s hesitation, he took a five-shot automatic rifle from the rack.

He disliked this weapon; it seemed unfair and dishonest to him. Game might hope to escape from a double-barreled shotgun, but it lost all chance of salvation before the rapid burst of an automatic.

Weybridge displayed a kind of loyalty toward the beasts he hunted. He would have blushed to kill a rabbit in its warren. In the reserve that belonged to him outright, he prohibited total haymaking and only allowed a few rare swaths in the grassy plain. In this way the game could still defend itself.

The automatic that cuts down half a company of partridges, that annihilates the morning’s quartet of curlew, and that allows the shooter to waste at least two cartridges, was to him a dishonest weapon.

“Bah,” he said, minutely inspecting the barrel, “I will set the quicksand in the balance pan; it must weigh very heavily … almost as much as my own skin!”

Tempest had lined up beside him, because he refused the servile march riveted to his master’s heels—he was traveling with a companion and seemed to enjoy the conversation.

Weybridge left the Seaws on his left and took the route to the sea. The pointer raised an excited nose toward the nearby creeks where teals were taking flight, then he froze before a moorhen with horribly long legs that fled screeching, tracing a double wake over the moire of the waters.

“We will take the cliff,” said Weybridge, and no doubt Tempest understood, for he strode toward the amber line of the west. He must have been thinking of the ruffled clouds of white-ears and the black brood of scoters haunting the vicinity of the saltwater.

When Weybridge reached the cliff, he halted and followed the long ashen wall with his eyes.

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