The Sin-Eater and Other Stories by G.G. Pendarves

Book Details

The Sin-Eater and Other Stories is a collection of five stories about black magic, immortality, ancient demons, possession and dual personality.

The Power Of The Dog (1927) – A tale of Arabian black magic and the terrifying fate that befell two Englishmen at the hands of Daouad

The Footprint (1930) – Back from the gates of hell came Jerry’s grandfather—a grim story of black magic and evil rites. A six chapter novelette.

The Return (1927) – By the Well of Tiz He Was Buried

The Laughing Thing (1929) – Eldred Werne wielded more power dead than alive—a powerful ghost story. An eight chapter novelette.

The Sin-Eater (1938) – An unusually strange and powerful tale of possession and dual personality

G.G. Pendarves (1885-1938) was the pseudonym of Gladys Gordon Trenery. She also used the pseudonym Marjory E. Lambe. Pendarves had the third most prolific output of all female writers published in Weird Tales, behind Allison V. Harding and Mary Elizabeth Counselman. However, if Harding was actually Weird Tales’ associate editor Lamont Buchanan, as suspected, Pendarves would be the second most prolific woman published in “The Unique Magazine.”

The Sin-Eater was one of only five stories reprinted twice in Weird Tales. The Eighth Green Man, also by G.G Pendarves, was another.

The Sin-Eater and Other Stories has 4 illustrations.

Files:

1. Pendarves-SinEater.epub

Excerpt: The Sin-Eater

An unusually strange and powerful tale of possession and dual personality

LOOK about you! What do you think of this land where the dark experiment we shall watch takes place? This ancient haunted land of Cornwall—unfertile, unfriendly, isolated until last century from the world, even from the rest of England. Old gods, old worships, old forgotten races have died hard and lingeringly in this narrow peninsula. Cromlechs, shrines and ruined altars on many lonely hills, and desolate moors still remain to remind, to suggest, with dark portents of evil.

Not long ago Black Magic darkened the thoughts and lives of men here, from Land’s End to King Arthur’s Seat; not long enough to purge the duchy of its evil, not long enough to drive out forces so long dominant.

Apparently — oh yes — apparently only legends remain: legends useful to amuse summer visitors in company with wishing-wells, smugglers’ caves, bathing-beaches, old coastguard paths, Roman forts, ancient tin mines, pilchards and clotted cream. Let it go at that. Legends!

In reality this is the story of a master scientist who dealt with human powers which few of us begin to understand. And it is always comfortable to deny the existence of what we don’t understand. We demand of science improvement, discovery, bigger and better toys to play with in order that we can more easily forget the briefness of our stay in the playground itself. The science we support is obvious, spectacular, dealing only with matter, dealing with our bodies very specially that they may be bigger, better bodies so that we may stay longer to play with our toys.

But the mind of man! How convenient to forget the sciences that concern the mind of man! The majority have a touching faith in modern psychology as being a complete map to it. About as comprehensive and true a map as those of the world made in the Twelfth Century!

That’s as it may be, but most readers will grant, however, the suitability of our background here in Cornwall for this, for almost any imaginable mystery. Look at the broken, towering, gloomy cliffs. They guard memories of bloodshed, violence and tragedy, of wild gales and greedy seas, of battered ships and drowning men, of wreckers more barbaric than Moorish pirates, of smugglers and press-gangs, of long centuries of struggle between man and his enemy, the sea. On this wild coast the breaking tides boom one continuous knell—death!

And inland? Do these bare moors, this stern gray granite give you comfort?

Look closer—closer—at this old fishing-port. It is full of narrow cobbled ways, full of dark-skinned, dark-eyed fishermen, their swarming children, their hundreds of cats.

This is the port of Trink. This is where we shall watch a great experiment.

We reach the great iron gates of Lamorna House—follow a shadowed drive between tall firs that moan and whisper the sea’s long dirge—death! death! death!

MARK ZENNOR was dying.

He lay in his great carven bed and watched the pair of lovers with hard, merciless eyes. His young wife, Rosaina, and Stephen Lynn, his nephew, secretary and——? What else Stephen was, or would shortly be, was hidden in the dying man’s thoughts.

Dying! It seemed impossible to Rosaina. She knew the doctors had given him up, said the patient was hanging on hour by hour by a miracle of will-power. She knew her husband had repeatedly affirmed this. But he seemed to her more awfully alive than ever.

“Death, where is thy sting? Where grave, thy victory?”

The words flashed across her confused and terrified thoughts. Hysteria threatened. How ironical, those words, in connection with a death-bed like this! She bit her lip, closed her smarting eyes. Mark’s voice stabbed her to control again. Her eyes opened to meet his sharp, cruel stare.

“Permit me to offer my sympathy. This is a most difficult role for you, my dear. Unpardonable of me to subject you to such embarrassment. It should have been so simple, so congenial a task to speed a parting guest. And an inconvenient husband at that! But my exit from this world? You feel something is lacking, eh? Now why?—why, Rosaina?”

Why indeed? For the life of her she couldn’t formulate her deep uneasiness. Mark really was dying, there could be no question of it; all the doctors and specialists had agreed on that. A great many doctors had come and gone during the week of Mark’s illness.

“It’s only fair to you and Stephen that I take my departure with a good deal of publicity,” he had explained. “My illness is so sudden and so unexpected that rumors might arise as to whether you two had connived at it. With all the drugs I use in my body a post-mortem would be very unconvincing.”

It was remarks like this that stuck in Rosaina’s mind. And the flicker of laughter in his eyes as he’d said them. At this very moment he—

“You’re a fool, Rosaina, but not quite such a fool as Stephen. You at least realize how little you understand my work—my art. And you are afraid. Most wise. My nephew, on the other hand—”

He turned his great head, massive and bold in outline as the carved figurehead of a ship. His dark-red hair, tonsured like a monk’s, was untouched by gray in spite of his eighty years. Under a tremendous brow, his eyes glittered like quartz in strong sunlight. His nose was long, finely cut, extremely sensitive, and, in conjunction with deeply-sunken cheeks and the fine brow, would have stamped him as an intellectual and ascetic had it not been for the mouth. That was a horror, a great bar of ugly crimson across the colorless face.

Stephen Lynn did not meet his uncle’s keen, stabbing glance. He sat in the glow of a cavernous red fire across the room, and though ill at ease and resentful of his uncle’s characteristically unpleasant way of conducting his death-bed scene, Stephen’s clever, mobile face showed neither fear nor doubt.

“My nephew,” pursued Mark, “is too much a man of the world, of this world, to share your misgivings as to the future, Rosaina.

“Imperial Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

“My widow and her wealth would stop a good-sized hole. Exactly!”

A stain of color showed in the young man’s face, too pale and sharply drawn for his age and build. But Stephen was a young man of character and ambition.

His uncle paid him handsomely. He’d found the resources of Lamorna library invaluable for his own private researches. And there was always Rosaina. The fact of her near and dear presence had made his difficult, often revolting work possible.

He made no reply in speech, but Mark Zennor saw the red blood in his cheeks and sniggered.

“Don’t trouble to conceal your face, my boy. And your thoughts are perfectly correct, too. I am almost finished, so it’s hardly worth while your taking me seriously now. I shall die before midnight.”

STEPHEN frowned at the floor between his knees. He’d never got accustomed to his uncle’s hateful trick of snatching the thoughts from his brain and putting them into words. He glanced across at Rosaina sitting on the far side of the great curtained bed. How nervous and strained she looked! He’d be thankful when the end came and he could take her away.

“After all, Stephen,” the voice from the bed proceeded, “you owe me a good deal. You’ve done better for yourself here than would have been possible elsewhere. The laboratory I fitted up for your exclusive use. The lines of research I indicated. Your salary. And the beautiful widow I am so obligingly going to leave for you. All these things must be balanced against less congenial aspects of your work under my roof. In fact, I’m hoping you will not grudge a last small service—a mere trifle, I assure you.”

Rosaina turned her head sharply. She recognized the note in Mark’s voice with a pang of fear. He was going to ask Stephen something important— something of such importance that he thought it worth while to subdue possible opposition with a weapon that never failed him. Her own heart leaped, her pulses thrilled in response to it. Mark’s voice! Against all instinct and reason, those who heard that note in Mark’s voice had no choice but to obey.

Excerpt From: G.G. Pendarves. “The Sin-Eater and Other Stories.”