Unprofessional Tales: Tiger Moon by Normyx (Norman Douglas)

Norman Douglas wrote a set of short stories called Unprofessional Tales under the pseudonym Normyx. Two of these have monsters that can be usefully grabbed for Ars Magica. Both of them are demons. In the Red Sea is a beautiful example of what demonic oppression feels like in the Ars Magica game.

Stats eventually.

In the Red Sea
IT began in the Red Sea.
Let me at once admit, gentlemen, that the matter is quite unintelligible to me. Convince yourselves that I am perfectly calm. I do
not pose as a prophet, a seer, a dreamer of dreams. I do not profess to know what it means or whether, indeed, it means anything. That-will—be for you to-decide. Is it a mere accident? A warning? A punishment? Who knows? . . .

Alcohol? – Certainly not. I have been accustomed to it all my life and perhaps I drink more than some men. Why not? I am my own master and those who know me well may have guessed why I sometimes drink more
than necessary. They know that if I indulged in excesses there would be some excuse for me. For twenty years I have tried to forget. In vain. My life has been clouded by an affliction such as falls to the lot of very few.

My happiness has been blasted. I wonder, gentlemen, if you fully realise what these words mean? I doubt it. But let that pass. Look at me ! I am old and robust. I have served in a dozen campaigns. My hand is as steady as yours. I have never suffered from any of the evils incident to an abuse of spirits.

Spirits. . . .
Are there spirits?
Perhaps it is a spirit.
It comes often nowadays. I see it before me, on all sides of me, and behind me. Yes, I see it behind me. You, who know everything—how do you explain that? It used to come much seldomer. Nowadays, the moment my mind is unoccupied, the moment I am not actively engaged in some pursuit or conversation, there it is, staring at me. It lies in wait for my idle moments. That is what has made me so nervous. I used to be anything but excitable, but now I do and say the strangest things in order to escape from it. It wears me out. You would not believe how I suffer. . . .
It began in the Red Sea.

We were coming home, last year, from India, and just entering the Gulf of Suez. It was prodigiously hot weather — the hottest I ever remember. I have made the trip about forty times. Perhaps the heat had something to do
with it. The heat affects some persons strangely. . . .

I recollect that we sat up on deck, three or four of us, to a late hour. It was past mid night, but old campaigners like ourselves keep out an extra bottle of whisky and buy our soda water before the bar closes. The lights were out. But the moon was magnificent. I never saw such a fine moon, and I have seen a good many. It seemed to soar in the sky like a living thing. We were running close to the shore, and one could see every line of those African mountains, parched and mysterious, with their fantastic peaks and clefts. A barren desola tion — almost worse than India. Someone— I think it was Major Keane—said that there was good lion-shooting still to be had, and
hyenas, no doubt. . . .

Hideous brutes, hyenas.

Then I told them about my sport with the lions in Kattywar many years ago. I believe there are not many of them left now. The Ghuzerati lion, you know, has generally not much of a mane. He seems to feel the indignity of it and looks unhappy. Now the tiger never looks unhappy. Then Keane put down his glass and said:—

‘I have met with an exception, general. I remember once wounding a tigress in Bangalore, an enormous beast. We tracked her to a nullah, where she lay dying beside a pool of dirty water. Couldn’t move —wounded in the spine. And, Lord! you should have seen the expression on her face. It was horrible—perfectly human, I assure you, perfectly human. The skin was spoilt but I kept the head and had it set up on a round shield. Good head, capital head.”

I am a weak old fool in some things, but I cannot help it. Whenever others talk of suffering, I must always think of my poor daughter. She was all I had in this world. She died nearly twenty years ago. Twenty years. I might have forgotten by this time. Curiously enough, I cannot recall her exact
features. I have often spent hours trying to do so. But it is not so easy as you might think to call up a vanished face again. Have you ever tried ? –
Sometimes her face visits me in my dreams, but it leaves me, waking.

I nursed her through a long illness. And how she suffered ! My friends hardly realise to what an extent this bereavement has weighed on my mind. I try to be cheerful. But the sudden recollection, at times, positively unnerves me.

It was the same that evening. I could not listen to them any longer. I got up to go to my berth.
“Turning in already, general?’
‘Yes. I suppose I must try to sleep an hour or two.”
‘Why not sleep on deck in this heat?’
‘I dislike the moon. Good-night.’
‘Dislike the moon! Ha, ha! Good-night!’

But it was vain to attempt to sleep. The heat was intense and not a breath of air entered the cabin. I tossed about for an hour or more. Then I gradually became more drowsy. I caught myself repeating scraps of ridiculous conversation —a sign of weariness, they say. I remember thinking of that stuffed tiger head. Everyone was asleep. The ship was dark and quiet. There was not a sound save the regular throbbing of the screw and the swirl of the water at the ship’s side. I suppose it was two or three o’clock. But the moon was still bright.

She must be on my side of the ship, I calculated. I hoped she would not come down as low as my port. I detest the moon
shining on me—ask any old Anglo-Indian and he will tell you there is nothing more unhealthy. Europeans know nothing about the moon in
southern climates. Sometimes they suffer for it. I have seen a man totter home, looking exactly like a corpse, after sleeping a few hours in
the moonlight. I suppose I slept, after all, for about half an hour. Yes, I must have dozed. Then I suddenly woke up with the feeling that something
was wrong. You know that feeling? The feeling as if one were no longer alone.

And, sure enough, there was something looking into my cabin from the outside. My window looked straight on to the water. The object was round
and bright, and filled up the port-hole exactly. I looked at it. There was not a shadow of doubt about the matter. I sat up and rubbed my eyes to see more
clearly. Was I awake? I pinched myself. I was as wide awake as you are. It never moved. At first I could distinguish nothing more than a luminous disc, The moon?

Nothing of the kind. It might have been the moon, so far as roundness and whiteness were concerned. But it was not the moon. For, as I continued to look, I was surprised to discover features painted upon it. It was a face—a mask. I saw it distinctly. Ah! that tiger story. . . . A tiger’s face? No. Not exactly. A human face? Also not—not quite human.

The features partook both of the man and of the tiger! For the eyes were human in shape and meaning, the rest was of the beast. And it was completely-round and white. Conceive it, if you can. It looked in at the port-hole and stared at me.

All this, gentlemen, is perfectly true. I can discuss it quite dispassionately—I take a rational view of the matter. I said to myself at the time: the nerves play strange tricks occasionally, especially upon persons who have lived long in unhealthy climates. Then I remember saying, “Wake up ! Wake up ! you are half asleep still !’

But I was not half asleep. And yet I was not frightened beyond all measure.

Why?

Because, in spite of its hellish disguise, the countenance—the human part of it—was familiar to me.

It had visited me before, many times, in my dreams.

I think I can hear you say, ‘Optical illusion.’

How I hate those words! I willingly admit that we may be the dupes of our imagination now and then. But I know too much ! Besides, why should you disbelieve me? Do I look like a liar? I have not that reputation. Let me
therefore tell you, once and for all, that I am past persuading against what I know to be a fact.

What happened next? I slowly stretched out my arm, and, without taking my eyes off the face, turned on the electric light. It vanished. Then I turned it off. It was there again. But a change was taking place. It began to die, slowly and painfully. It gnashed its ferocious fangs in agony. It gasped and struggled for breath. The eyelids quivered a while, and closed. Then they suddenly opened wide once more. It looked at me. Just like she did Suddenly it was withdrawn; it had melted away before my eyes; and a breath of air—I felt it distinctly —came into the cabin.

I looked for my whisky bottle, found it, and then took a turn on deck in my pyjamas. They were all lying about asleep. It was an hour before sunrise—the quietest hour. How quiet a ship can be. When I returned to my cabin
I fully expected to see it again. But it never came and I slept soundly. . . .

I only saw it once again during that voyage, but it made a more fearful impression on me, for up to that moment I had been inclined to
believe—I had secretly hoped—that I had experienced nothing but a kind of vivid dream.

We were off Port Said. I was paying the steward for something and thrust my hand into my pocket to take out a shilling. At that moment I had a curious presentiment that something was about to happen—a peculiar feeling that I often have nowadays. I took out the shilling, looked at it, and there, before my very eyes, was the face graven in miniature upon the coin.
I fainted away, and there was some little commotion. Since that day I have never been the same man. It is a living reality to me. And it will never leave me. It has become a companion for life. I know!

A day or two later, when I was sufficiently recovered from the shock, I mentioned the matter to the ship’s doctor. He was rather astonished.
‘Seen it before ?’
‘Only once.’ And I related all the circumstances.
‘Drink?’ he suggested.
‘No.’
‘Touch of the sun, maybe.’
“Or the moon . . .”
Then he endeavoured to prove to me that it was a mere optical illusion. His arguments doubtless represented the medical view of the case, and they so discouraged me that I determined not to mention the matter in future to anyone.

Perhaps I ought to have done so. Latterly, indeed, I have not been so sure of myself. Yes, gentlemen, I may as well confess that I am beginning to be afraid . . . afraid. . . . I have fears which I dare not put into words. Things
cannot go on in this fashion. How will it end ?

Every day there is some new difficulty. Since that affair at the Club, I dislike being left alone in the streets. For nowadays I not only see it; I have begun to hear it. It comes into the room with me. And after I have been for some time in one place, it drives me out. I see it every where. Whenever I think of her, it comes. From the clouds, from the houses, it stares down upon me. It expands and contracts in unearthly fashion. I see it plainly in the eyes of a friend—in the jewel of a ring. And, imagine to yourselves—yesterday, whilst crossing the Serpentine Bridge, I happened to glance over the water.
There it lay, enormous, with half-closed eyes, stretched in horrid grimace from one shore to the other. . . .

I have forgotten to tell you when I first saw it behind me. That was three weeks ago. I suddenly left London for Whitehurst (I cannot remain long in one place nowadays), although I knew that this house would call up old
memories. I ought not to have gone, but I went. It was cold and foggy. In the evening I wrote in the old library. I used to detest writing, but now it distracts me. I write feverishly and never pause to think. That evening, however, I must have paused to think. I said to myself:— ‘I have escaped from it for to-day.’ I wrote, and then paused again. ‘Have I?’
And then I said to myself:
“I believe I felt it enter the room behind me.’
I took up my pen again.
‘It is looking at me out of the fireplace.’
I began to write again, or, rather, I pretended to write busily—even as I am doing at this moment—knowing full well that what I had said was true. But the pen refused to work, and then, without turning my head, I saw it. It was looking at me from behind I saw it distinctly, even — even as I see it now…

God! How will it end?