THE TERROR
A MYSTERY
BY ARTHUR MACHEN
AUTHOR OF "THE BOWMEN"
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY
UNION SQUARE, NORTH
1917
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
The Coming of the Terror
After two years we are turning once more to the morning’s news with a sense ofappetite and glad expectation. There were thrills at the beginning of the war;the thrill of horror and of a doom that seemed at once incredible and certain;this was when Namur fell and the German host swelled like a flood over theFrench fields, and drew very near to the walls of Paris. Then we felt thethrill of exultation when the good news came that the awful tide had beenturned back, that Paris and the world were safe; for awhile at all events.
Then for days we hoped for more news as good as this or better. Has Von Kluckbeen surrounded? Not to-day, but perhaps he will be surrounded to-morrow. Butthe days became weeks, the weeks drew out to months; the battle in the Westseemed frozen. Now and again things were done that seemed hopeful, with promiseof events still better. But Neuve Chapelle and Loos dwindled intodisappointments as their tale was told fully; the lines in the West remained,for all practical purposes of victory, immobile. Nothing seemed to happen;there was nothing to read save the record of operations that were clearlytrifling and insignificant. People speculated as to the reason of thisinaction; the hopeful said that Joffre had a plan, that he was “nibbling,”others declared that we were short of munitions, others again that the newlevies were not yet ripe for battle. So the months went by, and almost twoyears of war had been completed before the motionless English line began tostir and quiver as if it awoke from a long sleep, and began to roll onward,overwhelming the enemy.
The secret of the long inaction of the British Armies has been well kept. Onthe one hand it was rigorously protected by the censorship, which severe, andsometimes severe to the point of absurdity—“the captains and the ...depart,” for instance—became in this particular matter ferocious. As soonas the real significance of that which was happening, or beginning to happen,was perceived by the authorities,