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The story of a thief who coveted a kingdom, and the appalling secret of an old
magician
To Virgil Finlay
H.P. Lovecraft
17
Verse, written on seeing Mr. Finlay's illustration fro "The Faceless God"
Jail-break
Paul Ernst
18
The aftermath of Littell's escape from prison was far worse than the prison itself
The Whistling Corpse
G. G. Pendarves
26
A gripping weird novelette of the sea, by the author of "The Eighth Green Man"
To Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Clark Ashton Smith
48
Verse, a memorial tribute to a supreme master of weird and outré literature
Raider of the Spaceways
Henry Kuttner
49
A startling weird-scientific story about a vampiric entity on the Night Side of the planet
Venus
The Last Pharaoh (part 3)
Thomas P. Kelly
68
A story of the weird doom that enmeshed two lovers in a castle of gloom on the African
coast
The Ocean Ogre
Dana Carroll
94
A tale of the thing called Alain Gervais that came aboard a ship at sea
The Interview
H. Sivia
100
An astonishing surprize awaited the young reporter when he returned to his newspaper's city
room
The Creeper in the Crypt
Robert Bloch
104
A tale of stark horror in the dread cellar of an evil house in legend-haunted Arkham
Weird Story Reprint:
The Hounds of Tindalos
Frank Belknap Long, Jr.
111
An eery tale reprinted from WEIRD TALES of eight years ago
The Eyrie
122
The readers discuss the merits and demerits of this magazine
Published monthly by the Popular Fiction
Publishing Company, 2457 East Washington Street, Indianapolis, Ind. Entered as second-class matter March 20, 1923, at the
post office at Indianapolis, Ind., under the act of March 3, 1879. Single copies 25 cents. Subscription rates: One year in
the United States and possessions, Cuba, Mexico, South America, Span, $2.50; Canada, $2.75; elsewhere, $3.00. English
office; Otis A. Kline, c/o John Paradise, 86 Strand, W. C. 2, London. The pub-lishers are not responsible for the loss of
unsolicited manuscripts although every care will be taken of such material while in their possession. The contents of this
magazine are fully protected by copyright and must not be reproduced either wholly or in part without permission of the
publishers.
NOTE—All manuscripts and communications should be addressed to the publishers' Chicago office at 840
North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. FARNSWORTH WRIGHT, Editor.
Copyright 1937, by the Popular Fiction
Publishing Company.
A swift-moving, romantic story of a thief who coveted a kingdom, and the appalling secret of an old
magician
THE crude stone chamber was lighted only by the
flickering flame of a single torch thrust into a crev- ice in the wall. Wrenched by the drafts of the dank underground
dungeon, it cast fitful gleams over the features of the two figures seated at opposite sides of the low rock table
occupying the exact center of the small enclosure. This article, with the two chairs supporting the men, alone graced the
bareness of this sunken hole that had, in a bygone age, echoed with the groans of tortured and dying men. The walls were
damp with the moisture of eons.
"I grant you," argued Karlk, the ma- gician, stroking his long beard with the
slender fingers of a woman, "that Thrall has been a fair king. Yes. But not a good one."
"Good enough for me!"
grumbled the other, more powerful man. He struck a clenched fist on the stone of the table to emphasize his insistence, at
the same time eyeing the black-cowled figure of Karlk with tiny fires of suspicion in the depths of his long-lashed gray
eyes.
In all the kingdom of Forthe there could hardly have been found two men of such different types. The
magician was of slender frame, of small features, and delicate hands and feet. He had never appeared in any other costume
than the one he now wore—a long robe of ebon silk almost touching the ground as he walked, held by a twisted cord at the
waist. A black cowl covered his head; the heavy beard and hirsute growth before the ears left only the flashing,
malignant
eyes and the thin nostrils visible. There
were many whispers to the effect that Karlk was not really of the race of men and that if anyone would have the un-
thinkable courage to uncover his person, he would discover, not a human form, but some monstrosity impossible for the mind
of mankind to imagine.
The other man was virtually naked. Beyond the breech-clout he wore and the sandals on his
feet his only article of adornment was the slender sword dan- gling by his side. To this his right hand frequently
strayed; obviously the weapon was almost part of the man. He had known the clash of steel in combat; con- vincing proofs
of this were the great scars that crossed one another over many parts of his naked flesh. Unlike the magician he was
clean-shaven, his hair bound in the back by a thin gold chain. The well- shaped skull gave proof that brain backed his
brawn. Relaxed, as an animal of the wild rests, he still gave the impression of a creature ready to spring into snarling,
ferocious battle. He had cause for alert- ness, for he was Rald, prince among thieves.
"Good enough!" repeated
the thief. "What cause have you against Thrall? Didn't he save your accursed skin the time that missing guardsman was
found outside these walls crawling on all fours and barking like a dog? And didn't I see the poor devil myself before they
merci- fully cut off his head—a head with long, pointed, furry ears on it? Thrall covered your deviltry, didn't
he?"
my servants neglected his watch over the —man. He
wandered outside." Karlk fingered his beard reminiscently. "The king had my 'experiment' destroyed, so my stupid servant
reluctantly took its place."
Rald spat on the stones of the floor.
"I have encountered murderers I
liked better!"
''You do not fear me, Rald?" inquired the magician, gently.
"When I learn how to fear,
I'll seek another profession, oh frightener of chil- dren!"
"Even brave men can be taught."
There was a note of menace in the low tones.
Rald shrugged.
"Don't threaten me. I am no housewife screaming at shadows in the streets. I came here tonight to learn why you desired a
member of my profession. If you pull any of your filthy tricks I'll pull that crusty beard of yours and maybe see more of
your face."
The eyes of the magician gleamed red. "Look, Rald," he said, "and see how men have
died!"
He extended his left hand with out- spread fingers pointing at the blackness of the damp walls. A second,
two sec-
"On one terrible day a
princess of Forthe became a captive."
onds, and still Karlk remained immobile. Then a pale light
appeared to spread over the skin of the hand, the digits became phosphorescent and tiny blue sparks emerged suddenly at
the fingertips. Five streaks of blue light ran from the out- stretched arm to the wall. Portions of the age-old solid
stones broke into slivers and rattled to the floor.
Rald's eyes opened a trifle wider, but he grinned and spat
again. "Before you could have gotten that devilish power —whatever it is—as far as your elbow I'd have cut your arm off
right there had you pointed it at me! You'll get no alle- giance from me with threats, oh wizard! Better offer me wine;
these accursed dungeons chill me more than they do you. What do you want of me, Karlk?"
"Not to disagree, my
friend."
"I am not your friend. You have none."
"For which I am grateful. Friends mean compromises. I
deal in bargains— and get better results."
"What bargain do you seek with me?" Rald's eyes were as watchful as
the beasts of the jungles, and now his hand stayed on the sword-hilt.
"I wish you to steal something for
me."
Rald expelled a mouthful of air deri- sively. "Then why all this talk of kings and magic? Of course you
want me to steal! For what other purpose would you summon Rald? What seek you, wizard, that your magic cannot obtain? Some
of Thrall's jewels?—a stone or two from the Inner Temple? No women, mind you! I don't deal in them. What is the bargain
and what my reward?"
Rald expanded his chest; he was proud with the pride of an expert in his profes-
sion.
Karlk laughed shortly, wickedly. "Jew' els? The prizes of the temples? Ha! From the playgrounds for
children un-
learnt in the mysteries of the skies! I
seek a greater prize, something so earthly my unearthly hands cannot touch it without the aid of your nimble fingers, oh
Rald! I seek the kingdom of Forthe!"
Shocked, the notorious thief started up- right in the stone chair.
Bewilderment strained his countenance; incredulity stamped horror on his features as he sought to comprehend
blasphemy.
"Forthe!" he exclaimed. "Forthe! Why —none but the Seven Gods could steal Forthe from King Thrall of
the Ebon Dynasty!"
"Except Karlk," amended the magi- cian.
"Steal Forthe!" muttered Rald. "Re-
bellion—treachery—millions to bribe— for what? A powerful kingdom—aye! But who shall rule it, granting you gain it? You
with the blood of its peoples on your hands and the terror of yourself in their hearts?"
The magician's voice
became a whisper. "King Rald!" he said.
A siient moment passed before the agile brain of the thief encompassed
the significance of Karlk's intentions, so ut- terly bizarre the idea of stealing Forthe appeared, but abruptly the outlaw
was himself again as his natural daring and coolness won over the startled instincts of generations.
"I see," he
said slowly. "The bargain, eh? And your share?"
"A trifling matter, oh my king!" the magician mocked. "Merely
the—shall we say?—voice behind the throne. A whis- per now and then. No interference with your politics, understand. I am
a scien- tist. Just a little more freedom for—ex- periments, a condescension in-"
"For deviltry, which I like
not! To Nargarth's pits with you, Karlk!"
The magician's face remained unal- tered; one would have thought the
dark beard below the piercing eyes only a
"Jewels of the empire, viands and wines from the slopes of Ygoth, dancing- girls from Ynema—perhaps even
the Lady Thrine for yourself, oh father of a new dynasty!"
The thief's head lowered an inch or so as he
contemplated a vision. His hand slipped from the hilt of his sword. Rald dreamed a dream of empire, as many powerful men
had done before, as many more would do in ages yet unborn.
Below the golden shafts of the low- riding moon that
was suspended, in magnificent splendor far out over the des- ert sands leading to the neighboring king- dom of Ygoth, the
black towers of King Thrall's palace raised forbidding fingers into the midnight sky. An omniscience of the past hovered
over those ragged sky- lines; a susceptible observer might have imagined the flickering spirits of bygone kings floating
to and fro among the crum- bling turrets, guarding the castle walls and casting watchful eyes over the man- sions and huts
of the surrounding coun- tryside; ghosts watching over Thrall, the last king of the Ebon Dynasty—a king with no heir to
carry on the ancient line.
On the rugged rocks below the outer walls of the palace grounds, his naked body
immersed to the waist in green foli- age, his brain seething with plans for the most daring, wildest attempt of his ad-
venturous career, stood Rald, the cunning and intrepid thief of Forthe. His heart, for all his outward calm, pounded a
little harder beneath his ribs; there was a ting- ling in his blood not born of wine. Bod- ily he responded to all the
oft-known thrills of the prowl; only in his clever brain (now somewhat benumbed by the magnitude of his enterprise) dwelt
the shadowy doubts engendered by the past prescience of the magician, Karlk.
He was too far removed from the pa- trolled gateways for guards to spy him in the
desert moonlight, yet he slunk toward the walls more like an animal than a man. Desert winds and the erosion of time had
emptied many crevices between the rocks comprising the stone barrier. Cat-like, his fingers and toes found purchase in
these gaps, and in less time than he had expected he attained the summit of the wall. Here he paused to reach with cau-
tious fingers so as to ascertain the posi- tions of certain ragged sword-blades, spear-heads, cracked glass and other ob-
stacles embedded in the ledge to dissuade an intruder. Having located these, he pulled himself upward, pushing several of
the rusty defenses aside as he pro- gressed, and glided across the few exposed feet of stone in a crouching position. The
inner wall was even more eroded than the outer side; he experienced little diffi- culty in negotiating a descent. Easily
he stood within the palace grounds. With- out a sense of sacrilege, he reflected, many a thief would have been before
him.
The kitchens of the palace were his first objective. At this hour he knew they would be deserted by cooks
and staff. Ac- cordingly, he proceeded in a semicircular direction toward the rear of the massive structure of the king's
dwelling-place. He threaded his way through underbrush and gardens of flowers. Once he spied a carven statue so like the
figure of a living man that he half drew his sword before discovering his mistake. Cursing, he set a foot in a shallow
pool evidently in- tended for fish. This incident inflamed his temper, and he continued toward the palace with little
nerves twitching in his throat and wrists. The discomfort of a soaked and dripping sandal did not de- crease his
anger.
A thin piece of steel, a thieves' imple- ment expertly applied, soon forced the small kitchen door
opening onto the ref-
use pits. Closing the violated barrier quietly behind him,
he traversed three de- serted cellars fragrant with the odors of cold meats and rich wines. A series of stone steps,
moonlit through narrow aper- tures in the castle walls, led him to the upper floors and the long corridors and high arches
of the palace halls.
Rald, like many others born in the huts that clustered the hillsides under the pro- tection
of their kingdom's castle, knew practically the entire plan of the struc- ture's architecture through generations of
village people who had rendered service within its massive walls, servants that would have gasped, terror-stricken, if
they could have observed the practical use to which their idle gossip and hearsay com- ments were being put this
night.
But the thief did not know the posts of the palace guards, so he trod carefully, dodging the thin streaks
of moonlight from the narrow slits in the walls. Be- yond his suppressed breathing all was quiet as the grave. If guarding
spirits wished to clamor in warning alarms, they were powerless to do so, though Thrall's throne was in greater danger
than it had ever been before and the fate of the Ebon Dynasty was balancing in the palms of the Seven Gods, all because of
a slim, powerful, half-naked figure stealing with drawn sword through the empty corridors of Forthe's ancient
palace.
At a turning in the hall the intruder suddenly halted and, in animal fash- ion, hunched his shoulder
muscles. The sword quivered in his hand like an ani- mate thing about to make its kill. Before him a dim shadow resolved
itself into the figure of a man stretched outright upon the flagging of the paved floor. He wore the uniform of a member
of the palace guards. His hands were raised far above his head, far from his sword-hilt, in close
proximity to a thin-necked earthenware bottle. He breathed
stertorously.
"Drunk!" exulted the thief. "Oh my king! My royal fool!" The bottle gurgled momentarily in Rald's
hand. "Fair," he opined, judiciously. "Much better than some I've stolen, King Thrall!"
His eyes fell upon the
carven door be- fore which the stupefied guard lay inert. "Perhaps," he whispered softly, "perhaps this is the
room!"
A delicate twitch of the door's lever, with an eye on the unconscious form at his feet, and he was
peering into the chamber. A beam of moonlight flowed through draped tapestries to illuminate a lengthy couch holding a
form undoubt- edly female; the outlines were unmistak- able. The shape was obvious, but the head of the figure was averted
and only a smooth white cheek could be seen among the tumbled confusion of robes and cushions. Rald closed the door as si-
lently as he had opened it.
"A mistress, perhaps. Or a wench. No —a mistress. Or why the guard?"
As
noiseless as ever, his lean shadow sped down the corridor; only the appreci- atively lowered liquid line of the wine-
container testified that the thief of Forthe had ever come or gone.
At length he paused where two huge doors of
semicircular design formed an oval indentation in the wall. The portals were plain and unmarked by even the royal
heraldry; but a single bar, fitted into protruding slots on either side of the entrance, was covered by a tiny network of
cabalistic writings. Rald, stooping to peer at the engraving in the dim moon- light, made out enough of its meaning to
comprehend a warning bestowing the curses of the Seven Gods upon the mortal who would dare to lift the bar from its niche
unless bidden to do so directly by
Thrall of the Ebon Dynasty, Keeper of the Necklace and
rightful King of Forthe.
"Faith!" exclaimed Raid to himself; "if ever my name is written there instead of
Thrall's (and that is a question!) there'll be a pair of six-foot guardsmen standing on either side of this door to lend
the gods a hand—or a sword-arm!"
He slipped his sword into its scabbard, cautiously so that it would not rasp,
and lifted both hands to the bar. Although a confirmed atheist, he felt a tingle in his nerve centers for his own daring
in thus grasping a thing forbidden by the gods to human hands, and a slight chill raced down his spine as his fingers
encountered the cold metal. For a moment the shad- ows appeared to be dancing on the stones of the wall—or was it that the
walls themselves were quivering like sentient organisms?
"King Rald!" he asserted, reassuringly, and wrenched
the bar from its sockets.
It felt inordinately heavy in his hands, surprizingly heavy for a piece of metal
hardly thicker than the sword he swung so lightly; his heart, which had been puls- ing in faster tempo for the moment,
only regained its normal rate when he stood the forbidden barrier softly against the farther wall. A faint dew moistened
his forehead. It was easy enough to shock the wenches of the taverns with blas- phemy against the Seven, but here in the
dim and time-hallowed halls of ancient Castle Forthe their dark and secret powers seemed very menacing
indeed.
"King Rald!" he repeated, and paused, startled. Unconsciously he had spoken aloud, and the sound of his
voice tearing asunder the stillness within the aged and sacred corridors caused him to crouch and quiver like a wild
thing. An instant; then, superstition forgotten, he became the cynical thief again. He amended his late boast in a
whisper: "Fool Rald!"
The oval doorway was no longer
an obstacle. Before a gentle push of a hand the double doors swung inward. Rald was amazed to see the room beyond lit by
three great torches stuck at inter- vals along the walls; so closely had the portals been fitted that not a single ray of
light escaped their edges, and his ab- rupt transition from moonbeams to fire- light left him momentarily in blinking
uncertainty. Recovering, he saw that the chamber was unguarded and promptly closed the doors to prevent any unex- pected
gleams from alarming a chance guard.
The room was not large; it contained none of the great statues or scarred
armor of long-deceased kings that obstructed so many of the public halls to remind a properly awe-stricken populace of the
might of the dead. The walls were cov- ered with fold upon fold of black velvet tapestries; bare stones appeared only
where niches held the huge ironwood torches that would burn, untended, for weeks without replacement. Opposite the
entrance stood a low dais supporting the carved seats of the double throne of King Thrall and his royal sister, the Lady
Thrine. Here was the Inner Council chamber where foreign emissaries were interviewed, where treaties involving peace and
war and politics were signed, where only the great were welcome and death was the penalty for the
unbidden.
Hanging high between the cushions of the double throne and outlined in stark simplicity against the
background of black velvet, its thousand facets pouring a bril- liance of colors in great cascades under the flickering
beams from the torches, gleamed the legendary Necklace of the Ebon Dynasty.
It was the objective of Rald's
quest.
The Necklace was composed of a string of fifty diamonds, each one itself worthy of the ransom of a king,
and the lot, in
their magnificent entirety, of fabulous value. But the chief
virtue of the heir- loom lay not in its marketable worth, but in the legendary credits supposedly be- stowed upon it by
the multiple blessings of the Seven Gods when, eons ago, they granted the rights of kingship to the Ancient One who had
been the first King of Forthe and the subsequent founder of the dynasty. When the reigning king held serious council, or
signed a treaty with a neighboring power, or on rare oc- casions was called upon to dispense justice upon an important
trial or disagreement, he solemnly and reverently took down the gold-clasped chain of matchless diamonds and with his own
hands placed them about his neck. From the decision he then rendered there could be no appeal; it be- came immutable and
final. It was the Necklace, apparently, that gave verdict, not the man or even the king.
Hence the reasoning of
Karlk, the ma- gician: Many kings had worn the Neck- lace in judicial omnipotence, until the people of Forthe saw the
wearer as a rep- resentative of the Seven Gods; if a man wore it, whether or not he bore the mark of a crown, would not
that man, by the very right of his having procured the sacred authority from a lackadaisical mon- arch, claim the right of
kingship? And what man in all Forthe possessed the dar- ing, initiative, cunning and combined fearlessness and
resourcefulness, accom- plishments so necessary to the undertak- ing of the theft, but Rald, prince of thieves? A
barbarous type, perhaps, but one who, drunk with power and recently acquired authority, should be easy hand- ling. A
magician could never be a king, he knew, over people already in fear of evil enchantments; but a clever fighting- man
could hold both the throne and the loyalty of its subjects while he, Karlk, pulled strings to make the puppet
dance.
A beautiful dream come true, reasoned Karlk,
because of flawless logic.
The thief gazed upon destiny in the shape of diamonds and dreamed a dream of
magnificence, forgetting he stood sac- rilegiously on forbidden ground in a cas- tle holding torture and death for a cap-
tured criminal. The sparkle of the jewels fascinated him and he crept nearer to their dazzling beauty as a hypnotized bird
approaches the maw of a deadly snake. For a moment he forgot Karlk and king- ship and power. Primarily, he was a thief
born and bred—and here were jewels!
The cool voice from behind fell upon his ears as if the speaker had wielded
a club.
"Greetings, oh prowler of the night! You must be either a very brave or a very foolish man to come
here!"
Rald leaped instinctively, twisting in midair, and came down on his toes a full six feet from where he
had been standing. When he left the floor his back had been presented to the doorway; now he con- fronted the intruder
with drawn sword and breath hissing from between clenched teeth. No cat of the jungles could have reacted more
animal-like.
"By the rump of Nargarth!" swore the newcomer with feeling. "Quit jumping like an
ape!"
"Faith!" exclaimed Rald. His hand had stayed his sword-point within scant inches of a woman's breast.
"Faith!"
"By the hounds of—"
"Easy!" he grinned, regaining natural composure. "Easy, or I
blush!"
For a pair of seconds they surveyed each other in silence.
Rald looked upon a bravely held
figure in night attire. Even the formless gar- ment, loosely clasped about the waist by a gold-threaded belt, could not
disguise the curving beauty of a flawless shape. The long white robe fell in revealing
lines to tiny feet incased in leather san- dals. Her
raven-black hair, unbound, framed patrician features before it cas- caded in luxurious curls to the slender waist. The
level eyes, serene brow and aristocratic lips cried denial to any station of servitude; here was no castle
wench.
With a suddenly inspired comprehen- sion Rald knew her, knew also a gleam in his eyes had betrayed his
recognition by the lift of her firm chin. On previous occasions he had been permitted to view her stately figure from a
distance as the parade of royalty passed in the streets, but now, for the first time in his checkered career, he held
private audience with one of the mighty so often described to him as "his betters." But, even as realization brought a
twinge of the old awe of roy- alty to penetrate his unlawful impulses, the thought came to Rald that, after all, this was
a woman, a beautiful and brave woman, and one to be desired even if she was the Lady Thrine, sister to the King of
Forthe.
Thrine saw a half-naked barbarian, powerfully built and of challenging de- meanor, who had broken into
the most sacred chamber of the monarchy, and her rage was boundless. She forgot any prob- able need of assistance from the
palace retinue. Sacrilege had been performed.
"What seek you here?" she demanded, imperiously.
The
sword-point poised so few inches from her breast had not wavered, she noticed, and a tiny tremor of doubt as to the wisdom
of her adventure began to seep into her mind. Had it been really so delightfully intriguing—or wise—not to have alarmed
the castle when she discov- ered the presence of an intruder? Would the temporary thrill derived from track- ing the
unknown through the black cor- ridors, without summoning her brother's minions, compensate her for the
eternity
of death? Nerve stimulation of any kind, she
decided, was so rare in Castle Forthe that perhaps the exception was worthy of the risk.
"What seek you?" she
repeated, and if her voice had become a little choked it was no doubt due to the night drafts of the long
passageways.
"Fame, My Lady Thrine! And fortune, too!" His sword wavered a trifle as its circling tip
encompassed the Necklace on the wall, but returned almost immediately to its former threatening position.
"You
would dare!" gasped Thrine. "The Necklace! No one has ever dared to think of stealing the
Necklace!"
"Therefore—fame!" smiled Rald. Re- ceiving the lady's inspired awe, he felt, was the same as if an
accolade had been conferred upon him for professional skill.
"You must be an unusual thief," sur- mised Thrine,
with half-closed eyes. "I have heard of one of great dexterity called-"
"Rald."
"Men call you
Rald?"
"That—and other things!"
"You—you"—a wave of anger became again obvious in the lady's
tones—"you dared, too, to enter my bedchamber?"
"Faith! Was that you?" The sword lowered an inch or two. "I
understand the guard now. But I thought you a— a-"
"Yes?"
"A very beautiful woman, my Lady! And the
suggested aspiration is beyond your humble subject; rare jewels, perhaps, but—the first Lady of Forthe!" Rald rolled his
eyeballs skyward in condemna- tion.
"What a perfect rogue!" commented Thrine as if speaking to an non-existent
third person. She was no longer afraid and her tones were smooth again.
For a minute there was silence in the chamber, a silence
broken only by the slight hissing of the burning torches.
"It appears, my Lady Thrine, we have approached
checkmate in both our enter- prises," Rald declared presently. "I have the Necklace; you have me."
"You have
also a sword."
"And you a beauty I cannot impair. And a voice with which to scream."
"You propose that
I—scream?"
"You may decide. There may be dead men before I gain the city streets again, friends of yours you
would not care to endanger—"
"If I promise you safe-conduct and freedom?"
"Pardon, my Lady! Even you
could not promise safety to one who has com- mitted the unspeakable crime of coveting the Necklace. I came for it; I shall
leave with it or rest these bones for ever here."
"I will relieve her of the responsibility, King Rald," said
Karlk from the semi- darkness of the doorway.
"Karlk!" exclaimed the thief.
Thrine uttered a low
cry.
"King?"
"If you come through the corridors and the guards so easily, why did you seek my
services?" asked Rald.
"My powers can blind the guards at the gates and still the watchdogs in their kennels. I
can cause a mist over the torches and heavy sleep to the guarding spirits. But I could not raise the bar to this chamber,
as I saw you do in my glass. That was the obstacle, Rald. The mere lifting of that bar made you king of
Forthe!"
"And thief and traitor, too!" sneered Thrine.
Somehow her words and tone struck Rald to the
heart. He looked into her icy eyes and the chill of them entered his soul.
"We can spare the lady now," said Karlk, ominously.
His slender fingers rose
to the level of the woman's neck. Thrine guessed at his intent. Her fear vanished; in the face of certain death the
dynasty's blood would not permit her to cringe, so she stood unafraid and defiant. There was no glint of admiration in the
magician's eyes, but only intense cruelty and pleasant satisfac- tion. Rald, watching him, knew that the blue sparks would
writhe and twist that beauteous form in another second.
"Wait!" he cried, and was surprized at the intensity,
the noisy recklessness, of his own voice.
"Hold!" commanded sterner tones. From the shadows beyond the
black-robed figure of Karlk, where the forgotten por- tals swung wide, a slender sword-tip flickered through the air to
rest at the magician's throat.
"By the Seven!" swore Rald. "Does none sleep in this cursed
palace?"
"Only my precious guardsmen, it seems!" declared the latest arrival in deep and bitter
tones.
The man moved into the torchlight as he spoke, and the sudden wild glitterings of a thousand steel
corners on his fight- ing-mail danced on the black tapestries. His head was bare and proudly borne. The hawk-like
features, level gray eyes, thin nostrils and dominant chin were fa- miliar to the thief, whose own counte- nance
paled.
"King Thrall!"
"By your leave, my unknown and un- announced guest!" The king's sword did not
wander from its threatening position behind Karlk's head. "Or rather: guests! What do you desire now, my infamous
magician?"
Despite his surprize the black-robed figure held himself quietly. He did not attempt to face the
king; a sword-
prick that stung the skin had warned him,
wordlessly. One thin-fingered hand ab- sently stroked the tangled beard, and the heavy-rimmed eyelids were discreetly low-
ered. Even the watchful gaze of Rald could discern nothing dangerous in the wizard's attitude.
From beyond the
king's menacing figure two burly guardsmen, eyes still bloodshot from deep slumber, cautiously approached the tense body
of the thief. He had never been forcibly disarmed be- fore; he shrank a little as the sword and small dagger in his belt
were appropri- ated. Thrine smiled maliciously and, partly to his own astonishment, he smiled back. He admired the Lady
Thrine, her calm air and the coolness of her tongue, and was glad the death sparks had not had a chance to shatter her
lovely body.
Her smile faded. A strange shadow7 crossed her expressive features. Was it sympathy?
"I
have endured you a long time, oh Karlk!" Thrall was saying. "The mean- ing of tonight's entry is not quite clear to me. I
mean to discover it. We will see what magic can prevail against the steel and wooden posts of my so seldom used torture
rooms beneath us. Unless you wish to speak now?"
"My king," said Karlk in respectful tones, "I have ever been
misunderstood."
"You have. Human minds cannot comprehend men changed into half-beasts or men with beast-like
habits. Because of the powers you wielded I forbore a long time, but now, for some as yet incompre- hensible reason, you
have invaded a very private chamber of Castle Forthe, wherein you have no rights, and the time has come for a definite
easing of my mind. You will keep those wizard-hands of yours in plain sight and you will not speak or sign to this
underling of yours, or I cut off your hands and his head without benefit of trial!"
"I am no underling!" spat Rald, wrath - fully.
"Without a head, who could
tell?" observed a guardsman.
"Ho! And who might you be, appear- ing as you are, clad as a new-born babe?"
demanded Thrall.
"I am Rald!" Even before the king the pride of the thief was stronger than the fear of
punishment.
Thrine watched him as he stood be- tween his captors, half naked, weaponless, but erect in defense
of his own integrity, and marveled.
"Rald!" exclaimed Thrall. "I've heard of you. So have my guards." His eyes
flickered over the two abashed men guarding the captive, both of whom were now wide awake and intently watching the least
movement made by the man between them. "Hitherto they never seem to have been so close to your person. My guards, you
understand, have such strenuous tasks to perform, their minds, as well as their bodies, become fatigued with the passing
of the day. From the drinking of wines and the entertainment of the kitchen maids they must seek their much-deserved
repose."
With flame-colored cheeks the two guards stood at attention. Rald grinned at each of them, and the
fires mounted even higher beneath their skins.
"Truly enterprising fellows, my king! You can perhaps perceive
why I follow my less exhausting profession?"
"I beg a private audience, oh king!" broke in Karlk in a humble
voice.
"Later, wizard," said Thrall, curtly. "Frake," he commanded, "see that my two guests are bound tightly to
prevent their roving inclinations from leading them astray within my walls."
Hasty footsteps were heard as three
more men in the livery of the kings guardsmen entered, with eyes wide before
"I wish to extend my hospitality in greater measure," continued the king, "when I have returned from my
duties as temporary captain of the guard. My for- mer captain appears to have obtained a stronger wine than any of you—by
the circumstantial evidence of his absence. I, myself, will make the rounds this night, before a handful of beggars from
the city's gutters decide to take Forthe!"
Spurred by the king's anger and shamed before his sarcasm, the
guards- man Frake, with hastily procured twine, venomously bound Rald's wrists so tight- ly that the thief was forced to
set his teeth to abstain from wincing. The ma- gician was tied likewise, hand and foot, but handled in a respectful manner
not accorded to the other prisoner. In the opinion of the guardsmen the slight fig- ure of Karlk was far more dangerous
than the formidable bulk of the fighting-man; it was evident by the clumsy efforts they made to bind the former without
touch- ing his person.
"Go, my sister, to your rooms," or- dered Thrall. "I will leave these miscre- ants here
until I discover what other sac- rileges they may have committed, or if there be accomplices in the gardens. Per- haps I
may even be so presumptuous as to awaken a few of my guards and inquire if there is a pilgrimage being made through the
palace grounds!"
As Thrine passed through the doorway in the wake of the wrathful king, she glanced hurriedly
over her shoulder at the supine figure of the thief. Rald, tightly secured, lay with the manner of a man reposing on his
honestly earned couch, his head pillowed against the velvet of the wall. Outrageously, he winked. With a strange mixture
of emotions Lady Thrine swept in royal dignity to her
rooms, pausing only to break the wine bottle by her door over the slumbering guard's head.
In the chamber
of the double throne the two prisoners looked at each other and then at the gleaming jewels upon the wall that were to
have given one power and the other a kingdom.
"We are both to blame," Karlk an- nounced presently, in his
curiously effemi- nate tones. "I should have sensed Thrall behind me before his weapon touched my neck. You should have
run your sword through the woman's body at once, and seized the Necklace, before you conde- scended to
argue."
"I am a thief!" protested Rald, angrily, "not a murderer!"
"Many have died for a throne
before," said Karlk softly. His beady eyes were searching the thief's features, penetrating, it seemed to Rald, his very
thoughts. "Many—and quite a number were women!"
For the first time in his careless career Rald was stung by a
feeling of patriotism, a sense of dutiful homage to the crown that protected the city and countryside, including himself,
from the depredations of mountain bandits and greedy rulers of neighboring domains.
"I am of Forthe! I could not
slay the sister of our king!"
"Ha!" The magician shrugged weary shoulders. "I must learn, in dealing with men,
that they are prone to sentimentality. I have studied so far above mankind that my thoughts are in the clouds while in-
sects destroy my sandals. Even a thief has scruples!"
"If I had a sword I'd have your ears, also!" murmured
Rald, thoughtfully.
The next instant he sustained a shock such as he had never experienced before in all his
varied existence—which had been wide, indeed. Karlk had been lying, as motionless as himself, against
the
opposite wall where he had been placed after being
bound by the guards. His hands were tied behind his back, even as Rald's, in a most uncomfortable manner. Now the wizard
squirmed, moving into a more upright position, and from the folds on either side of his black robes, from the spaces below
his armpits, ap- peared two tiny, white-furred arms. The extraordinary appendages were only a foot and a half in length
and terminated in small, child-like hands with short nails and pinkish palms. Except for the white hirsute growth they
might have been the paws of a monkey. With nimble digits they began to pick on Karlk's bonds.
Rald swore
fiercely in amazed horror. It was one of the few times in his life he was to feel the numbing cold of stark fear in his
veins.
"There are many things about myself," explained the magician, placidly, "that no man has ever known. By
force of circum- stance, you are now perceiving one of my —ah—inhuman qualities. I do not like to revert frequently to
these characteris- tics; the task becomes a strain on even my abnormal mentality. But you must agree that the situation
demands a drastic remedy."
Nonplussed, Rald watched the unhu- man fingers pluck apart the cords until Karlk's
hands were freed. Once their task was completed they disappeared swiftly into the black garments and the magician's more
natural fingers loosened the ropes about his ankles.
"I fear," he said, standing somberly before the thief, "I
shall have to leave you here for the while. You obviously do not approve of the methods to which I have been restricted.
Thrall must die— yes, and Thrine also! That the death of the reigning royalty was necessary to my project I knew from the
beginning; no member of the Ebon Dynasty would voluntarily surrender the throne while
there was breath in his or her body. Neither kingdoms nor dynasties are founded
without the spilling of blood. So they die. Later, I will return—so that you and I may talk. Meanwhile you will observe
the Necklace and contemplate the power it can bequeath you."
With a swish of silken robes the Thing that was
known as Karlk vanished through the doorway, leaving a stillness broken only by the slight hissing of the torches and the
heavy breathing of a semi-stupefied thief beneath the double throne.
Rald did not meditate long. His thoughts
were already too jumbled to reach any definite decision. A single, blank glance was all the famous Necklace received; the
knowledge of the Lady Thrine's peril submerged all thoughts of Thrall, the kingdom of Forthe, or the fabulous jewels.
Diamonds, after all, were only stones, and Thrine was flesh and blood; therefore, far more perishable.
It took
him fully ten minutes to hoist his tightly bound figure upright by clutch- ing at the tapestries with benumbed fingers and
digging his heels into the tiny crevices of the stone floor. Only an able- bodied man at the height of physical fit- ness
could have accomplished the feat. At last he stood, panting and perspiring, beneath one of the hissing torches. Taking a
deep breath, he flung his bowed head up and backward. The abrupt motion caused him to lose his hard-won balance, and he
fell full-length and some- what painfully back to the pavement. But the torch, knocked from its niche, fell also, and
landed with a shower of sparks that singed off an eyelash before the thief could twist his head. Luckily, it did not go
out. Raid murmured an almost for- gotten prayer.
A short while later he cast the cords from his ankles and
chafed a pair of
badly burned wrists. It had not been an easy matter to hold
his hands, so awk- wardly fastened behind him, over the sputtering flame. If his hand could only hold a
sword!
Aye, a sword! The empty scabbard was a mockery. With supple tread and cau- tious ears he left the chamber
of the Necklace with its treasure, still untouched, on the wall. Castle Forthe held plenty of swords; all he must do was
find one with- out an arm behind it!
His wish was instantly, but ominously, granted. A few paces down the dim
cor- ridor, in a curiously crumpled position, lay the body of a guard. A shaft of moonlight from an interstice crossed
fea- tures distorted in violent and horrible death-pangs. Rald shuddered as he re- membered the blue sparks and their su-
pernatural force. The dead man's blade was half drawn; the thief appropriated it in a single cat-like gesture. Somewhere
in the dark halls of Forthe was a Thing without the need of a sword, but Rald felt courage flowing into his heart through
the chilled steel in his hand. Despite the blisters on his palm he clutched the hilt as a drowning man grasps at a
rescuing timber.
From somewhere, out of the darkness, came the half-muffled cry of a woman. The slender thread
of alarm in Rald's spine flowered into a network of nerve pulsations spreading into his heart re- gions. Thrine! The voice
was unmistak- able. Blindly he blundered into stone walls as he encountered a sudden turn in the passageway; recovering,
he realized his senses had been blurred by the inner urge driving him forward. He sought to conquer his impulses. A cool
head and a strong sword-arm were needed in Forthe this night.
An unexpected twist of the corridor revealed to
his eyes a high, unfortified archway of stone leading into the palace
gardens. Beyond, and converging toward the aperture, were the numerous torches carried
by the guardsmen as they beat the foliage in vain for lurking assassins. Near by, at the very base of the short stairway
leading up to the arch, King Thrall advanced before a picked dozen of his retinue. Evidently, the monarch of Forthe was
returning to question the ap- prehended culprits.
But the king wras in no position to see what was so clearly
visible to the thief. Between Rald and the wavering gleams of the torches, just far enough within the castle archway to be
concealed in the shadows from those without, crouched the figure of Karlk in an attitude unmis- takably threatening. His
face was toward the approaching soldiers led by Thrall; the thief knew a king was walking to his death. On the floor, at
the wizard's feet, a bound figure attempted to warn the innocent victims with wild outcries that only ended in faint mews
behind the cloth thrust into her mouth. A dynasty neared its end under the thief's gaze.
An animal-like snarl
was stifled in Rald's throat. With unreasonable incon- sistency he ignored his own capture of Lady Thrine such a short
while ago, when he had held his sword-tip to her breast; Karlk had dared to lay hands on this woman!
If the
magician would have but glanced over his shoulder he would have seen the torchlight glittering on the naked steel, but his
eyes were occupied with the ad- vancing soldiery. Slowly his fingers rose to their chest levels.
Some
sixth-sense of premonition awak- ened in the king. He paused with one foot on the top step, a hand on his sword, and
sought to peer into the obscurity of the passage. "Who is there?" he asked, as the guardsmen halted uncertainly be- hind
him.
"Your destiny, oh Thrall!" laughed Karlk. "Can you
die like a king?"
Thrilled with his supremacy, obsessed with revengeful hatred of the dynasty and its ruler, and
seething with concealed fury over his recent treatment, the magician was oblivious to any possible danger from his rear
until the swift patter of racing sandals warned him—too late. Even then, he half turned from his proposed victim before
the bright steel, swung in a mighty arc, struck down to shear his right arm from his side and sheathe itself deep in the
ribs. Shrieking, he fell, to writhe on the stone flags.
Rald looked at his sword. It was no longer bright.
"Damned wizard!" he said.
"Wait!" cried Thrall, as several guards converged about the thief with ready swords.
"There is something here I do not understand! Surround him but do him no harm—yet!"
Grimly, the king slashed
Thrine's bonds and extracted the cloth from her mouth. In a second her lithe form was upright and within the circle of
menacing steel about the prisoner. Gaping in be- wilderment, the men lowered their weapons.
"Rald saved your
life, brother! All your lives, I think!"
"Aye!" groaned the dying magician through clenched teeth. "With his own
word the fool dethroned himself!"
"If ever I seek a throne again," growled the thief, "I'll do it with steel and
not with magical death from accursed hands held on helpless men! You prom- ised me a cleaner triumph, wizard! Why did you
not let me fight as a man should?"
"Karlk is not a man!" exclaimed Lady Thrine.
"No—not as you know
men," agreed Rald. He shuddered, thinking of the weird scene in the room where he had
been a prisoner. "Perhaps he never was."
"Of course he never was! Tear off
the disguise!"
King and thief and awed guardsmen stared at the Thing weltering in its blood on the stone flags.
No one made an ef- fort to touch the dying form; the horror and chill of intense malignancy pen- etrated the nerves of the
boldest. They stared in silence, but no man moved.
"Must I perform my own tasks?" de- manded Thrine,
imperiously.
Her answer came from Karlk alone: "No, my Lady! You discovered my se- cret when I seized you, did
you not?"
Weakly, with fumbling fingers, the re- maining hand grasped at the shaggy beard, and a cry of
amazement arose from all save Thrine as the entire mass of hair came off to disclose the pale, oval fea- tures of a woman!
The convulsive effort threw bade the black hood, and long, raven-black ringlets fell forth to spread about the ashen
cheeks.
"By the Seven!" swore Thrall. "A woman!"
"Partly," answered Karlk. The wiz- ard's—or
witch's—eyes were beginning to glaze. "And — partly — something else."
One of the slender, white-furred arms
came from its concealment beneath the dark folds and dipped into the spreading pool of blood. The guardsmen cried out in
amazed terror; one dropped his torch and fled. Thrine shrank against Rald's side; only the instinctive habits of royal
self-control kept her on her feet.
"Be not so horrified, Thrall!" admon- ished the tortured lips. "Your own
regal blood, from the veins of an Ebon prin- cess, flows on the stones this night!"
"Blasphemer! What distorted
brain in a disfigured body gives you such wild-"
"I have lived many times the life- period of man," interrupted
Karlk. Her
voice was gentler now; more in keeping with the femininity
of the patrician fea- tures. "I saw your grandfathers born, oh king, and I cursed them, one and all, as I prepared for
this day, upon which I have so badly failed. Trusting, as I did, in a mortal man to lift the bar from the sacred chamber
of the Necklace—I allowed my own tool to turn its edge upon me. Oh Nargarth, guardian Demon! To lie here helpless while
the powers I hold drain out of me with my life-blood—strength it took centuries to garner!"
"Why? Why covet my
kingdom?" asked Thrall. "There are many others."
"But I am of the Ebon blood! I be- long, in part, to the double
throne! Remember, in your legends, when the great white apes of Sorjoon were so numerous, before the outraged people
hunted them down to death from the high crags whereon they dwelt—how at times they even dared to assault the city's walls
and drag off screaming wretches to their ghastly feasts? On one terrible day a princess of Forthe became a captive. She
did not immediately—participate in the cannibal orgies. She was—my mother."
Karlk's voice grew momentarily
weaker; the stunned listeners bent to catch the low whispers as her choked breath struggled in the distorted
form.
"The nether arms—are miniature repli- cas of my father's. You understand?"
Thrine moaned and
clung to Rald's bare forearm, forgetting he was a thief and she a royal lady.
"I cursed all men—all human races!
I was a monstrosity unfit for existence, of no class or race. I fled the apes as I fled mankind. I hated every living
thing, for none was like me. I was alone. In my solitude I learned from the demons of the
forests—and the mountains—they did not shun my deformities! If you enter—my house—you
will see the results of my well-learned lessons, oh Thrall! I hope they drive you mad!"
"No man shall enter the
accursed walls," muttered the king. "Your house will be burned and the remaining stones ground to dust!"
"My —
poor — experiments! I had planned—many more. Remember—the one that barked? Ha! And he with the pointed skull—who
giggled?"
Thrall half raised his blade to smite the prone ape-woman, but malicious, rasping laughter held him
transfixed.
"No need, oh king—and brother! My day is gone—the tide ebbs. Would that —I might—wreak some evil
fate upon you—ere Nargarth's minions come for me!"
A cold wind burst forth suddenly amid the quiet night
breezes, swirling through the passageway and tugging at the torch flares so hard that several were extin- guished. Icy,
unseen fingers appeared to wrench at their clothing. Thrine screamed. As abruptly as the chilling gust of air had come, it
departed, leaving a numbed cluster of humans and a curi- ously shriveled and for ever silent Thing crumpled on the stones.
Karlk and all her ambitions had passed to the Outer Void.
For a long minute the king and his guards remained in
statuesque poses then Thrall, his warrior spirits gaining ascendancy as they were freed of super- natural awe, uttered a
mighty roar.
"Rald! My friend! My brother! I'll make you a baron! For this night's work you'll own the richest
farms of Forthe. I'll—where is Rald?"
to the shrubbery of the gardens. Clusters of foliage
were still quivering from the hasty passage of some moving object.
"Raid!" shouted the king. There was no
answer; the leafy tangles stilled and became motionless. "I meant him no harm—nor punishment, though he de- sired my
throne. Why-"
"He chose to go," said Thrine, com- placently, "so he went.''
"Well, we need have no
fear of his practising his profession in the castle,
henceforth. Paradoxically, though a thief he is still an honest one. Now that we are in his debt he will not take
advantage of it. I know men!"
Thrine laughed.
"You may be wise in the manner of honor among kings and
men, oh my brother, but how little you know of their hearts! Some day—Raid will be back!"
"After fleeing? Back?
For what?"
"O king without eyes! For me, of course!"
To Virgil Finlay
Upon his Drawing for Robert
Bloch's Tale, "The Faceless God
By H. P. Lovecraft
In dim abysses pulse
the shapes of night, Hungry and hideous, with strange miters crowned; Black pinions beating in fantastic flight From orb
to orb through soulless voids profound. None dares to name the cosmos whence they course, Or guess the look on each
amorphous face, Or speak the words that with resistless force Would draw them from the halls of outer space.
Yet
here upon a page our frightened glance Finds monstrous forms no human eye should see; Hints of those blasphemies whose
countenance Spreads death and madness through infinity. What limner he who braves black gulfs alone And lives to wake
their alien horrors known?
Littell wanted to escape from prison, but the aftermath of his escape was far worse than the prison
itself
HE HAD to make the break soon. He would die in here if
he didn't. He was used to fine food, good clothes, luxuries; used to women in evening gowns, and cigars at fifty cents,
and soft beds and softly upholstered cars. He couldn't stand the harsh and terrible life of prison. He had to get out of
here soon. Please God it would be now, to- night. . . .
Well, it would be tonight! Wasn't everything all ready
for it? Then what was he worrying about?
Alfred Littell stood by the small barred window of his cell. But it
wasn't barred any more—at least not as the architect had designed it. The center bar was out, neatly sawed at top and
bottom, just now removed. The way was clear from this grim cubicle into the prison yard.
Littell shivered as he
looked out. Plenty of reasons to shiver. One was that he was stripped to the skin, and the night was cold. A naked plump
form in the dimness, he shrank from the breeze seep- ing in. Another was the sight of that prison yard; brilliantly
lighted, surround- ed by a twenty-foot stone wall whose top was set with towers at regular intervals. In the towers were
guards with machine- guns ready to mow down anyone mad enough to try to cross the yard and scale the walls in the glare of
the searchlights. A third reason was—the stuff which was supposed to enable him to cross that yard and scale that wall
unharmed.
Fantastic stuff! Incredible! Given to
him by Harley, who hated him as few men have ever learned to hate.
It was
because Harley hated him so, that Littell had snatched at the possibili- ties of truth in the mad business. From no other
man would he have accepted such a remedy, nor have dreamed of try- ing it, no matter how desperate his urge to escape from
prison. But Harley's hatred made it plausible.
He had heard of it in a roundabout way, from a cellmate he'd had
a short while ago when the prison was over- crowded.
"Old Doc Harley says he has a sure way of crushing out of
here."
"How?"
"He won't tell. But he says it's cer- tain."
That was all. Littell hadn't
permitted his interest to show. But he had thought a lot.
Doctor Harley was a brilliant man. Before the judge
had sentenced him to twenty years and Littell to life, he had been a famous bacteriologist and biolo- gist, a man of great
intellect. The wonder was not that he had discovered a way to break jail, but that he hadn't discovered it
sooner.
There was the guarded talk in the prison yard a few weeks later.
"I hear you've hit on a way
out of here, Harley."
Harley's eyes were contemptuous gray ice as they rested on Littell's face.
"He would simply stand there, blending with
the trees."
its scope. That, Littell knew, was
because the plan he had evolved had not quite succeeded. A little slip. One any man might make. And it had seemed a risk
anyone would take, when the stakes were considered.
Half a million dollars! That was the heritage Littell would
have split if the murder of his ward, Elizabeth Moore, had gone undetected. And God knows it should have succeeded.
Littell could still glow when he thought of the subtlety of the plan.
The sub-microscopic germs of psittaco-
sis, a thing most people couldn't even pronounce, let alone understand. Dread
virus of the parrot disease that could kill like a flaming sword, but subtly, unde-
tectably. A virus obtained through Doc- tor Harley, eminent Government author- ity, whose daughter had secretly disgraced
herself to such a degree that Harley could be blackmailed into anything through fear of her exposure. Death for Elizabeth
Moore; half a million dollars almost in the hand.
And then they had been caught.
"Don't keep thinking
it was my fault we were tripped up," he said urgently. "It was just bad luck—"
"It isn't because we were caught
that I could cheerfully see you burned at the
stake. It's because you found the one way to force me into
the hellish business in the first place. But I suppose you wouldn't understand that. You abysmal scum!"
Littell
had to take it. If he didn't get out of this place of stone and steel and brute-faced guards soon he would go mad. And in
Harley lay the possibility, according to his cellmate.
He had looked furtively around to make sure none could
hear.
"MacQueen says you have a way of escape."
The gray ice of Harley's eyes had light- ened at that.
He had laughed, long and loud, for the first time since the walls of the penitentiary enclosed him.
"Ssh!"
Littell had said frantically. "You'll attract attention—"
"What of it? So you heard about that, did you? And you
come crawling to me for further details. To me! That's good."
Words, laugh and look had stung like whips. But
Littell would have taken any- thing with the possibility of a jail-break in sight.
"You have a way out,
Harley?"
"Wouldn't you like to know!"
That was all for that day.
Littell kept after the
hawk-eyed man. He believed Harley did have a way out. Prisons aren't built to confine minds like Harley's.
But
for maddening day after madden- ing day, Harley only laughed at him when he cringed up to him in the prison yard. Then had
come the day when he looked at Littell with savagely thoughtful eyes.
"By God, it would serve you right if I
told you."
Quick! Catch him up on it!
"Why? Is there a catch to it?" Littell had fawned.
"A
catch? That's a weak word, scum.
There's hell in it
such as a brain like yours couldn't comprehend."
"But what is it, Harley? What's your way out of
here?"
For answer, only the maddening laugh that drew the eyes of guards and other prisoners alike. Drew their
eyes, and also answering grins. For all there knew how Harley loathed the big soft man with the paunch who had killed a
girl with the virus of psittacosis.
"I'll bet it isn't sure after all, Harley."
"You know damned well
it is." Har- ley's amused, icy eyes drilled Littell's bloodshot brown ones. "You know I've got brains enough to figure a
way out."
"If it's sure, why don't you use it your- self?"
"I told you. There's hell in it. Person-
ally I'd rather stay here than face the con- sequences of that particular escape."
"Consequences worse
than—this?" Lit- tell had chattered hysterically, staring around at the grim yard.
"Decidedly worse," nodded
Harley, icy, amused.
"What?" begged Littell. "What are the consequences?"
"Wouldn't you like to
know?"
More maddening days. And then Lit- tell had hit upon the method of prying Harley's secret from him. The
brain that had thought of parrot's disease as a mur- der method was keen enough to find a way out here. It lay through the
man's hatred.
"Maybe your way of escape would be painful, or something. But what do you care? I'm the one who
would be facing these consequences you talk about. And you certainly aren't interested in sparing me any
grief."
Harley's laugh had not rung out, for once. Again that bitterly thoughtful look had slid into his gray
eyes.
"Maybe it isn't as bad as you think," urged Littell.
"I'll take a chance. And you
can find out from my reaction whether you could try it yourself."
"I have tried it—enough to get a hint of the
aftermath. Just a little as an ex- periment. I tell you, prison is better."
"Let me judge that for
myself."
"By God—it would serve you right—"
It had worked, slowly but certainly. Harley had come
around, not, Littell knew well enough, because he was will- ing to help him, but because the brilliant doctor saw a way of
revenge.
Harley had told him. And the thing he told had made Littell question his sanity, at
first.
"You know what a chameleon is, scum?"
"Sure. A little lizard that changes color to match
whatever it's resting on."
"Aren't you the cunning rat! Yes. A lizard of the genus Chamœleo. I worked with 'em
in the Government lab. I iso- lated the hormone which causes their pigmentation to change color. I went further. Just
before you forced me into the sweet-smelling scheme which deserv- edly sent us here, I reproduced this hor- mone
synthetically, with common chemi- cals."
"Well?" Littell had said, frowning perplexedly.
"Well, rat. A
chameleon could crawl out of here pretty easily, couldn't it? If it took on the color of these stone walls, a guard
wouldn't see it crawling up one of them, would he?"
The thing was so fantastic that it had taken a little while
for Littell to grasp it. But long before the next yard period, he was burning and shivering to talk to Harley
again.
"You mean you've got some stuff that will make you invisible if you take it? So you can walk out of
here?"
"Not invisible, scum. The color of whatever
background you have, that's all. And it's not too perfect."
"What is it? A sort of drug you swal- low that gives
you chameleon qualities?" Harley had nodded, eyes savage, bit- terly undecided.
"But my God, Harley, that's
tremen- dous! Why don't you use it?"
No answer.
"Those mysterious consequences of yours?"
A
slow nod.
"The hormones are odd things, Littell. We have isolated many of them, and some we can reproduce. But
they're of the stuff of life, and still essentially un- known. This particular one does some- thing to you besides making
your skin pigmentation change to match your back- ground. Some terrible freedom of the mind, perhaps. Some sixth sense
which opens up—and which should for ever remain a blind spot."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I,
rat. But there you are."
"What does it do besides changing pigmentation?"
"You see things." The icy
gray eyes were staring at Littell's face—but obvi- ously not observing it.
That was all Littell could get out of
him. You saw things. It was a way out of prison. But its aftermath was sup- posed to be horrible.
Littell went
to the prison library and read all he could find on chameleons, particularly Chamœleo vulgaris. The fac- ulty that lizard
possesses of changing color, he was informed, was due to the presence of contractile, pigment-bearing cells placed at
varying depths in the skin.
Hell, the human body didn't have con- tractile cells. Or—did it? Pigment-bear- ing,
yes. He knew that. But were they contractile, whatever that meant? Was
human skin so made as to react to such an agent as that
described by Harley— assuming the man hadn't been simply amusing himself by working up his hopes on a hoax?
The
more Littell studied it, the less he could determine. And of course he dared ask no one who might know. You don't
advertise an escape.
"Have you got any of this stuff in here with you, Harley?"
"No,
scum."
"Then how-"
"It could easily be made. The ingre- dients could be gotten from the prison
hospital. Potassium manganate is the base."
Littell didn't sleep nights. Harley was grimly kidding him! Or was
he? Human flesh wasn't like lizard flesh! Or, in re- spect to contractile, pigment-bearing cells, was it? You couldn't
actually break jail by taking a drug! Or—could you?
What was the secondary effect pro- duced by Harley's drug?
What horror lay in the thing that the man wouldn't use it himself, and was bleakly amused to offer it to the fellow
prisoner whom he hated most on earth?
Littell shuddered away from the mys- tery, and decided to for get the
whole thing. And then, in the dining-hall, he tried to sneak meat from the plate of the man beside him. It took a lot to
support that soft paunch of his. The man beat him up till he was a quivering, groaning mass before the guards could
intervene.
"I've got to get out of here! I've got to! I can't stand it!"
He sought again the man who
loathed the ground he walked on.
"Harley, I don't care what your drug does to a man. I don't care what the
aftermath is. Let me have some. There's a hack-saw blade in my cell, stuck with chewing-gum in the angle-iron of the side
rail of my bunk. I can get out of my cell,
if
there's a way for me to get across the prison yard and up the outer wall after that. . . . Harley, give me some of that
drug."
"You fool!"
"Maybe I am a fool. But I can't stay here any longer."
"You know I hate
you. Yet you'll take a concoction from me and swallow it, after I've told you the results are such that I wouldn't think
of taking it my- self?"
"I've got to get out of here!"
Across the yard, the man from whom Littell had
tried to steal food snarled at him. Littell's soft flesh crawled with memory of the beating he had taken.
"I've
got to get away!"
Then the day when Harley, with fero- cious mockery in his eyes, slid a little vial of
blood-colored liquid into his hand. Harley was occasionally called to the prison hospital to help with cases that baffled
the regular physician. It had been easy for him to get what he needed.
"Here you arc, scum. Escape—if you're
fool enough to take it. But remember, there are some things worse than the pen- itentiary."
"Nothing could be
worse! I'll risk what- ever may happen to me—afterward."
There were directions, delivered like the vial: in
bitter mockery.
"Wait for a foggy night. This stuff isn't perfect. And it goes without saying that you must take
your clothes off and go naked. Otherwise the guards would be treated to the spectacle of a seemingly empty suit of prison
denim walking across the yard. The drug doesn't act on hair, either, but the prison hair-cut takes care of that, I guess.
You're actually going through with it, Littell?"
"I am. If I'm caught, I'll get solitary for a little while,
that's all. They can't extend a sentence when it's already life."
"You keep overlooking the main point, rat. That is, the
aftermath of taking this hormone."
"You'd love to see me lose my nerve and stay in here for the rest of my life—
with a way out in my hand, wouldn't you?'' flared Littell. "To hell with your aftermath!'' He didn't have to take Har-
ley's lip any longer. He'd got what he wanted out of him. "And to hell with you—no, no. I don't mean that."
For
it had suddenly occurred to him that Harley could still spoil the thing. All he had to do was speak to the
warden.
But Harley hadn't spoken to anyone. And this unnerved him, too. The man actually wanted him to do it.
Escape— this way—must be horrible indeed. . . .
Horrible or not, he was going through with it. So now he stood
in his cell, by the window with the bar sawn out, shivering in the cold night breeze, naked and ready to go. He had
swallowed the contents of the little vial. Rather awful pain. Convulsions. Then dear-headedness and a sense of giddy
lightness. He looked eagerly down at his naked arm. Had the stuff really worked?
The arm stood out white in the
dim- ness, perfectly apparent. He knew an awful moment when he was convinced that the whole thing was only an elabo- rate,
cruel hoax after all. Quite in line with Harley's hatred of him.
But wait. His body was supposed to take on the
coloring of his background, and he was holding it out in empty air. He had got up from his bunk, walked to the wall, and
laid his arm against it.
And cold sweat broke out all over his naked body. He could still see it, white and
distinct against the stone.
He had fallen to the cold floor on his knees, with his face in his hands and his
breath whistling out of distended nostrils, A grim jest of Harley's after all. .
The guard for this cell block had walked past, light flashing carelessly in. The rays
had fallen squarely on Littell. He had waited dully for the guard to order him back to his bunk, for the rays to flash
higher and reveal the bar he had sawn before swallowing the blood-red fluid. And the guard had passed on with- out saying
a word.
It was all right, then. God in heaven, it was all right. He could see himself, but somehow others
couldn't see him. The effect of the drug must have included the pigmentation of his eyes in some odd way that let him see
that which others could not. . . .
What had Harley said? "You see things-"
He shoved that out of his
mind as he stood naked before the window. First get out of here. Then worry about the conse- quences brought in the train
of the draft.
The fog outside whirled more thickly. It was thin at best; only wisps here and there. But Littell
hadn't had the patience to wait for a foggier night. He drew himself with difficulty through the all- too-narrow aperture
opened by the re- moved bar.
It wasn't till he was hanging outside the cell window that the most fearful thought
of all occurred to him.
What if that stuff was only colored water? What if the man who hated him had gone to
these lengths to build up in his mind a baseless dependence on its powers? What if he really hung here as a human body in
full view of any guard who cared to see, instead of as a chame- leon-like mass melting into the back- ground of
stone?
That would be a sardonic joke to Harley. To stuff him full of scientific poppycock, placing him here as a
helpless target for machine-gun bullets.
hung there against the wall with the floodlights full on
him. He could fairly feel slugs tearing into him from the watch towers. Of course he was visible. The guard who had
flashed his light on him must have seen him after all and have passed on indifferently, thinking he was praying. He was
going to die. . . .
But no slugs came. He hung there for what seemed two full minutes, with the light strong on
him, and no shots sounded out.
He dropped. It was fifteen feet to the yard pavement. Strong chance of a broken
leg. But he had not dared to make a rope of bedding. That would show against the wall, even if he did not.
He
stood blinking, with the dazzling lights on him. He couldn't seem to see fog wisps at all, now, though they had been
apparent from his window. Those lights! Surely, surely he would be seen. Then fog shreds swirled once more.
He
walked slowly across the court- yard toward the high outer wall. Perhaps if he walked like that, instead of making a dash
for it, he would be hailed instead of shot at once.
But still no slugs came. And he began to thrill wildly with
a sense of achieve- ment. He was going to make it! Harley's drug was all he claimed it to be! There was no chance of a
mistake now—no living thing could have crossed that yard as he was crossing it, unless it was hidden by the chameleon-like
power of taking on the absolute tint of the paving-stone over which he moved!
He looked up at the nearest tower.
Distinctly he could see the guard in there, gun slung across his arm. The guard wasn't looking right at him, but he was
gazing in his direction, and he made no sign.
Littell got to the wall, keeping as much as possible in the thin
fog swirls that
danced slowly over the courtyard
almost like slowly dancing wraiths.
The wall was made of rough stone. A glance could tell that a desperate man
might ascend that wall, clinging fly-like to the slight roughnesses. That didn't matter. The warden didn't worry about the
walls. Not with those towers spaced on them, and the vigilant machine- gunners.
He'd worry about them from now
on, Littell exulted, as he clung with grasping fingertips and bare toes for his first step up. There were going to be a
lot of escapes over these walls. For he had it already worked out in his mind. He would pay Harley for the formula of this
stuff, and then sell the drug to other prisoners who wanted to break out.
He had started his slow and painful
ascent between two towers. But the roughnesses making ascent possible slant- ed toward the tower on the left. Littell
began to know fear again as he drew near that tower and the top of the wall at the same time. He had come a long way, in
powerful light, without being seen. But Harley had admitted that the drug was not perfect.
He searched over and
over again for possible handholds away from the tower. But the only ones offering a chance were inevitably in that
direction. . . .
"Hey!"
The voice of the guard in the near tower rang out as Littell had his hands
over the top of the wall. Littell froze there, heart hammering, sweat freezing on his body. He caught a ragged sob behind
closed lips before the sound could betray him. To get so far, and then be caught. . . .
He hung there, as
motionless as—as a chameleon in the light. But no chattering shots followed the challenge. Only awful silence in which
Littell could fairly feel the gaze of the guard on him. Then,
from the next tower, came a voice: "What's the matter,
Pete?"
"I thought I saw something move on the wall," said the near guard. "Looked like a guy climbing. But I
don't see it now. Guess it was the fog—or else I'm nuts."
For minutes Littell hung there. Then nearing
exhaustion warned him that he must move again. He wasn't made for this kind of thing. He wasn't trained for it. His body
was soft with fat living on the income from Elizabeth Moore's for- tune, which he had handled till she was
twenty-one.
He drew himself slowly up to the top of the wall, lay there till he saw the near guard look in the
opposite direction, and then rolled across. There, he hung by his hands and dropped. An even longer drop than the one from
his cell window. But he was free! Free!
He could have shouted and sung. But he did neither. He ran. He ran till
his lungs were bursting, through the outly- ing street of the small town in which the penitentiary was located. He had to
get clothes, now, and get away from here before the cell block guard sauntered by on his next round and saw an empty cell.
. . .
A woman was coming toward him along the deserted sidewalk. Littell abruptly slowed his pace. He hadn't
seen her before. She must have turned sud- denly out of one of the houses lining the street. The walk had seemed empty,
then —there she was.
He started to race across the street, then remembered the fantastic thing that protected
him.
He stepped to a big tree beside the walk, and leaned against the rough bark. He would simply stand there,
blending with the tree, till she had passed.
She came closer, walking slowly but
evenly. In spite of his knowledge of the way he was shielded, Littell shrank back
against the tree bole.
She came up to where he stood, and stopped there. She half turned on the walk till she
was facing him. And she looked squarely at him.
Looked squarely at him. And saw him! After ten terrible seconds
Littell knew that. There was no mistaking the com- prehension of her level gaze.
And then he saw who the woman
was, and all else was lost in that tremendous realization. Scream after scream strug- gled to his lips and burst
soundlessly there, unable to tear free.
"Murderer!" said the woman.
And her face was the face of mur-
dered Elizabeth Moore!
"Tt beats me," said the warden, stand- ing with the cell block guard and the prison
doctor in Littell's cell. "He had the bar all sawed and ready for an attempted escape. And then he commits suicide by
swallowing that stuff. What did you say it was?"
"Strychnin, mainly," said the doctor. "I suppose he got it from
the prison hospital."
"All ready to try to crush out, and he takes strychnin," repeated the warden. "Maybe he
took one look at the way the yard was lighted, realized he hadn't the guts to try a break for the wall, and downed the
poison in a fit of despair."
"Maybe," shrugged the doctor. "But what I'd like to know is why he took all his
clothes off before doing it. What on earth did he have in his mind when he did that?"
The warden grunted and
looked at the flaccid body on the lower bunk. In death as in life, Littell was the opposite of at-
tractive.
A gripping weird tale of the sea—of the thing that walked in the fog—and the terror that
stalked on board an ocean liner.
WHY, Steevens, whatever is
the matter? You look as if you'd seen a ghost."
"And if I haven't, it's by the mercy of Providence," replied the
chief steward, "though what we may see before this trip is over is something I don't want to think about."
Mrs.
Maddox stared. She'd been stew- ardess on board the S. S. Dragon for the past five years, worked under Steevens all that
time, and knew him for the most even-tempered, easy-going creature that ever sailed in a ship. She felt a nasty sen-
sation of goose-flesh and clutched her bundle of clean white towels a trifle more tightly in her arms.
"Good
gracious me! Well, what is it? You're getting me all in a dither!"
"They've—they've opened Number
14!"
She frowned, blinked, and several towels slid unnoticed to the floor.
"Not the 14? Not 14 on deck
A? No!"
Her voice rose discordantly, and Steev- ens was recalled to his duty by its sudden
stridency.
"S-s-s-sh! D'you want the passengers to hear? They're going down to dinner. Second bugle's
sounded."
They were standing in one of the linen- rooms, a narrow slip near a main com- panionway. Mrs. Maddox
turned a white, stricken face.
"Tell me, quick!"
"Captain's orders! This is his first com- mand. He's
young, thinks he knows
everything. Isn't going to
keep a first- class stateroom locked up on his ship. I heard the end of a row him and the chief was having. Mr. Owen up
and told him as the owners knew all about it. And the Old Man said he was going to show the owners there wasn't no need to
lose money every trip."
"Steevens!" Mrs. Maddox looked sud- denly far older than her forty-eight years. "If I
hear that whistling again I'll—I'll lose my reason and that's a fact."
He had no comfort to offer. The man's
cheerful, weathered face wore the same look of dread as her own.
"You can't tell the cap'n anything. But wait
till he hears it too!"
"And when he does"—she turned on him with a fury of demoralizing fear— "what good's that
going to do us all? It'll be too late then. The door's opened now and it's out again . . .it's out!"
FIRST-CLASS
passengers were making their way to the dining-saloon for the first meal on board. The S. S. Dragon had left Liverpool
landing-stage only two hours ago; so people straggled in without ceremony, tired from the bustle of em- barkation,
agitated about the preliminaries of settling down on board; the majority either wound up to a pitch that sought relief in
floods of talk or preserved stony silence that would have done credit to tombstone effigies.
Mark Herron, a boy
of ten, traveling in the captain's care, stood in hesitation at the entrance to the dining-saloon.
One
of the passengers, a Mr. Amyas, put a friendly hand
on his shoulder.
"Coming in?"
Without hesitation now, Mark smiled up at the brown, wrinkled face with
its piercingly black eyes.
"Waiting for someone, eh?"
"No." The boy's voice was as attrac- tive as his
slate-gray eyes that concen- trated so eagerly on anything or any- one that attracted his attention. His rough shock of
brown hair and equally rough brown tweeds made him look somewhat like a very intelligent, well-bred dog.
"I'm
traveling alone," he confided.
"I've been ill and
Captain Ross knows Dad and told him I'd be better for a sea- trip. I'm going to Java and back on this ship."
The
gipsy-black eyes twinkled. "That's my program too! We'll keep each other company—eh? My name's Amyas. And
you're—?"
"Mark Herron, sir."
"All right, then. Now, let's plunge into the jungle and see what we can
catch for a meal."
The little man made for a table over on the port-side, one of the smaller tables where some
member of the staff had al-
ready begun his meal. As Mark and his new friend
approached, the man looked up. Immediately he sprang to his feet, welcoming hand outstretched.
"How are you,
Amyas? I'm delighted! Who's this you've got in tow? A stow- away?"
Mark was introduced to the ship's doc- tor.
Mr. Amyas sat down. The boy stood, looking with bewildered frown at the third and only vacant place.
Doctor
Fielding laughed. "What's the matter? Something wrong with that chair?"
The boy's face grew red. He looked from
the doctor to Mr. Amyas with em- barrassed reproach. "Oh—but—" He glanced apologetically at the third place, then moved
hastily to a table near by and sat down there.
The two men stared at Mark. Covered with confusion, he was
pretending to study a large menu-card.
"Must think we want to be by our- selves."
Mr. Amyas got up and
crossed over to the boy's table. "Come and join us. What d'you mean by refusing to sit down with a friend of
mine—eh?"
Mark glanced back at the other table. His face cleared. He went back with alac- rity and slipped into
the empty place.
"I think he was angry," he looked from one to the other of his companions' blank faces. "He's
gone out without any dinner at all."
Then, as they continued to regard him with expressionless eyes, he
laughed.
"Is it a joke, or something? That man didn't think it funny, anyhow, when you wanted me to sit down on
top of him."
"What was he like?" The doctor's voice held a sudden arrested note of breathless
interest.
"Didn't you notice him?" Mark mar-
veled. "Such a queer man, too! A yellow sort of face, very lined and cross, and he'd blade hair—like the Italian
organ- grinder who comes round with his mon- key at home."
"Did you—did you happen to notice if he wore a ring?"
The doctor seemed quite amazingly interested.
"Yes. A very big one, rather dull and funny-looking! I thought he
must be a foreign prince. Like the ones in the pa- pers, you know. Going off somewhere because they'd taken his throne
away. That's what he looked like."
Doctor Fielding put his arms on the table, leaned forward, regarded the boy
with a strange look of awe.
"Look here! You're the kid the cap- tain's looking after—the great Arthur Herron's
son?"
Mark nodded, his face glowing at the admission.
"H-m-m! Captain Ross said you were a bit of a
wizard yourself with your pen- cil. You can draw?"
Mark nodded again with calm confi- dence.
"Could
you, by any chance, draw from memory the man you saw sitting here?"
The boy smiled and pushed aside his
soup-plate. He turned the menu-card face down, dug a pencil out of a pocket and set to work. Both men watched intently,
Mr. Amyas interested in the peculiar mix- ture of child and artist, the doctor wholly absorbed in the portrait growing
under the small, amazingly sure hand. The table steward removed three plates of cold soup and put three portions of fish
down with bored resignation. He hovered with a dish of potatoes, caught a glare from the doctor and went to bestow his
vegetables elsewhere.
Mark handed his sketch to Doctor Fielding, who regarded it long and
frown-
ingly. Finally he got to his feet. His face was
grave.
"Sorry! You'll have to excuse me. I've —remembered something urgent.''
He went out of the
saloon with an air of absent-minded haste and took Mark's sketch with him.
"Oh! Was it a prince, d'you think? Is
he going to look for him?"
Mr. Amyas discussed the possibility, then led the conversation to other things. The
two hit it off famously and went to- gether, afterward, in uproarious spirits to the billiard room.
THE coolness
in Captain Ross's eyes bordered on contempt as he looked up from Mark's sketch. Doctor Fielding's lean, clever face and
tired eyes showed a deeper weariness as he met that look. Captain Ross was one who admitted no breath from the chill void
of eternity to penetrate his materialism. It was a solid wall about his thoughts.
The doctor's own mind, ever
exploring, seeking, experimenting, found no small- est chink whereby to enter, yet he must attempt it. If he failed, if
Captain Ross remained unconvinced, then the S. S. Dragon would become a floating hell.
"If the boy saw this
man," Captain loss tapped the menu-card with impa- tient gesture, "then the man must have been sitting
there."
"I did not see him, sir. Mr. Amyas did not see him. The steward did not see him."
"But the boy
did! He's not a liar—I happen to know that. If he told you he saw the man, he did see him."
"And I repeat—this
man," Doctor Fielding indicated the drawing, "died on this ship a year ago and his body was committed to the deep. I saw
it done."
"All right, then. In that case there is
a passenger on board who bears an ex- traordinary resemblance to him. That doesn't
pass the bounds of possibility. Your idea of a revenant does."
A knock at the door interrupted them. The first
mate, Mr. Owen, entered. Steevens and Mrs. Maddox followed.
"Ah!" the commander's frosty blue eyes regarded them
quizzically. "You three, I understand, were on this ship a year ago when Number 14 on deck A was sealed
up?"
"Yes, sir," replied the first mate.
The other two made muffled sounds of assent and endeavored to
exchange glances while presenting blank, respectful faces to Captain Ross.
"D'you recognize this, Mr.
Owen?"
The chief bent over the table to exam- ine Mark's sketch, then straightened him- self with a jerk. His
ruddy face was sud- denly a sickly brown. He averted his eyes from the sketch as from something that shocked him
profoundly. His voice came with a queer uncontrolled jerk.
"Yes, sir! It's—it's him!"
"I must ask you
to be more explicit. Him?"
"Vernon—Eldred Vernon! Where . . . how—?"
He stopped, and thrust shaking
hands deep into his pockets. Captain Ross turned his scornful, impatient glance to- ward the steward and
stewardess.
"Come on! Come on! Let's get this farce over!"
Timidly the pair advanced and peered
reluctantly at the card thrust before their eyes.
"Well? Speak, can't you! Is this your old friend,
Vernon?"
"God save us—yes!" muttered Steev- ens. He fell back from the pictured face in
horror.
Mrs. Maddox gave a terrified squawk and clutched him by the
arm.
"A-r-r-r! A-r-r-r! It's him again! Take it away! I won't look at it! A-r-r-r—"
"Be quiet," barked
the captain. "Take her over to that chair, Steevens. You two have got to stop here while this affair is settled once and
for all."
He looked from one tense face to an- other and his eyes sparkled with temper.
"You all
agree, it seems, that this boy's drawing resembles—who's the man?"
"Eldred Vernon, sir—the late Eldred Vernon,"
replied the doctor.
''Eldred Vernon, yes. The man who was murdered on this ship in May of 1935."
"'The
man who murdered Mr. Lack- land, sir," softly corrected the first mate.
"Murderer, or murdered, it's all one
now. The point is, he's dead."
A deep, unassenting silence answered the statement. Four pairs of eyes ex-
pressed complete unbelief in it.
"A pretty lot of fools I seem to have on board! What is this mystery? Doctor
Fielding, will you have the goodness to make a clear, sensible statement of the facts? The facts, I said, mind you. I
don't want a fairy-tale packed with super- stition and ghosts."
"Did you read the log for May of 1935?" asked
the doctor. "And did the owners explain their reasons for leaving Number 14 sealed up?"
"Yes, to both questions.
But don't forget that my predecessor, Captain Bra- kell, was a very sick man when he entered up that log. The owners had
the facts from him—a sick man's delusions! I attach no value to them. I said as much in the office at Liverpool, gave my
opin- ions. They understood that I proposed to run my own ship in my own way. I
will allow no tomfool nonsense to inter- fere with it."
The doctor's face
showed a stain of painful color.
"You are very much mistaken, sir, in thinking that Captain Brakell was ill when
he entered up the log. He was a very sound man, sound and sane and healthy. His mind then, and to the end of his days, was
particularly clear. He was a man of enviable courage and strength and determination. Otherwise he could never have done
what he did."
There was a stir and murmur of assent in the small, brightly lit room.
"Captain Brakell
collapsed only on reaching port. He brought his ship home first. He brought her home with that devil, Eldred Vernon,
imprisoned in Number 14."
"You mean Vernon didn't die during the voyage, after all? You have already told me you
saw his body committed to the deep."
"I repeat that I did. But Eldred Ver- non's devil lived on—an audible and
vis- ible thing."
"And I repeat that I don't believe a syllable."
Again color painted the doctor's
sallow face an angry red.
"Words mean nothing," he answered curtly. "Words mean nothing. Captain gave his life
to make his ship safe. He was heroic, I tell you. Faced terrific odds, and won by sheer strength and goodness, He cornered
that crafty devil, Vernon. He couldn't destroy him—that was be- yond even his wisdom, but he managed to imprison him, to
make his ship safe, And you—"
HE BROKE off, remembering he and the captain were not alone. There was an awkward
pause. Captain Ross sat with broad, well-kept hands folded on
the table before him. Aggressive unbelief depressed
the corners of his long, firm mouth. His upper lids drooped quizzi- cally over cold inquiring eyes. Doctor Fielding
sighed, paused as if to marshal inner reserves of strength, then began again on a new flat note of narrative de- void of
emotion.
"The whole thing started with an af- fair between Guy Lackland and Eldred Vernon's very young, very
lovely wife, Kathleen Vernon. It blazed up tropically swift and hot. Lackland was attractive, very! Nordic type. In love
with life, with himself, and above all with Kathleen Ver- non. Brilliant, rollicking youngster. Ir- responsible as a puppy
off the lead. And whistled like a blackbird."
A stifled groan escaped the stewardess.
"It was a
characteristic that features largely in my tale, sir, Lackland's whist- ling. Dancing, swimming, deck-games, strolling
round—you could always keep track of him by that trick he had of whist- ling. But there was one tune he whistled for one
person alone—a sort of lover's signal. The tune was Kathleen Mavour- neen."
Mrs. Maddox engulfed herself in a
large, crumpled pocket-handkerchief. Steevens rubbed a bristly chin. The first mate shifted his feet as if the deck had
rolled beneath him, and his throat muscles worked convulsively.
"Her name was Kathleen, as I said. She was a
dark, fragile, exquisite thing. Lonely and unhappy. Afraid of her hus- band. Ripe for a lover. And she fell for young
Lackland hard. Inevitably. I never witnessed anything more heart-breaking than her passion for him. Like seeing a
brilliant-tinted leaf riding the peak of a monstrous tidal-wave. Swept past all bar- riers. The pair of them—lost to
every- thing but youth and love—the glory of it! Tragic young fools!"
Captain Ross made no audible com- ment. His set, obstinate face spoke fath- omless
misunderstanding.
"Eldred Vernon was a good fifty. A lean, secretive, silent man. Intellectual— repellently so.
His brain-power was ab- normal. His reasoning faculties, will, concentration were terrific. He'd devel- oped them at the
expense of every other quality that makes a decent, likable hu- man being. There was dark blood in him, too. His swaying
walk, a peculiar way of rolling his eyes, the lines of jaw and skull. Unmistakably negroid. The boy shows it in his sketch
here."
Captain Ross glared at it and grunted noncommittally.
"The ugliest thing of all was his jeal-
ousy. It's a poisonous quality in anyone. In Vernon it was satanic. He never inter- fered, though. On the contrary, he ar-
ranged to throw them together quite de- liberately. We didn't begin to fathom his motives, but the whole situation made
our blood run cold. There was none of the ordinary scandal. The affair was too seri- ous, everyone felt scared. I spoke to
young Lackland; so did others. One or two of the women warned the wife. Both of them laughed. Eldred Vernon laughed too.
It sidetracked the pair of them, the way he laughed! She vowed her husband didn't care two straws what she did as long as
she left him alone. Incredible! Everyone was afraid of what Vernon would do except the two most con-
cerned."
Doctor Fielding dropped his cigarette, which had burned down unsmoked be- tween his
fingers.
"The inevitable crisis came. She gave Vernon a sleeping-draft in his last whisky one night, then went
along to Lack- land's stateroom, Number 14 on A deck. Waited for a moment. Heard him in- side, moving about,
whistling—whistling Kathleen Mavourneen."
"And how," interrupted Captain Ross, "do you come by this
chapter of your melodrama?"
"She told me—later."
"You had the lady's confidence, I see! Perhaps after
Lackland went you took his—"
"She was dying."
The doctor's voice and steady eyes did not waver. He
went on like an au- tomaton.
"SHE went into Number 14 to find— her husband! He was laughing, si- lently, doubled
up, tears of mirth on his face. He tied her up and gagged her, laughing all the time. Told her Lackland would be late.
He'd forged a note in her writing, sent it to Lackland asking him to wait, to come to Number 14 at mid- night, not earlier
on any account. Vernon had counted on a lover's obedience to any whim. He was right.
"Lackland came on the
stroke of twelve. Vernon was ready for him—with a knife. In the struggle, Lackland got a grip of the other's throat.
Vernon thrust home. In his death-agony, Lackland's hands tightened, fastened like a vise. Vernon was asphyxiated. A
steward found them both dead, lying locked to- gether at Mrs. Vernon's feet."
The bleak austerity in Doctor
Field- ing's eyes checked comment.
"That's all of what you would call fact. Mrs. Vernon died—brain-fever in the
end."
"And they were all buried at sea? All three of them?"
Captain Ross looked not wholly un-
sympathetic.
"Yes."
"Then I know the whole thing from start to finish at last."
"No, It is
not finished yet, sir. Ver-
non knew the secret of
perpetuating him- self in the physical world even without his body. That had been lowered over the side and I saw it done.
But Vernon him- self—his malicious powerful ego—has never left this ship."
The captain's softened expression was
instantly combative. "I've listened to your story, to the end—to the very end! Thank you, doctor. I've no time to
speculate on ghosts. Once and for all, I don't believe in the supernatural."
He turned to the
others.
"Before we break up this meeting, have you anything to say? Mr. Owen?"
The first mate was a
Welshman, viva- cious, sensitive, emotional.
"The doctor's not told you half, sir," he burst out. "You don't
know what a hell the ship was for days and nights, God, those nights! Up and down the deck—up and down, whistling—if you
could call it whistling."
"Whistling what? And what whis- tled?"
Mr. Owen was past being daunted by
the captain's glance.
"A high, queer sort of sound, sir. No tune or anything. Went through your head like
red-hot wire. What was it? Don't ask me, sir! It doesn't bear think- ing of."
"Exactly. That's my complaint
against you all. You refuse to think. This absurd legend of Number 14 would never have existed if you'd thought, and
investigated. Anything more?"
"I—we—there was the fog, sir! And Steevens here saw—"
"I'll take him in
turn. Fog?"
"Yes, sir. Fog or sea-mist. The whist- ling seemed to come from it."
With a quick,
irritable gesture, Captain Ross turned to the steward.
"It's true, sir. You'll know for your- self soon. The whistling and all! Some- thing cruel! Drove you
wild, sir! Aye, and that Number 14! Locking the door wasn't no use; no, nor bolting it neither. Chips did his mortal best.
But every morning it was burst open, and the bunk —covered thick with dirty foam! The smell of it fair knocked you down,
sir. Like something that had rotted in the sea."
Mrs. Maddox was obviously beyond giving verbal support to these
statements. She sat shivering, white-faced, tears drip- ping down her large, pale face to the starched bib on her
apron.
Captain Ross got to his feet.
"Thank you, Doctor Fielding. Thank you, Mr. Owen. Steward! Report
any complaints about Number 14 on deck A to me, if you please. The passenger who is to occupy it is Colonel Everett, a
per- sonal friend. He is aware of the facts. I've told him of the deaths that occurred. The rest interests him even less
than me."
"One moment." The doctor followed him to the door. "I shall tell your friend, Colonel Everett, the
exact nature of the risk he is running."
"Do! He will laugh at you. He shares my views of what you call
supernatural phenomena."
"You are exposing him to hideous peril. It's murder, sir!"
Captain Ross
looked bored and put his hand to the door-latch.
"One more thing." The doctor's man- ner was that of a lecturer
making his points. "Eldred Vernon marks down his victims methodically, and in every case he gives twenty-four hours
warning, a signal of his intent to kill. He whistles Kathleen Mtwourneen. Last May, before
Captain Brakell was able to seal up the door you have opened, five passengers heard
that tune. Each one died in twenty- four hours."
"Logged as dying of virulent influenza. I gather the owners
suggested your sub- stituting influenza as your diagnosis in place of ghosts?"
"It was heart-failure from
shock."
"Quite. Well, Captain Brakell and I had the same end in view. But we went about it differently. He
calmed down his passengers by going through a ceremony of sealing up Vernon's supposed influ- ence. I see more wisdom in
letting sun and wind and everyday life penetrate Number 14. After this trip it will be a chamber of horror no longer. I'll
have no locked-up rooms on my ship. And any- one who goes round encouraging a belief in ghosts will lose his job and
needn't apply to me for references."
GOOD morning! Good morning!" A brick-red, large gentleman at the captain's
table, engaged in adding a top-dressing of toast and marmalade to previous strata of porridge, fish, and sau- sages,
spared an inquiring glance for a limp young man who slid into a seat next him. The young man had butter-colored hair and
looked as if serious consideration of vitamins had been omitted from his education.
"Why 'good'? he moaned.
"I've been kept awake all night."
The brick-red gentleman was surprized. "Eh? What? I slept like old Rip Van
Winkle."
The limp young man unfurled a table- napkin with the air of one who drapes a winding-sheet about
him.
"China tea. This brown toast and bloater paste." He lifted an eyelid to a hovering steward. Then, to his
neighbor:
a fire-station. I mean," he explained, "whistlings and shriekings and
stampings just lull you to sleep! You on deck A? No! I'm in Number 18. There's a damned nuisance of a colonel in 14. Kept
up an infernal racket last night."
"Pipe down, my lad, pipe down! He's a friend of the
captain!"
"Well, he's going to have an 'in loving memory' label on him soon! Never had such a
night."
A tall, straight ramrod of a man stalked in, made his way to the table and took the vacant place at the
captain's right.
"I say!" bleated the butter-haired one. "What's the great idea of practising your tin whistle
all night? You may think Number 14's sound-proof. Is it? All you've got to do is to come outside and listen to
yourself!"
Colonel Everett drank down a cup of coffee almost at a gulp, murmured some- thing about the shortage
of reliable nurses, and gave an order to the steward. A good many faces were turned toward him. Other accusers gave vent
to their rancor.
"If you're the occupant of Number 14, sir, I think it was damned thoughtless— damned
thoughtless of you!" And:
"I'm not one of the complaining ones, but the noise you made was unbearable. My
husband got up five times and knocked at your door. And you simply took no notice!" And:
"Are you the person in
Number 14? I was just telling the captain that it's dis- graceful. After all, one does expect some decency and quiet in
first-class. My two children were awake and crying all night. No wonder! Such an uproar! Why, even steerage couldn't be
more rowdy."
"What is all this about the noise in your stateroom?" asked Captain Ross.
"Someone's idea of a joke." Colonel Everett's face and manner were
grim.
The captain frowned at him and spoke under his breath.
"Were you pickled when you went to bed,
Tom?"
"Don't be a fool! You've known me all my life. I never take more than four whiskies a
day."
"Then why didn't you hear all the din?"
"Dunno! Unless I'm due for malaria again. I felt deuced
queer when I woke. Dizzy. Couldn't get the hang of things. Feel half doped now."
"Hm-m-m-m! Perhaps you are—
doped! This fool notion about Number 14 being haunted! Some maniac's trying it out on us. I'll put him in irons, who- ever
it is. I've given fair warning I'll have no more of their pet spook on my ship."
Colonel Everett thrust his face
forward. His eyes glared. His lips stretched in an ugly grin. His clear emphatic voice changed to a thin dry rustling
whisper.
"What are you going to do about it?"
Captain Ross's fork dropped with a clatter. He met the
evil, malevolent stare hardily, but his face grew white to the lips. Quite literally, he was unable to speak. His thick
black brows met. Was this Tom Everett? He didn't recognize the man he'd known so long and inti- mately. Those cold
eyes—hating, defy- ing him! This was a stranger! An enemy!
A voice broke the spell—a boy's voice, eager,
confident, friendly.
"How queer! I thought that was Colo- nel Everett at first. He seemed to change. It's the
man I drew last night. The prince in disguise, you know."
Colonel Everett drew back, looked round him with a
frown. His face and eyes were blank now. He seemed rather
shaken, like a man who'd been just knocked down and
winded.
Captain Ross felt a sudden vast relief. What an ass he was! Good heavens; he'd actually felt afraid,
afraid of good old Tom Everett! The poor fellow was look- ing ill and shaken. Distinctly under the weather. He signaled to
Doctor Fielding, who came round to the head of the table and put a hand on the colonel's shoulder.
"Come along
with me; I'll fix you up. You've had a rotten night, I can see."
Dazed, swaying on his feet, Colonel Everett
allowed the doctor to guide him out of the saloon.
IN THE big, perfectly equipped kitchens the breakfast episode
was discussed with terror.
"I tell you he looked as like him for a minute as makes no difference." The steward
who waited on the captain's table was telling his tale for the eighth time for the benefit of those detained on duty. "One
minute he was the colonel and next minute he was him! The Old Man no- ticed it and all! Looked as if he'd been and
swallowed a h'asp."
A brand new young steward spoke up. "Who's this him when he's at home?"
"Someone
you've not met so far, my cocky. And when you do, you won't crow so loud."
Mrs. Maddox, trying to drown her fear
in floods of dark brown tea, intervened.
"And how's he going to know if no one don't tell him? Nay! I'm not
going to take his name on my lips. Someone else can do it—that hasn't heard nor seen what I have on this
ship."
Mr. Amyas and the doctor talked in a corner of the deserted dining-saloon.
"He went along to
the smoking-room. Revived as soon as we got outside, and re- fused to go back to bed."
"Hm-m-m!" The little man pulled at his short, pointed white beard. "Could you hear
what he was saying to the cap- tain at the breakfast table?"
"No. I saw enough, though. What the boy said was
right. He was Vernon for a moment."
"Undoubtedly, Colonel Everett as Colo- nel Everett will soon cease to
exist.''
The doctor shivered, turned a stricken face seaward. Remembrance of last year's horror surged back with
every movement of the restless, sunlit water.
"Eldred Vernon's taking possession of the colonel's body as one
would a house. He's moving in," continued Mr. Amyas. "It's barely possible that if the real owner knew what was happening
to him he might defend his habitation, drive out the intruder, but I doubt it. Evidence proves Vernon to have unique
power. History has only produced two others on his scale. There is the Black Monk of Caldey Is- land, who has guarded his
treasure there since the Tenth Century. And there is Lord Saul, a terror and a mystery since the days of Attila, who tried
to kill him by fire and by the sword, and failed. Lord Saul lives to this day."
"Vernon was bound and safely im-
prisoned once. Can't we do it again?"
"You forget. A year ago Vernon was newly divorced from his body. He was
taken at his weakest, before he'd learned the laws, the possibilities of life in a new element. In twelve months he's
learned them, so effectively that he's almost achieved his great necessity—a human body."
"Surely that will
limit him? A dis- embodied force is more awful than the wickedest of men."
"No. He'll gain the freedom of two
worlds. He can operate in or out of his stolen body. And he can use the will and energy of the dispossessed owner for
his
own ends. It's a tremendous prize. He'll rank high in
hell."
"But—how d'you know all this? You speak as if—"
"It's a long, grim, unnerying tale. Made an old
man of me when I was in my twenties, experimenting, like the mad young fool I was then, in occult research. Some day, if
we survive, I'll tell it."
"Isn't there the barest chance of saving Everett? Can't you make him
believe?"
"That's what I don't know. I can only guess. It's one of the things that doesn't go by rule of thumb.
Every crisis varies. But there is a moment—"
THEY were interrupted by a scream, sounds of running feet, a second
scream. Mr. Amyas turned, ran lightly along to deck A with the doctor at his heels. An excited group of passengers was
collecting there. The first mate ap- peared. Inside the open doorway of a lounge stood Steevens with several other cabin
stewards. They appeared to be holding an agitated council of war.
The first mate addressed this twitter- ing
little group. "What's all this?"
"Sir! It's Number 14. We saw—"
"Get inside. I'll come
along."
He returned to the startled passengers. "Nothing much." His smile was reassur- ing. "One of the
stewardesses! She's had hysterics again. Husband died a few weeks ago and she's gone to pieces over it."
"Very
neat," commended Doctor Field- ing. "We'll come with you to see what's really happened."
Owen nodded. His eyes
and mouth looked strained. Outside the closed door of Number 14 a huddle of white-coated stewards waited.
"It's
what it was before, sir," whis- pered Steevens. "The bunk was covered
with it. Foam—dirty gray foam—indies thick! Right over the bunk, pillows and all. And
the smell—my Gawd!"
Owen stood rigid, one hand on the door-latch. Mr. Amyas saw him shudder, caught the loathing
on his face as he flung open the door and went inside. Doc- tor Fielding and Mr. Amyas followed quickly. All three looked
instantly at the bunk. A pall of dirty gray foam covered it, like the silt of a monster tidal wave; the air was foul with
the odor of stale sea-water and things long dead. Doctor Fielding scribbled a few words in his note-book, tore out the
leaf and gave it to the first mate.
"Take that to the captain—at once!" Thankfully the man escaped. A stew- ard
called after him.
"If he wants this bunk made up he'll have to get another man for the job. I'd sooner jump
overboard. I'm not going inside 14 again! He can put me in irons —but I won't—I won't—"
The first mate vanished
beyond reach of the man's hysterical outburst. No one paid any attention to it. All eyes were fixed on Doctor Fielding and
Mr. Amyas standing inside.
"Quick!" cried the doctor. "Out of here!"
Next moment, both were in the
pas- sage, and the door fast bolted, but not before they'd seen the blanket of gray foam ripple and heave as if water
surged beneath it. And as the door banged to, a sudden shrill whistling began—like the sound of escaping steam. Footsteps
ap- proached, a firm, soldierly tread. Colonel Everett's tall straight figure advanced down the long corridor. The
whistling ceased abruptly.
"What on earth? Are you playing 'Clumps'? And why outside my door?"
The
colonel's eyes, friendly and puz- zled, turned from the doctor's haggard
face to meet the speculative watchful gaze of Mr.
Amyas. He put a hand to his head.
"Better follow your advice after all, Doctor Fielding. I'm beginning to
feel—"
Then, with appalling suddenness, he changed. Voice, face, manner took on the feral primitive hate of a
jungle beast. He loomed over Mr. Amyas.
"You're one of the clever ones, you think—spying round, adding up,
working out your little ideas! That's puzzled you, I'll swear!" He jerked his head toward the closed door; a wicked flare
of laugh- ter leaped in his eyes. "Go on worrying —I'm enjoying it! You'll not get me caged up there again, though. I'm
out! . . . and I stay out!"
Todd, the hysterical young steward, gave an odd, sighing cough and slid to the
ground. Steevens dropped beside him, unfastened his collar, held up his head. The rest ran for it, bolted in panic, their
feet thudding along the narrow pas- sage like a roll of drums.
Under Mr. Amyas's steady look the red glare died
in Colonel Everett's eyes, his convulsed features relaxed. He steadied himself by a polished brass handrail that ran along
the wall.
"I thought—I thought someone called me," he said. "I feel a little dizzy!" He looked vaguely from Mr.
Amyas to the unconscious Todd, then to Steevens. "What's been happening here? What the deuce is wrong with everyone on
this ship?"
"Colonel Everett!" Mr. Amyas was profoundly serious. "Will you put preju- dice aside? Will you be
persuaded that you are in danger? Will you believe that this room is more poisonous than a rattle- snake's lair?" He
gestured to the closed door behind them. "Have you been in
since breakfast? No! Well, it's taking a risk, but it may convince you."
He
opened the door.
"Well?" the colonel frowned. "What is it?"
But Mr. Amyas found no answer. There was
nothing to say. There was nothing to see except the bunk with its tossed bed-clothes—the flowered green curtains
fluttering at the open window— the white enameled walls splashed by the sun with golden light. Mr. Amyas closed the door.
The three men faced one an- other in the corridor.
"Is there any explanation for all this?"
The
colonel, very large and indignant, stood with a frown. He was answered by a shrill, fierce whistle. It seemed outside the
room now. Todd, who had recovered consciousness, glanced up, and fell back in a dead faint once more. Steevens cow- ered
against the wall with mouth gro- tesquely open. He pointed at Colonel Everett.
"Look! Look! It's him! . . . ah,
ha ha ha ha ha! ... it's him!"
The doctor and Mr. Amyas shuddered.
"You'd better look out for
yourselves," came a savage whisper. "You'd better not interfere. Nothing can stop me. I'm out!"
A twisted mask
of a face leered into theirs.
"Look out for yourselves!"
On this last sneering menace, Colonel
Everett's hand opened the door of Num- ber 14. He went inside. The door slammed to. The whistling shrilled louder . . .
higher . . . higher. . . .
"FOG, sir! Been drifting round for a a couple of hours. I noticed it as soon as my
watch began."
Captain Ross glanced down from his bridge toward the poop. There—among coils of tarry rope and a
mass of can-
vas, iron, life-buoys, and other carefully stowed gear—a
patch of white, woolly fog wavered and drifted. The captain snatched up a pair of binoculars and looked long and
earnestly.
"Go down and see," he ordered.
The third mate saluted and went. His face was white as he
turned to obey. Cap- tain Ross watched while he made his way to deck B and thence to the poop, saw him go forward,
hesitate, peer at the eddying fog. Suddenly he threw up his hands with a startled gesture and turned to
run.
"Good God! It's after him!"
Captain Ross gripped the rail under his hands as he spoke, and leaned
over to watch with eyes almost starting out of his head. Stumbling, running, turning to look back over his shoulder at the
thing that steadily pursued, the mate zigzagged an erratic course. A woman's shriek was heard.
An instant later,
pandemonium rose on deck B. Men and women struggled from their deck-chairs. Some, entangled in rugs, tripped and fell.
Some were too paralyzed by horror to move at all. Deck stewards, serving tea-trays, let their bur- dens tilt, and the
crash of breaking china added to the uproar.
The third mate ran with open mouth, his hands making queer flapping
move- ments, his eyes wild with terror. The fog rolled up behind—closer—closer. A long white wisp of it seemed to blow out
like a tentacle, touched the mate's neck, curled round it. The man yelled, put up clutch- ing fingers. His cry died on a
strangling sob.
Captain Ross roared out an order through his megaphone. The mate was down on his knees now. Over
him the fog circled and hovered. Several of the crew came running; they were, so far, more in awe of the captain than
anything
else on board. They picked up the mate and
carried him off at a run, vanished down a companionway.
Captain Ross let out a great breath of relief and put
down his megaphone with an unsteady hand. The cloud of fog was blowing down deck again. Now it was drifting round the
poop. And from it the captain heard a high, keening, intolerable whistle, rising, falling, rising again to torturing
shrillness.
For minutes he stood watching, listen- ing. At last he set a double watch on the bridge and went
below. He knew at last what fear of the unknown meant. He knew at last that his ignorance and obsti- nacy had put his ship
at the mercy of something he could not understand or control.
"Murder!" The word hammered and clanged through
his brain. "Murder! That was the doctor's word. Said I was sending Tom to his death!"
Passengers huddled in
groups, whis- pering, crying, cursing, utterly demora- lized as he made his way through the luxurious lounge toward the
deck A cab- ins. He knew it would be wise to stop, to reassure them, to check the panic that was running like wildfire in
their midst. He knew also that he couldn't do it. His brain was numb with shock. He couldn't console these terrified
people. He was terrified himself, sick and cold and stupid with terror.
He groaned as he hurried to Number 14.
The door of the room stood wide open. Sunset light painted it blood-red. Its silence was horrible. A taunt—a threat—a
prelude to disaster! He saw Mr. Amyas look in.
"Where is he? Where is Tom Everett?"
Mr. Amyas did not
at first reply. He looked intently at the captain's altered face; then:
Mr. Amyas nodded. "I was there. I ran down to look for the colonel while you were watching the
mate. The cabin was empty then. I'm afraid we're too late. He's gone."
"Gone!" The word burst from the captain's
white lips. He seized his com- panion's arm. His eyes were tortured. "Overboard?"
"No! No! It's worse than that.
El- dred Vernon has become a permanent tenant now."
Captain Ross frowned in a fierce effort to follow the
incomprehensible statement.
"I mean that Vernon has taken pos- session of your friend—body and soul! Colonel
Everett appears to be in the smoking-room at this moment. In reality he's no more there than you or I. Vernon possesses
him. Vernon is walking and talking in the body of Colonel Everett."
"But Tom—Tom, himself! Where is he,
then?"
"A slave in bondage. In bondage so long as his body is possessed by Vernon. Suffering the torments of the
damned. He is still able to think, to feel, to remember, but he is helpless. Vernon has over- powered him, taken his house
from him. He's like a prisoner lying gagged and bound in some dark cellar of it."
"Go on, Mr. Amyas, go on!" The
other's voice was harsh with grief. "What will happen to my passengers—my ship —to all of us, now?"
"I do not
know. I can only guess. But I think not one of us will live to see land again. Your ship may be found—some-
time—somewhere—a derelict, a mystery like the Marie Celeste!"
"There must be a way out. There must be a
way."
"Only by destroying Eldred Vernon."
"How? How? D'you mean kill"—a look of awful enlightenment dawned in the captain's eyes—"you mean—I must kill—Tom
Everett?"
"I don't know. I don't know." Mr. Amyas's brown face showed a network of lines and wrinkles. "I can
only recall an affair I was once concerned in—an exor- cism and a sacrifice—to drive out a devil."
"—to drive
out a devil! Tell me what you know!"
And in the haunted silence of Number 14 Mr. Amyas told
it.
"COLONEL EVERETT! Colonel Ever- ett!" Mark called after the tall figure just stepping from the smoke-room to
the deck outside. "You promised to tell me that tale about your tiger-hunt after tea."
The man paused on the
threshold and half turned back to the boy. Mark, dash- ing across to him, drew up with a start about a yard
away.
"I beg your pardon. I thought you were—" His serious slate-gray eyes flashed to the man's face, then to
his dark green necktie, his collar, his gray tweeds —even his sports-shoes didn't escape the quick, keen
scrutiny.
"I—have you borrowed the colonel's clothes?"
The boy's clear, surprized tone seemed to ring
out like a bell in the room,
"Borrowed my own clothes! I am the colonel! What's the idea, Mark? Is this a
riddle? Or, are you giving me an intel- ligence test?"
The boy stood absolutely still. Quite suddenly he drew
back, a look of horror dawning on his pale, intelligent face.
"You're not the colonel. You've got black hair and
your skin is yellow and you're older—much older. Where is Colo- nel Everett? I want him."
Men were looking at the pair now, peering over the tops of
their papers; glancing up from writing-tables. Desul- tory bits of talk now ceased altogether. Everyone seemed suddenly
aware of a crisis of peculiar significance between Mark and the man in gray tweeds.
The latter looked down with
cold venom.
"Don't make a little fool of yourself!" His low voice reached Mark's ear alone. "If you ever say
such a thing again to me I'll—punish you. No good running to your Mr. Amyas either; he won't be able to interfere much
longer."
He went out quickly, leaving Mark staring, shivering, sick with fright. The glint of those cold eyes!
The hate in that low-pitched voice!
"What's wrong, kid? What did he say?" A good-natured young fellow close by
drew the boy over to a group in a corner. "Queer sort of man, that Colonel Everett! He's a bit annoyed with all of us
today. Liver or something!"
Mark's white, drawn face did not re- lax. He shivered convulsively, tried to speak,
failed. One of the group rose with an exclamation, glass in hand.
"Look here, old man." He put a hand on Mark's
shoulder, held the glass to his lips with the other. "Take a sip of this and tell us what it's all about."
The
boy drank, choked, dropped his head down on his knees—a huddled, frantic heap of misery.
"Better get the doctor.
The little chap's ill."
The good-natured young fellow went to one of the doors, collided with two men about to
enter. They were Mr. Amyas and Captain Ross.
"Ill? Mark?"
They listened to the young man's hasty,
confused explanation and hurried to the boy. He looked exhausted and was lean-
ing back with half-closed eyes, his features twitching, his delicate hands clenched
tightly.
It took Mr. Amyas some minutes to get a word out of him. Captain Ross waited with a pinched gray look
on his altered face.
"He was—awfully, awfully angry! As if he wanted to kill me!" Mark gasped. "It's that man!
It's the prince! He said he was Colonel Everett—he's wearing his clothes—so I thought at first—"
Captain Ross
exchanged a somber look with Mr. Amyas, who was supporting the boy.
"Oh! Oh! There he is whistling for me! And I
don't like it—I don't like it!" Mark clapped his hands over his ears, dropped them again in bewildered fright. "It's in my
head—the tune! Oh!—oh! I wish it would stop. It's—beastly!"
A strange silence fell on the rest. To no one but
the boy was any whistling audible. The good-natured young man winked and touched his forehead signifi-
cantly.
"Oh! Oh!" wailed the boy; "it's that funny old song—my nurse used to sing it to me. Kathleen Mavourneen!
Oh, can't you make it stop?"
Mr. Amyas lifted him to his feet, put an arm about him. Above the boy's head he met
the captain's eyes again.
"I'll get the doctor to give you some- thing so that you won't hear it any more. Come
along to my room. No need to be afraid of anything. You're quite right— that wasn't Colonel Everett. Come along. I'll
explain. You'll be all right in a few minutes."
The last red rays of the setting sun flashed on the boy's face
as he and his companion crossed the room and went out.
"What the deuce!" The good-natured young man stared at
the doorway through
which the two had vanished. "Not the colonel! Is
the boy a bit touched? He seemed such a bright lad, I thought."
Captain Ross glowered.
"Brighter than
all the rest of us put together, it appears. That was not Colo- nel Everett.''
"Good lord! What! You don't mean
it! I'd have staked my last shirt—"
"Not Colonel Everett," repeated the captain in grim, heavy accents. "I don't
think it's any use to warn you, but keep clear of him—if you can!"
He stalked out.
"Raving!" a young
man in flannels drawled. "There seems to be something that breeds lunatics on the S. S. Dragon. What is at the bottom of
all this? Whist- ling and hysterics! Joke's wearing thin. I'm fed up."
A stout, quiet man, playing patience,
voiced his opinion in the manner of one accustomed to authority.
"I advise you to take Captain Ross se-
riously—and literally."
The flanneled one attempted to register world-weary contempt, but his smooth young face
betrayed him into sulky re- sentment.
MR. AMYAS returned. He stood for a moment with his back to the light in a
doorway, his black eyes raking the room—very quiet, not a hair out of place, and yet he gave an impression of most
desperate haste and disorder.
"Has anyone seen Doctor Fielding?"
A chorus of anxious voices answered.
No one had seen the doctor lately. Was the boy bad? They'd go and search. The quiet, sleepy atmosphere became charged with
electricity. Some dashed off to find Doctor Fielding. The remainder pressed for information.
"Heart," Mr. Amyas
stated briefly.
"He's collapsed. Seems to have had
a bad shock. Ah, here's Fielding—''
"Yes. It's the boy. Quickly!"
The passengers saw a look of under-
standing flash between the two men as they hurried away.
"Mystery! Crime! Adventure!" the man in flannels
sneered. "Victim guaran- teed every two hours."
"You rather underestimate the time." The stout man was putting
away his pa- tience cards. "However, optimism is a privilege of youth."
"Oh, go to hell!" said the flanneled
one. But he said it under his breath, and only the trembling flame of the lighted match in his unsteady fingers made re-
sponse. He walked toward a doorway.
"Er—look out for fog."
The quiet man stowed away his pocket- pack.
His tone was perfectly casual.
"Fog! What d'you mean—fog?"
"Ran into some just before tea, I heard.
Perhaps I should say—it ran into us."
"I know there was a hullabaloo. The mate got hysterics! But you don't
suppose I think—"
"No! No!" the quiet man seemed really shocked at the idea. "Of course not. I know you
don't."
The young man violently disappeared. The quiet man sat back in the attitude of one who awaits news.
Several of those who had rushed off to find the doctor now returned. They seemed worried.
"Fog?" inquired the
quiet man.
"What the devil makes you harp on fog?" one of them inquired.
"I was on deck B before tea,"
was the reply. "I've seen that sort of—fog, be- fore! In North Borneo. Lived out there twenty years. It's apt to—er, hang
about. Like poison-gas. More deadly, though."
"Well, you're right, as it happens," a muscular man in a Fair-isle
sweater con- ceded. "There's a rum patch of fog or
mist or something drifting around near the wireless room. I
heard that everlast- ing whistle going strong and thought I'd do a spot of investigating. Almost ran into the fog. Could
have sworn the whis- tling came from it."
No one questioned his impression. He went on with increasing
embarrassment.
"Don't know what came over me. The thing looked—well, I funked! Legged it back here as fast as I
knew how!"
"Very sensible," approved the quiet man. "My experience has been that it only—er, functions in the
open air, for some reason."
In a cabin close by, Mr. Amyas and the doctor looked down at Mark's quiet, un-
conscious face.
"He'll do for a few hours. That stuff'll make him sleep. Only question is whether we oughtn't to
let him go—now—easily! Seems damnable to bring him back to face that devil again. The boy knows. And he's heard the
death-signal. Why let him wake? Why let him face tomor- row? What d'you say, Amyas?"
The other nodded. "I agree.
He mustn't come back to that. How long will your stuff hold him? Four or five hours?"
"Easily. More likely seven
or eight."
"Five will take us to midnight. We'll leave it until then. Captain Ross is send- ing out S. O. S's.
Going to transfer to a home-bound ship, if possible. Best give him another injection at midnight if no ship answers us—in
time."
No need to harass the doctor before it became necessary. Mr. Amyas, therefore, did not admit that he had
no hope of their S. O. S. messages getting through. He'd seen what the young man in the Fair-isle sweater had seen. More!
He had looked inside the wireless room. No operator was there. A cloud of fog hung over it. It was not humanly possible
for any man to sit in the place with that
shrieking
menace in his ears. There was no chance of outside help. The fight must be lost or won on board within the next few
hours.
He looked down at the helpless, doomed little figure, turned toward the door, stepped back for a brief
farewell.
"I promised you a gift in memory of this trip together. You shall have it— before midnight,
Mark."
A PALE, chill twilight lingered in the sky. Electric lights shone from re- flectors on deck. The sea ran
smooth, gray-green below the ship's steep sides. Mr. Amyas looked about him with quick, bright eyes. Passengers—those not
de- moralized by fear, those who hadn't seen and didn't believe in fogs and foam and fantasies—were below, dressing for
din- ner. Those who did believe were dress- ing too. It didn't get you anywhere to encourage thoughts of that sort. A good
dinner—dancing—lights—music— they'd forget it soon!
Mr. Amyas caught sight of the third mate making for the
captain's bridge. Lights were on all over the ship. He thought how brilliant the S. S. Dragon must look, foaming on
through the dark water, gleaming, illumined, swift. What passing craft would guess she was a ship of the damned? That she
was bearing hundreds of souls to hell? That on her long, white, level decks, behind her lighted port-holes, in luxurious
cabins and beautifully decorated saloons, horror stalked, biding its time?
His eyes followed the third mate. He
was staggering uncertainly. He climbed up to the bridge with painful effort. The strong lights flooded him, showed a
ghastly, twisted face of fear. He spoke with Captain Ross. Bad news, evidently. The captain's gesture was eloquent. He
dismissed the officer, turned away, and
"That devil's got us, all right." Cap- tain Ross turned fiercely. "Five men driven from the wheel this last
hour. That infernal whistling fog! And I find it's the same with the wireless. He's cut- ting us off completely. What's
the use of waiting, Amyas? I tell you it's madness to let him corner us like this. Every hour my ship's more at his mercy.
Tom Ever- ett is dead—murdered—I murdered him! It's Vernon, not Everett, walking round now, mocking us, destroying us. I'm
go- ing to shoot him. D'you hear me? It's time to do something. My ship will be helpless soon — driving blind — lost!
There's only my first mate left to steer now—until that cursed whistling Thing drives him off too!"
"Only till
midnight!" the other spoke with strong entreaty. "Only a few hours more! I know your friend is still alive. It will indeed
be murder if you shoot him now. At midnight, I swear to you, Ever- ett will be himself again. For a few min- utes he will
be the man you've always known—and loved."
"How d'you know? It's only a guess in the dark. And even if we
wait—even if Tom does come back, he may not tell me how to destroy Vernon! You're only guessing all along the line. Why
should Tom know this secret that you don't— and I don't? No! I must shoot that devil while there's a chance. It's
monstrous— it's madness to let him destroy us inch by inch."
Mr. Amyas looked at him and said no more. He'd been
afraid of this. The strain was inhuman. It passed the line of what could be endured. He turned to leave the bridge.
Queerly enough, his submission touched some secret spring that protest and entreaty could not reach.
"Come back!
Come back! Help me, Amyas! I can't watch here alone."
IN THE huge, handsome main saloon, unobtrusively reserved in gray oak and clouded-green upholstery, groups of card-
players worked in isolated quartets, tense, serious, absorbed. Mostly elderly and middle-aged. The younger set was danc-
ing. To this sanctum, Colonel Everett en- tered, stood observant, bright cruel eyes raking the unconscious
players.
He walked, his accustomed firm deci- sive tread, now curiously sinuous and smooth, to a table where the
Marchmonts and the Hore-Smiths were engaged in a long-drawn interesting battle. Wealthy, autocratic, exclusive, they
represented a high average of breeding and brains.
"I shouldn't risk that."
Colonel Everett stabbed a
finger down on the card which Mrs. Hore-Smith had led.
"Dummy," he went on, "has only queen, seven and three of
clubs—ace and ten of diamonds—nine, five and two of hearts—and knave, ten, five, four and two of spades."
Four
amazed, resentful faces were raised to meet the colonel's hard glare. Mr. Marchmont picked up the cards he had put
face-down on the table and re- versed them.
"You're right. Very clever. I've seen it done before—in Siam.
Perhaps you'd reserve your—er—tricks until later!"
Cold malice leaped in Colonel Everett's
eyes.
"Reserve my—er—tricks until later!" he mocked. "Later! You gibbering, con- ventional puppets! There won't
be any later for you. After midnight I rule here! Even now—"
Mrs. Marchmont, very handsome, very haughty, cut
him short.
He nodded and made a quick, insolent gesture. His eyes
showed a gleam of wicked white.
"Then don't talk. Play!"
The two couples, with strained, altered
faces, resumed. In silence—in absolute silence they played. Colonel Everett sat back smoking, his long legs crossed, one
foot wagging in perpetual motion. Not a single word escaped from any of the play- ers. They sat stiffly. They moved hands
and arms only. Their eyes sought his— read in his evil, mocking glance what cards to put down. Colonel Everett played out
a whole rubber thus, merely using the Marchmonts and Hore-Smiths as physical mediums. And they knew what was happening to
them. Their wills impotently battled his.
The rubber finished, Colonel Everett stood up and waved a hand that
seemed boneless at the wrist.
"It is not everyone who would respect your wishes so perfectly, Mrs. March- mont.
Well, we've had enough bridge now."
His sinister, sidelong glance collected eyes all over the room. Inexplicably
to themselves, the players looked up simul- taneously.
"We'll go and watch the dancing for a time. This game
begins to pall."
He sat down, lighted a fresh cigarette, waited. Group after group rose from the tables.
Well-fed, expensively attired sheep ready for the slaughter. They threaded a decorous way to the entrances and passed out
of sight.
Colonel Everett rose to watch them go. Lucifer, Son of the Morning! So had he towered in dark lust to
rule!
ON THE dancing-floor, color flashed like gorgeous birds among a forest of black coats. Musicians combined
in assaulting every primitive urge possessed by man. Ordinary lights were turned off.
The dancers swayed through shafts of green and purple, blue, red and
yellow.
At Colonel Everett's entrance the shift- ing floodlights died. Brilliant white lights sprang to life
from every bulb in the place. The dancers laughed. A buzz of talk reverberated. Dick Redlands glanced up in annoyance. The
most beautiful girl on board was sitting out with him. He adored her. He was letting Wanda know about it and she seemed
not uninterested. What fool had turned on the electric lights?
Wanda's grave, wistful, profoundly gray eyes
turned to the doorway where Colonel Everett's evening clothes seemed to invest him with quite regal dignity. He bowed to
her across the dance-floor and advanced.
"Look here, Wanda! You're not going to dance with that bounder." Dick
lost his head in sudden, plunging, name- less fear. "It's impossible! He's . . . he's—"
"What is
he?"
Dick was unable to say. The girl's black head with its narrow wreath of pearls was turned from him. Her
fingers lay unresponsive in his clasp. Her quick- ened breath fluttered the gauzy petals of a flower at her
breast.
"Wanda!" he urged. "No! Don't dance with him. There's something wrong—he's a rotter—a—"
The
colonel was bowing low before Wanda now, drawing her to her feet, melting into the dance with the girl's supple figure
held close. Dick stared after them. He was afraid—damnably afraid—and he didn't know at all what it was he feared. But his
eyes followed the girl. Her face was turned to her part- ner's shoulder; his lips were close to her ear, moving, moving in
ceaseless talk.
". . . but it won't last. It can't last, your beauty! You are only a shell. A lovely, painted,
fragile shell. After to-
night all your beauty will be gone. You'll be dead.
Have you ever seen a body that's been in the water for a day or two? For a week? For a month? Very revolting indeed.
Bloated — swollen — oh! most nauseating. And the fishes—"
On and on went the horrible whisper- ing voice,
painting its hellish pictures, de- stroying her body—her eyes—her hair— giving her loveliness to hideous death with sure,
unrelenting strokes. And, gripped in his iron arms, she had to lis- ten. Her imagination flared to torturing life as all
ability to struggle, to cry out, failed her.
"There are so many creatures of the sea that will come starved to
rob you of this beauty you love. It would be a waste of time for your latest adorer to go on wor- shipping at your shrine.
He shall see you day by day as you rot—and rot. I heard what he said. He shall live—and regret his
living!"
Dick, watchful, not with anger, cold with terror, held in his place by baffling control, saw Wanda's
profile as she passed before him—suffering—tortured.
Next time the pair came round, the colonel stopped, led
Wanda to her seat, set her in it like a doll, then walked away in the direction of the band. Dick found himself unable to
move a finger.
Music struck up again. An old tune. Mo one got up to dance. No one moved at
all.
Colonel Everett stood as one crowned and robed with authority. Slowly, as if a heavy, jeweled cloak dragged
at his heels, he turned and walked away.
The band played with maddening repe- tition. On and on wailed the sad
little melody . . . Kathleen Mavourneen . . , on . . . and on . . . and on. . . .
ON ONE of his half-hourly
visits to Mark, Mr. Amyas saw a tall, hate- fully familiar figure standing outside the
room. Colonel Everett's face, barely re- cognizable now in its dark, lean wolfish-
ness, confronted him with a grin.
"Very conscientious! Well, make the most of your time. You won't be sick-
visiting much longer. I'll take the boy off your hands soon—very soon."
Mr. Amyas opened the door and closed it
softly, abruptly in the other's face. He felt better for the small act of defiance. After midnight! . . . He choked back
the cold, numbing sense of defeat that threat- ened, and crossed over to the bunk where Doctor Fielding
watched.
"I've something to say to you," he be- gin in a low, urgent voice. "No use tell- ing you before—I
wasn't sure of Captain Ross. And it's a remote chance anyhow. However—"
He explained briefly.
"I see."
The doctor looked up, his eyes dead fires in a worn, ravaged face, "It all hangs on whether Everett knows, and if he does
know, whether he will have the chance to communicate his vital knowl- edge. The only certain factor in the crisis is that
Everett as Everett does momen- tarily take possession of himself again."
His companion assented.
"I
admit my knowledge is limited. But I'm staking everything on it. And I have persuaded the captain to this point of view.
About Mark—"
"Yes. If Everett speaks, Mark won't need the second injection. Very well. I'll wait for fifteen
minutes after midnight. Then—if no message comes—I will use the needle."
The corridor was empty as Mr. Amyas
went out again.
"I don't know," he confessed when he regained the bridge, "why the infernal fog leaves us alone
up here. Vernon is reserving his powers, leaving us to the last—his strongest enemies. There must
be laws and barriers in every state of ex- istence, and
Vernon must be prevented from touching us—yet!"
"My first mate's given up now, driven away," the captain
informed him. "There's no one at the wheel. Luckily the ship's heading north, right out of the fair- way. No danger of a
collision. We're going dead slow, too. Three more hours of this. Three more hours! My God, Amyas, if Everett doesn't
come—doesn't tell me!"
"He will come."
"But he may not know. He may not know."
For the
hundredth time Mr. Amyas re- assured him. For the hundredth time Captain Ross turned to pace up and down the bridge, his
ears tortured by the inces- sant, insistent whistle, rising to maniacal fury, then dwindling to thin, distant, un- earthly
piping. He had tried stuffing his ears with cotton-wool. It was useless— worse than useless. It increased the tor- ment;
his brain had felt like a hollow tube; the whistle shrieked through it, red- hot, searing as a flame.
And up and
down the long, bare, gleaming deck below, to and fro, drifting, shifting, a horrible, seeking, wraith-like thing of fog
loomed, hovered, eddied, wavered to nothingness, re-formed once more.
And northward through the dark sea drove
the ship—haunted—lost—blind! her slow, discouraged heart beating in heavy rhythm. Northward to her doom.
ALMOST
midnight. On the bridge Cap- tain Ross and Mr. Amyas kept watch. Almost midnight. A new moon. Hard, bright stars. No wind.
And the low continuous wash and ripple of fol- lowing seas as the S. S. Dragon drove on her unguided, crooked
course.
In Number 14 on deck A, Its occupant moved
with quick, uneasy steps. The sinuous grace, the wicked, glancing eyes were changing. Something of fear, of doubt, of
grief showed every now and then, like a star's clear shining between dark clouds.
"It's very far off—very far
off." His voice was crisper in spite of its note of anxious, painful doubt. "I can't remem- ber—I don't even know what it
is I must remember."
A sudden convulsive shudder took him, A sudden darkness dimmed and blurred his features.
His head went back with a jerk. His hands grew taut with fingers that clenched and crisped like talons.
"Fool!
Fool! What am I doing? What am I thinking? Almost midnight. A few short minutes and I will pass through. The door stands
wide. I will pass through."
He glared at the tall figure reflected in the long glass of his wardrobe, leaned
forward as if speaking to the image mir- rored there.
"In a few more minutes I possess you utterly. Body—living
human soul—all mine!"
The face in the glass returned his glare, grew gray and wavered. Its harsh and wicked
lines smoothed out. Thought, emotion, effort showed in the mirrored face — stirring — changing it as wind changes the face
of water.
"No! No! Stay here. You shall not go! I command. I command. I rule you now."
But the eyes in
the mirror did not match the voice. They were steady, reso- lute, brave. And a new voice answered the challenging
words.
"I am Tom Everett. I am myself. And I must speak with the captain of this ship."
He turned from the mirror. All soldier now—squared
shoulders, erect, decisive, disciplined. He moved toward the door; his hand was on the latch when his body was torn and
wrenched as if by torture. He fell against the wall.
"I must—speak—"
His voice grew thick and
indistinct. His hands made blind, arrested move- ments. He lifted his feet as if he stood in quicksands and fell with a
choking cry and hands at his throat. Stubbornly he dragged himself upright, dragged open the door and stumbled into the
corridor. Moving more strongly now with every step he took, he made for the deck above. From the bridge Captain Ross saw
him coming, heard a faint calling through the night.
"Captain! Captain! Are you keeping watch?"
"Here!
On the bridge! Here, Tom, here!"
The colonel moved swiftly in reply. He seemed to slip his fetters, came run-
ning. Next moment he had gained the bridge and stood with clear gaze on his friend.
Mr. Amyas fell back. It was
between these two now.
"Tell me! Tell me quickly! I am ready. I will give all I have—body and soul, to save
you!"
Everett looked deep into the agonized face confronting him.
"Yes—I see you are—quite
ready."
A shrill piping sounded far off—drew nearer—nearer.
"Now!" cried the colonel.
He
thrust a thin, long knife, trophy of the East, into Captain Ross's hand.
"We must go together. We must fight him
together, afterward! Will you come with me?"
Below, the decks were blotted out. Fog
rolled up . . . blind white world of ter- ror . . . closing in with the
whistling, tearing shrieking of the damned.
Captain Ross took the knife, grasped it strongly. Understanding,
then profound triumphant joy illumined his worn face.
"Ah! Now I see the way! Wait for me, Tom! Together . . .
yes! ... to- gether!"
He flung up an arm and struck with sure, strong aim. Everett fell, the knife deep in his
heart. The captain pulled his sharp blade free again, stood up. One tremendous shout—thunder-clap bellow- ing above the
wind's shrill squeal. The bright blade flashed again, sank to its hilt in the captain's own broad breast.
As he
fell, stars and moon and foaming sea were blotted out from Mr. Amyas. The night was filled with the howl of rushing winds.
Blackness descended. The ship spun crazy and demented under him.
In mortal terror he heard the thrashing roar of
battle all about him. His heart grew colder than his icy hands. A world of yelling darkness where all the winds of hell
tore loose.
But louder than winds, high above the devilish tumult shrilled the whistle, cease- less, shrieking
its menace, its everlasting hate. . . .
Utter silence. Silence, huge as the empty dawn of time. A wide, sweet
sense of freedom filled the universe.
The watcher stood, breathing the clean salt wind, blessing friendly stars
and moonlit water.
He woke like a dreamer and looked at his watch. Five minutes—only five min- utes that agony
had endured after all!
He knelt by the quiet dead, profoundly sleeping, utterly at rest. They were freed as Mr.
Amyas knew himself to be. The dark soul of Eldred Vernon was de- stroyed.
Lover of hills and fields and
towns antique, How hast thou wandered hence On ways not found before, Beyond the dawnward spires of Providence? Hast thou
gone forth to seek Some older bourn than these— Some Arkham of the prime and central wizardries? Or, with familiar felidæ,
Dost now some new and secret wood explore, A little past the senses' farther wall— Where spring and sunset charm the
eternal path From Earth to ether in dimensions nemoral? Or has the Silver Key Opened perchance for thee Wonders and dreams
and worlds ulterior? Hast thou gone home to Ulthar or to Pnath? Has the high king who reigns in dim Kadath Called back his
courtly, sage embassador? Or darkling Cthulhu sent The Sign which makes thee now a councilor Within that foundered
fortress of the deep Where the Old Ones stir in sleep, Till mighty temblors shake their slumbering continent? Lo! in this
little interim of days, How far thy feet are sped Upon the fabulous and mooted ways Where walk the mythic dead! For us the
grief, for us the mystery. . . . And yet thou art not gone Nor given wholly unto dream and dust: For, even upon This
lonely western hill of Averoigne Thy flesh had never visited, I meet some wise and sentient wraith of thee, Some
undeparting presence, gracious and august. More luminous for thee the vernal grass, More magically dark the Druid stone
And in the mind thou art for ever shown As in a wizard glass; And from the spirit's page thy runes can never
pass.
"Abruptly the
Raider's ship flashed away, came darting down at them."
By HENRY KUTTNER
A startling weird-scientific story, about the fantastic and
horrible entity that lay like a cosmic vampire on the hideous Night Side of Venus
1. The Raider Strikes
DAL KENWORTH was collecting the nectar from his elysia
plants and swearing quietly as he worked. He was perspiring in spite of the rain, for it was the steady warm
driz-
zle that falls constantly on the sunward side of
Venus. Thank heaven, he would be free to return to earth when the col- lection ship came to pick up his elysia— but the
ship was not due for a week. He bent the tiny dead-white cup of a bell- shaped elysia flower, and a single
drop
fell into the transparent tube he held ready to receive
it.
Kenworth had scarcely a gill of the fluid to show for a year's toil on Venus, but it was a good yield, and
would be worth seven work-units when placed on the market in N'yok—fifteen thousand dollars, by ancient reckoning. The al-
most magical properties of elysia as a super-nerve-tonic made it invaluable, for it could be grown only on the scattered
islands of the Great Sea of Venus.
The televisor whistled shrilly from the dome-shaped building that was Ken-
worth's home. He screwed the top on the tube of elysia and went to the house, swung in through the door. He clicked the
button that vacuum-sealed the room and released a welcome stream of pure, cold air. Then he touched the televisor
switch.
On the screen a face sprang out in sharp detail—paper-white, streaked with crimson. The boyish features
were twist- ed with pain, the dark eyes torture-filled.
"Dal!" a voice croaked from the re- ceiver. "Dal—the
Raider!"
Ice gripped Kenworth's heart as he recognized the boy—Jene Trenton, who, with his sister, farmed an
elysia garden thirty miles away. The—Raider? Scourge of the spaceways, ruthless pirate of three planets and their
moons—why was the Raider on Venus? What was Jene whis- pering into his transmitter?
"He—he's seized the
collection ship! I—didn't know—gave him my elysia— then—" The boy coughed blood, clutched at his throat. He went on swift-
ly, weakly. "He saw Thona! Took her— he—"
The boy toppled. His face came rush- ing up at the screen, eyes
blankly shut. Kenworth was suddenly aware that he was shouting into the transmitter, mouth-
ing frantic questions. The boy's eyes opened, stared into Kenworth's.
"Save
her—Ken—"
His eyes closed. Blood seeped from his mouth as his jaw fell.
Kenworth saw that he was
dead.
A warning throb came from the tele- visor. Kenworth sprang to the door, flung it open. Against the gray
clouds, dim in the rain, a black oval grew larger—the collection ship, swiftly descending. And within it—Thona Trenton and
the Raid- er!
Kenworth found a gas-pistol—a stub- by, flat weapon that was dangerously ef- fective at close
range—and a ray-tube, deadly, no longer than a pencil. He went back to the televisor and manipulated a dial. The screen
went blank, was sudden- ly shot with a whirl of racing, blended colors.
He spoke quickly into the
transmitter.
"Emergency ether-call! This is Dal Kenworth, son of President Kenworth of the Americas. The Raider
is on Venus. He has seized the collection ship and is landing on my elysia farm. He has a hostage on board. Send
fighting-ships at once. I'll try to hold him here."
Kenworth moved the dial, touched a switch. Immediately the
screen lighted up, showing his own face. His voice came from the transmitter.
"Emergency ether-call! This is Dal
Kenworth—"
Satisfied, Kenworth shut off the tele- visor receiver. That message would con- tinue to be sent out
into the ether until the sending apparatus was shut off or de- stroyed. And as soon as the ships of the Interplanetary
Patrol received it—
HE TURNED to the door. The collec- tion ship, looking like a fat black cigar, was settling
toward a cleared space beyond the elysia fields. As he watched it, a door in its side swung open, and
a
man appeared in the portal, beckoning. Kenworth
hesitated. It would not do to cause suspicion — better to behave as though he suspected nothing. He moved toward the
ship.
The warm, sticky rain was unpleasant after the brief respite of the air-cooled house. Anger was mounting
within Ken- worth. Jene—the poor kid—shot down without a chance! Well, the Raider would meet with a different reception
here.
"Got your stuff?" the man in the por- tal hailed.
Kenworth nodded, scrutinizing him as he
approached. He saw a clean-shaven face, strong-jawed, twinkling-eyed, burned almost black by the direct rays of sun in
airless space where even polaroid glass was insufficient protection. The full lips, twisted in a smile, betrayed a certain
sardonic amusement. Bat this was not the Raider, not the hawk-faced, cold-eyed man whose portrait was on the news- bards
of a thousand space-ships.
Kenworth decided to play a bold hand. This man would be as anxious to avoid suspicion
as was Kenworth. The pirate stood blocking the doorway with his huge bulk, his hand extended. His voice was low,
deep.
"Let's have it," he said.
Kenworth took a small flask from his pocket, and then, hesitating,
thrust it back. "Let's get the other matter cleared up first," he said.
Kenworth nodded. "I see. Well, it's about that unreported elysia
farm. I've located it."
He saw the other hesitate, and pressed his advantage swiftly. "Let me come
in
—I'll show you the spot on your chart And you can
give me the receipt for my elysia."
Taking his host's assent for granted, he moved forward. The other stepped
aside. Kenworth knew that his gas-pistol was hidden from view beneath his jacket, but he took pains to let his hands swing
in plain sight. He had been in the ship before, knew the way to the control room. He went there swiftly, conscious of
sharp eyes on his back.
Seated at a desk was a slender man, his hair iron-gray, dressed in the conventional
flexible black leather of the spaceways. He stood up quickly as Kenworth entered.
Kenworth held himself rigidly
in check, knowing that he dared not give the Raid- er a hint of anything amiss. He stared at the other briefly, and then
nodded.
"I'm Dal Kenworth," he said, and tossed his elysia vial on the desk. "I can show you where that lost
elysia farm is— I spoke to Lanna about it."
The other did not answer. His eyes probed into Kenworth's, black and
cold as glacial ice. His face was austerely handsome, tanned as black as his com- panion's, and seamed with harsh lines.
Kenworth had never seen a face so im- passive, so capable of concealing all emo- tion.
At last he spoke. "Good.
Lanna told me of it." His voice was flat, toneless, yet with a curious crispness. He clipped his words
oddly.
Kenworth nodded, turned to the chart table. He ran his finger over it as though searching.
"You
may have a fight on your hands," he said casually. "The chap's been trying to smuggle his elysia off Venus. Only two men
this trip? I'll come along if you want."
He examined the chart, his heart in his mouth. Behind him came the
flat, cold voice of the Raider.
"That's all—just two. Arn and I. But we can handle it. Gas
him out if neces- sary, or use the ship's ray-tube. Thanks anyway."
About to answer, Kenworth felt some- thing
touch his leg. He glanced down— and jumped back, suppressing a cry. The Raider chuckled, and the other man echoed him with
a gusty laugh.
"Never seen an octan before? Guess you've never been on Mars."
Kenworth grinned,
although he felt a little thrill of repugnance go through him as he stared down at the octan—that strange hybrid of Mars,
where so many originally submarine creatures had evolved to land-dwellers as the oceans shrank. Once, millions of years
ago, the octan's ancestors had dwelt in the Martian seas. Emerging on land, they had even- tually becoming dwarfed to the
size of small terriers. The thing's round body was covered with a growth of short, red- dish fur, and perched atop it was
a globe of a head, with two unwinking, baleful eyes set above a parrot-like beak. Its limbs were tentacles — eight of
them, furred, and lined with the atrophied remnants of suckers. Although Ken- worth knew that the octan was tamed, not
dangerous, he could not suppress an in- voluntary shudder.
THE octan moved toward him, scut- tling like a spider
on its tentade- limbs, and then paused, as though sens- ing his dislike. It gave a shrill whistling cry and ran back,
climbing a leg of the desk and crouching atop it.
Kenworth saw that the two men were watching the octan. His
chance, then, had come, and if the Raider had spoken the truth, there were only two on the ship —besides the girl, who no
doubt was a captive. He snatched the ray-tube from his jacket, drew the gas-pistol with his other hand.
"Up!" His voice cracked like a whip- lash, peremptory,
challenging.
The big man snarled a surprized oath, made a hasty gesture—and paused, lifting his hands. The
Raider's hands were al- ready in the air. Frightened, the octan leaped from the desk and scuttled from the room. A little
feeling of apprehension went through Kenworth. But what harm could the repulsive creature do?
The larger man
said, "What's this? You can't—"
The Raider interrupted him. "Don't bother, Arn. He knows who we are." Yet
Kenworth sensed puzzlement in the Raider's eyes.
Kenworth said, "Where's the girl? Thona Trenton?"
The
Raider smiled slightly. "She's safe, in a compartment aft. I took her because of Arn. He's a faithful lieuten- ant, and
deserves some reward—and he said that he wanted her."
Kenworth felt rage rising within him, fought it down. He
said coldly, "You'll take—"
The Raider interrupted. "You should not have let the octan go," he smiled, amusement
in his eyes. "Ruthlessness and logic are the only laws by which one can live. And it was not logical to let the octan
go—the creatures are more intel- ligent than most people think. Surely you did not think I'd fall into your trap and tell
you how many I had on this ship! Vakko—use half-strength only. There are things we must learn from our
guest."
And the Raider, his hands still held high, nodded, his eyes intent on some ob- ject beyond
Kenworth!
2. Flight
Kenworth was in a quandary. He dared not turn, for the Raider might be waiting for
just that opportunity. On the other hand, if there was an enemy behind him—
He pivoted very slowly, keeping his weapons aimed
at Arn and the Raider. He caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye—and leaped back, swinging the
ray-tube.
He was too late. A paralyzing shock went through him — the half-strength energy of the ray-tube—and
the weapons dropped from his nerveless hands. He crumpled, fully conscious, but unable to co-ordinate his movements —
suffering, actually, from a severe electric shock. Arn sprang forward, snatched up the gas- pistol and the
tube.
The Raider chuckled. Another man came into view—a Martian, seven feet tall, huge-chested, with arms and
legs thin as pipe-stems, his round face, with its tiny mouth and bulging eyes, like some ludicrous mask.
"Good!"
the Raider said. "Good, Vakko. As for you, Arn—you would do well to learn from Vakko."
The Martian giggled
shrilly, apparent- ly delighted. He piped something Ken- worth could not understand, and at the Raider's nod lifted
Kenworth easily and laid him on a leather couch. There was surprizing strength in those slender, brit- tle-seeming arms,
with their thick growth of red fur.
The Raider gave a command, and Arn hurried away. Kenworth tried to move, but
there was no feeling in his body. The effects of the ray, he knew, took some time to wear off. The Raider came close,
staring down into Kenworth's eyes.
He said slowly, "You should be thank- ful I told
Vakko—half-strength!"
Arn returned, and at his side was a girl — gray-eyed, dark-haired, whose beauty was
scarcely marred by the traces tears had left on her cheeks. As Ken- worth recognized Thona Trenton he made an effort to
speak, managed only an inarticulate croak. The girl flew to his side.
"Dal! What's—are you—"
"A little ray treatment," the Raider said
gently.
Thona flashed a furious glance at him, looked down again at Kenworth. She said, choking back a sob:
"They've killed Jene, Dal!"
Kenworth managed to nod. Too late he saw his mistake. The Raider's eyes narrowed,
and he exchanged a quick glance with Arn.
"How did you know that?" he asked quietly.
Then, realizing
that Kenworth could not answer, he spoke to the Martian, who knelt by Kenworth and began to massage his body with his
slender, powerful lin- gers. Life began to flow back into Ken- worth's veins, hastened by Vakko's min- istrations. After
one or two attempts he found his voice.
"It's all right, Thona," he told the girl, with an assurance he did not
feel. "There's no danger."
"And how does he know that?'' the Raider asked, apparently of the bare
wall.
He snapped his fingers suddenly, sprang to the televisor. As he clicked it on, Kenworth's face appeared on
the screen, and his voice rang through the room.
"—farm. He has a hostage on board. Send flghting-ships at once.
I'll try to hold him here." There was a pause, in which the harsh breathing of Arn was plainly audible. Then the voice
from the transmitter resumed. "Emergency ether- call! This is Dal Kenworth, son of Presi- dent Kenworth of the
Americas—"
The Raider waited for no more. He leaped for the control board, barking orders at Arn, who raced from
the room. The ship quivered, lifted. The Raider fingered buttons, swung a lever. Ab- ruptly the televisor screen went
blank. Kenworth knew that the space pirate had rayed the house, destroying the televisor.
THONA was staring at Kenworth. "You're — President
Keuworth's son?"
He nodded, flushing. "I—yes, Thona. I didn't tell you—I thought it might— make a
difference."
"But—why? The son of President Kenworth on an elysia farm!" There was amazement in her
eyes.
"As a matter of fact, it was a wager. A chap and I got into an argument—a commander of the interplanetary
Patrol, an old friend of my father's—and he bet me that I was too soft to raise a crop of elysia. Lord knows it's no easy
job!" He lowered his voice. "I don't think I could have stuck it out, Thona, if I hadn't met you. Now don't worry. The
Raider won't dare—"
"I won't dare?" The Raider stood over them, his eyes glittering in his mask-like face. "I
won't kill you—no. Neither of you. I'm tempted, I confess—but if worst comes to worst I can always bar- gain. And the son
of President Ken- worth—"
He paused, while Kenworth cursed himself for revealing his identity.
Arn
came forward, frowning. He ges- tured to the controls, said something under his breath. The Raider nodded im-
patiently.
Arn said, amazement on his dark face, "You're going to do it?"
"Yes. They'll expect me to
leave Venus to escape. We can't take the chance of going back to our own ship—and I won't go into space in this leaky
boat. Nobody will expect us to go to the Night Side."
Thona gasped, and her hands flew up to her cheeks. Even
Kenworth paled.
Am said unbelievingly, "We're going —to the Night Side?"
Kenworth understood his
apprehen- sion, shared it. Ships stayed on the sun- ward side of Venus. There was a mys- tery about the Night Side—the
half of
Venus turned perpetually away from the sun,
blanketed by thick clouds and shunned by the wanderers of the space- ways. There had been a time, long ago, when
expeditions had set out to explore the Night Side. They had never re- turned. They had gone into the enig- matic blackness
armed with huge ray- tubes and gas-projectors—and had van- ished.
Of the Night Side only one thing was known—no
one had ever returned from it. And it was to this hidden land of eternal blackness that the Raider was guiding his
ship!
Kenworth revised his opinion of the Raider as he saw Arn turn away without another word. The Martian,
watching Kenworth with ray-tube in hand, said nothing. The octan scurried into the room and rubbed against Vakko's legs,
and he reached down absently to stroke it. It shrilled its pleasure. Kenworth felt Thona shudder against
him.
"Keep an eye out for ships," the Raid- er commanded, and Arn nodded, went to the control
board.
Ignoring Kenworth, the Raider picked up the little vial of elysia from the desk. He unbuckled his leather
jacket, fumbled with a thick, tubular belt he wore about his waist. It was transparent, filled with the pale elysia fluid,
Kenworth saw. The Raider added Kenworth's gill of the liquid to his own stock.
"It's a fabulous fortune," he
said pleas- antly in his toneless voice, meeting Ken- worth's gaze. "Curious that people are willing to pay so much
for—emotion. That's what it is." He eyed the belt ruminatively. "Pure emotion. A scientist once explained its action to
me, but I couldn't understand him, except that it seems to step up the emotions—the pleas- urable
sensations.
"Elysia!" he went on almost dreamily. "It's well named. Back in the Twentieth
Century men used morphine and—what was
it?—cocaine—to allay pain and ex- rite pleasurable sensations. But they were drugs, and harmful. One drop of elysia will
give a man days of almost unendur- able ecstasy—and the feeling will last for years, wearing off only very gradually. And
a larger dose will kill." He slapped the belt, chuckling. "It's lucky I'd col- lected from most of the farms before you
intervened, Kenworth."
Arn said, "We're near the Twilight Zone now. The—" He broke off, snarled a lurid Martian
oath. "Th'gadda! A ship—two miles off! Coming this way!"
Kenworth sat up hastily. The Mar- tian moved closer,
his ray-tube ready. The octan tried to climb up Vakko's leg, but he kicked it away impatiently.
The Raider went
to the controls. He touched a button, and the televisor screen lit up, showing the outline of a ship, torpedo-shaped,
bearing the insignia of the Interplanetary Patrol—three circles, intertwined.
"Interference!" the Raider said
quietly. "Blanket their signals."
Arn growled assent. On the edges of the screen a flickering nimbus of pale
light grew, darting and writhing inward, oddly reminiscent of the sun's corona. Kenworth knew that the Patrol ship could
not now send a message for aid. He prayed that such a message had already been sent.
Thona touched his arm. He
turned to her.
"I thought—hostages—" she whis- pered, her mouth close to his ear.
"Maybe later," he
murmured in re- sponse. "Right now he wants to make his getaway. We're being kept only as a last resort. He must be pretty
sure of himself."
The Raider's ears were preternaturally
quick. Without turning, he said in his flat voice, "I am. Quite sure. Watch the
screen, and learn how spacemen fight!"
3. Battle—and Escape
THE conflict began. Strange air battle of
the Twenty-third Century! Sound- less struggle of deadly rays guided by trained, quick-thinking minds! As Ken- worth
watched the swift, deft movements of the Raider and his lieutenant, he be- gan to understand the reasons for the
space-pirate's reputation. For the Raider was playing with the Patrol ship, playing with it so deftly that the attacker
did not realize its own impotence. And Ken- worth knew that the ships of the Inter- planetary Patrol were not manned by
fools—no! To command a Patrol ship was a high honor—and one not easily gained. Yet the diabolical cunning of the Raider
had the Patrol ship at his mercy.
The flickering rays still nimbused the screen, dimming and flashing out again
as the clashing rays of the two ships flared—invisible rays of paralysis and death! The heavy armor that plated the ships
could resist a certain amount of raying, but if a ship remained in the path of a beam for more than a few seconds, the ray
would penetrate the armor and reduce the crew to a state of helpless paralysis. Kenworth saw that the Patrol ship was not
using the death-rays, no doubt because the Patrol Commander knew or suspected the existence of the Raider's hostages. And
the Raider, too, was using his rays at half-strength only. Kenworth, an expert at space piloting, cursed under his breath
as he watched the Raider send his craft through a breath- taking series of whirls and dives. He realized that when the
Raider decided to strike, he could almost instantly ray the Patrol ship out of existence.
he planning? There was no hint of his intentions on that
gaunt, immobile face.
The mad spins and lurches of the ship did not discommode the passengers, due to the
artificial gravity field existing with- in the craft. But, watching the madly flaring screen, Kenworth saw the Patrol ship
slip aside and vanish, saw the jag- ged peaks of a mountain range come rushing up, dim in the grayness of the Twilight
Zone. The ship was falling!
A voice boomed through the cabin. "Surrender, Raider! Kill your rays!"
A
tight smile flickered over the Raid- er's face. He said in a swift aside, "Arn, keep the interference on."
Arn
grunted, little beads of perspira- tion standing out like jewels on his space- blackened face. Kenworth felt Thona huddle
against him. For a moment a thrill of fear went through him, but a glance at the screen was instantly reas- suring. The
mountains seemed to be stopping their mad march toward the ship, slowing down. The Patrol craft lurched into view.
Abruptly it began to recede in a series of curious little jumps.
Kenworth knew that this was illusion. The
Raider was fleeing, and the screen darkened steadily, with the pursuing Patrol ship a black silhouette against the pale
gray sky. The titanic mountains of the Twilight Zone dimmed, faded to darkness. They were entering the Night
Side.
The Raider clicked over a switch. The dead blackness of the screen lightened, showed the Patrol ship. But
there was a curious lack of perspective, of color. It was a shadow-picture, two-dimensional and unreal. Ultra-violet rays
wrere re- sponsible. All space-ships were equipped with them, Kenworth knew. Invisible light, making a strange shadowland
of the blackness!
And now Kenworth realized the Raid- er's plan. The nimbus of light still
flick-
ered on the screen, and the Patrol ship could
not summon help, for the Raider's interference mechanism blanketed the other ship's signals. The Raider might have
destroyed his attacker in the Twi- light Zone—but that would have left the Patrol ship's wreck to attract attention,
pointing a definite finger of suspicion toward the Night Side. Pretending to be crippled, the Raider was luring his enemy
into the hidden blackness of Venus—and there he would strike!
Kenworth began to search the room with his eyes,
methodically seeking sev- eral devices which he knew should be in the control chamber. A plan was forming in his mind—but
he would have to act quickly. Luckily he had been in the col- lection ship before, and it was not long before he saw a
rack of small tubes on the wall, tubes that resembled the paraly- sis-ray projectors, but which were in real- ity
light-tubes. And light would be vital- ly necessary on the Night Side—if they could escape from the
ship.
Kenworth located, too, a shelf on which a dozen small packages were piled —parachutes, made from the
incredibly tough filaments spun by the Cave Spiders of Mars. He put his arm unobtrusively around Thona, drawing her close.
She looked up inquiringly.
He prisoned one of her small hands in his big one. Then, his eyes on the Mar- tian,
he pressed his thumb against Tho- na's palm, released it. Vakko did not move. His bulging eyes stared emotion- lessly at
Kenworth. Using the Inter- planetary Code—adapted from the archaic Morse—which every citizen had to learn, Kenworth began
to give Thona a mes- sage. Dot — a brief pressure—dash—a longer one-
"When I give the word, get light-tubes and
parachutes." Swiftly he indicated where they were.
swering pressure of her warm fingers gave Kenworth
the message, "I understand."
NOW they were far into the Night Side, racing through the blackness from the Patrol
Ship. Another screen had been put into operation, for the Raider did not care to crash blindly upon an uncharted mountain
peak. But at this height there was little danger of such an accident.
Kenworth watched the Raider, and took the
opportunity to send another mes- sage to Thona.
"Now!" the Raider said, the word coldly metallic. He touched a
lever, flung over a switch.
Arn growled, "Good! Then we can get out of this—darkness."
The Raider said
nothing. On the screen the Patrol ship grew larger. Rays leaped out—invisible, detectable only by the re- actions of
delicate indicating instruments. The Raider's face grew intent, like a mask cut out of black stone.
The
Martian's eyes flickered toward the screen.
Kenworth moved. Like an uncoiling spring he shot toward Vakko,
smashing against the Martian's pipe-stem legs. Vakko toppled. The ray-tube was jerked from his hand, went spinning across
the room. He screamed in an oddly piercing, shrill voice.
Thona was running across the room. The Raider swung
about, and as he moved a grinding crash rasped through the ship. The pirate wheeled, his fingers darting lightning-like
over the controls. His momentary inattention had almost lost him the battle with the Patrol ship.
"Arn!" His
command stopped the big lieutenant, brought him, too, back to the controls. "Get the Patrol ship!" he snapped. "Quick!
Then—"
Kenworth had counted on this. In the crisis, the final battle between the two
ships, the Raider would need both Arn and himself at the controls—would
not dare turn to face a lesser peril, knowing that a moment's inattention would mean disaster. Already there was a warning
tingling shuddering through Kenworth's body—the first taste of the Patrol ship's paralyzing rays, lancing through the pro-
tecting armor!
He snapped a vicious blow at the Mar- tian's pouchy chest, and Vakko shrieked his pain. But the
deceptively slender arms did not relax, and, cursing, Ken- worth drove blow after blow into the Martian's body. He heard a
shrill pip- ing, and felt something whip across his eyes. Tentacles wound about his head, and a vicious beak stabbed at
his face. The octan!
He put all his strength into a sledge- hammer blow that smashed bones in the Martian's
chest. The binding arms re- laxed, and Kenworth leaped to his feet, tore away the octan's tentacles. The par- rot-like
beak snapped viciously at his hand, and the thing squealed in futile rage. He flung it from him, turned.
He had
a flashing glimpse of a mael- strom of titanic forces racing across the televisor screen. The Raider was still at the
control board, his fingers darting to and fro. Arn was on his feet, plunging toward him, gas-gun leveled.
Thona
was gone. Kenworth spun, leaped for the doorway. Something popped near his head, and a cloud of greenish gas sprang into
existence, writh- ing as though alive. He got through the door, holding his breath, and swung it shut. A precious moment
was wasted while he searched for a bolt that was not there. Then he turned and went racing along the
corridor.
"Dal!" It was Thona's voice. "Dal— here!"
She was standing by an open oval of emptiness
through which a blast of rac-
ing wind screamed. She made a quick movement with her hand,
threw some- thing out of the ship. Light flared. It was a light-tube, hurtling downward, lighting the dead blackness of
the Night Side.
Kenworth adjusted the parachute Thona handed him, saw the tumbled surface of land far below. He
heard Arn shouting, and a gas-pellet burst against the wall. But the greenish vapor was instantly dis- sipated by the
rushing blast. Kenworth seized Thona's hand and they leaped to- gether out into space.
A WARNING tingling sent
fear darting through Kenworth. Away from the protecting insulation of the ship, the paralyzing rays were bathing them.
Realizing that this would happen, Ken- worth had determined not to open the parachutes until they had fallen beneath the
range of the rays. But would the fall be swift enough to save them? Would they become paralyzed—unable to open the
parachutes?
The tingling ceased; in the white flare the ground rushed up at them. With a word to Thona Kenworth
touched the stud that opened his parachute. The two 'chutes blossomed together.
Above them the ships whirled and
spun and dived in mad conflict. Abrupt- ly the Raider's ship flashed away, came darting down at them. Kenworth could guess
what was in the Raider's mind. His hostages were invaluable—he dared not lose them. But to land and recapture the two
meant laying himself open to the Patrol ship's attack.
The Raider fled, was lost in the dark- ness. The other
ship slanted down. Ken- worth could guess, too, what lay in the mind of the Patrol ship's commander. Like the Raider, he
wished to land, to pick up the two refugees. But he would realize that the moment his ship touched
the soil of Venus, his defenses down, the Raider would come swooping
out of the shadows, his rays working deadly havoc before the other ship could be lifted from the ground.
The
landscape swayed, rocking as they drifted down. Now the light-tube was dying. Even the tempered metal of the tube had been
unable to withstand the impact. But the light had served its pur- pose. It had revealed the landing-place.
Rock.
Great plains of rock, fantastical- ly colored, with here and there small patches of the dull gray soil of Venus. Over all
lay a silvery sheen, the brilliant sparkle of frost. An icy chill struck through Kenworth. The Night Side, turned
perpetually from the sun, would naturally be cold—but the wonder was that it was not colder than this. Then he realized
the solution—the dense atmos- phere that blanketed the Night Side from the utter chill of airless space.
They
touched the ground, rolled over. Kenworth helped Thona up, brushing white frost from her garments. He hesi- tated,
glancing around.
Thona, completely invisible as the last traces of the light died, groped
closer.
"Dal!" she said, a curious note of fear in her voice. "Dal! Do you feel—some- thing
strange?"
4. Spawn of Darkness
KHNWORTH knew what she meant. Yet the sensation was utterly unreal,
fan- tastic. It was like a queer sensation of movement within his brain—provoking some half-forgotten memory—now evad- ing
him, now swimming into view—
He had it! Once, in N'yok, he had at- tended a council of telepathists, that small
group of scientists who had devoted their lives to experimenting with telepathy. And it was there that Kenworth had
ex-
perienced a sensation similar to this in-
explicable motion within his brain.
Remembering the theories of the telep- athists, he threw his mind open, made
it blank, receptive. But no message came. Only breaking in through the darkness came Thona's voice.
"Dal! Where
are you?"
Shaking his head, he looked around, blinded by the darkness, realizing that he had unwittingly moved
forward a few paces. As he answered, a little ray of light flickered on, and in its light he saw Thona near by, holding a
light-tube in her hand. At his surprized glance she smiled, and said,
"I managed to get two of them." Then she
sobered. "What is this—sensation? It feels as though something's pulling at my brain!"
Kenworth started. That
had been his own sensation, exactly. And, indeed, under its guidance he had moved for- ward.
He told Thona of
the telepathy theory. "The scientists have often conjectured on the possibility of a race existing without oral speech,
speaking by thought-impuises alone. It's not as fantastic as it seems— indeed, they've proved the possibility of
telepathy." He took the light-tube from Thona, adjusted it until only a faint glow shone out. "We'd better move, Thona. If
the Raider destroys the Patrol ship— as I think he will—he'll be back. And he mustn't find us here."
A shadow
fell on Thona's face. "But how can we get back? It's impossible, Dal—it may be thousands of miles even to the Twilight
Zone!"
Kenworth smiled with an assurance he did not feel. "We can make it. It'll be quite a walk, but—have you
your food tablets?" Every citizen was required by law to carry a packet of these concentrated food pellets, and Thona
pulled a flat metal container from her pocket.
"What about water, though?" She answered her own question as the light gleamed on the frost-rime on the rocks. "The
ice—of course. But what about direction?"
Kenworth glanced up, but the stars were hidden by the thick
cloud-masses. He switched off the light, waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness. Then he touched the
girl's arm.
"There, Thona. See?" Abruptly he realized that she could not see his point- ing finger, and fumbled
for her head, felt the soft curls beneath his fingers. He turned her head slowly. "Do you see that glow—very faint,
though—far away on the horizon?"
"No . . . oh, yes. But it's scarcely visible."
"Doesn't matter."
Kenworth hesitated. A little warning premonition went through him. The light was strangely blue- tinged to be the daylight
of Venus. But what other explanation could there be to this light on the Night Side?
"Well, come on," Thona
said. But after a few steps she paused, staring at Kenworth. He nodded.
"Funny. I felt it, too. That—queer feel-
ing in my head is gone. I wonder—"
But it was useless to conjecture. Haste was necessary, and for a time the two
hurried on in utter silence, climbing over jagged rocks, slipping more than once on the frost-rime that lay like a
fantastic arabesque over everything. It was cold, but no colder than a N'yok winter, and the exercise of walking warmed
them.
THEY had been walking for almost two hours, by Kenworth's wrist chronometer, when they saw the strange
white thing. It lay like a great pale pan- cake nearly two feet in diameter, on a flat surface of grayish soil. For a
space about it there was no frost on the ground, and as the two approached they couid
feel a faint, gentle warmth radiating from the
thing.
It had only one feature, a branch-like arm projecting vertically from the center, about a foot long. And
the creature— whatever it was—was not immobile. It pulsated gently.
"Careful," Kenworth said. "It's a plant of
some sort, I think."
"It's alive," Thona commented.
Kenworth moved forward, touched the spongy,
rubbery surface of the thing. The pulsations continued undisturbed.
"Curious," he said. "But not much help. We
need a guide, not a plant."
He turned away, checked himself at Thona's astonished exclamation.
"Look!"
She was pointing at the plant. Kenworth stared.
The vertical branch projecting up from the white pancake was no
longer vertical. Its tip was bent at a right angle.
"It's—pointing," Thona said.
"Impossible! How
could a plant—"
The branch moved slowly until it was again upright. Then it bent down again —jerked for all the
world like a pointing finger!
"It's pointing, Dal."
He was not convinced. "No . . . but flowers turn
with the sun sometimes, don't they? This may be something simi- lar—"
From the gloom came a startling sound —a
sharp, sudden bark, abruptly chopped off, Kenworth whirled. It came again— a hoarse shouting. And it repeated over and
over the single word:
"Dal! Dal! Dal!"
The two stared at each other. As the voice paused Thona
whispered. "The Raider?"
Kenworth shook his head, frowning, puzzled. He took a step in the direction of the
voice, noticing that it was there that the plant-branch was pointing. Thona kept close to him.
About fifty feet away they came out into a little plain of gray soil,
ringed with garishly colored rock. The place was quite warm, Kenworth realized with amazement. In the middle of this
cleared space was another of the strange white plants—but far different from the orig- inal one.
This was huge.
A dozen feet in diameter, dome-shaped, with a score of long branches shooting up from the thing's center, it lay pulsating
and throb- bing with life. And as the two watched, the plant began to rotate like a great turntable. It turned very
slowly, until on the surface facing Kenworth and Thona appeared a group of odd appurtenances— organs, apparently. A small
puckered orifice reminded Kenworth of a mouth, although it remained immobile and silent. Ringed about it were six bulging
white domes. The whiteness vanished mo- mentarily from one of them, and Ken- worth saw a black shining surface. Then the
pale skin covered it again.
Had the plant—eyes?
"What is it, Dal?" Thona asked shakily,
"I
don't know," he said. "Plants have evolved considerably on Mars, I've heard, but never to this stage. I wonder if the
thing can—understand us."
The puckered orifice on the plant's sur- face twitched convulsively, and opened. From
it came an ear-shattering bellow that made Thona cry out, clapping her hands to her outraged ears. Kenworth took a step
back, his eyes widening. And still the hoarse yelling kept on, rising and falling like the hooting of a siren. Ab- ruptly
Kenworth realized that there was a definite sequence in the shouting. The thing was yelling—words!
Kenworth
stopped his ears with his fingers, and suddenly the yelling faded, became articulate,
understandable.
Thona touched his arm. "He—it— says he understands!"
Kenworth was not so sure. "I don't
know. Some automatic reflex of repeti- tion, perhaps," he said, shouting to make himself heard above the tumult. Sudden-
ly the bellowing changed.
"No—rep—i—ti—shun! Can—un— der—stan'!"
"Ye gods!" Kenworth said. "The
thing's intelligent!''
And yet—why not? On Mars plants had evolved, under careful training had shown faint
gleams of intelligence. And certainly there was a tremendous gulf be- tween an ordinary plant and this incred- ibly
developed plant-monster. Kenworth realized abruptly that he had seen no animal life on the Night Side. Free from the
vegetable kingdom's natural enemies —grazing animals, destroying mankind— why could not a plant develop through the eons
into an intelligent creature, just as man had evolved through uncounted millenniums?
And the thing
unquestionably was in- telligent. The hooting died away, and in the silence Kenworth increased the bril- liancy of his
light-tube. Again came that thunderous bellowing.
"No—no—no—no!"
The lids protecting the thing's eyes
twitched. Strong lights, to this being of eternal night, was painful — naturally enough. Kenworth adjusted the light until
it was a very faint glow. He said, "How is it you speak our language?"
Surprizingly, the thing shouted, "Tel-
epathy!"
"What?" Kenworth could scarcely be- lieve his ears. This amazing monster of an alien
planet!
"Read words—in mind—Kenworth mind — Thona mind — pictures— words—"
Thona said to him, "But we don't think in words, Dal. We think in pic-
tures."
"No, Thona. You're wrong. Really our thoughts are a combination of words and images. This thing seems to
be read- ing the words in our minds, and seeing our thought-images, seeing what the words stand for! It's possible—indeed,
the only way true thought-communication can be established. Those N'yok scien- tists told me-"
The bellowing
roared out again. "See word-sounds — pictures — yes. Under- stand."
He turned to the plant-creature. "What are you? I mean—what sort—" He
stumbled, paused, and the shouting inter- rupted him.
"Plant—no. Evolved plant—yes. Lived here
always."
Kenworth asked curiously, "Are there many of you? Do you mean you've lived
—always?"
Arbitrary time-designations would mean little to the creature, he thought. But the plant caught his
meaning.
"Not—like this. Not many—no. Grow —grow—" The thundering voice paused, apparently puzzled. Then it re-
sumed. "Other plant—you saw. Me. Part of me. Born—born—rooted to me. I—die, yes. It lives, has—babies."
Thona
could not repress a giggle. Even Kenworth chuckled. Babies! Yet that was the thought the plant had read in the humans'
minds—babies, indeed!
Yet Kenworth realized what the crea- ture meant. The first plant-thing they had seen was
the offspring of the great plant — connected, apparently, by an underground root. In time the mother plant—if one could
use that term of a sexless, or rather bi-sexual vegetable—
would die, and the other would become independent, have
"babies" of its own.
Thona said, "If it can read our minds, why does it have to talk to us—audibly?'' She spoke
directly to Kenworth, oddly averse to addressing the plant directly. But the thing bellowed an answer.
"No —
your minds already — getting thoughts. Not from me. Cannot—me— cannot break in."
Thona turned a white face to
Ken- worth. "Did you hear that? It says our minds are already--"
Kenworth nodded, remembered the strange feeling
he had had directly after the escape from the Raider. "I don't get any thoughts, though," he said
slowly.
"Not—thoughts," the plant bellowed. "Command—urge—pull. Drags you to —to—thought-giver." A branch bent,
pointing. "Light—yes, blue light—you go there."
"Then it isn't the daylight after all," Kenworth
said.
Thona's lips were trembling. "We'll keep away from there, Dal. If—"
The shouting broke in. "No
keep away—cannot. Drags you there. Dragged everything on—on—Night Side there— long ago. Only me—plants like me—
rooted—"
The branches growing from the plant- thing's center twitched, stirred. They writhed apart, oddly like
tentacles. One of the plant's bulbous eyes flickered open momentarily.
And without warning the monster
struck!
5. Power of Thought
The branches—no longer stiffly erect, but pliant, writhing—came racing
down to Thona and Kenworth. They curled about the two, lifting them from their feet. Kenworth felt his ribs
crack
as the plant-tentacles tightened about him. Dimly
he heard Thona scream.
He struck out at the binding brandies as he was lifted, realized that he still gripped
the light-tube in one hand. A sharp pain darted through his leg. He saw the tip of a tentacle boring into the flesh—saw
the pallor of the plant change, become roseate, crimson. The thing was sucking blood from his veins.
Once
Kenworth had seen a mouse caught by one of the giant pitcher-plants of earth. Now he realized what the mouse must have
felt, helpless, drained dry of blood by the vampire plant. He struggled frantically — uselessly. Held high above the
dome-shaped body of the creature, he was powerless to harm it— and the tentacles were tough as steel.
Light! The
thing feared light! As the thought flashed into his brain he knew that the plant read his mind. A tentacle loosened, made
a swift dart for the light- tube. But already Kenworth had made the adjustment that sent a flood of blind- ing brilliance
glaring out from the cyl- inder.
Creature of the dark—to which light was a blinding agony! The thin mem- brane
over the plant's eyes was little protection, and as the glaring radiance streamed out Kenworth felt the tentacles about
him contract, twist in midair, and loosen. He slipped through them, fell, gripping the light-tube desperately. Rub- bery
flesh gave beneath his feet; for a moment he felt the pulsing body of the monster beneath him, and then he leaped
aside.
"Thona!" he called.
A faint cry brought him to her side. She lay on the gray soil, where she
had been thrown by the agonized plant. Ken- worth picked her up and sprinted to safety.
But the plant was no
longer a menace. Its tentacles lay like a mat of white vines
ever its eyes, protecting them from the glare.
Beyond the reach of the monster Kenworth put Thona down, anxiously felt for her pulse.
She was unhurt. The soft
soil had broken the force of her fall. In a mo- ment she sat up, terror in her eyes.
"We're safe, Thona,"
Kenworth said, conscious of the bitter irony of the words. And, echoing him, came the sound of a flat, metallic
laugh.
"Quite safe. And thanks for the light. I'd never have found you otherwise."
Kenworth wheeled,
just as the great bulk of the collection ship grounded near by. Framed in the open portal was the Raider, his dark face
immobile. In his hand was a ray-tube.
"Don't move," he said quietly. "I can paralyze you in a
moment.''
Thona whispered, "The Patrol ship—"
"I destroyed it. Come!"
Thona and Kenworth
exchanged hope- less glances. Then, shrugging, Kenworth moved forward. Satisfaction gleamed in the Raider's
eyes.
There came a swift rustle of move- ment from behind him. He staggered, nearly fell. Racing out of the ship
came the octan, shrilling its thin cry.
Tt scuttled past Kenworth and went flashing away. Kenworth clicked off
his light-tube, and, thrusting it in his pocket, leaped for the Raider. He stumbled over the threshold of the ship's
portal. Light flared.
The Raider stood almost beside him, a light-tube in one hand, a ray-tube in the other. He
jumped back, keeping the ray- tube leveled. Kenworth, tensed to spring, realized the futility of such an
attempt.
"Get in the ship," the Raider said coldly.
VAKKO, the Martian, came to the por- tal. He fluted a question at the Raider, who
gestured into the surround- ing gloom, said something in his flat voice. The Martian hesitated — and turned his head
slowly, listening. Then he, too, took a step forward, another step —and raced away in the track of the
octan!
"Vakko!" The Raider's voice was per- emptory, menacing. He swung the ray- tube away from Kenworth,
paused.
The Martian was lost in the shadows.
Arn came out of the ship. He paid no attention to the
others, but simply walked off into the gloom, his pace steadily in- creasing.
Thona turned. She began to follow
him.
The Raider was behaving oddly. He, too, stood in an attitude of listening. And throbbing within Kenworth's
brain came that curious sense of movement that he had already experienced. And this time it summoned.
It
called—beckoned! He felt himself swaying toward the shadows where the others had vanished. He saw the Raider's face,
astonishment in the black eyes, saw light-tube and ray-tube drop from the pirate's hands. What had the plant-thing said?
"Thoughts . . . command . . . drags you to thought-giver.''
Like a great wave, blackness engulfed
him!
THUD . . . thud . . . rhythmic thud- ding ... of racing feet . . . slowly Kenworth fought back to
consciousness. He saw bobbing figures outlined against a strangely blue glow before him, heard hoarse breathing. At his
side was the Raider, gaunt face expressionless, run- ning easily. But why were they running?
Realization struck
home to him. The darkness that had shrouded his mind lifted. He saw his surroundings.
He was in a crater—vast, with distant jagged walls that
marched like a great ramp. It was lighted by a bluish radiance that came from a mound in the crater's center—a strange
mound, glistening and heaving very slowly.
The bobbing figures ahead paused. Kenworth saw the elongated
silhouette of the Martian, saw Arn's bulky body, the slim form of Thona. He came up with them, stopped. The last traces of
the fog lifted from his mind.
He caught Thona in his arms, fearful that she might race away again. The Martian
pointed, and Arn growled an oath.
The racing form of the octan was still moving swiftly across the crater's
floor toward the glistening knoll. It raced on- ward, flung itself on the mound—and was engulfed! It disappeared in the
shin- ing, radiant surface. The blue glow brightened briefly, faded again.
Kenworth heard the Raider cursing in
a dull, hopeless monotone.
Arn said, with a curious catch in his gruff voice, "What—is that
thing?"
The Raider said, "Don't you remember the Karla crater? On Mars?"
Am paled beneath his
space-burn. He said "But this creature—"
"Is larger. Yes. A hundred times lar- ger. But it's the same kind of
being."
"What do yon mean?" Kenworth broke in. "Do you know what that— creature—is?"
As the Raider
glanced at him Ken- worth realized that the man was an enemy, and stepped back involuntarily. But the other made no
hostile move.
"I know," the Raider said. "Yes. And I know we'll all be dead very shortly." He shrugged. "I saw
one of these once in a Martian crater. It's alive—but a life- form entirely alien to us. It's unicellular. I had a
scientist in my crew then, and he explained it to me. Said it might have
come on—or in—a meteorite, as the cra- ter seemed to indicate. Or it might have
evolved . . . it's an ameba."
Arn said slowly, "There wasn't a liv- ing thing—nothing but plants and trees —for
miles around the Korla crater."
"And that thing was small — very small. Yet we felt its
influence."
"Telepathy!" Kenworth said. "It seat out thought-impulses to capture us . . . but an
ameba?"
"Yes. It's a unicellular creature — Janna told me—an alien life-form, de- veloped along lines unfamiliar
to us. It has no need to seek food—it draws food to it by means of its powerful thought- commands. Vakko!"
But
the Martian was gone—racing across the creater floor toward the glisten- ing mound. They watched, fascinated, as Vakko
approached the creature—and was engulfed. A thin scream came to them. Then silence.
"What are we waiting for?"
Kenworth snapped. "Come on!"
But he did not move. Astonishment showed on his face.
The Raider laughed
grimly. "Because we can't get away. I've been trying . . . the thing's holding us with its thought- commands—dragging us
to it, one by one!"
6. In the Crater
Desperately Kenworth struggled. He could move, he found, but only
in one direction—toward the shining blue mound. He could almost feel the thought-commands pressing a blanket upon his
brain, slowing his movements, pulling at him—like a snake holding a bird with its hypnotic glare, drawing it closer to the
gleaming fangs!
He felt Thona move, struggle to escape from his arms. He said sharply, "Thona!"
A film seemed to be over her eyes. Abruptly this
vanished, and she stared at him fearfully. He held her closer.
The Raider said, "Janna—the scientist —was quite
enthusiastic — wanted to study the thing closely. He nearly did for us, too. Luckily I set the controls on the ship before
I lost consciousness. When I recovered we were nearly past Phobos. And that was scarcely a tenth as large as this
creature!"
Arn said, "The ray-tubes—"
"We tried them," the Raider re- minded him. "Don't you remember?
We couldn't hurt it. Even the ship's ray- tubes failed. Janna said the thing built up some sort of resistance that shunted
off the rays. The powers of such a crea- ture!" he cried, and for the first time Kenworth heard emotion in the Raider's
voice. "It's destroyed all animal life on the Night Side!"
Arn moved forward swiftly. The Raider ran after him,
seized his arm. For a moment the two moved together toward the crater's center; then the Raider released Arn. Perspiration
dewed his gaunt face as he turned back, but he could not retrace his steps. He stood fac- ing Kenworth, his mouth a tight
line. Abruptly he pointed.
Kenworth turned, saw a faint glow in the sky, far beyond the crater's
rim.
"There!" the Raider said. "My light- tube. I dropped it by the ship. If we could escape, we could find cur
way back by that—"
He turned, shrugging. Arn was quite close to the blue mound now. His arm was outstretched,
and Kenworth caught a glance of light on metal. Arn was raying the monster.
Useless! A little sparkle showed
that the tube had fallen from Arn's hand. He sprang forward—and was engulfed!
The blue light brightened. Sparkling threads of radiance shot through the mound. It
pulsated more swiftly.
The Raider looked over his shoulder. "Janna said it—eats—not so much for food as
for—emotion. It can draw its food from the soil, like a plant, he said. He thought it gets some sort of unearthly pleasure
from what it devours."
Incredible . . . and yet—mankind's de- velopment was both mental and emo- tional. Why
could not this ameboid thing have developed its sense of emotion at the expense of intelligence? A mindless entity,
sending out its thought-commands by instinct, as a pitcher-plant exudes its luring fluid to attract victims ... it was
possible, Kenworth knew. The blue light had flared brighter when Arn was en- gulfed than when the octan or the Mar- tian
had been—was that because Arn's brain was more highly developed, had given the creature more pleasurable sen-
sations?
The creature was as far removed from an ameba as man was. On earth the ameba had changed, evolved from
a uni- cellular being to a creature of many cells.
But if the cell had not divided? Its evolution would have
been far different! And an ameba had no intelligence, had but the urge of hunger. Might not a creature descended directly
from a single- celled ameba be an entity living for sen- sation alone, its hunger urge taking the place of all other
pleasurable sensations? Sex? The thing was sexless!
But that the monster could be ac- counted for scientifically
did not lessen its deadly menace. For suddenly Thona tore herself from Kenworth's arms, went racing toward the blue
mound.
For a moment Kenworth stared, un- moved. Then he sprinted after her, shouting her name. Could he catch
her in time?
Not twenty feet from the mound he seized her, held her
tightly. She fought him furiously, and he was forced to prison her arms to her sides. She kicked him, but his tough boots
saved him from injury.
And now within Kenworth's mind the blackness began to grow again. The thought-command
grew more powerful, usurping his brain. He fought frantic- ally, but still the summoning call dragged at him. He began to
move toward the blue mound, still clutching Thona to him.
One half of his mind seemed to hold aloof, watching,
while the other part, obeying the thought-summons, dragged him forward. Helpless bird moving to- ward a hungry snake's
fangs! His breath- ing was harsh in the dead stillness.
HIS foot struck something, the ray- tube Arn had
dropped. Somehow he bent over, scooped it up. But Thona pulled free, moved toward the waiting mound. It was nearly twenty
feet high, pulsating, shot with glowing veins. Ken- worth managed to lift the tube, although he felt as though he was
lifting an im- possibly heavy weight.
But he could not ray the monster. Thona was in the path of the beam.
Moreover, Arn had tried the ray's power, and had failed. The monster had dragged him forward inexorably.
The
thought flashed into Kenworth's mind, and he acted swiftly. He touched the button on the tube that adjusted the ray to
half-strength, sent that paralyzing beam darting out. The blue mound was not troubled; but Thona stopped, crum- pled in a
limp heap to the ground. Para- lyzed—unable to obey the monster's thought-command!
Kenworth turned the tube,
sent its beam tingling through his body. Ice gripped him. He fell.
There was a queer numbness in his head, and the sense of movement within his brain
grew more pronounced. But he could not move. He was safe—until the effects of the ray wore off!
He looked for
the ray-tube. It was be- side him, and he knew that when the paralysis wore off he could seize it, send the ray through
Thona and himself again. But eventually the tube would become exhausted. Death had not been avoided —it had merely been
postponed.
Pacing into view came the Raider. Al- most at Kenworth's side he stopped. Veins ridged his forehead
with the tre- mendous effort he put forth. He re- mained like an image of stone, and Ken- worth saw sweat running down his
gaunt cheeks, dripping from his chin.
The terrible, silent battle went on. Still the Raider fought, glaring
straight ahead at the blue mound.
It was a conflict that could have but one ending. Suddenly the Raider moved,
made a hasty clutch for the ray-tube at his feet. But before he touched it he stiffened. His mask-like face turned to-
ward the mound.
The Raider stood up.
He took a few slow steps—and rushed forward. A hoarse bellow of
defiance roared out from his throat. He leaped upon the mound! The shining blue sub- stance surged up around him in swift
ameboid movement, engulfing him.
For a moment there was no change in the monster. Then, very suddenly, the blue
light brightened. The sparkling veins gleamed coldly brilliant. The thing pulsated more swiftly.
The blue light
shone brighter. The lit- tle veins were like white-hot threads of metal, and the pulsations became more rapid. The mound
surged up! It rose into a great pillar of blazing blue light,
and a core of intolerable brilliance began to shine
within it. It throbbed and rocked with ecstasy! It shuddered with infinite pleasure!
And Kenworth remembered —
the elysia!
A year's supply of the drug, gathered from hundreds of farms, had been in the tube-belt about the
Raider's waist. A drop of the substance would last a man for months. What had the Raider called it? "Pure emotion . . .
days of almost unendurable ecstasy."
And the belt had held a year's yield of elysia!
Throbbing, the
mound rocked, blazing radiance poured from it. The core of light in the pillar was incandescent, flam- wg with cold fire.
It streamed out blind- ingly.
And the light snapped out and van- shed!
Utter darkness filled the
crater. Flash- ing light images still played on Ken- rorth's eyes, but these faded swiftly. He blinked
experimentally.
The paralysis was leaving him. The ray-tube must have been almost ex- hausted. Life flooded back
into his veins. He fumbled in a pocket, found the light- tube he had thrust there just before the engulfing blackness had
blotted out his senses. He heard Thona stirring.
"Dal!" Her voice was frightened. He
clicked on the light, saw her on her feet. His eyes widened as he
stared past her.
For there lay the blue mound—no longer blue, no longer—living! Pale and translucent it lay in a
shapeless pile, and within it Kenworth saw the filaments— black threads now.
Thona said, unbelievingly, "It's—
dead!"
Kenworth echoed her. "Dead. The elysia did it—the Raider saved us, Thona, though he didn't know it. The
creature lived on sensation—but there's a limit to everything. A dozen drops of elysia will kill a man; and that
tremendous dose of the drug simply burned out the thing's life! It was like sending a billion volts of electric current
through a copper wire —it burned out the nerve-tissues. It's dead, Thona!"
Her eyes were very bright as she
looked up at him. He drew her close, flung out an arm toward the crater's rim where a pale glow shone in the
sky.
"And there's the light-tube the Raider dropped. It'll guide us to the ship."
For a brief space
they stood silent, two tiny figures lost in an immensity of black- ness that pressed in from all sides—like the race of
Man, on three little worlds lost in the vastness of infinity, staring out into the unknown. Then, together, they began to
walk forward—symbol of man—unafraid—conquering!
A strange weird novel of a castle
of doom on the West African coast—an unbelievably fascinating tale of an English girl and her American sweetheart, and the
amazing fate that befell them
The Story Thus
Far
SHANGHAIED to a mysterious fort- ress on the West African coast—the Castle of Gloom — Neil Bryant, young
American, together with the lovely Carol Terry and the latter's brother, Bob, are taken to its age-old throneroom, where,
amid ranks of guarding black sol- diery, two human heads smile on them from bowls of stone—Atma, beauteous princess of old
Egypt, and Karamour, last of the Pharaohs!
Here the surprized Terrys learn they are the descendants of the great
Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt thirty-four hundred years ago. In the tale of Kara- mour they hear how the Queen fled
be- fore the rebellious hordes of Thothmes III, of her death in a lonely cave near Cusæ, and Atma's own escape from the
rebel leader in the capital city of Mem- phis.
They learn of the wise Sarcus and his Golden Oil of eternal life;
how the prin- cess of Egypt and Karamour made ready for the experiment that would render them immune to the centuries; of
the separating of their heads from their bodies, and then at the supreme moment, when their lifeless forms were to be
plunged into the vats that would strengthen them for the ages, of the ar- row that flew into the tower to bury itself in
the breast of Sarcus.
Their narrator tells of the flight of his small army from the oncoming
Thothmes;
of their months of wandering, and the
journey's end by the waters of the great sea—they had spanned the Sahara Desert. He tells of the building of the aged
fortress, of his long centuries of study that he might unite once more the heat of the Princess, as well as his own, each
to a walking body in whose veins still flowed the royal blood of Egypt, a form appropriate to their station. Then, at
last, of how the required knowledge had become his, to conclude with the words: "And that, oh strangers, is why you have
been summoned!''
The story continues:
12. Princess, or What?
AS THE last of the Pharaohs had
told his enthralling story, we three pris- oners sat like stone images, fascinated while we watched the bodiless head of
Karamour. The unbelievable antiquity, the glorious history of the talking head, forbade any answering retorts or protests,
The ranks of guarding soldiery were quiet and motionless. Doctor Zola alone had seemed alive, and alternately his eyes
rested upon us, as though to note the ef- fects of his ruler's words.
"Perhaps, oh Prince," he drawled in his
softest tone, "perhaps the stupid islanders are still in some doubt as to your meaning. Allowances must be made for their
disgusting ignorance, Son of Ra, Recall you that they were even unaware
as to their ancestry; oblivious to that greatest of all
honors. Truly the bodies have descended from the ancient world, but the brains hold not its wisdom. The learning of old
Egypt has long since de- parted from the minds of the fair race."
The dark head looked at Carol, frown-
ing.
"But surely, you must have known that you are descended from the great Hat- shepsut; that your distant
fathers had been kings in the halls of Kemi, five thousand years before Troy was found- ed?"
"And how was she to know?" demand- ed Bob Terry. "You yourself have ad-
mitted in this cock-and-bull story that the Queen ruled Egypt over thirty-four cen- turies ago. No one can truthfully
trace his ancestry to such distant antiquity—it's ridiculous."
"Your mother was Egyptian," remind- ed
Zola.
"And yours French," countered the Englishman. "But does that necessarily relate you to Joan of
Arc?"
"Bah! that is all beside the point."
"This then was the dread pit so feared by the inmates of the castle."
"Damned if it is! That is all right to the point, and you
know it."
"Desist!" commanded the dark head sternly. "Such conduct is both useless and improper before the last
of the Oekheperkere. "
His eyes flashed toward the defiant Terry. "You are wrong, young stran- ger, in thinking
that ancestry cannot be traced to such a distant past. I have fol- lowed yours most carefully. Ah, how well was I informed
through the cen- turies—my secret spies ever watching your forefathers as I labored and hoped for the great day when I
might have need for them! And you think I do not know your departed? Listen:
"The second son of Hatshepsut's
child Norfruse, a rash, impetuous youth, fled from the great palace with a dark-eyed concubine of Crete, the favorite of
his father, the Pharaoh. Making their way to distant Jerusalem, his descendants re- mained in that ancient city till its
de- struction by the armies of Nebuchadnez- zar, some nine hundred years later. From Babylon to Damascus, from the great
walls of Troy to distant Nineveh, the children of the mother Queen wandered, to return to their homeland in the reign of
the Ptolemies.
"Not always was the blood of the Oekheperkere in luxury and comfort. The river of time brought
many changes of position and station; jewels and silks for some generations, poverty and hunger for the others—ever
swaying from the highest to the worst, with only their courage and lineage eternal.
"Often your forefathers
fought as com- mon foot-soldiers in the armies of Persia and Carthage—archers for Hannibal, warriors for Xerxes, slingers
who per- ished on Marathon's plain."
For a moment he paused to flash his age-old eyes upon us.
Then:
"Yes, bold youth, I know well your
blood. I have too long watched to err at this supreme moment. Undoubtedly, you are the descendant of the great Hat-
shepsut."
Bob Terry gave a gesture of impatience.
"And supposing that I am—it could mean nothing to
you. Egypt's glory has gone. We now live in a different age, a new environment. Must one be dragged from his home like a
common felon, sim- ply because his ancestors may have been savage rulers thousands of years ago?"
"It could mean
nothing to me?" cried the dark head in surprize. "You say that it could mean nothing to me! Then, why would you suppose I
have had your blood traced through the ages? Why should I secure the services of Doctor Zola, the greatest surgeon of the
day, to assist me in this great venture? Why did I build this fortress over thirty-four centuries ago?"
Carol
Terry staggered to her feet.
"We do not know! We do not know!" she wailed. "Words, words — always words and yet
no meaning. Ten days of mental hell have passed, but still we do not know your purpose. Torture—kill if you must—but for
God's sake, tell us why?"
And before I could spring forward to catch her, Carol Terry had slipped to the floor
in a swoon.
I HAD lifted her to the chair, when the voice of the Pharaoh spoke again.
"It is just as
well. What is to be said will no doubt fall hard on the tender ears of the golden one. Give her your atten- tion, Doctor,
while I speak to the sullen males."
"To the tower of surgery?" asked Zola, as he held the girl's limp body in
his arms.
The dark head nodded, and when tha Frenchman disappeared with his burden, turned his dark eyes once
more upon us,
"As to the rest, I shall be brief. From the blood of
the Oekheperkere I have come. It is to that royal lineage which I shall now return, I am to be free—to live, to laugh, to
walk once more."
The voice sank to a trembling whisper of desire.
"I will be free—to
conquer!"
Had I gone mad? Was all this some wild hallucination or a grim reality? The bodiless ruler
continued:
"Yet I must return only as a Pharaoh; a true son of old Egypt in whose veins still flows the blood of
the mother Queen. You, pale Englishman of the outer world, have the body I must own. It is—"
His dark eyes
turned upon me. "Are you the intruder? You are he, of whom I was told? You were not summoned, nor are you a royal
one?"
For the first time I spoke to Karamour:
"My being here is through no fault of my own. The lying
fiend you call Doc- tor Zola caused my capture as he did like- wise to my companions. We were be- trayed through deceit
and—"
"Then what is to be said is not for your ears. It is best that you be chained and held till some near-by
hour, when your fate will be decided.
"Bansura!" he called to a near-by black, "take that carrion to the
dungeons to be held till summoned."
"But carefully," cried the beauty from the stone bowl. "No harm must come to
him if you would keep your eyes.—Fear not, man of the new land," she spoke to me. "If the eleven Gods but smile on the
great experiment, your release is but a matter of hours. Truly, you have found favor in the eyes of Atma."
Why
did the swarthy face of Karamour stare at me with a look of hatred?
A tall negro came forward.
"Go
with him, old fellow," put in Terry, as I made ready to resist the black.
"Won't do any good to try a scuffle— hundred to one against us."
"Resistance
is a folly we punish severely," warned the Pharaoh.
And so it was that I submitted to be led from the
golden-floored throneroom of Karamour. True, a struggle, however useless, might have been more heroic, but in the end it
would have been all the same.
At the great folding doors I paused for one last look at that weird assembly, to
behold all eyes upon me—the watch- ing soldiery, the stern Egyptian monarch, and smiling Bob Terry, who waved a brave
farewell.
But Atma: The eyes of the Princess had been turned toward me in an encour- aging smile; a friendly
beam intended to dispel any fear or foreboding that might have been mine. Yet, now as I halted and faced her, for a
fleeting instant the lovely face hardened. Two exquisite brows raised slightly, and then came the one swift gesture that
has ever been the world's oldest. No haughty glare, no be- sieging look of wordless appeal or the be- guiling smile of the
coquette—but a wink; a quick lowering of a long-lashed lid that needed no words to complete its apparent purpose; the
meaning signal that has announced iniquity since the dawning of time; the age-old professional sign of the first Daughter
of Sweetness.
HELD in the strong hands of two stal- wart blacks, I was roughly hustled down a long corridor that
led to the gap- ing entrance of a subterranean passage. Here waited another, a dark, towering Arab of war-like visage,
whose curved sword hung from a heavy belt.
As we drew nearer, the tall man smiled and spoke some unknown words
to the blacks that caused them to laugh loudly. Grasping a lighted torch from a niche, the grim swordsman motioned us to
fol-
72 WEIRD TALES low, and led the way down a vast series of
time-worn steps. We made our falter- ing way ever farther into the earth. A damp coldness told of our great distance below
the surface.
We halted before a sturdy wooden door, securely held by massive iron bars. Stopping only to unlock
and push the shrieking obstacle aside, we entered a low-ceilinged vault that was destined to be my prison.
The
floor of the foul-smelling pit was covered with a hard, moist sand. Mighty iron rings were set in the stone walls. To
these were fastened heavy chains, and at the far end of several of the chains were the attached forms of whitened
skeletons.
One of these the Arab kicked ruthless- ly aside. The large padlock was then opened, and the chain
that had so recent- ly held the gleaming bones of one long dead, was clasped around my ankle. For a while the three talked
in an unknown tongue. Then they left, taking the light with them.
I was alone without hope of succor; alone in
the deep dungeon of an ancient castle, with only drying bones of dead men for companions—men whose hor- rible fate I might
so soon be called upon to share.
For twelve long hours of mental tor- ment and worry I remained in the black pit
of Karamour. Leaning against the rocky walls of the dungeon I thought of the strange words of the Pharaoh: "You pale
Englishman of the outer world, have the body I must own. Once again may I become whole.'' I sought their mean- ing, but in
vain. Why did he need us? Supposing there was some possible truth to that impossible tale, how could the Terrys help him
from his hopeless pre- dicament? What could the Englishman do that would be of any assistance to him?
My
reveries were suddenly broken by a light, hesitant tread on the steps be-
yond. My nerves gave a sharp tingle at the sound. Was it the noise of the Arab
swordsman coming to lead me to some terrible doom? Could it be some hor- rible beast whose keen scent had detected my
presence, that was now entering to destroy me? Turning my head toward the sound, with straining eyes I awaited my unknown
visitor. There was a pause beyond the doorway, and then I heard the heavy breathing of one who had come both far and fast.
The door was pushed slowly open to shriek in dismal protest against this unaccustomed disturbance, and with flaming torch
held high, the tall form of Captain Alexis Barakoff entered the foul dungeon.
THE cruel smile that habitually
lit his dark face had vanished. Instead the bearded features showed only a fright- ened excitement, as his restless eyes
wan- dered incessantly to the surrounding blackness.
"You are still alive!" he whispered, with an
effort.
I nodded. He swung his torch around to light every corner of that dreary dungeon.
"Not a
pretty place, Monsieur. These gruesome pits have been haunted by the ghosts of tortured men for over three thousand years.
Ghostly blue lights flicker at frequent intervals, while the great vaults are filled with a hideous
laughter."
An agonized scream sounded far above us.
"Pay no attention to that, Bryant, but listen to
me, as you value your life." He knelt quickly beside me, his bearded face but an inch from mine. "Answer my questions
truthfully. You will find it to your advantage if you do so. Softly though—even the pits of Karamour have ears. Can you
hear me?"
"Good! Now, first of all, tell me, is it true what I
have heard Zola say—that you are a man of great wealth?"
Instinctively I knew that the truthful answer of "no"
would not only be harm- ful, but would discourage the Russian from further confidences. I must not re- linquish this
unexpected hope.
"I have money," I answered, feigning skepticism, "a great deal of it. But why speak of that
now?"
A smile of relief stole over the beard- ed features.
"You wish to be free?" he
asked.
"I don't relish the idea of starving here."
"Then listen," came the low voice. "I have been
sent to return you to your former room. It is there that he intends you should stay. The great devil is mad- dened with
joy at his new-found free- dom, and has actually become gracious. Oceans of his ancient wines have been brought from the
cellars for his war- riors; two slaves have been given over to the tortures that make a gala holiday for the tribesmen.
For once their vigilance is lax. It is at such a time that we must act.
"Tonight I leave for Havana to take on
another consignment of guns. It should be a simple matter for you to drop from the balcony and evade the night guards.
They will be half drunk anyway, celebrating their master's release. Once free of the castle, you could easily follow the
coast line for a mile to the south, eh?"
"It should not be hard," I agreed.
"It will not be hard. Nor
is it difficult for me to have the yacht halted and a small boat rowed ashore to pick you up and bring you aboard. Yes, it
could be done, and I might consider doing it, though my risk is a great one."
"What do you wish in return?" I
asked.
"What is your freedom worth to you?"
I could scarce suppress a smile. Even in the age-old pits of an Egyptian Pha- raoh, avarice and greed were
prevalent. With an effort I looked into the watch- ing eyes of the expectant Russian.
"I will pay you well,
Captain Bara- koff."
"You will pay me five thousand pounds and not a ruble less. The venture is worth twice the
amount, but my kind heart ever goes out to the unfortunate.
"Oh, the transaction is a simple one," he continued.
"Once aboard the yacht you can wire your American bankers and have the amount waiting for us at Havana. None need ever
know of our little business affair, and it will be easy for you to procure passage from the Cuban port to your own
country. That is the price of your life and liberty, Mon- sieur Bryant. Do you agree?"
"Agreed," I
answered.
The Russian bent forward, and with his ready key opened the lock that held me.
"Be careful,"
he cautioned. "That damned Usanti is everywhere, and re- ports his hearings to the Pharaoh.
"Station yourself at
the window to- night, and shortly after nine, when you see the lighted yacht steam out and leave the harbor—act. A small
boat will be waiting for you a mile up the beach. But come, already have we delayed too long. There must not be the
slightest sus- picion to arouse their ever skeptical minds."
We had started for the stairs, when I suddenly
halted.
"One moment. The plan for my es- cape is all well and good, but what of my companions?"
My
demand visibly annoyed the com- mander of the Star of Egypt.
take them with us. I certainly cannot leave without
them."
"Sh—not so loud, not so loud'" he hissed. "You do not realize your dan- ger. Spies are everywhere. No, we
can- not take them—the risk is too great. You must come alone. Besides—well, perhaps they would not care to come with us
anyway."
An unaccountable chill of horror swept over me at his words.
"What do you mean?" I whispered,
turning quickly toward him. "They have not been harmed? They are still alive?"
The bearded Russian stared
stupidly at me.
"Answer me!" I shouted, an awful fear rising at his silence. "What has been done to them? Are
they alive?"
The man raised his hands in a fright- ened, imploring manner.
"For God's sake, Monsieur,
be quiet!" he sobbed. "He will have us thrown into the pit! Oh, you do not know him. Yes, yes, your friends are alive.
They are still alive, but—" The sudden appearance of a descending black cut short his words.
The fellow's
approach had been noise- less. A short, sickly-looking, repulsively ugly figure, his bloodshot eyes looked suspiciously at
our startled faces.
"The great Pharaoh has commanded that I conduct the prisoner to his quar- ters, Captain
Barakoff," he whined in a shrill voice, "and for you to report to him at once."
The Russian gave a feeble
smile.
"Of course, Usanti," he faltered. "We —I—we were just leaving. Yes, of course. Come,
Bryant."
As we mounted the steps, the eyes of Barakoff signaled a swift warning of silence. The man's fear of
discovery was almost pathetic in his struggling efforts for a bearing of indifference. For my part, I said nothing, but
that our plan-
ning had entirely escaped the ears
of the black, I was doubtful.
On reaching the great corridors above, the Russian walked briskly toward the
distant hall of pillars; while I, following the tiny black, was led once more to my allotted room.
13. I Talk
with Atma
STANDING on the tiny balcony that led from my luxurious chamber, I could look far over the terrace
below where stood the swarthy raiders of Karamour. Numerous white-robed Arabs, standing singly or in small groups, smoked
their strong tobacco as they talked in the lonely gardens. Intermingled with the chatting guests were several Negro
slaves, their naked black bodies a strone contrast to the snowy garments of the idlers, who silently served in tiny cups
the thick, hot coffee so loved by the dark sons of the desert.
A little apart from the general group, three old
sheiks looked attentively at a tall, richly robed man, whose ringing voice and imperative gestures showed him to be one of
importance. Far below, in the lazy sea, the Star of Egypt appeared as a white dot on a world of blue.
What
purpose could have brought the war-like horde to this fair Eden? The care-free laughter and friendly manner of the blacks
showed that the castle had not succumbed to attack. I had heard no shouts of conflict, nor did the giant sol- diery of the
throneroom issue forth to repel the invaders. Plainly they were al- lies and followers of the bodiless ruler.
As
I stood watching the shouting horde of muscular nomads, a dull, familiar noise sounded far to the north. High in the
lonely Sahara sky floated the dark outline of a tiny airplane, moaning dismally. Nearer and nearer it came, till directly
over the castle it circled the giant for-
tress, zooming lower as though making ready to
land.
As the first sounds of the approaching plane reached them, the Arabs lapsed into a watchful silence. Dark
hands shaded searching eyes, while muscular brown fingers toyed nervously with wicked-looking knives. Could it be an
enemy, or had some lost flyer entered this forbidden territory?
Now, however, as the ship drew near- er and a
painted white skull appeared on the under wings, all doubts vanished. The watching Arabs broke into hoarse cheering.
Plainly the newcomer was both expected and welcome.
As the plane disappeared to find its landing-field behind
the palace, the com- manding figure shouted a brief order to his cohorts. Instantly the wild horde rushed from the gardens
to greet the grim-omened flyer.
Among the last of the stragglers I noticed the running figure of the gro- tesque
Usanti. Did his presence there mean that I was unguarded? Quickly I made for the door, to find a deserted cor- ridor
without. The landing plane had temporarily gained the attention of the castle's inmates. This, then, was the ideal moment
to search for the missing Terrys, and knowing my time to be limited, I stole quickly down the silent hallway.
It
was a weird sensation, this treading the unknown corridors of a Pharaoh's castle; a mighty fortress whose great
foundations had been dug some fourteen hundred years before the tragedy on Cal- vary. It seemed as though I had sudden- ly
been transplanted back through the centuries to a far distant day when the world was young.
At the far end of
the hall a gilded door, slightly ajar, led to a large cham- ber, similar to my own. Into this spacious room I made my
quiet way, to find cau- tion unnecessary. The abode was empty.
A small door, at the right led to a tiny balcony, from which I could see the shouting
Arabs swarming around the now landed plane. There must have been a hundred of them, tall, powerful men, who pulled and
laughed good-naturedly at the small bedraggled figure that de- scended from the cock-pit.
The flyer received
their rough atten- tions smilingly, and shook hands with several of the company. Then, leaving the blacks to unload the
many tiny brown packages from the ship's interior, the laughing horde made its slow way back to the
fortress.
The marble walls around me had been recently shaded to a golden hue. That the room belonged to one of
high station was evident by the costly furnishings and elaborate wearing-apparel in the clothes- press. Perhaps it was the
quarters of the Pharaoh himself. But all this brought me no nearer in my quest, and I was about to leave the chamber when
my eyes were widened by two almost simultaneous dis- coveries. The first was a loaded pistol lying on a small stand near
the doorway; the other, a full-view portrait of Carol Terry that stood on the massive dresser.
The richly
colored photo, undoubtedly a recent one, showed the pretty girl in a smiling, happy mood. Underneath in her handwriting I
knew so well were the words: "With all my love—Carol."
Each hour but added to the mysteries of this horrible
castle of gloom. The bodiless Pharaoh, the wondrous Princess; humans who had seen and known the glories of the past.
Shouting fanatics who thirsted for battle; the arrival from the sky; and now the portrait of one, who, until her recent
capture, had never been within a thousand miles of this ancient structure.
As I stood silent and perplexed
before the startling find, loud voices in the halls below told that the swarthy com-
pany had entered the palace. Quickly pocketing the pistol,
I stepped out into the still deserted corridor. At the stair- way, heavy treading told of the ascend- ing guards. The
hallway would soon swarm with armed sentries, and knowing further searching to be useless, I quietly entered my own room,
closing the door behind me.
The venture had not proven worthless. I had seen the landing of the desert flyer,
discovered the puzzling portrait of Carol Terry; and behind the large picture over the bed, destructive and ready, was the
secreted pistol, waiting for the time when I should need its powerful assistance.
LATE that afternoon a gentle
knock sounded on my door as a musical voice asked softly, "May I enter?"
The frail obstacle was pushed aside,
and a vision of loveliness stood in the doorway. Two indescribably beautiful long-lashed eyes rolled beneath a waving mass
of black hair. Slightly parted red lips displayed a perfect row of teeth, while the tall, shapely body, richly ap- pareled
in a low-cut gown of shimmering white satin that revealed the full outline of her lovely breasts, moved with the soft ease
of a tigress.
Instantly I recognized the wondrous features I had seen in the throneroom. It was she whose lovely
head had graced the massive stone bowl, whose eternal his- tory had been told by the Pharaoh, Atma, Princess of
Egypt!
"You are surprized. Confess it now, you really are surprized."
I had risen at the entrance of
Hatshep- sut's lovely daughter.
"Surprized!" I gasped, smilingly. "I— I am amazed."
The beauty laughed
gayly, and seating herself on a plush-covered bench, crossed shapely legs as her dark eyes smiled into
mine.
"But you need not remain standing." Her manicured
hand motioned to a chair.
"Is it not the proper thing to do?" I had asked.
"We can dispense with
formalities. Just be your natural self—I know I will enjoy it."
"In that case, you will find me curi-
ous."
"Curious? And why that?"
Seated on a chair, I looked long and earnestly at the superb creature
before me. Last night I had gazed at those same exquisite features when it was only a head that had spoken and watched me.
And now there sat an enchantress whose body would have put to shame the form of a Salome.
"Princess Atma, there
is one—there are two things I would like very much to know. I wonder if it would seem rude for me to ask
them."
The wondrous smile deepened.
"And what are these so vitally impor- tant questions?" she
parried.
Hopefully I continued.
"What has become of my companions, and where are they now? It is only
right I should know. We were dragged into this horrible business together, but I feel responsible for them. Also, how is
it that I see you as you now are, when last night it was only a—" I paused, un- certain of my words. "Oh, you must know
what I mean."
"Of course I do, and will readily answer your queries—at least one of them. Your friends are
safe—that I promise you! I talked to them but a short while ago, and had their own as- surance as to their welfare. It is
needless to be alarmed or worried. Your other question must go unanswered for a short time. Later on, perhaps, when
certain changes have been effected, you may be told."
"And best, perhaps, when not thought of. No," she
continued as I would have remonstrated; "for the present you must be satisfied with what I have told you."
Her
firm voice told the folly of insist- ence.
"The knowledge of my companions' safety is a pleasant one, and I
thank you, Princess, for that consolation. As to the other—I await its answer with patience," and I smiled at my lovely
visitor.
"It is well. You will know all in good time, I promise. But come, tell me of yourself, of your
country—that great land I have so yearned to see."
There was a world of longing in her words, and the dark eyes
looked search- ingly at me, as though to find in my fea- tures the answer to her curiosity.
"I am afraid you
would find it very disappointing. It is only its distance that lends enchantment. Black smoke, deaf- ening noises and
grimy high buildings would scarce make a pleasant change from the blue skies and peaceful quiet of your own lovely
land."
The daughter of the ages shook her head in a cheerful negative.
"No, I would love it. The new
lands, especially America, have fascinated me. I thrill at the stories of its cool, high moun- tains, its great cities and
eager, reckless people. I have dreamed through the years of its gilded halls of pleasure, the ex- clusive clubs and racing
autos, gigantic liners entering its harbors of a million lights. Tell me of these many wonders."
"Of course, if
you wish it; yet it seems rather needless. So accurate is your de- scription, it would appear as though you yourself had
been there."
"Ah, those are only memories of what I have heard. No, I have not yet traveled to the new world,
though the day is not distant when that dream will be realized."
And so for a long hour I told the Egyptian
Princess of the new lands that
lived and loved
beyond the hot desert; of their struggles for supremacy, the many marvelous inventions of the recent years, as well as a
brief outline of the leading figures that governed and worried a harassed people.
During my lengthy description
Atma had stared at me in wide-eyed fascination. Plainly her heart had deserted the land of the pyramids.
"Oh, it
is just as I knew it would be!" she exclaimed when I had ended. "Ex- actly like the countless books I have read and
memorized through the waiting years."
"You read English as well as speak it?"
"I read and speak all
languages. I learned them to help pass the dreary cen- turies. Alone, of all humans, I can de- cipher the two existing
scrolls of the Uzusiki, the original picture language of the first yellow men who came from the moon, eight thousand years
ago."
I MUST have looked the surprize I felt. "Then it is true! It is really true— that wild unbelievable tale
that was told to us in the throneroom!"
"The Prince of Egypt has not lied."
"But it's—it's
unthinkable! You are so young—so very young; and yet it is said you have known the Pharaohs."
Again that
bewitching smile.
"I have seen many of the famous peo- ple of history," she admitted. "Thothmes III, my own
illustrious mother, as well as the wise historian priest, Manetho. The great Alexander has kissed my lips as he pledged
his undying vows of love. No Arab ever thirsted for the sweet wells as I yearned for my release and the strong arms of
Hannibal. Balkis too—"
"Balkis?"
"The Queen of Sheba," explained Atma. "Some five hundred years after
our horrible imprisonment, whispers of Karamour's great knowledge and won-
derful oil reached her in distant Chitor, the city beyond
the hot hills. Heading a long caravan that contained her famed treasures, the titian-haired ruler came to this great
fortress, asking of the Prince the anointment of life eternal.
"Karamour at that time had not per- fected his
golden elixir to the point of enabling perpetual existence. The oil it- self, while beneficial, could not grant im-
mortality without the aid of certain un- known chemicals. He told his visitor that she must wait till further years of
study had given him the required wisdom, but this did not please the Queen. Knowing that the oil would only preserve the
fea- tures as they were at the time of its use, and fearing old age before the fluid would be ready, the Sabean, who did
not like the thoughts of eternal life as an aged woman, and hearing that Kara- mour's secret prayers to Osiris would
awaken from death's sleep all who died by the bitter drugs, drank of the fatal cup of Ecila. Thus, dying while still
young, she could wait with content for the great hour, assured that when perfected, and having been called back and
anointed with the golden oil, she would pass on down through the centuries while still in the appearance of youthful
glamor."
"But the Queen of Sheba is still dead," I reminded.
"And always will be. Shortly after her
demise, Prince Karamour perfected the right ingredient for the oil, as his ex- periment with Zena, the Queen's giant
guard, so satisfactorily proved; though it was not till thirty centuries later that he achieved his supreme triumph. But
as for raising the dead—it is only one of the many myths of the ancient world."
"And you?" I asked. "Are you to
be young and beautiful through the ages to come?"
The royal Egyptian laughed gayly.
"Sacred cat of
Bubastis!" she cried,
"but you are inquisitive. But
we will talk no more of the Old World's characters. Let their memories, like their bones, rest undisturbed. I would much
rather hear you. Tell me of the many pleasures of your world. Ah, yes," she added quickly, "your dislikes—I would know of
them."
"And you have said that I am inquisi- tive," I smiled.
"Curiosity," she laughed, "—a femi- nine
trait that must always be forgiven."
"And so we find a Princess with a fault?"
"A Princess with many
faults, perhaps; nor do I wish to correct them." The mu- sical voice paused slightly, and then she added: "And could you
guess my latest failing—one taught me by the Twentieth Century?"
"Not in a thousand years," I had
answered.
"You wish to know?"
"With all my heart."
"Slang," she whispered in mock seri-
ousness. "Those cute little words that are so short, yet hold a world of meaning."
"S-slang!" I gasped. "But
where could you have possibly learned it?"
"From a very interesting teacher. Billy was an American sailor that
desert- ed at Tangier. He had drifted down the coast and stumbled on this wayward place by chance. For two long years he
was here, and never a day passed that we did not spend hours together. Chaktu! but he was a darling; a burning, impatient
dar- ling, with his blue eyes and soft fair hair. Oh, so gay, so careless and eager! Not like the boresome fools of this
ancient place, who talk only of Egypt's lost glory and of people long dead. He lived only to love and
laugh."
The eyes of Atma sparkled as she spoke.
"He fell wildly in love with me, and talked only of
the future and our escape. Always he told what we should do when
I had become whole. For countless hours he amused me
with his pleadings of love, and then in a gay mood he would dance and sing the most ridiculous songs till I was weary with
laughter. Oh, you should have heard him," she insisted.
"And he has left?"
"None ever leaves this
castle of death. Some spy must have overheard us and re- ported it to Karamour. I never knew, or bothered to ask. One day
he disappeared —that was all."
The calmness with which she spoke the words horrified me.
"So you must
not be shocked if I use the slang of your country."
"On the contrary, I would like it," I answered dryly, aware
of a vague fear of this weird creature.
THE gray shades of eventide had now stolen across the sky. Already could
be felt the first cool breeze that an- nounced the quick coming of the tropical night. High above us in the spiral bel-
fry, the evening bells were tolling the lonely hour of dusk.
My last answer had pleased the royal beauty, and
she now leaned slightly to- ward me. Her curving body glowed with the flaming warmth of Africa. Her love- ly face was
temptingly close to mine. The fragrance of a delicate perfume was waft- ed toward me. A soft sigh escaped her perfect
lips; and then, with a thrill that burned like dancing flames, her ivory fin- gers ran through my hair.
"I am
going to like you," came the soft whisper. "I am going to like you very much, and you will quickly learn to care for me.
We will have wonderful hours together—just you and I—wonder- ful, happy hours. I must leave you now, but carry your memory
with me always. Karamour departs at sunrise for a three- day inspection of the desert tribes, taking his savage raiders
with him. There will
be but a few slaves left at
the castle. Only some faithful servants whose tongues are ever silent—and ourselves!"
Her voice was eager,
expectant.
‘‘Tomorrow night, when the moon hangs low over the waters, I will have Zena bring you to the beach,
where I will be waiting. Will you come?"
Like one entranced, I could but nod.
"I will instruct the
slaves to allow you complete freedom, Mr. Bryant," came her clear voice, as she rose. "You will be at liberty to come and
go from the gar- dens as you choose. Tonight Karamour will send for you, but have no fear. I have seen to your
safety."
At the doorway the enchantress turned suddenly, in a reckless wide-eyed manner.
"Remember
then," she whispered eagerly. "Tomorrow night on the beach —we meet—alone—just you and I. And when we do-" A snap of her
fingers, the roll of her eyes, accompanied the next two sharply accented words:
"Oh, Baby!"
14. The
Justice of Karamour
Early that evening I had taken my solitary watch upon the tiny balcony that gave a view of
the lighted yacht in the harbor below. The one forlorn hope of freedom depended on my vigilance, but long before the
appointed time set by the Russian as his hour of departure, the hideous Usanti had come to escort me once more to the
throneroom.
In the great reception hall lolled some fifty Arab henchmen of the Pharaoh, grim and silent in the
shadows of the pillars. But these richly robed men were all chieftains. Plainly, some important meeting could be expected.
Their dark eyes watched my every move with an ominous silence.
The Princess Atma had told me that I might expect
a summons to the throne-
room. Perhaps it would mean another lengthy oration by the
bodiless Kara- mour. If so, I would doubtlessly meet my fellow prisoners. I longed to see Carol, to talk to her, to hear
from her own lips that she was still unharmed.
Presently we were joined by the gar- rulous Zola. The sleek
Frenchman, im- maculate in white flannels, seemed in ex- cellent spirits as he laughed and chatted with the guards and
tribesmen. How I hated that cultured fiend!
At length his wandering gaze fell upon me, and with a loud
exclamation of pleasure he strode quickly forward.
"Ah, Monsieur, but this is a surprize! A glorious treat for
us undeserving mor- tals. As well as the leading sheiks and tribesmen, Monsieur Bryant honors us with his presence. He
wishes to be a wit- ness during the process of justice? Or can it be that he is a bit alarmed as to what fate might befall
an accomplice of treach- ery?"
A disinterested yawn had no effect on the mock politeness.
"The brave
Monsieur could hardly con- sider himself dealt with unfairly if a sen- tence of twenty lashes or the loss of one eye was
inflicted on his own person. After all, his conduct on the Star of Egypt was hardly that which would cause his countrymen
to cheer."
I looked squarely into the mocking face.
"Some day we are going to be alone," I told him
softly. "Alone, where there will be no surrounding guards or swords- men to put you at an advantage. We will then see if
your conduct is such that it would cause cheers. Cheers, Doctor Zola—or will it be jeers?"
The booming crash of
a giant gong cut short whatever retort he might have given. As though awaiting this deafening signal, the massive doors at
the far end of the hall were suddenly flung open
from within, and we were ushered into the great throneroom of Karamour.
On either side of the enormous
cham- ber were long tiers of seats. Toward these we were motioned by the black doormen, to sit in a strained, silent sus-
pense; and presently from a dark pas- sageway beyond the throne, a tall figure emerged from the cavernous depths be- neath
the room.
As he came into the brilliant glare of the chandeliers, with a thrill of horror I recognized him. It
was he—the dark cruel head that had talked from the great bowl—Karamour, the masterful Prince of Egypt!
Silently
the inmates of the room stood at attention, while the athletic figure mounted the jewel-inlaid seat beneath the
canopy.
"Followers of Karamour," he began, "you see before you the blood of the Oekneperkere, a survivor of that
golden age that was Egypt's—the Eighteenth Dynasty. Surely the Gods in granting my rebirth have given sufficient proof
that Osiris smiles on our plans of eternal su- premacy for the earth's oldest civilization.
"This morning after
the early sacrifices in the temple, as I stood on the high tower of Horus to greet the rising Ra, I was once more assured
of the great cause. 'Destroy all others but the chosen,' whis- pered the desert winds. 'Slay if you must, but make Egypt
supreme,' cooed a snow- white dove that descended from the blue. Surely this was the departed spirit of Den-Setual. And
then, as I waited and thrilled at these heavenly omens, the flaming God himself wrote five golden words in the sky: 'For
You An Eternal Kingdom.'"
The watching Arabs, impressed by the wild words, nodded in silent
assent.
"Some six months ago you were sum- moned to this great fortress. At that time I knew the end of the
great curse was at
hand, and awaited only the arrival of the pale people
from the island to free me from the living dead. Now I have again become whole, and with that change comes also the hour
to strike.
"Sheik Arbul Ben Kaden!"
A PORTLY Arab, his leathery skin black- ened by many years under
the hot Sahara sun, stepped forward.
"Your report of the north," demanded Karamour.
Sheik Arbul Ben
Kaden bowed low.
"The words of the messengers have met with a response far beyond our wild- est dreamings, oh
great one," he answered solemnly. "The hot sands of Igidi swarm with impatient warriors awaiting your commands. Kufra
desert lives but for you, while the ten thousand swords of near-by El-juf will be drawn only in the service of the oldest
ruler."
The Pharaoh nodded approvingly.
"You have done well, loyal follower, and have earned an
eternal resting-place in the Valley of the Kings. May the smile of Osiris be always with you. And you, Achmet
Eldood?"
An old sheik came forward.
"From the far-off Lybian desert, to Tana's blue waters in distant
Ethiopia, the stalwart sons of the old world would resume the rule of the Pharaoh."
"And the Sudan—the
Anglo-Egyptian land of the ancients—what of that?"
"El-Obeid down to warm Uganda— yes. A protesting few to be
slain at Omdurman; perhaps a feeble resistance at the Lado, and the white Nile is won. Inland to the lonely waters of Lake
Chad, your voice is ever law."
Sheik Arbul Ben Kaden spoke again.
"Word has come to us from that sunny
land across the water. Again it brings an urgent message from the one who lives only in the past and would restore
the
ancient glory of his country. He would join
us."
"You mean—"
"Yes, oh master, the powerful—"
The Pharaoh gave a shudder of
disgust.
"Dark pits of Jzual!" he exclaimed. "Well do I know the thoughts that ever possess his ambitious mind.
It is no love of Egypt's lost grandeur, or of Karamour and his cause that prompts the decision. He would unite with us
solely to gain that land which borders his own foreign possessions. Restore the ancient glory of his country, you say.
Bah! Egypt had known fifty centuries of the Pharaohs while his land was still a wilderness. Nay, we have no need for such
as he in the ranks of the chosen."
"At dawn," came the reply. "Far to the south, away from the spying eyes of the unbelievers, to a point
already desig- nated, we go to test the blue fluids sent us by the mad one of Moscow. A slight experiment has already
given us great hopes, but we would test them more fully. If their powers indeed be as great as he would have us believe"—a
sudden light of triumph leaped to the dark face, —"the world is ours!"
A hoarse yell rang out from the Arabs at
the shouted words, and with one ac- cord the curved swords of the swarthy horde were unsheathed and lifted high in
barbaric salute.
Karamour had risen and was watching the cheering cutthroats with the wild eyes of a maniac,
while the agile body shook with suppressed emotion. Present- ly the Pharaoh raised a hand for
silence.
"Tomorrow, then, we ride south, but tonight our hearts must be made heavy with the dread that another
of the chosen might have proven false. I have called you, therefore, to hear the plea of one
charged with that always unpardonable
crime—treason!"
Karamour turned suddenly toward me.
"Stranger of the new world, I have given my pledge
to the Princess Atma, who, influenced by some strange whim, has asked that you be granted clemency. Thus you are to be
spared from a trial that might result in your death.
"Your conduct since imprisonment has been unworthy. Aboard
the Star of Egypt a mutiny was incited by you. Your com- ing was not desired, and now you help to tempt one whose loyalty
has long been waning. Twice have you been spared; do not tempt fate a third time. On my re- turn from the desert I will
have further words with you. Till then, though you are allowed liberty of the palace and sur- rounding gardens, I warn you
to use discretion."
The thin lips tightened.
"Do not be deluded with this kindness as a lack of
vigilance. For three hundred miles the sands are patrolled by my men. To escape means capture, and capture means death!
Remember those words."
Four black guards had appeared in the doorway dragging a resisting figure roughly to the
throne. A death-like pal- lor shone on the blood-smeared features of their victim, but it could not disguise my fellow
plotter of the pits, Captain Barakoff.
The Pharaoh glared hard at the man before him.
"Dog," he
growled, "it has been said that you are an unworthy follower. How answer you this charge?"
The Russian grinned
in an agonized manner.
"I—I have done no wrong, master," he faltered.
"That I intend to find out—and
quick- ly," came the grim reply. "You have been strong in your claim of innocence—
let us now hear the words of your ac- cusers.
"Doctor Zola!"
The
Frenchman, ever ready to welcome attention, came forward from the rows of waiting Arabs.
"What say you against
the loyalty of this man?" demanded the Pharaoh.
Etienne Zola bowed low before his in- quirer.
"You
will recall," he purred in his softest voice, "that I have always been suspicious of the prisoner. His bad rec- ord in the
Czar's army, as well as his avarice—his love of money was well known on the west coast. Always desir- ous of protecting my
Prince, I kept a careful watch, and not without result."
The physician produced a letter which he opened and
held before him.
"Captain Barakoff," he continued, with a sneering look at the unhappy wretch, "wrote this
letter, which I had intercept- ed, to his beloved in far-off Archangel. Its contents conclusively prove his treach- ery. I
will read a—"
Karamour waved an impatient hand.
"Its wording is already known to me. What of the
slaves' report?"
USANTI, now called, told of hearing Barakoff offer to free me for a cer- tain sum. He admitted
the amount had escaped him, but readily recalled the dis- respectful manner in which the Russian had spoken of the
Pharaoh, as well as his plan for halting the yacht while a boat would be rowed ashore to bring me aboard. Evidently the
black had won- drously sharp ears, or else our voices in the quiet of the dungeon must have car- ried farther than we
thought. All in all, it was a damning denunciation against one already doomed.
As Usanti ceased speaking, a
brief silence fell on the grim assembly. All
eyes were turned upon the tall figure who stood before
the Pharaoh.
"What do you say against the word of the slave?" asked Karamour at length.
"He lies,
great Pharaoh! My heart was —and is—ever loyal to the cause," came the answer, in a weak, halting tone that plainly told
his guilt.
"But the proof—what have you to show that would make me believe the slave's words to be false? Speak
quickly; though your trial is just, it should be brief also. Haste—your proof against the charges."
"I did not
plot with the captive, oh master. The sole purpose of my descent to the dungeons was to escort him to his former quarters,
as you yourself had ordered. Believe me when I say my heart is ever true to the Pharaoh. In all the hosts of Karamour,
there is none more loyal than Alexis Barakoff. Ask the cap- tive—ask Bryant; he will tell you—" and the man's eyes turned
appealingly toward me for a confirmation of his lie.
Karamour leaned forward like a strik- ing
serpent.
"Usanti's words," he hissed.
"But lies, only lies!" cried the Russian. "He has fiendishly
condemned me to raise himself in your favor; he would lie to kill your faithful followers and sur- round the court with
slinking parasites. I have said or done no wrong, and well he knows it. He is but a miserable de- formed wretch who has
always hated me and seeks my ruin."
"Might he not have a just cause for such enmity?" asked
Zola.
"Just cause—no. He entered my quar- ters once and I punished him for it. He has never forgiven
me."
Was the wily Barakoff to win his way to freedom?
"Treason is a grave offense," the Frenchman
reminded him.
"I have always thought it so."
"You persist then in your denial?"
"I persist in denying an untruth."
"None other has ever
accused the black of untruths."
"None other has ever accused me."
"But the letter, my captain," Zola
put in quickly. "Would you say Usanti wrote that also?"
Again that hesitant, condemning gulp.
"I—I do
not know."
"A lie! a lie that comes from the depths of your black heart!" thundered Karamour. "Oh miserable
creature, you have betrayed the trust of your ruler; broken your vows to the great cause. The countless centuries of love
and reverence that would have kept your name sacred have been forgotten in that greed for gold. There is but one sentence
for such treachery; but one punishment befitting that ever unpardonable crime:
"The Pit!"
A scream of
terror rang out from the doomed man as the judgment was pro- nounced.
With a quickness that told of long
practise, the dread sentence was now car- ried out. In the center of the great floor an iron ring had been securely
fastened. A stout chain was now run through the ring, and with three blacks tugging hard on the iron links, a portion of
the floor was slowly raised to disclose a cunningly concealed pit some six feet square.
A nauseating odor arose
from the dark interior, a damp, smothering smell, made more terrible by the loud, blood-tingling squeals that accompanied
it—sharp, angry barks that brought a sickly pallor to the sun-tanned faces of the Arabs, while the black guards cast
nervous glances at their ruler. With one accord the entire assem- bly moved forward to that awful hole of
death.
Rats! Huge, dirty, horrible rats! Bound- ing, famished
creatures of an enormous size that brought a shudder from the watchers, leaped and snarled in that ter- rible pit. The
slippery sides of the ten- foot depth prevented them from emerg- ing, though the rodents were constantly attempting the
hopeless climb. Sharpened spikes had been driven into the bottom rocks, while the brilliant lights above plainly showed
the twinkling eyes, the red maws and sharp teeth of the rolling brown mass. This then was the dread pit so feared by the
inmates of the castle.
The sneering Zola could not resist the temptation of a final taunt at the con- demned
man, who, now stripped of all garments and with naked arms lashed firmly to his sides, stood looking in wild- eyed terror
into the pit into which he would so soon be plunged.
"Three hundred of them, Captain! Three hundred with sharp
teeth and no food for two days! You will find them appreciative of your company," the fiend laughed.
Of all the
heartless gathering, the physician alone seemed unperturbed. White-robed Arabs, wide-eyed and nerv- ous, looked silently
on. The four black jailers were visibly affected by the awful din. Even the Pharaoh was somber and serious as he silently
motioned the slaves to continue.
A long chain was now firmly at- tached to the legs of the Russian, who, despite
his pleadings, was swung head foremost and quickly lowered into the pit.
At the appearance of the nude body, the
snarls increased to a deafening roar. Squealing rats, now standing upright in anticipation, awaited the gleaming flesh.
And even as I closed my eyes to turn from the horrible scene, the screaming victim was hurried to his awful destruc-
tion.
15. The Enchantress of Sin
THE
swarthy hordes of Karamour left at dawn. As the sun rose, I stood on the balcony watching the Arabs mount their splendid
beasts and form a long line behind a white horse held by a wait- ing black.
There was no shouting or carefree
laughter now. All mirth and revelry had been replaced by tightening jaws and de- termined faces that well showed the des-
perate ride expected by these desert no- mads. Wordless, they held the eager steeds and awaited their leader. The lonely
waste of water in the west formed a sparkling background.
While I watched the mounted horde with wondering
silence, a tall figure strode from the gardens to the waiting horse. It was Karamour.
As the lithe body swung
into the sad- dle, his gaze fell full upon me. Instantly the dark face lighted.
"Remember well my warning of
last night, oh stranger," he shouted. "To escape means capture, and capture means certain death!"
Then, with a
wild whoop and a com- mand to the Arabs, the last of the Pharaohs set spurs to his horse and dashed over the sand dunes to
the south, while behind him, their long white robes fluttering in the morning winds, came his savage band of cutthroat
followers.
As the last of the Arabs rode into the distant blue, a peal of feminine laughter rang from the
towering turrets, a long- drawn-out laugh of scornful derision that was followed by a foul oath.
Late that
afternoon I had put my new- ly proclaimed liberty to use, and de- scending the great stairs, casually passed the two
guards at the terrace door to saunter out into the gardens beyond.
I wandered through the delightful fairyland
that had been transplanted to
the sandy wastes of the African coast, ad- miring the
stately trees, the elaborate carvings on the benches and spraying fountains, as well as the brilliantly plumed birds that
graced the well-kept sward. Soft music from the radio in the rustic summer house at the cliff's edge but lent an added
enchantment to the surroundings. The gardens of Karamour combined the luxuries of the new world with the splendor and
beauty of the old.
THAT night, under the rays of the tropical moon and a million blazing stars, I was guided by
Zena to the wind- ing steps that led from the gardens of Karamour to the sandy beach below. There, standing in the shadows
of a grace- ful palm, with the lighted castle on the cliffs above, I awaited the lovely Atma.
For a long hour I
had kept my lonely watch, expecting momentarily the ap- pearance of the Princess on the steps above, when my attention was
drawn to a pearl-white figure that swam through the waters far to the left. With steady, superb strokes, the swimmer cut
through the silvery surf, to emerge, wet and drip- ping, a tall, shapely girl, whose nude body shone like ivory in the
moonlight.
"Atma!"
Standing on the wet sands, the cool winds caressing her, the lovely face turned
dreamily toward the stars, stood the glamorous daughter of the ages, a dark-eyed Princess from the mists of time, whose
tiny feet had trod the great halls of the Pharaohs.
Ah, the weird beauty of that moment! Even now its memory
comes to haunt me—a picture from the past; a vision that might well have been the lonely Eve by some desolate sea at the
earliest dawn of history. High overhead from the sum- mer house near the cliff's edge, came strains of soft music; dreamy,
melodious airs, artistry of today. But the glorious
figure that swayed in the starlight had danced and strained her lithe body to the crashing of mighty timbrels,
thirty-four hundred years ago!
Slowly the royal Egyptian made her way up the beach, stopping only to don the
waiting garments that lay on a sand dune near the surf. Then in the scanty attire of long ago—golden breast-plates, filmy
four-slit skirt and cobra-ensigned head-band—the girl came unhesitatingly toward me, her features wreathed in a be-
witching smile.
"I swam far out to sea," came the musical voice. "Oh, it was such a long, long way! No sound
could reach me from the distant shore, the low sand dunes had disappeared. Even the lighted castle seemed small and
distant. I was alone in a vast world of silence. Ah, it was wonderful, lying out there in the dark waters, to be rocked by
the rolling waves. For an hour I drifted and dreamed in the starlight. Once a great ocean liner, a sparkling mass of
golden lights, passed far to the east, but they did not hear the lonely cry of Atma. Perhaps I might have forgotten the
world and swum on thus for ever, had I not known the young American would be waiting for me."
Together we sat on
the dark cloak the Princess had left in the sand.
"And now you are tired after that long swim."
Atma
had sat in a posture of ease be- side me, so close that I could feel the warmth of her half-naked body. At my question she
drew back where she could better see my face.
"Tired?" she repeated, and then she laughed. "You think a little
swim would tire me?"
I smiled at her apparent surprize.
"Then am I to believe it has
not?"
"It could never tire me—physical ex- ertion seldom does. Why, once when I
was a little girl and the royal troops of Egypt beat back
the Hyksos beyond Thaubasium, I danced the steps of vic- tory from sunset till dawn in the great halls of the Moon
Goddess. Nay, if I am to tire, the cause must be other than weary muscles."
"Mental boredom,
perhaps?"
The girl shrugged her graceful shoul- ders.
"It is possible," she admitted. "But no, no—it
is not that. I am weary of this castle, of this country. I dread that con- stant talks of Egypt's lost glory—of the many
gods and their terrible anger at our wrong doings—of anything connect- ed with antiquity. I am tired of—of him!" she
whispered.
Her eyes looked at me in a strange, be- seeching manner.
"Surely you will understand," she
went on in an earnest tone. "I wish to be free, to be away from all this. The old world no longer appeals to me; I would
know of the new, to see the many things the eager Billy told me—spacious dwell- ings—evenings at the lighted theatres in
wraps of ermine—graceful dancing in a polished ballroom. Ah, it is what my heart calls for—it is what I should
have."
Her beautiful face was close to mine, waiting, I knew, for a confirmation of her words.
"But is
that not impossible?" I pro- tested. "A daughter of the Pharaohs to—"
"Oh damn the Pharaohs!" cried the Princess
of Egypt hotly. "Must I always hear that loathsome word? Am I to stay for countless years in these ancient halls, hearing
only the chanting of Egypt's lost glory? It is the new lands I want—their delicious thrills—their pleasures!
"Do
you not know the awful centuries I spent imprisoned on that great bowl of stone—the ages that passed while I was but the
living dead? Can you realize
what the torture of
three hundred years would mean to one who could but hope and yearn once more for the joys and loves of her maidenhood? No,
no, you could never know. You are a man of the cold Twentieth Century, to whom the pulsing warmth of the eternal passion
must for ever remain a mystery.
"But I, who have thirsted through the ages, know its fires, and am free once
more for that glorious ecstasy." She added after a slight pause: "Free to laugh and live as of yore. Free to enjoy the
many pleasures so long denied me. Free to care, to—to love."
Her voice sank to a low whisper.
ATMA was
looking at me in an eager, expectant manner. One slender arm had encircled mine, and her supple body leaned closer. Parted
red lips were near my own. A wild rush of madness swept over me. Pulses pounding, heart thump- ing, I yearned to cover
that perfect mouth with smothering kisses till she would lie helpless, panting in my arms.
We were alone! We
were alone! Dazed with the fragrance of her hair, I could feel her loveliness tremble with desire as her lips brushed
mine. It was as though this one moment had been snatched from all eternity, to carry us a billion miles beyond the planets
and the suns. Only with the greatest effort could I draw away.
"But Karamour—he will never con- sent to your
leaving here. This—this is madness! He would not forsake the land of his father, nor would you leave with- out
him."
"Why do you say that?" she cried. "He means nothing to me—never has. I have always felt a strong dislike
for the love- less fool who thinks only of the past and Egypt's forgotten grandeur. Nay, I have planned my flight too long
to let anything
prevent it, and never was the time so ripe as now.
Listen:
"Karamour has ridden into the desert to test liquids—some wild dream of a crazed scientist, that he
thinks will render useless the man-power of other nations. I, of course, know that it is but a hopeless dream. The great
guns of the new coun- tries will quickly crush both him and his feeble power; yet we must let the fool find that out for
himself.
"But you and I—why should we stay here to perish miserably with the rest? Is it not wiser to flee these
ancient halls and spend the years in the pleasures of the new worlds, than lie as whitened skele- tons amid the charred
castle ruin?''
"And my friends—you could arrange to have them come with us?" I asked quickly.
Atma
hesitated a moment before re- plying.
"Yes, we can do that," she answered finally. "Leave with them when the
plane returns the day after tomorrow. Of course, the tiny ship will make two trips necessary, but as it is only some nine
hours' journey from here to Tangier, it could be done."
An escape! An escape, and return to the lands we loved
and knew! But this royal daughter of the Nile—did she realize the strangeness of the new world? Could she know and
understand the countless changes that had taken place since her tiny feet trod the flower-strewn halls of old
Memphis?
"Wait," I cautioned. "You are going to find the new world strange in more ways than one. True, it has
all the lux- uries of which you speak, as well as many more. Each, however, demands its price. Money is as essential to
the modern land as an unerring sword arm was to the old."
Atma laughed softly.
"The answer to all that
lies but a short distance in the desert," she murmured,
"and it is ours for the taking. Tomor- row night, while the castle sleeps, we will take three blacks and ride to the
cast, where, in the eternal halls of night that lie below a forgotten valley, we can soon load ourselves with unthinkable
riches."
As the girl ceased speaking, a soft melody from the cliffs above caused her to turn quickly. The radio
in the summer house that had been playing soft, un- known music, suddenly began a melody I knew well, a lovely,
tantalizing air, that seemed to breathe the glamor of old Egypt—the weirdly throbbing Vision of Salome.
As the
first dreamy notes reached us, an eager thrill ran through the supple body of the Egyptian. Now, with the ease of an
uncoiling serpent, she rose to her lovely height. Only for an instant did she pause to smile at me, wide-eyed and
glorious; and then, with a slow, exotic grace, the long-limbed Princess began the dance of the centuries.
It was
fascinating. Soft, rolling mus- cles played beneath the ivory surface. A perfect body swayed enchantingly. Slen- der arms
encircled the shapely head, while the beautiful face, beaming through a mass of wavy black hair, seemed lost in wondrous
dreaming.
As though in rhythm with the dancer swayed the tropical palms. The sparkling ocean seemed motionless
and quiet. A mellow moon hung low; while high above, the blazing stars flashed their light to illuminate dimly the beauty
of that whirling siren.
I watched as one entranced. For me, at least, time had ceased to exist, and I had been
drawn back across the void to behold a swaying vision that had en- slaved the hearts of men ages upon ages before the
dancing Salome roused the passions of King Herod. Weird music, that strange, exotic ringing—was that the crashing of
ancient timbrels from the
rolling fogs of time? High overhead among the stars, those
hazy shimmering outlines — were they the disapproving frowns of Pharaohs from the dawning? And surely my wonderment was
seen by the Egyptian, for high above the blaring blasts her silvery laugh came to me.
Higher rose the quickening
music. Wilder, faster became the dancing. The flashing breast-plates—the fluttering gar- ments! Her tiny feet seemed
scarcely to touch the sand; the flying body was but a whirling ivory mass. And then the bar- baric air rose up as a great
roar, to stop with a crash that sent the dancer hurling herself with complete abandon into my outstretched
arms.
I drew the yielding body quickly to me.
"You are glorious," I groaned, "so maddeningly
glorious!" And raising that perfect head, I kissed the red lips of the most beautiful creature this world has ever
known.
"Kiss me! Oh kiss and love me!" she whispered. "My veins flow not with the ice of the girls of your
world, but a de- siring thirst that grows more burning with each passing second!"
Her white arms pressed me
closer.
"Kiss me! Crush me, stronger, tighter, till I die within your arms! This moment of bliss must never
end—we will make its joys eternal. Again! Again!" she mur- mured. "Oh eleven sinful gods, again! We are alone, beloved, we
are alone! The stars for ever hold all secrets. The sleep- ing world is far and distant. My eager heart cries wildly for
you—and the night is long."
16. Sheba's Treasure
The following night I rode far into the desert with
the Princess of Egypt in search of the fabulous wealth of which she had spoken.
I was now hopelessly in love
with the
beautiful Atma, madly obsessed with a
passion that obliterated all else but her charm. The amorous moments in those perfect arms had erased all memories of
Carol, or any responsibilities I should have felt for the imprisoned Terrys.
I no longer planned escape, either
for myself or for my friends. Ambition, like reason, had gone. Gone also was the long- planned retribution. The caresses
of the dark-eyed siren had taken both manhood and will-power, to leave but a character- less weakling, who would lie,
steal—or if need be, kill—but to bask in the glamor of her love.
Only vaguely had I been told our des- tination,
and now as I swung to my sad- dle in the dimly lit courtyard, I observed among the three mounted blacks desig- nated as
our followers, the hideous dwarf, Usanti.
The keen eyes of the treacherous imp roved incessantly, as though
fearful that some sign or move might escape him.
I leaned toward Atma, who, dressed in riding-breeches and
open-necked shirt, with a heavy automatic pistol strapped around her slender waist, sat carelessly on her horse beside
me.
"That black—the short one. It was he who betrayed Barakoff to the Pharaoh," I whispered. "Do you think it
wise to take him with us?"
An expression of merciless cunning crossed the beautiful face as a long-lashed eye
winked slyly at me.
"Of all the palace guards, these three alone I trust not. The hidden vaults of treasure must
for ever remain a secret"— her lips smiled slightly—"that is why they ride with me this night."
As she finished
the strange words, the Princess of Egypt brought her sharp whip down on the horse's haunches and dashed out into the
night, while I and the three horsemen followed behind as best we could.
For two miles we rode sharply to the east in a lonely
waste of sand into which the horses sank fetlock-deep at nearly every step. The barren, uneven country was cut into
numerous ravines, lumpy stretches and shrubless little hillocks that showed dreary and foreboding in the moonlight. A hard
wind had enveloped us, sending the tiny grains of sharp sand to cut our lips and faces, while the horses blinked and
whinnied in helpless misery. Yet, with the persistence that the thought of riches will always inspire, we plodded
patiently on behind the spright- ly steed of our dauntless leader.
On reaching a cluster of palm-trees, Atma
turned northward. The country became wilder as we advanced. Distant mountains showed on the far horizon, and from out of
the blackness would come the cries of prowling desert crea- tures.
Silently we continued over the desolate
wastes, once to pause at a tiny oasis, and several times to seek brief respite from the blowing sand in one of the numer-
ous ravines. At length, after three hours of steady travel, we entered a deep valley from which many boulder-strewn gorges
diverged. Here Atma halted her splen- did beast and beckoned me closer.
"The second pass to the left!" she
cried. "It is the one we seek. I have too often heard its description to be wrong. We will dismount here and tether our
horses to these trees. Instruct Usanti to bring the long rope he carries—we shall need it in our climb. The boulder is a
high one and the ascent to its summit hard and dangerous."
Stopping only to tie the weary horses, we presently
entered a narrow gorge which led to the left from the valley. Here lay a narrow passage. On either side the black cliffs
shot upward to the stars. Sneaking forms of prowling jack- als slunk through the darkness. Stunted
trees stood as lonely sentinels, while numerous large boulders, white
and gleaming, were strewn on the bed of what in prehistoric times had been a mighty river.
Standing somewhat
apart from the other rocks was a huge granite boulder. Toward this we were now led. There, in the shadow of its frowning
height, Atma turned to face us. We had reached our destination.
THE dark-eyed Princess looked long at her
travel-stained followers.
"We are about," she began, addressing the three wondering blacks, "to descend deep
into the earth, far down near the pits of hell, through ancient corridors built by men whose bones have long since turned
to dust."
Standing in the moon rays that flooded the rocky pass, a slender riding-whip slap- ping her open palm,
with an amused smile the Egyptian watched the rolling eyes of the blacks.
"You will come, Usanti?"
The
dwarf stared at her in silent mis- ery.
"You mangy dog!" she snapped. "What is there to fear? What crazy
superstition holds you back from the riches that lie within?"
"The spirits of the departed, oh mis- tress,"
whispered one. "They will be waiting to tear us asunder. They will choke us with their ghastly breath, and feed our bodies
to the crawling things that lie in the gloom of the deep pits. Always have we heard of the terrible anger of the tomb
gods."
"You miserable fool!" cried Atma. "The dead are dead; they can neither help nor harm you. Their powers
have long vanished, nor are there any spirits or ghosts to avenge them. It is all lies—the stories you may have heard
about the angry gods who will destroy the desecra-
tor of ancient tombs. All myths—only lies and myths." The
silvery voice rose higher. "But the pit of Karamour is no myth, nor does Atma lie when she says your lashed bodies will be
lowered to the hungry inmates of its bottom if you fail your Princess!"
The blacks shifted nervously but said no
words, while I could but look in amazement at the fearless beauty who spoke so scornfully of the gods and leg- ends she
had been reared to respect and fear.
"But this hidden tomb of which you speak," I asked. "Where is it, and whose
sarcophagus lies within?"
The girl pointed upward.
"A most unusual place for a most un- usual ruler,"
she replied. "Lying on the summit of this great boulder is a flat rock that, once removed, will reveal an open- ing
within. Descending, we will follow a long corridor to a gilded door, behind which lie the riches and preserved body of
Balkls, Queen of Sheba!"
This, then, was where the famed treas- ure of antiquity lay hidden; the fabulous wealth
that for thirty centuries, in legend and in song, had lured adventurous spirits from the far-off corners of the earth, and
caused the hot sands to be lit- tered with their bleaching bones.
"Out here, so far from her
homeland?"
Atma nodded.
"Awaiting her restoration, as promised by Karamour. Awaiting that which can
never be. But come—time passes. We must ascend the boulder."
There was a noticeable lack of enthusi- asm among
the blacks, but finally a tall, muscular fellow hesitantly volunteered the climb, and after several attempts, suc- ceeded
in reaching the summit. Once there, he threw down an end of the long rope he had carried, and by means of
this
crude ladder we at last stood on the high
peak.
Now the flat rock was dislodged to show a gaping pit beneath. Again we ad- hered to the slender rope, and
leaving a sentinel to guard the summit, with flam- ing torches the four intruders stood in the age-old corridors of
Balkis. Holding high the feeble lights we groped our way through the blackness. Down a long hall that had been hewn in the
living rock, a mighty passageway untrodden for over thirty centuries, we slowly advanced, and the grotesque carvings that
showed in the gloom appeared as the angry eyes of the departed.
To think that within these winding halls had
once been carried the body of her who had borne a child to Solomon; that the long-dead hands which had hewn this forgotten
vault might have been raised in salute to David. Twice we passed the silent blackness of intersecting corridors, and once
stepped carefully over the grisly remains of a faithful guard, be- side whose moldering body lay a sword that could well
have been the one called for by the great Jewish King in his judg- ment of the two sorrowing mothers and the child. Along
the rocky floor were deep deposits of dust, an indication that the passage had long been unused. The granite sides
converged as they rose to the top of the shaft some ten feet above us. Securely hidden in the very bowels of the earth
below that lonely valley, the silent corridors had escaped the ravages of countless treasure-hunters as well as the many
tomb-robbers of antiquity. The great Queen had been most cautious in selecting the vault for her riches. Atma had told
how, at Karamour's orders, the slaves who had hewn the pass were slain by soldiers, who, in a like manner, were also
slaughtered that none might know the resting-place of Sheba.
For a long half-hour we continued our dismal way. The
winding passage had now straightened to a run in a direct line. Suddenly the flickering torchlight shone on a great
yellowish mass.
The beauteous white face of Atma turned toward me.
"The great image of Thoat!" she
cried. "Surely we have at last reached the vault of riches!"
Before a great doorway stood a huge, grotesque idol
of a bird-headed god. In one massive claw it held a stone scroll that bore many hieroglyphics. The richly painted surface
of the grim deity flashed yellow and red in the torchlight.
The two terrorized blacks, since mak- ing their
reluctant entry to the gloomy corridor, had huddled closely together. Great beads of perspiration were standing on their
brows, and now, at the sight of this grim omen, they trembled as though suddenly afflicted with ague.
"The God
of the Ancients!" whispered the dwarf. "The terrible god with the bird-head who will presently awake and tear us to pieces
with his sharp beak and claws. We are doomed! We are twice horribly doomed, as our spirits will be for ever compelled to
sail the endless sea of fire that has been allotted as punishment for those who enter the vaults of their
ancestors."
The girl but smiled at the words, and wresting the light from the terrorized Usanti, she held the
torch high to look long at the ancient inscription before her.
"It's only one of those meaningless warnings,"
she laughed at length in a careless manner. "A warning and praise of Sheba's glory. The usual custom of the ancients. It
reads:
"The Queen is not dead. She can never die. She has become as one who rises like the morning sun from the
east- ern horizon. She now rests from life like the setting sun in the west. Yet always
shall she return. Again on some far dis- tant day will she dawn anew in the east. She
cannot die. She must not die. She is the sun. She is the burning glory of life. She lives for ever. The Queen has but
flown. She has been taken up to the skies by Ra. The stairs of the heavens have been lowered that she may ascend there- on
to the blue. To the sky. To the sky. To the great jeweled throne in the clear- ness has she gone. Sail on, oh beauteous
one, in thy barge of the sun. Sail on till you return like a flaming ruby to your earthly realm. Yet even as thou hast de-
parted, oh Queen, let thy earthly shell re- tain and use its terrible powers to blast with loathsome disease and frightful
death all those who would enter to dis- turb thy earthly slumbers, or touch with vandal hands one glittering
jewel."
As Atma ceased speaking, the hideous Usanti fell to his knees with a shriek that rang out through that
dismal hall of silence.
Like a tigress the Princess of Egypt turned on the offending black.
"Silence!"
she hissed, as one hand flew to her leather holster in a suggestive manner. "Silence, you fool, or you will feel my own
way of blasting frightful death!"
The terrorized dwarf gulped loudly as though choked by unseen hands. A weak
sigh escaped the trembling lips, but with an effort he rose on his frail legs, to look piteously at his
mistress.
Pausing but to encircle the great image, the tireless Atma motioned us to follow, and going to the
ancient door pushed back the massive creaking barrier, while behind her, three wide-eyed men looked in speechless
wonderment at the scene before them.
A low moaning sound; a soft musical wailing that might have been a murmur
from the ages, floated from the silent
chamber. But it was not that alone which held us
spellbound. Lying along the walls and down the length of the long floor, from beneath the grayish mass of dust and
cobwebs, there glowed and sparkled in the torchlight the scintillating brilliance of the world's greatest
treasure.
On either side of the high room, large piles of golden ingots rose to the ceiling. As though hastily
stowed, the precious metal lay in careless mounds. In many places great tablets of gold had been set in the solid masonry
of the floor. An ex- quisite urn showed a thousand pearls of priceless beauty, while the three large chests in the center
of the room flashed with the radiance of diamonds, emeralds and other precious stones.
At the far end of the
great vault four stone steps led up to a tiny room of black marble. There, on a rising stone slab of exquisite carving lay
a jewel-encrusted sarcophagus. An atmosphere of mourn- ful silence prevailed in that ancient tomb of
riches.
Slowly I turned to Atma.
"It's wonderful!" I whispered in an awed tone. "It's—it's too
wonderful!"
The girl nodded.
"And securely hidden, too," she added. "I doubt not that thirty centuries
more could pass and its great wealth would still lie undisturbed."
"Who else knows of its
location?"
"Only Karamour, and he would not dare enter these halls of eternal night. Even the bravest of the
ancients trembled at the vengeance of the gods to a desecra- tor of a tomb. But come, let us look upon
Balkis."
WITH a warning of instant death to the blacks if they dared to touch the jewel chests, the Princess of
Egypt made her way through the piles of riches
to
the small room where rested the famed Queen of antiquity.
Within the open sarcophagus lay a richly appareled
woman of striking beauty. So fresh, so natural was her ap- pearance, it seemed as if she were but sleeping. The eyes, half
open, were turned toward us. Two bejeweled hands lay crossed on her large pearl breast- plates. The lovely thick hair,
combed in a strange yet becoming manner, lay in a waving mass on the dark olive skin of her neck and arms. The faintest
flush seemed to have mounted her cheeks, while the half-opened lids were curled in a sad half-smile.
"Sheba!" I
gasped. "Sheba, the be- loved of Solomon!"
"The large ring that encircles her thumb—a parting gift from the
Jewish King.. It was once worn by Abraham."
"How do you know that?"
"She told me of it long ago,"
answered Atma. "Poor Balkis! It is better, per- haps, that she continues her long sleep. Great would be her anguish to
arise and find that her country, once so rich and powerful, has dwindled to a comparative- ly weak and defenseless
nation."
The strain of the subterranean tomb had told on the blacks. Now, with nerves completely broken, they
begged their Princess the privilege of returning to the outer world.
The girl looked at the two kneeling men in
scornful silence. Suddenly she turned to me, fearless and beautiful in the torchlight.
"Their courage has
snapped," came her firm voice. "In a few minutes they will be gibbering idiots. But we must not let that deter us. For
riches we came, and with riches we shall leave. All the rat- tling bones of eternity will not stop me! Hold the light
above those jewel chests, while I select the most precious stones. The gold is far too heavy for us to
han-
From the deep pockets of her riding- breeches the daughter of Hatshepsut pro- duced a small leather
pouch, and standing above the chests, filled the bag with price- less stones, scrutinizing each chosen gem carefully.
Again and again her long fin- gers ran through the sparkling mass.
"I cannot understand it," she said at length,
when her tireless hands had at last ceased their searching. "The great emerald of Saul, the most priceless gem in all the
world, is missing."
"Thieves, perhaps?"
"No, no," she cried, "it cannot be that. None other has
entered this vault—and yet the stone is gone. A curse to the damned! The one gem I—" A wild smile leaped to her
face.
"Yes, of course! That's where it is."
With a quick leap the girl was beside the
sarcophagus.
"Hold the torch high," she cried. "It's here! Yes, it's here in her mouth!" and ler eager hands
shook the long-dead body.
"Stop!" I shouted, fearful of some great profanation.
The dark eyes looked
their surprize.
"What are you going to do?" I stepped quickly toward the girl.
"Get the jewel, of
course."
"But—but you can't do that! God! Are you entirely shameless? To desecrate the body of a good Queen long
dead—you can't! It's—it's horrible!"
The daughter of Hatshepsut gave a shudder of disgust.
"Don't be a
fool!" she snapped. "It can make no difference to her what I do. The jewel is there; I intend to have it. Let that
suffice."
And with a carefree laugh, the Prin- cess opened the long-closed mouth of Solomon's beloved to extract
an enormous emerald that flashed and sparkled in the torchlight.
Sickened with horror, I watched the calm Atma leisurely inspect the glittering bauble
and then drop it into the leather pouch at her side.
"And now we may leave," she con- sented. "The hour is late,
with many weary miles of travel."
Quickly we passed from that gloomy tomb of riches. Atma herself closed the
great wooden barrier; and then we in- truders from the outside world made once more for the distant boulder
summit.
We had left the dreary corridors far behind, and were emerging from the rocky gorge to the valley
beyond. The cool night wind brushed the musty dust of the ages from our garments and filled our nostrils with its
sweetness. The three blacks were walking happily before us in silent rejoicing at their release from the ghostly halls. A
tropical moon had flooded the pass, and in its clear rays I followed the jewel-laden Atma. All seemed calm in this quiet
vale; death and terror should have been left in the deep pits beyond. Yet, despite the horrid scene I had witnessed within
the tomb, the greatest tragedy was still to be enacted.
Suddenly the girl drew the heavy Mauser pistol from its
holster and began firing. Six times the dark gun flamed red, and with unerring aim, two bullets sped into each of the
black slaves.
Running forward as she slipped a fresh clip of shells into the pistol, and standing above the
groaning, blood- stained men, the Princess of Egypt sent shot after shot into the torn, helpless bodies.
And as
silence came once more to the lonely valley, "It was the only way," she murmured softly; "the only way to keep for ever a
secret the hidden treasure of Sheba."
The
amazing weird denouement of this story will be told in the fascinating chapters that bring the tale to an end in next
month's issue of WElRD TALES. Reserve your copy at your magazine-dealer's now.
A tale of the sea, and the thing called Alain Gervais that came aboard the Jolly
Waterman
JUNE 2.—Our stiff canvas, faded and gray, hangs
lifeless from the yard- arms. We are stilled in one of the great calms. There is slowly rising water in the well, and our
food is nearly gone. We heave on the greasy, heavy water, foul and green. The fog hides all from view. I confess that I am
afraid. What an expressive word is despair! Luckily a flying-fish came scudding over the rails this
morning.
June 3.—The fog has lifted a bit, but there is no relief in sight. The seven of us worked all last
night on the pipes, until our backs ached and our hands were raw. The crew seems gruff and surly, but I haven't the heart
to assert my au- thority at a time like this. They don't realize how near death they are. I write for record only, for who
knows what may happen in the next few days? We are at present in the open sea a thousand miles from land. A fine situation
for the skipper of the Jolly Waterman! Three months ago I had a full crew and a lucky boat, but now—scurvy isn't pleasant.
No, sir, not pleasant at all.
June 4.—Hope! I have given up even entertaining the word. By working des- perately
we are able to keep the water in the well down, but our hardtack is nearly gone. We have pumped and sweated on empty
stomachs for twelve hours. Losier collapsed. He folded like the others, but thank God he died quietly. No reproach- ful
blasphemies heaped on my head. Just a tired fading, glad it was all over.
June 5.—It was funny. Another
fly-
ing-fish came aboard today, and Herbie Tastrum
made a dive for it. He looked like a maniac as he slid along the deck, filling his belly with splinters. He caught it
between his two hands and bit into it, and finally disposed of it, bones and all. I was a bit put out. He could have
divided it. I could shred a donkey's car- cass in my present state. Yet, I write it was funny.
June 6.—Our case
is desperate. No two ways about it, something has to hap- pen, and soon. There isn't a breath of air stirring, and Hanson
is below, unable to raise a limb. The five of us are able to keep the water down, but we are tired
—dog-tired.
June 7.—We have one thing to be thankful for, the water hasn't risen much in the last twelve hours.
Not that we would pump it out if it did. We are too tired to pump. We lie on the decks and curse, and make faces at the
sky. I los[t] my temper many times today, but I am suffering acutely. Why do I continue to write futilely in this log book
which no one will ever read?
June 8.—We are saved! What glori- ous good luck! A boatload of provisions and a
jolly companion to cheer us up. He says he is the sole survivor of the Kini William. You have probably heard of the King.
A finer brig never put out from Marseilles. A hurricane and a leak did for her. Six or seven pulled away in the longboat,
but my friend (what else could you call your savior?) threw them over- board. They died first, of course.
They
died from fright, or from drinking salt water. My friend
didn't elaborate on de- tails, but not liking the unsociable com- pany of corpses, he naturally disposed of them. That's
his story, and I accepted it at its face value. I am not a man to go poking about and asking questions. It's enough that
he brought us a boatload of provisions and his own buoying com- panionship. He has actually injected spirit. We were
growing to loathe each other, we five. He calls himself Alain Gervais.
June 11.—Gervais (he insisted we call him
that) has been with us now for three days. He has the run of the ship, and I have turned the mate's cabin over to him. The
mate has no further need for a cabin—he spends his nights rolling on the ocean floor. Gervais is tall and emaciated. His
face is oyster-colored, drawn and haggard. His eyes are set deeply in dark caverns and actually seem to consume you. There
is something devastating about those eyes; sometimes they seem a hundred years old. His fore- head is high and as yellow
and dry as parchment, and his nose is shaped like a simitar. With long, gangling arms and thick wrists he presents an
awesome pic- ture. A very peculiar fellow now that I get to know him better. But he is one of us.
June
12.—Gervais has kept more to himself. He remained locked in his cabin all morning, and answered my anxious questions
curtly, through the closed door. But I was too busy to in- vestigate; there is a chill in the air that encourages hope for
a wind in the near future. Some of the crew seem too tired to work. They came across a bottle of rum in Losier's locker,
and by mixing it with salt water they concocted an elixir to alleviate their suffering. Who am I to assert my authority,
but I hope for the
first breeze, as it will surely
bolster the ship's morale. At that time I plan to re- gain my old power of discipline.
June 13.—A breeze is
surely coming. It is eerily still, all around us, except for a sharp report every now and then, as another deck plank
snaps under the direct rays of a broiling sun. I am working frantically on a miserable substitute of a rudder. I am
stripped to the waist, and the sweat rolls down into my eyes, almost blinding me. I have been over the side twice this
afternoon for relief, but there is very little in the brackish water.
June 14.—Gervais slept on the planks with
the crew last night, and this morn- ing he looks ten years younger. His face is flushed and full, and the greenish hol-
lows have disappeared from beneath his eyes. But Hanson isn't well. He com- plains of pains in his chest, and once or
twice he spat a mixture of blood and rum. His big face seems sandpapered by age, and he is abnormally pale.
June
15.—No breeze. Hanson is sure- ly stricken. Death hovers over him like an impatient doorman. He lies in his cabin and
groans, and I can do nothing for him. His pallor is genuinely alarm- ing. Even his lips are bloodless. He complains of his
nose, and noises in his ears. And Gervais has shown his first glints of ill-nature. His eyes smolder when he speaks, and
for the first time I discern a hard cruelty in the man. He is an alarming personality.
June 16.—Hanson died this
morning. A horrible, racking death. It seemed as though he wanted to tell us something. I laid my ear on his broken,
watery lips, but was unable to make out anything in- telligible from his forced moaning. Gervais actually gloated over his
death. What can it mean? Why such a meta- morphosis in the man we befriended? He owes everything to our generosity. Human
beings are utterly despicable, and
I have lost faith in them. He gloats over the misfortunes
of others. He actually smiled as we dropped poor Hanson into the sea. Imagine it!
June 17.—There is still no
wind. There is something unnatural about this floating hulk. Even the cook has noticed it.
"It ain't natural,"
he said, "for a ship to smell like this, and that Gervais fel- low's cabin, phew! It not only stunk, but—"
I
clouted him behind the ear. "You're a fool!" I shouted. "He's all right."
You have a feeling that he knows more
than ten ordinary men whenever he opens his mouth to tell one of his amaz- ing yarns. And that tale of the French fleet he
told yesterday was so real, so vivid! But it set me to thinking. I must confess the smell of Gervais' cabin did horrify
me. I entered it while Gervais was on deck, and the stench nearly laid me out. The place smelt like a charnel house. The
odor of decaying shell-fish mingled with a peculiarly offensive and acrid smell that in some way suggested newly shed
blood. Tonight I shall finish the rum. Oh, I will get gloriously drunk, but what does it matter?
June
18.—Gervais has grown currish and cynical. He has assumed the author- ity to curse my men, and refuses to speak to me.
This morning Harry Knudson went below to lie down. He was as white as a squid's belly. All I could do was to perform a
cursory examination. I told him to strip, and examined his entire body. He was pitifully lean and blood- less. Something
had bitten him in the chest. A round discoloration showed plainly on the center of his chest, and in the very middle were
two sharp incisions, from which blood and pus trickled omi- nously. I didn't like the looks of it and told him so. Harry
smiled grimly and turned over in his bunk.
June 19.—Gervais seems to have ap-
pointed himself king of the ship. He does whatever he pleases. This morning he cut a
strip of sail down and impro- vised a novel marquee for himself on the poop-deck. All during the late afternoon he
reclined under the canvas, smoking his briar and gazing reflectively out to sea. None of the men approached him; they want
as little as possible to do with so temperamental a person. We were all occupied forward when we heard a tri- umphant
shout from Gervais. He was jumping around under his marquee and pointing over the side. It was Hanson's body, floating
face upward, not ten feet from the ship. His nose was gone, and his cheekbones protruding through the wasted skin. The
water was so still he seemed to hang there, leering up at the ship. When we buried him yesterday, we sewed his body in
canvas and weighted it. Evidently the stitching had loosened, and the suddenly released, air-filled body had popped to the
top like a cork.
June 20.—An unaccountable incident occurred on deck today. I am obliged to believe that Gervais
is insane. Roland Perresson was working on the braces, and his hand accidentally slipped. He cut himself badly. The blood
gushed down his arm, and we all feared he had severed an artery. His under lip trembled, but he didn't complain or cry
out. He simply walked with unsteady steps toward the fo'castle. Gervais was on the poop-deck, in his throne room, as we
have begun to call it. The sight of Perresson's uncertain steps somehow excited him. He made for Perresson. Perresson saw
him com- ing, and stopped, a little puzzled, a little hopeful. In a moment Gervais had seized upon the injured arm. He
gripped it forcefully and stuck it under his shirt Gervais was sweating and acting like one possessed. I feared for
Perresson. The situation was unhealthy. I stepped for- ward to interfere. But when I reached
them they were free of each other. Per- resson held his
arm and groaned.
"There's no blood on it,'' he bellowed, "and it's as cold as ice.''
I could only
stand and stare. Is Ger- vais mad, or has he mastered some mon- strous system of healing?
June 21.—Roland
Perresson is dead. I disposed of the body this morning. It was white and rigid, and I noticed an extraordinary
discoloration above the wound on his wrist. From the elbow down, his arm was a bright green. I can- not explain it.
Blood-poisoning, perhaps; but I will stand little more from Ger- vais. His presence has become odious to
me.
Something walked again tonight. It bent above my bed and I heard it gulp. We have become so few, we are
mentally drawn together for protection against an alien evil. We are not certain what it is, but we must do
something.
JUNE 22.—This morning after a half- hearted gesture at making my rounds I retired to the ship's
library. It was fair- ly cool there and I thought I could get away from myself for a bit, although there is no breaking
from this ship and sea and sky. But now I wish I hadn't. I picked up an old water-stained parchment volume, called The
Islands of France, a ridiculous miscellany of witchcraft and spirits. I chuckled to myself as I in- dolently flicked the
pages until my inter- est wras finally arrested by the childish awe and belief in the following:
"There lies a
beautiful island called Gautier off the southwest tip of France. You may walk from heavy 'Druid' depths of the forest to
the brilliant blue glare of the ocean, where the fishermen spread out their nets of bright blue cord to dry, and
fisherwomen make out at low tide to gather mussels, sold in the shell for two cents a quart. If you ask them what
is
the next land they reply, 'L'Amerique est
la-bas'—America is over there. They are a naïve folk, few of them ever having been away from the island. They will gladly
tell you about the old legends of the island, and what's more, believe them. There was the unfortunate Su- zanne, the
young girl, cruel or unfaithful to her lover, who was changed into a big black dog or female wolf. Unless she repented or
a miracle restored her to her natural shape, she was doomed to lope, howling through the black naked woods, longing for
death, until killed. Only a special bullet, properly blessed, could kill her, which made it difficult.
"There
were also the beak-faced hunch- backs, that lived in the sea. These de- formed people made periodical raids on the good
villagers. If they were dis- pleased they had the unpleasant habit of dragging corpses through the streets with loud
cries. And it didn't take much to displease them, although no one could remember their ever having perpetrated bodily
harm.
"There were the 'slacks' or noisy drones. Spirits of those that had met a violent death, they wandered
through the night, repeating the cries of agony with which they had died, often from age to age. The old fisherwomen even
yet hear them howling on long winter nights.
"There wrere, and according to the belief of many still are,
sorcerers and sorceresses; they are looked upon as out- siders, feared, hated and never touched. It is a form of our
ancient and respect- able belief in witchcraft. If you meet one in your path, to avoid destruction you must immediately
make the sign of the cross, seize a piece of earth, and hold it above your head, because between two pieces of earth, the
ground under your feet and the piece held in a quivering hand above your head, no evil spirit can harm you.
"It is a dangerous sign on this island when those little
corpse-dragging dwarfs ring a bell as they go along, for that means another death; a bad sign also if a church bell rings
without any hand touching it.
"Those are still living who have seen the dames blanches—white ladies—howl- ing in
the night at church doors, seeking salvation and relief.
"Alain Gervais, the villagers relate, was swimming with
other youths of his age in the St. Jacques basin; of a frolic- some and adventurous nature, he swam some distance from
shore. According to another youth who was making his way to Alain at all possible speed, he took what seemed an
intentional surface dive, and did not appear again. Many hours were spent fruitlessly diving for his body. A few years
later, one of the boys, now grown into a man, was stationed at the watch of a fishing-boat, when he saw the rough
caricature of a man, diving and breaking for air a short distance from his craft. He insisted he recognized Ger-
vais."
A few lame conjectures followed, on the ability of a man being enabled to live at the bottom of the
sea.
I remember flinging the book from me as if it were some abhorrent dead thing, and rising weakly, I made my
way on deck with a troubled mind.
June 23.—I buttonholed Peter Bunce this morning forward of the lee scup- pers.
I told him in ragged, forceful ex- clamations just what I had read. He ponderously turned my story over in his numbed
brain. His eyes rolled crazily and his mouth sagged. His face turned yellow, but he caught himself with de-
termination.
"We must act at once," he said.
June 24.—Our plans have been worked out. Peter and I are
to bunk together
tonight. We have my revolver and a
razor-sharp, double-edged knife. Peter contends that the knife will be necessary. He insistently babbles of vampires and
other blood-sucking demons. His obses- sion took an active form this noon. He jumped up and stepped around deftly,
brandishing his knife in dark corners, and lunging wildly in offensive alacrity, cutting an imaginary victim to bits. I
smiled rather wanly. Finally, exhausted, he slumped down on a stool, his head between his hands. My smile faded as I
contemplated his abject dejection. Frank- ly, we don't know what to expect.
June 25.—It is over—poor Peter is
gone—but Gervais will trouble us no more. I am stunned, horrified, but I owe it to Peter to write it all out.
I
lay awake in my bunk, flat on my back, and the gnawed beams above me twitched like raw tendons. I had that tight, sick
feeling of excitement twisting my stomach. We distinctly heard the door creak on its hinges. Something poised itself in
the doorway. The door closed and it slid snake-like into the room. We could hear the thing gulp. Peter gripped my arm. I
made ready to strike a match. I stiffened until its soft, slimy approach became unbearable; then I waited until it swayed
at the foot of my bunk, until its green, glassy eyes were vaguely discernible in the almost total blackness. It was
watching me, and I realized it could see in the dark.
I clawed at the match, lit it, and with a frantically
shaking hand carried it to the tallow wick, and then—it sprang. But it didn't spring at me. It went higher and got Peter
by the neck. I could hear him choke and gasp. In passing me the thing had knocked the match from my hand, plunging the
room once more into total darkness. I was paralyzed, unable to move or think. I sat on the edge of my bunk, deathly sick,
and my heart
seemed to come up in my throat. The small room careened
drunkenly. I final- ly became conscious of two dark objects struggling on the floor. I heard a gulp- ing and a low
moaning, and then the still night was rent with Peter's forced screams of horror. "Oh Lord, where are the
rest?''
He shrieked and shrieked, and between the screams he vomited a torrent of jumbled words. "Green—eyes!
Ugh! Ooze! Mouth! Wet!"
His last throttled shriek lashed at me like a whip. I finally managed another match and
lit it. I kept my eyes averted, and carried the match quickly to the candle-wick. I knew that if I looked at the thing on
the floor I would drop the match. I waited until the sickly glow flared, and then—I looked. Something was on top of Peter.
It covered him and seemed about to absorb him. In its evil, distorted features I recognized a carica- ture of Gervais, but
the evil in the man had sprouted. It had turned him into a jellyish, fishy monstrosity. His middle was festooned with soft
flesh. His legs and arms actually gave. But worst of all, the body of the creature was covered with greenish scales, and
it had pulsating pink suckers on its chest. These were lustily at work on Peter.
I thought of the revolver on my
bunk, found it, and gripped the butt and lev- eled it. I aimed it at Peter and the thing on the floor. I fired at the two
of them, for I honestly had no intention of sparing Peter. I knew that Peter would not want it, and the mute appeal in his
eyes was unmistakable. Again objects refused to retain their identity in my sight. I cracked mentally.
I have a
vague recollection of bringing two bodies on deck. I remember one was light, brittle and hollow like an empty match-box.
The other, wet and strangely
heavy, silvered its
path with slime as I laboriously dragged it up the companion- way. In the dim half-glow of the ship's watchlights, I bent
over the bodies. Peter was done for, there was no doubt about it. My merciful shot at short range had found its mark, and
one temple was singed with powder. I stooped and lifted him tenderly; then with a sob I lowered him gently into the ocean.
I stood for a moment looking over the side, thinking of the finality of it all, and watching the ever widening ripples on
the surface of the oily water.
Finally I turned to regard what was Gervais. With a mingling of loathing and
interest I unhooked a lantern and set it near his head. The sickly glow jumped and played on the cruel, twisted features.
To my surprize I perceived a slit deep in the folds of his neck, very much like the breathing-organs of a fish. The gill
was rigid and distended now, revealing a dark inner lining of red. The body exuded an oily scum, malodorous even in the
clean salt air. I hunched closer over the body, and to my amazement a look of ineffable happiness and gratitude had
suffused Gervais' face. Was it the weird light, the softening touch of death, or final libera- tion? No one will ever
know. But I do not think it requires an answer. I am ready to be finished with the entire mat- ter, just as Gervais is
finished. I later went down into Gervais' cabin and breathed deeply of the fresh, clean air that blew through
it.
June 26.—We are saved. There is a breeze this morning. The heavy canvas is bellying, and all hands are busy
forward. The gray sky above us is sagging like a wet blanket filled with spring rains. Our casks are on deck waiting for
the down- pour. I thank God that we are safely headed toward France.
The young reporter obtained a long interview with the Vandervere heir, but an astonishing surprize
awaited him when he returned to the newspaper office
DAVE
FRENCH wound his way in and out among the scattered desks in the city room of the News-Telegram to one corner where a
thin, cabinet board partition separated the office of Davis, the city editor, from the news writers.
Without
hesitating, he strode through the half-open door and faced the huge, red-faced man who sat behind a desk covered with
telephones and scattered sheets of copy-paper.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked, looking down at the
man.
Davis rapidly scrawled words on a sheet of paper. He stepped, picked up a lighted cigar from the edge of
his desk, and puffed out a cloud of smoke. Then he looked up at French.
"Tomorrow," he said slowly, "is the
fourteenth. And, being a reporter, that wouldn't mean anything to you, would it? But it so happens that Judson Van-
dervere comes of age on that day. Know what I mean?"
French's face lighted up.
"The steel millions!"
he exclaimed. "The boy comes into the money!"
"Exactly. And we want a story. Get out to the house and see him.
If he won't see you, burn the house down. He'll come out then. Get an interview. Earn your pay!"
French left the
office and made his way back to his desk. He got his hat, trench coat, and a memorandum pad, and left the
building.
Outside it was raining. French pulled the
trench-coat collar up around his neck and turned the brim of his hat down to shield his face from the rain. Then he hailed
a taxi and headed for Shore Oaks, where the Vandervere estate was located.
All during the ride, while the taxi
rolled in and out among the heavy down- town traffic and finally passed into the suburbs, French turned over in his mind
what he knew about Judson Vandervere. He did not know very much.
Right now, he thought, the heir to the steel
millions was twenty years old. Five or six years before, he had been just an undersized kid going to some exclusive
country day school and thinking nothing at all about his father's money. Then one day he had quit the school and come to
town to study under a private tutor at his home. Shortly afterward, his father had died, leaving him an orphan with
several million dollars.
It had dawned on young Vandervere then what his very generous allowance could do. And
overnight he had become the nucleus of a mad bunch of playboys and girls who made the night spots, played polo, insulted
reporters sent to interview them, got drunk and drove ex- pensive foreign cars, and all of that. . . .
Life for
Judson Vandervere had be- come one series of drunk driving and disorderly conduct charges after another, The perfect
example of what happens to a spoiled brat with too much money,
French concluded as the taxi turned into Drury Road,
deep in Shore Oaks.
"Stop at the Vandervere entrance," he directed the driver, and the cab rolled on for several
hundred yards more and came to a halt before the entrance to the stone wall that surrounded the mansion.
French
got out, told the driver to wait, and walked through the heavy, iron-grille gate that stood half open. He went along a
wide flagstone walk for about thirty yards, climbed steps up a slight terrace and stood in the rain on a small concrete
porch. He rapped on the huge oak door several times with the metal rapper, and waited.
Presently the door
opened, and a very tall butler dressed in a black tie and coat confronted French. His hair was ex- tremely white, and his
face was even whiter. It seemed to French that the man had the most death-like appearance of anyone he had ever
seen.
But it wasn't so much the paleness of the man's skin, nor the solemnity of his appearance, as it was the
gash in his forehead that amazed French. It was a deep, jagged cut, from which a thin trickle of blood had run down the
man's temple and caked there. Apparently it caused no pain, although it looked pain- ful enough and was sorely in need of
dressing.
The butler looked down a long, thin nose, and his deep-set gray eyes bored into
French.
"Yes?" he queried.
"I'd like to see Judson Vandervere, please," French
answered.
"Who shall I say is calling?"
"French. David French. Perhaps he won't recognize the name.
I'd like to see him for a short while on a business call."
The man hesitated, then: "Oh, I see. You're a
newspaperman. I'm sorry. Mister
Vandervere never
gives interviews to the press."
French suddenly felt cold all over. He had known it would be hard, but he had to
see Vandervere. For a moment he started to protest, but decided: "What's the use?" Then he turned to go.
The
door was almost closed behind him when he heard a youthful voice call out from inside:
"Who is it, Felton? Why
don't you show them in?"
"It's a reporter, sir," French heard Felton reply. "I didn't think you'd care to see
him."
"Oh, yes, by all means. Show him in. It's about time I let the public in on my
goings-on."
French, so happy that he trembled, turned and strode through the great door as Felton, the
ghost-like butler, holding out his hand for the reporter's hat and coat, opened it wide to receive him.
Inside
he came face to face with a young man whom he took to be Vander- vere. The man was small in stature and had an old-looking
face, even whiter than the butler's skin. His head was twisted to one side, and he kept rubbing the side of his neck with
his palm.
"I'm Jud Vandervere," he said. "Sit down and tell me what it is you want. Perhaps I can give you a
little help any- way. I'm awfully tired. Had quite a shake-up in the auto a few hours ago. Cut Felton up a bit, as you
probably no- ticed, and twisted my neck pretty badly."
French sat down in an immense sofa, made a few brief
remarks about auto- mobile accidents in general, and got out his notebook.
"I suppose you'll want to know all
about my wild life," Vandervere re- marked casually. "How many cars I've wrecked; how many times I've
been
"No, not exactly. You see, I thought I'd get a new
angle and work it in around the fact that you are coming of age tomorrow. Something, perhaps, that the public doesn't know
about. Some- thing all your own. That is, if you don't mind."
"Oh, no. I don't mind. Fact is, I'd like the
public to know some of the real things in my life. They were always so eager to gobble up the false
stuff.
"First, I want to say this: I'm through with all the old wildness. You can quote me directly on
that."
His voice seemed to float along, and his eyes gazed across the room through a French window into the slow
rain out- side.
"No more drunkenness. No more night life. I won't be making your head- lines and your scandal
columns any more after today. It's a new life for me. Yes, a new life."
A sort of dreaminess crept into the
steel heir's weary, dark eyes as he paused in his speech to sigh and rub his neck some more.
French rapidly
jotted notes on the memorandum pad and paused occasional- ly to watch the strange expression on the young man's face.
Vandervere talked on and on, for an hour or so, giving inti- mate details of his life: small, half-for- gotten incidents
that lodge precariously, as it were, in one's mind.
Finally, when it was obvious to French that the interview
was at an end, he arose from the deep sofa, thanked Vandervere for granting him the privilege, and got his hat and coat
from Felton, who still had the dry blood caked on his temple.
At the door young Vandervere stood for a moment
and talked with French,
and his last words to the
reporter were: "Remember, no more wild times for me. You can quote me on that. It's a new life from now on."
For
a moment it seemed that the flick- er of a smile crossed the heir's face. Then Felton closed the great oak door, and the
rain began to beat in French's face once more.
Somehow, he was glad to be outside in the rain again, away from
the strange coldness that the inside of the great old mansion presented; glad to be away from the strange old butler with
the gashed and bloody forehead; away from the white-faced young heir who spoke in such a dreamy way of his resolve to put
the old life behind him.
The interview had not been at all as French had expected it to be. In his mind he had
pictured Vandervere as a smug, self-satisfied young snob who would make insulting remarks to him and decline to grant an
interview. It had been so different.
The taxi was still waiting near the iron-grille entrance gate. French
entered it and was whisked back to the city, to the spot from which he had departed something like two hours before. He
got out, paid the driver, and entered the News-Telegram building.
STRIDING rapidly through the lobby of the
building, he reached the elevator and was carried to the fourth floor. He got out and wound his way through the city room,
past his desk, to the cabinet- board partition that blocked off Davis' office.
Smiling broadly, the memorandum
pad flopping back and forth in his hand, he walked through the door and faced the red-faced man inside.
"Boy,
was that a cinch!" he exclaimed, beaming at the city editor, who had not yet looked up from the
paper-littered
desk. "I can't understand why so many guys always
thought that Vandervere fel- low was hard to get at. I got everything I asked and more too. Why, the guy was a phonograph.
And it's all in here." He tapped the memorandum pad.
Then, for the first time, Davis looked up, and the
expression on his face fright- ened French momentarily. He recovered quickly, however, and said:
"Well, I'll get
to work on writing it. Won't take long. I just wanted to let you know I got it okey."
Davis' red face became
even redder as it slowly contorted in a rage that only city editors can summon up.
"You lunkhead!" he stormed.
"You nitwit! You're fired! There's no place around here for men like you, who call themselves reporters. Get
out!"
French was startled first, then fright- ened. He stammered:
"But b-boss, I—I don't
under—"
"So you don't understand, huh? I thought you wouldn't. Hell, French, you knew Vandervere wasn't going to
be easy to see. In fact, you would have considered yourself very damned lucky to get into his house. So when you couldn't
see him, you decided to frame an interview for me, and you thought I'd be sucker enough to take it. But the funny thing,
French, is this: neither one of us knew Jud Vandervere was out of
town and had been for the past three or four days."
"B-but w-wait. I did
see—" French stuttered.
Davis interrupted him: "On the way out, while getting your stuff together, you can get
your check. And you might read this, too. It came in on the teletype a few minutes after you left the
office."
He handed French a sheet of typewrit- ten paper, and the former reporter turned and left the office,
reading the sheet as he wove in and out among the desks.
He sank in the chair at his desk, feel- ing queer deep
down in the pit of his stomach. And it all came to him then: the butler with the gashed forehead, the white-faced young
heir, the strange cold- ness about the house. But he thought, this couldn't be true! Things like this didn't happen! But
it was there, all too clearly, on the printed sheet before him:
Alton, April 13.—Judson Vandervere, scion to the
immense Vandervere steel fortune, and Henry Felton, butler at the Vandervere home in Shore Oaks, were killed instantly
early today when the car young Vandervere was driving apparently skidded on the wet pavement and went over an embankment
near here.
Vandervere's neck was broken in the crash, while Felton, who was thrown through the wind- shield,
died when a piece of glass went through his forehead and pierced his brain.
The bodies were positively
identified by Vander- vere's uncle, who came along a short while after the accident. The three of them had been part of a
group who spent the past several days at the Vandervere hunting-lodge on Moose Head Lake.
It is a well known
fact that Vandervere was a very reckless driver and had been arraigned sev- eral times for . . .
A tale of stark horror in a gangster's hide-out in the dread cellar of an evil house in
legend-haunted Arkham
IN ARKHAM, where ancient gables point
like wizard's fingers to the sky, strange tales are told. But then, strange tales are always current in Ark- ham. There is
a tale for every rotting ruin, a story for every little corpse-eye window that stares out at the sea when the fog comes
up.
Here, fantastic fancy seems to flourish, nourished at the shriveled witch-paps of the town itself, sucking
the graveyards dry of legend, and draining at the dark dugs of superstition.
For Arkham was a queer place, once;
abode of witch and warlock, familiar and fiend. In olden days the King's men cleared the town of wizardry. Again, in 1818,
the new Government stepped in to destroy some particularly atrocious bur- rows in and about some of the more ancient
houses and, incidentally, to dig up a graveyard better left untouched. Then, in 1869, came the great immigrant panic in
Old Town Street, when the moldering mansion of Cyrus Hook was burned to the ground by fear-crazed
foreigners.
Even since then there have been scares. The affair of the "witch-house" and the peculiar episodes
attendant upon the fate of certain missing children at All Hallows time have caused their share of talk.
But
that isn't why the "G-men" stepped in. The Federal Government is usually uninterested in supernatural stories. That is,
they were, up to the time I told the authorities about the death of Joe Regetti. That's how they happened to come; I
brought them.
Because, you see, I was with Joe
Regetti just before he died, and shortly after. I didn't see him die, and I'm thankful for that. I don't think I could
have stood watching if what I suspect is true.
It's because of what I suspect that I went to the Government for
help, They've sent men down here now, to in- vestigate, and I hope they find enough to convince them that what I have told
them is actual fact. If they don't find the tun- nels, or I was mistaken about the trap- door, at least I can show them
Joe Reget- ti's body. That ought to convince any- body, I guess.
I can't blame them for being skeptical, though.
I was skeptical myself, once, and so were Joe Regetti and his mob, I sup- pose. But since then I have learned that it is
wiser not to scoff at what one does not understand. There are more things on earth than those who walk about upon its
surface—there are others that creep and crawl below.
2
I HAD never heard of Joe Regetti until I was
kidnapped. That isn't so hard to understand. Regetti was a gangster, and a stranger in the town. I am descended from Sir
Ambrose Abbott, one of the original settlers.
At the time of which I speak, I was living alone in the family
place on Bascom Street. The life of a painter de- mands solitude. My immediate family was dead, and although socially
promi-
"There was something creeping across the cellar floor."
nent through accident of birth, I had but few friends. Consequently, it is hard to
understand why Regetti chose me to kid- nap first. But then, he was a stranger.
Later I learned that he had been
in town only a week, staying ostensibly at a hotel with three other men, none of whom was subsequently
apprehended.
But Joe Regetti was a totally unknown factor in my mind until that night when I left Tarleton's
party at his home on Sewell Street.
It was one of the few invitations I had accepted in the past year. Tarleton
had urged me, and as he was an old friend, I obliged. It had been a pleasant evening.
Brent, the psychiatrist, was there, and Colonel Warren, as well as my old com-
panions of college days, Harold Gauer and the Reverend Williams. After a pleasant enough evening, I left, planning to walk
home as I usually did, by choice.
It was a lovely evening—with a dead moon, wrapped in a shroud of clouds,
riding the purple sky. The old houses looked like silver palaces in the mystic moonlight; deserted palaces in a land where
all but memories are dead. For the streets of Arkham are bare at midnight, and over all hangs the age-old enchant- ment of
days gone by.
sky, and stood like furtive conspirators in little groups
together, while the wind whispered its plots through their branches. It was a night to inspire the fabulous thoughts and
imaginative morbidities I loved so well.
I walked slowly, contentedly, my thoughts free and far awray. I never
saw the car following me, or the man lurking ahead in the gloom. I strolled past the great tree in front of the Carter
house, and then, without warning, balls of fire burst within my head, and I plunged, unconscious, into waiting
arms.
When I recovered, I was already there in the cellar, lying on a bench.
It was a large cellar—an
old cellar. Wherever I looked there was stone and cobwebs. Behind me lay the stairs down which I had been carried. To the
left was a little room, like a fruit-cellar. Far down the stone wall to the right I could dis- cern the looming outlines
of a coal-pile, though furnace there was none.
Directly in the space before me was a table and two chairs. The
table was oc- cupied by an oil lamp and a pack of cards in solitaire formation. The chairs were likewise occupied, by two
men. My cap- tors.
One of them, a big, red-faced man with the neck of a hog, was speaking.
"Yeah,
Regetti. We got him easy. We follow him like you say, from house, and grab him in front of tree. Right away come
here—nobody saw not'ing."
"Where's Slim and the Greek?" asked the man who was playing solitaire, look- ing up.
He was short, slim, and sallow. His hair was dark, his complexion swarthy. Italian, I decided. Probably the leader. I
realized, of course, that I had been kidnapped. Where I was or who my captors were I could not say. My throbbing head
cleared, and I had enough sense not to bluster or start trouble. These weren't local men—not with those
clothes
—and there was an ominous bulge in the dark
man's coat-pocket. I decided to play 'possum and await developments.
The hog-necked man was replying to the
other's question.
"I tell Slim and Greek to go back to hotel with car," he said. "Just like you say,
boss."
"Good work, Polack," said the other, lighting a cigar.
"I do my best for you, Joe Regetti,"
said the big man, in his broken dialect.
"Yeah. Sure. I know you do," the swarthy Regetti replied. "Just keep it
up, and we're going to be all set, see? Once I put the snatch on a few more of these birds, we'll clean up. The local
coppers are all stiffs, and as soon as I get a line on some more of these old families we'll be taking in the dough
regular."
I BEG your pardon," I said.
"Oh, awake, eh?" The thin Italian didn't move from the table.
"Glad to hear it. Sorry the boys had to get rough, mister. Just sit tight and everything's going to be
swell."
"I'm glad to hear that," I replied, sar- castically. "You see, I'm not accustomed to being
kidnapped."
"Well, let me handle it," said Joe Regetti. "I'll show you the ropes."
"Thanks," I
retorted. "You already have." And I pointed to the ones that bound my hands and feet.
"Sense of humor, eh? O. K.
Hope your friends come across with the dough after they get this letter I wrote, or maybe the rest isn't going to be so
funny."
"What next?" I said, desperately hop- ing that something would turn up to give me an opening of some
sort.
"You'll see soon enough," advised the man. "First, I'm going to sit up with you down here for the rest of
the night."
"Why not?" rasped Regetti, harshly. "What's the matter with you, Polack— turning yellow on me,
eh?"
"I'm not," whined the man. "But you know what was happen here before, boss —how they find Tony Fellippo's
leg ly- in' on floor with no body left."
"Lay off the bedtime stories," Regetti chuckled. "You yokels make me
sick with that stuff."
"But dot's true, boss. They never was for to find any more of old Tony Fellippo —just his
leg on cellar floor. Dot why his mob go 'way so quick. They no want for to die, too."
"What do you mean, die?"
snarled Regetti, testily.
The Pole's face paled, and his voice sank to a hushed whisper that blended with the
cellar's darkness; a shadow voice in a shadow world.
"Dot what everyone say, boss. Dot house is witched—like
haunted one, may- be. Nobody put Tony Fellippo on spot— dot feller, he too dam' smart guy. But he sit all alone here one
night, and some- t'ing come up from earth and swallow him, all but leg."
"Will you shut up?" Regetti cut in.
"That's a lot of hooey. Some wise guy put the heat on Fellippo and got rid of the body. Only his leg was left to scare off
the rest of his mob. Are you trying to tell me a ghost killed him, sap?"
"Yah, sure," insisted the Pole. "No man
kill Tony. Not like you say, any- how. Find leg, all right, but all over is lot blood on floor, and little pieces skin. No
feller kill man like dot—only spirit. Vampire, maybe."
"Nuts!" Regetti was scornfully biting his
cigar.
"Maybe so. But look—here is blood,"
And the Pole pointed a stubby finger at the floor and cellar wall to the left. Regetti followed it with his
gaze.
There was blood, all right—great, rusty blobs of blood, spattered all over the floor and wall like the
pigments on the palette of a mad painter.
"No man kill odder feller like dot," the Pole muttered. "Not even ax
make such mess. And you know what fellers they say about Fellippo's leg—was all full of tooth-marks."
"Right,"
mused the other, thought- fully. "And the rest of his gang did get out of here pretty fast after it happened. Didn't try
to hide the body, or do any- thing about it." He frowned. "But that doesn't prove any balony about ghosts, or vampires.
You been reading too many bum magazines lately, Polack."
He laughed.
"What about iron door?" grumbled
the Pole, accusingly, his red face flushing. "What about iron door back of coal in coal-pile, huh? You know what fellers
down by Black Jim's place say about house with iron door in cellar."
"Yeah." Regetti's face
clouded.
"You no look by iron door yet, boss," the man continued. "Maybe you find somet'ing behind door yet,
like fellers say—dot where t'ing dot got Fellippo come from; dot where it hide. Police they not find door either, when
they come. Just find leg, and blood, and shut up house. But fellers know. They tell me plenty about house with iron door
in cellar; say it bad place from old days when witch-fellers live here. It lead to hill back of house; cemetery, maybe.
Perhaps dot's why nobody live here so long—afraid of what hides on other side of door; what come out and kill Tony
Fellippo. I know about house with iron door in cellar, all right."
I KNEW about the house, too. So that's where I was! In the
old Chambers house on Pringle Street! Many a story I've heard from the old folks when I was a boy about the old man,
Ezekiel Cham- bers, whose wizard tricks bequeathed him such an unsavory reputation in Colonial days. I knew about Jonathan
Dark, the other owner, who had been tried for smuggling just before the terrible days of 1818, and the abhorrent practise
of grave- robbing he had been said to pursue in the ancient cemetery directly behind the house, on the
hill.
Many peculiar rumors were circulated about the moldering house with the iron door in the cellar at this
time—about the door, particularly, which Dark was said to use as a passageway for bringing his stolen cadavers back to
dispose of. It was even claimed that the door had never been opened when Dark was tried, be- cause of his astounding and
hideous claim that the key which locked it was on the other side. Dark had died during the trial, while in prison,
babbling blasphe- mies that no man dared believe; mon- strous hints of what lay beneath the old graveyard on the hill; of
tunnels and bur- rows and secret vaults used in witch-days for unhallowed rites. He spoke of ten- ants in these vaults,
too, and of what sometimes would come to visit the house from below when a wizard invoked it with the proper spells and
sacrifice. There was more, too—but then, Dark was quite mad. At least, everyone thought it better to believe
so.
Old tales die. The house had stood deserted for many years, until most men forgot the reason for which it
had been forsaken, ascribing its vacancy only to age. The public today were utterly un- aware of the legends. Only the old
ones remembered—the old ones who whis- pered their stories to me when I was a boy.
So this was the Dark house to which I had been brought! And this was the very cellar
of the tales in question! I gathered from the remarks between Regetti and the superstitious Pole that another gang had
recently used it for a hideaway until the death of their leader; indeed, I even vaguely remembered some newspaper reports
of Tony Fellippo's mysterious murder.
And now Regetti had come from New York to use it as a
base.
Clever scheme of his, evidently—com- ing to an old New England town and kidnapping the local gentry to
hold for ransom; then hiding them away in some old, deserted house so conveniently pro- tected by superstition. I supposed
that there would be more victims after me, too: the man was smart and cunning enough to get away with it.
These
thoughts flashed through my mind during the argument between the Pole and his leader. But their altercation came to an
abrupt halt.
"I wish you get out of here," the Pole was saying. "If you stay only one night dot t'ing he come.
Dot's all Tony Fel- lippo stay."
"Shut up, you fool. Didn't we stay here last night, too, before the job? And
nothing happened."
"Yeah, sure. I know. But we stay up- stairs, not by cellar. Why not keep feller
upstairs?"
"Because we can't afford to risk being seen," Regetti snapped, wearily. "Now, cut the
chatter."
He turned to me.
"Listen, you. I'm sending this guy out with a ransom letter right now, to
your friends back at the party. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and sit tight. But any funny business means
you're through, see?"
him up." Regetti indicated a fruit-cellar
adjacent to the stairs.
The Pole, still grumbling, dragged me across the floor and into the room. He lit a
candle, casting strange shadows over the cobwebbed, dust-drowned shelving on the walls. Jars of preserves still stood un-
touched, storing, perhaps, the crop of a hundred years ago. Broken jars were still strewn about on the tottering table. As
I glanced about, the Pole tossed me into a chair beside the rickety board, and pro- ceeded to lash me to it firmly with a
stout rope. I was not gagged or blindfolded again, though the choking atmosphere about me served as a good substitute for
both.
He left me, closing the door. I was alone in the candle-lit quiet.
I strained my ears, and was
rewarded by hearing Regetti dismiss his henchman for the night, evidently to deliver the ransom note to the proper
authorities. He, Regetti, would stay behind on guard.
"Don't run into any ghosts on your way," he called after
his companion, as the big Pole lumbered up the stairs.
A slamming outer door was his only response. From the
ensuing quiet I judged Regetti had gone back to his soli- taire.
Meanwhile, I looked about for some means of
escape. I found it at last, on the table beside me. The broken jars— glass edges to cut my bonds!
Purposefully I
edged my chair closer to the table end. If I could get a piece of that glass in my hands . . .
As I moved, I
strained my ears once more to make sure that any noise made by the chair would be inaudible to Regetti, waiting outside.
There was no sound from the chair as I reached the table, and I sighed with relief as I maneuvered my pinioned hands until
they grasped a piece of glass firmly. Then I began to rub it
against the edge of the rope which bound them.
It was slow work. Minutes
ticked away into hours, and still no sound from out- side, save a muffled series of snores. Regetti had fallen asleep over
his cards. Good! Now, if I could get my wrists free and work on my feet, I would be able to make it.
My right
hand was loose at last, though my wrist was damp with mingled sweat and blood. Cutting away from behind was not a precise,
calculated sort of job. Quickly I finished the work on my left, then rubbed my swollen fingers and bent over to saw at the
ropes on my legs.
Then I heard the sound.
It was the grating of rusty hinges. Anyone who has lived in
archaic houses all his life learns to recognize the pecu- liar, eery clang. Rusty hinges grating from the cellar beyond .
. . from an iron door? A scuffling sound among the coal . . . the iron door is concealed by the coal- pile. Fellippo only
stayed down here one night. All they found was his leg.
Jonathan Dark, babbling on his death- bed. The door
locked from the other side. Tunnels to the graveyard. What lurks in graveyards, ancient and unseen, then creeps from
crypts to feast?
A scream rose in my throat, but I choked it back. Regetti still snored. Whatever was going on
in the outer room, I must not wake him and lose my only chance of escape. Instead, I had best hasten and free my legs. I
worked fever- ishly, but my ears were alert for develop- ments.
They came. The noise in the coal-pile abruptly
ceased, and I went limp with relief. Perhaps rats were at work.
A moment later I would have given anything to
have heard the coal rattling again, if only to drown out the new noise.
There was something creeping across the
cellar floor; something crawling, as if
on hands and knees; something with long nails or claws
that rasped and scraped. There was something croaking and chuck- ling as it moved through the cellar dark; something that
wheezed with bestial, sick- ening laughter, like the death-rattle in the throat of a plague-stricken corpse.
Oh,
how slyly it crept—how slowly, cautiously, and sinisterly! I could hear it slinking in the shadows, and my fingers raced
at their work, even while my brain grew numb.
Traffic between tombs and a wizard's house—traffic with things the
old wives say can never die.
Regetti snored on.
What bides below, in caverns, that can be invoked by
the proper spell—or the sight of prey?
Creep.
And then . . .
REGETTI awoke. I heard him
scream, once. He didn't even have time to get up or draw his gun. There was a demoniac scurrying across the floor, as if
made by a giant rat. Then the faint sound of shredding flesh, and over all, a sudden ghoulish baying that conjured up
worlds of nightmare horror in my shattered brain.
Above the howling came a series of low, almost animal moans,
and agonized phrases in Italian, cries for mercy, prayers, curses.
Claws make no sound as they sink into flesh,
and yellow fangs are silent till they grate on bone. . . .
My left leg was free, then my right. Now I slashed at
the rope around my waist. Suppose it came in here?
The baying ceased, but the silence was haggard with
horror.
There are some banquets without toasts. . . .
And now, once again, moans. My spine shivered.
All around me the
shadows grinned, for outside was
revelry as in the olden days. Revelry, and a thing that moaned, and moaned, and moaned.
Then I was loose. As the
moaning died away in the darkness, I cut the final strands of rope that bound me to my chair. . . .
I did not
leave at once, for there were still sounds in the other room which I did not like; sounds which caused my soul to shrivel,
and my sanity to succumb before a nameless dread.
I heard that pawing and padding rustle along the floor, and
after the shrieking had ceased, a worse noise took its place— a burbling noise—as if someone or some- thing was sucking
marrow from a bone. And the terrible, clicking sound; the feed- ing sound of gigantic teeth. . . .
Yes, I
waited; waited until the crunch- ing had mercifully ceased, and then waited on until the rustling slithered back into the
cellar, and disappeared. When I heard the brazen clang of a rusty door grate in the distance, I felt safe.
It
was then that I left at last; passing through the now-deserted cellar, up the stairs, and out unguarded doors into the
silver security of a moonlit night. It was very good to see the street-lights again, and hear the trolleys rumble from
afar. My taxi took me to the precinct station, and after I had told my story the police did the rest.
I told my
story, but I did not mention the iron door against the hillside. That I saved for the ears of the Government men. Now they
can do what they like about it, since I am far away. But I did not want anybody prying around too closely to that door
while I remained in the city, because even now I cannot—dare not—say what might lurk behind it. The hillside leads to the
graveyard, and the graveyard to places far beneath. And in olden days there was a curious traffic betwixt tomb and tunnel
and a wiz-
ard's house; traffic not confined to men
alone. . . .
I'm pretty positive about all this, too. Not alone from the disappearance of the Feflippo gang, or
the wildly whispered tales of the foreign men: not alone from these, but from a much more concrete and ghastly
proof.
It is a proof I don't care to speak about even today—a proof that the police know, but which is
fortunately deleted from newspaper accounts of the tragedy.
What men will find behind that iron door I will not
venture to say, but I think I know why only Feilippo's leg was found before. I did not look at the iron door before I left
the house, but I did see something else in the cellar as I passed
through to the stairs. That is why I ran frantically up the steps; that is why I went
to the Government, and that is why I never want to go back to witch-haunted, age-accursed Arkham. I found
proof.
Because when I went out, I saw Joe Regetti sitting in his chair by the table in the cellar. The lamp was
on, and I am quite sure I saw no foot-prints. I'm glad of that. But I did see Joe Regetti sitting in his chair, and then I
knew the meaning of the screams, and the crunching, and the padding sound.
Joe Regetti, sitting in his chair in
the cellar lamplight, with his naked body chewed entirely to ribbons by gigantic and unhuman teeth!
Weird Story Reprint
The Hounds of Tindalos*
By
FRANK BELKNAP LONG, JR.
"I'M GLAD you came," said Chal- mers. He was sitting by the win- dow and his face was
very pale. Two tall candles guttered at his elbow and cast a sickly amber light over his long nose and slightly receding
chin. Chal- mers would have nothing modern about
his apartment. He had the soul of a mediæval ascetic, and he preferred il- luminated manuscripts to automobiles, and
leering stone gargoyles to radios and adding-machines.
As I crossed the room to the settee he had cleared for me
I glanced at his desk and was surprized to discover that he had
been studying the mathematical formulæ of a celebrated
contemporary physicist, and that he had covered many sheets of thin yellow paper with curious geometric
designs.
"Einstein and John Dee are strange bedfellows," I said as my gaze wandered from his mathematical charts
to the sixty or seventy quaint books that comprised his strange little library. Plotinus and Emanuel Moscopulus, St.
Thomas Aqui- nas and Frenicle de Bessy stood elbow to elbow in the somber ebony bookcase, and chairs, table and desk were
littered with pamphlets about mediaeval sorcery and witchcraft and black magic, and all of the valiant glamorous things
that the modern world has repudiated.
Chalmers smiled engagingly, and passed me a Russian cigarette on a curi-
ously carved tray. "We are just discover- ing now," he said, "that the old alchem- ists and sorcerers were two-thirds
right, and that your modern biologist and ma- terialist is nine-tenths wrong."
"You have always scoffed at
modern science," I said, a little impatiently.
"Only at scientific dogmatism," he re- plied. "I have always been
a rebel, a champion of originality and lost causes; that is why I have chosen to repudiate the conclusions of contemporary
biolo- gists."
"And Einstein?" I asked.
"A priest of transcendental mathemat- ics!" he murmured
reverently. "A pro- found mystic and explorer of the great suspected
"Then you do not entirely despise
science.
"Of course not," he affirmed. "I mere- ly distrust the scientific positivism of the past fifty years,
the positivism of Haeckel and Darwin and of Mr. Bertrand Russell. I believe that biology has failed pitifully to explain
the mystery of man's origin and destiny."
"Give
them time," I retorted.
Chalmers' eyes glowed. "My friend," he murmured, "your pun is sublime. Give them time.
That is precisely what I would do. But your modern biologist scoffs at time. He has the key but he re- fuses to use it.
What do we know of time, really? Einstein believes that it is rela- tive, that it can be interpreted in terms of space, of
curved space. But must we stop there? When mathematics fails us can we not advance by—insight?"
"You are
treading on dangerous ground," I replied. "That is a pitfall that your true investigator avoids. That is why modern
science has advanced so slowly. It accepts nothing that it cannot demonstrate. But you—"
"I would take hashish,
opium, all man- ner of drugs. I would emulate the sages of the East. And then perhaps I would
apprehend—"
"What?"
"The fourth dimension."
"Theosophical rubbish!"
"Perhaps. But
I believe that drugs ex- pand human consciousness. William James agreed with me. And I have dis- covered a new
one."
"A new drug?"
"It was used centuries ago by Chinese alchemists, but it is virtually unknown in
the West. Its occult properties are amaz- ing. With its aid and the aid of my mathematical knowledge I believe that I can
go back through time."
"I do not understand."
"Time is merely our imperfect percep- tion of a new
dimension of space. Time and motion are both illusions. Everything that has existed from the beginning of the world exists
now. Events that oc- curred centuries ago on this planet con- tinue to exist in another dimension of space. Events that
will occur centuries from now exist already. We cannot per- ceive their existence because we cannot
enter the dimension of space that contains
them. Human beings as we know them are merely fractions, infinitesimally small fractions of one enormous whole. Every
human being is linked with all the life that has preceded him on this planet. All of his ancestors are parts of him. Only
time separates him from his forebears, and time is an illusion and does not exist."
"I think I understand," I
murmured.
"It will be sufficient for my purpose if you can form a vague idea of what I wish to achieve. I wish
to strip from my eyes the veils of illusion that time has thrown over them, and see the beginning and the
end."
"And you think this new drug will help you?"
"I am sure that it will. And I want you to help me.
I intend to take the drug immediately. I cannot wait. I must see." His eyes glittered strangely. "I am going back, back
through time."
He rose and strode to the mantel. When he faced me again he was holding a small square box in the
palm of his hand. "I have here five pellets of the drug Liao. It was used by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tze, and while
under its influence he visioned Tao. Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things;
it con- tains the visible universe and everything that we call reality. He who apprehends the mysteries of Tao sees
clearly all that was and will be."
"Rubbish!" I retorted.
"Tao resembles a great animal, recum- bent,
motionless, containing in its enor- mous body all the worlds of our universe, the past, the present and the future. We see
portions of this great monster through a slit, which we call time. With the aid of this drug I shall enlarge the slit. I
shall behold the great figure of life, the great recumbent beast in its entirety."
"And what do you wish me to do?"
"Watch, my friend. Watch and take notes.
And if I go back too far you must recall me to reality. You can recall me by shaking me violently. If I appear to be
suffering acute physical pain you must recall me at once."
"Chalmers," I said, "I wish you wouldn't make this
experiment. You are taking dreadful risks. I don't believe that there is any fourth dimension and I em- phatically do not
believe in Tao. And I don't approve of your experimenting with unknown drugs."
"I know the properties of this
drug," he replied. "I know precisely how it affects the human animal and I know its dangers. The risk does not reside in
the drug itself. My only fear is that I may become lost in time. You see, I shall assist the drug. Before I swallow this
pellet I shall give my undivided attention to the geometric and algebraic symbols that I have traced on this paper." He
raised the mathematical chart that rested on his knee. "I shall prepare my mind for an excursion into time. I shall
approach the fourth dimension with my conscious mind before I take the drug which will enable me to exercise occult powers
of perception. Before I enter the dream world of the Eastern mystics I shall acquire all of the mathematical help that
modern science can offer. This math- ematical knowledge, this conscious ap- proach to an actual apprehension of the fourth
dimension of time will supple- ment the work of the drug. The drug will open up stupendous new vistas—the mathematical
preparation will enable me to grasp them intellectually. I have often grasped the fourth dimension in dreams, emotionally,
intuitively, but I have never been able to recall, in waking life, the occult splendors that were momentarily revealed to
me.
recall them. You will take down every- thing that I say
while I am under the influence of the drug. No matter how strange or incoherent my speech may be- come you will omit
nothing. When I awake I may be able to supply the key to whatever is mysterious or incredible. I am not sure that I shall
succeed, but if I do succeed"—his eyes were strangely luminous—"time will exist for me no longer!"
He sat down
abruptly. "I shall make the experiment at once. Please stand over there by the window and watch. Have you a fountain
pen?"
I nodded gloomily and removed a pale green Waterman from my upper vest pocket.
"And a pad,
Frank?"
I groaned and produced a memoran- dum book. "I emphatically disapprove of this experiment," I muttered.
"You're taking a frightful risk."
"Don't be an asinine old woman!" he admonished. "Nothing; that you can say
will induce me to stop now. I entreat you to remain silent while I study these charts."
He raised the charts and
studied them intently. I watched the clock on the man- tel as it ticked out the seconds, and a curious dread clutched as
my heart so that I choked.
Suddenly the clock stopped ticking, and exactly at that moment Chalmers swallowed the
drug.
I rose quickly and moved toward him, but his eyes implored me not to inter- fere. "The clock has stopped,"
he mur- mured. "The forces that control it ap- prove of my experiment. Time stopped, and I swallowed the drug. I pray God
that I shall not lose my way."
He closed his eyes and leaned back on the sofa. All of the blood, had left his
face and be was breath heavily. It
was clear that
the drug was acting with extraordinary rapidity.
"It is beginning to get dark," he mur- mured. "Write that. It
is beginning to get dark and the familiar objects in the room are fading out. I can discern them vaguely through my
eyelids, but they are fading swiftly."
I shook my pen to make the ink come and wrote rapidly in shorthand as he
con- tinued to dictate.
"I am leaving the room. The walls are vanishing and I can no longer see any of the
familiar objects. Your face, though, is still visible to me. I hope that you are writing. I think that I am about to make
a great leap—a leap through space. Or perhaps it is through time that I shall make the leap. I cannot tell. Everything is
dark, indistinct."
He sat for a, while silent, with his head sunk upon his breast. Then suddenly he stiffened
and his eyelids fluttered open. "God in heaven!" he cried. "I see!"
He was straining forward in his chair,
staring at the opposite wall. But I knew that he was looking beyond the wall and that the objects in the room no longer
existed for him. "Chalmers," I cried, "Chalmers, shall I wake you?"
"Do not!" he shrieked. "I see every- thing.
All of the billions of lives that preceded me on this planet are before me at this moment. I see men of all ages, all
races, all colors. They are fighting, killing, building, dancing, singing. They are sitting about rude fires on lonely
gray deserts, and flying through the air in monoplanes. They are riding the seas in bark canoes and enormous steamships;
they are painting bison and mammoths on the walls of dismal caves and covering huge canvases with queer futuristic
designs. I watch the migrations from Atlantis. I watch the migrations from Lemuria. I see the elder races—a strange horde
of black dwarfs overwhelming
Asia, and the Neandertalers with lowered heads
and bent knees ranging obscenely across Europe. I watch the Achæans streaming into the Greek islands, and the crude
beginnings of Hellenic culture. I am in Athens and Pericles is young. I am standing on the soil of Italy. I assist in the
rape of the Sabines; I march with the Imperial Legions. I tremble with awe and wonder as the enormous standards go by and
the ground shakes with the tread of the victorious hastati. A thousand naked slaves grovel before me as I pass in a litter
of gold and ivory drawn by night-black oxen from Thebes, and the flower-girls scream 'Ave Cœsar' as I nod and smile. I am
myself a slave on a Moorish galley. I watch the erection of a great cathedral. Stone by stone it rises, and through months
and years I stand and watch each stone as it fails into place. I am burned on a cross head downward in the thyme-scented
gardens of Nero, and I watch with amusement and scorn the torturers at work in the chambers of the
Inquisition.
"I walk in the holiest sanctuaries; I enter the temples of Venus. I kneel in adoration before the
Magna Mater, and I throw coins on the bare knees of the sacred courtezans who sit with veiled faces in the groves of
Babylon. I creep into an Elizabethan theater and with the stinking rabble about me I applaud The Merchant of Venice. I
walk with Dante through the narrow streets of Florence. I meet the young Beatrice, and the hem of her garmet brushes my
sandals as I stare enraptured. I am a priest of Isis, and my magic astounds the nations. Simon Magus kneels before me,
implor- ing my assistance, and Pharaoh trembles when I approach. In India I talk with the Masters and run, screaming from
their presence, for their revelations are as salt on wounds that bleed.
"I perceive everything
simultaneously.
I perceive everything from all
sides; I am a part of all the teeming billions about me. I exist in all men and all men exist in me. I perceive the whole
of human history in a single instant, the past and the present.
"By simply straining I can see farther and
farther back. Now I am going back through strange curves and angles. An- gles and curves multiply about me. I per- ceive
great segments of time through curves. There is curved time, and angu- lar time. The beings that exist in angular time
cannot enter curved time. It is very strange.
"I am going back and back. Man has disappeared from the earth.
Gigantic reptiles crouch beneath enormous palms and swim through the loathly black wat- ers of dismal lakes. Now the
reptiles have disappeared. No animals remain upon the land, but beneath the waters, plainly visible to me, dark forms move
slowly over the rotting vegetation.
"The forms are becoming simpler and simpler. Now they are single cells. All
about me there are angles—strange an- gles that have no counterparts on the earth. I am desperately
afraid.
"There is an abyss of being which man has never fathomed."
I stared. Chalmers had risen to his
feet and he was gesticulating helplessly with his arms. "I am passing through un- earthly angles; I am approaching—oh, the
burning horror of it!"
"Chalmers!" I cried. "Do you wish me to interfere?"
He brought his right hand
quickly be- fore his face, as though to shut out a vision unspeakable. "Not yet!" he cried; "I will go on. I will
see—what—lies— beyond—"
A cold sweat streamed from his fore- head and his shoulders jerked spasmod- ically.
"Beyond life there are"—his facc grew ashen with terror—"things that I
cannot distinguish. They move slowly through angles. They
have no bodies, and they move slowly through out- rageous angles."
It was then that I became aware of the odor
in the room. It was a pungent, in- describable odor, so nauseous that I could scarcely endure it. I stepped quick- ly to
the window and threw it open. When I returned to Chalmers and looked into his eyes I nearly fainted.
"I think
they have scented me!" he shrieked. "They are slowly turning to- ward me."
He was trembling horribly. For a mo-
ment he clawed at the air with his hands. Then his legs gave way beneath him and he fell forward on his face, slobbering
and moaning.
I watched him in silence as he dragged himself across the floor. He was no longer a man. His teeth
were bared and saliva dripped from the comers of his mouth.
"Chalmers," I cried. "Chalmers, stop it! Stop it, do
you hear?"
As if in reply to my appeal he com- menced to utter hoarse convulsive sounds which resembled nothing
so much as the barking of a dog, and began a sort of hideous writhing in a circle about the room. I bent and seized him by
the shoulders. Violently, desperately, I shook him. He turned his head and snapped at my wrist. I was sick with horror,
but I dared not release him for fear that he would destroy himself in a paroxysm of rage.
"Chalmers," I
muttered, "you must stop that. There is nothing in this room that can harm you. Do you understand?"
I continued
to shake and admonish him, and gradually the madness died out of his face. Shivering convulsively, he crumpled into a
grotesque heap on the Chinese rug.
I CARRIED him
to the sofa and depos- ited him upon it. His features were twisted in pain, and I knew that he was still struggling dumbly
to escape from abominable memories.
"Whisky," he muttered. "You'll find a flask in the cabinet by the window—
upper left-hand drawer."
When I handed him the flask his fin- gers tightened about it until the knuckles showed
blue. "They nearly got me," he gasped. He drained the stimulant in im- moderate gulps, and gradually the color crept back
into his face.
"That drug was the very devil!" I murmured.
"It wasn't the drug," he
moaned.
His eyes no longer glared insanely, but he still wore the look of a lost soul.
"They scented
me in time," he moaned. "I went too far."
"What were they like?" I said, to humor him.
He leaned
forward and gripped my arm. He was shivering horribly. "No words in our language can describe them!" He spoke in a hoarse
whisper. "They are symbolized vaguely in the myth of the Fall, and in an obscene form which is occasionally found engraved
on ancient tablets. The Greeks had a name for them, which veiled their essential foulness. The tree, the snake and the
apple-—these are the vague symbols of a most awful mystery.
His voice had risen to a scream. "Frank, Frank, a
terrible and unspeak- able deed was done in the beginning. Before time, the deed, and from the deed—"
He had
risen and was hysterically pacing the room. "The seeds of the deed move through angles in dim recesses of time. They are
hungry and athirst!"
"Chalmers," I pleaded to quiet him. "We are living in the third decade of the Twentieth
Century."
"They are lean and athirst!" he shrieked. "The
Hounds of Tindalos!"
"Chalmers, shall I phone for a phy- sician?"
"A physician cannot help me now.
They are horrors of the soul, and yet"— he hid his face in his hands and groaned —"they are real, Frank. I saw them for a
ghastly moment. For a moment I stood on the other side. I stood on the pale gray shores beyond time and space. In an awful
light that was not light, in a silence that shrieked, I saw them.
"All the evil in the universe was con-
centrated in their lean, hungry bodies. Or had they bodies? I saw them only for a moment; I cannot be certain. But I heard
them breathe. Indescribably for a moment I felt their breath upon my face. They turned toward me and I fled screaming. In
a single moment I fled screaming through time. I fled down quintillions of years.
"But they scented me. Men
awake in them cosmic hungers. We have escaped, momentarily, from the foulness that rings them round. They thirst for that
in us which is clean, which emerged from the deed without stain. There is a part of us which did not partake in the deed,
and that they hate. But do not imagine that they are literally, prosaically evil. They are beyond good and evil as we know
it. They are that which in the beginning fell away from cleanliness. Through the deed they became bodies of death,
receptacles of all foulness. But they are not evil in our sense because in the spheres through which they move there is no
thought, no morals, no right or wrong as we under- stand it. There is merely the pure and the foul. The foul expresses
itself through angles; the pure through curves. Man, the pure part of him, is descended from a curve. Do not laugh. I mean
that literally."
I rose and searched for my hat. "I'm
dreadfully sorry for you, Chalmers," I said, as I walked toward the door. "But I
don't intend to stay and listen to such gibberish. I'll send my physician to see you. He's an elderly, kindly chap and he
won't be offended if you tell him to go to the devil. But I hope you'll respect his advice. A week's rest in a good
sanita- rium should benefit you immeasurably."
I heard him laughing as I descended the stairs, but his laughter
was so utterly mirthless that it moved me to tears.
2
When Chalmers phoned the follow- ing morning my
first impulse was to hang up the receiver immediately. His request was so unusual and his voice was so wildly hysterical
that I feared any further association with him would result in the impairment of my own sanity. But I could not doubt the
genuineness of his misery, and when he broke down com- pletely and I heard him sobbing over the wire I decided to comply
with his request.
"Very well," I said. "I will come over immediately and bring the plaster."
En route
to Chalmers' home I stopped at a hardware store and purchased twenty pounds of plaster of Paris. When I entered my
friend's room he was crouch- ing by the window watching the opposite wall out of eyes that were feverish with fright. When
he saw me he rose and seized the parcel containing the plaster with an avidity that amazed and horrified me. He had
extruded all of the furniture and the room presented a desolate ap- pearance.
"It is just conceivable that we
can thwart them!" he exclaimed. "But we must work rapidly. Frank, there is a step- ladder in the hall. Bring it here
immedi- ately. And then fetch a pail of water.
flush on his face. "To mix the plaster, you fool!" he
cried. "To mix the plaster that will save our bodies and souls from a contamination unmentionable. To mix the plaster that
will save the world from —Frank, they must be kept out!"
"Who?" I murmured.
"The Hounds of Tindalos!"
he mut- tered. "They can only reach us through angles. We must eliminate all angles from this room. I shall plaster up all
of the corners, all of the crevices. We must make this room resemble the interior of a sphere."
I knew that it
would have been useless to argue with him. I fetched the step- ladder, Chalmers mixed the plaster, and for three hours we
labored. We filled in the four corners of the wall and the inter- sections of the floor and wall and the wall and ceiling,
and we rounded the sharp angles of the window-seat.
"I shall remain in this room until they return in time," he
affirmed when our task was completed. "When they dis- cover that the scent leads through curves they will return. They
will return rav- enous and snarling and unsatisfied to the foulness that was in the beginning, be- fore time, beyond
space."
He nodded graciously and lit a cig- arette. "It was good of you to help," he said.
"Will you
not see a physician, Chal- mers?" I pleaded.
"Perhaps—tomorrow," he murmured. "But now I must watch and
wait."
"Wait for what?" I urged.
Chalmers smiled wanly. "I know that you think me insane," he said.
"You have a shrewd but prosaic mind, and you cannot conceive of an entity that does not depend for its existence on force
and matter. But did it ever occur to you, my friend, that force and matter are merely the barriers to perception im- posed
by time and space? When one
knows, as I do, that
time and space are identical and that they are both deceptive because they are merely imperfect mani- festations of a
higher reality, one no longer seeks in the visible world for an explanation of the mystery and terror of
being."
I rose and walked toward the door.
"Forgive me," he cried. "I did not mean to offend you. You
have a superla- tive intellect, but I—I have a superhuman one. It is only natural that I should be aware of your
limitations."
"Phone if you need me," I said, and descended the stairs two steps at a time. "I'll send my
physician over at once," I muttered, to myself. "He's a hopeless maniac, and heaven knows what will happen if someone
doesn't take charge of him immediately."
3
THE following is a condensation of two announcements which
appeared in the Partridgeville Gazette for July 3, 1928:
Earthquake Shakes Financial District
At 2
o'clock this morning an earth tremor of unusual severity broke sev- eral plate-glass windows in Central Square and
completely disorganized the electric and street railway systems. The tremor was felt in the outlying districts and the
steeple of the First Baptist Church on Angell Hill (designed by Christopher Wren in 1717) was entirely demolished. Firemen
are now attempting to put out a blaze which threatens to destroy the Partridgeville Glue Works. An investigation is
promised by the mayor and an immediate attempt will be made to fix responsibility for this dis- astrous
occurrence.
At 9 a. m. today the body of Halpin Chalmers, author and journalist, was found in an empty room above
the jewelry store of Smithwick and Isaacs, 24 Central Square. The coroner's investiga- tion revealed that the room had
been rented furnished to Mr. Chalmers on May 1, and that he had himself disposed of the furniture a fortnight ago. Chal-
mers was the author of several recondite books on occult themes, and a member of the Bibliographic Guild. He formerly re-
sided in Brooklyn, New York.
At 7 a. m. Mr. L. E. Hancock, who occupies the apartment opposite Chal- mers' room
in the Smithwick and Isaacs establishment, smelt a peculiar odor when he opened his door to take in his cat and the
morning edition of the Part- ridgeville Gazette. The odor he describes as extremely acrid and nauseous, and he affirms
that it was so strong in the vicinity of Chalmers' room that he was obliged to hold his nose when he approached that
section of the hall.
He was about to return to his own apartment when it occurred to him that Chalmers might
have accidentally for- gotten to turn off the gas in his kitchen- ette. Becoming considerably alarmed at the thought, he
decided to investigate, and when repeated tappings on Chal- mers' door brought no response he noti- fied the
superintendent. The latter opened the door by means of a pass key, and the two men quickly made their way into Chalmers'
room. The room was ut- terly destitute of furniture, and Hancock asserts that when he first glanced at the floor his heart
went cold within him,
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and that the superintendent, without say- ing a word,
walked to the open window and stared at the building opposite for fully five minutes.
Chalmers lay stretched
upon his back in the center of the room. He was starkly nude, and his chest and arms were covered with a peculiar bluish
pus or ichor. His head lay grotesquely upon his chest. It had been completely severed from his body, and the features were
twisted and torn and horribly mangled. Nowhere was there a trace of blood.
The room presented a most astonishing
appearance. The intersections of the walls, ceiling and floor had been thickly smeared with plaster of Paris, but at
intervals fragments had cracked and fallen off, and someone had grouped these upon the floor about the murdered man so as
to form a perfect triangle.
Beside the body were several sheets of charred yellow paper. These bore fan- tastic
geometric designs and symbols and several hastily scrawled sentences. The sentences were almost illegible and so absurd in
context that they furnished no possible clue to the perpetrator of the crime. "I am waiting and watching," Chalmers wrote.
"I sit by the window and watch walls and ceiling. I do not believe they can reach me, but I must beware of the Doels.
Perhaps they can help them break through. The satyrs will help, and they can advance through the scarlet circles. The
Greeks knew a way of preventing that. It is a great pity that we have forgotten so much."
On another sheet of
paper, the most badly charred of the seven or eight frag- ments found by Detective Sergeant Douglas (of the Partridgeville
Reserve), was scrawled the following:
"Good God, the plaster is falling! A terrific shock has loosened the
plaster and it is falling. An earthquake perhaps! I
never could have anticipated this. It is growing dark in the room. I must phone Frank. But can he get here in time?
I will try. I will recite the Einstein for- mula. I will—God, they are breaking through! They are breaking through! Smoke
is pouring from the corners of the wall. Their tongues—ahhhhh-"
In the opinion of Detective Sergeant Douglas,
Chalmers was poisoned by some obscure chemical. He has sent specimens of the strange blue slime found on Chal- mers' body
to the Partridgeville Chemical Laboratories; and he expects the report will shed new light on one of the most mysterious
crimes of recent years. That Chalmers entertained a guest on the evening preceding the earthquake is cer- tain, for his
neighbor distinctly heard a low murmur of conversation in the former's room as he passed it on his way to the stairs.
Suspicion points strongly to this unknown visitor and the police are diligently endeavoring to discover his
identity.
4
REPORT of fumes Morion, chemist and bacteriologist:
My dear Mr.
Douglas:
The fluid sent to me for analysis is the most peculiar that I have ever examined. It resembles living
protoplasm, but it lacks the peculiar substances known as enzymes. Enzymes catalyze the chemical reactions occurring in
living cells, and when the cell dies they cause it to disinte- grate by hydrolyzation. Without enzymes protoplasm should
possess enduring vi- tality, i. e., immortality. Enzymes are the negative components, so to speak, of uni- cellular
organism, which is the basis of all life. That living matter can exist with- out enzymes biologists emphatically deny. And
yet the substance that you have sent
me is alive and it lacks these "indispens- able" bodies.
Good God, sir, do you realize what astounding new vistas this opens up?
5
EXCERPT from The Secret
Watchers by the late Halpin Chalmers:
What if, parallel to the life we know, there is another life that does not
die, which lacks the elements that destroy our life? Perhaps in another dimension there is a different force from that
which generates our life. Perhaps this force emits energy, or something similar to energy, which passes from the unknown
dimension where it is and creatcs a new form of cell life in our dimension. No one knows that such new cell life does
exist in our dimension. Ah, but I have seen its manifestations. I have talked with them. In my room at night I have talked
with the Doels. And in dreams I have seen their maker. I have stood on the dim shore beyond time and matter and seen it.
It moves through strange curves and outrageous angles. Some day I shall travel in time and meet it face to face.
Coming soon
QUEST OF THE STARSTONE By C. L.
MOORE and HENRY KUTTNER
A story in which Jirel of Joiry joins forces with Northwest Smith.
Man Can Now Talk With God SAYS NOTED PSYCHOLOGIST
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THERE have been a number of letters from you, the readers, inquiring abouf John R.
Speer, author of Symphony of the Damned and The Carnal God. John Rawson Speer is a new writer. He was formerly an actor,
but when the Depression settled down over the country, the ancient and honorable profession of actor was hit a body blow.
Mr. Speer then enlisted in the United States Navy, where he has just completed his first enlistment. Another new writer is
Thomas P. Kelley, author of our current serial story, The Last Pharaoh. As Tommy Kelley—"Pride of Miami Beach"—he engaged
in some eighty- seven prize fights during the seasons of 1927-1928-1929.
Death of H. P.
Lovecraft
Kenneth Sterling, of Cambridge. Massa- chusetts, writes: "I am sure you must be deeply grieved at the
passing of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. A contributor to WEIRD TALES since its inception, he has always been considered one
of the leading writers of modern weird literature, and was, in my opinion, the pre-eminent creative artist in this field.
His vivid, powerful style, unsur- passed in producing and sustaining a mood of horror, is well known to you and your
readers. His decease leaves a gap which can never be filled. But it is a far more severe loss to those of us who had the
infinite pleasure of a personal acquaintance with the inimitable 'Ech-Pi-El.' His generosity and magnanimity won the love
the respect of all who knew him. He possessed a supreme in- tellect—one which I have never seen ex- ceeded—and I have come
in contact with many prominent professors at Harvard Uni- versity. He had an incredible store of tnowledge—he was versed
in virtually every field of learning. In addition to this great
erudition, he had an acutely analytical mind —his thinking was keenly logical and
free of all bias and closed-minded narrowness. Contrary to what one would be led to expect from his fiction, Lovecrafc was
a confirmed materialist and iconoclast, as expressed in innumerable letters and articles. His con- versation was
transcendently brilliant, out- shining even his excellent writings. He was a man of great vigor and sincerity, and had
great influence on his circle of friends, many of whom are noted authors in the fantasy field and other types of fiction.
I think it would be most fitting if H. P. Lovecraft were remembered as a scholar and thinker as well as an author. In
closing, let me urge you to reprint many of Lovecraft's fine stories and poems, and if possible, to have his works
published in permanent book form."
From Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith writes from Auburn,
California: "I am profoundly saddened by the news of H. P. Lovecraft's death after a month of painful illness. The loss
seems an intolerable one, and I am sure that it will be felt deeply and permanently by the whole weird fiction public.
Most of all will it be felt by the myriad friends who knew Love- craft through face-to-face meeting or cor- respondence:
for in his case the highest lit- erary genius was allied to the most brilliant and most endearing personal qualities. I—
alas!—never met him, but we had cor- responded for about seventeen years, and I felt that I knew him better than most
people with whom I was thrown in daily intimacy. The first manuscript of his that I read (probably in 1920) confirmed me
in the opinion of his genius from which I have never swerved at any time. It opened a new world of awesome speculation and
eery sur-
mise, a new imaginative dimension. Since then, he has
written scores of masterpieces that extend the borders of human fantasy and conquer fresh empires amid the extra- human
and ultra-terrestrial infinities. Among these, I might mention The Outsider, The Call of Cthulhu, The Color Out of Space,
The Rats in the Walls, The Dunwich Hor- ror, Rickman's Model and The Dreams in the Witch-House as being special favorites.
However, there are few tales of his that I have not read and re-read many times, al- ways with that peculiar delight given
by the savor of some uniquely potent distilla- tion of dreams and fantasy. Leng and Lo- mar and witch-ridden Arkham and
sea- cursed Innsmouth are part of my mental geography; and dreadful, cyclopean R'lyeh slumbers somewhere in the depths.
Others will venture into the realms that the Silver Key of his mastery has unlocked; but none will read them with the same
wizard surety, or bring back for our delectation essences of equal dread and beauty and horror."
From Edmond
Hamilton
Edmond Hamilton writes from New Castle, Pennsylvania: "I just heard the news of H. P. Lovecraft's
recent death. This is quite a shock, coming so soon after the death of Howard. While I never met either of them, I have
been appearing with them in WEIRD TALES for so long that I had a dim feeling of acquaintance. I think I read every one of
Lovecraft's stories from Dagon, years ago. It is too bad that he is gone—there will never be another like
him."
From Henry Kuttner
Henry Kuttner writes from Beverly Hills, California: "I've been feeling
extremely de- pressed about Lovecraft's death. Even now I can't realize it. He was my literary idol since the days of The
Horror at Red Hook, and lately a personal friend as well. The loss to literature is a very great one, but the loss to
HPL's friends is greater. He seemed, somehow, to have been an integral part of my literary life—and the shock was more
severe because I had not known that his illness was serious."
From Earl Peirce, Jr.
Earl Peirce, Jr.,
writes from Washington, D. C.: "The news of Lovecraft's passing, al- though not the shock of surprize, is never- theless
the shock of an irreparable loss, not
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>The Cream of Weird Fiction
WEIRD TALES prints the best weird
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WEIRD
TALES IS THE ORIGINAL AND LEADING WEIRD STORY MAGAZINE
alone to WT, but to his admirers and ac- quaintances the
world over. I shall always regret that I never had the good fortune of meeting him personally, but I am truly grateful for
the impulse which prompted me to write to him a few months ago, and that I have two letters in his own hand. What most
impressed me were his sincerity and genuineness, which qualities were not alone in making him unique among modern writers.
You have my sympathy, for this must be a hard time, but I imagine it is a feeling of pride for you to know that so many of
his stories originally appeared in WEIRD TALES. Unlike many other men of genius, Lovecraft was fortunate enough to be
living at a time when his work was recognized as outstanding. With the passing of time this recognition will become more
universal and his work will take its proper place in the world's great literature."
Concise
Comments
John Hartsfield, of New Bern, North Caro- lina, writes: "How about some more stories from Seabury
Quinn? His are the 'busi- ness.' Incidentally, where does Mr. Quinn live?" [You shall have more stories by Mr. Quinn;
another of his fascinating tales about Jules de Grandin will appear in WT soon. Mr. Quinn lives in
Brooklyn.}
Miss Mary A. Conklin, of Coldwater, Michigan, writes: "Fine issue this month (April). Virgil Finlay's
cover superb. Fine handling of shadows and colors. More, please!"
I. I. Mabbott, of New York City, writes: "The
Mannikin, by Robert Bloch, is the most original thing in a long while; the un- developed twin theme is new to me. Fes-
senden's Worlds is good, but I've read a similar story from the point of view of the tiny people."
Samuel
Gordon, of Washington, D. C., writes: "After meeting Earl Peirce person- ally, I may be prejudiced in his favor, but I
think his story, The Death Mask, is the best in the April issue. Henry Kuttner's lit- tle story, We Are the Dead,
certainly clicked. If you know Arlington Cemetery, you can appreciate Kuttner's story. By the way, I know why they died.
It was to make the world safe for democracy. Of course."
Dorothy Reed, of Sacramento, California, writes: "No
modern magazine gives me so much pleasure as WEIRD TALES. It may be a
streak of ghoulish atavism in me, but I am sincerely glad there are many others who
feel the same."
Marianne Ferguson, of Worcester, Mas- sachusetts, writes: "The cover on January didn't follow
the story true enough, but you sure made up with the February cover, the best cover in years. I liked it much better than
naked, shrieking maids. It was truly weird. Dig Me No Grave, Robert E. How- ard's classic, was a thriller; I heaved not a
few shudders, and you can bet I avoided dark pleces for a week."
Dorothy McCown, of Daytona Beach, Florida,
writes: "The Death Mask is one of the best stories of its kind I've ever read. Unusual style."
Robert A. Madle,
of Philadelphia, writes: "Virgil Finlay's second cover is even better than his initial outside drawing. It would please me
immensely if you continue to alternate with Margaret Brundage and Vir- gil Finlay on the covers. Whatever you do, don't
lose either of them. They are the best cover artists I have ever seen, and their drawings make WT appear much more at-
tractive than other magazines."
B. Burnill, of Seattle, writes: "I liked Henry Hasse's Guardian of the Book best
of all in the March WT—think the lad should develop into a fine WEIRD TALES writer. It was excellent."
Bruce
Bryan, of Washington, D. C., writes: "Lovecraft had a rare faculty for be- ginning with something commonplace and budding
up an overwhelming aura of hor- ror that left his readers hanging onto the ropes. In that sense, I can't think of anyone
who could surpass him. He had a knack of delving into man's subconscious, untrans- lated fears—putting them into an
appreci- able form, giving them appealing names and personifying one's own, inmost, half- comprehended, even personal
nightmares."
L. M. Nankivell, of Steelton, Pennsyl- vania, writes: "Duar the Accursed recalls scenes depicted by
Robert E. Howard. I hope the author will continue. The dialogue was good. Henry Kenner's story was good also, as all of
his tales always are."
John V. Baltadonis, of Philadelphia, writes: "The new serial, The Last Pharaoh, starts
off fine. I look forward eagerly to the next issue to continue this thrilling yarn."
"Seemingly the author of Symphony of the Damned delved into
the ancient books of black magic, etc. He was able to turn out something equally as weird, yet with a de- cidedly modern
trend."
Fingernail Gnawing
Arthur L. Widner, Jr., of Waterbury, Ver- mont, writes: "Although I'm not
normally a nervous person I have the well known but bad habit of biting my fingernails. Ordi- narily I am content to
nibble a nail or two a day, alternating on each hand every week; but after reading the March issue of WT, I looked like a
male counterpart of the Venus De Milo, excluding the handsome part of it. The Guardian of the Book made me consume my
entire left arm. A powerful tale. Henry Hasse must fill his pen with that Good Gulf. The Brood of Bubastis did very well
on my right forearm, and The Dark Star awoke my cannibalistic instincts enough to finish up to my shoulder. All the
stories were good, with Lovecraft and Quick getting honorable men- tion."
The Greatest Genius
Harold
S. Farnese, of Los Angeles, writes: "Reading your magazine habitually, I some- times wonder whether you ever realized how
great a contributor you had in H. P. Love- craft. Whether you ever gaged the fineness of his stories, the originality of
his genius? Of course, you published them, alongside of others. You sent him his cheque, and that was that. But has it
ever occurred to you that in Lovecraft you had the greatest genius that ever lived in the realm of weird
fiction?"
Surprize
L.H.K.writes from Pasadena, California: "Have read your magazine for a long time
and enjoy it very much—but for the sake of an 'old reader' can't you please do some- thing about always spelling surprise
with a z?" [The Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dic- tionary gives surprize as the preferred spell- ing.—The
Editor.]
The Scarab
Julius Hopkins writes from Washington, D. C.: "The Neconomists, the Washington
Weird Tales Club, is going to publish the first issue of its official organ, The Scarab, on May 15 and we are going to
give abso-
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WEIRD TALES who write and ask for them. Our magazine will be a printed affair with twenty-four pages including a cover
with a real weird illustration. All re- quests for these free copies must be mailed to 4522 15th St., N. W., Washington,
D. C."
The Little Eaglets
Gertrude Hemken, of Chicago, writes: "Shux now—I just been a-wonderin' if
you couldn't be the eagle and we readers all the funny li'l eaglets—this department being the Eyrie. This sudden brain
wave just occur- red to me. . . . Duar the Accursed—Do I detect a slight resemblance to Conan the Barbarian? Mr. Ball is
agonna be a pal of mine if he keeps up that type of tale. Aw gorsh—I was figgerin' on the Monster being real and not a
nit-wit butcher in The Mark of the Monster. It was exciting up to the unmasking of the Devil-spawned twin brother. . . .
(Personal to Editor:—Why don't authors use ordinary names for a change—I'm tired of reading odd names and suddenly
realizing I've been reading them wrong. In this issue I find Valyne, Leocadie, Lavinia—ugh! I don't mind odd names when
used in odd tales of old for- gotten ages—or of lives on spheres beyond our ken. Course, I'm not expecting anyone to do
anything about it, but I like to get it off my chest.) I have not been disappointed in Hazel Heald's story of The Horror
in the Burying-Ground. The lady knows how to keep one's interest brimming. Her method of relating the circumstances as
told by the general store council has a touch of humor. Any hard-fisted citizen would condemn them for a bunch of
crackpots. As for me—I'd listen, git werry uncomfy and when the tale is done, run like heck for home. . . . How
strange—how utterly stupefying this Val- lisneria Madness! It was beautiful—one of those times when words fail me again. I
only can say, 'Thank you, Mr. Farley.'"
The Strange High House
H, W. Morlan, of Fort Knox, Tennessee,
writes: "Those two comment-provokers, The Last Archer and Guardian of the Book, are indeed different. To me, they are a
wel- come reversion to the type of story seen in earlier years. The weird motif is stressed and carried out to a
thought-provoking cli-
max. Common adventure
stories have no place in our magazine. I join Mr. Bloch in calling for more reprints by H. P. Lovecraft. Those stories are
jeweled bits of artistry and I would particularly like to request The Strange High House in the Mist. My files fail to
show the copy containing the origi- nal."
The Past Six Months
Charles H. Bert, of Philadelphia,
writes: "I would like to speak of the stories that impressed me most favorably during the last six months, and a few
things in general. I was indeed surprized to find in the May WEIRD TALES that The Dark Star by G. G. Pendarves didn't
receive first place in the March number. It was a remarkable yarn. The translation of the hero into the picture, and his
struggles with the evil entity and his subsequent escape, was really weird and shivery. This is the kind of story I always
look for, something new and different! Equally as good but in another way, was The Last Archer, by Earl Peirce, Jr.
Nothing new about a curse haunting the descendants of a family for generations and killing them off; your authors have
used plots like this many times. But The Last Archer was a story in which the curse harmed no one but the one whom it was
pronounced against; and it hounded Farquhar through the cen- yuries in his search of 'the greatest archer,' until he
finally killed himself on an island! The curse did not kill anyone except Far- uhar, and that was a unique ending for a
fine tale. . . . Symphony of the Damned by John Speer is a yarn I will long remember. It is worthy to stand in the company
of Satan's Fiddle, published a decade ago. Speer's story was Faustian in character, a man sells his soul to the devil for
power and fame. The best story in recent months was The Globe of Memories by Seabury Quinn. Lady Fulvia was so real and
likable a char- acter, that owe cannot help sympathizing and loving her, and pitying the fate that over- took her. Quinn's
story was one of the best reincarnation stories I have ever read in your fine magazine. I am certainly glad that The Globe
of Memories did not end in tragedy as most of your stories do. When I first read the yarn, so powerfully was I affectd by
it, that within a few days I read it again! That story is not easily forgotten. . . . An- other story I enjoyed was The
Poppy Pearl
by Frank Owen. It was a refreshing relief compared with your
heavy horror tales. I am unable to understand why some of your readers did not like it. Please give us more of this type.
Howard's stories possess a virility your other authors couldn't duplicate, and I was especially pleased with Dig Me No
Grave and Black Hound of Death. Those tales were strong in horror, and I am unable to decide which is the best. His best
character creation was Solomon Kane, in my opinion."
Bouquets and Brickbats
Arthur E. Walker, of
Colorado Springs, writes: "As a constant reader of your maga- zine for a good many years, I want to regis- ter a few
compliments and kicks. I realize, of course, that you cannot have each story a top-notcher every month. However, WEIRD
TALESs is the best magazine I have found and it improves through the years. Tbe Last Archer and Shambleau are two of the
best tales I ever read. Howard's stuff read like a Sassage from the Arabian Nights and I, too, lament his passing. A bit
of love interest adds to your stories. I like Doctor Satan and also Lovecraft's stories. Seabury Quinn rates much higher
when he drops the silly de Grandin stuff. Like one of your contribu- tors, I have had enough of the forbidden books, the
discussion of which takes up about half of the story. I am also getting fed up with the 'old ones' who are contin- ually
wriggling into the third dimension through forbidden nooks and crannies. Some of your yarns are too complex; they sound
more like half-baked lectures on higher mathematics than ghost stories. I lose interest in the story, trying to figure out
the significance of triangles, trapezoids and pentagons. . . . Your best story this month is Duar the
Accursed"
Symphony of the Damned
Harry C. Williamson, of Los Angeles, writes: "I have just finished
reading Symphony of the Damned, by John R. Speer, and just wanted to drop you a line telling you how very much I enjoyed
it. The plot is very good and the author pictures his characters so vividly that the readers can almost live the story as
they read along. There is just enough blood and thunder in it to make it good reading and in no way revolting. I only hope
we shall soon have
NEXT MONTH THE ABYSS UNDER THE WORLD By J. Paul Suter
Under the
supposedly solid surface of a great American city lay an im- mense cavern, larger even than the bustling city above
it. An incredible underground city it was, and the ad- ventures of the men that dropped into it were exciting,
dangerous and glam- orous.
You cannot afford to miss this fas- cinating tale of the city of the golden
chariots, vast temples, and cruel people. This story will begin in the August issue of WEIRD TALES on sale July
1st
To avoid missing your copy, clip and mail this coupon today for SPECIAL SUBSCRIPTION OFFER. (You Save
25c)
WEIRD TALES 840 N. Michigan Ave. Chicago,
Ill., U. S. A.
Enclosed find $1.00, for which send me the next live issues of WEIRD TALES, to begin
with the August issue. (Special offer void unless remittance is accompanied by
coupon.)
the good fortune to read another such story by the same
author, as he has made such a splendid start and it would be a shame not to have some more from his soon famous
pen."
Conan His Favorite Character
A. H. McDonald, of Little Rock, Arkan- sas, writes: "I have been a
constant reader of WT for eleven years and it has afforded me many hours of enjoyment. It was with deepest regret that I
read of the death of Robert E. Howard. It is a sad thought to know that I can never again follow Conan through his strange
lands. Conan was my favorite character."
Praise Across the Sea
Leslie Stille, of Harrow-on-the-Hili,
Eng- land, writes: "I don't know how often it is that you receive praise across the Atlantic, but I feel that WT deserves
a great deal. I saw a copy of the magazine one day for the first time on sale at a news agent's and the cover attracted me
immediately (can you wonder?). Since then I have called at every news agent I could for further copies. I in- troduced
them to my friends, too. How your spine-chilling stories compare with the feeble, lukewarm, insipid apologies that are so
often published! The stories in WT are something altogether new in the fiction I
have read—something for which I have longed — utterly gripping and fantastic,
breath-taking in their weirdness. But please don't adulterate and dilute it with pseudo- scientific stories and
thinly-disguised detec- tive yarns. There are other magazines for those who like such stuff. Let WT be some- thing unique
and striking. Avoid the com- monplace and banal."
Paging Moore and Smith
T. Gelbut, of Niagara Falls,
New York, writes: "Just a few lines to let you know that WT keeps satisfying my prodigious ap- petite for the weird,
grotesque and sorcerous in literature. I do miss C. L. Moore's North- west Smith stories (incidentally the only writer of
interplanetary fiction that I enjoy reading). C. A. Smith is also infrequently found in WT, and I sadly look in vain for
his tales of sorcery and necromancy for which he is so justly famous."
Your Favorite Story
Readers,
what stories do you like best in this issue? Write us a letter, or fill out the coupon on this page, and mail it to the
Eyrie, WEIRD TALES. Your favorite story in the May WEIRD TALES, as shown by your votes and letters, was Duar the Accursed,
by Clifford Ball. This was pressed for first honors by The Salem Horror, by Henry Kuttner.
MY
FAVORITE STORIES IN THE JULY WEIRD TALES
ARE:
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(2)
(3)
I do not like the
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SANDERSON'S big brown hands
fumbled as he tugged and strained at the flooring. He felt suddenly hot and weak. There was a flurry in his brain. Still
on his knees, he gathered up his tools.
He rattled and banged things about, trying to shut out other sounds . .
. sounds on the stairs. . . .
The breath seemed to stop in his big body.
Creak. Creak.
Creak.
It was someone cautiously stealing downstairs.
Crack!
He knew that sound. It was the
broken step, third from the bottom. He tried to call out. It must be that damned oaf, Walter! The fool must have gone to
sleep up there.
His hunted eyes sought the window. Power to move, to jump for it, had left him. He knelt there,
powerful shoulders hunched, hands on the floor for support, crouched like a big frightened animal. He fought to prevent
himself looking over his shoulder at the door behind him. He knew it was opening. He heard stealthy fingers on the old
loose knob. He heard the harsh scrape of wood on wood as the sagging door was pushed back.
Ice-cold wind blew
in, rustled bits of paper and shavings on the floor.
Sanderson's head jerked back to look. The door stood widely
open. His eyes, filmed with terror, focussed achingly on the gap between door and wall. Darkness moved there. A Thing of
Darkness. On the threshold it bulked in shapeless moving menace. Darkness made visible . . . blotting out everything . . .
blotting out life itself. . . .
You will not want to miss this compelling novelette, which will hold your
fascinated in- terest to the last word. It is the story of a Thing—a Thing of horror and darkness—a de- stroying ravening
Thing that brought death to Troon House. It will be printed complete in next month's Weird Tales:
THING OF
DARKNESS By G. G. Pendarves -Also-
WORLD OF THE DARK DWELLERS By Edmond Hamilton
A thrilling
weird-scientific tale of a distant world and the dreadful creatures that tyrannized over its human subjects—a story of the
heroic Brother- hood of the Redeemer.
THE WILL OF THE DEAD By Loretta Burrough
The story of a hate
that was strong enough to strike back from the grave—an unusual weird tale of a mother's malign resentment of her son's
wife.
THE MANDARIN'S EAR By Frank Owen
An odd and curious story about a Chinese man- darin who had the
ear of a thief grafted in place of the ear he had lost.
THE ABYSS UNDER THE WORLD By J. Paul Suter
An
amazing tale about three men who were pre- cipitated into a series of adventures as astounding as any that ever befell
mortal men.
YOURS While They Last At
Reduced Price Only Fifty Cents
Beautifully bound in rich blue cloth with attractive orange- colored cover
jacket.
The moon terror, by A. G. Birch, is a stupendous weird-scientific novel of Oriental intrigue to gain
control of the world.
ALSO—OTHER STORIES
In addition to the full-length novel, this book also contains
three shorter stories by well-known authors of thrilling weird- scientific fiction:
OOZE, by Anthony M. Rud,
tells of a biologist who removed the growth limita- tions from an amoeba, and the amazing catastrophe that
ensued.
PENELOPE, by Vincent Starrett, is a fascinating tale of the star Penelope, and the fantastic thing that
happened when the star was in perihelion.
AN ADVENTURE IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION, by Farnsworth Wright, is an
uproarious skit on the four-dimensional theories of the mathematicians, and inter- planetary stories in
general.
LIMITED SUPPLY
Make sure of getting your copy now before the close-out supply is exhausted.
Send your order today for this book at the special bargain price of only 50c.
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publishers only. It cannot be purchased in any book store.
WEIRD TALES, Book Dept. 840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill., U. S. A.
Enclosed find 50c for
cloth-bound copy of THE MOON TERROR as per your special
offer.