part in the escape with what appealed to Stanley Ross as being splendid

courage.

Slowly but very steadily, Wong began to raise the girl. The little

Chinese seemed to be made of steel, for, without stopping once or

increasing or decreasing the speed, he drew Virginia Carver to the top

of the cliff and helped her over the edge. It was a feat of which a man

twice his size might have been justly proud.

When the rope came down again Ross lost no time. A hasty glance toward

the mouth of the tiny canon revealed no sight of Beebe. Grasping the

rope, Ross began his ascent.

His shoulder bothered him somewhat, but it was not more than two or three

minutes before he, too, was at the cliff top.

They were free!

_CHAPTER TWELVE_

AN ENDING AND A BEGINNING

Stanley Ross drew himself over the edge of the cliff, where Virginia

Carver and Wong were waiting, and scrambled to his feet. He was exuberant.

“Well, Miss Carver, I guess we’re safe all right, thanks to Wong here,”

he exulted. “All that remains now is to make tracks away from this

accursed place.”

“So you think you’re safe, eh?” snarled a cold voice.

Ross whirled to find himself facing Larson Beebe. Beebe was covering him

steadily with a big automatic, and his deep set, piggish eyes had an

insane light in them.

Ross’s heart sank within him. He had expected an attack from Beebe from

below, but that he might be waiting for them on the cliff top never

entered his head. He was utterly helpless now. Beebe had the drop on him

and could kill him twice over before he could draw his own gun. Moreover,

it was certain Beebe intended doing that very thing.

Ross was filled with a sense of futility, impotency. That he was about

to die he did not consider. He was merely disgusted with himself for

allowing himself to be checkmated when the game was practically won.

“So you thought you could get away?” Beebe was going on. It was obvious

that he, too, was nearly insane. “Thought I was asleep, eh? I knew what

was up as soon as I saw the kites. I could have got you then, but I

figured the easiest and safest way would be to slip up here and wait

behind a rock till you were all up. You wouldn’t be looking for me and I

could pot you easily. Well, I’m here and you’re due for a long journey.

“Thought you could outwit Larson Beebe, eh? I’m just going to shoot you

and your precious Chink friend here now and kick you over the cliff. Then

I’m going to take Virginia and——.”

Ross was conscious that Wong’s right hand whipped to the base of his

skull just above the collar of his blouse. In the same instant it came

away again and now it held a long, thin, slender glittering blade!

There was another movement of Wong’s hand so swift that he could not

follow it. Ross only knew that a look of utterably blank amazement had

overspread Larson Beebe’s face. It was as though Beebe had seen a miracle

performed before his eyes and could not fathom it.

Then, suddenly, Ross saw what had happened. The hilt of the knife that

Wong had held was protruding from Larson Beebe’s ribs!

For an instant Beebe wavered on his feet. His fingers relaxed and his gun

clattered to the rocks. He pitched forward onto his face.

“Can do,” muttered Wong. “One day kick Wong. Not kick again.”

* * * * *

That night the three camped beside a little water-hole several miles

down the main canon. Around the tiny campfire they made their plans for

getting out of the desert.

Ross knew the general direction to take, and he felt confident that

by taking it easy the girl would be able to make the journey on foot.

Virginia Carver was confident.

The following morning Ross was awakened by footsteps on the rocks. He

raised up to see two long-eared animals making their way down the trail

to the water-hole. It was Archibald and Percy!

Ross let out a shout that instantly roused his companions.

“There’s your ship of the desert that’s going to carry you back to

civilization,” he called, as Virginia raised up from her blankets.

The girl did not comprehend. She gazed at the two animals in astonishment

for a moment.

“But they’re wild, aren’t they?” she asked.

“Just as wild as two snails,” said Ross. “Those two estimable gentlemen

brought me into this desert, and they’re going to take us out.”

When breakfast had been finished Ross noticed that Wong was busily

engaged in rearranging the weight of the packs.

“Never mind the packs, Wong. Friend Archibald here can carry Miss Carver

and Percy can handle the supplies. You and I will go light, Wong,” Ross

explained.

“No can do,” replied Wong. “Me no go you.”

“What do you mean, Wong?”

“Wong go that way,” answered the Chinese, pointing to the south.

“You go that way,” asked Ross, perplexed. “Why? You’re going with Miss

Carver and me.”

Wong shook his head. “Wong kill man. Think not stay in ’Nited States. Go

Mexiclo.”

“Nonsense, Wong,” said Ross. “Miss Carver and I can easily fix that.”

“Think not. Wong go Mexiclo. Got blother there. Buy li’le res’rant.”

Ross saw that there was no use in trying to dissuade Wong. There was no

combating such a nature. After a few moments Ross asked:

“Wong, where you going in Mexico?”

“Go Wa’lz.”

“Going to Juarez, eh? What’s your full name?”

“Name? Wong Chen Chek.”

“All right, Wong. In about two months you go to the postoffice and

inquire for a registered package. You’ll find enough money in it to buy

the best little restaurant in Juarez.”

Wong grinned. “Thlank you.”

Swinging his pack to his shoulder, he swung down the trail without more

ado.

“Goo’ bye. Goo’ bye, Missee,” came back to Ross and Virginia Carver.

A half hour later the Chinese disappeared from view far down the canon.

Ross turned to the girl.

Virginia Carver was gazing far out over the jumble of rocks and sand that

is the Red Desert to where the mists of the morning were dissolving into

the shifting haze of the rising sun.

For a moment Ross watched her without speaking. Fresh and vibrant with

youth, she was lovely beyond words.

“I guess we had best be going now,” he said. Then his voice stumbled,

“Miss Carver—Virginia—when we get out of here—I’ve—I’ve something to say

to you.”

For a long moment the girl continued to look far into the colorful haze

of the desert. Then she turned toward Ross. A peculiarly tender little

smile wreathed her mouth. Her eyes were swimming pools of unshed tears.

Her voice faltered, “Would—would you mind—saying it now—Stanley?”

THE END.

Chicago Man Attacked by Fighting Owl

John Casey, night watchman for the Chicago Protective Agency, while

“walking his beat” one night recently, entered a dark passageway in West

Madison Street; and then, all at once—

“Something flew at me from the darkness,” he said later, “and knocked

my cap off and began scratching my face and clawing out my hair by the

roots. I made a pass at it, but found I was fanning the air. Then I

saw two blazing eyes, and struck at them. Before I could get out my

gun the monster jumped on me again. I managed to swing on it with my

night-stick—and that ended the fight.”

To substantiate his story, Watchman Casey exhibited a dead owl measuring

thirty-six inches from tip to tip, also numerous cuts and bruises on his

hands and face.

_A Powerful Novel of Sinister Madmen That Mounts To An Astounding Climax_

The Jailer of Souls

_Complete In This Issue_

_By_ HAMILTON CRAIGIE

_CHAPTER ONE_

SOUTHWEST OF THE LAW

[Illustration]

All the way Westward in the smoker the man in the high-crowned, black

Stetson had taken no part in the conversation. He had appeared to doze,

slumping in the high-backed seat as the train rushed onward into the

golden afternoon.

The three men at his back had been busy with an interminable round of

poker: draw, jack-pot, and stud; deuces wild, and seven-card peak. They

moved across the aisle now, as the long train slowed for the brief stop

at Two-Horse Canyon, facing him obliquely and a little to his left.

Twice or thrice they had essayed to draw him into the talk, but

the man in the black Stetson had been oblivious; he had continued

taciturn—morose, almost, one might have said. But he had not been asleep;

rather, he had listened with all his ears as their voices had reached him

between hands:

“... Yes—Dry Bone—been there myself—they run things pretty much to

suit _themselves_.... Wide-open.... Sure.... You might call it a dead

open-and-shut proposition, I’ll tell a man!”

The laugh that followed had come to the man in the black Stetson with a

curious, grating note:

“Sure-thing gamblers; con-men—it’s a regular crook’s paradise.... And

there’s that fellow, Rook....”

The eyes of the man in the black Stetson narrowed abruptly at the

corners; for a moment, as a curtain is drawn swiftly from right to left,

something arose to peer out of those eyes, glowing, deep-down, like a

still, festering flame. But it was gone upon the instant—

“... And there’s that fellow, Rook....” the man had said.

Of a sudden he had stopped short as if he had been muzzled; presently his

voice had come again, dry, matter-of-fact:

“I’ll see that raise, Carpenter, and it’ll cost you just twenty iron men

to call....”

Plainly, that name, “Rook,” had been taboo; the speaker had been silently

reminded of it.

The man in the black Stetson—he had been known as Black Steve Annister

in the back blocks at Wooloomooloof before he had made of that name a

by-word in the honkatonks and the gambling-hells from San Francisco

northward to the Wind River country, and beyond it—Black Steve Annister

was sitting upright now, but he had retired behind a wide-spread copy of

the _Durango County Gazette_. He was not reading it, however, although he

was looking through it—at the three men just across the aisle, studying

them through the pin-pricks he had made in it, himself unseen.

Annister had arrived in New York only the week previous from Sourabaya,

Java, and he had not waited even overnight before he had begun the long

journey, broken at Washington for half a day, which had taken him now

half way southwestward across the State of Texas. Presently the long

train would cross the Pecos, beyond it the serrated ramparts of the

Guadalupes; Dry Bone was just between.

Annister, studying the men, frowned abruptly, yawning behind his hand.

Two of the men he put down for ranchers—sheep men, probably; there was

about them none of the glamor of that West which lingers even now in the

person of a cattleman; and these men were negligible.

But the third man would have been noticeable anywhere. He was a bull’s

bulk of a man, hard-featured, mouth a straight gash above a heavy chin

barbered to the blood; the observer across the aisle would have said

“cowman,” and registered a bull’s eye with it, point-blank.

The two who were with him, evidently with interests in common, were

scarcely friendly with the cowman, if such he was; it was evident in

their attitude, the constraint which had fallen upon them following that

mention of “Rook.”

But the man in the black Stetson continued to study the big fellow

through the holes in his newspaper: the hard face, tanned a rich

saddle color; the nose, flattened to a smudge of flaring nostril; the

cauliflower ear.

He had heard the name, “Ellison” once or twice; somewhere, deep down, it

had set vibrating a chord of memory that brought with it, incongruously

enough, an altogether different setting: a padded ring under twin,

blazing arcs; the thud and shuffle of sliding feet; a man, huge, brutish,

broad, fists like stone mauls, yet, for all his bulk, a very cat for

quickness....

He put down his paper now—to find those hard eyes boring into his.

Ellison, or whatever the man’s name was, had shifted in his seat; the

glance that he turned now upon the stranger in the black Stetson was

searching, probing. There was a truculence in it, a fierce, bright,

avid staring, like an animal’s, savage in its very directness, like a

challenge—which in effect it was.

Annister returned the look, eye for eye, with a bitter, brooding

insolence in which there was apparent a certain mockery, his eyes in a

veiled gleaming, like the sun on water. For a long moment their glances

engaged, in a silent duel, like rapier points; then the giant with the

cauliflower ear vented a sound between a grunt and a snort, turning to

the window, his gaze outward across the flat levels of the adjacent

prairie in a kind of sightless stare.

There had been no reason in it—no logic—that Annister could see, but for

the moment he had owned to a sudden sense of crisis; it had seemed to him

for a moment that in the giant’s eyes there had been almost a knowing, an

understanding look. But the man could have no business with him—of that

he was certain.

The fellow was just a bully, probably, a big, hulking lump of beef who

resented, as it might chance, Annister’s undeniably cosmopolitan air;

the sardonic flicker in the gray-green eyes; the cool, contemptuous

appraisal. But, after all, it had been the giant who had begun it.

And yet, somehow, Annister was thinking that he had seen him before, and,

oddly, illogically enough, he found himself liking the man—why, he could

not have told.

Black Steve Annister, “with the heart of a cougar and the conscience of a

wolf,” as a disgruntled enemy had at one time phrased it, could have sat

into that game had he been so minded, with profit to himself, pecuniary

and otherwise, but he had preferred to play the hand that had been dealt

him. Later, at Dry Bone, that would be another matter.

Now, his lean, strong, hawklike face darkened abruptly with the thought

behind his eyes, and then—for Annister had eyes in the back of his

head—he was suddenly aware that the conductor was advancing along the

aisle.

The three men opposite had ceased their conversation as if at an order.

Two or three of the remaining passengers stared curiously, after the

manner of their kind (they were small tradesmen, merchants, going on

beyond the border to Tucson), as the conductor halted at Annister’s elbow.

“Excuse me, Mister—Mister—” he began.

“—Annister!” The answer was low, even, controlled, but beneath the silken

tone there ran a hint of iron.

“Mister Annister,” repeated the conductor. “Will you—just a moment,

please?”

Annister rose, following the official outward toward the vestibule. And

as he went he could feel those eyes, avid, curious, boring into his back.

He permitted himself the ghost of a cold grin as the conductor, turning

in the entry, laid a respectful hand upon his sleeve.

“I’m—sorry, sir,” he said, low. “You getting off at Dry Bone, aren’t you?”

The words were less a question than a statement of fact. Annister nodded.

The conductor, a tall, bronzed man who might have been an old-time line

rider, shot a quick glance over his shoulder. Then he said, his tone

even, matter-of-fact:

“I—_wouldn’t_—if I was you.”

Annister stared. Then, producing his cigar-case, lighting a long, black

invincible, the twin to which the conductor had selected, he remarked

casually:

“They’re good cigars.... In the trenches we smoked ‘Woodbines’—a cross

between tar-heel and alfalfa; you have a lot of alfalfa out here, eh? And

the ‘third light,’ as we used to call it, most always got his—three men

lighting up from the same match, you know.”

His tone abruptly hardened; the glance that he turned upon the conductor

now was like a lance of flame.

“Well—I’m not superstitious—but—will you tell me _why_?”

It is significant that the conductor was breaking a rigid Company rule by

joining Annister in a surreptitious cigar. Now he turned guiltily as a

voice sounded from the corridor at his back:

“Ex-cuse me—but could I trouble you for a light?”

The third man, as Annister could see, was tall and heavily built, with

broad shoulders and a curiously small head. He had a sharp, acquisitive

nose, and a mouth tight-lipped and thin. Annister, versed in reading men,

was abruptly conscious of an instinctive and overmastering repugnance.

For the man’s eyes were cold and cruel, sleepy-lidded, like a snake’s,

roving between Annister and the conductor in a furtive scrutiny.

The match was still alight. Annister, his hand steady as a rock, extended

it to the newcomer, who, with an inarticulate grunt, lighted his

cigarette, turning, without further speech, backward along the corridor.

Annister waited a moment until he was certain that the man was out of

earshot. Then:

“The ‘third light,’ eh?” he murmured, his tone abruptly hardened.

“Well—and why shouldn’t I get off?” he asked, grimly.

The conductor for a moment seemed at a loss.

“It’s like this, Mr. Annister,” he said slowly. “I’m a new man on the S.

P., but I’ve been hearing a lot—no gossip, you understand—but a conductor

hears a good deal, by and large.... And this is a cow country, or it used

to be—pretty wild, in spots. Dry Bone, now—they run things pretty much to

suit themselves—”

He paused, in a visible embarrassment.

“There’s a party of four back there in the diner—I couldn’t help

overhearing what they were saying, and—well—I’m just repeating what they

said, and no offense—”

“That’s all right,” interrupted Annister, evenly. “Go on.”

“Why—they said,” continued the conductor, “that you were an Eastern

gambler—a—confidence-man—that you were not wanted here in Dry Bone; that

it wouldn’t be exactly healthy for you if you stopped off—that’s all. I

thought you’d be wanting to know. And if you’ll take my advice, even if

you haven’t asked it, I’d say: go on to Tombstone—you can figure it out

from there.”

“Thanks,” answered Annister shortly. “I’m getting off—at Dry Bone. How

soon are we due?”

“Fifteen minutes,” replied the conductor, glancing at his watch. “But

if I was you, sir, I’d stay aboard; it’s a bad crowd there, as I happen

to know, and they’ve got a branch of the S. S. S. there, only they work

it to suit themselves: tar-and-feathers is just a picnic with that gang;

they’re a stemwinding bunch of assassins, I’ll say! So far they’ve

operated under cover, mostly, and down here in the Southwest—well—it

ain’t a lot different, in some ways, than it was thirty years ago. You’ll

see—because they’re—”

“—Southwest of the Law—is that it?” Annister laughed shortly. “Well—much

obliged, old-timer,” he said. “I won’t forget it. But I’m getting off.”

The long train was slowing for the station stop. Annister, striding to

his seat, got down his heavy bag. For a moment he stood, considering, his

gaze, under lowered lids, upon the long coach and its passengers in a

swift, squinting appraisal.

The three men were gone.

Somehow, they had found out who he was. Well—that made little difference,

he reflected, grimly, except to force matters to a show-down, and the

sooner the better.

For there was a man in Dry Bone; Annister had known him in the old time;

and it was with this man, unless he was greatly mistaken, that his

business had to do.

He would put it to the touch, then; he would sit into the game, and would

come heeled, and they could rib up the deck on him, and welcome.

He was turning to the door when, of a sudden, there came to him a second

warning: there was a swish of skirts, a sudden odor of violets. Annister

had a glimpse of a blonde head beneath a close-fitting toque, as the girl

passed him, disappearing in the doorway.

And there, on the flooring at his feet, was a square of white.

Annister, stooping, retrieved it, holding the card upward to the light:

“_Stay on board. Dry Bone is not safe—for you. Be warned—in

time._”

There was no signature. Annister made a little clucking sound with his

tongue, his face set like flint. He was alone in the car.

The train had stopped now as, bag in hand, he shouldered through the

doorway. And then, abruptly, as if materialized out of the air, a face

grinned into his, lips drawn backward from the teeth in a soundless

snarl. It was the big man with the cauliflower ear.

“Hombre,” he said, without preamble, in a hoarse, carrying whisper, “take

an old-timer’s advice: go back—_an’_ set down—you savvy? This place—it

ain’t exactly healthy for a young fellow like you, I’m tellin’ yu! For if

you don’t—”

Annister’s cold stare was followed by his voice, low, incisive:

“You’re blocking the doorway,” he said, with a sort of freezing quiet.

The giant’s hard mouth twisted in a sneer; his great paw reaching upward

with a clawing motion, blunt fingers upon Annister’s shoulder. Then—what

followed happened with the speed of light.

“You can’t get off here, Mister—” the giant was continuing, when the

words were blotted out. Annister’s right fist, behind it the full weight

of his two hundred pounds of iron-hard muscle, curved in a short arc;

there was a spanking thud. The big man, lifted from his feet, crashed

into the front door-frame, slumping face downward in an aimless huddle of

sprawling limbs.

“The hell you say!” grinned Black Steve Annister, leaping lightly to the

platform, with never a backward glance.

Such was the manner of his coming.

_CHAPTER TWO_

THE HAND IN THE DARK

The one hotel in Dry Bone was the Mansion House.

Annister, crossing the lobby, was aware of a veiled hostility in the

stares directed at him from the group of loungers in the doorway; they

gave ground grudgingly, as he came in, with a sort of covert truculence.

Here, as he could see, there was a curious mingling of the Old West and

the New: men, whose attire would have created no remark, say, even in New

York; others, booted and spurred, cartridge-belted and pistolled—but all,

as he noticed, with, for headgear, the inevitable Stetson.

Once in his room, and the door locked and bolted, he busied himself for

a moment with a sheaf of papers, several of them adorned with a huge,

official seal; they crackled as he put them in an inner pocket. Then,

dressed as he was, he lay down upon the bed, but not to sleep.

It was late—hard upon midnight—when the sound for which he had waited

came with the soft _whirring_ of the window-weights. The sound was not

loud; it would not have awakened him had he been asleep; but Annister

could hear it plainly enough.

He had removed his shoes upon retiring. Now, in his stocking-feet, he

approached the window, a black, glimmering oblong against the windy

night without. As he watched, the faint _whirring_ ceased; a pair of

hands appeared suddenly out of the darkness, fingers hooked into the

window-sill.

Annister drew a faint, hissing breath. In the star-shine, for there was

no moon, the fingers showed in a luminous grayness against the sill,

clawlike, malformed, like the talons of a beast, which in effect they

were.

Annister knew them upon the instant, for, in far-off Java, for instance,

he had seen those hands, or, rather, the same and yet not the same. And

in that instant he had acted.

Both hands upon the window-sash, he brought it down with a crash upon

those fingers; there followed a yelp of pain, inhuman, doglike—a groaning

curse—the slam of a falling ladder—a heavy thud—silence.

Annister smiled grimly in the darkness. Whoever it was, the intruder

would never be certain as to whether that window had crashed downward

of its own accord, or not. And leaning in the window, Annister raised

it cautiously again after a moment. He heard presently the slow drag of

retreating footsteps; after all, it had not been much of a drop.

Closing and bolting the window, he undressed in the darkness, and with

the facility of an old campaigner was asleep and snoring beneath the

blankets between two ticks of the watch.

But in the morning a surprise awaited him.

Always an early riser, he was breakfasting alone in the empty dining-room

when the waitress brought him a note. Beyond noting that she was pretty,

and that she did not look like a waitress, Annister, somewhat engrossed

in the business in hand, for a moment stared at the envelope with

unseeing eyes.

Then, ripping it open, he took in its contents in one swift, flashing

glance:

_“My dear Mr. Annister_:

_“I would be very glad to see you at my office at ten this

morning—if you are able to be there.”_

It was signed simply: “Hamilton Rook.”

Annister grinned fleetingly in answer.

“Well—it’s not another warning, at any rate,” he said, half aloud,

turning to the consideration of his breakfast bacon. Then, at a low voice

at his back, he turned:

“Did you—say your coffee needed warming, sir?”

It was the waitress.

Annister had turned the note, face downward, on the table, with a quick

flirt of his thumb. How long she had been there behind him he could not

tell, for he had heard no sound.

“Thanks—no,” he said shortly, his hard eyes boring into hers with an

almost insolent appraisal.

Yes—she was pretty, and more than that, her violet eyes darkening now

under his abrupt, almost savage scrutiny. And her voice—it was like a

bell just trembling out of silence. Annister spoke:

“Have you been here long—in Dry Bone, I mean?” he asked.

The waitress smiled, and it was not the smile of a waitress, Annister

was convinced. Now, with a girl like that for a partner—was his unspoken

thought—he could—well....

“N-no, sir,” the girl made answer, with a sudden affectation of primness.

“I came in yesterday, sir—on the same train with you, sir. I—I’ve just

been—engaged.”

Annister repressed an absurd prompting to ask her how many times she had

been engaged before, and to whom and at what. Her eyes were assuredly

hypnotic, with lashes long and delicately fine.

“_Umm_,” he rumbled in answer.

Was it possible, after all, that she had been the girl in the crimson

toque? And, with the card in his pocket, for a moment he was tempted to

show it to her. Instead:

“Well—I hope you like it here,” he said. “You’ll know me—the next time?”

And for a moment he could have sworn that in the face of the girl there

had come all at once a curious, almost a baffling look, at once enigmatic

and self-revealing. But the entrance of the vanguard of breakfasters

interrupted.

He watched her for a little as with a swaying, lilting step she moved off

to minister to the late-comers, his eyes speculative. Then, turning once

more to the letter, he re-read it as a man reading a cipher:

“_If you are able to be there._” Could there be a double meaning in that?

For if Rook had sent that midnight visitor, then there were no lengths

indeed to which he might go—for the hand, like a beast’s paw, upon the

window-sill, had been, as Annister had known upon the instant, the hand

of the Thug, the Dacoit, the Strangler.

Warnings, thrice repeated; a hand in the dark; a waitress who was not

all she seemed; an invitation, suave, and, as Annister conceived it,

ironic—it was a situation not without its possibilities for action.

And Black Steve Annister loved action. Perhaps, after all, he was to have

it now, whether he would or no.

Rook he had known aforetime, but he was convinced that the latter would

not recognize him save as Black Steve Annister, wastrel of the wide

world, gentleman adventurer-in-waiting to the High Gods of Adventure and

Derring-do, knight-errant of the highways and byways of Criminopolis,

scarce a black sheep, indeed, but a wolf of the long trail and of the

night.

Rook had known him as such in the days when, as jackal for certain vested

interests, the black-bearded lawyer had run foul of young Annister, just

then beginning a hectic career of spending which, but three years in the

past, had abruptly terminated with Annister’s complete disappearance from

joyous jazz-palace and discreetly gilded temple of high hazard.

For he had dropped out of sight, lost, as a stone is lost, in the

sea-green waters of oblivion, save for an occasional ripple thereafter

which proclaimed him blacksander, beachcomber, _chevalier d’industrie_,

until one memorable evening a twelve-month gone ... but Rook would be

knowing nothing of that.

Annister had come home from the South Seas to find his father gone, and a

note: “_Do not look for me, for you are not my son._” And an exhaustive

inquiry had failed even to suggest the slightest clue.

The elder Annister could have written his check for seven figures, and it

appeared, following his disappearance, that he had done so; they had come

in from North and South and East and West, steadily, and, as it seemed,

with purpose. But as a clue to his whereabouts they had been unavailing.

But, from the moment of his discovery of that note, Black Steve Annister,

visiting a certain office in a certain side-street not far distant from

the Capitol, had surprised its guardian with a terse:

“That offer of yours, Childers—I’ve come to take it up.”

The man called Childers had bent a keen look upon his visitor; another

might have described it as unpleasant, stern.

“Well, you know just what that means, eh?” he had said. “You’ll be merely

a cog, a link—remember that!”

“Yes,” Annister had answered, and there the interview had ended.

And so Black Steve Annister, serving two masters, had come to Dry Bone,

and the end, as it might chance, of the long trail leading Westward into

the setting sun.

He rose from the table now, going out into the pale Spring sunshine on

his way to the office of Hamilton Rook. He found the building presently;

it was the court-house; there was a figure of Blind Justice with her

scales just over the entrance. Annister reflected sardonically that,

here, in Carter County, distant from a civilization at present as remote

as the moon, she was probably also deaf—and dumb. And presently, at the

head of a dark flight, there was the office, with the legend:

HAMILTON ROOK

ATTORNEY AND

COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW

There was a small sign at the corner of the door; in obedience to its

invitation to “Walk In,” Annister, his hand upon the knob in a noiseless

pressure, abruptly flung it wide.

A split second before the opening of that door, and while his hand was on

the knob, Annister had seen, or thought that he had seen, a swift shadow

pass suddenly across the ground-glass panel; there was the grating sound

of a chair being moved backward.

Then, standing in the doorway, Annister’s eyes narrowed; he stood rigid,

tense.

For the man facing him across the stained and battered desk, lean head

like a vulture’s set upon wide shoulders; mouth like a straight gash with

its thin, bloodless lips; cold eyes fixed upon him in a silent, ophidian

brightness—was—the “third light,” as he had called him—the man whom he

had met for a moment back there in the smoker of the Transcontinental.

_CHAPTER THREE_

BEHIND THE ARRAS

“Mister Annister,” greeted the man at the desk. “You didn’t know me, eh?

Well—it’s a long time—three years—and my beard—” he passed a bony hand

across his chin—“I sacrificed that long ago; it is scarcely the fashion.

Now—” he waved a hand, indicating a chair at his left—“sit down, won’t

you? We can—talk better so.”

Annister seated himself, his eyes upon the cold eyes just across. That

the man who sat there had inspired those warnings he had little doubt;

that he had sent that midnight assassin against him, he was convinced.

And yet—he was at a loss to find the reason.

Rook was not aware, could not be aware, of a certain fact known only to

himself, Annister, and a certain man just then twenty-five hundred miles

distant in that dim office hard by the Capitol; it was beyond the bounds

of possibility. No—it could scarcely be that, he told himself.

And of a sudden a cold rage shook him so that he trembled; his hands,

flat upon the desk-top, balled suddenly into fists. This man—this suave,

secret knave with the eyes of ice, and the implacable, grim mouth—sat

there now, removed from him merely by the width of the narrow desk. And

if it were true, that which he suspected, then this man, this jackal,

this Prince of Plunder with the heart of a hyena and the conscience of a

wolf—why, he had earned his quittance a hundred times over.

The flat black shape of the automatic hung in a sling under his left

arm-pit—Annister had forgotten that. He knew merely that he was face

to face with the man whom he had come twenty-five hundred long miles

to meet; he saw him now as through a crimson mist. And for the moment

the careful plan that he had made—that, too, was forgotten, lost in the

almost overmastering impulse to drive his fist into that face so close to

his, the cold eyes, the pallid, sneering mouth....

Something of this must have showed in his face, plainly visible to the

man who faced him across the desk.

There was a semi-twilight in the room even by day. Now the lean head

thrust forward like a striking snake; there came a sudden, brief

explosion of movement, a darkening flash, as the hand, holding the heavy

automatic, swung upward level with his visitor, point-blank.

At such a distance it would be impossible to miss.

There was a curtain just behind him; Annister had noticed it upon

entering. Now at his back it rippled suddenly along its length as if at

the passage of a heavy body just behind. The lawyer smiled thinly.

“Ah, my friend,” he said, “it is so easy to be indiscreet! And one must

meet force with force. This—it is theatrical, if you like—but—it is just

a little demonstration of my—preparedness. I thought—you see....”

There came a sardonic flicker in the nearset eyes; the voice purred now

in the semi-darkness like a cat’s:

“I must protect myself.... There are—reasons.... You see, I thought, for

a moment, that you—ah—meditated a resort to—violence. And violence is

something that I deplore, my friend; and here I am surrounded by violent

men, ‘sudden and quick in quarrel,’ as the poet has it; sometimes they

are difficult to control.”

Annister had himself in hand. The veiled threat with which the lawyer

had ended bothered him not at all. Now, casually as it seemed, but

with the lightning riposte of a duellist, his hand reached out; there

came a sudden wrench, a twist, a snarling oath from Rook; and Annister,

pocketing the pistol, smiled grimly now in answer.

“Now—‘we can talk better so’!” he mocked. “The balance of power, ha? Now,

let me tell you something: You left the big town—for your health; that

was three years ago, wasn’t it? I didn’t recognize you, but it was a

pretty close shave, at that!”

He laughed, but there was a ring of menace in it. His hard eyes held the

pale ones of the lawyer with a chill malevolence.

“Rook,” he said, low, “you’re as crooked as a ram’s-horn; you’re a bent

twig; I wouldn’t trust you this side of hell further than I could see

you, and not even then. Now—” his voice cracked suddenly in the thick

silence like the cracking of a whip—“you had the infernal gall to send

me—here—_after_ you’d have accounted for me—_by the left hand_, ha?

“I left that window open, because, if you want to know, I was expecting

something of the sort. And now—”

The hand holding the pistol became rigid as a rock.

“—I want the reason _why_—in a holy minute, Mister Hamilton Rook—or else—”

For a heart-beat the face of the lawyer seemed swollen to a poisonous

whiteness; the veins in his neck and temples stood out in ridges.

Then—the long, spatulate fingers spread wide with a curious, flicking

motion, thumbs downward; the curtain bellied outward suddenly as if in

answer.

Abruptly Annister felt for a heart-beat a something that was like a cold

wind blowing upon the back of his neck, and it was a wind of death.

Something slid past his shoulder with the speed of light; talons of

steel, thumbs downward, pressing at the base of his brain. He heard a

hoarse, whistling croak—a sound that was nothing human. Then—

There is but one answer to that strangler’s grip, and it is a secret

known only to a few. Annister had learned it, no matter where, and in the

learning he had paid....

Now, an infinitesimal split second before the beast paws had encircled

his throat, his forefinger and thumb had flashed upward, hooked, as steel

gaff is hooked, between those fingers and his throat.

There followed a straining heave; a cry, inhuman, beastlike, like the

mewing of a cat. Annister, rising to his feet, leaned abruptly to the

left—straightened, with one quick, explosive heave of his powerful

shoulder-muscles—and the body of his antagonist catapulted over his head.

Flung clear of the desk, he landed, heavily, on one shoulder-point,

twitched a moment, lay still. It was the “flying-mare,” and none but a

master could have summoned it.

Annister turned the unconscious man over with his foot.

“_Jivero!_” he muttered, between set teeth.

He shivered slightly in the humid air of the warm room. For the man was

an Ecuadorian savage—a jungle-beast; once, in Quito, Annister had seen

two or three: flat-faced, rather handsome savages; how or where Rook had

acquired the fellow only the lawyer could have said.

According to his savage code, he had been faithful—as a tiger is faithful

to his trainer, his keeper. Annister, brave as he was, would have

preferred a rattler, a fer-de-lance, for company. He turned now with an

abrupt movement to Rook, who, slumped in his chair, sat staring at the

huddled figure of the Indian where he had fallen.

“Now,” said Annister, “I’ve a notion, Mister Hamilton Rook, to shoot

first, and ask questions afterward.... However, I confess I’m still a

trifle curious as to your motive—more so, since this second pleasant

little interlude with your man Friday here. Now—may I ask you—_why_?”

The lawyer’s lips were moving, fumbling together, without sound. Fingers

trembling, like a man in a fit, at length he lifted dull eyes to his

interrogator:

“This,” he enunciated thickly, gesturing toward the huddled figure on

the carpet. “It was to save my—life—that is the truth, Annister—you

must—believe. The reason—for the others.... I did not know it was you

there in the smoker; I thought—that is—” he appeared to breathe of a

sudden like a man who had been running—“we had a report—that you were

quite another man—one who was—ah—would be antagonistic, in fact, to

certain operations—and so—”

He spread his hands wide with a little, flicking gesture.

“—That is why—but now, of course, you will understand—?”

“Yes,” answered Annister, bluntly. “I understand. You thought I was—an

operative, ha? Well—I’m not—that kind of an operative. But—” his manner

became all at once sharp, incisive; the gaze that he bent upon Rook was

the shrewd look of a man who sees his opportunity ready to his hand.

Cunning was in that look, and an infinite guile; the lawyer did not miss

it.

Here was something that he could deal with. He had known of Annister’s

reputation as of old; it had been none of the best, certainly, and with

that knowledge now there came a measure of reassurance. And if he was any

judge of men, here was one whom he could use: the acquisitive gleaming in

the eyes; the hard, incisive mouth, the predatory, forward-thrusting tilt

of the head—if he, Rook, was any judge of men, here was a man whom he

could use.

Old Travis Annister had disinherited him: the son who had been a waster

in the far places of the earth—that was an added reason. And at the

thought there came a pale gleaming in the lawyer’s close-set eyes, like

the sun on water. Travis Annister ... and Travis Annister had disappeared

... well, of course, he had heard of it. His voice reached the younger

man in a purring whisper:

“As I have hinted, Mr. Annister, I am interested in—certain operations;

shall we call them—speculative? For some time now I have been in need of

a sort of silent partner, or, rather, the Doctor—”

He caught himself with a _click_ of his strong, white, even teeth.

Annister’s face continued impassive, save for the keen eyes, veiled now

under lowered lids. Rook continued:

“Annister,” he said suddenly, as if he had abruptly come to a decision,

“I’ll lay my cards on the table with you: I need a man, and he can not

afford to be too—scrupulous, do you understand? The—the doctor tells me

I have been overdoing it.” He gave a faint, wintry smile. “We are—out of

the beaten track here—southwest of the law, as you might call it....”

He lowered his voice to a faint, hissing sibilance:

“I will expect you to ask no questions. You have been a cow-man; there

are certain interests to the north and the north-east of us; I am naming

no names, understand? There is a good deal of range left, as you know,

and—now, listen to me....”

His voice went on. For perhaps five minutes Annister listened in a heavy

silence. And all that time, although the lawyer had not once called a

spade a spade, the thing that he had unfolded was clear enough:

It was the old story; with something of a novel twist. First, there were

the outfits scattered north and north-east, as Rook had said. The running

off of a few cows, for instance, re-branding, and the rest of it—it was

an old story to Annister—but there was something more. Annister, as he

listened, realized that the thing was big, worthy, indeed, of the keen,

devising brain that had evolved it.

A good many of the ranches had, for some time past, been owned and

operated by the packers themselves; three of these: the Bar T, the Cross

Circle L, the Flying U, were northward from Dry Bone scarce a hundred

miles. But there were still other outfits. And, as Annister listened, he

was hearing again a name, or, rather, a symbol, the name and the symbol

of masked and hooded violence, and it was “S. S. S.”

Rook, it appeared, was the moving spirit of it, in Dry Bone, at any rate,

but as the tale unfolded Annister, putting two and two together, supplied

for that cryptic symbol a name, nation-wide and respected: the name of a

great Company, an Octopus indeed, which, with Hamilton Rook as its agent,

planned nothing less than the ruthless despoiling of those independent

cattle men who, out of a desert of sand and sage, had won a living

for their stock and for themselves, the rear guard of the order, now,

as it seemed, indeed, caught in the far-flung tentacles of a monster,

unscrupulous and without soul.

Annister’s part in it was to be simple. He was to do nothing as yet until

the lawyer should give the word. But a man was wanted: a gun-fighter; a

man bred to violence who would not consider too closely the method or the

means. For, as Rook had said, his eyes upon Annister in a sudden, biting

scrutiny:

“If, as a first step, say, the owners of these outfits

should—ah—disappear....”

There was to be no outright violence, it appeared; murder—that was an

ugly word; but it was of course possible that there might be—resistance.

But—there would be a fortune in it.

Annister’s part would be comparatively simple. He would merely carry out

his orders. Rook, eying him now in a close-lipped silence, watched as a

spider watches from his ambush. Annister would be needing money; if the

lawyer knew his man, and he thought that he did, here was something that

would be a lever, and a powerful one.

Annister lifted his head, then he brought his hand, palm downward, to the

desk-top. It was a movement, slow, even, controlled.

“I’m with you,” he said.

“Good!” exclaimed the lawyer. “Now—I want you to go over to the club;

there are a few men there I’d like you to meet. _Ha!_”

At his exclamation Annister, turning, followed his rigid, pointing

finger.

The huddled figure on the carpet had disappeared. There had been no

sound, no sign. The Indian had vanished.

_CHAPTER FOUR_

THE FACE IN THE MOONLIGHT

Annister had thrown in with Rook, but he trusted him no further than he

would have trusted a cougar, a mountain cat.

At the club, as the afternoon wore on to evening, he had met four or five

men: Beaton, the county judge, a red-faced tippler with, on the surface,

a heartiness that was repellant; Lunn, the hotel proprietor, a vast,

asthmatic man with a small, porcine eye; Daventry, the Land Commissioner,

whose British accent, Annister noticed, would on occasion flatten to a

high, nasal whining that was reminiscent of Sag Harbor or Buzzards Bay.

The rest, hard-faced, typical of their environment, Annister put down

for the usual lesser fry; hangers-on, jackals, as it might chance,

“house-men,” in the parlance of the “poker-room”—Annister knew the type

well enough.

They seemed hospitable, but once or twice Annister had thought to detect

in their glances a grimly curious look: of appraisal, and of something

more.

There had been a game going, but he had not sat in, nor had the lawyer

invited him. The visit had been meant, plainly enough, as a sort of

introduction.

“We’re all here,” Rook had said.

But it was apparent, too, that there were one or two others who were

absent; Annister heard several references to “Bull”; but for the most

part there was a silence, beneath which Annister could feel the tension;

it was like a fine wire, vibrating, deep-down; almost, he might have

said, a certain grimly quiet anticipation of that which was to come.

Presently the telephone tinkled, loud in the sudden stillness; Annister

could hear the voice at the other end: harsh, strident, with a bestial

growl that penetrated outward into the close room.

“He can’t come,” came from the man at the telephone. “Bull—yeah—an’ I

reckon he seems some disappointed.”

Annister noticed that the tension had all at once relaxed, and with

it, as he could see, there was plainly visible in the faces about

him a certain disappointment. It was as if they had been waiting for

something—something, well, that had not materialized. There was a laugh

or two; a word stifled in utterance; one or two of the men, glancing at

Annister and away, gave an almost imperceptible head-shake. Even Rook, as

Annister could tell, appeared relieved as the newcomer rose, turning to

the company with a conventional good-night.

For just a split second it seemed to Annister that something _was_ about

to happen; for a moment he saw, or fancied that he saw, a quick, silent

signal flash, then, from eye to eye; Lunn, the hotel man, had half risen

in his chair; out of the tail of his eye, as he was turning toward the

door, Annister was aware of a quick ripple, a movement, the shadow of

a sound, like the movement of a conjuror manipulating his cards, white

hands flashing in a bewildering passade.

But nothing happened.

Leaving, he had walked slowly toward the hotel, turning over in his mind

the story that had been told him by the lawyer. And there was one more

question he wanted to ask him: a question that had to do with a square of

paper that he had come upon among his father’s papers in New York, for

it had been this chance discovery that had sent him, post-haste, to Dry

Bone, and the lawyer’s office.

Thinking these things, he was turning the corner to the hotel when, out

of nowhere as it seemed, a man had passed him, walking with a peculiar,

dragging shuffle. Seen under the moon for a moment, this man’s face

had impressed itself upon Annister: it was dark and foreign, with high

cheek-bones, and—what seemed curiously out of place in Dry Bone—a black

moustache and professional Van Dyke.

Annister, watching the man, saw him turn into the doorway he had just

quitted; it was the entrance to the “club”—two rooms above a saddler’s

shop at the corner of the street.

Halting a moment to look after the man, Annister was wondering idly who

he might be—certainly not the man called “Bull,” if there was anything

in a name. And then, abruptly, he was remembering what the lawyer had

let fall about the “doctor”; perhaps that was who he was; he had had a

distinctly professional air.

The man’s eyes had lingered upon Annister for a moment, and for a moment

the latter had been conscious of a curious shock. For it had been as

if the man had looked _through_ rather than at him; those eyes had

glowed suddenly in the darkness, gray-green like a cat’s, in an abrupt,

ferocious, basilisk stare.

Annister, in his day, had seen some queer corners and some tight places;

in Rangoon, for example, he had penetrated to a certain dark house in a

dim backwater stinking and dark with the darkness of midnight even at

high noon.

And it was there, in that dark house, with shuttered windows like blind

eyes to the night, that he had seen that which it is not good for any

white man to have seen: the rite of the Suttee; the blood-stone of Siva,

the Destroyer, reeking with the sacrifice—ay—and more.

And something now, at that time half-perceived and dimly understood,

came again with the sight of the dark face with its high cheek-bones,

and black, forking beard; for he had seen a creature with a face and yet

without a face, mewling and mowing like a cat, now come from horrors, and

the practitioner had been—

The man who but just now passed him at the corner of the street, the man

with the dark, foreign visage, and the eyes of death.

_CHAPTER FIVE_

PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT

Annister, pausing a moment at the corner of the street, was conscious of

a feeling of coldness, like a bleak wind of the spirit, as if death, in

passing, had touched him, and gone on.

For the face of the man whom he had seen had been like the face of a

damned soul, unhuman, Satanic in its sheer, visible malevolence. So might

Satan himself have looked, after the Fall.

Somehow, although the man had looked straight ahead, seeming to see

merely with the glazed, indwelling stare of a sleepwalker, Annister had

felt those eyes upon him; he was certain that he had been seen—and known.

But now he had other things to think about.

He had intended going to the hotel. Now, on an impulse he bent his steps

away from it, turning to the building in which were the offices of Rook.

But he did not enter by the main doorway. There was an alley further

along; into this he melted with the stealth and caution of an Indian,

feeling his way forward in the thick darkness to where, as he had marked

it earlier in the day, there was a rusty fire-escape; its rungs ran

upward in the darkness; they creaked now under his hand as he went slowly

up.

Rook’s office was on the second floor. Annister, reaching the window,

found it locked, but in a matter of seconds had it open, with the soft

_snick_ of a steel blade between sash and bolt; the thing was done with a

professional deftness, as if, say, the man who had opened that window had

done that same thing many times before.

Now, crouched in the darkness by that dim square of window, the intruder

stood silent, listening, holding his breath. A sound had come to him,

faint and thin, as if muffled by many thicknesses of walls; it penetrated

outward from the private office, with the snick and slither of rasping

steel on steel.

And at the instant that Annister, with a grim smile in the darkness,

recognized it for what it was, he knew, too, that someone had been

beforehand with him; someone interested, also, in Hamilton Rook; for the

sound that he heard now, loud in the singing silence, was the sound of a

steel drill upon a safe.

Annister had seen that safe; it was scarcely more than a strong-box, a

sheet steel, but thin; a “can-opener” could have ripped it from end to

end, easily, in no time at all. Rook must feel secure indeed, he thought,

to put his trust in so flimsy a repository unless, perhaps, he had other

means. The Indian, for instance; the savage who, but a few hours ago, had

missed with his long talons for Annister’s throat by inches.

But somehow Annister did not think that the Jivero would be on guard.

There was no burglar-alarm protection; he had made certain of that;

but the man who was now busy with that safe must have come up by the

stairway; doubtless he was on familiar ground. Perhaps he might be some

disgruntled confederate of the lawyer’s; well, he’d have a look-see, at

any rate.

Advancing silently, on the balls of his feet, Annister traversed the

length of the outer office, peering around the doorway to where, under

the dim glow of a single drop-light, a figure, back toward Annister,

knelt before the safe.

The drop-light, carefully shaded, would not be visible from without;

under its cone-shaped radiance Annister could see merely that the man

was wearing a cap, pulled low over his forehead; but something in the

attitude of that kneeling figure: the turn of the head, the deft, darting

movement of the hand, was strangely familiar.

Annister grinned in the darkness at the same moment that he was aware

of a curious contraction of the heart. This lone-hand cracksman worked

evidently without confederates, unless, possibly, he might have a lookout

posted on the sidewalk below. He spoke, barely above a whisper:

“Hello!” he said. “Pretty careless, aren’t you? Now, do you think

it’s—safe?”

The figure whirled; the hand, holding an automatic, came upward with the

speed of light; then dropped limply at her side as the girl surveyed him

with a stony look.

It was the waitress of the Mansion House.

“Well,” she said, “you’ve caught me, but it looks to me as if I beat

you to it, Black Steve Annister.... Oh, I’ve heard of you, Mister Black

Steve.... Well, now you’ve caught me, what are you going to do about it?”

The darkly beautiful face was scornful; the violet eyes, under the light,

stormy with a something that Annister could not all define.

Annister bit his lip. To find her like this! And, all at once,

realization came to him with a sudden tightening of the heart.

This girl, waitress or not, crook or not—he had to confess that, in all

his wanderings up and down the earth, he had never met her like. A girl

in a thousand, he had decided, back there in the dining-room of the

Mansion House. What a partner she would make! Now, with a girl like that

for a partner...!

On a sudden impulse he leaned forward, his eyes upon the safe door; it

swung outward now; somehow she had opened it.

“Pretty smooth,” he commented. “The combination, after all, ha? You

worked it. Now, before _we_ have a look, I want to tell you something.

I—I’m looking for a partner, Miss—ah—Miss—”

“—Allerton,” she told him, in her eyes a sudden, leaping spark, the

brief, baffling, enigmatic look that he had seen back there in the hotel

dining-room. But it was gone again even as she spoke:

“All right—partner!” she said, low. “When do we start?”

“Right now!” answered Annister, his gaze upon the girl frankly

admiring. He had expected the usual feminine evasions, a play for time,

hesitation—anything but this ready acquiescence in his abrupt proposal.

He was not entirely sure of her; his admiration for her beauty, her

poise, had nothing to do with the cold judgment whispering now that the

whole affair might, after all, be a blind, a trap, devious and crooked as

the devious and crooked turnings of Hamilton Rook.

But with Annister to decide was to act.

Bending, he swung wide the safe door, groping forward with exploring

hand. His back was toward the girl; consequently he did not see the

sudden, revealing gleam in the violet eyes, the quick hardening of the

mouth. Swinging forward his pocket flash, the light danced, glimmering,

upon a packet of papers, a sheaf of documents. Annister, running over

them swiftly, gave a quick exclamation, his hand, in a lightning

movement, palming something which he secreted in an inner pocket.

He turned sidewise to the girl.

“Lord!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “Nothing but papers! Partner, we’re out

of luck!”

Evidently the girl had been oblivious. Now, however, her quick, flashing

fingers sorted the contents of that safe as with a practiced hand, to

leave them, as had Annister, inviolate, save for that oblong of paper

reposing now in the pocket of his coat.

In the shadow of the entrance it was black dark as they parted. The girl

did not live in the hotel, she told him; that had been a part of her

plan. They would meet again, of course. But once in his room, and with

the shades drawn and the door locked and bolted, Annister, taking the

paper from his pocket, smoothed it out under the light.

He looked; then looked again, breath indrawn sharply through clenched

teeth.

For that paper was a canceled check; it had been drawn to “Cash”; and the

signature, in a hand that he knew upon the instant, was the signature of

his father, Travis Annister.

_CHAPTER SIX_

THE LIVING GHOST

Annister had heard nothing from Rook other than that he had been again

invited to a further session of the “Club” for that evening.

Alone in his room on the morning following his adventure in Rook’s

office, his eye had been caught and held by a news item printed on an

inside page of the _Durango County Gazette_: he had nearly passed it

over; but now the lines leaped out at him as if they had been blazoned

across the paper in a double-column spread:

Travis Annister Still Strangely Missing—Retired Capitalist Gone

Since January—Foul Play Feared

And, separated from it by the width of a single column, he read:

Retired Banker Disappears—Newbold Humiston a Suicide?—Friends

Fear for Safety

But it was at a third item, tucked away in an obscure corner that

Annister stifled a quick word in his throat. Newbold Humiston had been a

friend of his father’s; it was an odd coincidence, to say the least of

it. And the story went on to say that three other men, all nationally

known, had, so to speak, between suns, disappeared as completely as if

the earth had opened and swallowed them.

And that third news item, irrelevant as it might have been, told of an

incident, odd and unusual enough; it had happened in Palos Verde, distant

from Dry Bone a long twenty miles of hazardous mountain trail:

A man had come in, in rags and tatters; at first they had thought him

a desert rat, a prospector, light-headed from starvation, for his

incoherent babble had proclaimed him no less a personage than Rodman

Axworthy, prominent banker of Mojave. The sheriff of Palos Verde, on the

off chance, had wired Mojave, and the word had come back that Axworthy

had been missing; they were sending a man.

With the arrival of this man, however, the mystery deepened, for it

appeared that the derelict was indeed Axworthy, and yet not Axworthy at

all, for whereas the true Axworthy had had a high, aquiline nose and a

wide, generous mouth, the derelict was snub-nosed, swarthy, where the

banker had been fair; he was, simply, another man.

But there had been this about it: on the banker’s left forearm,

underneath, there had been a curious birth-mark; the derelict had

spoken of it, but upon examination the arm showed smooth and bare. The

investigator from Mojave had been obviously skeptical until, abruptly,

the ragged claimant had taken from his pocket a curious, removable

bridge; a dentist in Mojave who had made it, he said, could identify it.

It fitted perfectly.

This looked like proof, but the thing was obviously impossible. And then,

as “Axworthy” was being taken back to Mojave, he went suddenly stark,

staring crazy, repeating over and over, with reference to the bridge:

“It’s the one thing they didn’t get—the one thing....”

And there the matter rested, save that, upon arrival in Mojave, the

bridge was found to be missing. The emissary from Mojave seemed to

remember a dark-faced stranger who had been seated opposite them in the

train, but that was all; the man had jostled against his charge upon

alighting; the last proof, if indeed it might be called a proof, was gone.

Annister frowned thoughtfully, his mind upon that canceled check in

his pocket. And he was remembering one other thing, and that was the

square of paper which he had found among his father’s effects, for on

it had been a name, or, rather, two: the name of Hamilton Rook, and

of another, unknown to Annister. And as to that Axworthy case, it was

common knowledge that lunatics, for instance, entertained frequently the

delusion that they were people of importance. There was nothing new in

that.

Somehow, it seemed to him that he held in his hands the pieces of a

jig-saw puzzle that, even if put together, made but a patchwork of

motives and design, which yet, if he could but find the key, would be as

clear as crystal.

That paper found in his father’s office; the interview with Childers, at

Washington; the long trip westward; the warning message on the train;

the big man with the ice-blue eye and the square jaw of a fighter; the

attack in the hotel; the meeting with Rook, and the meeting with the

girl; the finding of that canceled check—and, last, the matter of those

queerly related news items just under his hand—these made a pattern to be

unraveled only by the warp and woof of Fate.

And the chance meeting with the bearded stranger at the corner of the

street: consider how he would, Annister’s mind kept turning backward to

that meeting and those eyes that were like the eyes of a damned soul,

malignant, cold, in their abysmal, cold cruelty of discarnate Evil.

Discarnate! That was it; that would express it; for the man, as he

recalled him, seemed somehow less than human; there had been about him

an aura, an emanation, that was like a tide rising from the depths, from

darkness unto darkness....

Annister was scarcely superstitious, but he was again conscious of that

icy chill; he shivered, as a man is said to shiver when, according to an

ancient superstition, someone is said to be walking over his grave.

He rose, walking to the window, to peer outward into the sunwashed

street. The coil was tightening; he felt it; and he was but one man

against many. And knowing what he knew, or suspecting what he suspected,

it seemed to him all at once that the sunlight had flattened to a

heatless flaming of pale radiance; there seemed a menace in it, even as

there seemed a menace in the very air, a waiting, a tension, like a fine

wire drawn and singing at a pitch too low for sound.

Abruptly he heard a sound; it was like the scratching of a rat in the

wainscot, faint and thin. His door was locked.

Now, looking at it, the knob turned, slowly, stealthily. He could see it

turning.

Then, faint but unmistakable, came a knock.

_CHAPTER SEVEN_

THROUGH THE DOOR

The knocking was not loud; it was merely a discreet tap; but there was a

quality of hurry in it.

Annister, moving without sound on the thick pile of the rug, almost with

the same motion turned the key and flung wide the door.

At first he could see nothing. The corridor, thick-piled with shadows

even at high noon, showed merely as a darkling glimmer out of which there

sprang suddenly a face, like a white, glimmering oval; a voice came, with

a quick, hissing sibilance:

“_Ssh!_ Quiet! I must not be seen! Or else he.... Close the door!”

The girl stepped inward swiftly, her white face turned to the man before

her in a sort of frozen calm. Annister had a vague impression of having

seen her somewhere before: that golden head beneath its close-fitting

toque; the faint, remembered odor of fresh violets; the face, with a

piquant loveliness just now, however, white and drawn; it was like a

strain of music, heard and then forgotten.

Closing the heavy door and locking it, he turned swiftly to the girl.

“Well—?” he said, his gaze upon her in a cold, searching scrutiny. “Isn’t

this a trifle—_sudden_?”

But the girl lifted a stony face.

“I have little time,” she said, with a curious, spent breathlessness,

as if she had been running. “I am Cleo Ridgley, secretary to Hamilton

Rook—that is, I _was_; I am his secretary no longer, but he does not know

about it—yet.”

She paused, again with that hard-held breathing, moistening her stiff

lips.

“I warned you that day on the train; do you remember? I warned you

because I knew Hamilton Rook.... I know him even better now. He meant to

kill you, Mr. Annister, and now he schemes—”

“—To use me—is that it?” interrupted Annister dryly; then, at her slow

head-shake, he stiffened.

“He would have finished you even after your—agreement—but that is not

his way. But he will not make use of you in the way that you think.

That careful plan of which he told you—that was just a blind; there are

no ranches near enough. The S. S. S.—that, too, was just a part of the

story. You see, he wants to keep you here, that is all, until such time

as he thinks it necessary to—remove you. But his real motive, his actual

plan I know nothing about. I may suspect, but I do not _think_ about it.”

She paused again, her expression rigid, as there sounded a faint,

half-audible footfall from the corridor without. It passed.

“He would—kill me—if he knew,” she continued tonelessly. “That warning on

the train—I did that at his order. If he could have frightened you off,

he would have been satisfied with that, but now, it will be—different,

I tell you this on my own account. And now—”she laid a slim hand on his

arm—“don’t go to that rendezvous tonight, Mr. Annister. Ellison will be

there; you remember him? He was the man who tried to keep you on that

train.”

She smiled faintly with her lips, but her eyes were sombre.

“Ellison is Rook’s jackal, just as Rook is—”

The sentence was never completed. There came a coughing grunt from just

outside the door, a streak of flame from the half-open transom just

above; the girl stiffened, her face went blank; she slid downward to the

rug, even as Annister, snapping back the lock, had flung wide the door.

Gun out, he burst into the corridor, as, from the shadows at a far

corner, he fancied that he heard the faint echo of a taunting laugh.

But there was no one there.

Rushing to the stair-head, he found nothing, nobody. The man who had

fired that shot had used a silencer; he had disappeared, either into one

of the bed-chambers to right and left, or down the stair. But it was no

time for speculation. The girl would be needing attention, if, indeed,

she was not already past all aid.

Annister had wasted no time. But, for a heart-beat, as he raced backward

along the hall, his eye was caught and held by the quick glint of metal

from the carpet at his feet. Stooping as he ran, he swept up the object,

possibly an empty shell; then, on the threshold of his room, recoiled

with a gasping oath.

For the girl had vanished!

Stunned, Annister stood silent, mechanically unclosing his stiff fingers

upon the object which they held. He stared at it now, rigid with

remembrance, and a growing fear.

Oddly twisted and distorted, its dull gold surface glinting dully under

the light, the thing that he had found lay on his open palm.

_It was a dentist’s bridge._

_CHAPTER EIGHT_

ODDS—AND THE MAN

Annister had been absent from that room not longer than ten racing

seconds. It was unthinkable that the girl had vanished of her own

volition, even had it been physically possible.

Glancing around the room, he saw that the windows were closed and bolted;

the flooring was solid, substantial; there could be no ingress save by

the door through which he had just come.

There was another door; it led to the next room; but Annister, with a

habit of inbred caution, had tried it, and found it locked. Now, in two

swift strides, he had covered the space between, had tried that door,

setting his weight against it as he turned the knob.

Under his weight it gave outward with a sudden slatting clatter. They,

whoever they might be, had unlocked it; it had been through this

adjoining room that they had taken the girl.

Annister, glancing swiftly around this room, saw that it was obviously

unoccupied; the bed had been made up; there was no sort of clue that he

could see. The invisible assassin had had a key; that was it, of course.

But as to the rest of it, Annister could only speculate. It was an

impasse, and a mystery.

Going downward to the dining-room, as it was now past noon, he glanced

toward the desk, but if he had had any thought of reporting the attack

upon the girl, or her disappearance, he thought better of it; he would

keep his own counsel; a decision helped by a sight of Lunn, the hotel

proprietor, who, lounging at the desk, raised his sleepy-lidded, vulture

gaze at Annister as the latter was turning toward the dining-room.

Annister, in that brief glance, thought to detect in those eyes,

milky-pale, a veiled, sardonic flicker. If, behind this latest happening,

there was the fine, Italian hand of Hamilton Rook, Lunn was in cahoots

with the lawyer, of that there could be little doubt. For, as Annister

was convinced, there had been a menace in those eyes half turned to his,

an insolence, a bright, burning truculence, that, as he turned into the

long dining-hall, brought the swift blood to his cheek in a dark tide.

But at his table another surprise awaited him. Mary Allerton was gone.

The heavy-handed Swede who served him told him that she had left,

suddenly, that morning; a message had come for her, it appeared, but the

substitute could tell him nothing further. Annister let it go at that.

Rising from the table, he went outward to the long bar, a cool, pleasant

oasis, indeed, in the fierce heat of the drowsy afternoon. He greeted the

bartender, a tall man with the wide shoulders of a cowman, with a smile.

The man had been friendly; in fact, he had been the sole friend that

Annister appeared to have made since his arrival in Dry Bone. Now the

bartender leaned forward, speaking in a whisper behind his hand:

“Watch your step, Mr. Annister,” he said.

Annister gave an almost imperceptible nod. Then, his drink before him

upon the stained and battered mahogany, he glanced sidewise along the

rail, to where, at the far end, two men stood together, eying him under

lowered brows.

To Annister it seemed that there had fallen a sudden quiet. Just prior to

his entrance he had heard talk and laughter, the _clink_ of glasses, a

thick, turgid oath. Now there appeared to rise and grow a tension, as of

something electric in the air; Annister felt it in the white face of the

knight of the apron, the sudden silence, the rigid figures of the two men

at the end of the long bar.

Behind him, and a little to his left, three men were seated at a table:

Bristow, sheriff of Dry Bone, a big man with a bleak, pale eye, and a

mouth like a straight gash above a heavy chin barbered to the blood. With

him were two others whom he did not know.

Lunn was nowhere in sight.

The taller of the two men standing at the bar turned, and Annister

recognized him as Tucson Charlie Westervelt, a gunman with a dangerous

record. Westervelt was wearing a high-crowned, white Stetson; Annister

marked it at the distance, beneath it the fierce, hawklike face, turned

now in his direction, the thin lips set stiffly in a sullen pout.

The old West had passed with the passing of the _remuda_, the trail herd,

the mining camps; the wide, free range of the long-horned cattle was no

more; but Dry Bone had not changed save that the loading-pens had gone;

a cow would be a curiosity. But the lawless spirit of the ancient West

remained. “Southwest of the Law,” indeed, Dry Bone was a law unto itself,

and now about him Annister felt the menace; it appeared that he had

walked into a trap.

The judge, the sheriff—what mockery of law there was—Annister knew that

it would be against him, either way, attacking or attacked. He was

certain of it as Westervelt, moving slowly along the bar, halted when

perhaps three paces distant, elbow raised, right hand extended, clawlike,

in a stiff, thrusting gesture above his guns.

It was the gesture of the killer, the preliminary for the lightning

down-thrust of the stiff fingers; Annister knew that well enough. Now the

gunman’s gaze, sleepy-lidded like a falcon’s, bored into his; his voice

came with a snarling violence:

“_Mister_ Black Steve Annister,” he said, without preamble. “I understand

you’re some wizard with a canister, ha? A bad hombre! Musta been a

little bird done told me, an’ that bird was sure loco, I’ll tell a man!

But _me_—” his tone hardened to a steely rasp—“I’m not thinkin’ you’re

such-a-much!”

It was a trap; Annister knew that now, just as behind the gunman he could

almost see the dark face of Rook, with its sneering grin; the lawyer had

inspired it.

His automatic hung in a sling under his left arm-pit, but even if he

could beat Westervelt to the draw, he knew well enough what the result

would be: a shot in the back, say, from the men sitting just behind,

or—arrest, and the mockery of a trial to follow it. Either way, he was

done.

His own eyes held the gunman’s now, glancing neither to the right nor to

the left. He was conscious of a movement from the three men at the table;

Westervelt’s companion, a short, bowlegged man, with the pale eyes of an

Albino, had stepped backward from the bar; Annister felt rather than saw

his hand move even as his own hand came up and outward with lightning

speed; flame streaked from his pistol with the motion.

Once in a generation, perhaps, a man arises from the ruck who, by an

uncanny dexterity of hand and eye, confounds and dazzles the common run

of men. As a conjurer throws his glass balls in air, swifter than eye can

follow, so Annister, crouching sidewise from the bar, threw his bullets

at Westervelt.

The gunman, bending forward at the hips, crashed to the sawdust in a

slumping fall, as the Albino, firing from the hip, whirled sidewise as

Annister’s second bullet drilled him through the middle. For the tenth

of a second, like the sudden stoppage of a cinematograph, the tableau

endured; then Annister, whirling, had covered Bristow where he sat; the

two men with him, white-faced, hands pressed flat upon the table-top,

stared, silent, as Annister spoke:

“You saw, Bristow,” he said, low and even, his eyes upon the cold eyes of

the sheriff in a bright, steady, inquiring stare. “Now—what about it?”

For a moment a little silence held; then Bristow, moistening his stiff

lips, nodded, his gaze upon Annister in a sudden, dazed, uncomprehending

look.

“All right, Mr. Annister,” he said heavily. “They came lookin’ f’r it, I

reckon.... Well, you were _that_ quick!”

Annister smiled grimly, pocketing his pistol. Westervelt lay where he

had fallen, a dead man even as he had gone for his gun, lips still

twisted in a sullen pout. The bowlegged man, stiff fingers clutching his

heavy pistol, lay, face downward, in the sawdust. The bartender, with an

admiring glance at Annister, leaned forward as Bristow and the two men

with him went slowly out.

“They may try to get me for it, Mr. Annister,” he said, “but I’m no man’s

man; well, not Rook’s, and you can lay to that! Bristow and his friends

kept out of it, you noticed? Bristow’ll do nothing, _now_; not yet a

while, at any rate, but—mebbe they sort of savvied me a-watchin’ t’ see

they didn’t run no whizzer on you!”

He lifted the heavy Colt, where it had lain hidden by the bar-rail,

thrusting it in its scabbard with a grin.

“Well, sir, I _aimed_ t’ see that they was sittin’ close, _an’_ quiet,

Mr. Annister,” he said.

“Thanks, old timer,” said Annister. “I’ll not forget.”

But as he went outward into the waning afternoon he was thinking of that

rendezvous of the night. For Rook would be there, and it had been Rook,

he was certain, who had engineered that ambush in the Mansion House bar.

_CHAPTER NINE_

THE BATTLE IN THE “CLUB”

The time was nearly ripe. The clue of those newspaper items; the canceled

check; the somewhat repellant evidence of the battered piece of goldwork

picked up in the corridor of the Mansion House—Annister had been able to

put two and two together, to find a sum as strange, as odd, say, as five,

or seven, or even one.

But that name that had trembled on the lips of Rook’s secretary remained

a secret; with it, Annister was convinced, he would be able to pull those

threads together with a single jerk, to find them—one.

He had had news from Mojave: the dentist had identified the insane man as

his patient by means of his chart, but, with that face, the man could not

be Banker Axworthy—it simply could not be. And yet he was!

It was something of a riddle, and more, even, than that, for the thing

savored of the supernatural, of necromancy, of a black art that might,

say, have had for its practitioner a certain personage with the eyes of a

damned soul and a black, forking beard, curled, like Mephisto’s; Annister

thought that it might.

Further, the conductor of that train had been able to describe, somewhat

in detail, the man who had jostled the derelict and his companion; the

man had been a stranger to the conductor; he had been tall and thin, with

a small, sandy moustache, and a high-arched, broken nose, and he had been

wearing the conventional Stetson. The fellow might have been disguised,

of course, but if Annister could find the black-bearded man, discover his

identity, he was reasonably certain that he would not draw blank.

It was no certainty, of course, but it was worth the risk, he told

himself. It would be a desperate hazard that he was about to face, he

knew. Thinking of his father, together with the remembrance of that

unholy and unspeakable horror that he had witnessed, born of the stinking

shadows of that dark street in a city foul and old, its people furtive

worshipers of strange gods, Annister felt again that crawling chill which

had assailed him with the passing of the tall man with the eyes of death.

With Annister, to decide was to act. Dispatching a brief telegram in code

to a certain office in a certain building in Washington, he went now to

keep his rendezvous with Rook and the rest. It was yet early, scarce

eight in the evening, and the street was full of life and movement,

before him, and behind.

And before him and behind, as he went onward, he was conscious that those

who walked there walked with him, stride for stride; they kept their

distance, moving without speech, as he turned the corner of the dusty

street.

If he had had any doubt about it, the doubt became certainty as, wheeling

sharply to the left, they kept him company now, still with that grim,

daunting silence: a bodyguard, indeed, but a bodyguard that held him

prisoner as certainly as if the manacles were on his wrists.

It was not yet dark, but with a rising wind there had come a sky overcast

and lowering; low down, upon the horizon’s rim to the eastward, the

violet blaze of the lightning came and went, with, after a little, the

heavy salvos of the thunder, like the marching of an armed host.

But Annister, his gaze set straight ahead, turned inward at the entrance

of the saddler’s shop, mounting the stairs, as, behind him he heard the

heavy door slam shut.

Perhaps it had been the wind, but as Annister went upward he heard, just

beyond that door, the murmur of voices; they reached him in a sing-song

mutter against the rising of the wind, in a quick, growling chorus.

There had been something in that snarling speech to daunt a man less

brave than the man on that narrow stair, but Annister went upward,

lightly now, to meet whatever waited behind the door set with its

narrow panel that he could see merely as a dark smudge of shadow in the

encircling gloom.

He rapped, twice, and the door fell open silently, disclosing the long

room in which, as he remembered, he had sat, but a few nights in the

past, to listen as the lawyer and his crowd had waited for the man called

“Bull.”

The room was brightly lighted. At a long table, midway between door and

windows, five men were seated: Lunn, his fat face gray with a sort of

eager pallor, was chewing nervously at an unlighted cigar; he glanced up

now at Annister’s entrance, turning to a big man on his right. At the

head of the table, his veiled glance like the stare of a falcon, sat

Rook, but it was upon the big man next to Lunn that Annister’s glance

rested with an abrupt interest as the lawyer spoke:

“Welcome to our city, Mr. Annister!” he said, in a voice that reminded

Annister of molasses dripping from a barrel. “I want you to meet—Mr. Bull

Ellison; he’s been right anxious to meet you, haven’t you, Bull?”

Annister, in the passage of an eye-flash, understood. This was the man

whom he had encountered in the vestibule of the smoker, and, of a sudden,

memory rose up out of the past, and, with it, a picture: a padded ring

under twin, blazing arcs; the thud and shuffle of sliding feet; a man,

huge, brutish, broad, fists like stone mauls, yet, for all his bulk, a

very cat for quickness.

“Bruiser” Ellison, they had called him then; a heavyweight whose very

brute strength had kept him from the championship; that, and a certain

easy good nature which was not apparent now in the bleak staring of the

eyes turned now upon Annister, remorseless, under lowered brows.

Now, as if at a signal, the men about the table rose; the table was

hauled backward to the wall, leaving a wide, sanded space under the

lights.

And then, even as Rook spoke, Annister abruptly understood: this gang of

thieves, as he knew now—“Plunder, Limited,” as Cleo Ridgley had called

them—Annister knew them now, under the leadership of Rook, for an outfit

which would stop short of nothing to attain its ends. His eyes, roving

the long room up and down, searched now for that dark face, with its

black, forking beard, but he was not really expecting to see it, but

that, if Rook was the actual leader, Black Beard was “the man higher up,”

Annister was, somehow, convinced.

They had failed with Westervelt and his _segundo_; now, as the man called

“Bull” came forward across the floor, Rook spoke:

“Ellison hasn’t forgotten his meeting with you, Annister; he says you

played him a dirty trick; hit him when he wasn’t looking; that right,

Bull?” he asked, with a certain sly malice directed at the giant with the

cauliflower ear.

“And now,” Rook’s purring tones continued, “he wants satisfaction; he’ll

get it, won’t he, Mister Annister?”

For a moment, as Annister’s eyes bored into his, the lawyer’s face

showed, like an animal’s, in a Rembrandtesque shading of high light and

shadow beneath the lights. Stripped of its mask, it was like the face

of a devil; now the mouth grinned, but without mirth, the lips drawn

backward from the teeth in a soundless snarl. He laughed suddenly, and

there was nothing human in it, as Annister, his back to the wall, smiled

grimly now in answer.

He had been somewhat less than discreet, he reflected; Rook’s purpose

had shown in his eyes; he, Annister, had walked into a trap from which,

this time, there could be no escape. He had meant to beard them to their

faces, wring from Rook an admission as to his father, perhaps more; then

shoot his way out, if need be.

But now—he would have to fight this giant, a ring veteran of a hundred

battles, with bare fists, surrounded by an encircling, hostile cordon,

who, if by any chance he might prove the victor, would see to it that he

paid for that victory with his life.

Annister knew that it was on the cards that Rook, for instance, would

shoot him down as remorselessly as a man would squeeze a mosquito, say,

out of life between thumb and finger. But it was the lawyer’s humor,

doubtless, to see him manhandled, perhaps killed beneath the drumming

impact of those iron fists.

Calmly, he removed his coat, bestowing his automatic in the pocket of his

trousers. He did it openly, turning to face Ellison, who, stripped to

an athletic undershirt and trousers, regarded Annister with a grinning

assurance.

He was big; perhaps twenty pounds heavier than Annister, with wide

shoulders and a deep arching chest; with his forward-thrusting jaw and

bullet head, with its stiff fell of pig’s-bristles, the long arms like

a gorilla’s, he towered over his antagonist like a cave bear, a grizzly

waiting for the kill, and like a cave bear, at Rook’s snarling call of

“Time!” he was upon the lesser man like a thunderbolt, fists going like

flails.

Annister, in his day and generation, had absorbed the science of hit,

stop, and getaway under masters of the art who pronounced him, as an

amateur, the equal of many a professional performer of the squared

circle; he was lean and hard, whereas Ellison’s waistline showed, under

the thin shirt, in folds of fat.

If the onlookers expected to see Annister annihilated by that first,

furious rush, they were mistaken. Crouching, lightly, on the balls of

his feet, he drove forward a lightning straight left, full on the point.

Ellison, coming in, took it, grunting; the blow had traveled a scant six

inches, but there had been power in it.

It set him back upon his heels, from which, as he rose, raging, he dove

in with a ripping one-two punch, which, partly blocked by his antagonist,

yet crashing through the latter’s guard, landed high upon his cheek-bone

with a spanking thud.

It had been a grazing blow; otherwise, the fight might have ended then

and there. Annister, backing nimbly before the giant’s rush, realized

that he must avoid a clinch; at in-fighting the giant would have the

edge: those mast-like arms and massive shoulders, the huge bulk—they

would, at close quarters, with the drumming impact of the great fists,

have spelled a quick ending with the sheer, slugging power of the attack.

He heard Rook snarl as, side-stepping like a sliding ghost, he countered

with a long, curving left.

So far, he had been holding his own. If he could keep the giant at his

distance, he might wear him out. For this was not a fight by rounds; a

professional pugilist, fighting in the pink, would have had bellows to

mend at the end, say, of five minutes of a give-and-take encounter moving

at high speed.

Circling, feinting, ducking, Annister kept that long left in his

adversary’s face, forcing the pace, yet keeping out of harm’s way save

for an overhand swing, which, landing high up upon his cheek-bone, turned

him half round with the impact, throwing him off balance to a slumping

fall.

Up like a flash, however, he ducked, dodged, evading those mighty arms

that strove desperately to reach him through that impenetrable guard.

A fight with four-ounce gloves can be a bloody affair enough, but with

nature’s weapons, under London Prize Ring rules, it can be a shambles.

Armed with the cestus or the mailed fist, Ellison might have wreaked

havoc as a gladiator of old Rome punished his adversary to the death. As

it was, Annister, his face a bloody mask, where that socking punch had

landed, gave Rook and his supporters heart of grace.

“Take him, Bull!”

The screaming advice was in the high voice of Lunn; the others echoed it.

But if Annister was in desperate case, the giant, sobbing now with the

fury of his spent strength, was weaving on his feet.

Legs like iron columns upbore that mighty strength, but a pile-driving

right, behind it the full weight of Annister’s two hundred pounds of

iron-hard muscle, sinking with an audible “_plop!_” in his adversary’s

midriff, brought from the giant a quick, gasping grunt.

Ellison’s endurance was almost done. He could “take it,” but, hog-fat

from a protracted period of easy living, professional fighter as he had

been, this amateur, with the arching chest of a greyhound and the stamina

of a lucivee of the long trail, was wearing him down.

Trading punch for punch now, Annister abruptly cut loose with

pile-driving right and lefts; they volleyed in from every angle; there

was a cold grin on his lips now as he went round the giant like a cooper

round a barrel, bombarding him with a bewildering crossfire of hooks and

swings, jabs and uppercuts.

Annister, at the beginning of the fight, had expected the usual tricks of

the professional: holding in the clinches; butting; the elbow; the heel

of the hand against the face; but Ellison had fought fair.

Now, as the giant, boring in against that relentless attack, faltered,

mouth open, labored breath sucked inward through clenched teeth, Annister

stepped backward, hands dropping at his sides.

Ellison, almost out, stood, weaving on his feet, fronting his adversary,

a queer look of surprise in his face, and a something more. Annister,

strangely enough, as has been mentioned, had, in spite of his encounter

with Ellison in the smoker, conceived something for the man that had

been close to liking. Somehow, rough as the man was; crooked, by all the

signs; the tool of Rook and of his minions, he had the blue eye of a

fighter—the straight, level look of a man who, though an enemy, would yet

fight fair.

Annister, breathing heavily, thrust out his hand.

“A draw, ha?” he said. “Well—suppose we let it go at that.”

For a moment Ellison appeared to hesitate; there came again the queer

look in his eyes, as of surprise, wonder, and a something more. There

came a grating curse from Lunn; a sudden movement from the onlookers

roundabout.

Ellison’s great paw closed on the extended hand with a grip of iron, as

Rook’s voice rose, strident, under the lights:

“Bull—are you crazy? This man—he’s just—a dam’ _dick_!”

_CHAPTER TEN_

“IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!”

It was out. Rook, his hand in a lightning stab for Annister’s coat,

turned over the lapel, holding it forward for all to see.

On it was a small gold badge—the symbol of the Secret Service. The secret

was a secret no longer.

How long Rook had known of it Annister could not be certain, but now, at

the growling chorus of swift hate, he whirled. His pistol came up and

out, as there came a startling interruption, or rather, two.

He heard Ellison’s voice, roaring in the narrow room:

“Hell’s bells, young fellow, I’m with you, and you can lay to that! For

this once, anyway! You sure can handle yourself!”

He turned to Rook and the rest. “Now—you bums, get goin’! Dick or no

dick, I’ll play this hand as she lays. Get goin’!”

The great hand, holding a heavy Colt, swung upward on a line with

Annister’s as the door burst inward with a crash; and, framed in the

opening, there showed on a sudden the flaming thatch of the bartender,

Del Kane.

His cowboy yell echoed throughout the room, eyes blazing upon the hotel

man where he sat.

In two strides, he had joined Annister and Bull; guns on a line, the

three fronted the five who faced them, silent, tense. Kane’s voice came

clear:

“I followed you, Mr. Annister; thought they’d try t’ run a whizzer on

yuh; I’m pullin’ m’ freight after today, anyway; Mister Lunn can have his

job, an’ welcome! Now—I ben keepin’ cases on Mister Rook, he’s a curly

wolf, ain’t you, Rook? A real bad hombre, an’ you can lay to that! But he

ain’t goin’ northwest of nothin’, he ain’t.... Now, you dam’ short-horns,

show some speed!”

But there was no fight in Rook, Lunn and Company. Glowering, their hands

in plain sight, weaponless, they sat in a sullen silence, as Annister,

backing to the doorway, was followed by Ellison and Kane. Outside, under

pale stars, the giant spoke:

“I don’t aim to be too all-fired honest, Mister Annister,” he said. “I

throwed in with Mister Rook, that’s so, but he’s played it both ends

against the middle with me, I guess.... I reckon I’ll be movin’ out o’

Dry Bone in two—three hours.”

He grinned, wryly, out of the corner of his mouth.

“You sure pack a hefty wallop, young fellow! I wish I could tell you

somethin’, but that man Rook, he’s as close-mouthed as an Indian, and

that’s whatever! His game—nobody knows what it is—Lunn, maybe—but they

sure got a strangle-hold on th’ county; it won’t be healthy for me here

after tonight.”

The three men separated at the hotel, Annister entering the lobby with

a curious depression that abruptly deepened to a sudden, crawling fear

as a call-boy brought him a note. The fear was not for himself, but for

another, for, although he had never seen the handwriting before, he knew

it upon the instant.

Ripping open the envelope with fingers that trembled, he read, and at

what he saw his face paled slowly to a mottled, unhealthy gray:

“_Partner_:

“_If you get this in time, please hurry. I’m in the toils, at

Dr. Elphinstone’s—it’s the stone house at the right of the road

leading north from Dry Bone—twenty miles, I think. I’ve bribed

a man to take this to you, and if he fails me, God help me!—God

help us all! If you fail me, you’ll never see me again—as Mary

Allerton, because the Devil’s in charge here, and they call him

the Jailer of Souls. I’ll be watching for you, at the south

window—you’ll know it by the red ribbon on the bars. And now—be

careful. If you get here at night beware of the guards—there

are three. And if it’s night there’ll be a rope hanging from

the window—you can feel for it in the dark. Now hurry._

“_MARY ALLERTON (No. 33)._”

“_You’ll never see me again—as Mary Allerton._” Annister was aware again

of that crawling fear. “_The red ribbon on the bars._” The place was in

effect a prison, then.

But—“_No. 33_”! Annister’s heart leaped up. He knew the meaning of those

numerals well enough; he had been blind not to have suspected it. But

“_Dr. Elphinstone_,” and “_The Jailer of Souls_!”

Who could be the jailer of souls but the Devil? And Annister fancied that

he had seen the Devil at the corner of that street under the moon, with

his black, forking beard, and the cold eyes of death.

The trail was warm now, as he thought, but—if he were too late? He put

the thought from him, turning to the perusal of a telegram in code which

he had found waiting for him at the desk; translated, it read:

“With you Thursday with four, six, twenty-one, and the others.

Look for thirty-three.

“CHILDERS.”

But there was no time to be lost. Thursday was tomorrow. He would have to

take his chance of their finding him, for there was nobody whom he could

trust. Ellison had gone, even if he might have chanced the giant in so

delicate a matter; Del Kane, likewise. He must take his chance. Striding

to the door, he stiffened abruptly at a drumming rap, and a hoarse voice

in the corridor without:

“Open up in there; open up!”

Annister, a pulse in his temple beating to his hard-held breath, jerked

back the door, to face—

Bristow, behind him three men whom he recognized as hangers-on at the

hotel bar. They had something of the look of long-riders, villainous,

hard-bitten; as one man, they grinned now, but without mirth, as the

sheriff spoke:

“Annister—I arrest you for the murder of Tucson Charlie Westervelt and

Bartley Pattison. In th’ name of th’ Law!”

Annister knew that if he resisted they would shoot him down; in fact, he

knew, too, that was what they wanted; it would be the easiest way. Under

the menace of the guns, he spread his hands, palms downward, preceding

the four men down the stairs outward to the jail.

But as the heavy door clanged shut behind him, Annister, his gaze in a

sightless staring into the north, groaned, in bitterness of spirit.

Mary was needing him: she was in peril, the greater because it was

unknown—and—he would not be there.

_CHAPTER ELEVEN_

THE HOUSE OF FEAR

A house of silence, broken at times by a weird wailing as from the Pit; a

house of dreams, gray in the moonlight, under the leprous-silvered finger

of the moon, brooding now, a grim, gray fortress of the damned: the

stronghold of the Beast.

Dense pines grew about it, so that when the wind wailed among them, like

the wailing of a lost soul, it met and mingled with an eerie ululation

rising as if muffled by many thicknesses of walls, to end, after a

little, with a quick shriek and a sudden hush, with, after a moment, the

faint echo of a taunting laugh.

That laugh would have struck terror to the swart soul of a lucivee, if

lucivees have souls, for it was like an eldritch howling, faint and thin;

like the thin, tinkling laughter of a fiend, without pity and without

ruth.

Here, in the sanitarium of Doctor Elphinstone, there were secrets within

secrets, walls within walls, downward, as in Dante’s Seventh Hell, and

from this monastery of the hopeless there penetrated, on occasion,

outward from its battlemented walls, wild, frantic laughter, but there

was nothing demoniac about it, because it was the laughter of the insane.

But that other laughter, like a sound heard in dreams—passers-by, if

there were any such, hearing it, would shudder, and pass on. For the

secret of that house of doom was a secret, terrible and grim; a secret,

for him who might have guessed at it, to be whispered behind locked doors

and with bated breath. And there had been those who had whispered of

the lost souls within those walls, and the whisper ran that they were,

indeed, madmen who had not been always mad, because—they had become such

_after_ their commitment to the bleak house within the wood.

These were but whispers, merely, for the power upon that house was not

alone the power of Evil, rising like a dark tide among the pines; for in

Dry Bone, and beyond it, in Palos Verde and Mojave, it was rumored that

the strong arm of the Law upheld it, or such law, say, as might have

issued from the devious hand of Hamilton Rook.

Once—and it was never repeated—a man had come there from the capital; he

had demanded to see the doctor’s patients; that had been a long time in

the past.

And as the investigator had stood there, viewing with a faint, creeping

horror the nondescripts paraded before him, gibbering, mouthing, in an

inarticulate, furious babble, a man had burst suddenly from the line with

a strangled cry:

“Jerry—don’t you know me? I’m Humiston—Newbold....”

The voice had been the voice of Humiston, but the face—it had been the

face of another, totally unlike; there had been no possible resemblance.

But the man had been—_sane_. The investigator was persuaded of that;

suffering under a peculiar delusion, indeed, but sane.

The man had rushed forward then, baring his arm; and there, on that thin,

pitiful flesh that had once been healthy and hard, there ran a curious

design in red; the investigator sucked in his breath as that tell-tale

birth-mark sprang, livid, under his gaze. For he had seen it before.

The doctor’s eyes had narrowed to slits; somehow, the man from the

capital had gained the impression that it was the first time that he had

seen that mark. But the investigator could do nothing. Birth-marks can be

duplicated. He had waited then, in a curious indecision as the bearded

doctor had interposed a suave:

“Well, of course, Commissioner, you’re quite aware, or you should be, how

it is: these paranoiacs are noted for their delusions—ah—megalocephalic

tendencies, I should say.... They believe themselves to be—someone else,

and always a bank president, say, a famous actor, an author, a great

general.... Now—Mr. Humiston—you knew him, I believe?” Beneath the silken

tone there ran suddenly a hint of iron, of menace, veiled but actual; the

investigator felt it. “This patient knew your name, of course,” the suave

voice had continued. “Poor fellow—we must be gentle with him.”

And there the matter had ended. Curiously enough, the man who had claimed

to be Banker Humiston had, after that first burst of frenzied speech,

kept silent. Perhaps that mordant gleaming in the doctor’s eyes had

telegraphed a warning, a message, a command.

But the investigator went home, oddly shaken, to dream, like Pilate’s

wife, of a white face with staring eyes which changed, even as he gazed,

into the face of his friend, Newbold Humiston; to hear, even in his

dream, a voice, and it was the voice of the living, and of the dead.

* * * * *

In a bare cell, six feet by six—a cubicle in which there was barely

sufficient head room for a tall man to stand upright—a figure stood

with its hands clenched upon the bars, staring outward at the grim wood

visible to the south.

Travis Annister had abode here in this living tomb three weeks now, three

centuries, in which, as in a nightmare of cold horror, he had been aware

merely of a face, three-pointed, bearded, the eyes active with a malign

intelligence, the lips smiling always with the cold smile of death.

Twice a day the small panel in his cell door had slid backward without

sound, to frame, in the opening, the face of Dr. Elphinstone, like a face

without a body, and without a soul.

The father of Black Steve Annister knew that it was not a dream that

would pass, because, on the second day, the head had spoken. Travis

Annister was scarcely a coward; he had fought like a baited grizzly when

surprised in his Summer camp by the men who had brought him, under cover

of the night, to this prison-house beyond the pale.

Now, at the voice, like the slow drip of an acid, Annister stared

straight before him, with the gaze of a man who has abandoned hope.

“My dear Mr. Annister,” the voice had whispered, “the little matter of

that check, if you please.... You will make it out to ‘Cash’.... Ah, that

is good; I perceive you are—wise.”

It had not been the pistol in the lean, clawlike hand; nor the eyes,

even, brooding upon him with the impersonal, cold staring of a cobra;

Travis Annister might have refused if it had not been for those sounds

that he had heard, the sights that he had seen when, taken at midnight

from his cubicle, he had beheld the administration of the Cone.

And, like Macbeth, with that one sight, and the sight of that which came

after, he had “supped full of horrors,” until now, at the bidding of that

toneless voice, he had obeyed. Three times thereafter, at the command of

his dark jailer, he had paid tribute, nor had he been, of all that lost

battalion, the single victim; there had been others....

Now, separated from him scarce a dozen feet, a girl with golden hair

sat, huddled, eyes in a sightless staring upon the stone floor of

her cell. Cleo Ridgley had not been killed; she had been saved for a

fate—beside which death would be a little thing—a fate unspeakable, even

as had—Number Thirty-three.

Mary Allerton, removed from the others by a narrow corridor running

cross-wise in the cell-block, watched and waited now for the signal of

the man to whom she had dispatched that message, it seemed, a century in

the past.

That morning they had found the rope; they had removed it without

comment, while the ophidian gaze of the dark Doctor had been bent upon

her with what she fancied had been a queer, speculative look: a look of

anticipation, and of something more. So far she had been treated decently

enough; her cell was wide and airy, plainly but comfortably furnished;

but as to that look in the gray-green eyes of the Master of Black

Magic—she was not so sure.

There came a sudden movement in the corridor without; a panting, a

snuffling, and the quick _pad-pad_ of marching feet. Mary, her eye to

the keyhole of that door, could see but dimly; she made out merely the

sheeted figures, like grim, gliding ghosts; the figure, rigid, on the

stretcher, moving, silent, on its rubber-tired wheels. Then, at an odor

stealing inward through the key-hole, she recoiled.

That perfume had been sickish-sweet, overpowering, dense and yet sharp

with a faint, acrid sweetness; the odor of ether. And then, although she

could not see it, a man in the next cell had risen, white-faced, from his

cot, to sink back limply as the dark hand, holding that inverted cone,

had swept downward to his face.

A choked gurgle, a strangled, sharp cry, penetrating outward in a vague

shadow of clamor—and then silence, with the faint whisper of the wind

among the pines, the brool of the rushing river, the faint, half-audible

footfalls passing and repassing in that corridor of the dead.

* * * * *

Travis Annister sprang to his feet as the narrow door swung open to press

backward against the window-bars as the High-Priest of Horror, followed

by his familiars, cowled and hooded, entered with a slow, silent step.

The Doctor spoke, and his voice was like a chill wind:

“My friend, I bring you—forgetfulness.... A brief Lethe of hours.... And

then—ah, then, you will be a _new_ man, a man re-born, my friend....

Now....”

Annister, his face gray with a sort of hideous strain, stared silent,

white-lipped, as, at a low-voiced order, the attendants came forward.

The lean hand reached forward; it poised, darted, swooped; and in it was

the Cone.

_CHAPTER TWELVE_

CASTLE DANGEROUS

Alone in his cell beneath the court-house, Black Steve Annister sat in

silence, gazing northward through the barred window to where, invisible

in the thick darkness just across the street, the road ran, straight

as an arrow from the bow, to that dark forest brooding in a changeless

silence where lay the House of Fear.

Childers would have had his wire long since; but by the time that help

could come it would be—too late. Annister, fatalistic after a fashion,

felt this to be the fact even as he hoped against hope.

But they were many, and he was but one. Tomorrow—it would be too late.

Head bowed in his hands, oblivious, at first he had heard it as a thin

whisper, like a knife blade against the silence; it penetrated inward

now, with the dull rasp of metal upon metal from without:

“_Sit tight, old-timer; I’m comin’ through!_”

There came a muffled thud, a twist; Annister, reaching forth a hand,

found it clasped in thick groping fingers. Then, as he thrust head and

shoulders through the sundered bars, a Shadow uprose, gigantic, against

the stars; the voice came again, in a quick, rumbling whisper:

“It’s me, old-timer—_Bull_.”

Annister, crawling through the opening, alighted upon soft turf. He heard

Ellison’s low chuckle as, following the giant, he passed along the lee of

the building to where, showing merely as a black blot against the night,

there stood an automobile, its engine just turning over, with the low,

even purr of harnessed power; at twenty paces it was scarcely audible

above the rising of the wind.

“Tank’s full,” said Ellison. “Now—”

He turned abruptly as a dim figure rose upward just beyond. For a moment

Annister set himself for the onslaught; then his hand went out; it

gripped the hard hand of Del Kane.

“Ellison done told me, Mr. Annister,” he said. “An’ so I come a-fannin’

an’ a-foggin’ thisaway from Mojave; certain-sure I don’t aim to leave no

friend of mine hog-tied in no calaboose!”

Annister, his heart warming to these friends, debated with himself; then

turned to Ellison with a sudden movement.

“Bull,” he said. “I’m putting my cards on the table with you and Del,

here.”

He told them briefly of the message from Mary, the need of haste; then,

of his mission, and of the help that was even now due, or would be, with

the morning. If they were coming with him, northward along that road of

peril, word must be left behind.

Kane thought a moment; then, wheeling swiftly, with muttered word, he

disappeared in the darkness, to return presently with the good news that

he had fixed it with the station-agent. The latter had just come on; he

was a friend of Kane’s, and no friend of Rook and Company; he would see

to it, Kane said, that the reinforcements would be warned.

Boarding the car, they swung out cautiously along the silent street,

under the pale stars, northward along that shadowy road. Presently there

would be a moon, but just now they went onward in a thick darkness, with,

just ahead, the dim loom of the road, flowing backward under the wheels,

which presently ran like a ribbon of pale flame under the bright beam of

the lights.

A half mile from the town, and Bull, who was driving, opened up, and the

car leaped forward with the rising drone of the powerful motor, thirty,

forty, fifty miles an hour; the wind of their passage drove backward like

a wall as the giant’s voice came now in a rumbling laugh:

“Some little speed-wagon, Mr. Annister, ha?” he said. “An’ that’s

whatever! It ought to be. The man who owns it—who _did_ own it half an

hour ago—he’s some particular, I’ll say! Because—it’s Mister Hamilton

Rook’s!”

Annister laughed grimly in answer, speaking a low word of caution as,

after perhaps a half hour of their racing onrush the lights glimmered on

dark trees to right and left.

“Somewhere about here, I think,” he said, low. “Three outside guards, I

understand. We’d better stop a little way this side, Bull ... that’s it.

Now, look!”

As the big car slid slowly to a halt, the moon, rising above the trees,

showed them, perhaps a hundred yards just ahead, a low, rambling, stone

house, its windows like blind eyes to the night. Upon its roof the

moonlight lay like snow, and even at that distance it was sinister,

forbidding, as if the evil that was within had seeped through those

stones, outward, in a creeping tide.

“Looks like a morgue,” offered Ellison, with a shrug of his great

shoulders, as the three, alighting, pushed the car before them into the

wood.

Then, guns out, they went forward slowly among the trees.

Annister had formed no definite plan of attack. The red ribbon at that

window-bar might or might not be visible under the moon, but, the guards

eliminated, it seemed to him that, after all, they would have to make

it an assault in force. Pondering this matter, of a sudden he leaped

sidewise as a dim figure rose upward almost in his face.

Spread-eagled like a bat against the dimness, the figure bulked, huge,

against the moon as Annister, bending to one side, brought up his fist in

a lifting punch, from his shoe-tops.

It was a savage blow; it landed with the sound of a butcher’s cleaver on

the chopping-block; there came a gasping grunt; the thud of a heavy body,

as the guard went downward without a sound.

“One!” breathed Ellison, as, trussing their victim with a length of

stout line brought from the car, they left him, going forward carefully,

keeping together, circling the house.

But it was not until they were half way round it, with, so far, no sign

of that signal for which he looked, that they encountered the second

guard.

He came upon them with a swift, silent onrush, leaping among the trees,

a great, dun shape, spectral under the moon, fangs bared, as, without a

sound, the hound drove straight for the giant’s throat.

A shot would bring discovery; they dared not risk it. Annister could see

the great head, the wide ruff at the neck, the grinning jaws.... Then,

the giant’s hands had gone up and out; there came a straining heave, a

wrench, a queer, whistling croak; Ellison, rising from his knees, looked

downward a moment to where the beast, its jaw broken by that mighty

strength, lay stretched, lifeless, at his feet.

By now they had come full circle, when, all at once, Annister, peering

under his hand, sucked in his breath with a whispered oath.

Fair against the bars of a window, low down at their right, there was a

dark smudge; the ribbon, black under the moon. Annister’s heart leaped up

in answer, as, with a quick word, he halted his companions in the shadow

of a tree. A moment they conferred; then Ellison—and Annister could

almost see his grin in the darkness—spoke beneath his hand:

“Why, that’ll be easy! I’ve got m’ tools; they’re right here in my

pocket, Mr. Annister! Those bars ought to be easy! For a fair journeyman

sledge-swinger, it’ll be easy an’ you can lay to that!”

“Good!” whispered Annister in answer. “But—hurry!”

The moonlight lay in a molten flood between them and the house. But

it was no time now for deliberation. Crossing that bright strip at a

crouching run, the three were at the window; Annister’s harsh whisper

hissed in the silence, through those iron bars:

“_Mary!_”

For a heart-beat silence answered him; then, faint and thin, in a faint,

tremulous, sobbing breath, there came the answer:

“Steve—thank God!”

Annister had spoken the girl’s name without thought. At that high moment

forms had been futile; that whisper had been wrung from him, deep-down,

as had her answer. And then the soft rasp of steel on steel told that

Ellison was at work.

But the giant was working against time. At any moment now might come the

alarm; they had no means of knowing the number of those within those

walls; perhaps even now peril, just behind, might be stalking them, out

of the dark.

And still that soft rasp went on, until, at a low word from the girl, the

giant, laying down his file, bent, heaved, putting his shoulder into it;

and the bars sprang outward, bent and twisted in that iron grasp.

Annister, his hand reaching for the hand of the girl, went inward

silently, to stand a moment, without speech, in the thick darkness of the

little cell. But it was no time for dalliance.

Kane and Ellison behind him now, he set his shoulder against the door,

as, Ellison aiding, it splintered outward with a soft, carrying crash.

Ahead of them, along a dark, narrow corridor, there had come on a sudden

sound of voices, murmurs; Annister, going toward that sound, saw suddenly

an open door; light streamed from it as the murmur of voices rose:

“My friend, I bring you—forgetfulness....”

The words came in a sort of hissing sibilance as Annister, reaching that

doorway, halted a moment as the tableau was burned into his brain:

He saw his father, helpless, his face gray with the hideous terror of

that which was upon him, in the grasp of two cloaked and hooded figures,

their dark faces grinning with a bestial mirth.

And before him, hand upraised and holding a curious, funnel-shaped object

at which the man in the corner shrank backward even as he looked, he saw

a tall man with a black, forking beard—the same that he had seen that

evening at the corner of the street; the same that he had seen in that

dim backwater of Rangoon, the Unspeakable—the man with the dark, foreign

visage, and the eyes of death.

_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_

THE JAILER OF SOULS

Annister’s gun went up and out as the black-bearded man, turning, saw him

where he stood.

Travis Annister, parchment-pale, took two forward, lurching steps, as

the doctor, backing stiffly against the wall, hands upraised, called

something in a high sing-song, savage, inarticulate.

Then—everything seemed to happen at once. A snarling, animal outcry

echoed from the passage just without; it rose, as there came a far,

gobbling mutter of voices, and the _pad-pad_ of running feet.

The hooded Familiars, as one man, turned, and the long knives flashed,

luminous, under the lights, as Kane and Ellison, meeting them half way,

raised their heavy guns.

Annister, covering the Doctor, froze suddenly in motion as that gobbling

horror mounted, and then, filling that narrow way like figures in a

dream, they came: the outcasts, the lost battalion, the Men Who Had no

Right to Live.

In their van, but running rather as if pursued than as if in answer to

that snarling call, there came three men, guards by their dress, their

faces contorted, agonized, upon them the impress of a crawling fear. They

streamed past that door, pursuers and pursued, as Black Steve Annister,

finger upon the trigger of his pistol, saw that lean hand sweep upward;

it flicked the thin lips; the dark face grayed, went blank; the Dark

Doctor, his gaze in a queer, frozen look upon Eternity, pitched forward

upon his face.

In some way, as Annister could understand, the madmen had won free,

but—how?

Turning, he saw a white face at his elbow as there sounded from without

the staccato explosions of a motor, and a swift, hammering thunder upon

the great door.

“I am—Newbold Humiston,” said the face, “and I am not mad, or, rather, I

am but mad north-north-west when the wind is southerly,” he quoted, with

a ghastly smile. “This devil—” he pointed to the body of Elphinstone—“has

gone to his own place, but the evil that he did lives after him—in _us_.”

His voice rose to a shriek as there came a rush of feet along the

corridor: a compact body of men, at their head a tall man at sight of

whom Stephen Annister flung up a hand.

“Well, Childers,” he said. “I’m glad!”

Childers spoke pantingly, in quick gasps:

“We just made it, old man,” he said. “A day ahead at that. The station

agent put us on the track. We got ’em all—Lunn, and the rest; all but

Rook—”

He paused, at Annister’s inquiring look, turning his thumb down with an

expressive gesture.

“We found him—strangled—in his office ... a queer business....”

Annister gave an exclamation.

“The Indian!” he said. “Well, Rook was the ‘Third Light,’ sure enough!”

Again he was seeing the lean, avid face in the vestibule of the smoker,

the lighted match; himself, and the conductor, and Rook, the lawyer’s

pale eyes brooding above the glowing end of his cigarette.... And again,

as the picture passed, he was aware of the white face at his elbow as

Mary Allerton, her hand in his, behind her the golden hair and the wide

eyes of Cleo Ridgley, turned to Childers with a smile that yet had in it

a hint of tears.

He that had been Newbold Humiston continued:

“The others—they’re quiet now. The guards have gone—to follow _him_—the

others saw to that.”

He gestured toward the silent figure on the floor.

“His plan was worthy of his master, the Devil, because it was

diabolically simple: Rook was his procurer and his clearing-house; you

see, Rook found the victims, and cashed the checks that Elphinstone wrung

from them; and then, when they had cleaned up, or when they deemed the

time was ripe, the victims—disappeared. Rook’s secretary they kidnapped

for revenge; Miss Allerton because she knew much; they suspected that she

was in the Secret Service. And so—these others disappeared.”

He laughed; the laugh of a dead man risen from the tomb.

“They disappeared—yes—but—they remained, as you see—myself—a living

ghost!”

“But how?” asked the younger Annister, in the sudden quiet, the

realization of what his father and Mary had escaped burning like a quick

fire in his veins. The toneless voice went on:

“Elphinstone was a surgeon, a master.... You’ve heard of Dermatology?

Well, it’s been done in India, I believe; practiced there to an extent

unknown here, of course. An anesthetic, and then an operation: new faces

for old, forged faces; the thing was diabolically simple. And so when

they, the victims, saw themselves in a mirror, sometimes they went mad,

for who could prove it? Who would be believed?”

His voice rose, died, gathered strength, as a candle flames at the last

with a brief spark of life:

“It’s done,” he muttered. “He’s gone—but his work lives after him, even

as he called himself—the Jailer of Souls!”

THE END.

Editor Baffled by Weird Seance

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s lecture tours in the United States have created

wide discussion and considerable difference of opinion, some persons

contending that he is really in communication with the spirit world,

while others declare that he is the victim of tricksters. In order to

conduct an impartial investigation, J. Malcolm Bird, associate editor

of The Scientific American, attended several of Sir Arthur’s seances,

and afterward declared that he had observed psychic phenomena that

could hardly be explained by any known natural cause. He could discover

no physical connection between the medium or the spectators and the

phenomena, and he saw mysterious self-luminous lights, attributed by Sir

Arthur to ectoplasm, and heard strange noises that defied his efforts to

establish a natural cause.

“My best judgment would be that both in direction and subject matter much

of the ‘communicated’ material of the seance would be quite beyond the

normal ability of the medium,” he said. “The seance entered a phase which

seems to me to prove, without question, that telepathy or some other

force with intelligence behind it was at work.

“The trumpet began to talk, loudly and distinctly and coherently, in a

voice that had not yet been heard.... It was not ordinary ventriloquism,

because the ventriloquist cannot work in the dark. He doesn’t deceive

your ears, but rather your eyes, by directing your attention to the point

whence he wishes you to infer that the sound came. The voice really came

from the center of the circle.”

JACK O’ MYSTERY

_A Modern Ghost Story_

_By_ EDWIN MacLAREN

The limousine came to a glistening stop before an office building in

Monroe Street, and a handsome woman of thirty, expensively and stylishly

gowned, emerged from the car and entered the building, her mien

bespeaking nervousness.

Furtively, as one who fears pursuit, she hastened across the marble

rotunda, edged hurriedly into an elevator and ascended to the ninth

floor, where she approached a door bearing upon its opaque glass panel

the gilt lettering:

BARRY DETECTIVE AGENCY

She paused here for a moment, in an effort to recover her equanimity; and

then, with a brave assumption of self-assurance, she opened the door and

entered the room and closed the door behind her.

[Illustration]

The room was quite deserted; but promptly from an adjoining chamber there

came a lean-faced young man of inquiring blue eyes, who courteously

greeted her.

“Is Mr. Barry in?” she asked. “Mr. Herbert Barry?”

“I am Herbert Barry,” he said.

“Oh!” Surprised, she eyed the slim young man half incredulously. He

seemed scarcely more than a boy. “Mrs. Franklin Parker told me about

you—recommended you very highly. Perhaps that is why,” she added, with a

smile, “I expected to find an older man.... I suppose most of the people

who come to see you are in trouble of some sort. _I_ am not in trouble,

exactly, but—” She glanced around the office. “May I have a word with you

in privacy?”

He held open the door to the adjoining room. “Suppose we step in here? My

stenographer is at lunch. There’s no danger of our being disturbed.”

Preceding him into the inner office, she bade him lock the door; and,

thus assured of their safety from interruption, she sat nervously on

the edge of a chair and faced him across the flat-top desk. There

clung to her, somehow, a subtle suggestion of wealth and luxury, and

her well-chiseled features denoted good breeding. Subtle, too, was the

delicate odor of violets that fragrantly touched his nostrils as she

leaned toward him across the desk. Then he noticed she wore a rich

cluster of the flowers upon her mauve silk waist.

He observed, also, the purplish shadows beneath her large brown eyes,

her half-frightened, half-worried demeanor and her air of suppressed

excitement, as though she were struggling to control some inner

perturbation.

“Perhaps I’ve made a mistake,” she began, “in coming here. I don’t know.

But I’ve been so perplexed, so utterly mystified, by some strange things

that have happened lately—Did you ever hear of Willard Clayberg?” she

broke off suddenly to ask.

Barry knitted his brows. The name had a familiar sound.

“Yes,” he said, after a pause, “I seem to remember him. Wasn’t he the

North Shore millionaire who went insane last winter and killed his wife

and himself?”

She nodded. Her elbows were resting on the desk and her slender fingers,

interlaced beneath her small white chin, were twitching.

“Exactly. They lived, as you probably recall, in a quaint old-fashioned

home near Hubbard Woods—just the two of them; no children. Following

the tragedy, the house was closed up and for a long while remained

unoccupied. Despite the scarcity of dwelling places, nobody apparently

cared to live there. For one thing, it is not a modern residence, and for

another—and this really seemed the most serious objection—it had acquired

a reputation of being ‘haunted.’

“Of course,” she went on, with a nervous little laugh, “you will say—just

as _I_ said—that such a thing is perfectly absurd. You’d think that no

normal person would take it seriously. And yet there were so many strange

things told about the house—creepy stories of weird sounds in the dead

of night and unearthly things seen through the windows—that people,

ordinarily level-headed, began to shun the place.

“I have never believed in ghosts, Mr. Barry, and I’ve always ridiculed

people who did; but now—Do you know my husband, Scott Peyton?”

“I’ve heard of him,” said Barry. “Architect, isn’t he?”

“A very successful one. He has designed some of the finest buildings in

Chicago. But he’s the most superstitious man alive! He’s a Southerner,

born in Georgia, and at childhood his negro ‘mammy’ filled his mind with

all manner of silly superstitions, including a deathly fear of ‘ha’nts.’

He has never been able to overcome this, although both of us have tried.

“About three weeks ago,” Mrs. Peyton continued, her voice betraying her

agitation, “he and I were motoring along the North Shore when we espied

this old Clayberg estate. The quaint charm of the old-fashioned place at

once enchanted me; and when we alighted and strolled through the grounds

my enchantment grew. It seemed as if Nature had outdone herself in

lavishing picturesque beauty there. Mr. Peyton was as fascinated as I.

“We were planning, at that time, to give up our town apartment and buy a

suburban home; and this seemed to be just the thing we were looking for.

We inquired of the neighbors concerning it, and it was then we discovered

its tragic history. When my husband was told of the hideous thing that

had happened there last winter, and of its evil reputation since, his

enthusiasm vanished, and I immediately saw he would never consider buying

it.

“But I had set my heart on having that place; and later—after I had

pleaded and argued with him in vain—I decided to buy it myself and,

by compelling him to live there, perhaps cure him permanently of his

superstitious fear. I saw the agent next day, learned the old home could

be bought at a bargain, and had my father buy it and deed it to me.

“My husband was furious when I told him what I had done. He declared

he would never enter the house and urged me to sell it forthwith. But

I was as firm as he; and finally, after a rather violent argument and

by taunting him with being a coward, I contrived to get his reluctant

consent to make our home in the ‘haunted house’.”

* * * * *

“We moved in last Thursday,” said Mrs. Peyton sitting nearer the desk and

lowering her voice, “and on Thursday night, and every night since then—”

She exhaled audibly, her lip quivering.

“What happened?” asked Barry.

“It’s been a nightmare!” she exclaimed with sudden vehemence. “Ever since

that first night the most peculiar things have happened. I don’t know

what to make of it, or what to think, or do. It’s baffling! I’m not in

the least superstitious; and yet—”

“Start at the beginning,” suggested Barry, “and tell me exactly what

happened.”

“Well, the first night we slept in the master’s bedroom—a large front

room on the second floor—and about midnight I was awakened by my husband,

who was sitting up in bed, gasping and trembling with terror. Before

I could speak, he sprang from bed and switched on the light and began

frantically searching the room, looking into the closets and under the

bed and peering into the hall.

“‘For heaven’s sake!’ I cried. ‘What’s the matter?’

“He pointed to the corridor door. His hand was trembling and his face was

as white as paper. For a moment he seemed unable to speak.

“‘It came right through that door!’ he said at last. ‘I woke up just as

it came in the room—a ghastly-looking old man with white hair and a long

beard. It didn’t open the door, but came right _through_ it!’

“‘Nonsense!’ I laughed. ‘You’ve been thinking about ghosts until you

imagine you’re seeing them. Now come back to bed and go to sleep.’

“But he indignantly insisted he had actually seen the thing.

“‘I saw it cross the room,’ he declared, ‘and stop at the bed and stand

there looking down at me. When I sat up it disappeared—vanished into air.’

“I couldn’t believe such a preposterous thing, of course, but, to humor

him, I offered to get up and help him search the house.

“‘What good would that do?’ he objected. ‘I tell you the thing was a

_spirit_!’

“Finally he went back to bed. But he slept no more that night. At

breakfast next morning I could see he hadn’t closed his eyes.

“On the following night I again was awakened by my husband, who seemed

even more frightened than before.

“‘It came back again!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘It was puttering around

your desk over there.’

“Then he jumped out of bed and ran to the desk and lit the lamp there.

A moment later he uttered a sharp cry and came hurrying back to my bed,

with a sheet of writing paper in his hand.

“‘Look at that!’ he exclaimed, and thrust the paper before my eyes.

“I saw written on the paper, in a sprawling hand, the words, ‘_Leave this

House!_’ and I knew then that somebody had been in the room.

“I got up and tried the door. It was still locked and the key was in the

hole, just as I had left it. The windows hadn’t been touched, apparently.

How, then, had the person entered our room?

“My husband, of course, insisted it was not a living being, but a ghost,

who could pass through a locked door as though it didn’t exist. And, as

before, he refused to look for it.

“Next day, however, with our cook and houseman, I thoroughly searched the

house from top to bottom—and found nothing. No trace of anybody having

entered the house. Nothing wrong anywhere.

“On Saturday night I was awakened again—this time by a frantic knocking

on our bedroom door. I sat up, startled. My husband was sleeping soundly,

exhausted after two sleepless nights.

“I slipped quietly from bed, without disturbing him, and tiptoed to the

door and whispered through the panel:

“‘Who’s there?’

“The cook’s voice answered, and I could tell by her tone she was terribly

frightened:

“‘It’s me, ma’am. I’m leavin’ this house tonight. I won’t stay here

another minute!’

“I opened the door and stepped out in the hall—taking care not to awake

Mr. Peyton—and found Clara fully dressed and holding her traveling-bag.

It was evident she had dressed in considerable haste, and it was equally

plain that she was almost paralyzed with fear.

“‘I just seen a spook!’ she gasped. ‘An old man with white hair and

whiskers. He come right in my room while I was asleep. I woke up and seen

’im. And he writ somethin’ on my dresser. You c’n see for yerself, ma’am,

what he writ there.’

* * * * *

“Fearful of awakening my husband, I had drawn her away from the bedroom

door; and now, with some difficulty, I persuaded her to follow me to her

room, where I found, written in white chalk across the bureau mirror, the

command: ‘_Leave here at once!_’

“Clara was determined to obey this ‘message from the dead’ by leaving

instantly. I couldn’t induce her even to stay until morning. Despite my

protests and entreaties, she fled from the house and passed the remainder

of the night, as I later discovered, in the Hubbard Woods railroad

station, taking an early train for Chicago.

“I tried to keep the occurrence from my husband, inventing an excuse for

Clara’s hasty departure, but he wormed the truth from me, and of course

that further harassed his already overwrought nerves. Also, it gave him

the right to say, ‘I told you so!’

“He renewed his pleading to abandon the house; but I still refused to

give it up—still refused to admit that it was ‘haunted,’ or that there

was anything supernatural in what he and Clara had seen.

“It didn’t end there, unhappily. On the very next night—that was night

before last—the houseman was visited by the mysterious ‘thing.’ He said

he saw it in his room, after midnight, stooping over his table, that he

shouted at it and it disappeared. Then, so he told us, he got up and

struck a light and discovered the ‘ghost’ had been trying to send a

message to him by arranging some matches on the table.

“He showed us these matches, saying he had left them just as they were

found. They were so placed as to spell the word, ‘_LEAVE_,’ in capital

letters. Evidently the ‘ghost’ was frightened away before he could finish

his sentence. Needless to say, the houseman left us.

“Well, in spite of all these things, I simply couldn’t bring myself to

believe that the mysterious visitations were supernatural. I was sure

there must be some logical explanation. But _last_ night—!”

“What happened last night?” asked Barry, as Mrs. Peyton paused.

Mrs. Peyton, still sitting forward in her chair, was searching in her

reticule. Barry noticed her fingers were unsteady and that her underlip

was caught between her teeth to still its quivering.

“Last night,” she went on, with a transparent effort at lightness, “_I_

saw the ‘ghost’! Please don’t smile! I was quite wide awake when I saw

it—as wide awake as I am this moment—and in full possession of all my

wits. And I can’t understand yet how it got in my room, or how it got

out, or even what it was.

“I was alone in the house, too,” she continued, taking a photograph from

the reticule and placing it, face down, on the desk. “Yesterday afternoon

Mr. Peyton telephoned from his office that he must stay downtown rather

late to attend a meeting of building contractors and suggested that I

come in to the city for dinner, and bring a friend and ‘take in a show,’

and meet him afterward. But I wasn’t in the mood and told him I’d prefer

to stay at home.

“‘But I won’t be home before twelve o’clock,’ he said, ‘and I don’t like

the idea of your being all alone in that house at night, without even a

servant on the place.’

“I reminded him that the chauffeur and gardener were still with us (they

sleep in the garage and hadn’t been alarmed by the ‘spook’), and with

these two and Mitch, our Scotch collie, to guard me I felt perfectly

safe. As for the ‘ghost,’ I laughingly told him, I really would enjoy

meeting it and having a chat on its astral adventures.

“He declined to unbend from his seriousness and became irritated when I

refused to leave the house. We had quite a tiff, but I finally had my

way, and the best he could get was a promise from me to lock myself in

before going to bed. He said he would sleep in one of the guest chambers.

“After a pick-up meal in the kitchen, I went upstairs to our room and

wrote letters until ten o’clock. Then I prepared for bed.

“For a moment I regretted not having done as my husband asked. The house

_did_ seem eerie; no denying that—big and dark and silent, and not a

living creature in it except myself.

“But I quickly shook off this feeling, assuring myself there was no such

thing as a ghost, and, even if there was, that it couldn’t possibly

harm me. However, remembering my promise, I locked the door and put the

key under my pillow, and bolted all the windows, and, as an additional

precaution, I looked under the bed and inspected both closets. And I knew

_absolutely_, when I put out the light and got into bed, that I was the

only person in that room.

“I was soon asleep,” said Mrs. Peyton, again feeling in her handbag,

“and it seemed only a few minutes later—though I know now it was several

hours—when I found myself wide awake. I suppose it was the lack of fresh

air that awoke me. I’m accustomed to sleeping with the windows open.

“I was on the point of getting up to open a window when, all at once, my

blood seemed to freeze. I discovered, quite suddenly, _I was not alone in

the room_!”

* * * * *

Mrs. Peyton paused and drew from the handbag a sheet of blue linen

notepaper. Nervously creasing the paper in her slender white fingers, she

continued, with heightening agitation, her large brown eyes earnestly

watching the detective’s face: “I won’t deny, Mr. Berry, that I was

frightened. In fact, I confess that I was so terrified I seemed utterly

powerless to move or speak. I had always supposed if I ever _should_

see a ghost I would feel no fear whatever. But now that I found myself

actually looking at one—or at least looking at what, in that frightful

moment, I potently _believed_ to be one—I was petrified with terror.

“It was sitting at my desk, right where I’d been sitting all evening, and

its back was toward me. The moon had risen and was shining through the

windows, brightening the room with a pale half-light.

“The figure at the desk appeared to be writing. In fact, I could hear the

scratching of the pen. I could also hear the ticking of a small clock on

the desk. That’s how still everything was.

“Well, it sat there writing—a blurred, shapeless object in the silvery

moonlight—for I don’t know how long. It seemed an age! And all the time I

was conscious—terrifyingly so—that I was alone in that great house with

it!”

Mrs. Peyton paused and took the photograph from the desk.

“Instinctively, I tried to scream,” she went on, “but my throat was

parched and I seemed unable to utter a sound. However, I must have made

some sort of noise, for the thing suddenly turned and looked at me over

its shoulder. And for the first time, I saw its face.”

“What was the face like?” asked Barry.

She handed him the photograph.

“That’s a picture of it,” she said.

It was a kodak “snapshot” of an aged man with flowing white hair and

a patriarchal beard. Turning it over, Barry saw written on the back,

“Willard Clayberg, December, 1922.”

“It’s Mr. Clayberg’s last picture,” said Mrs. Peyton. “I obtained it this

morning from one of his grandsons. It was taken last winter, shortly

before the dreadful tragedy at our house.”

“Getting back to last night?” reminded Barry.

“Oh, yes! Well, the thing sat there, quite silent and motionless, staring

at me through the moonlight. Its face was the same as the one in that

picture, only, somehow, it didn’t seem _real_. It was peculiarly pallid

and lifeless—like the face of a dead person.

“Finally I found my voice and cried out: ‘Who are you? What are you doing

here?’

“Instantly the thing rose from the desk, without making a particle of

sound, and glided swiftly and silently across the room—and disappeared!

“That seemed to revive my courage—the thought that I had frightened it

away—and I sprang from bed and ran to the door.

“The door was still locked! I tried the windows. They were still bolted.

Neither the door nor the windows had been touched. Everything in the

room, in fact, was just as I had left it upon going to bed.

“Then I crossed to my desk and lit the lamp there and found—this!” Mrs.

Peyton offered the sheet of note paper, which she had been nervously

fingering.

Barry unfolded it and read the words scrawled upon its blue surface:

“_Again I warn you to leave this house. This is the last—_”

“When I interrupted him,” explained Mrs. Peyton, “he apparently had just

written the word, ‘last.’”

Barry nodded and narrowly examined the handwriting. It was old-style

script, angular and shaky, indicative of a very aged and infirm person.

“Have you the notes received by Mr. Peyton and the cook?”

“No; but I saw them. Both were written in the same hand as that,”

indicating the sheet of blue paper.

Barry again looked at the photograph, holding it to the light and

inspecting it closely. Suddenly he asked:

“What sort of clothing did your visitor wear?”

“Why, as I remember, he wore a sort of long gray robe and a queer little

cap—a skullcap, maybe. But it was all very blurred and indistinct. He

seemed to be enveloped in a kind of gray mist. With his white hair and

beard, the effect was quite ‘creepy.’”

“Anything else happen last night?”

“Nothing—except that I passed the rest of the night trying to solve the

riddle. The first thing I did, after finding the note, was to try the

door and windows again—and I again made sure they hadn’t been touched. I

knew positively that nobody could get in the room _except_ through the

door or windows, so _how_ had the old man entered?

“I was still hunting an answer to that question, and growing more

perplexed than ever, when I heard a heavy footfall on the front porch;

then the front door opened and closed with a _bang_, and my husband came

bounding noisily upstairs. I knew from this he had seen the light at my

window, even before he called to me reprovingly through the bedroom door:

‘Haven’t you turned in yet? It’s ’way after one o’clock.’

“It was then I decided to say nothing to him about what happened. And I

haven’t.

“But this morning, as soon as he’d left for the office, I called on Mrs.

Parker and told her everything. She suggested that I see you. I hesitated

at first to do this, because only yesterday I spoke to Mr. Peyton

about calling in the police or employing a detective to investigate

the mystery, and he vigorously objected. He really believed the thing

was supernatural and declared that no living person could overcome it.

The only thing to do, he said, was to leave the house as the ‘spirit’

commanded.

“I finally decided, however, to follow Mrs. Parker’s suggestion,

particularly as she recommended you so highly—and so, quite unknown to my

husband, here I am!

“And now, Mr. Barry,” said Mrs. Peyton, sitting back in her chair for

the first time and moving her white hands in a pretty gesture of relief,

“what do _you_ make of it all?”

* * * * *

Barry, examining the feeble handwriting beneath a reading-glass,

discerned what appeared to be a startling solution of the mystery; but,

deeming it best for the moment to say nothing of this, he offered an

obvious answer to her question:

“From what you have told me, Mrs. Peyton, it would seem that an unknown

person, concealed in your house, is bent on frightening you away.”

“But I’ve thoroughly searched the house,” she protested, “not once, but

several times; and I know positively that nobody is hidden there—and that

nobody has broken in. Besides, even if the old man _was_ in the house, or

_had_ broken in, how did he enter my room last night?”

“Perhaps, after I’ve inspected the room—”

“Can you do it, without Mr. Peyton knowing?”

“Quite easily, I think, with our help. Since you are in need of servants,

my presence can readily be explained—”

“Why, of course!” she eagerly interrupted. “Our new houseman! It will

seem quite plausible, too,” she added, rising and glancing at her watch,

“particularly since I’ve just engaged a new cook—who is waiting for me

now, by the way, in my car. We had best start at once, Mr. Barry. It’s

nearly one, and my husband is usually home before six.”

... A little later, as the Peyton limousine smartly threaded its way

through the downtown streets, Barry, sitting on the front seat beside

the chauffeur, planned a procedure that would either substantiate, or

explode, his tentative explanation of the white-bearded “ghost.”

His first step was taken immediately: At a State Street department store

he secretly bought a pad of cheap writing paper, a package of ungummed

envelopes, ten two-cent stamps, a thick lead pencil, a jar of mucilage

and an oblong carton of sterilized gauze.

Later still, upon reaching the “haunted house,” he saw no cause to revise

his plan, and no reason to doubt that the solution he already had formed,

although amazing, was essentially correct.

With the new cook installed in the kitchen, Mrs. Peyton conducted him to

the second-floor front bedroom—a commodious south chamber—where she had

seen the “ghost” last night. Barry looked at the small mahogany desk,

surveyed the white-enameled twin beds, measured their distance from the

corridor door and carefully examined the lock thereon.

Then, swiftly though systematically, he searched the rest of the house

and afterward strolled outdoors. Sauntering across the velvety lawns,

beneath the aged trees, he casually approached the garage some two

hundred feet from the house. He had found nothing in the house, and now

saw nothing in the surrounding grounds, to suggest the weird things he

had heard. Here, to all appearance, was only an old-fashioned suburban

home dozing peacefully in the mellow sunshine of a midsummer afternoon.

At the garage, which aforetime had been a stable, he engaged in

back-stairs gossip with Frank Dominick, the chauffeur—in the presence of

the gardener, John Hart, an uncommunicative person—and learned that both

were preparing to “give notice.”

“We ain’t actually _seen_ old Clayberg’s ghost—at least not _yet_,” said

Dominick, “but we’ve heard enough about ’im and I guess he’ll be callin’

on us next. I guess the only reason we ain’t seen ’im before is because

we sleep up there,” pointing to the upper floor of the garage. “Take my

advice, friend, and don’t stay here over night. Am I right, John?”

John Hart, a senile man, shifted his cud of tobacco and expectorated

lavishly, thus contributing a fresh stain to his ragged white beard.

“You’re right,” said he, and spoke no more.

Returning to the house, Barry was given a white jacket and a pair of blue

trousers by Mrs. Peyton; and at six o’clock, wearing these garments and

a servile mien, he was laying the dinner table when the master of the

house arrived. Barry, with a plate and napkin in his hands, observed him

through the doorway—a trim-looking man of thirty-five—and remarked the

harrowing fear that sat upon his countenance.

His haggard eyes, like those of his wife, denoted loss of sleep; and he

evinced no interest in her “luck in finding two perfect servants.” In the

same troubled preoccupation, he acknowledged the introduction of Barry,

who was presented as Thomas Field. Clearly, he was too frightened and

worried to be conscious of his environment.

Dinner over, Barry went to his room. It was a tiny chamber tucked

under the eaves at the rear of the top floor, and it was here that his

predecessor had beheld the “apparition” night before last. Upon the small

table, where the word, “LEAVE” had been spelled with matches, Barry

spread the articles which he had bought this afternoon.

Then he drew the table to the window, and lighted the lamp, and sat down

and began writing letters to mythical persons in Iowa. His door stood

open, and so did the window, and anybody passing in the hall, or standing

north of the house, could have watched him at his employment.

For upward of two hours he sat steadily writing, his back to the door,

his face silhouetted against the window; and when he had written

five letters, and had stamped and directed them to his imaginary

correspondents, he uncorked the mucilage pot and sealed the flaps of the

envelops.

And then, somehow, he awkwardly upset the bottle of mucilage, and the

stuff oozed stickily over his pencil and paper.

It was at this moment, or perhaps a little earlier, that he heard a

slight rustle in the hall behind him, as of somebody moving away from his

door, but, apparently intent only upon cleaning the mucilage from the

table, he never looked round or gave any sign that he heard.

Presently he extinguished the light and, disrobing in the darkness,

looked from his window. The old Clayberg stable, now Peyton’s garage,

loomed like a great dusky shadow in the starlit night; and at a small

upper window, almost on a direct line with his, a yellow light glowed.

Feeling through the dark, Barry removed the sterilized gauze from the

carton, snipped off a ten-inch length, and returned the gauze and box to

his pocket. Then he stretched his length on the narrow iron bed, his face

to the window, his door ajar.

Wide awake, he lay staring into the darkness, his mind alert, sharpened

by expectancy.

* * * * *

The moon rose in the southeast, bathing the outdoors in a silvery

sheen and mitigating, somewhat, the darkness of his room. The minutes

lengthened into hours; and as the hours dragged slowly by Barry fought

off the desire to sleep.

The fight became increasingly difficult; and finally—he judged it was

long past midnight—it seemed as though he could no longer force himself

to stay awake. His eyelids drooped. He dozed....

And then, all at once, he was wide awake again, his pulse tingling.

Somebody had entered his room and was standing now at the table, between

the bed and window, so near that Barry could have touched him by reaching

forth his hand.

Barry, however, remained motionless, simulating sleep; and beneath

lowered lids he watched the intruder—a blurred gray figure—take up the

pencil and start writing on the pad of paper. The moon had climbed to the

zenith, and by its pale reflection Barry distinguished the salient marks

of his visitor; the long gray robe, the flowing white hair and beard, the

white skullcap.

Then the figure put down the pencil and vanished—gliding to the hall as

swiftly and noiselessly, it seemed, as a shadow leaving the room.

Still Barry did not move. Silence ensued. Then, from some point down the

hall, came a woman’s piercing scream.

Barry rose, wrapped the lead pencil in the strip of gauze, and enclosed

it in the cardboard box and replaced the box in his pocket.

Then, wearing coat and trousers, he stepped into the hall and lit a gas

jet there—just as the new cook, screaming with terror, emerged from her

room. Hysterical with fright, she frantically flourished a scrap of

wrapping paper. And when she could speak coherently:

“I just seen a spook in my room—an old man wid white whiskers. I won’t

stay in this house! He writ somethin’ here—”

She broke off to examine the bit of paper by the fluttering gas flame;

and when she saw the words written on her paper she uttered another

terrified shriek and, heedless of her scant attire, fled toward the

front staircase. She was met at the head of the stairs by Mr. and Mrs.

Peyton—he in pajamas and bathrobe, she in a peignoir, and both visibly

alarmed—and to them she told, or tried to tell, the reason for her mad

flight.

“Now lemme get outa here!” she ended, attempting to brush past them. “He

told me to leave tonight—and _I’m goin’_!”

Barry, following sleepily in her wake, rubbing his eyes as one newly

awakened from slumber, heard Peyton saying: “This is dreadful, dreadful!”

and Mrs. Peyton entreating the cook to “stay at least till morning.”

Unable to persuade the cook to remain, Mrs. Peyton turned appealingly to

Barry. “Did you see anything in your room, Field?”

“No, mem,” said Barry, hiding a yawn. “I was fast asleep when she woke me

up, mem.”

This, however, exerted no influence on the cook. Like Clara who went

before her, she departed immediately for the railroad station, there to

pass the rest of the night.

Peace at last returned to the house—and Barry returned to his room,

locked the door and observed on his pad the same angular scrawl, “_Leave

this house tonight!_” which had frightened her away. Then he went to bed

and slept soundly until after sunrise.

He was up and dressed at seven o’clock; and when the Peytons came

downstairs about eight he had an appetizing breakfast awaiting them. As

soon as her husband had left for his office, Mrs. Peyton, returning from

the front door, looked at the detective with anxious inquiry in her large

brown eyes.

“Have you discovered anything at all, Mr. Barry?”

Barry took a crumpled napkin from the breakfast table and folded it

thoughtfully between his long fingers. He was thinking: “Yes, Mrs.

Peyton; I’ve discovered the identity of your ‘ghost,’ and you alone have

the power to ‘kill’ it.” Aloud, however:

“I’ll make a report today,” he promised, and left the room with a stack

of dishes and the folded napkin.

He deposited the dishes in the kitchen sink. The napkin went into his hip

pocket. Then he started upstairs for his other clothes. At her bedroom

door he paused, listening. The door stood open. Mrs. Peyton, downstairs,

was sitting at the breakfast table, absently crumbling a bit of toast in

her fingers, a faraway look in her eyes. Barry, at her bedroom door, was

remarking the small mahogany desk, where, two nights ago, the “ghost” had

written his warning to her.

In three swift strides he crossed to the desk, searched hurriedly among

the papers there and neatly pocketed one of these. Then he continued

to his room. Mrs. Peyton still sat at the breakfast table in a pensive

reverie, her wistful brown gaze lost in the morning sunshine beyond the

leaded casements.

* * * * *

An hour later Barry alighted from a train in Chicago and forthwith called

on a colleague, whose skill in analyzing handwriting and identifying

finger prints had earned him the title of “expert.” He spent considerable

time with this man; and then he went to his office and wrote his report

for Mrs. Peyton.

And when the report was finished he sat gazing at it musingly—somewhat as

Mrs. Peyton had gazed from her breakfast-room window this morning.

With an energetic shrug, as if to shake off his odd mood, he sealed the

report in an envelope, and put it in his pocket and started for an office

building in lower Michigan Avenue.

Presently he entered a room in this building, luxuriously furnished and

unoccupied, and abruptly halted. In the adjoining room he could hear

the voices of Scott Peyton and his wife; and since the door between the

two offices stood partly open, he could also see their faces. Himself

unobserved, Barry stood silently watching and listening.

“I suppose you’re right, Scott,” she said, standing beside her husband’s

desk and looking down at him. “After what happened last night, I’m just

about ready to do as you say—give the house up and move back to town. But

I do so hate to leave that old place. I wish—”

“Why should you?” he interrupted, scowling at his desk and avoiding her

eyes.

Mrs. Peyton looked down, biting a corner of her lip and twisting the

wedding ring of her finger.

“It’s not so much what _I_ want,” she faltered, her voice tremulously

low, “but—the city is no place—not the _best_ place for our—_Oh, Scott!_”

she cried passionately, and flung out her hands to him in appeal. “Can’t

you _see_?”

Scott Peyton looked up and met his wife’s eyes; and the thing he saw in

their liquid brown depths instantly chased the frown from his face and

took him to his feet in a swift rush of remorse and gladness.

In the next instant she was sobbing in his arms; and he was tenderly

patting her shoulders and saying soothingly:

“It’s all right, honey. We won’t give the place up. I don’t think—the

ghost—will bother us again....”

At this juncture Barry quietly departed.

* * * * *

A little later he again sat at his desk, gazing again at the report he

had written. And he now knew that this report would never be seen by any

eye save his.

But while he is sitting here suppose we look over his shoulder and glance

at the thing before he tears it up:

“In Re Peyton ‘ghost’: ... Using a King Lear costume, which he

put on and off with lightning agility, the ‘ghost’ hoped, by

his nocturnal prowling, to frighten Mrs. Peyton into abandoning

the house as her husband desired.... Following his nightly

appearances, he quickly removed and concealed his costume, and

returned to his bed, careful to make no sound. He varied this

procedure, however, night before last, when he visited Mrs.

Peyton’s room. Had she left her key in the lock that night,

instead of hiding it under her pillow, he would have been

unable to call upon her. As it was, he readily unlocked the

door and entered. Leaving silently, he hid his costume, then

left the house and returned, making considerable noise.... The

finger prints he left in glue last night and those he left on

his napkin this morning, as well as his real and disguised

handwriting positively identify the ‘ghost’ as Mrs. Peyton’s

husband, Scott Peyton.”

[Illustration]

_Have You Been Reading About King Tut? If so, You’ll be Interested in_

OSIRIS

_The Weird Tale of an Egyptian Mummy_

_By_ ADAM HULL SHIRK

“_Mandrake_”

_By ADAM HULL SHIRK_

_Will appear in the July WEIRD TALES_

_It’s a Strange Yarn of Superstitious Fear_

_Don’t Miss It!_

The recent and lamentable death of Sir Richard Parmenter, F. R. G. S.,

is too fresh in the public’s mind to warrant further reference, and were

it not that I feel myself capable of throwing light upon the incidents

contributing to the sudden and apparently unnecessary snuffing out of a

valuable life, I should refrain from again alluding to it.

It is well known that the physicians at the time decided that valvular

weakness of the heart must have been responsible for the death of the

noted Egyptologist, but the statement of his own doctor that Sir Richard

had never theretofore exhibited indications of such weakness, and that he

was, to all appearances, in the best of health just prior to his death,

caused considerable wonder.

I had thought to let the facts remain buried, but, for certain reasons, I

shall reconsider my determination and tell what I know.

I shall always remember the night on which Sir Richard summoned me, as

his counselor, to attend him at his apartments in the Albermarle. It

was a night of storm, and the London streets were a mass of slime and

slush. A beastly wind had sprung up, and as I left my chambers at the

Temple it almost took me off my feet. Therefore, it was with no little

satisfaction that I found a cheery log fire awaiting me in the library of

my distinguished client’s home, and the nip of brandy he provided was a

life saver.

I noted, however, that for all his assumption of cheerfulness, something

was preying upon his mind, and I determined to get at the root of the

matter without delay:

“How can I serve you, Sir Richard?” I asked, briskly. “I see there is

something troubling you.”

“Is it as apparent as that?” he asked, trying to appear unconcerned: but

his strong, homely features belied his effort at calmness.

Before I could reply, he went on:

“But never mind that: I want you to write my will—now.”

“Your will?” My expression of surprise and incredulity was natural,

for since I had been retained by him I had marked it as one of his few

idiosyncrasies that he had never made his will. When I had mentioned

to him the advisability of doing so, he had put it by with a whimsical

remark about being superstitious.

“I am in earnest,” he declared, “and it will be very simple—just a brief

form, and I’ll sign it with my man as witness.”

“But why the haste?” I said. “Why not wait till I can have the document

properly drawn up at my office tomorrow—”

“No; now!” he said, and there was such finality in his tone I had no

choice.

My concern for my client, whom I really liked and respected immensely,

prompted me to ask:

“You’re not ill, Sir Richard?”

He shook his head, with the ghost of a smile on his rugged face.

“Physically—no. But—”

He paused, and after a moment he again urged me to proceed with the

making of the will.

I drew up the document, which was a simple one, leaving the bulk of his

large properties to his sister in Surrey, with numerous small bequests

to friends and distant relatives, and a handsome sum and his private

collection to the British Museum and the Imperial Museum of Egyptology.

We had in his man, and the document was duly signed, after which he drew

a long breath of relief and, with a return of something like his natural

manner, passed me his cigar-case and leaned back in his chair, smoking

comfortably.

“I’ve a story to tell you, Madden,” he said between puffs, “and it’s a

queer yarn, too. You’ll think—but never mind. Listen first, and say what

you like afterward. Only—” he glanced about him with an apprehensive

expression that fairly set my nerves atingle. “I hope we have time.”

“Time for what?” I asked.

He relaxed again and smiled:

“It’s all right,” he declared. “I’m a bit nervous, I guess, but it’s all

right. Have another brandy.”

We drank solemnly together. Then he settled back once more and I prepared

to listen.

“Madden,” said he, “perhaps you’ll smile at what has seemed to me serious

enough to warrant the steps I have just taken—making my will, I mean—but,

however you look at it, I want you to know it’s true—every word of it.

“My last trip to Egypt—from which I just returned a fortnight ago—was

to have been my final one, anyway. I’ve made six trips out there in my

life, and I’ve collected enough information to fill a dozen volumes.

Also, I’ve contributed many fine specimens to the museum and corrected

many misapprehensions concerning the interpretation of some of the

hieroglyphs. So, all in all, I think I’ve done pretty well.

“This last visit was in many respects the most satisfactory, and indeed

it witnessed a triumph in my career as an Egyptologist that would be a

crowning achievement, were it not for—but we won’t speak of that—yet.

“I wonder, Madden, if you know anything about the ancient Egyptian

religious ceremonies and forms of worship? Anyway, I may tell you that

the Nile dwellers, as they were called, recognized as their supreme

deity, Osiris, lord of the underworld. By some he has been identified

with the Sun and, with the forty assessors of the dead, he was supposed

to have judged the souls brought before him by Horus in the double halls

of truth, after their good and evil deeds had been weighed by Anubis.

“The Egyptians reverenced Osiris with as devout worship as the Chinese

give to Buddha, and the high priests of Osiris were regarded with almost

as much awe as the deity himself.

“In all our studies and investigations, however, we have never been able

actually to identify Osiris, but it is now generally conceded that he was

believed to have lived on earth at one time and that it was only after

his death that he assumed deific prerogatives. In this respect the modern

Christian theology may be said to resemble the more ancient form to some

extent.

“Osiris was pictured on many of the tablets as a creature with the head

of a bull, though there is some disagreement on this score. In any event,

his tomb was said to exist near Heliopolis, and it was to investigate

this tradition that I made my last trip to Egypt.”

Sir Richard paused to relight his cigar and listened to the storm which

raged without. Again he gave that hasty, apprehensive glance about him,

then proceeded:

“It would be impossible for me to explain to you, a layman, my

inordinate joy at finding—by what means and after what tedious labor,

I won’t stop to tell now—a deserted tomb which I knew, from certain

hieroglyphic markings I found, was the very one of which I had been in

search for the best part of half a year.

“Understand that this whole tradition of the tomb of Osiris was regarded

by my fellow scientists as a myth, and if it had been publicly known that

I was giving it sufficient credence to spend a lot of time and money

searching for it I should have been looked upon as a madman and laughed

out of the societies. This may enable you to appreciate more fully my

sensations on actually locating at least the tomb. What I should find

within, I hardly dared conjecture!

“The tomb of a God! Can you imagine it, Madden?

“And yet, if I had only stopped there! If only I had been content to

pause with the knowledge I already possessed, without proceeding further

and desecrating with sacrilegious hands that lonely sarcophagus in the

desert!

“How I succeeded in penetrating this tomb, of the horrors of bats and

crawling things that failed to stop me—of the almost supernatural awe

that came upon me—I can not pause to tell. It is enough to say that I

stood at last beside the tremendous coffin of stone, trembling from an

unknown dread. And, as I stood there, something white fluttered by me and

up through the opening into the outer air. A sacred Ibis—but how it had

penetrated there and how it had lived, I can not say.

“Pour out another brandy, Madden—and throw that other log on the fire,

too, if you don’t mind. My, how the wind blows! Did you speak?... Pardon

me—I’m nervous tonight as I said before, very nervous.... Where was I?

Oh, yes—

“That great sarcophagus stood before me, and on it I saw inscribed the

sacred scarabæus and the feather of truth, while in the center was the

word—the one, wonderful name—‘Heseri’—which is the Egyptian for Osiris!

“Insatiable curiosity now took the place of the reverential awe that

should have possessed me, and with vandal hands I forced the stone lid

from the casket. One glance I had of a great, bovine face, a _living_

face, whose eyes looked into the depths of my soul—and then I fled as

though all the devils of Amenti were at my heels....

“That is all Madden, except that I am nervous—fearfully so. It is so

unlike me. You know how small a part fear has played in my life. I have

faced the dreaded simoon; I have been lost among savage tribes, I have

confronted death in a hundred forms—but _never_ have I felt as I do now.

I tremble at a sound; my ears trick me into believing that I am always

hearing some unusual noise; my appetite is failing, and I am feeling my

age as I have never felt it until.... Good God! Madden! What was that

sound?... Oh! _look behind you_, Madden! _Look!_...”

* * * * *

And now I come to that portion of my statement that will probably be

refused credence by those who read; but, as I live, it is the truth.

As Sir Richard uttered his last words, he felt forward to his full length

upon the hearth rug, even as I turned in obedience to his command. The

shadows were heavy in the far corner of the spacious room, but I could

see a great, bulky something that swayed there, something that was a

part, and yet, seemingly, was independent, of the shadows.

I had a vision of two burning eyes and a black shining muzzle—a heavy,

misshapen head. A strange, animal-like, fetid odor was in my nostrils.

I shrieked, and, turning, ran madly from the room, stumbled to the stairs

and fled into the wind-swept night.

Failure to Keep Tab on Quitting Time Kills Two

Troy Hocker and Hugh Simpson, linemen for the Oklahoma Gas and Electric

Company, were repairing wires on top of a pole in Oklahoma one afternoon

recently. As they worked, they engaged in banter. It was nearly five

o’clock—their quitting time—but neither looked at his watch. The engineer

down at the power house saw it was ten minutes past five, time to turn

on the city’s arc lights. He pulled down the switch and sent 2,300

volts out to light the city. The men up on the pole ceased their banter.

Their bodies became stiff. Those on the ground laughed. This must be

some new prank of the boys. Then someone noticed smoke issuing from

Hocker’s shoes. Back at the power plant the amperage was fluctuating back

and forth, and the engineer knew something was amiss. He threw off the

current—but the men were already dead.

_A New Story by Julian Kilman, Master of Weird Fiction_

THE WELL

Jeremiah Hubbard toiled with a team of horses in a piece of ground some

distance down the road from his dwelling. When it neared five o’clock in

the autumn afternoon, he unwound the lines from his waist, unhooked the

traces and started home with his horses.

He was a heavy man, a bit under middle age, with a dish-shaped face and

narrow-set eyes. He walked with vigor. One of the horses lagged a trifle,

and he struck it savagely with a short whip.

They came presently to the Eldridge dwelling, abandoned and tumbled down,

on the opposite side of the road. The farm was being worked on shares by

a man named Simpson, who lived five miles away and drove a “tin Lizzie.”

An ancient oak tree, the tremendous circumference of its trunk marred by

signs of decay, reared splendid gnarled branches skyward.

These branches shaded a disused well—a well that had been the first

one in Nicholas County, having been dug in the early fifties by the

pioneering Eldridge family. It went forty feet straight down into the

residual soil characteristic of the _locale_, but, owing to improved

drainage, it had become dry. Nothing remained of the old pump-house, save

the crumbling circle of stonework around the mouth, to give evidence of

its one-time majesty.

A child of eight ran from the rear of the premises. Hubbard frowned and

stopped his team.

“You better keep away from there,” he growled, “or you’ll fall into the

well.”

The girl glanced at him impishly.

“You an’ Missus Hubbard don’t speak to each other, do you?”

Hubbard’s face went black. His whip sprang out and caught the girl about

the legs. She yelped and ran.

An eighth of a mile farther along the road Hubbard turned in and drove

his team to a big barn. He fed his stock. It was after six when he

entered the house. This was a structure that, by comparison with the

gigantic barn in the rear, seemed pigmy-like.

A sallow, flat-chested woman, with a wisp of hair twisted into a knot,

took from Hubbard the two pails of milk he carried. She set them in the

kitchen. The two exchanged no words.

Hubbard strode to the washstand, his boots thumping the floor, and

performed his ablutions. He rumpled his hair and beard, using much soap

and water and blowing stertorously. In the dining-room a girl of twelve

sat with a book. As her father came in she glanced at him timorously.

He gave no heed to her as he slumped down into a chair standing before

a desk. The desk was littered with papers, among which were typewritten

sheets of the sort referred to as “pleadings”; there was a title-search

much bethumbed and black along the edges, where the “set-outs” had been

scanned with obvious care.

The man adjusted a pair of antiquated spectacles to his dish-face. To do

this he was compelled to pull the ends of the bows tight back over the

ears as his nose afforded practically no bridge to support the glasses.

Presently he spoke to the girl:

“Tell your mother to bring on the supper.”

The girl hastened out, and shortly thereafter the mother appeared

carrying dishes. Food was disposed about the table in silence. The farmer

ate gustily and in ten minutes finished his meal. Then he addressed his

daughter, keeping his eyes averted from his wife. “Tell your mother,” he

said, “that I’ll want breakfast at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Where you goin’, Pa?” asked the girl.

“I’m goin’ to drive to the county seat to see Lawyer Simmons.”

Hubbard’s gaze followed the girl as she helped clear the table.

“Look-a here,” he said. “You been a-talkin’ to that Harper child?”

“No,” returned the daughter, with a trace of spirit. “But I jest saw her

father over by the fence.”

“What was he a-doin’ there?”

“I didn’t stay. I was afeard he’d catch me watchin’ him.”

Hubbard glowered and reached for his hat.

“I’ll find out,” he snarled.

Walking rapidly, he crossed a field of wheat stubble, keeping his

eyes fixed sharply ahead. It was dusk, but presently, at the northern

extremity of his premises, he made out the figure of a man.

“Hey, Harper!” he shouted. “You let that fence be.”

He ran forward swiftly.

The men were now separated by two wire-strand fences that paralleled

each other only three feet apart. These fences, matching one another for

a distance of about two hundred yards—each farmer claiming title to the

fence on the side farthest from his own—represented the basis of the

litigation over the boundary claim that had gone on between them for four

years.

The odd spectacle of the twin fences had come to be one of the show

places in the county. It had been photographed and shown in agricultural

journals.

“I don’t trust ye, Harper,” announced Hubbard, breathing hard. “You got

the inside track with Jedge Bissell, an’ the two of you are a-schemin’ to

beat me.”

A laugh broke from the other.

“I’ll beat you, all right,” he said coolly. “But it won’t be because

Judge Bissell is unfair.”

His manner enraged Hubbard, who rushed swiftly at the first fence and

threw himself over. With equal celerity, he clambered over the second

fence.

Startled at the sudden outburst of temper, Harper had drawn back. He held

aloft a spade. Hubbard leaped at him. The spade descended.

Harper was slightly-built, however, and the force of the blow did not

halt the infuriated man, now swinging at him with all his might. They

clinched. Hubbard’s fingers caught at the throat of the smaller man, and

the two stumbled to the ground, Hubbard atop. The fall broke his grip.

With his huge fists he began to hammer the body. He continued until it

was limp.

Then, his rage suddenly appeased, he drew back and stared at the inert

figure lying strangely quiet.

“So!” he gasped.

There came the sound of someone singing, the voice floating distinctly

through the night air. Hubbard recognized it for that of an itinerant

Free Methodist minister, whose church in Ovid he and his family

occasionally attended.

The song rolling forth, as the Man of God drove along the highway in his

rig, was _Jesus, Lover of My Soul_.

* * * * *

For the moment Hubbard shielded his face with an arm as if to ward off an

invisible thing.

Then, bending over the prostrate form, he ran his hand inside the

clothing to test the action of the heart. He performed the act

mechanically, because he knew he had killed his man.

He discovered the handbag. Evidently Harper was on his way to Ovid to

catch the train to the county seat for the trial on the morrow. This

meant that he would not be missed by his wife for at least twenty-four

hours.

The murderer studied his next move. Where to secrete the body? A piece of

wood lay back of him, but he was aware that it was constantly combed by

squirrel hunters. He thought of the railroad. Why not an accident? Killed

by the very train he was bound for?

He started to lug the body toward the track which passed half a mile to

the north. Realizing, however, that for the time at hand the distance was

too great, he let the body slide to the ground. Next he stole along the

twin fences to the highway and peered both ways. No one seemed abroad.

He came back on the dead run, and in twenty minutes he had carried the

body to the Eldridge premises and flung it down the ancient well.

When he returned he found his wife and daughter together in the parlor,

where with the itinerant preacher, all three were kneeling on the floor

in prayer. Hubbard unceremoniously nudged the clergymen.

“That’ll do,” he said.

The minister rose, his tall, lanky figure towering over Hubbard.

“Brother,” he began, in an orotund voice, “come with the Lord—”

“Yes. I know,” returned Hubbard, with a patience that surprised his wife.

“But I’ve got something to talk over with my family.” He paused. “Here,”

he added, feeling in his pocket and producing a small coin, “take this

and go along.”

When the preacher had left, Hubbard called to his daughter.

“Harper was gone when I got over to the fence.”

“What kept you so long?”

“I walked over to the woods. There’s a nest of coons. They’re a-goin’ to

play havoc with the corn.” He smiled unnaturally. “Look-a here! If we

can catch ’em, I’ll give you the money their pelts bring.”

Hubbard divined that his acting was poor. Both the girl and his wife were

frankly regarding him.

“Well!” he shouted. “What’s the matter with ye?”

“Oh, nuthin’, Pa, nuthin’,” whimpered the girl.

“Then go to bed, the two of ye.”

Next morning Hubbard started for the county seat, a ten mile drive. He

returned that evening and complained that the case had been adjourned

because Harper had failed to appear in court.

The following day he went back to his field far down the road for more

ploughing. Twice he was called to the roadside by passersby to discuss

the disappearance of Harper.

One morning a week later, when he came along the road with his team, he

discovered the Harper child on the Eldridge premises. She was sitting at

the edge of the well.

With a suppressed oath, he dropped the lines and half-walked, half-ran,

to where the little girl sat.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from there!” he exploded.

The girl stared at him, but made no move, though her lips quivered.

Hubbard glanced back to observe the road. Then he caught her arm.

“Go home!” he shouted.

He spun her roughly. She continued to stare at him as she retreated

homeward.

All that morning Hubbard worked his horses hard. He realized that he was

eager to go back by the Eldridge dwelling. Promptly at twelve o’clock,

therefore, he tied his team and started up the road. A flash of relief

came to him when he did not observe the little girl. It left him cold,

however.

“Eatin’ dinner,” he mumbled.

He moved off, without looking into the well. Until four o’clock that

afternoon he labored. On his way home he discovered the girl again seated

by the well. She was bending over and acting queerly.

Hurrying his horses to the roadside, he looped the lines over one of the

posts in the old “snake” fence. As he approached, he saw her toss a piece

of stone down the hole.

Hubbard waited until he was sure of his voice.

“Come with me,” he said.

Gripping the girl he started with her toward her home but a short

distance away. When they arrived the front door was ajar. A woman, with

eyes red from weeping, looked at Hubbard in silence.

“Here!” he said gruffly. “This child ought to be kept to home. She’ll

fall into the well.”

Mrs. Harper merely reached out her arms for her daughter. Hubbard

remained standing awkwardly.

“Have you heard anything of Harper yet?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” replied the woman.

Hubbard turned on his heel. Waiting for him by his horses, was the deputy

sheriff. The two further discussed the disappearance.

“If you yourself wasn’t so well known, Jeremiah,” finally declared the

official, “they’d sure be thinkin’ you was in it some way.”

“Why?” grunted the farmer, as he untied the lines.

“Well, everybody knows you an’ Harper been lawin’ it for years over that

boundary line.”

Hubbard achieved a laugh.

“I’ll tell ye where Harper is. He’s cleared out, that’s what I

think—deserted his family.”

That night, and many following nights, Hubbard did not sleep. Some weeks

later a tremendous electric storm broke in the night. One particularly

heavy clap so startled the wakeful Hubbard that he leaped from his bed

and dressed. In the pouring rain he started out.

Inevitably his steps took him toward the well. It was black, and he could

not see at first. But another flash came, and he observed a strange thing:

The huge oak, standing at the side of the well, had been split in two by

lightning, and one portion of the tree had fallen over the mouth of the

hole.

* * * * *

Next morning Simpson, the man with the “tin Lizzie,” stopped at Hubbard’s

place. He was a blunt-spoken, red-faced man whom Hubbard hated.

“That was a bad storm last night,” he said. “The lightning struck the big

oak tree by the well.”

“What of it?” snapped Hubbard.

“There was a skeleton in the center of that tree,” explained Simpson. “I

was talking this morning with the sheriff over the telephone. He said

seventy-five years ago a man was murdered in Ovid, and they never found

his body. This skeleton must be his.”

Hubbard cleared his throat sharply.

“What did you do with it?”

“The skull and one of the leg bones fell down into the well when I tried

to gather them up. I want to borrow some rope so I can get down in there.”

For a bare second Hubbard was silent.

“What you ought to do,” he said, gathering himself, “is to fill up that

hole. It’s dangerous.”

“Yes. That’s so. But I’m goin’ to get that skull first. It’ll be a good

exhibit. I’m wonderin’ whether we’ll ever find Harper’s skeleton.”

“Wait a moment,” said Hubbard huskily, starting for the barn. “I’ll get

some rope and help you.”

The two returned to the Eldridge farm. They found there the dead man’s

child. She had perched herself on the fallen tree.

“Damn fool!” muttered Hubbard. “Her mother lettin’ her play around here!”

A pulley was rigged over the branch and the rope inserted with a board

for a rest.

“I’ll go down,” vouchsafed Hubbard.

Simpson looked his surprise as he assented.

It took Hubbard five minutes or so to retrieve the missing skeleton

parts. He brought them up, the leg bone and the grinning skull. He was

pale when he hauled himself over the edge.

“I’m a-goin’ to fill up that hole myself,” he said.

“All right,” retorted Simpson, handling the skull curiously. “Go to it.”

Word traveled of the finding of the ancient skeleton, and the inhabitants

began driving thither to see the sight. Simpson, a man of some ingenuity,

had wired the bleached white bones together and suspended them from one

of the branches of the fallen tree. The skeleton dangled and swung in the

wind.

Hubbard, maddened by the delay and publicity, felt himself wearing away.

He had become obsessed with conviction that if the hole were filled his

mind would be at rest.

The nights of continued sleeplessness were ragging his nerves, and he was

by this time unable to remain in bed. He would throw himself down, fully

dressed, waiting until the others were asleep. Then he would steal out.

At first he had merely walked the roads, swinging his arms and mumbling.

But as the night progressed his stride would quicken, and frequently he

would take to running. He would run until his lungs were bursting and

a slaver fed from his mouth. Late travelers began to catch glimpses of

the fleeting figure, and the rumor grew that a ghost was haunting the

locality of the well—that the skeleton walked.

Hubbard grew haggard. But he found himself unable to discontinue his

nocturnal prowls, some of which took him miles, but all of which

invariably wound up at one place—the well.

Here, fagged and exhausted, he would sit until the approach of dawn,

staring at the swinging skeleton, mouthing incoherencies, praying,

singing hymns beneath his breath, laughing. At the approach of dawn he

would steal home.

At last, after interest in the skeleton had subsided and Simpson had

consented to its removal, Hubbard loaded his wagon with stones and small

boulders and started for the well. That first forenoon he made three

trips, dumping each time a considerable quantity of stones.

Next morning he worked in an additional trip. He began to experience

surcease. But on the afternoon of the second day, when he made another

trip, Simpson came over from his work in an adjoining field.

“I wanted to see you yesterday,” he said, quizzically regarding Hubbard.

“Mrs. Harper was here. She said her little girl was playin’ around here

and dropped a pair of andirons down the well.”

“What of it?” Hubbard jerked out.

“You got to get ’em out.”

“Why?”

“Because them andirons is relics.”

“But you gave me permission to fill the hole.”

“I was kiddin’ you,” laughed Simpson. “I’m only rentin’ the farm. I ain’t

got nothin’ to do with the house and yard.”

Without a word Hubbard turned to his wagon. He got onto the seat and

drove off. In an hour he came back with the same rope that had been used

to recover the missing portions of the skeleton. Also, he brought with

him a farm laborer who did occasional work for him.

Simpson regarded Hubbard amusedly as the latter adjusted once more the

pulley, arranged a bucket and then hitched his team to the end of the

rope.

Patiently, bucketful by bucketful, the stones were elevated and dumped.

Down below in the black interior, Hubbard labored for an hour. At six

o’clock he had not found the andirons. Twice he had been compelled to

come up for fresh air.

His last trip up left him so white-faced and weak that he was forced to

go home.

That night he resorted to sleeping powders. But he lay and tossed,

wide-eyed, through the dark hours. Sometime after midnight he got up.

A light was still burning in his wife’s room, and, tiptoeing down the

hall, he paused at her door. In low voices the mother and daughter were

conversing. To his heated imagination it seemed certain they were talking

of Harper’s disappearance.

Mumbling to himself he left the house. He ran down the lane to the

highway and along this until he came to the Eldridge place. He determined

not to stop, and succeeded in running by, like a frightened animal.

His gait accelerated. It was one best described as scurrying, as he ran

crouched and low. He thought he saw some one approaching. This turned

him. Back he fled with the speed of the wind.

Drawn by an irresistible force, he made straight for the Eldridge

pathway. He came to the well, the entrance of which gaped at him. For a

moment he stood, with eyes wide open, staring into the black depths.

Then, screaming, he plunged in head-first.

His cry, long-drawn and eerie, hung quivering on the night air.

In the Hubbard home, a quarter of a mile away, the mother and daughter

heard it. The two listened with palpitating hearts. They caught one

another’s hands.

In a hoarse whisper the mother exclaimed:

“_What’s that?_”

[Illustration]

_Otis Adelbert Kline, Author of “The Thing of a Thousand Shapes,” Spins

Another “Spooky” Yarn for the Readers of WEIRD TALES_

The Phantom Wolfhound

Doctor Dorp reluctantly laid aside the manuscript on which he had been

working, capped and pocketed his fountain pen, and rose to meet his

callers.

He was visibly annoyed by this, the third interruption of the afternoon,

but his look of irritation changed to a welcoming smile when he saw the

bulky form that was framed in the doorway. He recognized Harry Hoyne of

the Hoyne Detective Agency, a heavy-set, florid-faced man whose iron gray

hair and moustache proclaimed him well past middle age.

[Illustration]

The slender, stoop-shouldered individual who accompanied him was a total

stranger. He had pale, hawklike features, small snaky eyes that glittered

oddly from cavernous sockets, and long, bony fingers that suggested the

claws of a bird.

“Hello, Doc,” boomed the detective genially, crushing the hand of his

host in his great, muscular paw. “Meet Mr. Ritsky.”

The doctor was conscious of a cold, clammy sensation as he took the

hand of the stranger and acknowledged the introduction. Was it the

contrast between those chill fingers and the strong warm ones of the

detective that had caused this feeling? He did not know; but somehow,

instinctively, he disliked Mr. Ritsky.

“I’ve got a queer case for you, Doc,” said Hoyne, taking a proffered

cigar and inserting it far back in his cheek, unlighted. “Just your

specialty—ghosts and all that. I told Mr. Ritsky you’d be the only man

to unravel the mystery for him. Was over to his house last night and the

thing got me—too unsubstantial—too damned elusively unreal. And yet I’ll

swear there was something there. I heard it; but it got away and didn’t

leave a trace. When it comes to finger prints and things like that you

know I ain’t exactly a dumb-bell, but I gotta admit this thing, whatever

it is, had me hopelessly horn-swoggled.”

Ritsky declined a cigar, saying he didn’t dare smoke because of heart

trouble. The doctor selected one with care, lighted it slowly, puffed it

with a relish, and settled back with a look of eager anticipation in his

eyes.

“What happened last night?” he asked.

“Maybe we better begin at the beginning,” said Hoyne. “You see, there’s

quite a story goes along with this case, and Mr. Ritsky can tell it

better than I. Don’t be afraid to give him all the dope, Mr. Ritsky. The

doctor knows all about such things—wrote a book about ’em, in fact. Let’s

see. What was the name of that book, Doc?”

“‘Investigations of Materialization Phenomena.’”

“Righto! I never can remember it. Anyhow, Mr. Ritsky, tell him your story

and ask him all the questions you want to. He’s headquarters on this

stuff.”

Ritsky studied his clawlike hands for a moment, clasping and unclasping

the bony fingers. Suddenly he looked up.

“Do animals have immortal souls?” he asked, anxiously.

“I’m afraid you have sadly overrated my ability as a recorder of

scientific facts,” replied the doctor, smiling slightly. “Frankly, I do

not know. I don’t believe anyone knows. Most people think they haven’t,

and I incline toward that belief.”

“Then such a thing as a ghost of a—a hound could not be?”

“I would not say that. Nothing is impossible. There are undoubtedly more

things in heaven and earth, as Shakespeare said, than we have dreamed of

in our philosophy. However, I would consider a materialization of the

disembodied spirit of a canine, or any of the other lower animals, as

highly improbable.”

“But if you saw one with your own eyes—”

“I should probably be inclined to doubt the evidence of my senses. Have

_you_ seen one?”

“Have I _seen_ one?” groaned Ritsky. “Good Lord, man, I’d give every cent

I own to be rid of that thing! For two years it’s turned my nights into

hell! From a perfectly healthy, normal human being I’ve been reduced to a

physical wreck. Sometimes I think my reason is slipping. The thing will

either kill me or drive me mad if it is not stopped.”

He buried his face in his hands.

“This is most strange,” said the doctor. “You say the apparition first

troubled you two years ago?”

“Not in its present form. But it was there, nevertheless. The first

time I saw it was shortly after I killed that cursed dog. A month, to

be exact. I shot him on the twenty-first of August, and he, or it, or

_something_, came back to haunt me on the twenty-first of September.

“How vividly I remember the impressions of that first night of terror!

How I tried, the next day, to make myself believe it was only a

dream—that such a thing could not be. I had retired at eleven o’clock,

and was awakened from a sound sleep some time between one and two in the

morning by the whining, yapping cry of a dog. As there were no dogs on

the premises, you can imagine my surprise.

“I was about to get up when something directly over the foot of my bed

riveted my attention. In the dim light it appeared a grayish white in

color, and closely resembled the head and pendant ears of a hound. I

noticed, with horror, that it was moving slowly toward me, and I was

temporarily paralyzed with fright when it emitted a low, cavernous growl.

“Driving my muscles by a supreme effort of will, I leaped from the bed

and switched on the light. In the air where I had seen the thing hanging

there was nothing. The door was bolted and the windows were screened.

There was nothing unusual in the room, as I found after a thorough

search. Mystified, I hunted through the entire house from top to bottom,

but without finding a trace of the thing, whatever if was, that had made

the sounds.

“From that day to this I have never laid my head on a pillow with a

feeling of security. At first it visited me at intervals of about a week.

These intervals were gradually shortened until it came every night. As

its visits became more frequent the apparition seemed to grow. First it

sprouted a small body like that of a terrier, all out of proportion to

the huge head. Each night that body grew a little larger until it assumed

the full proportions of a Russian wolfhound. Recently it has attempted to

attack me, but I have always frustrated it by switching on the light.”

“Are you positive that you have not been dreaming all this?” asked the

doctor.

“Would it be possible for some one else to hear a dream of mine?”

countered Ritsky. “We have only been able to retain one servant on

account of those noises. All, with the exception of our housekeeper, who

is quite deaf, heard the noises and left us as a result.”

“Who are the members of your household?”

“Other than the housekeeper and myself, there is only my niece and ward,

a girl of twelve.”

“Has she heard the noises?”

“She has never mentioned them.”

“Why not move to another apartment?”

“That would do no good. We have moved five times in the last two years.

When the thing first started we were living on the estate of my niece

near Lake Forest. We left the place in charge of care-takers and moved to

Evanston. The apparition followed us. We moved to Englewood. The thing

moved with us. We have had three different apartments in Chicago since.

It came to all of them with equal regularity.”

“Would you mind writing for me the various addresses at which you have

lived?”

“Not at all, if they will assist in solving this mystery.”

The doctor procured a pencil and a sheet of note paper, and Ritsky put

down the addresses.

Doctor Dorp scanned them carefully.

“Villa Rogers,” he said. “Then your niece is Olga Rogers, daughter of

millionaire James Rogers and his beautiful wife, the former Russian

dancer, both of whom were lost with the _Titanic_?”

“Olga’s mother was my sister. After the sudden death of her parents, the

court appointed me her guardian and trustee of the estate.”

“I believe that is all the information we need for the present, Mr.

Ritsky. If you have no objection I will call on you after dinner this

evening, and if Mr. Hoyne cares to accompany me we will see what we can

do toward solving this mystery. Please take care that no one in your home

is apprised of the object of our visit. Say, if you wish, that we are

going to install some electrical equipment.”

“I’ll be there with bells,” said Hoyne as they rose to go.

_II._

Shortly after his guests’ departure, Doctor Dorp was speeding out

Sheridan Road toward Villa Rogers.

The drive took nearly an hour, and he spent another half-hour in

questioning the care-takers, man and wife. He returned home with a

well-filled notebook, and on his arrival he began immediately assembling

paraphernalia for the evening’s work. This consisted of three cameras

with specially constructed shutters, several small electrical mechanisms,

a coil of insulated wire, a flash-gun, and a kit of tools.

After dinner he picked up Hoyne at his home, and they started for the

“haunted house.”

“You say you investigated this case last night, Hoyne?” asked the doctor.

“I tried to, but there was nothing to it, so far as I could see, except

the whining of that dog.”

“Where were you when you heard the noises?”

“Ritsky had retired. I slept in a chair in his room. About two o’clock I

was awakened by a whining noise, not loud, yet distinctly audible. Then

I heard a yell from Ritsky. He switched on the light a moment later,

then sat down on the bed, trembling from head to foot, while beads of

perspiration stood out on his forehead.

“‘Did you see it?’ he asked me.

“‘See what?’ I said.

“‘The hound.’

“I told him I hadn’t seen a thing, but I heard the noise all right.

Between you and me, though, I did think I saw a white flash for a second

beside his bed, but I can’t swear to it.”

“We won’t trust our eyes tonight,” said the doctor. “I have three

eyes in that case that will not be affected by hysteria or register

hallucinations.”

“Three eyes? What are you talking about?”

“Cameras, of course.”

“But how—”

“Wait until we get there. I’ll show you.”

A few moments later they were admitted to the apartment by the

housekeeper, a stolid woman of sixty or thereabout. Ritsky presented them

to his niece, a dreamy-eyed, delicately pretty school girl with silky

golden curls that glistened against the pale whiteness of her skin.

“If you don’t mind,” said the doctor, “we will look things over now.

It will take some time to install the wiring and make other necessary

preparations.”

Ritsky showed them through the apartment, which was roomy, furnished in

good taste and artistically decorated. The floor plan was quite simple

and ordinary. First came the large living-room that extended across the

front of the house. This opened at the right into the dining-room and at

the center into a hallway which led through to the back of the building.

Behind the dining-room was the kitchen, and behind that the servant’s

room. Ritsky’s bedroom was directly across the hall from the dining-room.

Then came his niece’s bedroom, a spare bedroom and a bathroom. Each of

the three front bedrooms was equipped with a private bath and large

clothes-closet.

The doctor began by installing the three cameras in Ritsky’s room,

fastening them on the wall in such a manner that they faced the bed from

three directions. After focusing them properly, he set the flash-gun on a

collapsible tripod and pointed it toward the bed.

The room was lighted by an alabaster bowl that depended from the ceiling

and could be turned on or off by a switch at the bedside. There were, in

addition, two wall lights, one on each side of the dresser, and a small

reading lamp on a table in one corner. These last three lights were

operated by individual pull-cords.

Ritsky procured a step-ladder for him, and, after switching off the

drop light, he removed one of the bulbs from the cluster and inserted a

four-way socket. From this socket he ran wires along the ceiling and

down the wall to the three cameras and the flash-gun. By the time these

preparations were completed Miss Rogers and the housekeeper had retired.

Hoyne surveyed the finished job with frank admiration.

“If there’s anything in this room when Ritsky turns the switch those

three mechanical eyes will sure spot it,” he said enthusiastically.

“Now, Mr. Ritsky,” began the doctor, “I want you to place yourself

entirely in our hands for the night. Keep cool, fear nothing, and carry

out my instructions to the letter. I suggest that you go to bed now and

endeavor to get some sleep. If the apparition troubles you, do just as

you have done in the past—turn on the light. Do not, however, touch

the light switch unless the thing appears. The photographic plates,

when developed, will tell whether you have been suffering from a mere

hallucination induced by auto-suggestion or if genuine materialization

phenomena have occurred.”

After closing and bolting the windows they placed the step-ladder in the

hallway beside Ritsky’s door. Then they obtained a duplicate key from him

and asked him to lock himself in, removing his key so they might gain

entrance at any time.

When everything was ready they quietly brought two chairs into the hall

from the spare bedroom and began their silent vigil.

_III._

Both men sat in silence for nearly three hours. The doctor seemed lost in

thought, and Hoyne nervously masticated his inevitable unlighted cigar.

The house was quiet, except for the ticking of the hall clock and its

hourly chiming announcements of the flight of time.

Shortly after the clock struck two they heard a low, scarcely audible

moan.

“What was that?” whispered the detective, hoarsely.

“Wait!” the doctor replied.

Presently it was repeated, followed by prolonged sobbing.

“It’s Miss Rogers,” said Hoyne, excitedly.

Doctor Dorp rose and softly tiptoed to the door of the child’s bed

chamber. After listening there for a moment he noiselessly opened the

door and entered. Presently he returned, leaving the door ajar. The

sobbing and moaning continued.

“Just as I expected,” he said. “I want you to go in the child’s room,

keep quiet, and make a mental note of everything you see and hear. Stay

there until I call you, and be prepared for a startling sight.”

“Wh—what is it?” asked Hoyne, nervously.

“Nothing that will hurt you. What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”

“Afraid, hell!” growled Hoyne. “Can’t a man ask you a question—”

“No time to answer questions now. Get in there and do as I say if you

want to be of any assistance.”

“All right, Doc. It’s your party.”

The big detective entered the room of the sobbing child and squeezed his

great bulk into a dainty rocking chair from which he could view her bed.

She tossed from side to side, moaning as if in pain, and Hoyne, pitying

her, wondered why the doctor did not awaken her.

Presently she ceased her convulsive movements, clenched her hands, and

uttered a low, gurgling cry, as a white, filmy mass slowly emerged

from between her lips. The amazed detective stared with open mouth, so

frightened that he forgot to chew his cigar. The filmy material continued

to pour forth for several minutes that seemed like hours to the tense

watcher. Then it formed a nebulous, wispy cloud above the bed, completely

detached itself from the girl, and floated out through the half-opened

door.

Doctor Dorp, standing in the hallway, saw a white, misty thing of

indefinite outline emerge from the bedroom. It floated through the

hall and paused directly in front of Ritsky’s door. He approached it

cautiously and noiselessly, and noticed that it grew rapidly smaller.

Then he discovered the reason. It was flowing _through the keyhole_!

In a short time it had totally disappeared. He waited breathlessly.

_What was that?_ The whining cry of a hound broke the stillness! He

mounted the step-ladder in order to view the interior of the room through

the glass transom. He had scarcely placed his foot on the second step

when the whining noise changed to a gurgling growl that was followed by a

shriek of mortal terror and the dull report of the flash-gun.

Leaping down from the ladder, the doctor called Hoyne, and they entered

the “haunted” bed chamber. The room was brilliantly lighted by the

alabaster bowl and filled with the sickening fumes of flash-powder.

Hoyne opened the windows and returned to where the doctor was

thoughtfully viewing Ritsky, who had apparently fainted. He had fallen

half out of bed, and hung there with one bony arm trailing and his

emaciated face a picture of abject fear.

“My God!” exclaimed Hoyne. “Look there on his throat and chest. _The

frothy slaver of a hound!_”

The doctor took a small porcelain dish from his pocket, removed the lid,

and with the blade of his pocket knife, scraped part of the slimy deposit

into the receptacle.

“Hadn’t we better try to bring him to?” inquired Hoyne.

After they had lifted him back in bed the doctor leaned over and held his

ear to the breast of the recumbent man. He took his stethoscope from his

case and listened again. Then he straightened gravely.

“No earthly power can bring him to,” he said, softly, “_Ritsky is dead!_”

_IV._

The detective remained in the house, pending the arrival of the coroner

and undertaker, while Doctor Dorp hurried home with his paraphernalia and

the sample of slime he had scraped from the corpse. Hoyne was puzzled by

the fact that the doctor searched the house and the clothing of the dead

man before departing.

The detective was kept busy at the Ritsky apartment until nearly ten

o’clock. After stopping at a restaurant for a bit of breakfast and a cup

of coffee, he went directly to the doctor’s home.

He found the psychologist in his laboratory, engrossed in a complicated

chemical experiment. He shook a test tube, which he had been heating over

a small alcohol lamp, held it up to the light, stood it in a small rack

in which were a number of others partly filled with liquid, and nodded

cordially to his friend.

“Morning, Doc.,” greeted Hoyne. “Have you doped out what we are going to

tell the coroner yet?”

“I knew the direct cause of Ritsky’s death long ago. It was fear. The

indirect cause, the thing that induced the fear, required careful

examination and considerable chemical research.”

“And it was—”

“Psychoplasm.”

“I don’t get you, Doc. What is psychoplasm?”

“No doubt you have heard of the substance called ectoplasm, regarding

which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has delivered numerous lectures, or an

identical substance called teleplasm, discovered by Baron Von Schrenck

Notzing while attending materialization seances with the medium known as

Eva.

“While the baron was observing and photographing this substance in

Europe, my friend and colleague, Professor James Braddock, was conducting

similar investigations in this country. He named the substance

psychoplasm, and I like the name better than either of the other two, as

it is undoubtedly created or generated from invisible particles of matter

through the power of the subjective mind.

“I have examined and analyzed many samples of this substance in the past.

The plate I now have under the compound microscope, and the different

chemical determinations I have just completed, show conclusively that

this is psychoplasm.”

“But how—where did it come from?”

“I learned something of the history of Ritsky and his ward yesterday. Let

me enlighten you on that score first:

“The man told the truth when he said he was appointed guardian of

his niece, and also when he said that he had shot a dog. The dog, in

question, was a Russian wolfhound, a present sent to the girl by her

parents while they were touring Russia. He was only half grown when he

arrived, and the two soon became boon companions, frolicking and playing

about the grounds together or romping through the big house.

“Some time after the death of Olga’s parents, Ritsky, then editor of a

radical newspaper in New York, took up his abode at Villa Rogers. The

dog, by that time full grown, took a violent dislike to him and, on one

occasion, bit him quite severely. When he announced his intention of

having the animal shot the girl wept violently and swore that she would

kill herself if Shag, as she had named him, were killed. It seemed that

she regarded him as a token of the love of her parents who had sailed

away, never to return.”

“_Shag!_ That’s the name!” broke in Hoyne, excitedly. “After that white

thing floated out of the room she made noises like a dog and then

answered them, saying ‘Good old Shag,’ and patting an imaginary head. She

sure gave me the creeps, though, when she let out that growl.”

“The vengeful Ritsky,” continued the doctor, “was determined that Shag

should die, and found an opportunity to shoot him with a pistol when

the girl was in the house. Shortly after, the faithful creature dragged

himself to the feet of his mistress and died in her arms. He could not

tell her who had taken his life, but she must have known subjectively,

and as a result entertained a hatred for her uncle of which she

objectively knew nothing.

“Most people have potential mediumistic power. How this power is

developed in certain individuals and remains practically dormant in

others is a question that has never been satisfactorily explained.

I personally believe that it is often developed because of intense

emotional repressions which, unable to find an outlet in a normal

manner through the objective mind, find expression in abnormal psychic

manifestations.

“This seemed to be the case with Olga Rogers. She developed the power

subjectively without objective knowledge that it existed. One of the

most striking of psychic powers is that of creating or assembling the

substance called psychoplasm, causing it to assume various forms, and to

move as if endowed with a mind of its own.

“Olga developed this peculiar power to a remarkable degree. Acting under

the direction of her subjective intelligence, the substance assumed the

form of her beloved animal companion and sought revenge on its slayer. We

arrived a day too late to save the object of her unconscious hatred.”

“Too bad you were not there the night before,” said Hoyne. “The poor

devil would be alive today if you had been on hand with me the first

night to dope the thing out.”

“We might have saved him for a prison term or the gallows,” replied the

doctor, a bit sardonically. “You haven’t seen this, of course.”

He took a small silver pencil from the table and handed it to the

detective.

“What’s that got to do with—”

“Open it! Unscrew the top. Careful!”

Hoyne unscrewed it gingerly and saw that the chamber, which was made to

hold extra leads, was filled with a white powder.

“Arsenic,” said the doctor, briefly. “Did you notice the sickly pallor of

that girl—the dark rings under her eyes? Her loving uncle and guardian

was slowly poisoning her, increasing the doses from time to time. In

another month or six weeks she would have been dead, and Ritsky, her

nearest living relative, would have inherited her immense fortune.”

“Well I’ll be damned!” exploded Hoyne.

Doctor Dorp’s laboratory assistant entered and handed a package of prints

to his employer.

“Here are the proofs of last night’s photographs,” said the doctor. “Care

to see them?”

Hoyne took them to the window and scrutinized them carefully.

All showed Ritsky leaning out of bed, his hand on the light switch, his

face contorted in an expression of intense horror—_and, gripping his

throat in its ugly jaws, was the white, misshapen phantasm of a huge

Russian wolfhound_!

MASTERPIECES OF WEIRD FICTION

_No. 2—The Murders in the Rue Morgue_

_By_ EDGAR ALLAN POE

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when

he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not

beyond _all_ conjecture.—SIR THOMAS BROWNE, _Urn-Burial_.

The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves,

but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their

effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to

their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest

enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting

in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst

in that moral activity which _disentangles_. He derives pleasure from

even the most trivial occupations bringing his talents into play. He

is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his

solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary

apprehension preternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul

and essence of method have, in truth, the whole air of intuition. The

faculty of resolution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study,

and especially by the highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely

on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if _par

excellence_, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A

chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It

follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character,

is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply

prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at

random; I will therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher

powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully

tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate

frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and

_bizarre_ motions, the various and variable values, what is only complex

is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The _attention_

is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an

oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves

being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are

multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative

rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the

contrary, where the moves are _unique_ and have but little variation,

the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention

being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by

either party are obtained by superior _acumen_. To be less abstract—Let

us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings,

and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that

here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only

by some _recherche_ movement, the result of some strong exertion of

intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself

into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not

unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed

absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into

miscalculation.

Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the

calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have

been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while

eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a

similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best

chess-player in Christendom _may_ be little more than the best player

of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all

these more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When

I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a

comprehension of _all_ the sources whence legitimate advantage may be

derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and lie frequently

among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible to the ordinary

understanding. To observe attentively is to remember distinctly; and,

so far, the concentrative chess-player will do very well at whist;

while the rules of Hoyle (themselves based upon the mere mechanism of

the game) are sufficiently and generally comprehensible. Thus to have

a retentive memory, and to proceed by “the book,” are points commonly

regarded as the sum total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond

the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He

makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps,

do his companions; and the difference in the extent of the information

obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the

quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of _what_ to

observe. Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is

the object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game.

He examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with

that of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the

cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump and honor by honor,

through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each. He notes every

variation of face as the play progresses, gathering a fund of thought

from the differences in the expression of certainty, of surprise, of

triumph, or chagrin. From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges

whether the person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognizes

what is played through feint, by the air with which it is thrown upon the

table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning

of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to

its concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their

arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all

afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true

state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is

in full possession of the contents of each hand, and thenceforward puts

down his card with as absolute a precision of purpose as if the rest of

the party had turned outward the faces of their own.

The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for

while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often

remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining power,

by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and to which the phrenologists

(I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a

primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose intellect

bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted general observation

among writers on morals. Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there

exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and

the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will be

found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the _truly_

imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the

light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18—, I

there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young

gentleman was of an excellent—indeed of an illustrious family, but, by

a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the

energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir

himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By

courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small

remnant of his patrimony; and upon the income arising from this, he

managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the necessaries of

life, without troubling himself about its superfluities. Books, indeed,

were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are easily obtained.

Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where

the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very

remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw each other

again and again. I was deeply interested in the little family history

which he detailed to me with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges

whenever mere self is the theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast

extent of his reading; and above all, I felt my soul enkindled within

me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination.

Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the society of

such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and this feeling I

frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged that we should live

together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were

somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the

expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather

fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion,

long deserted through superstitions into which we did not enquire, and

tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg

St. Germain.

Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we

should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps, as madmen of a

harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors.

Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret

from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had

ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to

be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this _bizarrerie_, as

into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims

with a perfect _abandon_. The sable divinity would not herself dwell

with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn

of the morning we closed all the massy shutters of our old building;

lighted a couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the

ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our

souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the

clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied forth into the

street, arm and arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and

wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the

populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation

can afford.

At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from

his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic

ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight in its

exercise—if not exactly in its display—and did not hesitate to confess

the pleasure thus derived. He boasted to me, with a low chuckling laugh,

that most men, in respect to himself, wore windows in their bosoms,

and was wont to follow up such assertions by direct and very startling

proofs of his intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these movements

was frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while his

voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would have sounded

petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire distinctness of the

enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt meditatively

upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the

fancy of a double Dupin—the creative and the resolvent.

Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am detailing

any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have described in the

Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited, or perhaps of a diseased

intelligence. But of the character of his remarks at the periods in

question an example will best convey the idea.

We were strolling one night down a long dirty street, in the vicinity of

the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied with thought, neither

of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen minutes at least. All at once

Dupin broke forth with these words:—

“He is a very little fellow, that’s true, and would do better for the

Theatre des Varietes.”

“There can be no doubt of that,” I replied unwittingly, and not at first

observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the extraordinary

manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my meditations. In an

instant afterward I recollected myself, and my astonishment was profound.

“Dupin,” said I gravely, “this is beyond my comprehension. I do not

hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses. How

was it possible you should know I was thinking of——?” Here I paused, to

ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really knew of whom I thought.

——“of Chantilly,” said he, “why do you pause? You were remarking to

yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy.”

This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.

Chantilly was a _quondam_ cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming

stage-mad, had attempted the _role_ of Xerxes, in Crebillon’s tragedy so

called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.

“Tell me, for Heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed, “the method—if method there

is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter.” In

fact, I was even more startled than I would have been willing to express.

“It was the fruiterer,” replied my friend, “who brought you to the

conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient height for

Xerxes _et id genus omne_.”

“The fruiterer!—you astonish me—I know no fruiterer whomsoever.”

“The man who ran up against you as we entered the street—it may have been

fifteen minutes ago.”

I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his head a

large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by accident, as we

passed from the Rue C⸺ into the thoroughfare where we stood; but what

this had to do with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.

There was not a particle of _charlatanerie_ about Dupin. “I will

explain,” he said, “and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will

first retrace the course of meditations, from the moment in which I spoke

to you until that of the _rencontre_ with the fruiterer in question.

The larger links of the chain run thus—Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols,

Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the fruiterer.”

There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives,

amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular conclusions

of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is often full

of interest; and he who attempts it for the first time is astonished

by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence between the

starting-point and the goal. What, then, must have been my amazement when

I heard the Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not

help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued:

“We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before leaving

the Rue C⸺. This was the last subject we discussed. As we crossed into

this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket upon his head, brushing

quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile of paving-stones collected at a

spot where the causeway is undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the

loose fragments, slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed

or sulky, muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and then

proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what you did;

but observation has become with me, of late, a species of necessity.

“You kept your eyes upon the ground—glancing, with a petulant

expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw you

were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the little alley

called Lamartine, which had been paved, by way of experiment, with the

overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your countenance brightened up,

and perceiving your lips move, I could not doubt that you murmured the

word ‘stereotomy,’ a term very affectedly applied to this species of

pavement. I knew that you could not say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without

being brought to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus;

and since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I mentioned

to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the vague guesses of

that noble Greek had met with confirmation in the late nebular cosmogony,

I felt that you could not avoid casting your eyes upward to the great

_nebula_ in Orion, and I certainly expected that you would do so. You did

look up; and I was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps.

But in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday’s

‘_Musee_,’ the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the

cobbler’s change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a Latin line

about which we have often conversed. I mean the line

Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written

Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, I

was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It was clear, therefore,

that you would not fail to combine the two ideas of Orion and Chantilly.

That you did combine them I saw by the character of the smile which

passed over your lips. You thought of the poor cobbler’s immolation.

So far, you had been stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw

yourself up to your full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon

the diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your

meditation to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little fellow—that

Chantilly—he would do better at the _Theatre des Varietes_.”

Not long after this we were looking over an evening edition of the

“Gazette des Tribunaux,” when the following paragraphs arrested our

attention.

“EXTRAORDINARY MURDERS.—This morning, about three o’clock, the

inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a

succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the fourth

story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the sole occupancy of

one Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye.

After some delay, occasioned by a fruitless attempt to produce admission

in the usual manner, the gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight

or ten of the neighbors entered, accompanied by two _gendarmes_. By

this time the cries had ceased; but, as the party rushed up the first

flight of stairs, two or more rough voices, in angry contention, were

distinguished, and seemed to proceed from the upper part of the house.

As the second landing was reached, these sounds, also, had ceased, and

everything remained perfectly quiet. The party spread themselves and

hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at a large back chamber in the

fourth story, (the door of which, being found locked, with key inside,

was forced open,) a spectacle presented itself which struck every one

present not less with horror than with astonishment.

“The apartment was in the wildest disorder—the furniture broken and

thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and from

this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the middle of the floor.

On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth were two or

three long and thick tresses of grey human hair, also dabbled in blood,

and seeming to have been pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were

found four Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons,

three smaller of _metal d’ Alger_, and two bags, containing nearly four

thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a _bureau_, which stood in one

corner, were open, and had been, apparently, rifled, although many

articles still remained in them. A small iron safe was discovered under

the bed (not under the bedstead). It was open, with the key still in the

door. It had no contents beyond a few old letters, and other papers of

little consequence.

“Of Madame L’Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual quantity

of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was made in the

chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the daughter, head

downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been thus forced up the narrow

aperture for a considerable distance. The body was quite warm. Upon

examining it, many excoriations were perceived, no doubt occasioned by

the violence with which it had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the

face were many severe scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and

deep indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been throttled

to death.

“After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house, without

farther discovery, the party made its way into a small paved yard in the

rear of the building, where lay the corpse of the old lady, with her

throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise her, the head fell

off. The body, as well as the head, was fearfully mutilated—the former so

much so as scarcely to retain any semblance of humanity.

“To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the slightest

clew.”

The next day’s paper had these additional particulars.

“The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue. Many individuals have been examined in

relation to this most extraordinary and frightful affair.” [The word

‘_affaire_’ has not yet, in France, that levity of import which it

conveys with us,] “but nothing whatever has transpired to throw light

upon it. We give below all the material testimony elicited.

“Pauline Dubourg, laundress, deposes that she has known both the deceased

for three years, having washed for them during that period. The old lady

and her daughter seemed on good terms—very affectionate towards each

other. They were excellent pay. Could not speak in regard to their mode

or means of living. Believed that Madame D. told fortunes for a living.

Was reputed to have money put by. Never met any persons in the house when

she called for the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no

servant in employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part of the

building except in the fourth story.

“_Pierre Moreau_, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the habit of

selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame L’Espanaye for

nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood, and has always resided

there. The deceased and her daughter had occupied the house in which the

corpses were found, for more than six years. It was formerly occupied by

a jeweller, who under-let the upper rooms to various persons. The house

was the property of Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of

the premises by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let

any portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter

some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an exceedingly

retired life—were reputed to have money. Had heard it said among the

neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes—did not believe it. Had never seen

any person enter the door except the old lady and her daughter, a porter

once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten times.

“Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect. No one

was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known whether there

were any living connections of Madame L. and her daughter. The shutters

of the front windows were seldom opened. Those in the rear were always

closed, with the exception of the large back room, fourth story. The

house was a good house—not very old.

“Isidore Muset, _gendarme_, deposes that he was called to the house about

three o’clock in the morning, and found some twenty or thirty persons at

the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance. Forced it open, at length,

with a bayonet—not with a crowbar. Had but little difficulty in getting

it open, on account of its being a double or folding gate, and bolted

neither at bottom nor top. The shrieks were continued until the gate

was forced—and then suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some

person (or persons) in great agony—were loud and drawn out, not short and

quick. Witness led the way upstairs. Upon reaching the first landing,

heard two voices in loud and angry contention—the one a gruff voice, the

other much shriller—a very strange voice. Could distinguish some words of

the former, which was that of a Frenchman. Was positive that it was not

a woman’s voice. Could distinguish the words, ‘_sacre_’ and ‘_diable_.’

The shrill voice was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it

was the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said,

but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room and of the

bodies was described by this witness as we described them yesterday.

“_Henri Duval_, a neighbor, and by trade a silversmith, deposes that

he was one of the party who first entered the house. Corroborates the

testimony of Muset in general. As soon as they forced an entrance, they

reclosed the door, to keep out the crowd, which collected very fast,

notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. The shrill voice, the witness

thinks, was that of an Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not

be sure that it was a man’s voice. It might have been a woman’s. Was not

acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the words,

but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was an Italian. Knew

Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed with both frequently. Was sure

that the shrill voice was not that of either of the deceased.

“_⸺ Odenheimer, restaurateur._ The witness volunteered his testimony.

Not speaking French, was examined through an interpreter. Is a native of

Amsterdam. Was passing the house at the time of the shrieks. They lasted

for several minutes—probably ten. They were long and loud—very awful and

distressing. Was one of those who entered the building. Corroborated

the previous evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that the shrill

voice was that of a man—of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words

uttered. They were loud and quick—unequal—spoken apparently in fear as

well as in anger. The voice was harsh—not so much shrill as harsh. Could

not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said repeatedly ‘_sacre_,’

‘_diable_’ and once ‘_mon Dieu_.’

“_Jules Mignaud_, banker of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue Deloraine.

Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L’Espanaye had some property. Had opened

an account with his banking house in the spring of the year ⸺ (eight

years previously). Made frequent deposits in small sums. Had checked for

nothing until the third day before her death, when she took out in person

the sum of 4000 francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk sent home

with the money.

“_Adolphe Le Bon_, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the day in

question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L’Espanaye to her residence

with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the door being opened,

Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his hands one of the bags, while

the old lady relieved him of the other. He then bowed and departed. Did

not see any person in the street at the time. It is a bye-street—very

lonely.

“_William Bird_, tailor, deposes that he was one of the party who entered

the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two years. Was one of the

first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in contention. The gruff

voice was that of a Frenchman. Could make out several words, but cannot

now remember all. Heard distinctly ‘_sacre_’ and ‘_mon Dieu_.’ There was

a sound at the moment as if of several persons struggling—a scraping and

scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the gruff

one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Englishman. Appeared to be

that of a German. Might have been a woman’s voice. Does not understand

German.

“Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that the

door of the chamber in which was found the body of Mademoiselle L. was

locked on the inside when the party reached it. Everything was perfectly

silent—no groans or noises of any kind. Upon forcing the door no person

was seen. The windows, both of the back and front room, were down and

firmly fastened from within. A door between the two rooms was closed,

but not locked. The door leading from the front room into the passage

was locked, with the key on the inside. A small room in the front of

the house, on the fourth story, at the head of the passage, was open,

the door being ajar. This room was crowded with old beds, boxes, and so

forth. These were carefully removed and searched. There was not an inch

of any portion of the house which was not carefully searched. Sweeps

were sent up and down the chimneys. The house was a four story one, with

garrets (_mansardes_). A trap-door on the roof was nailed down very

securely—did not appear to have been opened for years. The time elapsing

between the hearing of the voices in contention and the breaking open of

the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made it as

short as three minutes—some as long as five. The door was opened with

difficulty.

“_Alfonso Garcio_, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue Morgue.

Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered the house. Did not

proceed upstairs. Is nervous, and was apprehensive of the consequences

of agitation. Heard the voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of

a Frenchman. Could not distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was

that of an Englishman—is sure of this. Does not understand the English

language, but judges by the intonation.

“_Alberto Montani_, confectioner, deposes that he was among the first to

ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The gruff voice was that

of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words. The speaker appeared to be

expostulating. Could not make out the words of the shrill voice. Spoke

quick and unevenly. Thinks it the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the

general testimony. Is an Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.

“Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of all the

rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the passage of a human

being. By ‘sweeps’ were meant cylindrical sweeping-brushes, such as are

employed by those who clean chimneys. These brushes were passed up end

down every flue in the house. There is no back passage by which any one

could have descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that it could

not be got down until four or five of the party united their strength.

“_Paul Dumas_, physician, deposes that he was called to view the bodies

about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking of the bedstead

in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found. The corpse of the young

lady was much bruised and excoriated. The fact that it had been thrust

up the chimney would sufficiently account for these appearances. The

throat was greatly chafed. There were several deep scratches just below

the chin, together with a series of livid spots which were evidently

the impression of fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the

eye-balls protruded. The tongue had been partially bitten through.

A large bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach, produced

apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of M. Dumas,

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been throttled to death by some person or

persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was horribly mutilated. All

the bones of the right leg and arm were more or less shattered. The left

_tibia_ much splintered, as well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole

body dreadfully bruised and discolored. It was not possible to say how

the injuries had been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar

of iron—a chair—any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon would have produced

such results, if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No woman

could have inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of the deceased,

when seen by witness, was entirely separated from the body, and was also

greatly shattered. The throat had evidently been cut with some very sharp

instrument—probably with a razor.

“_Alexandre Etienne_, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view the

bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M. Dumas.

“Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several other

persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so perplexing in all

its particulars, was never before committed in Paris—if indeed a murder

had been committed at all. The police are entirely at fault—an unusual

occurrence in affairs of this nature. There is not, however, the shadow

of a clue apparent.”

The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest excitement

still continued in the Quartier St. Roch—that the premises in question

had been carefully re-searched, and fresh examinations of witnesses

instituted, but all to no purpose. A postscript, however, mentioned that

Adolphe Le Bon had been arrested and imprisoned—although nothing appeared

to criminate him, beyond the facts already detailed.

Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair—at

least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments. It was only

after the announcement that Le Bon had been imprisoned, that he asked me

my opinion respecting the murders.

I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble

mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible to trace the

murderer.

“We must not judge of the means,” said Dupin, “by this shell of an

examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for _acumen_, are

cunning, but no more. There is no method in their proceedings, beyond

the method of the moment. They make a vast parade of measures; but, not

unfrequently, these are so ill adapted to the object proposed, as to put

us in mind of Monsieur Jourdain’s calling for his _robe-de-chambre—pour

mieux entendre la musique_. The results attained by them are not

unfrequently surprising, but, for the most part, are brought about by

simple diligence and activity. When these qualities are unavailing, their

schemes fail. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser, and a persevering

man. But, without educated thought, he erred continually by the very

intensity of his investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the

object too close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual

clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter

as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is

not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge,

I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the

valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain tops where she is

found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are well typified in

the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To look at a star by glances—to

view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions

of the _retina_ (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than

the interior), is to behold the star distinctly—is to have the best

appreciation of its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion

as we turn our vision _fully_ upon it. A greater number of rays actually

fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the

more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex

and enfeeble thought; and it is very possible to make even Venus herself

vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated,

or too direct.

“As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for ourselves,

before we make up an opinion respecting them. An inquiry will afford us

amusement,” [I thought this an odd term, so applied, but said nothing]

“and, besides, Le Bon once rendered me a service for which I am not

ungrateful. We will go and see the premises with our own eyes. I know

G⸺, the Prefect of Police, and shall have no difficulty in obtaining the

necessary permission.”

The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue Morgue.

This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which intervene between the

Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was late in the afternoon when we

reached it; as this quarter is at a great distance from that in which we

resided. The house was readily found; for there were still many persons

gazing up at the closed shutters, with an objectless curiosity, from

the opposite side of the way. It was an ordinary Parisian house, with

a gateway, on one side of which was a glazed watch-box, with a sliding

panel in the window, indicating a _loge de concierge_. Before going in

we walked up the street, turned down an alley, and then, again turning,

passed in the rear of the building—Dupin, meanwhile, examining the whole

neighborhood, as well as the house, with a minuteness of attention for

which I could see no possible object.

Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling, rang,

and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the agents in charge.

We went up stairs—into the chamber where the body of Mademoiselle

L’Espanaye had been found, and where both the deceased still lay. The

disorders of the room had, as usual, been suffered to exist. I saw

nothing beyond what had been stated in the “Gazette des Tribunaux.” Dupin

scrutinised every thing—not excepting the bodies of the victims. We then

went into the other rooms, and into the yard; a _gendarme_ accompanying

us throughout. The examination occupied us until dark, when we took our

departure. On our way home my companion stopped in for a moment at the

office of one of the daily papers.

I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that _Je les

menageais_—for this phrase there is no English equivalent. It was his

humor, now, to decline all conversation on the subject of the murder,

until about noon the next day. He then asked me, suddenly, if I had

observed anything _peculiar_ at the scene of the atrocity.

There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word “peculiar,”

which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

“No, nothing _peculiar_,” I said; “nothing more, at least, than we both

saw stated in the paper.”

“The ‘Gazette,’” he replied, “has not entered, I fear, into the unusual

horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of this print. It

appears to me that this mystery is considered insoluble, for the very

reason which should cause it to be regarded as easy of solution—I mean

for the _outre_ character of its features. The police are confounded

by the seeming absence of motive—not for the murder itself—but for

the atrocity of the murder. They are puzzled, too, by the seeming

impossibility of reconciling the voices heard in contention, with

the facts that no one was discovered up stairs but the assassinated

Mademoiselle L’Espanaye, and that there were no means of egress without

notice of the party ascending. The wild disorder of the room; the corpse

thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney; the frightful mutilation

of the body of the old lady; these considerations, with those just

mentioned, and others which I need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze

the powers, by putting completely at fault the boasted _acumen_, of the

government agents. They have fallen into the gross but common error of

confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations

from the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in

its search for the true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing,

it should not be so much asked ‘what has occurred,’ as ‘what has occurred

that has never occurred before.’ In fact, the facility with which I shall

arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this mystery, is in the

direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the eyes of the police.”

I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

“I am now awaiting,” continued he, looking toward the door of our

apartment—“I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not the

perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some measure

implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of the crimes

committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope that I am right in

the supposition; for upon it I build my expectation of reading the entire

riddle. I look for the man here—in this room—every moment. It is true

that he may not arrive; but the probability is that he will. Should he

come, it will be necessary to detain him. Here are pistols; and we both

know how to use them when occasion demands their use.”

I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing what I

heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a soliloquy. I have

already spoken of his abstract manner at such times. His discourse was

addressed to myself; but his voice, although by no means loud, had that

intonation which is commonly employed in speaking to some one at a great

distance. His eyes, vacant in expression, regarded only the wall.

“That the voices heard in contention,” he said, “by the party upon the

stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was fully proved by

the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon the question whether

the old lady could have first destroyed the daughter, and afterwards

have committed suicide. I speak of this point chiefly for the sake of

method; for the strength of Madame L’Espanaye would have been utterly

unequal to the task of thrusting her daughter’s corpse up the chimney as

it was found; and the nature of the wounds upon her own person entirely

preclude the idea of self-destruction. Murder, then, has been committed

by some third party; and the voices of this third party were those heard

in contention. Let me now advert—not to the whole testimony respecting

these voices—but to what was peculiar in that testimony. Did you observe

anything peculiar about it?”

I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the gruff

voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in regard to

the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, the harsh voice.

“That was the evidence itself,” said Dupin, “but it was not the

peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive. Yet

there was something to be observed. The witnesses, as you remark, agreed

about the gruff voice; they were here unanimous. But in regard to the

shrill voice, the peculiarity is—not that they disagreed—but that, while

an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman

attempted to describe it, each one spoke of it as that of a foreigner.

Each is sure that it was not the voice of one of his own countrymen. Each

likens it—not to the voice of an individual of any nation with whose

language he is conversant—but the converse. The Frenchman supposes it

the voice of a Spaniard, and ‘might have distinguished some words had

he been acquainted with the Spanish.’ The Dutchman maintains it to have

been that of a Frenchman; but we find it stated that ‘not understanding

French this witness was examined through an interpreter.’ The Englishman

thinks it the voice of a German, and ‘does not understand German.’ The

Spaniard ‘is sure’ that it was that of an Englishman, but ‘judges by the

intonation’ altogether, ‘as he has no knowledge of the English.’ The

Italian believes it the voice of a Russian, but ‘has never conversed

with a native of Russia.’ A second Frenchman differs, moreover, with the

first, and is positive that the voice was that of an Italian; but, ‘not

being cognizant of that tongue,’ is, like the Spaniard, ‘convinced by

the intonation.’ Now, how strangely unusual must that voice have really

been, about which such testimony as this could have been elicited!—in

whose _tones_, even, denizens of the five great divisions of Europe could

recognize nothing familiar! You will say that it might have been the

voice of an Asiatic—of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound

in Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call your

attention to three points. The voice is termed by one witness ‘harsh

rather than shrill.’ It is represented by two others to have been ‘quick

and _unequal_.’ No words—no sounds resembling words—were by any witnesses

mentioned as distinguishable.

“I know not,” continued Dupin, “what impression I may have made, so

far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say that

legitimate deductions even from this portion of the testimony—the portion

respecting the gruff and shrill voices—are in themselves sufficient to

engender a suspicion which should give direction to all farther progress

in the investigation of the mystery. I said ‘legitimate deductions;’

but my meaning is not thus fully expressed. I designed to imply that

the deductions are the sole proper ones, and that the suspicion arises

_inevitably_ from them as the single result. What the suspicion is

however, I will not say just yet. I merely wish you to bear in mind that,

with myself, it was sufficiently forcible to give a definite form—a

certain tendency—to my inquiries in the chamber.

“Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What shall

we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the murderers. It

is not too much to say that neither of us believe in praeternatural

events, Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye were not destroyed by spirits.

The doers of the deed were material, and escaped materially. Then how?

Fortunately, there is but one mode of reasoning upon the point, and

that mode must lead us to a definite decision. Let us examine, each by

each, the possible means of egress. It is clear that the assassins were

in the room where Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was found, or at least in the

room adjoining, when the party ascended the stairs. It is then only from

these two apartments that we have to seek issues. The police have laid

bare the floors, the ceilings, and the masonry of the walls, in every

direction. No secret issues could have escaped their vigilance. But, not

trusting to their eyes, I examined with my own. There were, then, no

secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into the passage were

securely locked, with keys inside. Let us turn to the chimneys. These,

although of ordinary width for some eight or ten feet above the hearths,

will not admit, throughout their extent, the body of a large cat. The

impossibility of egress by means already stated, being thus absolute, we

are reduced to the windows. Through those of the front room no one could

have escaped without notice from the crowd in the street. The murderers

must have passed, then, through those of the back room. Now, brought to

this conclusion in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part,

as reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities. It is

only left for us to prove that these apparent ‘impossibilities’ are, in

reality, not such.

“There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed by

furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion of the other is

hidden from view by the head of the unwieldy bedstead which is thrust

close up against it. The former was found securely fastened from within.

It resisted the utmost force of those who endeavored to raise it. A

large gimlet-hole had been pierced in its frame to the left, and a very

stout nail was found fitted therein, nearly to the head. Upon examining

the other window, a similar nail was seen similarly fitted into it; and

a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police are now

entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these directions. And,

_therefore_, it was thought a matter of superogation to withdraw the

nails and open the windows.

“My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for the

reason I have just given—because here it was, I knew, that all apparent

impossibilities must be proved to be not such in reality.

“I proceeded to think thus—_a posteriori_. The murderers _did_ escape

from one of these windows. This being so, they could not have re-fastened

the sashes from the inside, as they were found fastened—the consideration

which put a stop, through its obviousness, to the scrutiny of the

police in this quarter. Yet the sashes _were_ fastened. They must,

then, have the power of fastening themselves. There was no escape from

this conclusion. I stepped to the unobstructed casement, withdrew the

nail with some difficulty, and attempted to raise the sash. It resisted

all my efforts, as I had anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now

knew, exist; and this corroboration of my idea convinced me that my

premises, at least, were correct, however mysterious still appeared the

circumstances attending the nails. A careful search soon brought to light

the hidden spring. I pressed it, and, satisfied with the discovery,

forebore to upraise the sash.

“I now replaced the nail and regulated it attentively. A person passing

out through this window might have reclosed it, and the spring would

have caught—but the nail could not have been replaced. The conclusion

was plain, and again narrowed in the field of my investigations. The

assassins _must_ have escaped through the other window. Supposing, then,

the springs upon each sash to be the same, as was probable, there _must_

be found a difference between the nails, or at least between the modes

of their fixture. Getting upon the sacking of the bedstead, I looked

over the headboard minutely at the second casement. Passing my hand down

behind the board, I readily discovered and pressed the spring, which was,

as I had supposed, identical in character with its neighbor. I now looked

at the nail. It was as stout as the other, and apparently fitted in the

same manner—driven in nearly up to the head.

“You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must have

misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a sporting phrase, I

had not been once ‘at fault.’ The scent had never for an instant been

lost. There was no flaw in any link of the chain. I had traced the secret

to its ultimate result—and that result was the _nail_. It had, I say,

in every respect the appearance of its fellow in the other window; but

this fact was an absolute nullity (conclusive as it might seem to be)

when compared with the consideration that here, at this point, terminated

the clew, ‘There must be something wrong,’ I said, ‘about the nail.’ I

touched it; and the head, with about a quarter of an inch of the shank,

came off in my fingers. The rest of the shank was in the gimlet-hole,

where it had been broken off. The fracture was an old one (for its edges

were incrusted with rust), and had apparently been accomplished by the

blow of a hammer, which had partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom

sash, the head portion of the nail. I now carefully replaced this head

portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the resemblance

to a perfect nail was complete—the fissure was invisible. Pressing the

spring, I gently raised the sash for a few inches; the head went up with

it, remaining firm in its bed. I closed the window, and the semblance of

the whole nail was again perfect.

“The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped through

the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own accord upon

his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become fastened by the

spring and it was the retention of this spring which had been mistaken

by the police for that of the nail—farther inquiry being thus considered

unnecessary.

“The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this point I

had been satisfied in my walk with you around the building. About five

feet and a half from the casement in question there runs a lightning

rod. From this rod it would have been impossible for anyone to reach

the window itself, to say nothing of entering it. I observed, however,

that the shutters of the fourth story were of the peculiar kind called

by Parisian carpenters _ferrades_—a kind rarely employed at the present

day, but frequently seen upon very old mansions at Lyons and Bordeaux.

They are in the form of an ordinary door, (a single, not a folding door)

except that the upper half is latticed or worked in open trellis—thus

affording an excellent hold for the hands. In the present instance these

shutters are fully three feet and a half broad. When we saw them from the

rear of the house, they were both about half open—that is to say, they

stood off at right angles from the wall. It is probable that the police,

as well as myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in

looking at these _ferrades_ in the line of their breadth (as they must

have done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or, at all

events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact, having once

satisfied themselves that no egress could have been made in this quarter,

they would naturally bestow here a very cursory examination. It was clear

to me, however, that the shutter belonging to the window at the head of

the bed, would, if swung fully back to the wall, reach to within two feet

of the lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by exertion of a very

unusual degree of activity and courage, an entrance into the window, from

the rod, might have been thus effected. By reaching to the distance of

two feet and a half (we now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent)

a robber might have taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go,

then, his hold upon the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall,

and springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to

close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time, might even

have swung himself into the room.

“I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a very

unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so hazardous and

so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, first, that the thing

might possibly have been accomplished—but, secondly and _chiefly_, I wish

to impress upon your understanding the very _extraordinary_—the almost

praeternatural character of the agility which could have accomplished it.

“You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that ‘to make out

my case’ I should rather undervalue than insist upon a full estimation

of the activity required in this matter. This may be the practice in

law, but it is not the usage of reason. My ultimate object is only the

truth. My immediate purpose is to lead you to place in juxta-position

that _very unusual_ activity of which I have just spoken, with that _very

peculiar_ shrill (or harsh) and _unequal_ voice, about whose nationality

no two persons could be found to agree, and in whose utterance no

syllabification could be detected.”

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of Dupin

flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension,

without power to comprehend—as men, at times, find themselves upon the

brink of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to remember. My

friend went on with his discourse.

“You will see,” he said, “that I have shifted the question from the mode

of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to suggest that both were

effected in the same manner, at the same point. Let us now revert to the

interior of the room. Let us survey the appearances here. The drawers

of the bureau, it is said, had been rifled, although many articles of

apparel still remained within them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is

a mere guess—a very silly one—and no more. How are we to know that the

articles found in the drawers were not all these drawers had originally

contained? Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter lived an exceedingly

retired life—saw no company—seldom went out—had little use for numerous

change of habiliment. Those found were at least of as good quality as any

likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why

did he not take the best—why did he not take all? In a word, why did he

abandon four thousand francs in gold to encumber himself with a bundle of

linen? The gold was abandoned. Nearly the whole sum mentioned by Monsieur

Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags, upon the floor. I wish you,

therefore, to discard from your thoughts the blundering idea of _motive_,

engendered in the brains of the police by that portion of the evidence

which speaks of money delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences

ten times as remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder

committed within three days upon the party receiving it), happen to all

of us every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice.

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that

class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory

of probabilities—that theory to which the most glorious objects of human

research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration. In the

present instance, had the gold been gone, the fact of its delivery three

days before would have formed something more than a coincidence. It would

have been corroborative of this idea of motive. But, under the real

circumstances of the case, if we are to suppose gold the motive of this

outrage, we must also imagine the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as

to have abandoned his gold and his motive together.

“Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your

attention—that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that startling

absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as this—let us

glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman strangled to death by

manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head downward. Ordinarily

assassins employ no such modes of murder as this. Least of all, do they

thus dispose of the murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse

up the chimney, you will admit that there was something excessively

_outre_—something altogether irreconcilable with our common notions of

human action, even when we suppose the actors the most depraved of men.

Think, too, how great must have been that strength which could have

thrust the body up such an aperture so forcibly that the united vigor of

several persons was found barely sufficient to drag it down!

“Turn now to other indications of the employment of a vigor most

marvelous. On the hearth were thick tresses—very thick tresses—of grey

human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are aware of the

great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even twenty or

thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as well as myself.

Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh

of the scalp—sure token of the prodigious power which had been exerted

in uprooting perhaps half a million hairs at a time. The throat of the

old lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from the

body—the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at the

brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame

L’Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor

Monsieur Etienne, have pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse

instrument; and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The obtuse

instrument was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the

victim had fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This

idea, however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same

reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them—because, by the

affair of the nails, their perceptions have been hermetically sealed

against the possibility of the windows having ever been opened at all.

“If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected

upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to combine

the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a ferocity

brutal, a butchery without motive, a _grotesquerie_ in horror absolutely

alien from humanity, and a voice foreign in tone to the ears of men of

many nations, and devoid of all distinct or intelligible syllabification.

What result, then, has ensued? What impression have I made upon your

fancy?”

I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. “A

madman,” I said, “has done this deed—some raving maniac, escaped from a

neighboring _Maison de Sante_.”

“In some respects,” he replied, “your idea is not irrelevant. But the

voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to

tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of some

nation, and their language, however incoherent in its words, has always

the coherence of syllabification. Besides, the hair of a madman is not

such as I now hold in my hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the

rigidly clutched fingers of Madame L’Espanaye. Tell me what you can make

of it.”

“Dupin!” I said, completely unnerved; “this hair is most unusual—this is

no _human_ hair.”

“I have not asserted that it is,” said he; “but before we decide this

point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here traced upon

this paper. It is a _fac-simile_ drawing of what has been described in

one portion of the testimony as ‘dark bruises, and deep indentations

of finger nails,’ upon the throat of Mademoiselle L’Espanaye, and in

another, (by Messrs. Dumas and Etienne,) as a ‘series of livid spots,

evidently the impression of fingers.’

“You will perceive,” continued my friend, spreading out the paper

upon the table before us, “that this drawing gives the idea of a firm

and fixed hold. There is no _slipping_ apparent. Each finger has

retained—possibly until the death of the victim—the fearful grasp by

which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all your

fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you see them.”

I made the attempt in vain.

“We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial,” he said. “The

paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is

cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is

about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and try the

experiment again.”

I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.

“This,” I said, “is the mark of no human hand.”

“Read now,” replied Dupin, “this passage from Cuvier.”

It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the

large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic

stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and the

imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well known to

all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once.

“The description of the digits,” said I, as I made an end of reading,

“is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no animal but

an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could have impressed

the indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair,

too, is identical in character with that of the beast of Cuvier. But I

cannot possibly comprehend the particulars of this frightful mystery.

Besides, there were two voices heard in contention, and one of them was

unquestionably the voice of a Frenchman.”

“True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost unanimously,

by the evidence, to this voice—the expression, ‘mon Dieu!’ This,

under the circumstances, has been justly characterized by one of the

witnesses (Montani, the confectioner) as an expression of remonstrance

or expostulation. Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built

my hopes of a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of

the murder. It is possible—indeed it is far more than probable—that he

was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions which took

place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He may have traced it

to the chamber; but, under the agitating circumstances which ensued, he

could never have re-captured it. It is still at large. I will not pursue

these guesses—for I have no right to call them more—since the shades of

reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth

to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to

make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call them

guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the Frenchman in question is

indeed, as I suppose, innocent, of this atrocity, this advertisement,

which I left last night, upon our return home, at the office of ‘Le

Monde,’ (a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and much sought by

sailors,) will bring him to our residence.”

He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

CAUGHT—_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the

⸺ inst._, (the morning of the murder), _a very large, tawny

Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner, who is

ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel, may

have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily and

paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call

at No. ⸺, Rue ⸺, Faubourg St. Germain—au troisieme._

“How was it possible,” I asked, “that you should know the man to be a

sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?”

“I do not know it,” said Dupin. “I am not sure of it. Here, however,

is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and from its greasy

appearance, has evidently been used in tying the hair in one of those

long queues of which sailors are so fond. Moreover, this knot is one

which few besides sailors can tie, and is peculiar to the Maltese. I

picked the ribbon up at the foot of the lightning-rod. It could not have

belonged to either of the deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my

induction from this ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging

to a Maltese vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did

in the advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I

have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not take the

trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is gained. Cognizant

although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally hesitate

about replying to the advertisement—about demanding the Ourang-Outang. He

will reason thus:—‘I am innocent; I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great

value—to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself—why should I lose it

through idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It was

found in the Bois de Boulogne—at a vast distance from the scene of that

butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast should have

done the deed? The police are at fault—they have failed to procure the

slightest clew. Should they even trace the animal, it would be impossible

to prove me cognizant of the murder, or to implicate me in guilt on

account of that cognizance. Above all, I am known. The advertiser

designates me as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit

his knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so great

value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the animal, at

least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to attract attention

either to myself or to the beast. I will answer the advertisement, get

the Ourang-Outang; and keep it close until this matter has blown over.’”

At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

“Be ready,” said Dupin, “with your pistols, but neither use them nor show

them until at a signal from myself.”

The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor had

entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the staircase.

Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we heard him descending.

Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when we again heard him coming up.

He did not turn back a second time, but stepped up with decision and

rapped at the door of our chamber.

“Come in,” said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently,—a tall, stout, and

muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of

countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly sunburnt,

was more than half hidden by whisker and _mustachio_. He had with him

a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise unarmed. He bowed

awkwardly, and bade us “good evening,” in French accents, which, although

somewhat Neufchatelish, were still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian

origin.

“Sit down, my friend,” said Dupin. “I suppose you have called about the

Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of him;

a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old do you

suppose him to be?”

The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of some

intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

“I have no way of telling—but he can’t be more than four or five years

old. Have you got him here?”

“Oh no; we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a livery

stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the morning. Of

course you are prepared to identify the property?”

“To be sure I am, sir.”

“I shall be sorry to part with him,” said Dupin.

“I don’t mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing, sir,”

said the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing to pay a reward for

the finding of the animal—that is to say, anything in reason.”

“Well,” replied my friend, “that is all very fair, to be sure. Let me

think!—what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward shall be this.

You shall give me all the information in your power about these murders

in the Rue Morgue.”

Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. Just as

quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it, and put the key in

his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed it, without

the least flurry, upon the table.

The sailor’s face flushed up as if he were struggling with suffocation.

He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel; but the next moment he

fell back into his seat, trembling violently, and with the countenance

of death itself. He spoke not a word. I pitied him from the bottom of my

heart.

“My friend,” said Dupin, in a kind tone, “you are alarming yourself

unnecessarily—you are indeed. We mean you no harm whatever. I pledge

you the honor of a gentleman, and of a Frenchman, that we intend you no

injury. I perfectly well know that you are innocent of the atrocities in

the Rue Morgue. It will not do, however, to deny that you are in some

measure implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know

that I have had means of information about this matter—means of which

you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus. You have done

nothing which you could have avoided—nothing, certainly, which renders

you culpable. You were not even guilty of robbery, when you might have

robbed with impunity. You have nothing to conceal. You have no reason for

concealment. On the other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor

to confess all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with

that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator.”

The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great measure, while

Dupin uttered these words; but his original boldness of bearing was all

gone.

“So help me God,” said he, after a brief pause, “I will tell you all I

know about this affair;—but I do not expect you to believe one half I

say—I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still, I am innocent, and I will

make a clean breast if I die for it.”

What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a voyage

to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed at

Borneo, and passed into the interior on an excursion of pleasure. Himself

and a companion had captured the Ourang-Outang. This companion dying,

the animal fell into his own exclusive possession. After great trouble,

occasioned by the intractable ferocity of his captive during the home

voyage, he at length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence

in Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant curiosity

of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until such time as it

should recover from a wound in the foot, received from a splinter on

board ship. His ultimate design was to sell it.

Returning home from some sailor’s frolic on the night, or rather in the

morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own bed-room,

into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it had been, as

was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand, and fully lathered, it was

sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the operation of shaving, in

which it had no doubt previously watched its master through the key-hole

of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the

possession of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the

man, for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been accustomed,

however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest moods, by the use of

a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon sight of it, the Ourang-Outang

sprang at once through the door of the chamber, down the stairs, and

thence, through a window, unfortunately open, into the street.

The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,

occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its pursuer, until

the latter had nearly come up with it. It then again made off. In this

manner the chase continued for a long time. The streets were profoundly

quiet, as it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. In passing down

an alley in the rear of the Rue Morgue, the fugitive’s attention was

arrested by a light gleaming from the open window of Madame L’Espanaye’s

chamber, in the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it

perceived the lightning-rod, clambered up with inconceivable agility,

grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against the wall, and,

by its means, swung itself directly upon the headboard of the bed. The

whole feat did not occupy a minute. The shutter was kicked open again by

the Ourang-Outang as it entered the room.

The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He had

strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely escape

from the trap into which it had ventured, except by the rod, where it

might be intercepted as it came down. On the other hand, there was much

cause for anxiety as to what it might do in the house. This latter

reflection urged the man still to follow the fugitive. A lightning-rod

is ascended without difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had

arrived as high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was

stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so as to

obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this glimpse he nearly

fell from his hold through excess of horror. Now it was that those

hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which had startled from slumber the

inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited

in their night clothes, had apparently been arranging some papers in the

iron chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of

the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. The

victims must have been sitting with their backs toward the window; and,

from the time elapsing between the ingress of the beast and the screams,

it seems probable that it was not immediately perceived. The flapping-to

of the shutter would naturally have been attributed to the wind.

As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame L’Espanaye

by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing it,) and was

flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation of the motions of a

barber. The daughter lay prostrate and motionless; she had swooned. The

screams and struggles of the old lady (during which the hair was torn

from her head) had the effect of changing the probably pacific purposes

of the Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of

its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The sight of

blood inflamed its anger into frenzy. Gnashing its teeth, and flashing

fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of the girl, and imbedded its

fearful talons in her throat, retaining its grasp until she expired.

Its wandering and wild glances fell at this moment upon the head of the

bed, over which the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just

discernible. The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the

dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having

deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds,

and skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing

down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed from

the bedstead. In conclusion, it seized first the corpse of the daughter,

and thrust it up the chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady,

which it immediately hurled through the window headlong.

As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the sailor

shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering down it,

hurried at once home—dreading the consequences of the butchery, and

gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about the fate of the

Ourang-Outang. The words heard by the party upon the staircase were the

Frenchman’s exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the

fiendish jabberings of the brute.

I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have escaped

from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of the door. It

must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was subsequently

caught by the owner himself, who obtained for it a very large sum at the

_Jardin des Plantes_. Le Bon was instantly released, upon our narration

of the circumstances (with some comments from Dupin) at the _bureau_

of the Prefect of Police. This functionary, however well disposed to

my friend, could not altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which

affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the

propriety of every person minding his own business.

“Let them talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to reply.

“Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience. I am satisfied with

having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless, that he failed in

the solution of this mystery, is by no means that matter for wonder which

he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too

cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no _stamen_. It is all head and

no body, like the picture of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all head

and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature, after all.

I like him especially for one master stroke of cant, by which he has

attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has ‘_de nier ce

qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est pas_.’”[A]

[A] Rousseau, Nouvelle Heloise.

Kilted Wraith and Bagpipe Spook Communicate With Spiritualists

A most colorful procession of spirits passed before the recent convention

of the Illinois Spiritualist Association. There was a Highland gentleman

with kilts of Stewart tartan who came to give a message to “Mary,” and

who was accompanied by an uncle who played the bagpipe. “Eleanor Ives,”

a little girl of four, returned to tell her mother that all was well

in the world beyond. At first, she said, she had hated to go, but now

she is happy and often visits her mother. Lastly, a colored “mammy” was

materialized by Mrs. Waite, the medium. She was seen sitting before a

cabin door smoking an old corncob pipe. She said she had a message for

her granddaughter.

_Here’s the Final, Thrilling Installment of_

THE MOON TERROR

_By_ A. G. BIRCH

_The first half of this story was published in the May issue

of WEIRD TALES. A copy will be mailed by the publishers for

twenty-five cents._

SUMMARY OF THE FIRST INSTALLMENT

The earth is rocked to its foundation, and the end of the world

is threatened, by a mysterious, unseen power known only as

“KWO.” At regular intervals, gigantic earthquakes and tidal

waves visit the earth, destroying great cities and spreading

terror. Dr. Ferdinand Gresham, American astronomer, attributes

all this to the Seuen-H’Sin, a Chinese sect with which he is

familiar. Finally, when the life of the world seems doomed,

he gains permission from the U. S. Navy Department to proceed

in the destroyer, Albatross, to the lair of “KWO” and do

everything possible to stop the world-wide havoc. Accompanied

by his friend, Arthur (who tells the story), the astronomer

sails to a lonely spot in the frozen North, where they discover

the diabolical power plant of “KWO.” It has developed,

meanwhile, that “KWO” and his sorcerers are moon worshipers and

are endeavoring to create a second moon by splitting the earth

in two. In the Moon God’s Temple Dr. Gresham and his friend,

disguised as Chinese, witness the weird rites of the sect, in

which a human being is sacrificed, and then their identity is

discovered. Attacked, they flee back toward their ship, but

the earth seems suddenly to open, and Arthur is swallowed in a

black pit.

CHAPTER NINE STARTS FROM THIS POINT

_CHAPTER IX_

IN THE SORCERERS’ POWER

What happened immediately after that first drop into the abyss I do not

know. My only recollection is of hurtling down a steep incline amid a

smothering avalanche of dirt, of striking heavily upon a rocky ledge, and

of bounding off again into the inky void as my senses left me.

The next thing I knew was the slow dawn of a sensation of cold; and then

my eyes fluttered open and I beheld the moon shining upon me through a

rent in the surrounding blackness. At first I was too dazed to comprehend

anything that had occurred, but soon, with considerable pain, I raised

myself upon one elbow and looked about, whereupon understanding gradually

returned.

The place where I lay was a mud-covered ledge upon one of the steep,

sloping walls of a huge chasm that had opened in the earth. The gash

was probably seventy-five feet across at this point, and above me the

walls soared perhaps a hundred feet. Within arm’s reach the shelf that

supported me broke off in a precipice. I was half imbedded in soft mud,

and was soaked to the skin and nearly frozen.

How long I had lain there I could not tell, but I judged it had not been

more that two or three hours, for the moon still was high in the heavens.

All at once, as I gazed upon the weird scene, my heart leaped with

anguish at remembrance of my vanished comrade, Dr. Ferdinand Gresham.

He had dropped before me into the chasm, and therefore must have fallen

clear of the ledge and plunged into the depths!

Thrusting myself to the edge of the precipice, I peered below. Nothing

rewarded my gaze except horrifying silence and vapory gloom. The pain of

the movement was so intense that I fell back almost in a swoon.

Before long, however, I saw that the moon was drawing near the rim of the

gorge and that I would soon be engulfed in utter darkness, so I turned

my eyes up the jagged wall in search of some means of escape. After

considerable study, I thought I could discern a way to the summit.

But just then another surprise caught my gaze: the strip of sky above the

chasm appeared narrower than when I had first turned my eyes upward. For

a few moments I attributed this to an optical illusion produced by some

swiftly-moving clouds overhead; but all at once the hideous truth burst

upon me—_the crack in the earth was drawing shut_!

Heedless of the pain, I flung myself against the cliff—climbing in utter

panic, for fear the chasm would close completely before I could get out.

The ascent was difficult and perilous in the extreme. Often rocks

loosened beneath my fingers, starting miniature avalanches, and I

flattened myself against the wall in a paroxysm of terror and clung there

until the danger passed.

For a space that seemed hours long I continued to claw my way upward—with

the prodigious trap closing steadily upon me. At times I found myself

below unscalable surfaces, and was obliged to descend a bit and start

over again in a new direction; and often it seemed as if the pain of my

injuries would cause me to faint.

When I had come within thirty feet of the top, the climb developed into a

veritable race with death, for the opposite wall was now almost upon me.

And then, suddenly, I found the way blocked by a sheer, unscalable wall,

upon which only a fly could have found a foothold! Simultaneously I saw

that the moon was right at the rim of the chasm, and that in a minute the

light would vanish.

With the realization of my plight, panic seized me, and I beat my head

against the wall and shrieked aloud.

And, though I could not guess it then, that very outcry of despair was to

save my life.

Hardly had my first shriek gone forth before a head appeared directly

above me, and a voice rang out:

“Here he is, fellows! Quick with that rope!”

With leaping heart, I recognized the voice as Dr. Gresham’s!

An instant later a rope with a loop in the end of it dangled beside me,

and a number of hands reached out to pull me to safety. Another moment,

and I was drawn over the brink—not one second too soon, for as I made the

last dozen feet the closing walls of the pit brushed my body.

Exhausted and trembling, I sank upon the ground, while a number of

figures crowded about me. These proved to be twenty-five men from the

_Albatross_, under command of Ensign Wiles Hallock. They were all dressed

in the dark blue garments of the sorcerers. How they came to be there was

briefly related by Dr. Gresham.

When the ground had opened beneath us earlier in the evening, the

astronomer had clutched the roots of a tree, and within a few seconds

after I had dropped from sight he was back on firm ground. The Chinamen

who had been pursuing us had either fallen into the gash or had fled in

terror.

Considerable vapor was rising from the pit, but the scientist noticed

that this was clearing rapidly, so he decided to linger at the spot

awhile, with the forlorn hope that I might be found. Soon the vapor

vanished and, as the moonlight was shining directly into the crack, the

doctor began a search.

After a time he discerned a figure lying upon a ledge below. Close

scrutiny revealed that the dark costume characteristic of the Seuen-H’sin

was torn, displaying an orange garment beneath.

Confident that none of the sorcerers would be wearing two suits at once

in this fashion, the scientist concluded the figure was mine. For a time

he doubted whether I lived, but eventually he thought he saw me stir

feebly, whereupon he began frantic efforts to reach me.

Repeated attempts to descend the precipice failed. Then he tried dropping

pebbles to arouse me. Again unsuccessful, he risked attracting the

sorcerers back to the spot by shouting into the chasm.

All his efforts proved futile, so he finally returned to the destroyer

and obtained this rescue party.

In grateful silence I gripped his hand.

“Now,” the astronomer concluded, “if you are able to walk, we will get

back to the ship. It is only 1 o’clock, and if we hurry there still is

time to attack the Seuen-H’sin before daylight. Conditions throughout

the world are so alarming that we must put this power plant out of

business without delay!”

“Go ahead!” I assented. “I’m able to hobble along!”

It was less than two miles to the destroyer’s anchorage, they said.

During the march none of the sorcerers was sighted, with which we began

to conclude that the cracking of the earth had affected the village on

the other side of the mountain so that all their lookouts had been called

in.

But suddenly, when we were less than half a mile from the vessel, the

stillness of the night was shattered by the shrill blast of a whistle.

A series of other wild shrieks from the steam chant came in quick

succession.

“The _Albatross_!” exclaimed Ensign Hallock. “Something’s happening?”

We burst into a run—the whistle still screaming through the night.

All at once the sound ceased, and as the echoes died out among the hills

we heard the rattle of firearms.

“An attack!” cried Hallock. “The sorcerers have attacked the ship!”

Then, abruptly, the firing, too, died out.

A few moments later we emerged from the ravine onto the bank of the fiord

and into full view of the destroyer. The passing of the moon into the

west had brought the vessel within its rays—and the sight that greeted us

almost froze our blood!

Swarming about the deck were dozens of Chinamen—some with rifles, some

with knives. They appeared to be completely in control of the ship.

Numerous pairs of them were coming up from below decks, carrying the

bodies of the vessel’s crew, which they carelessly tossed overboard.

Evidently they had taken our companions by surprise and wiped them out!

At this sight Ensign Hallock and his men became frenzied with rage.

“Ready, men!” the officer announced to his followers. “We’re going down

there and give those murderers something to remember!”

Eagerly the seamen prepared to charge the ship. But Dr. Gresham stopped

them.

“It’s no use,” he said. “There are hundreds of the sorcerers down

there—and only a handful of us. You would only be throwing away your

lives and defeating the whole purpose of this expedition. We must find a

better way.”

The astronomer’s counsel prevailed. Whereupon we debated what should be

done. The situation was desperate. Here we were, completely isolated in

a grim wilderness, hundreds of miles from help, and surrounded by hordes

of savage fanatics. Soon, no doubt, the sorcerers’ spies would find us.

And, meanwhile, we were helpless to put an end to the terrors that were

engulfing the planet and its inhabitants.

So despair gradually took possession of us. Not even the customary

resourcefulness of Dr. Gresham rose to the emergency.

Suddenly Ensign Hallock gave an exclamation of excitement.

“_The Nippon!_” he burst out. “Let’s turn the tables on the Chinese, and

seize the _Nippon_! She’s probably got a guard on board, but maybe we can

take it by surprise!”

“What could we do with her?” I objected. “She needs a large crew—and

there are only twenty-seven of us!”

“We’ll sail her away, of course!” replied the young naval officer with

enthusiasm. “There must be fuel on board, for her fires are going. Three

of the boys here are apprentice engineers. I can do the navigating. And

the rest of you can take turns stoking the boilers!”

“But how could we slip past the _Albatross_?” asked Dr. Gresham.

Ensign Hallock seemed to have thought of that, too, for he promptly

answered:

“The _Albatross_ is an oil-burning craft, with the new type of burners

that came into use since these Chinks have been stowed away here in the

wilderness. The mechanism for using the oil is quite complicated, and the

sorcerers are likely to have trouble operating her until they figure out

the system. If we reach them before they have time to master the thing,

they will be helpless to stop us!”

The young man’s enthusiasm was contagious. Dr. Gresham begun to give heed.

“Even if we fail to get away in the _Nippon_,” the scientist admitted,

“she has a powerful wireless outfit: Kwo-Sung-tao has been using it

to communicate with Washington. With that radio in our hands for ten

minutes, we can summon help sufficient to annihilate these yellow devils!”

The plan was adopted without further question. And, believing that the

sorcerers’ easy victory over the _Albatross_ had made them careless,

perhaps, we struck out in as direct a course as possible for the spot at

which the _Nippon_ was docked.

In twenty minutes, without sighting any of the enemy, we arrived at the

edge of the timber behind the wharf.

_CHAPTER X_

WE TAKE DESPERATE CHANCES

The great liner lay silent in the moonlight, with no lights visible about

her, but thin columns of smoke rose lazily from her funnels. A gangplank

was down.

It was decided that our number should divide into three equal parts. One

was to go to the bow and board the craft there by climbing up the line

fastening the ship to the pier; this line was in the shadow except at its

far end, where the men would emerge upon the deck. The second group was

to get aboard at the stern by the same means. And the third detachment

was to advance by the gangplank.

The plan worked without a hitch, and soon we were assembled upon the

vessel’s main deck. No guard was in sight. Hurriedly, we explored the

upper decks and all the chambers off them. They were empty.

Then, descending simultaneously by companionways forward, aft and

amidship, we began to search the body of the vessel. Still no one could

be found.

And this deserted condition of the ship continued until only the

stokehold remained to be entered. Here, however, we were certain of

finding people.

Leaving three men on deck to guard against surprise, the rest of us crept

into the boiler room.

Only two Chinamen were in the place, leisurely engaged in stoking the

furnaces. We had them covered with our revolvers before they had any

warning of our approach.

In spite of the odds against them, one of the Mongolians leaped forward

and had almost struck one of our men with his shovel before a shot killed

him in his tracks. The other Chinaman submitted, and he at once was

securely bound and dumped into a corner.

Dr. Gresham tried to question the prisoner in Chinese, but all the

information he could get regarding the keeping up of steam on the

_Nippon_ was: “Maybe leave here soon!”

While the astronomer had been thus engaged, Ensign Hallock and some of

his men were examining the coal bunkers, and they now reported that the

vessel was stocked with fuel for a long voyage.

At this juncture, one of the deck watch came to announce that the moon

was sinking near the mountaintops, and that if we hoped to get far down

the channel before the light failed we would have to start promptly.

Detailing eighteen men to do the firing—with orders to get more steam

as rapidly as possible—Ensign Hallock and the rest rushed to the engine

room, where the three apprentice engineers already were at work. Finding

everything all right there, the officer proceeded to the steering room,

while some of us pulled in the gangplank.

The astronomer and myself next started to find the radio plant, to

get into communication with the Mare Island navy yard. But here

we encountered a set-back: The wireless plant had been removed!

Kwo-Sung-tao, we could only surmise, had moved the set to a spot more

convenient to the village. So, for the present, communication with the

outside world was impossible.

During this brief period of putting the ship in sailing order, none of

the sorcerers made an appearance; probably all the men they could spare

were exploring the captured destroyer.

Soon steam was up; whereupon Ensign Hallock sent Dr. Gresham to the bow

and myself to the stern to keep a close lookout, and himself ascended to

the bridge and gave the order to start the engines and cast off. Before

many moments the leviathan was moving away from the wharf.

The officer had found from the charts that there was a place only half a

mile or so upstream where the fiord opened into a bay, or amphitheater.

There, from all indications, room might be had to turn the ship around

and head her down the channel. For this opening he now set his course.

Although we maintained a very slow speed, it was not long before we

nosed our way into the bay. Here the walls of the fiord retreated far

enough to form a considerable body of water; nevertheless, it was plain

we would have close work turning the _Nippon_ in such a space. It would

be necessary to steam well over against the north bank, where there no

longer was any moonlight and the shore line was swallowed up in inky

blackness.

Redoubling the vigilance of our lookout, we began the maneuver. Slowly,

Ensign Hallock swung the huge ship around. Twice it was necessary to stop

and reverse the engines, accomplishing part of the turn by backing. In

doing so, we had a narrow escape from running into a rocky promontory in

the dark.

But at last the liner’s head was fairly about and the way seemed clear

for our dash down the channel past the _Albatross_. As the officer

signaled for more speed, all of us unconsciously steeled ourselves for

the climax of our adventure.

But at that instant a deep-toned bell, sounding like the tocsin upon the

Temple of the Moon God, began tolling in the distance. This was followed

almost immediately by a series of sharp blasts from the whistle of the

destroyer.

Now that we had completed the dangerous turn, my duties in the stern were

finished, so I ran forward, joining Dr. Gresham, and together we climbed

to the bridge.

“The Chinks must have discovered that their ship is gone!” was the

greeting the young officer gave us.

He was hardly able to restrain his excitement; the prospect of a brush

with the sorcerers seemed to give him great joy.

The steam chant and the tolling of the bell continued, as if intended for

a general alarm.

“Must be getting their gang together!” the ensign remarked. “They’ll be

laying for us now, but we’ll give them a run for their money!”

The liner now was beginning to get under considerable headway.

“We’re in dangerous quarters until we get out of this stretch of

darkness!” the officer announced. “Here—you fellows each take a pair of

glasses! You, doctor, keep watch from the starboard end of the bridge!

You”—indicating myself—“go to the port side! Watch like hawks!”

We started, but—the command had come too late!

With a dull, long-drawn ripping sound from her interior, the great liner

suddenly staggered and listed heavily to port! We were thrown off our

feet.

“_Struck a rock!_” Ensign Hallock shouted, as he leaped up. And instantly

he began signaling frantically to stop the engines. Almost in the same

breath he yelled: “Go below—both of you—quick! See what damage has been

done!”

As we rushed down from the bridge we could tell from the _feel_ of things

that the vessel’s progress had come to a stop: the _Nippon_ was stuck

fast!

At the head of the stairs leading to the boiler room we met the seamen,

who had been doing stoker duty, rushing up.

“You can’t go down there!” they shouted. “The whole bottom’s torn out!”

Nevertheless, we leaped past them and continued below. But near the

bottom of the stairs we were brought up short. A few lights still were

burning, and in their feeble rays we could see huge foaming torrents

pouring into the place. Already the floor was awash to a depth of two or

three feet, and before we could take our eyes from the sight the flood

seemed to rise several inches! Any moment the boilers might explode!

Up the steps we dashed madly.

As we reached the deck everyone was hurrying aft. We joined in the rush.

The tolling of the temple bell and the shrieking of the destroyer’s

whistle continued in the distance: the Seuen-H’sin was preparing to take

up our pursuit!

Then, before we could make another move, the vessel suddenly lurched

backward and listed heavily to starboard, with her stern rising high out

of the water. Then she began to nose forward under the waves.

_The Nippon was sinking!_

_CHAPTER XI_

A WILD NIGHT’S WORK

“Lower the boats!” yelled Ensign Hallock.

The coolness, readiness and energy of this young man in any emergency

were an inspiration.

All of us flew to obey the command, our number dividing between the two

boats nearest the stern. The liner was sinking so fast that in a few

moments the boats would be afloat, anyway; nevertheless, we soon had our

craft in the water.

“Take that canvas covering!” bawled the ensign. “We may need it for a

sail!”

A sailor dragged the canvas into the boat, and we pushed off from the

vessel.

The other party had encountered trouble with the davit-blocks, which

occasioned a slight delay, and Hallock was just getting his boat into the

water when—

With a terrific crash, the _Nippon’s_ boilers burst!

The huge craft broke in two amidship, the central portion of her decks

leaping out of the water. The force of the explosion hurled Ensign

Hallock and his men—lifeboat and all—over the stern amid a hurricane of

débris, while our own craft was flung bottom-up with great violence,

scattering us all about in the water.

In an incredibly brief time the _Nippon_ slipped from view under the

waves, the swiftness of her sinking causing a violent suction that swept

us into a whirlpool filled with timbers, broken boats and wreckage of all

sorts.

Something heavy struck me on the head and knocked me almost senseless,

but I clutched a floating object and hung on in a daze. Presently I heard

voices calling not far away and, swimming toward them, I found a couple

of men clinging to the life-boat. Others quickly began to join us—among

them Dr. Gresham. Soon we had the boat righted and found it undamaged.

Someone picked up some oars.

Then we began rowing about the scene of the wreck, shouting and keeping a

lookout for other survivors. In this way we rescued seven more men—one of

the last of these being Ensign Hallock, who was dazed from a bad cut on

the head.

After a time, believing further search to be futile, we made our way to

the north bank of the fiord.

There now were only fifteen of us left—twelve men having perished in the

explosion. While we were roughly dressing the wounds of the injured,

we began to hear excited shouts in Chinese from the other side of the

water, but the width of the fiord here was such as to make the cries

indistinct. As the voices did not draw nearer, we began to believe that

the sorcerers possessed no small boats in which to cross to the scene of

the wreck. This gave us a greater feeling of safety, since the only way

the sorcerers could get at us for the present was by swimming; and not

enough of them were likely to try to constitute a serious menace.

In the distance the whistling and bell-ringing had now died out.

Hastily conferring upon what should be done, we decided to stick to the

lifeboat and drop down the channel, hoping to get out of the country of

the Seuen-H’sin before daylight. This course seemed feasible, since the

whole north bank of the fiord—the side opposite the village—was now in

shadow.

We started at once, rowing along silently, close to the shore.

Occasionally we heard voices on the south bank, but we made no closer

acquaintance with the Chinese.

As we drew near the _Albatross_, we muffled our oarlocks with bits of

cloth torn from our clothing, and took every precaution against making a

sound.

A few lights were burning upon the destroyer’s deck, but otherwise she

seemed deserted; possibly the Seuen-H’sin believed we had perished in the

blowing up of the _Nippon_, and that they had nothing more to fear from

intruders.

All at once, as we began to drop below the vessel, Ensign Hallock gave

an order to cease rowing. Drawing us close together so we could hear his

whispered words, he announced:

“Boys, let’s try to recapture the _Albatross_!”

Then, with repressed excitement, he unfolded a plan.

To our ears the ensign’s words sounded like a proposal of suicide; but

the situation was appallingly desperate, and the upshot of the matter

was that we decided to make the attempt.

“Who is to go with you?” I asked Hallock.

Several of the men promptly volunteered, and the ensign selected a

muscular seaman named Jim Burns.

Agreeing upon a signal that should inform us when to follow them, the

officer and his partner slipped off most of their clothing and, arming

themselves only with knives, swam away. In a few seconds they were lost

from sight.

From Hallock himself, afterward, I learned the story of their daring

undertaking—although I am certain he greatly minimized the dangers they

ran.

Reaching the deep shadows beside the destroyer, Hallock and Burns swam

forward to the anchor chain hanging from the bow. There they waited a

time, but, hearing not a sound from above, the officer climbed up the

chain and looked over the edge of the deck. No one was in sight.

He signaled Burns to come after him. Then, clinging to the edge of the

deck, with their bodies dangling down the side of the hull, out of sight

of anyone above, they worked their way, hand-over-hand, back to a point

opposite the after companionway. Still none of the Chinamen was in

evidence.

The deck was lighted at this point and the rays of other electric

lamps poured out of the open companionway; nevertheless, the men swung

themselves up, climbed the rail, and darted to the side of the deck

house. Leaving Burns here, Hallock crept alone around the corner to the

companionway.

Just as he reached the open door he almost collided with a Chinaman

coming up the stairs!

Both were taken completely by surprise, but the ensign recovered

quickest, and before there was time for an outcry he had the Mongolian by

the throat and was choking the life out of him.

Soon the fellow crumpled limply upon the deck. Hallock drew his knife to

finish the business—but at that instant there came the sound of voices

approaching along the deck.

Seizing the unconscious Chinaman by the arms, Hallock dragged him swiftly

around the corner of the deck house to where Burns was waiting.

Would the approaching men enter the companionway and go below, or come

on back to the stern? In the latter case they were bound to discover the

intruders.

With drawn knives, the two Americans stood ready; the success or failure

of their whole enterprise depended upon the next few seconds.

But the Chinamen turned down the steps, and their voices soon died out in

the interior of the vessel.

Thus assured of safety again for the moment, Ensign Hallock ended the

career of the Mongolian and dragged the body into the deeper shadows

in the stern. Then the two men advanced together to the companionway.

Everything appeared quiet below.

Down the stairs they noiselessly crept. At the bottom they could faintly

hear voices—seemingly many of them—somewhere forward, or else on the next

lower level. But they did not hesitate. The officer indicated the door of

a compartment only a dozen feet away. They reached it and got inside.

The room had been converted, during this voyage, into a storeroom.

Among its miscellaneous contents was a quantity of tear bombs—grenades

that discharge a gas which makes the victim’s eyes water until he is

temporarily blinded and helpless. To obtain all these missiles they could

carry was the work of but a few seconds, after which the Americans dashed

for the steps and started to the deck.

Just as they got halfway up, a couple of Chinamen appeared suddenly in

the passage below and caught sight of them. The Celestials uttered loud

warning cries and darted after the visitors.

Instantly Seaman Burns, who was behind, hurled one of the bombs to the

floor at the foot of the ladder—and then another and another.

The sorcerers halted a moment, surprised by the missiles—and before they

could resume their rush they were blinded by tears. Screaming in rage and

dismay, they retreated down the passage toward the other voices that were

beginning to respond to their cries.

With this, Burns ran on up to the deck.

“Stay here and hold this stairway!” ordered Hallock. “I’ll go forward to

the other ladder! Don’t let any of them reach the deck!”

And the officer ran off.

He reached the forward companionway just as half a dozen of the Chinamen

were crowding toward the foot of the stairs. A couple of the bombs hurled

among them drove them back. Two more missiles followed; then Hallock

slammed the door shut and fastened it.

Running to the rail, he signaled us to advance. In two or three minutes

our rowboat was alongside and we were scrambling up the anchor chain.

On the main deck, under the bridge, formerly had been stored a number of

rifles, and Hallock now ran to see if these were still there. Luckily

the Chinamen had not disturbed them, and the officer soon was back with a

loaded weapon for each man.

“The effect of the tear gas must be wearing off below,” he announced,

“so we can go down now and clean up those devils! But confine all your

shooting under decks, where it’s not so likely to be heard on shore!”

“And,” interposed Dr. Gresham, “don’t show a spark of mercy, or we will

be certain to pay dearly for it later!”

Leaving six men on deck to keep watch, the rest of us divided and went

down fore and aft. The gas still was strong, but no longer overpowering.

The Chinese, we found, had groped their way into the engine room. Here we

came upon them—forty-eight in all.

Upon the scene of slaughter that followed I will draw the veil. Thus the

Seuen-H’sin had slain our comrades—and we knew that, were our positions

now reversed, we would meet the same bloody end. Suffice it to say

that within fifteen minutes the last of the sorcerers’ bodies had been

disposed of overboard.

Once more we were masters of the _Albatross_!

Our first move, we decided, would be to steam down the channel a few

miles, where the Mongolians could not immediately get at us. Fortunately,

two of the apprentice engineers were among the survivors, and they

undertook to handle the machinery.

At the same time, Hallock and most of the crew went to work setting up

rapid fire guns in convenient places to repel invasion, and storing

ammunition and hand grenades on deck. A couple of the larger guns

likewise were unlimbered, ready for action.

By the time these tasks were completed, steam had been gotten up, and the

vessel began its retreat down the channel.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gresham and myself hastened to the radio room to summon

aid from the Mare Island navy yard at San Francisco.

But barely had the astronomer placed the receivers to his ears and

reached forward to adjust the apparatus, before a startling event

forestalled his call.

_CHAPTER XII_

THE VOICE OF SCIENCE

At the precise instant when Dr. Gresham seated himself at the radio of

the _Albatross_, the great Consolidated News Syndicate, which dealt with

newspapers all over the world, was broadcasting a “flash” of terrible

import:

_An hour ago New York had been wiped out by a stupendous tidal wave!_

Details of the disaster still were lacking.

And then, before the astronomer could lift a hand to send his call, some

instantaneous and terrific disturbance of the atmosphere blotted out all

wireless communication!

What this disturbance might be, or what it might portend, seemed to

arouse in my companion the gravest alarm. His face looked ashen as he sat

there at the key. Over and over he sought to get Mare Island, but without

success: the ether was as unresponsive as if his instruments were dead.

Presently he rose without a word and, motioning me to follow, sought

Ensign Hallock on the bridge. Briefly he told the young officer about the

destruction of Manhattan, adding:

“Something serious has happened somewhere in the world, since then,

completely to disorder the atmosphere. It may be the earth’s final

struggle for existence. Unless the Seuen-H’sin’s power is broken _at

once_, the end is near! It is too late to wait for reinforcements. We

must tackle the job ourselves—at any cost! The question is: how are we

going to do it?”

Hallock thought a few moments, and then replied:

“We can’t bomb the place from an airplane, because we brought no airplane

bombs. And we can’t shell it with the ship’s guns without knowing its

exact location. Our planes aren’t equipped with range finders, either—so

it would do no good to try to locate it from the air.

“That,” he added with decision, “leaves us no choice but a direct attack!”

“Well,” responded Dr. Gresham, “at any cost, we’ve got to try!”

At once we consulted the ship’s charts—and made a discovery.

Not far below our present location, a tributary fiord entered Dean

Channel from the left, and with sudden hope we saw that this waterway

twisted back among the mountains for several miles—reaching a point

in one of its windings where it was not more than six or seven miles

directly south of the region in which the power plant was hidden.

“There’s our chance!” Hallock announced. “If the sorcerers have missed

the _Albatross_, they’ll think we are on our way out of the country as

fast as we can travel. They won’t be expecting us to come back so soon—in

broad daylight. We can steam up this side channel to the proper spot and

then march across the mountains until we find the plant.”

“Good!” assented the scientist. “They are less likely to be on guard

against an attack from that side, anyway!”

Day was now beginning to break, which made further navigation easy. In

a few minutes we came to the tributary inlet, and swung the vessel in

between its high, constricted walls.

The ensign was now imbued with marvelous activity. Orders flew thick and

fast. A couple of the machine guns were made ready for land transport.

Two light mountain mortars and a quantity of ammunition were brought up

on deck. A supply of shrapnel hand grenades was distributed among the men.

Our progress through this tortuous waterway necessarily was slow;

nevertheless, at the end of an hour and a half, the destroyer was stopped

and we made ready for the final adventure.

It was decided that all fifteen of us should go, because less than that

number could not carry our equipment up and down the steep mountainsides,

and three or four men left to guard the ship would be utterly useless in

the event of an attack.

So, with every nerve alert, we struck out through the trackless

wilderness.

Three hours later we came upon six large steel conduits which we knew

must convey the water power to the plant, and in a few minutes we had

followed these to our goal.

Here we found ourselves upon the brow of a promontory directly behind and

fully 300 feet above the Seuen-H’sin’s workshop. The promontory ended in

a sheer precipice, from the outermost curve of which the conduits dropped

straight down into the powerhouse. This tremendous fall of the six

streams of water supplied the enormous energy to the turbines. The summit

of this projecting ridge was fairly level, and for a distance of perhaps

seventy-five yards at the end the timber had been entirely cleared away.

Extending out from the brow of the precipice, and resting upon the tops

of the conduits where they plunged downward, was a narrow bridge of iron

lattice-work which connected all six of the pipes and gave access to the

bolts which tightened the steel elbows. Through holes in this grating,

iron ladders fastened between the pipes and the granite cliff back of

them descended clear to the bottom of the precipice.

A slight rail only three feet high protected the outer edge of this

grid—a little hand-hold for the workmen in case of a misstep. From this

dizzy balcony it would be possible to drop a stone almost upon the roof

of the powerhouse.

After a quick look around, Ensign Hallock chose a spot a little back from

the cliff to set up the mortars that were to throw explosives upon the

building. He also prepared to place mines under the conduits. But first

the machine guns were planted to command the surrounding timber, in case

of an attack.

There still was no indication that the sorcerers suspected our presence

in their vicinity; so, inasmuch as Hallock said his preparations would

take some little time, Dr. Gresham determined to employ the interval in

getting a closer look at the power plant.

One of the ladders down the precipice, he had noticed, was in such

a position behind its water main that it could not be seen from the

building; and he decided to attempt the approach by this means. To my

delight, he made no objection to my accompanying him.

As we slipped through an opening in the iron bridge and started our dizzy

descent of the ladder—which seemed to sway beneath our weight—I felt a

thrill of exultation, in spite of our peril, at the thought that at last

we were to solve the mystery of the Seuen-H’sin’s terrible power over our

planet!

The trip was slow and risky, but finally we came abreast of a window in

the rear wall of the building, and by stretching around the side of the

thick water main we could see into the place.

The workshop of the sorcerers was a long, low, narrow structure directly

beside the river. Like the houses back in the Chinese village, it was a

mere shell of corrugated iron, its steel framework so bolted together

that it could sway with the earth tremors.

In a row down the centre of the structure were six huge turbines,

operating electric generators.

Along one side of the room was the largest switchboard I had ever seen,

while the whole of the other lengthwise wall was flanked with a series of

massive induction coils, elaborately insulated from each other and from

the ground. Although I knew little about electricity, I was certain that

if the combined electrical output of those dynamos were directed through

that maze of coils, the resulting voltage could only be measured in the

millions—perhaps hundreds of millions!

From one large, enclosed object, supported on steel uprights over the

row of induction coils, two electric cables, more than two inches in

diameter, ran off through the north end of the building. One of these

ended in a tiny structure about eighty yards from the powerhouse. The

other ran on up the valley.

But, most curious of all, in the center of the switchboards was an

apparatus surmounted by a large clock, before which a Chinese attendant

sat constantly. Precisely every eleven minutes and six seconds a bell on

this clock clanged sharply, and there was a bright flash in a long glass

tube, followed by an earth shock.

For some time we clung there in the shadows, while Dr. Gresham studied

every detail of the amazing workshop. Then, calling my attention to the

fact that the place outside the powerhouse, where one of the cables

ended, was hidden from view of the attendants inside by a thick clump of

trees, the astronomer said he wanted a closer look at this place.

Creeping through the timber, we reached the tiny structure over the

cable’s end. Not the slightest watch seemed to be kept anywhere about the

plant. The door to the house was not fastened, so we entered and looked

hurriedly about.

The room was absolutely empty except for the heavy cable, which came to

the center of the floor and there connected with a copper post about four

inches in diameter that ran straight down into the ground.

Without lingering further, we crawled back to the ladder and commenced

our long climb up the cliff.

Upon reaching the top again, we found the ensign and his men still busy

with their preparations for the bombardment. Withdrawing far enough to be

out of their hearing, the astronomer turned to me and remarked:

“Well, what do you think of the scientific achievements of the sorcerers

now?”

“I don’t know what to think!” I replied. “It’s utterly beyond my

comprehension!”

The doctor chuckled at my dismay.

“Forgive me,” he said, “for having kept you so long in the dark.

Until today I could never prove my theories—certain as I was of their

correctness—and I did not wish to attempt any explanations until I

was sure of my ground. But now you have seen enough to understand the

solution of the puzzle.”

To my delight, the scientist was dropping into one of his most

communicative moods. After a moment he went on:

“To comprehend, even in a general way, what the Seuen-H’sin has done, you

must understand the principle of resonance.

“Let us start with the swinging pendulum of a clock. What keeps it in

motion? Nothing but a slight push, delivered at exactly the right time.

Any swinging object can be kept swinging, even though it weigh many

tons, if it is given a touch by the finger of a baby at _just the right

moment_. By the same principle, the amount of swing can be increased

enormously if the successive pushes are correctly timed.

“But we need not limit our illustration to swinging objects. Everything

in the word has a natural period of vibration, whether it be a violin

string, or a battleship, or a forty-story skyscraper.

“Fifty men can capsize a twenty-thousand-ton battleship merely by running

back and forth from one side of the deck to the other and carefully

timing their trips to the vessel’s rolling. A child with a tack hammer

can shake down a forty-story skyscraper if he can discover the natural

period of the building’s vibration and then tap persistently upon the

steel framework at the correct interval.

“Even the earth itself has its natural period of vibration.

“If you exploded a ton of dynamite on top of the ground it would blow

quite a hole and jar the earth for several miles around it; and that

would be all. But if you set off another ton of dynamite, and then

another and another, and kept it up continuously—always timing the

explosions to the period of the earth’s vibration—eventually the jar

would be felt clear through the globe. And if you still persisted, in

time you would wreck the world.

“Such is the accumulative power of many little blows correctly timed.

The principle of timing small impulses to produce large effects is the

principle of resonance.

“But there are other forces in nature which can produce

vibration—electricity, for instance, Nikola Tesla demonstrated a number

of years ago that the globe is resonant to electric waves.

“Now, suppose some person constructed an apparatus that could suddenly

turn a tremendous flood of electric waves into the earth. That energy

would go clear through the globe, imparting a tiny impulse to every atom

of matter of which the sphere is composed—like a push upon the pendulum

of a clock.

“And suppose that person knew the exact period of the earth’s vibration,

and sent another bolt, and another and another, into the globe—all

exactly timed to impart a fresh impulse at the correct moment—to give

the pendulum another push, so to speak. Then let him pile electric

impulse upon electric impulse, each at just the right second, until the

accumulation of them all represented millions of horsepower in electric

oscillations. In time, _the world would be shaken to pieces_!

“And—impossible as it sounds—that is the very principle the Seuen-H’sin

is using there beneath your eyes! The dynamos furnish the power, and that

great battery of induction coils magnifies it to an almost inconceivable

voltage. By those cables attached to copper plugs, the impulses are

conveyed to the earth.

“Every blow of that tremendous electric hammer is heavier than the

preceding one because it has the accumulated power of all the others

behind it. With every blow the earth grows weaker—less able to stand the

shock. Continued, the planet’s doom would be inevitable—if it is not

already so!”

I had been listening to this recital with amazement too profound to admit

of interruption. When Dr. Gresham finished I sat silent, turning it

all over in my mind, and reflecting how simple the explanation seemed.

Finally—

“Was it those electric waves being discharged into the ground,” I asked,

“that Professor Howard Whiteman in Washington mistook for wireless

signals from Mars?”

“Precisely!” was the answer.

“And how,” I inquired, “was it possible for the sorcerers to discover

the exact period of the earth’s vibration? That seems little short of

superhuman.”

“Doubtless you remember the newspaper accounts published that night

when we returned from Labrador,” replied the doctor. “They told how the

electric whispers, when first noticed, occurred exactly two minutes

apart; then the interval increased one minute each night until the

signals were separated by more than thirty minutes; afterward the lulls

altered erratically for some time, until they became fixed at eleven

minutes and six seconds.”

“Yes,” I assented.

“Well,” continued the scientist, “those variations simply denoted the

experiment of the Seuen-H’sin to ascertain the period of the globe’s

vibration. If, after continuing their discharges all one night, their

seismographs showed no response from the earth, they knew their bolts

were wrongly timed, and they experimented with another period.

“Eventually they found that their impulses penetrated the earth with a

speed of approximately 709 miles a minute—in other words, in precisely

eleven minutes and six seconds the waves passed clear through the

plant. This, then, was demonstrated to be the length of time that must

elapse before the pendulum—figuratively speaking—could be given another

electrical push. You saw just now, on the switchboard down there, the

clockwork apparatus which times those bolts.”

After a moment’s consideration I remarked:

“Your own electrical equipment on board the _Albatross_—those big

induction coils and the rest of it—what did you plan to do with that?”

“I had meant to fight the Seuen-H’sin with its own methods,” the

doctor replied. “I was going to throw a high-power electric current

into the earth at intervals between those of the sorcerers’—say five

minutes apart. That would have interfered with the acceleration of the

vibrations—like setting a second group of men to run across the ship’s

deck between the trips of the first group. One set of vibrations would

have neutralized the other.

“But,” Dr. Gresham added, “the time for such methods is past. We must end

the whole thing immediately—at one stroke!”

Receiving a signal from Ensign Hallock that he was ready, we started to

rejoin the ship’s party. But before we had gone a dozen steps we were

rooted to the spot by a new terror!

Off in the east, where the snow-covered peaks lifted into the sky,

suddenly burst forth an awful crashing sound, as of a colossal

cannonade—a ponderous and unbroken thunder-roll, terrible as the enormous

tumult of the day of doom. As our gaze followed the nightmare sounds to

the edge of the world we beheld the lofty mountains oscillate, crack,

disjoint, and crumble into seething ruin.

The noise that accompanied this destruction came roaring and booming

across the intervening miles—a stupendous and unearthly commotion,

shattering the very atmosphere to fragments.

For a minute Dr. Gresham stood petrified. But as the enormity of the

cataclysm became evident, an unconscious cry, almost a groan, escaped him:

“Too late! Too late! The beginning of the end!”

Suddenly he wheeled—almost livid with excitement—to the naval officer and

screamed at the lop of his voice:

“_Fire!_ For God’s sake destroy that power plant! _Fire! FIRE!_”

_CHAPTER XIII_

PLAYING OUR FINAL CARD

In their astonishment at the terrible upheaval, Ensign Hallock and his

men had left their posts and crowded toward the end of the promontory, a

few feet away from the mortars. At Dr. Gresham’s command to fire, most of

them leaped to obey the order.

Instantly the woods behind us sprang into life as a horde of Chinamen

dashed from cover, charging straight at us!

From the size of the attacking force, it was evident our presence had

been known for some time and our capture delayed until a sufficient

number of the sorcerers could be assembled to insure our defeat: there

seemed to be scores of the blue-clad figures. Most of them were armed

with rifles, although some had only knives and a few iron bars which they

wielded as clubs.

The distance across the clearing was not much more than 200 feet, and the

Chinamen advanced at a run—without any outcry.

But before they had traversed a quarter of the space Ensign Hallock

recovered from his surprise and, with a few terse commands, led his crew

into action. Dashing to the machine guns, the seamen threw themselves

flat on the ground; and while some manned these weapons, the rest

resorted to their revolvers. In two or three seconds the booming of the

distant cataclysm was augmented by a steady volley of firing.

With deadly effect the machine guns raked the advancing semi-circle of

Mongolians. As the foremost line began suddenly to melt away, the rest

of the sorcerers wavered and presently came to a halt. They now were not

more than a hundred feet from us. At a command, they all dropped down

upon the ground, the ones with rifles in front, and began to return our

fire.

I had drawn my revolver and joined in the fight—and so had Dr. Gresham

beside me. But in our excitement we had remained on our feet, and I now

heard the astronomer shouting at me:

“Lie down! _Lie down!_”

Even as I dropped, my hat was knocked off by a bullet; but, unharmed, I

stretched out and continued shooting.

Pausing to slip a fresh magazine of cartridges into my automatic, I

suddenly became aware that a vast wind was starting to blow out of the

east; the very air seemed alive and quivering.

The Chinamen still outnumbered us heavily, and all at once I

realized—chiefly from the lessening of our fire—that their rifle attack

was beginning to take effect. Glancing about, I saw five or six of the

seamen lying motionless.

At this juncture one of the machine guns jammed, and while its crew was

trying to fix it the yellow devils took toll of several more of our men.

I now saw that only six of us were left to fight.

Simultaneously I became half conscious of a strange, mysterious something

going on about us—a subtle, ghostly change, not on the earth itself, but

in the air above—some throbbing, indefinable suggestion of impending

doom—of the end of things.

Snatching a glance over my shoulder, I saw arising upon the eastern

horizon a black, monstrous cloud of appalling aspect—a spuming billow of

sable mist—twisting, flying, lifting into the heavens with tremendous

speed. And each moment the wind was growing mere violent.

Was this, after all, to be the finish? Was the world—the white man’s

world, which we had fought so hard to save—to go to smash through these

yellow devils’ fiendishness? Having come within actual sight of the

machinery that was the cause of it all, was our task to remain unfinished?

With a terrible cold fury clutching at my heart, I crawled quickly

forward, discharging my revolver steadily as I went, to lend a hand with

the disabled machine gun.

But as I reached it Ensign Hallock dropped the weapon, with a gesture of

uselessness, and moved quickly back to the mortars. Out of the corner

of my eye I saw him trying to fire the things, and a wave of fierce joy

seized me.

But the task caused the naval officer to half raise himself from the

ground, and as he did so I saw him clutch at a bleeding gash on his head

and fall forward, where he lay still.

An instant later the Chinamen leaped to their feet with a loud cry

and charged upon us. They, too, were greatly reduced in numbers, but

there were only four of us now, so nothing remained but an attempt at

retreat. As we did so we began hurling our hand grenades, all the while

moving slowly in the only direction we could go—toward the brink of the

precipice.

Suddenly, above the crack of the rifles and the exploding of the

grenades, an enormous roaring burst forth in the east—a sinister

screaming of immeasurable forces, moaning, hooting, shrieking across the

world—the weird, awful voice of the wounded planet’s stupendous agony.

This new terror attracted so much attention that there was a momentary

pause in the sorcerers’ onslaught, and in that brief lull I noted that

our grenades had wrought terrible havoc among the Chinamen, reducing

their number to a mere handful. Dr. Gresham saw this at the same time,

and shouted to us to let them have it again with the missiles.

Apparently sensing the purport of this command, the Chinamen sprang

forward, seeking to engage us at too close range for the grenades to be

used. But several of the missiles met them almost at their first leap,

and when the hurricane of shrapnel abated, there remained only three of

the yellow fiends to continue the attack.

But at the same time I made the grim discovery that on our side Dr.

Gresham and myself alone survived!

With the realization that it had now come to a hand-to-hand encounter,

I braced myself to meet the shock as the trio darted forward. I somehow

felt that nothing mattered any longer, anyway, for so tremendous had

become the earth-tumult that it seemed impossible the planet could resist

disruption many minutes more.

Nevertheless, the passions of a wild animal surged within me; a sort of

madness steeled my muscles.

One powerful, thick-set Chinaman leaped upon Dr. Gresham and the two

went down in a striking, clawing test of strength. A second later the

remaining pair hurled themselves upon me.

I whipped out my revolver just as one fellow seized me from the front,

and, pressing the weapon against his body, I fired. In a moment he

relaxed his hold and crumpled down at my feet. The other chap now had me

around the neck from the rear and was shutting off my wind. Round and

round we staggered, as I vainly sought to loosen his hold. Before long

everything went black in front of me and I thought I was done for—when I

heard faintly, in a daze, the crack of a revolver. Quickly the grip about

my neck fell away.

When I began to come to myself again I saw Ensign Hallock sitting up on

the ground, his face covered with blood, but wielding the revolver that

had ended the career of my last adversary.

At the same time I saw that the officer was trying desperately to train

his weapon upon something behind me. Looking about, I saw Dr. Gresham and

his opponent rolling over and over on the ground, almost at the edge of

the precipice, struggling frantically for possession of a knife. Because

of their rapid changes of position, Hallock dared not shoot, for fear of

hitting the scientist.

Just then the Chinaman came on top for an instant, and I leaped forward,

aiming my revolver at him. The trigger snapped, but there was no report.

The weapon was empty.

Less than a dozen feet now separated me from the wrestlers, when the

Celestial suddenly jerked the knife free and raised it for a swift stroke.

With all my strength I hurled the empty revolver at the yellow devil. It

struck him squarely between the eyes. The knife dropped and he clutched

at his face, at the same time struggling to his feet to meet the new

attack.

Freed from the struggle, Dr. Gresham’s figure relaxed as in a swoon.

Instantly I was after the Chinaman—without a thought of his bull-like

strength. I was seeing red. The furious joy of the primeval man

hunter—the lust for blood—turned my head. My one idea was to kill.

Leaping over the prostrate scientist, I flung myself at the last of the

sorcerers. He had retreated three or four feet, and now stood at bay upon

the iron bridge that ran along the top of the water mains, overhanging

the precipice. As I dashed at him he stepped quickly aside. I missed

him—and my heart leaped into my throat as I stumbled across the perilous

eyrie and brought up against the outer rail, which seemed to sway.

I staggered, seized the rod, and saved myself. Far, far below, jagged

rocks and the roof of the Seuen-H’sin’s powerhouse greeted my gaze.

And at the same time—although I was not conscious of paying attention

to it—I became sensible of the fact that the monstrous cloud above the

horizon was soaring swiftly, beating its black wings close to the sun—and

that a weird twilight, a ghostly gloom, was settling over everything.

From the distance, too, still came that appalling uproar.

As I recovered my balance the Chinaman bounded at me. But his foot caught

in the grating and he stumbled to his knees. Instantly I threw myself

upon him. My knee bored into the small of his back; my fingers sank into

his throat. _I had him!_ If I could keep my hold a little while the life

would be strangled from his body.

In spite of his disadvantage, the fellow staggered to his feet. And there

above the void—upon that narrow steel framework, protected only by its

leg-high rail—we began a life-and-death struggle.

I hung on, like a mountain lion upon the back of its prey, while the

Chinaman lurched and twisted this way and that.

Once he staggered against the railing, lost his footing, swung around—and

I hung out over empty space, a drop of fully 300 feet. I thought the end

had come—that we would topple off into the void. But his mighty strength

pulled us back upon the grating—the whole slight structure seeming to

sway and creak as he did so.

I tightened my grip upon his throat, digging my fingers into his

windpipe, until I felt the life ebbing out of him in a steady flow. My

own strength was almost gone, but the primitive desire to kill kept me

clinging there tenaciously.

At last he began to weaken. In his death throes he lurched about in

a circle—until his foot slipped through a man-hole above one of the

ladders, and he fell across the rail with a choking moan. With me hanging

upon his back he began to slip outward and downward, inch by inch.

I knew the end had come. He was falling—and I was falling with him.

But thoughts of my own death were smothered in a wild rejoicing. I had

conquered this yellow fiend! Everything grew blurred before my eyes as we

sagged toward the final plunge into the gorge.

Suddenly my ankles were seized in a stout grip, and I felt myself being

dragged back from the sickening void. With this, I loosened my hold upon

the Chinaman’s throat, and his body went hurtling past me to its doom.

Another instant and I was off the rocking bridge, upon solid ground, and

Dr. Ferdinand Gresham was shaking me in an effort to restore my senses.

He had recovered from his own fainting spell just in time to save me from

being dragged over the cliff.

Swiftly I drew myself together. The weird twilight was deepening. But

a few feet away I beheld Ensign Hallock busy at the mortars and mines,

preparing to touch them off.

He motioned to us to run. We did so. In a moment his work was finished

and he took after us.

Back along the ridge we fled, away from the danger of the coming blast.

A couple of hundred yards distant, and about fifty feet below us, a bare

promontory jutted out from the hillside, affording an unobstructed view

of the whole region—the crumbling mountains upon the horizon, the power

plant at the base of the cliff, and the bare space behind us where the

mines were about to end the career of the sorcerers’ workshop.

We started to descend to this plateau—when suddenly I dragged my

companions back and pointed excitedly below, exclaiming:

“_Look! Look!_”

There in the center of the promontory, seemingly all alone, stood

the arch fiend of all this havoc—the high priest of the sorcerers,

Kwo-Sung-tao!

Apparently the old fellow had chosen this spot whence he could view in

safety his followers’ attack upon our party. He had not heard my outcry

behind him, and remained absorbed in the Titanic upheaval of the distant

mountains.

As I looked down upon his shriveled figure, a wave of savage joy swept

over me! At last fate was strangely playing into our hands! Quite

unsuspecting, the most menacing figure of the ages—the master mind of

diabolical achievement, the would-be “dictator of human destiny”—had been

cast into our net for final vengeance!

Just then the mortars boomed, and two charges of high explosives went

hurtling toward the roof of the powerhouse.

Kwo-Sung-tao wheeled and stared off toward the opposite promontory.

Seeing nothing, he hesitated in alarm. He did not look around in our

direction.

Another instant and the explosives fell squarely upon the roof of the

building, and with two frightful detonations—so close together that they

seemed almost as one—the whole structure burst asunder vanished in a

flying tornado of débris. For a few moments nothing was visible save a

tremendous geyser of dirt, steel, concrete and bits of machinery.

While the air was filled with this gust of wreckage, my gaze sped back to

the leader of the Seuen-H’sin.

The old man stood stock still, petrified by this sudden destruction of

all his hopes and work. What agony of soul he was enduring in that moment

I could only guess. His mummified figure suddenly to have shriveled

unbelievably—to be actually withering before our eyes!

Just then the mines under the water mains went off, ripping the conduits

to tatters—and the immense hydraulic force, suddenly released, roared

down the precipice, tearing the ground at the bottom of the gorge away to

the foundation rock and obliterating the last scrap of wreckage!

Almost at the same moment Dr. Gresham left us and plunged down the

slope toward the high priest, as if to settle the score with him alone.

Recovering from our surprise, we followed rapidly.

Apparently sensing the danger, Kwo-Sung-tao suddenly glanced around. As

he beheld Dr. Gresham he pulled himself together and I saw a look of

malignity come over his face such as I never before nor since have seen

upon a human countenance! It was as if he sought to blast his enemy with

a glance!

The demoniacal fury of that gaze actually caused the astronomer to

slacken his rush.

Promptly the old sorcerer’s hand darted beneath his robe and came out

with a revolver. But before the weapon could be aimed I had snatched

a hand grenade and hurled at the Chinaman. The missile flew over him,

exploding some feet away; but a bit of its metal must have hit the old

fellow, inflicting a serious wound, for he dropped the revolver and

clutched at his side.

As he did so he turned his eyes upon me—and the blood seemed to freeze

within my veins! Not to my dying day shall I forget the awful power of

that look!

But only for a second did this last—for I had already drawn another

grenade and was in the act of hurling it. This time the bomb fell

directly at the feet of the high priest and burst with deadly force.

Even while the old man’s eyes were boring through me with that unearthly

fury, Kwo-Sung-tao was blown to fragments!

An instant later the sun vanished, and a ghostly semi-night fell like a

thunderbolt!

* * * * *

It was several days later when Dr. Ferdinand Gresham, Ensign Hallock and

myself returned to the Mare Island navy yard at San Francisco.

And there, for the first time, we learned that the world remained intact

and was out of danger.

When we had ascertained that we three were the only survivors of our

expedition, we had started wandering over the mountains through the

semi-darkness until we found the destroyer. Unable to navigate the

vessel, we had taken the hydroplane, which Hallock knew how to handle,

and started south. Engine trouble had prolonged our trip.

Back from the grave, as it seemed, we listened with tremendous elation to

the story of the wounded planet’s convalescence.

That last terrible upheaval, just before the destruction of the

sorcerers’ power plant, had seemed for a time to be the actual beginning

of the end. But, instead, it had proved to be the climax—after which the

earthquakes had begun rapidly to die out. Scientists now declared that

before long the earth would regain its normal stability.

With our return, the story of the Seuen-H’sin was given to the public.

So universal became the horror with which that sect was regarded that an

international expedition proceeded into China and dealt vigorously with

the sorcerers.

The tremendous changes that had been wrought in the surface of the planet

presently lost their novelty.

And New York and other cities that had been destroyed, or partially so,

speedily were rebuilt.

Here I must not omit one other strange incident connected with these

events.

One evening, nearly two years after our encounter with the sorcerers,

Dr. Gresham and I were sitting at the window of his New York apartment,

idly watching the moon rise above the range of housetops to the east of

Central Park.

Suddenly I began to stare at the disk with rapt interest. Clutching the

astronomer by the sleeve, I exclaimed excitedly:

“Look there! Odd I never noticed it before! The face of the Man in the

Moon is the living image of that Chinese devil, Kwo-Sung-tao!”

“Yes!” agreed Dr. Gresham with a shudder. “And it makes my flesh creep

even to look at it!”

THE END

Men Sing Hymn As They Go To Death

Marooned on a floating ice cake in the Missouri River, with all hope of

rescue gone, Harvey McIntosh and his brother, Tom, of Mondamin, Iowa,

bravely sang, “Nearer My God to Thee,” while the ice floe carried them to

a swift and certain death. Their friends lined either side of the river,

but were unable to reach them. Night came on, and from the darkness came

the strains of the old hymn, which gradually grew fainter and then ended

in silence.

_In All the World There Was No Man Quite Like This One_

The Man the Law Forgot

_By_ WALTER NOBLE BURNS

The jail was silent. Boisterous incoherencies that in the day made the

vast gloomy pile of stone and iron a bedlam—talk, curses, laughter—were

stilled.

The prisoners were asleep in their cells. Dusty electric bulbs at sparse

intervals made a dusky twilight in the long, hushed corridors. Moonlight,

shimmering through the tall, narrow windows, laid barred, luminous

lozenges on the stone floors.

From the death cell in “Murderers’ Row,” the voice of Guisseppi rose in

the still night watches in the _Miserere_. Its first mellow notes broke

the slumberous silence with dulcet crashes like the breaking of ice

crystals beneath a silver hammer. Vibrating through the cavernous spaces

of the sleeping prison, the clear boyish voice lifting the burden of the

solemn hymn was by turns a tender caress, a flight of white wings up into

sunny skies, a silver whisper stealing through the glimmering aisles, a

swift stream of plashing melody, a flaming rush of music.

“_A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise._” The

prayer in its draperies of melody filled the cells like a shining

presence and laid its blessing of hope upon hopeless hearts. From the

shadow of the gallows, Guisseppi poured forth his soul in music that was

benediction and farewell.

Bitter memories, like sneering ghosts that elbow one another, crowd

the road to Gallows Hill. In swift retrospect, Guisseppi reviewed his

life’s last tragic phase. Young, with healthy blood dancing gay dances

through his veins, sunny-spirited, spilling over with the happiness and

hopefulness of irresponsibility, he had not despaired when the death

sentence was pronounced.

The court’s denial of his lawyer’s motion for a new trial left him with

undiminished optimism. Yet a while longer hope sustained him when his old

father and mother kissed him good-by through the bars and set off for the

state capital to intercede with the governor.

Bowed with years and broken with sorrow, they had pleaded in tears

and on their knees. The venerable father, lost for words, helplessly

inarticulate, the mother with her black shawl over her head, white-faced,

hysterical, both praying for the life of their only son, were a picture

to melt a heart of stone.

The pathos of it stirred the governor to the depths, but could not make

him forget that for the moment he stood as the incarnation of the law and

the inexorable justice that is the theory of the law. With heavy heart

and misty eyes, he turned away.

So hope at last had died. And between the death of hope and the death

that awaited him, Guisseppi brooded in the death-cell, bitterly counting

his numbered days as they slipped one by one into the past, each day

bringing him that much nearer to certain annihilation. Round and

round the dial, the hands of the clock on the prison wall went in a

never-ending funeral march; the _tick-tock, tick-tock_ of the pendulum,

measuring off the fateful seconds, echoed in his heart like a death knell.

Times without number he repeated to himself that he was not afraid to

die. Nevertheless the inevitability of death tortured him. At times, in

sheer terror, he seized the rigid bars of his cell, pounded his fists

against the iron walls, till the blood spurted from his knuckles. He was

like a sparrow charmed by a serpent, fluttering vainly to escape, but

drawing ever nearer to certain death. Black walls of death kept closing

in upon him inexorably, like a mediaeval torture chamber.

Some men, the experts say, are born criminals; other are made criminals

by some fortuity or crisis of circumstances. Guisseppi had been a happy,

healthy, careless boy. His father was a small shopkeeper of the Italian

quarter who had achieved a certain prosperity. His mother was a typical

Italian mother, meek, long-suffering, tender, her whole life wrapped up

in her boy, her husband and her home.

Guisseppi had received a good common school education. He had been a

choir boy in Santa Michaela Church, and the range and beauty of his

voice had won him fame even beyond the borders of the colony; musicians

for whom he had sung had grown enthusiastic over his promise and had

encouraged him to study for the operatic stage.

The exuberance of youth, and love of gayety and adventure, had been

responsible for his first misstep. His companions of the streets had

enticed him into Cardello’s pool room. Cardello, known to the police as

“The Devil,” had noted with a crafty eye the lively youth’s possibilities

as a useful member of his gang. His approaches were subtle—genial

patronage, the pretense of goodfellowship, an intimate glass across a

table. The descent to Avernus was facile.

Almost before he knew it, Guisseppi was a sworn member of Cardello’s gang

of reckless young daredevils and a participant in their thrilling nightly

adventures. Home lessons were forgotten. His mother lost her influence

over the boy. Even Rosina Stefano, the little beauty of the quarter, who

had claimed all his boyish devotion since school days, had no power to

turn him from his downward course.

He had been taken by the police after a robbery in which a citizen had

been killed. He was condemned to death.

“I forgive everybody,” Guisseppi told his death-watch. “Everybody but

‘Devil’ Cardello. If it had not been for him, I would be free and happy

today. He made me a thief. That is his business—teaching young fools to

rob for him. He did the planning; we did the jobs. We took the chances,

he took the money. I was in the hold-up when the gang committed murder,

but I myself killed no man.

“And now the gallows is waiting for me, while Cardello sits in his pool

room, immune, prosperous, still planning crimes for other young fools. If

I could sink my fingers in his throat and choke his life out, I could die

happy. One thing I promise him—if my ghost can come back, I will haunt

him to his dying day.”

Morning dawned. Father and mother arrived for a final embrace. Rosina

gave him a last kiss. A priest administered consolation. The sheriff

came and read the death warrant.

Light, flooding through the barred windows from the newly-risen sun,

filled the jail with golden radiance as, through the iron corridors, feet

shuffling drearily, the death march moved in solemn silence toward the

gallows....

* * * * *

Doctors with stethoscopes watched the final pulsations of ebbing life.

They pronounced him dead.

The body was wheeled off on a tumbril into the jail morgue and turned

over to assistants of an undertaker employed by the family. Placing it on

a stretcher and covering it with a mantle, these hurried it to a motor

ambulance waiting in the alley. They slid the stretcher into the vehicle

and slammed the doors. The machine got quickly under way, gathered speed,

began to fly through the streets.

No sooner had the doors of the ambulance slammed shut than strange things

began to happen inside. A physician and a nurse who had been secreted in

the car, fell upon the body with feverish haste, stripped it of clothing,

dashed alcohol over it from head to foot, began to massage the still warm

flesh, chafing the wrists, slapping limbs and torso with smart, stinging

thumps.

Then, to conserve what little heat remained, they bundled the body in

heavy blankets kept warm in a fireless contrivance. And all the while the

ambulance, its gong clanging madly, was plunging at wild speed across the

city, swaying from side to side, turning corners on two wheels.

It drew up at last in front of a small undertaking shop on a back street,

and the body was hurried inside. Laid upon a table, it looked as if

carved from ivory. The coal-black hair curled about the white brow in

glossy abandon. The long black lashes of the nearly-shut eyes left deep

shadows on the cold pallor of the cheeks. No tint of blood, no sign of

life appeared.

Quickly a pulmotor was applied. Oxygen was pumped into the lungs while

the body was again vigorously rubbed with alcohol. Guisseppi’s father and

mother and close relatives stood about in an excited group, eyes wide

with feverish interest, their hearts in their mouths. Doctors and nurses

worked with dynamic energy.

No sign of rekindled life rewarded them. Their drastic efforts seemed

lost labor. The boy’s soul, apparently, had journeyed far into the dark

places beyond life’s pale and was not to be lured back to its fleshly

habitation.

Still they persisted, hoping against hope.

“_Per dio!_” suddenly exclaimed a physician. “Do you see that?”

A faint flush appeared in Guisseppi’s cheek.

“He lives again!” burst in a tense whisper from the bloodless lips of the

father.

The tiny stain spread, tinging the marble flesh.

“My boy, my darling boy!” cried the mother, wringing her hands in

delirious joy.

Guisseppi’s chest began to rise and fall slowly, with an almost

imperceptible movement of respiration. The suspicion of a smile hovered

for a moment at the corners of his mouth.

He opened his eyes. _He lived!_

_II._

“Devil” Cardello sat at his desk in a corner of his pool room. The

morning was young; no customers had yet arrived to play pool or

billiards. Basco, the porter, pail and mop in hand, stood for a moment

gossiping.

“They say he died game,” remarked Basco.

“They all do,” sneered Cardello.

“And kept his mouth shut.”

“No; he spilled everything. But the police didn’t believe him. That’s all

that saved me.”

“I heard he said his ghost would come back to haunt you.”

“Ho! That’s a good one,” laughed Cardello. “The devil has got him on a

spit over the fire and will keep him turning. I should worry about the

little fool’s ghost!”

A whisper of sound from the direction of the billiard tables caused both

men to glance up.

There stood Guisseppi a few paces away, surveying them in silence, a

blue-steel revolver in his hand!

“Mother of God!” screamed Basco, dropping his pail and mop, and dashing

into the street.

Cardello’s eyes bulged from their sockets. His face went as white as

paper. Panic, terror, pulled his lips back in a ghastly grin from his

chattering teeth. He rose heavily to his feet and stood swaying.

“Guisseppi!” he breathed scarcely above a whisper. “_Guisseppi!_”

Guisseppi’s lips curled.

“Yes,” he replied. “The boy you ruined, betrayed, sent to death on the

gallows.”

“No, no, Guisseppi. The _police_ got you. I was your friend.”

“Liar! But for you, I would be happy; my father and mother would not bear

the black disgrace of a son hanged on the gallows.”

“Why have you come back from the dead, Guisseppi? Why should you haunt

your old pal?”

“I have a score to settle with you.”

“In the name of God the Father, go back to the grave! Leave me in peace.”

Guisseppi raised his weapon.

“I have come to kill you,” he said.

Cardello fell upon his knees.

“Spare me, Guisseppi!” he screamed, stretching out imploring arms.

“Mercy, Guisseppi, mercy! Don’t—”

There was a crash—a leap of fire.

A wisp of blue smoke drifted above a billiard table.

_III._

The police dragnet for the slayer of Cardello was far flung, and zest

was added to the man hunt by the offer of $1,000 reward. Throughout the

Italian quarter, Basco spread the story of Guisseppi’s recrudescence and

his ghostly revenge.

The superstitious residents accepted the weird tale with simple faith.

Fear of the phantom became rife. Children remained indoors after dark.

Pedestrians quickened their pace when passing lonely spots at night.

Turning a corner suddenly, they half-expected to come face to face with

Guisseppi’s ghost, wry-necked from the hangman’s noose.

Policeman Rafferty, traveling beat in the neighborhood of Death Corners,

was told time and again that Guisseppi’s ghost had murdered Cardello.

Yes, it was true. Basco had seen the phantom. Others in the colony had

seen it slipping like a shadow through some deserted street at night.

There was no doubt that Guisseppi had come back from the dead.

Policeman Rafferty laughed. When had ghosts started in bumping off live

folks? That was what he would like to know. How could the poor simpletons

believe such stuff? Funny lot of jobbies, these dagoes!

But when Policeman Rafferty had heard the story of Guisseppi’s ghost for

the thousandth time, he scratched his head and did a little thinking, not

forgetting the $1,000 reward. Guisseppi was dead. Of course. He had been

hanged, and the newspapers had been full of the stories of his execution.

So Guisseppi couldn’t have killed Cardello. That was out of the question.

But could it be possible that dead Guisseppi had a living double? Hah!

Policeman Rafferty got in touch with his favorite stool-pigeon without

delay. Shortly thereafter, that worthy laid before him a piece of

information which Policeman Rafferty was welcome to for just what it

was worth and no more. Guisseppi’s ghost had been seen oftenest in the

immediate neighborhood of Guisseppi’s father’s residence. If the fool

copper thought he could put a pinch over on a ghost, he might do well to

search Guisseppi’s old home.

So Policeman Rafferty eased himself one day through a narrow passageway,

burst in suddenly at the kitchen door and started to search the premises.

He found Guisseppi whiffing a cigaret in a front room.

* * * * *

“Yes, I killed Cardello,” said Guisseppi quietly. “I’ll go with you.”

“But who are you?” asked the policeman. “You can’t be Guisseppi. They

topped that boy on the gallows.”

“I’m Guisseppi, all right. They brought me back to life with a pulmotor.”

Policeman Rafferty’s jaw dropped.

“Back to life?”

“Yes. I was as dead as stone. I was gone absolutely for an hour.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere. I remember standing on the trap. Then it seemed

I was falling for a long time, falling—from a star—or a high mountain

top—through miles of emptiness into midnight blackness. There wasn’t

any pain. I seemed to land on a deep soft cushion of feathers. I could

_feel_ the darkness. It seemed to whirl and billow round me. I couldn’t

see myself—or feel myself. But I knew, somehow, I was there in the heart

of the darkness. I suddenly found myself on a broad road stretching away

into night.”

“Must ha’ been the road to hell,” remarked Policeman Rafferty.

“Maybe so. Along this road, I glided with the swiftness of a bird on the

wing. I didn’t know where I was going—”

“You were bound for hell,” said Rafferty.

“I heard music away off in the dark; wonderful orchestra music, violins,

’cellos, wind pipes. It grew louder. I never heard such beautiful music.

Through the solid blackness ahead, I saw a great mountain peak standing

up, red and shining, against the sky.

“Around me came a glare of bright lights. I was blinded by streaks and

splashes of color, darting, rolling, weaving into each other, changing

all the time. Reds, purples, greens, blues, rolled over me in great,

flashing waves. Flaring colors swirled around me in blazing whirlwinds.

I was drowned in gorgeousness. It was as if a cyclone had wrecked a

thousand rainbows and buried me beneath their ruins.”

“What were these lights?”

“Search me. I don’t know. I heard a loud, clear call out of the distance.

I pushed through the storm of colors. Across a dark plain, I reached the

shining, red mountain. I climbed up until I stood on the peak. I felt

fine. Something struck me as a joke. I began laughing. Then, bending

close above me, I saw the faces of my mother and father and the doctors.”

“Well, Guisseppi,” said Policeman Rafferty, “gettin’ hung once would ha’

been an elegant sufficiency for most men. They’d be leery about takin’ a

second chance. You must be stuck on dropping through a trap—eh?”

“Yes, they’ll hang me again, all right. That’s a cinch. You might think

me a fool for walking with my eyes open right into this second scrape—”

“A hog,” corrected Rafferty.

“I don’t know. I came back from the dead to kill Cardello. And I killed

him. I hated that fellow. I’d like to have tortured the life out of him,

killed him by inches. His cries of agony would have been wine to me. It’s

hell to be hanged. I ought to know. But I can go back to the gallows now

with a light heart. I got Cardello, and I’m ready to take my medicine.”

Policeman Rafferty bit a generous chew from his plug of tobacco.

“You Eye-talians,” he remarked reflectively, “are a nutty bunch.”

_IV._

The court room was crowded. Guisseppi’s strange story had been spread to

the four winds by the newspapers, and everybody was eager to see this man

who had passed through the mystic portals of death.

“My client will plead guilty to the Cardello murder,” said Guisseppi’s

lawyer. “I take it your honor will agree with me that having paid the

penalty of the law for his former crime, he can not again be hanged for

that old offense.”

“I do agree with you,” replied the judge. “The sentence was that on a

certain day at a certain hour, he be hanged by the neck until dead. This

sentence was carried out. He was hanged. He was officially pronounced

dead. It is not for me to say whether death was absolute. Perhaps a spark

of life remained which was fanned back to full flame. Possibly his soul

actually left the body and was recalled by some cryptic means we do not

fully understand.

“But, whatever the truth, his return to life creates a unique situation.

I know of no precedent of which the law ever has taken cognizance. So

far as I know, this case is the first of its kind in history. Since the

sentence pronounced upon this man has been carried out legally in every

detail, it is my decision that he can not again be hanged for the crime

for which he already has paid the penalty.”

“There is one other point which your honor failed to consider,” said

Guisseppi’s lawyer. “It is an axiom of law that a man can not, for the

same crime, be placed in jeopardy twice. A man can be placed in no

greater jeopardy than when, with a hangman’s noose around his neck, he

is dropped through the trap-door of a gallows. So, whether Guisseppi was

actually dead or whether a faint flicker of life remained, he is forever

immune from further punishment for the crime for which he was placed in

this great jeopardy.”

“Your point may be well taken,” replied the judge.

“Now, your honor, we come to the Cardello murder charge. It is at the

prisoner’s own desire and against my better judgment that I enter a

plea of guilty and throw him upon the mercy of the court. There are

perhaps some extenuating circumstances. But he is willing to take

whatever punishment the court may see fit to inflict. In view of all

the circumstances of this extraordinary case, I make a special plea for

mercy.”

“I will answer your plea,” returned the judge, “by ordering the case

stricken from the docket and the prisoner discharged from custody.”

A murmur of amazement broke the tense hush of the crowded chamber.

Guisseppi’s lawyer gasped.

“Am I to understand, your honor—”

“This is not mercy but law,” the judge continued. “This man is legally

dead. He is without the pale of all law. A dead man can commit no

crime. No provision in the whole range of jurisprudence recognizes the

possibility of a dead man’s committing a crime. No man, in the purview of

the law, can return from the dead. If we assume that this man was dead,

he will remain dead forever in the eyes of the law. If by a miracle he

has returned to life and committed murder, there is no punishment within

the scope of the statutes that can be decreed against him.

“He is the super-outlaw of all history. Forever beyond the reach of law,

the statutes are powerless to deal with him or punish him in any way. If

he should shoot down every member of the jury that convicted him, if he

should walk into court and kill the judge before whom his case was tried,

the law could do nothing to him. He could spend his days as a bandit,

robbing, plundering, murdering, and the law could not touch him. Legally

he is a ghost, a shadow, an apparition, with no more reality than the

beings in a dream. So far as the law is concerned, he does not exist. He

can no more be imprisoned, hanged, punished or restricted in his actions

than a phantom that exists only in the imagination.”

“A most wonderful construction of the law,” declared Guisseppi’s attorney

in happy bewilderment at the turn of events.

“It is less a construction of law as it exists than an admission there

is no law applicable to a man legally dead yet actually alive, a man who

under the law does not exist. This boy, physically alive but legally

dead, has murdered a man with deliberate purpose and malice aforethought.

There is no doubt about that. If the law recognized his existence, he

should be hanged. Justice demands that he be executed. But he is in some

fourth-dimensional legal state beyond the reach of justice. The law is

powerless to deal with him. As the administrator of the law, my hands are

tied. There is nothing left for me but to set him at liberty.”

Despite the decision of the court that under the law he had no existence,

Guisseppi left the chamber smiling and happy, acutely conscious of joyous

life in every fibre of his being.

* * * * *

Policeman Rafferty was filled with righteous anger when he learned that

he could not collect the $1,000 reward. In answer to his indignant

questions, he was told the reward was offered for the arrest of “the

person or persons guilty of the murder of Cardello,” and since Guisseppi

was neither a person or anything else that the law recognized as

existing, he was not guilty of the crime.

Moreover, it was hinted to him that in capturing Guisseppi, he had

arrested nobody. In the end, Policeman Rafferty had to laugh in spite of

himself.

“The money’s mine, all right,” he said philosophically. “Only I don’t get

it.”

_V._

Rosina Stefano sat alone in the little parlor of her home in one of the

quaint side-streets of the Italian quarters, picturesque with its jumble

of weather-stained frame dwellings and exotic little shops.

It was a chill, dreary night outside. A piping wind made fantastic noises

about eaves and gables, and shook the windows as with ghostly hands. A

lamp, burning under a blue shade, filled the chamber with eerie shadows.

A coal fire was dying to embers in the open grate. There was a knock at

the door.

“_Entre!_”

Guisseppi threw open the door and stood upon the threshold smiling.

“Rosina!”

The girl rose from her chair and stared fixedly at him out of frightened

eyes. With a quick gesture, as if for protection against some

supernatural menace, she made the sign of the cross.

“I have come back to you, Rosina.” Guisseppi took a step toward her and

threw open his arms.

Rosina shrank back.

“Do you not still love me?”

Her lips framed a “No” for answer in a terror-stricken whisper.

“Come, my little sweetheart, embrace me.”

“No, no, Guisseppi!” Her voice was a tremulous cry. “You are dead!”

“Dead? Certainly I am not dead. I am alive and well, and I love you just

as I always loved you.”

“You are only a ghost.”

“Don’t be foolish, little one. Do I look like a ghost? Me? Come into my

arms and see how strong they are. Lay your head on my breast and feel the

beating of my heart. And every beat of my heart is for you.”

Rosina stood motionless. There flashed through her mind old grewsome

stories of vampires that lured their victims into their power with love

traps and sucked their blood. Momentary horror froze her blood.

“O Guisseppi,” she exclaimed, “why have you risen from the dead? Why do

you come back to haunt me?”

“Poor girl, do not talk like that. I tell you I am alive—tingling to my

finger tips with life and love for you. If I were dead, I should still

love you. Death could not kill my love for you. Have you forgotten

everything? I thought you loved me. You have often told me so. I believed

you would always love me, be true to me forever. Now I find you changed

and cold.”

“I did love you, Guisseppi. To the depths of my being I loved you.” Her

words came in a passionate torrent in her liquid native tongue. “You were

my earth and heaven, my life, my soul’s salvation. All day my thoughts

were of you. I dreamed of you at night. There was nothing I would not

have done for you. There was nothing I would not have given you. I could

have lived for you always. I could have died for you. Did I not come to

see you every day in jail? Did I not bring you constantly dishes I had

cooked myself with utmost care? Was not I close beside you in the court

room every day of the long trial?

“I did everything to soothe and comfort you through all those terrible

days. Was it nothing that I remained constant when you were locked in a

cell condemned to death? I was true to the very trap-door of the hangman.

What greater proof could a woman give of her love than to remain true to

a man sentenced as a felon to the eternal disgrace of the gallows?”

She paused for a moment, erect, motionless, her face aflame, seemingly

transfigured like the wonder woman of a vision.

“Ah, yes,” she went on; “then there was no one like my Guisseppi; no

eyes so bright, no lips so tender, no face so dear. You were my god. Can

I ever forget the songs you used to sing to me in the happy days before

‘Devil’ Cardello crossed your life. Your voice was divine. Every note

thrilled me. I loved it. To me it was the music of the stars. Nothing

in all the world was so beautiful as your voice. But now your voice has

changed. There is no longer any music in it. As you speak to me, it seems

a voice from the sepulchre.”

Guisseppi raised an arresting hand. He threw back his head. He smiled

again.

“My voice has changed? Listen, _cara mia_.”

Slowly he began to sing an old Italian serenade. The ballad told of a

knight of old who had bade a lily-white maid farewell and gone off to the

wars and who, wounded and left for dead on the battlefield, was nursed

back to life and returned to find his lady unchanged in her devotion

against rivals and temptations.

Soft in the opening cadences, Guisseppi’s voice grew in volume and power.

It brought out in shades and nuances of wonderful beauty all the charm

and romance of the ancient tale—the sadness of farewell, the clash of

battle, the wounded soldier’s dreams of his sweetheart as life seemed

ebbing, the gladness of his homecoming, his happiness in reunited love.

Into the music, Guisseppi threw all the ardor and passion of his own

love. There were notes like tears in his voice when, in minor strain,

he sang the sorrows and dreams of the soldier; and the final crescendo

passage, vivid with renewed love, was a burst of joyous melody straight

from his heart.

“_And you loved me still the same!_” The words rose like incense from an

altar. They fluttered about Rosina’s ears like a shower of rose leaves.

The girl listened, spellbound. Never in happier days had she heard

Guisseppi sing with such compelling sweetness. There seemed a new and

wonderful quality in his voice. With his magical music, he was like a

conjurer bending her spirit to his subtle enchantments.

On a golden cloud, she was transported to the sunny shores of Italy. A

cavalier sang the serenade in the moonlight to his mandolin and, leaning

from her latticed balcony, she dropped a rose to him. The bay of Naples

spread its crinkled azure before her. Against the dark, star-spangled

crystal of the night, sculptured Vesuvius upheld its canopy of smoke.

As the music steeped her senses, she fancied she could feel its golden

filaments being drawn about her, binding her more and more closely in a

fairy chain. As if under the charm of melodious hypnotism, her old love

returned. All the tenderness and passion of her heart went out again to

Guisseppi. The siren influence of his voice was transforming her. Her

strength of will was crumbling. She stood swaying, helpless, her eyes

glowing with rekindled love.

Suddenly the song ended. The spell was broken. Rosina passed a languid

hand over her eyes as if to brush away a film of sleep. She seemed to

wake from a trance. Guisseppi stood before her radiant, smiling.

“Now will you believe I am alive? Could a dead man sing like that?”

A look of awe overspread Rosina’s face.

“You never sang like that before.”

“This is the first time my life and happiness were ever at stake on a

song.”

“The Guisseppi I used to know could not sing like that. You are not

Guisseppi. You are a spirit. Some demon has taught you how to sing so

beautifully. You have come back with this new devil’s voice of yours to

lure my soul to hell.”

“Ah, Rosina, how can you delude yourself with such foolish fancies. Do

you not see me here solid in flesh and blood?”

“I see you, but I know you are only a shadow from the grave.”

“If your eyes deceive you, your ears can not. You have heard me sing.”

“That was some devil’s necromancy.”

Guisseppi fell on his knees before her and stretched out his arms in

supplication.

“I love you, Rosina. That is all I can say. The hangman’s noose was not

able to strangle my love for you. Your love is more to me now than it

ever was before. The world has turned cold to me. You are my only hope,

my refuge. I need you. I want you with all my soul.”

The girl shook her head sorrowfully. Her eyes rested upon him with

sadness that was touched with renunciation.

“It can never be,” she said firmly. “How you are here, I do not know.

You are dead; of that I am sure. My love for you was buried in the grave

that was dug for you. You are not the boy I once loved. You are something

strange and different. I am afraid of you. It is only with horror that I

could fancy the kisses of a dead man on my lips. The thought of a ghost’s

endearments fills me with loathing. Go back to the dead. I can love and

reverence those who are gone, but there is no love anywhere in all the

world for the dead returned from the grave.”

She turned away and stood with her head bowed in her hands.

Slowly Guisseppi struggled to his feet. He staggered weakly against the

wall and buried his face in his arms.

“And you, Rosina!” he sobbed.

This was the final, crushing blow. He felt now that he was indeed

dead—dead at the grave of his lost love.

_VI._

A taxicab stood in the narrow street near Rosina’s home, its driver ready

at the wheel, its engine purring. Behind the drawn blinds, sat Guisseppi,

aflame with excitement, peering eagerly through the curtains from time to

time.

Guisseppi was desperate. There was no place for the dead among the

living. He had learned that clearly. As a “living dead man,” all his

experiences had been tragic. He regretted his resuscitation. He longed

for the peace of the grave.

His old friends had fallen away from him. Many believed him a spirit

damned, who, by some strange dispensation, was spared to life for yet a

little while to make more exquisite the final agony reserved for him.

Others were intelligent enough to know the truth, but even these were

repelled by a certain unwholesomeness, a savor of the sepulchre, that

seemed to cling about him.

The girls he had known in his old, gay days would have nothing to do

with him. As handsome as ever, as romantic, with a voice as musical and

appealing, he was in their imagination enveloped in an atmosphere of the

charnel-house, and the curse of hell was branded on his brow.

His relatives held aloof. Between him and even his mother and father he

was conscious that a thin shadow had gradually crept, and the tenderness

of their love had been cooled by a ghostly fear of this eerie son who had

been down among the dead and read with dead eyes the mysteries beyond the

tomb.

He had been unable to find employment. It was as if every business house

had up a sign, “No dead men need apply.”

In despair and desperation, he fell into his old ways of banditry. He

soon had placed to his record a long series of bold robberies. For

several of his first lawless exploits, the police arrested him. But

invariably the judges before whom he was arraigned set him at liberty.

So after a while the police refused to arrest him. What was the use? This

ghost-man would only be set free again.

... While Guisseppi sat hidden from view behind the curtains of his

taxicab, ruminating upon the bitterness of his fate, Rosina emerged from

her home. Trim and dainty with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes, the young

beauty was subtly suggestive of flowers and fragrance as she tripped

along the street in the warm sunshine.

As she came abreast of the taxicab, Guisseppi stepped out, caught her in

his arms, and swung her into the car. The girl’s wild screams shrilled

through the slumberous stillness of the quarter and filled the streets

with excited throngs as the cab plunged madly forward, dashed around a

corner and was soon lost to sight. In a distant part of the city, the

car halted before a weather-stained building. Within the dingy doorway

Guisseppi disappeared, bearing the kidnapped maiden in his arms.

A little later, Guisseppi appeared before the marriage license clerk in

the city hall.

“I’m sorry,” said the clerk, “but I can not give you a marriage license.”

“Why not?”

“You are dead. You can not marry.”

“But I’m _going_ to marry!” shouted Guisseppi defiantly.

“Impossible. If I went through the formality of filling out a license

for you, no minister or priest would perform the wedding service. The

marriage altar, orange blossoms, the happiness of domestic love are not

for the dead.”

“But I’m _alive_! I am only _legally_ dead.”

The clerk smiled tolerantly. With a pencil he drew a circle on a sheet of

paper.

“Here,” said he, “is a cipher. It is the symbol of nothing, but, as a

circular pencil mark, it is still something.”

He erased every trace of the pencil and exhibited the blank piece of

paper.

“This,” he explained, “illustrates your status. In human affairs, you

are a cipher with the rim rubbed out. A man legally dead is less than

nothing.”

_VII._

Luigi Romano, who had succeeded Guisseppi in Rosina’s affections, was

among the first to hear of the abduction.

Blazing with passion, he laid his plans with quick decision and took the

trail. Without great difficulty, he traced the route of the taxicab,

block by block, to its destination.

Depressed by his fruitless mission in search of a marriage license,

Guisseppi was hurrying toward the building in which Rosina was

imprisoned. His eyes were bent upon the ground in deep thought. His face

was white and drawn.

Luigi stepped from the shelter of a doorway with a sawed-off shotgun in

his hands....

* * * * *

When the police arrived, a little crowd of Italians had gathered.

They shrugged their shoulders and spread their palms. Nobody had seen

anything; nobody had heard anything; nobody knew anything. But one thing

was plain—the dead man, sprawled on the sidewalk, was dead this time to

stay dead.

“O yes,” said Attorney Malato, who had looked after Luigi’s case, “they

arrested Luigi all right. But they turned him loose. Why not? This boy

Guisseppi could not be punished by the law, but neither could he claim

in the slightest degree the protection of the law. Since he had no legal

life, it was no crime to kill him. He was a legal problem, and Luigi

solved it in about the only way it could be solved—with a sawed-off

shotgun.”’

* * * * *

It is often wondered why the earth is round instead of being some other

shape. This is because of the attraction of gravity, which tends to pull

everything toward the center of the world. It can be seen that even if

the earth was originally some other shape, in the course of a few years

this influence would have pulled it into its present shape.

_A Gripping, Powerful Story by a Man Who Always Tells a Good Tale_

The Blade of Vengeance

_By_ George Warburton Lewis

The outcome was all the more regrettable because Henry Fayne had staked

so much on the success of his great venture. He had renounced innumerable

bachelor friendships for Leanor, only to discover within a year of the

celebrated social event, which had been their wedding, that he was linked

for life to a captivating adventuress.

It was a hard blow. Only by desperate efforts, long sustained, had he

been able to take himself in hand and force out of his thoughts the ugly

images that obsessed him.

[Illustration]

Leanor’s perfidy was a thing of which even his best friends never could

have convinced him; yet now he knew it to be true—aye, knew it because

she herself had boasted of it!

Fayne had striven hard to shut so hideous a specter out of his vision,

partly because of a haunting fear that the thing which the discovery had

set throbbing in his brain would get the better of him, that he would

hurt somebody, or himself.

He had been an unusually well-balanced man, but it was only after many a

stern struggle with the pulsating thing that hammered in his head that he

surrendered the corpse of his outraged love to the divorce court and the

gossip-mongers, and went sadly back to his bachelor haunts in the hope

of forgetting. But he was appalled to find that he no longer fitted in.

The friends of the free and easy days of his celibacy were sincere enough

in their pity for him, though in no way disposed to put themselves out

seeking reclamation. In short, they might as well have said in chorus:

“You couldn’t have expected us to forewarn you; you’d have quit us cold.

You had to discover it for yourself, and the operation of finding out has

simply rendered you impossible as one of the old crowd. Sorry, old man,

but, after all, it’s better that you should know.”

So Henry Fayne brooded, lost his nerve, and then, all of a

sudden—disappeared.

The old circle knew his set and cynical face no more. There were rumors

of mental breakdown and suicide, and there was one report (little

credited, however) that the unfortunate fellow had drifted down into the

wilds of South America and become an eccentric and a recluse.

Leanor tired, in time, of the murderous velocity of her social chariot,

dumped the winged vehicle on the trash-heap and went abroad, accompanied

by a less rich and more ambitious retinue of high livers.

Like vari-colored butterflies, five years winged overhead, years by

no means lacking in color and variety for Leanor. Exacting as were

her tastes, she could scarcely have desired a more changeful, a more

exquisitely exhilarating life.

Only once in a blue moon did she think of Henry. Thoughts of him, like

all other memories of her meteoric past, had been crowded into oblivion

by the inrush of the more intimate and actual.

Henry had been very good to her, she had to admit, but he had been none

the less impossible. The outcome had been inevitable from the beginning.

He was fifteen years her senior. She knew that she could never have

held her volatile self down to a life of self-sacrifice and suffering

with Henry. The idea was no less absurd than the mating of an esthetic

humming-bird with some sedate old owl.

When she consented to marry Henry she had entertained no such

preposterous thought as exacting of him a compliance with the

ridiculously restricted code of ethics he subsequently set for her.

Indeed, she would have grown old and ugly with nothing accomplished,

unseeking and unsought. Too, there would have been lamentably fewer

notches on her ivory fan than the half-decade last past had yielded.

As the wretched venture had turned out, however, she was still under

thirty and was, to employ the homely simile of her latest masculine

objective, “as pretty as a peach.”

* * * * *

At the Pacific entrance of the Grand Canal, where the town of Bandora

drowses like a sprawling lizard on the sun-baked clay, word went round

that the millionaire adventuress was yachting down the west coast,

homeward bound.

Everybody who read the public prints knew about Leanor, so at least one

element at Bandora awaited her arrival with curious interest. And the

curious were to be gratified, for since pretty Leanor habitually did the

unexpected, she only proved her consistency when, upon her arrival, she

capriciously decided to tarry a fortnight, with the two-fold object of

having a look at the great waterway and exploring historic Batoga Island,

only a couple of hours distant.

Should the mighty monument to engineering skill prove uninteresting,

there remained the secret caves of Batoga, among them _La Guaca de San

Pedro_, by allegation the identical haunted, bat-inhabited cavern in

which buccaneering old Henry Morgan had once stored all of his ill-gotten

gains and maybe imprisoned the unfortunate nuns captured at Porto Bello!

And then, too, there was the celebrated Devil’s Channel, which, according

to widely circulated and much-believed stories, sucked small craft down

into its omnivorous maw like some insatiable demon lying in wait.

Leanor devoted but little time to the prodigious engineering feat. After

all, it was man-made, and what was man if not a purveyor to feminine

caprices? Mere men were cheap. The adventuress knew, because she had

bought and sold many of them. She had bartered the very souls of some.

She had bought them all with make-believe affection and disposed of them

at a hundred per cent discount. She treated them much as one treats

cast-off garments, experiencing only minor difficulties in disengaging

herself from some of the more persistent.

A genuine Sybarite, Leanor’s appetite for entities masculine had at last

cloyed, and she now turned impatiently to inscrutable old Nature to make

up the deficiency.

She went to Batoga, a verdant, mighty mountain, greenly shaggy, as yet

unshorn by advancing civilization. It might have been a little separate

world, set down by nature in a sleeping sea of sapphire. Here, indeed,

was something different.

She was wild with delight as soon as her dainty feet touched the

shell-paved beach. Really, this wonderland was too splendidly perfect to

share with her unpoetic company of paid buffoons! She sent the whole lot

of them bagging back to Bandora, decided to employ a guide, a boatman, or

a native maid, contingent upon her special needs, right on the ground.

It was due to this whim of Leanor’s that I myself wandered into the cast,

came to know Leanor and likewise the story I am telling you here. I had

just come through a notably obstinate case of dengue in the sanitarium.

My thin knees, in fact, were still somewhat wobbly, and I was urging

them back to normal by means of a leisurely stroll across the rolling

pasture-land. On a grassy, wind-swept hillside I came all unexpectedly

upon Leanor.

Evidently she had thought to refresh her jaded wits by a revel in wild

flowers. She was seated on a shelf of rock that rimmed the hill-crown,

culling unworthy floral specimens. A single upward glance, and then her

eyes dropped back to her flowers in a world-bored manner which I somehow

felt a quick impulse to resent. At least I could annoy her. That was any

fool’s privilege.

“Gathering flowers?” I interrogated, just as though that fact were not as

obvious as the blue sky itself.

For answer, my front-line fortifications were instantly swept by an

ocular onslaught well calculated to obliterate. I smiled back engagingly

at the source of the tempest.

“Some hill, this,” I suggested, emitting a windy sigh after the exertion

of its ascent.

And then I saw that my second drive had broken through her first-line

trench on a front of about a quarter of an inch. Disdain died slowly out

of her face—a face still unaccountably fresh and girlish—and something

like pity at my apparent lack of sophistication took its place.

“You really think it a high hill?” she asked, faintly smiling and gazing

at me steadily as though she doubted my sanity.

I noted that her hazel eyes seemed to swim in seas of a wonderfully

sparkling liquid.

“Well,” I qualified, affecting funereal gravity, “it’s higher than _some_

hills.”

Her amused smile expanded perceptibly.

“Really, now, have you ever seen very many hills?”

“N-no,” I reluctantly confessed, “not so _very_ many.”

“What induced you to measure this one?”

“Well, I was shadowing somebody,” I said quietly. At last she had given

me an opening.

“Whom, pray?” she demanded, her smile brightening expectantly.

“_You_—if you don’t mind,” I announced.

“_Me!_” She laughed deliriously for a moment.

“It’s hardly a laughing matter,” I said, with forced seriousness when she

was still. “I’ve been working on this case for years.”

She sobered with a suddenness that suggested ugly thoughts, perchance

remembering something of her kaleidoscopic past. The hazel eyes saddened

a little. It was evident that she was rummaging among happenings which it

gave her small pleasure to review. I waited. Maybe I was not quite the

yokel she had thought me.

“Do you mean you’re a detective?” she presently asked.

“I mean just that, madam,” I said evenly.

“By whom are you employed?” she questioned tentatively.

“By Henry Fayne,” I casually replied.

“That is the lie of an impostor,” quickly asserted the woman; “Henry

Fayne is dead.”

She rose from the stone shelf and prepared to desert me. Anyhow, I had

won my point. I had succeeded in annoying her.

But I concluded I could hardly let the matter so end, even as affecting a

woman like Leanor. Nobody can afford to be openly rude.

“Wait,” I said; “let’s be good sportsmen. You tilted at me and I

retaliated. Honors are even. Why not forget it?”

She was greatly relieved; and besides, forgetfulness, of all things, was

what she sought. After a moment, deep wells of laughter again glistened

in her splendid eyes. These and the smiling young mouth somehow seemed to

give the lie to the fiasco she had made of life. What a pity, I thought,

that she had chosen to fritter away her life in this fatuous, futile

fashion.

I had thought that I should feel only contempt for such a woman as

Leanor, but as we walked down the hill she told me something that

penetrated a hitherto unknown weak spot in my armor. So I all but pitied

the woman I had prepared to despise.

As if to take strength from them, she kept her eyes on the wild flowers

she had gathered, as she pronounced the well-nigh unbelievable words I

now set down.

The craze for the blinding white lights, and the delusion of equally

white wines, were surfeited. The gilt and tinsel of the truly tawdry had

palled. The mask of allurement had fallen from the forbidding face of

the artificial and empty. Life itself had become for Leanor a vacant and

meaningless thing. She had seen too much of it in too brief a space.

She concluded with a seeming contradiction, a veiled regret that her

frenzied explorations had exhausted all too soon the world’s meager store

of things worth while, and there was a bitterness in her voice which

contrasted unpleasantly with her youth and beauty as she said plainly,

though with little visible emotion, that she had reached a point where

life itself often repelled and nauseated her.

We had reached the sanitarium by this time, an interruption not unwelcome

in the circumstances, and I left the strange woman alone with her tardy

regrets and sought my own quarters, sympathetic and depressed, yet

thanking my lucky stars for the happy dispensation that had made me an

adventurer instead of an “adventuress.”

That evening, Leanor and I planned a trip to Devil’s Channel, and

I strolled down to the beach in search of such a shallow-draught

_cayuco_ as could maneuver its way over the reefs that barred larger

craft. _Boteros_ of divers nationalities abounded, and among the many

my questioning gaze finally met that of a vagabondish-looking fellow

countryman in a frayed sailor garb. In odd contrast to his raiment, and

swinging from his belt in a sheath which his short coat for an instant

did not quite conceal, I caught a single glimpse of a heavy hunting knife

with an ornamented stag-horn handle.

His name was Sisson, he told me, but he spoke Spanish like a native. His

uncarded beard was a thing long forgotten of razors. He was unmistakably

another of those easily identified tramps of the tropics who, in an

unguarded moment, unaccountably lose their grip on themselves and

thenceforward go sliding unresistingly down to a not unwelcome oblivion.

Sisson did not importune me, as did all the other boatmen; he did not

even offer me his services; and it was because of this evidence of

some lingering vestige of pride, coupled with the fact that he had an

eminently suitable _cayuco_, that I decided to employ him.

* * * * *

At the narrow gateway of Devil’s Channel the water is so shallow, and

there so frequently occur tiny submerged sand-bars, that only the

minutest of sea craft can skim over the gleaming rifts and gain entrance.

This was confirmed for the nth time when I felt the specially made keel

of our tiny _cayuco_ scrape the shiny sand in warning that we were at

last entering the canyon-like waterway.

Leanor and I were both playing our splendid oarsman with well-nigh every

imaginable question about the gloomy, spooky-looking channel before us.

“Aren’t we nearing _the place_ yet?” Leanor presently asked.

“Farther in,” drawled Sisson, the bearded giant of a boatman, glancing

carelessly at the ascending cliffs on either side.

Twisting my body round in the wee native _cayuco_, I noted that the

perpendicular walls of the shadowy strait that lay before us seemed

drawing together with every pull of Sisson’s great arms. Leanor’s pretty

face was radiant with expectation. Though bored of the world, there was

at least one more thrill for her ahead.

Five minutes slipped by. Sisson rowed on steadily.

“There she is!” the boatman said suddenly, for the first time evincing

something like a normal human interest in life. One of his huge, hairy

hands was indicating an alkali spot on the face of the right-hand wall a

stone’s throw ahead. “Just opposite that white spot is where _it always

happens_.”

He released his oars and let them trail in the still water. It looked

peculiarly lifeless. Our small shell gradually slowed.

“Seems to be all smooth sailing here today, though,” I ventured.

“Overrated, for the benefit of tourists,” opined Sisson. “The water’s

eaten out a little tunnel under the west wall, but there’s no real danger

if you know the chart.”

“How many did you say were drowned when that launch went down?” again

asked Leanor. Her great dark eyes were sparkling again now with a keen

new interest in life—or was it the nearness to potential death?

“Eleven,” drawled Sisson. “The engineer jumped for it and made a

landing on that bench of slate over there, and right there”—he smiled

reminiscently—“he sat for seventy-two hours, with ‘water, water

everywhere, nor any drop’—”

“And is it true that none of the life-preservers they were putting on

when the launch sank was ever found?” Leanor also wanted to know.

“True enough,” said Sisson, “but that’s not unnatural. Drowning men lay

hold of whatever they can and never, _never_ turn loose. Why, I’ve seen

the clawlike fingers of skeletons locked around sticks that wouldn’t bear

up a cockroach!”

“Did you say it was a relatively calm day?” I questioned the boatman idly.

“Sure. Calm as it is right now,” he answered.

I observed casually that the oarsman was gazing fixedly at Leanor. Even

on him, perhaps, beauty was not entirely lost. Doubtless, too, he had

heard the gossip her arrival had set going along the wharves at Batoga.

Meanwhile Leanor had made a discovery.

“Why, we’re still making headway!” she broke out suddenly. “I—I thought

we had stopped.”

Sisson glanced down at the water, and his tanned brow broke up in

vertical wrinkles of consternation. The look in his deepset eyes, though,

did not, oddly enough, seem to match the perplexity written on his

corrugated brow.

Our craft was sliding rapidly forward as though propelled by the oars.

The phenomenon was due to a current; that much was certain, for we were

moving with a flotsam of dead leaves and seaweed.

Again I screwed my body half round in the cramped bow and shot a glance

ahead. God! we were shooting toward the dread spot on the alkali cliff as

though drawn to it by an unseen magnet. I could see, too, that our speed

was rapidly increasing.

Sisson snatched up the trailing oars and put his giant’s strength against

the invisible something that seemed dragging us by the keel, but all

he did was to plough two futile furrows in the strange whirlpool. Our

_cayuco_ glided on.

The _blasé_ adventuress was never more beautiful. For the time, at least,

life, warm and pulsating, had come back and clasped her in a joyous

embrace. Her lips were parted in a smile of seemingly inexpressible

delight. There was not the remotest suggestion of surprise or fear in her

girlish face.

She put her helm over only when I shouted to her in wide-eyed alarm, but

the keen, finlike keel of our specially built _cayuco_ obviously did not

respond. Oblique in the channel, we slithered over, ever nearer to the

west wall, the unseen agent of destruction towing us with awful certainty

toward the vortex. Still the surface of the water, moving with us,

looked as motionless as a mill-pond! It was uncanny, nothing less.

I peered into the bluishly transparent depths, fascinated with wonder,

and then, of a sudden, I saw that which alone might prove our salvation.

Apparently we were in a writhing, powerful current, racing atop the

seemingly placid undersea or sub-surface waters of the channel. I

could make out many small objects spinning merrily about as they flew,

submerging, toward the whirlpool.

We carried six life-belts. Two of these I snatched from their fastenings,

slipped one about Leanor, and with the other but partly adjusted—for

there remained no time—myself plunged out of our—as it were—bewitched

craft in the direction of the west wall.

To my surprise I swam easily. When I made a deep stroke, however, I could

feel strange suctorial forces tugging at my finger-tips. But for the

moment I was safe.

I glanced about to see if Leanor had followed my lead. She was not in the

water. I turned on my back and saw, to my utter amazement, that neither

she nor Sisson had left the _cayuco_.

This was unaccountable indeed. And it was now clear that it was too late

for them to jump, for the light boat had already begun to spin round in a

circle at a point exactly opposite the alkali spot! Faster and faster it

flew, the diameter of the ring in which it raced swiftly narrowing.

As I swam, my shoulder collided with some obstruction. It was the west

wall. I clambered up a couple of feet and sat dripping on a slime-covered

shelf of slate, the identical slab on which the engineer of the sunken

launch had thirsted.

I was powerless to help my companions. I could only sit and stare in near

unbelief. Why—_Why_ had they not abandoned the tiny craft with me? I saw

now that neither had even so much as got hold of a life-belt. Why—?

_My God!_ What was this I beheld? Sisson had advanced to the stern of the

flying cockleshell where Leanor still sat motionless, unexcited, smiling.

The charmed look of expectancy was still in her perfect face.

Sisson’s voice, suddenly risen high, chilled me to the marrow. It might

have been the voice of some martyr on the scaffold. He did not reveal

his identity to Leanor. It was not necessary. Something—I dare not say

what—enabled her in that awful moment of tragedy to know _her divorced

husband_.

* * * * *

The exquisite torture of recollection had shriveled Henry Fayne’s

mentality and left him a semi-maniac, yet here, after all the cynical,

embittering years was the physical, the carnate Henry Fayne, the

long-discarded plaything of feminine caprice. His suffering was fearfully

recorded in the seamed and bearded mask of his altered features.

The smile did not leave Leanor’s face. The madman’s voice rose in a

shrill, terrible cry. He babbled and sputtered in consuming rage, but

I caught the current of his wild harangue. He had waited all the years

for this opportunity; he had followed her from Bandora, had laid all his

plans with infinite nicety to avenge the wreck which Leanor had made of

his life.

But the woman laughed defiantly, tensely; laughed derisively, full in the

bearded face.

“You have waited too long, Henry,” she said, evenly yet with a note of

triumph in her tone; “I’ve worn threadbare every allurement of life.

Today I came here seeking my last adventure—a sensation at once new and

ultimate—_death_!”

It was here that the miracle supervened.

Chagrin, fierce and awful, distorted the hairy vagabond’s face, and,

balancing himself precariously in the crazily whirling dugout, he

raised a great clenched fist. I once had seen a laughing man struck

by lightning. As the rending voltage shot through him the muscles of

his face had relaxed slowly, queerly, as if from incredulity, just as

the furious, drawn face of Henry Fayne relaxed now. The menacing fist

unclinched and fell limply at his side.

Of all the examples of thwarted vengeance I had ever seen on the stage,

or off, this episode from real life was the most dramatic.

The boat had circled swiftly in to the center of the vortex and now spun

crazily for a moment as though on a fixed pivot, like a weather-vane.

Then it capriciously resumed its first tactics, only it now raced

inversely in a rapidly widening circle, running well down in the water,

as though from some powerful submarine attraction.

That the spurious boatman was a victim of some hopeless form of insanity

I was certain when I saw him drop to his knees and extend both his great

hands in evident entreaty to the woman who had stripped him of his

honor and, driven him, a driveling idio-maniac, into exile. Leanor sat

impassive, but the madman continued to supplicate.

Never did my credulity undergo so mighty a strain as when, after a

moment, the woman reached out and locked her slim hands in his. It was a

strange picture, believe me! From my uncertain perch on the slimy ledge

of slate, I stared, thrilling deep in my being at this futile truce on

the brink of eternity.

Its revolutions greatly widened and its speed diminished, the tiny boat

suddenly swerved from its circular course, bobbed upward as though a

great weight had been detached from its keel and then drifted like some

spent thing of life toward the west wall, where I crouched dumbfounded,

my breath hissing in my nostrils, my lungs heaving.

Only now am I coming to the crux of this story of which the foregoing

forms a necessary prelude.

Back at Batoga that same night, in an obscure corner of the wide cool

porch of the palm-environed sanitarium, Henry Fayne and Leanor, after

a long heart-to-heart talk alone, agreed to forgive and forget. Later

in the evening Fayne went down to the contiguous village to assemble

his meager belongings. They would be interesting souvenirs with which

to decorate the walls of the rehabilitated home. I found Leanor sitting

where he had left her on the porch, smiling enigmatically.

“Can I act, or not?” she asked me rather abruptly as I came up.

“Act?” I groped; “what do you mean?”

She sat there, smiling mysteriously in the white moonlight, until I

at length prevailed upon her to pour into my incredulous ears how it

had flashed upon her, in the crucial moment at the whirlpool, that she

must convince Fayne that to destroy one who seeks death would give no

satisfaction to a seeker after vengeance. She had made him see that the

most effective way of wreaking his revenge would be to prevent her taking

her own life and force her to live with him again as in the old days.

What, indeed, could be greater punishment than that?

So once again the wily adventuress had tricked poor Henry Fayne. It had

been a close thing, but her lightning wits had saved her to look forward

enchantedly to the prospect of other adventures. Though she had, in

fact, tired of life, she had weakened before death; yet the fortitude

of skillful artifice underlying that physical fear bespoke such a

resourcefulness as I had never before seen in any woman.

She had spoken more truth than she knew when she said that Henry Fayne

was dead, for, mentally, he no longer existed.

But Leanor had one more card to play. When she had outlined her campaign,

I sat aghast at the frank inhumanity of her plans for the morrow. She

had already made arrangements with the native officials of the nearby

village. She was to appear in court and testify, and I was to be summoned

to give evidence before the committing judge. Henry Fayne was to be

ruthlessly chucked into the Acorn Insane Asylum!

After Leanor had retired to her apartment I lingered a while in the

fragrant night to smoke a cigar and meditate, for I was badly upset by

her pitiless resolve. As I sat reviewing the strange events of the day,

the dark figure of a man, half bent and retreating rapidly among the

dappled shadows of the palms, startled me unpleasantly.

At my first glimpse of the skulker, some sixth sense told me that he had

been eavesdropping Leanor and me from under the elevated porch on which I

sat. As soon as the flitting shadow had melted into the gloom I slipped

off the porch and investigated.

My half-formed suspicion was confirmed. The eavesdropper’s footprints

were quite distinct. He had crouched directly under the chairs which the

adventuress and I had occupied.

I did not retire until an hour later. An indescribable feeling of dread

had, though for no adequate reason, begun to weigh upon my spirits and to

nag my nerves.

The first faint glimmer of dawn was in the east when something touched

me softly on the shoulder. I remembered that I had left my porch window

open, and sprang up in a sudden flurry of alarm, but my nerves slackened

quickly when the intruder, a black Jamaican, showed me his watchman’s

badge.

The old negro was afraid something had happened. He had heard stealthy

footfalls upstairs, and somebody’s bedroom door was wide open. On looking

into the room he had seen—!

But at this point in his story he choked, overcome. He was an excitable

and superstitious old black at best, but now he was fairly beside himself

with a terror for which he had no explanation. The occupant of the room,

I surmised, had gone out on the porch, properly enough, to smoke an

early morning cigar. But the old watchman would not be reassured until I

consented to accompany him up to the second floor.

I noted, as we advanced along the corridor, that a door stood ajar. I

tapped tentatively. No answer. I repeated the summons, louder. Still no

answer. I walked in.

The moonlight that flooded the porch outside filtered in, subdued,

through the lace-curtained windows. It revealed a bed. In the center

of the bed was the figure of a woman—all in snow white save a single

dark-hued covering of some sort which sprawled across the full bosom.

A nameless something made me fumble rather hurriedly for the electric

switch. The bright light showed what I had dreaded, almost expected. The

dark-colored garment was not a garment at all. It was blood.

It dyed the white bosom repellently and, still welling from its fountain,

was fast forming a ragged little pool on the bedcovering. Fair over the

victim’s heart, the ornamented stag-horn handle of a heavy hunting-knife,

none of the blade visible, stood up like a sinister monument, somehow

increasingly familiar to my gaze; and after an instant’s reflection I

could have sworn—so plainly did my eyes visualize the motive for this

horror—that I beheld a single word scrawled in crimson along the mottled

staghorn handle:

“_VENGEANCE!_”

Air Transportation Between Chicago and New York To Be Established

Chicagoans will soon be able to run down to New York on business early

one morning and be back home in time for breakfast the next day, if

the plans for dirigible service between the two cities carry through.

A number of prominent Americans are members of a corporation that is

building several huge, helium-filled balloons in the Schutte-Lanz

Company’s plant in Germany, according to Benedict Crowell, former

secretary of war, who is the president of the new corporation. The

airships will carry passengers and freight, it was announced.

_It Was a Frightful, Incredible Thing, Found in the Amazon Valley_

THE GRAY DEATH

_By_ LOUAL B. SUGARMAN

Unwaveringly, my guest sustained my perplexed and angry stare. Silently,

he withstood the battering words I launched at him.

He appeared quite unmoved by my reproaches, save for a dull red flush

that crept up and flooded his face, as now and then I grew particularly

bitter and biting in my tirade.

At length I ceased. It was like hitting into a mass of feathers—there was

no resistance to my blows. He had made no attempt to justify himself.

After a momentous silence, he spoke his first word since we had entered

the room.

“I’m sorry, my friend; more sorry than you can imagine, but—I couldn’t

help it. I simply could not touch her hand. The shock—so suddenly to come

upon her—to see her as she was—I tell you, I forgot myself. Please convey

to your wife my most abject apologies, will you? I am sorry, for I know I

should have liked her very much. But—now I must go.”

“You can’t go out in this storm,” I answered. “It’s out of the question.

I’m sorry, too; sorry that you acted as you did—and more than sorry that

I spoke to you as I did, just now. But I was angry. Can you blame me? I’d

been waiting for this moment ever since I heard from you that you had

come back from the Amazon—the moment when you, my best friend, and my

wife were to meet. And then—why, damn it, man, I can’t understand it! To

pull back, to shrink away as you did; even to refuse to take her hand or

acknowledge the introduction! It was unbelievably rude. It hurt her, and

it hurt me.”

“I know it, and that is why I am so very sorry about it all. I can’t

excuse myself, but I can tell you a story that may explain.”

I saw, however, that for some reason he was reluctant to talk.

“You need not,” I said. “Let’s drop the whole matter, and in the morning

you can make your amends to Laura.”

Anthony shook his head.

“It’s not pleasant to talk about, but that was not my reason for

hesitating. I was afraid you would not believe me if I did tell you.

Sometimes truth strains one’s credulity too much. But I will tell you. It

may do me good to talk about it, and, anyhow, it will explain why I acted

as I did.

“Your wife came in just after we entered. She had not yet removed her

veil or gloves. They were gray. So was her dress. Her shoes—everything

was gray. And she stood there, her hand outstretched—all in that color—a

body covered with gray. I can’t help shuddering. _I can’t stand gray!_

It’s the color of death. Can your nerves stand the dark?”

I rose and switched off the lights. The room was plunged into darkness,

save for the flicker of the flames in the fireplace and the intermittent

flashes of lightning. The rain beat through the leafless branches outside

with a monotonous, slithering _swish_ and rattled like ghostly fingers

against the windows.

“The light makes it hard to talk—of unbelievable things. One needs the

darkness to hear of hell.”

He paused. The _swir-r-r_ of the rain crept into the stillness of the

room. My companion sighed. The firelight shone on his face, which floated

in the darkness—a disembodied face, grown suddenly haggard.

“A good night for this story, with the wind crying like a lost soul in

the night. How I hate that sound! Ah, well!”

There was a moment of silence.

“It was not like this, though, that night when we started up the Amazon.

No. Then it was warm and soft, and the stars seemed so near. The air was

filled with scent of a thousand tropical blossoms. They grew rank on the

shore.

“There were four of us—two natives, myself and Von Housmann. It is of

him I am going to tell you. He was a German—and a good man. A great

naturalist, and a true friend. He sucked the poison from my leg once,

when a snake had bitten me. I thanked him and said I’d repay him some

day. I did—sooner than I had thought—with a bullet! I could not bear to

see him suffer.”

The man sat there, gazing into the flames—and I listened to the dripping

rain fingering the bare boughs and _tap-tap-tapping_ on the roof above.

My friend looked up.

“I was seeing his face in the flames. God help him!... We had traveled

for days—weeks—how long does not matter. We had camped and moved on; we

had stopped to gather specimens—always deeper into that evil undergrowth.

And as we moved on, Von Housmann and I grew close; one either grows to

love or hate in such circumstances, and Sigmund was not the sort of man

one would hate. I tell you, I loved that man!

“One day we struck into a new place. We had long before left the tracks

of other expeditions. We _trekked_ along, unmindful of the exotic beauty

of our surroundings, when I saw our native, who was up ahead, stop short

and sniff the air.

“We stopped, too, and then I noticed what the keener, more primitive

sense of our guide had detected first.”

* * * * *

“It was an odor. A strange odor, indefinable and sickening. It was filled

with foreboding—evil. It smelt—_gray_! I can not describe it any other

way. It smelt dead. It made me think of decay—decay, and mould and—ugly

things. I shuddered. I looked at Von Housmann, and I saw that he, too,

had noticed it.

“‘What is that smell?’ I asked.

“He shook his head.

“‘Ach, dot iss new. I haf not smelled it before. But—I do not lige it. It

iss not goot. Smells is goot or bat—und dot is not goot. I say, I do not

lige dot smell.’

“Neither did I. We went ahead, cautiously now. A curious sense pervaded

the air. It puzzled me. Then it struck me: _silence_. Silence, as though

the music of the spheres had suddenly been snuffed out. It was the utter

cessation of the interminable chirping and chattering of the birds and

monkeys and other small animals.

“We had become so accustomed to that multitudinous babel that its

absence was disturbing. It was—eerie. Yes, that’s the word. It made that

first impression of lifelessness more intense. Not death, you understand.

Even death has in it a thought of life, an element of being. But this was

just—lifelessness.

“The gray odor had become so strong it was wellnigh unbearable. Then we

saw our guides running back to us. They rebelled. They refused to go

beyond the line of trees ahead. They said it was _tabu_.

“That ended it. No promise, no threat, nothing would move them. Do you

know what a savage’s _tabu_ is? It is stronger than death. And this place

was _tabu_. So we left them there with our stuff, and Sigmund and I went

on alone. We reached the farthest line of trees and stopped on the edge

of a clearing.

“I can’t describe that sight to you. But I can see it—good God, how I

can still see it! Sometimes I wake up in the night with that nightmarish

picture in my eyes, and my nostrils filled with that ghoulish stench.

“It was a field of gray; almost, I might have said, a field of _living_

gray. And yet, it did not give the impression of life. It moved, although

there was not a breath of wind; not a leaf on the trees quivered, but

that mass of gray wiggled and crawled and undulated as though it were a

huge gray shroud that was thrown over some monstrous jelly-like Thing.

“And that Thing was writhing and twisting. The gray mass extended as far

as I could see ahead; to the right the sandy shore of the river stopped

it; and to the left and in front of us it terminated at a distance of a

few yards away from the trees where a belt of sand intervened.

“I don’t know how long we stood there, my friend Von Housmann and I. It

fascinated us. At last he spoke.

“‘_Heilige Mütter. Was kommt da?_ Vat in der name off all dot iss holy do

you call dot? Nefer haf I seen such before. Eferyvere I haf traffeled,

but nefer haf I seen a sight lige dot. I tell you, it makes my flesh

crawl!’

“‘It makes me sick to look at it,’ I answered. ‘It looks like—like living

corruption.’

“The old German shook his head. He was baffled. We knew we were looking

upon something that no living mortal had ever gazed upon before. And our

flesh crawled, as we watched that Thing writhing beneath its blanket of

gray.

“We walked slowly and cautiously across the strip of sand to the edge of

the gray patch. As I bent over, the pungency of the odor bit into the

membrane of my nostrils like an acid, and my eyes smarted.

“And then I saw something that drove all other thoughts from my mind.

The mass was a mosslike growth of tiny gray fungi. They were shaped like

miniature mushrooms, but out of the top of each grew a countless number

of antennae that twisted and writhed around ceaselessly in the air.

“They seemed to be feeling and groping around for something, and it was

this incessant movement that gave to the patch that quivering undulation

which I had noticed before. I stared until my eyes ached.

“‘What do you make of it?’ I asked my friend.

“‘_Ach_, I do not know. It iss incompbrehensible. I haf nefer seen such

a—a t’ing in my whole, long life. It iss, I should say, some sort off

a fungoid growt’. Ya, it iss clearly dot. But der species—um, dot iss

_not_ so clear. Und dose liddle feelers; on a fungus dot iss new. It iss

unheard off. See, der _veddammte_ t’ings iss lige lifting fingers; dey

svay und tvist lige dey vas feeling for somet’ings, not? I am egseedingly

curious. Und, I am baffled—und, my frient, I do not lige dot.’

“Impatiently, he reached out a stick he was carrying: a newlycut, stout

cudgel of dried wood. He stirred around with it in the growth at his

feet. And then a cry broke from his lips.

“‘_Ach, du lieber Gott—gnadig Gott im Himmel! Sieh’ da!_’

“I looked where he was pointing. His hand trembled violently. And little

wonder! The stick, for about twelve inches up, was a mass of gray!

“And as I watched, I saw, steadily growing before my eyes, that awful

gray creep up and surround the wood. I’m not exaggerating; I tell you,

in less time than it takes to tell, it had almost reached Von Housmann’s

hand. He threw it from him with an exclamation of horror.

“It fell in the gray growth and instantly vanished. It seemed to melt

away.”

* * * * *

“Sigmund looked at me. He was pale. At last he sighed.

“‘So-o-o! Ve learn. On vood it grows. I might haf guessed. Dot iss der

reason dot no trees are here. It destroys dem. But so _schnell_; _ach_,

lige fire it growed. My frendt, I lige dot stuff lesser _als_ before. It

is not healt’y. But vat vill it not eat?’

“I handed him my rifle. He took it, and with the muzzle poked the growth.

Man, my hair fairly stood on end! Do you know anything about fungi? No?

Well, I have never known or heard of any vegetable growth that would

attack blue steel. But that stuff, I tell you, that rifle barrel sprouted

a crop of that gray moss as readily and as quickly as had the wood!

“I grabbed the gun and lifted it out of the patch. Already several inches

of steel had been eaten—literally _eaten_—off. I held it up and watched

that damnable gray crawl along the barrel. It just seemed to melt the

metal. It melted like sealing wax, and great gray flakes dropped off to

the ground.

“Nearer and near it came; to the rear sight, the trigger-guard, the

hammer. It was uncanny—like a dream. I stood there, paralyzed. I could

not believe what my eyes told me was true. I looked at Sigmund. His mouth

was open and his face was white as death. I laughed at his face. That

seemed to tear away the mist. He yelled and pointed, and I looked down.

“Not two inches from my hand was that mass. I could see those feelers

reaching out toward my hand and I was sick. Instinctively, I threw the

gun from me; aimlessly, blindly. It fell on the sand belt outside the

gray mass.

“Hardly had it struck the sand before the growth had reached the butt,

and then there was nothing to be seen but a tiny patch of that gray,

poisonous Thing. And as we looked, it began to melt. Gradually, steadily,

it was disappearing.

“‘Quick, quick,’ shouted Von Housmann, and we ran over to the spot. By

bending over, we could see what was happening.

“The feelers, or antennae, which we had noticed before, had vanished, but

instead, at the bases of each individual plant, were similar tendrils.

But more of them—thousands and thousands of them all feeling and groping

frantically about. And as they swayed and twisted and brushed the sand,

one by one they shriveled up and seemed to withdraw into the parent body.

“And gradually this nucleus itself shrank and withered, until it was no

more than a tiny gray speck on the sand. Soon that was all that was left;

a lot of tiny whitish particles, much lighter in color than the original

plant, scattered around on the sand.

“I looked at Von Housmann, and he looked at me. After a long interval, he

spoke. He spoke slowly, almost as though it were a painful effort.

“‘Ant’ony, ve haf seen a—miracle. From vat, or how, or ven, dot

hell-growt’ sprang, I do not know. I do not know how many, many years it

has stood here; may be it has been for centuries. But I do know this: if

dot sand was not here—vell, I shudder to t’ink off vat vould be today.’

“I stared.

“‘You do not understand? _Ach_, so! You haf vat happened to dot stick?

Und to dot gun of steel? So! Look, now.’

“He took off his hat and went over to the border of the patch. He

touched—just barely touched the brim of the hat to the gray matter and

held it up. Already a growth was moving up the linen. He nodded, then

threw it away, onto the sand. Speechless, we watched it fade away under

the merciless attack of that horrible stuff, and then, in turn, the gray

fungoid growth wither and disappear.

“‘Now do you understand? Do you see vat I meant? Vood, steel,

linen—eferyt’ing vat it touches it _eats_. It grows fast—like flame in

dry sticks. All-consuming. Aber—_siest du_—dot sand—ven it touched dot,

it died. It starved. Und see! Look close—more closer still at dot sand.

Do you see anything odd about it?’

“I shook my head. It looked very fine and light, but I could not see

anything unusual.

“‘No? Iss it not glass, dot sand? Look at it und at der sand vere dot

T’ing has not been, and see if it is not so different.’

“I picked up some sand from under my foot. And then I saw what _he_ had

seen at once. The sand in my hand was coarser, dirtier—in short, like

any fine-grained sand you may have seen. But the sand where the Grey had

fallen was clear, glasslike. It was almost transparent, and I saw that

what was there was a mass of silicon particles. I nodded.

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I see now. That stuff has eaten out every particle of

mineral, of dirt and dust, but not the silicon!’

“‘Egsactly! Und dot iss vat has safed us from—Gott only knows vot! I

do not know what dot stuff vill eat, but I _do_ know it vill not eat

silicon. Vy? _I_ do not know. Dot iss yet a mystery. So—it starts,—_ach_,

dot too, I do not know—but it starts somewhere. Und it eats und grows,

und grows and eats, and eferyt’ing vot it touches it consumes—egcept

sand. Sand stops it.

“‘It eats out der stuff in der sand, but not der silica, und starves and

dies. It is a miracle. If der sand vas not here—_ach, Gott!_—it vould

keep on going until—vell—I do not know! I haf nefer seen dot before. I

am intrigued, und I am going to take dot stuff—oh, only a liddle bit—und

I shall not rest until I haf learned something about it. Und, because I

haf seen it does not lige sand, I vill make for it a cage—a liddle box of

glass, und study it lige it vas a bug. Not?’

“We returned to where our natives still stood with our packs. We quickly

fitted together some microscopic slides into a rough box and bound it

about with string. With it, we returned to the edge of the gray patch.

Von Housmann knelt down and carefully scooped up a bit of the fungus with

a glass spatula he had brought along. He dumped this into his box and

waited. In five minutes it had disappeared. He looked up blankly.

“‘You forget, Sigmund,’ I said, smiling at his woeful expression. ‘It

starves on silicon. It won’t live in glass.’

“‘_Ach. Dumkopf!_ Of course! I haf forgot dot. But, ve vill fool dot

hell-plant. He goes yet on hunger-strike—no? Ve try now dot forcible

feeding.’

“He took out his knife and cut from a near-by tree several small

splinters.

“Ve vill feed him, so. Dot vood, it vill be for him a greadt feast, und

he shall eat und eat, und we vill study him und see vot we vill see.’

“Laughing, he bent over and shook out the tiny gray residue which was in

the box. He dropped in a sliver of wood and was bending over to refill

his box when I felt a sting on my foot. I looked down, and my heart stood

still.

“On my shoe, just in between the laces, was a spot of gray. I could not

move. I was cold. I can not describe how I felt, but I seemed turned to

stone. My flesh quivered and shrank and I was sick—very sick. Sigmund

looked up, startled, and then he looked at my feet.

“The next thing I knew I was on my back, my foot in his hand. One slash

of his knife across the thongs which laced my boot, and he jerked it off.

“The biting grew worse. I heard him gasp, and then I felt a sharp pain.

My head swam and I must have fainted. I regained consciousness—I don’t

know how soon after—and I found myself back under the trees. I looked

at my foot, which was throbbing and burning like fire. It was swathed

in a bandage that Von Housmann had taken from his emergency kit and was

wrapping around the instep. It was deeply stained with blood. I moved,

and he looked up. He smiled when he saw I was conscious.

“‘Dot was a close shave—yes? It had just eaten into der shoe as I pulled

it off und one spot—lige a bencil dot—on your skin vas gray. So I cut it

out and all around it, und so you haf a hole in your foot, but—you haf

your foot. Now so! You lie here, und I get der niggers and ve take you to

bed.’

“A tent was soon erected and I was carried into it. For two days I lay

there, delirious half the time. Sigmund never left my side. He even

slept there. He was insistent that it was his fault. He said one of the

apparently dead fungi had dropped on my shoe and had revived there. That

is, the plant, instead of dying, had shriveled up, but the life-nucleus

was still strong. I shudder even now when I think of what might have been.

“At the end of the third day I was able to hobble about a little with

the aid of a cane. That afternoon Sigmund came to me and asked if I

would care to go with him to fill his little glass box. I refused, and

he laughed. It was the last time I ever heard him laugh. I begged him to

leave that stuff alone.

“Still laughing, he made some light reply and left me. I lay in my cot.

I was filled with forebodings. The heat was intense, and I must have

dropped off to sleep. I dreamed horrible, troublesome, weird dreams. I

awoke, bathed in a cold sweat. I felt sure something was wrong, that some

one was calling for me. I got to my feet and left my tent. No one was in

sight. I tried to laugh at my premonition. I bitterly regretted that I

had allowed my friend to override my persuasions.

“Hurrying as much as was possible, I started toward the clearing. My

wound throbbed and ached. It tortured me. I seemed weighed down. Once I

stumbled in my eagerness. It was horrible. Like a nightmare.

“I must have covered half the distance when I heard a scream. What

a shriek it was! I wake up nights even now hearing it. It was

unrecognizable. Like some unearthly animal. Just that one scream. My

stick hindered me. I threw it away and ran.

“My blood was cold in my veins, but I felt not one twinge of pain in my

_foot_. At last I came to the edge of the clearing. And there—God, it

makes me sick even now to think of it.”

* * * * *

The speaker paused; his face was chalky, and he shuddered and buried his

face in his hands. I think he was crying.

Outside, the wind still howled, dully, monotonously, eerily. Sometimes it

would shriek and scream. Then my friend’s voice again—level, dead, cold.

“I looked out; I saw Sigmund standing on the sand. I can see him as

plainly as though he were here now. His face was ashen. He was looking

down. At his feet were the fragments of the glass box he had made.

“He was holding out his hands, looking at them. They were gray. And they

writhed and twisted, but his arms were still. He was not even trembling.

My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and my throat was dry—but at

last I called to him.

“‘Sigmund—Sigmund!’ I cried. ‘For God’s sake—’

“He looked up, and, I tell you, I never want to see such a face again!

I can never forget it. The face of a soul in torture. He looked at me

and held out his arms. His hands were gone—flaked off in large, gray,

writhing drops to the sand at his feet!

“He tried to smile, but couldn’t.

“Another gray—Thing—dropped off. I was dizzy with sickness. It was

unbelievable. And then he spoke. His voice was well-nigh unrecognizable.

It croaked and broke:

“‘Done for, my friendt. I feel it eating to my heart. Be merciful and

help me. _Shoot_—quick, through the foreheadt!’

“His words beat through the stupor clouding my brain, I started toward

him—hands out-stretched. I could not speak.

“‘_Um Gottes Willen, bleibt da!_ Stop! Stop!’

“The words brought me up to a stop.

“‘Sigmund! My friend! What—?’

“‘Do not come near me! Vould you also be so tormented? Vat dot Gray

touches it consumes. Do not argue, I say, but _shoot!_ _Heilige Mütter!_

Vy do you not shoot?’

“His voice rose into a shriek of agony. What was left of one arm had

sloughed off—the other was almost gone. A little mound of gray grew

larger at his feet. His flesh was consumed; skin, blood and bone,

absorbed by that vile gray Thing, and he shrieked in agony and prayer.

Both arms were gone, and the stuff at his feet had already begun to cut

through his boots.

“I shot him—between his eyes. I saw him fall, and I fainted. When I came

to, there was only a mound of tiny gray fungi, greedily reaching their

hellish tentacles for sustenance and slowly shriveling up into tiny light

gray specks of dust on a glossy patch of sand.”

Savants No Longer Know All Things

“Men in the business of knowing things have taken a tip from the

plumbers, carpenters and plasterers,” announced Friar McCollister, one

of the University of Chicago literati. “No longer is it possible to go

to a hoary old gentleman with a pile of books and a skull on his desk

and ask him any question, from the date of the birth of Copernicus to

the conjugations of the verb ‘to know’ in Sanscrit, and get an answer.

The scholar nowadays has learned to say what the plumber says when you

ask him to fix the hole he has made in the wall: ‘That is not in my

department.’ I found this out the other day when I tried to get some

information on the discovery of a human skull three million years old.

“First, I went to the information office of the University. There I

encountered a sprightly young man who turned out to be a professor of

sociology. But he didn’t know anything about men three million years old.

He only studied living men, he said. ‘Better go over to Haskell Museum,’

he told me. ‘They have some skulls and mummies over there.’

“I ran up three flights of stairs and into a dusty old room where I saw

a Dr. Edgerton. He was copying strange characters out of a book yellow

with age. When I put my question he replied that the only ancients he

knew were Egyptian mummies. He said I should see an anthropologist. Back

to the information office to see where they kept the anthropologists.

“They sent me up to Walker Museum, where a bland young man said, ‘Freddie

Starr is not in, but you don’t want an anthropologist, anyway. You want

to see an ethnologist.’

“When I found one, after dogging him all over the campus, he told me that

the matter really belonged in the department of geology. From there they

sent me to see the department of paleontology. At last I located it in

a cubby-hole of a museum which I didn’t even know was there, although I

have been on the campus three years.

“‘But, my dear sir,’ replied the head of the department to my

question, ‘that is not in my department. What you want is a vertebrate

paleontologist, and I am only a plain paleontologist. At present we have

no vertebrate paleontologist at the University. The last one died a few

years ago.’

“Well, I gave up my search,” said Mr. McCollister. “This age of

specialization is too much for me.”

Ancient Legend Recalled When Misfortune Attends Tut’s Discoverers

There is an old legend to the effect that whoever molests the final

resting-place of a Pharaoh will be afflicted with the curse of the

ancient rulers; and recent events have revived this superstition.

After thirty-three years of patient, ceaseless toil, Howard Carter, the

now famous Egyptologist, discovered the tomb of a powerful Pharaoh. He

was a very sincere man, and devoted to his life work all of his energy.

Just when success and reward for his labor was within his grasp, he was

stricken down with a baffling disease. His condition became very serious

and physicians said that if he lived he would probably be an invalid for

a long time. Shortly before Carter’s illness, Lord Carnarvon, who was

financing the expedition, and who was personally supervising the work,

suddenly died.

Nobody seems to know just what killed him. Some attribute his death to

the effects of an insect bite, some say that he was poisoned by some

ancient death-potion with which he came in contact while in the tomb, and

others declare that his death was the vengeance of King Tut-Ankh-Amen.

If such a legend could be credited anywhere, the Theban valley would

be that place. By day nothing disturbs the place except the sound of

the pick-axes and shovels of the native workmen. By night the stillness

is broken only by the hooting of owls and the cries of jackals and

wild-cats. The spectator is awed by the solemnity of the great,

precipitous sandstone cliffs that stand sentinel on either side of the

valley. In the midst of the silence and solitude one feels himself

standing on the brink of two worlds, gazing into a vista of the unknown.

_The Author of “Whispering Wires” Offers Another Thriller to WEIRD TALES

Readers_—

The Voice in the Fog

_By_ HENRY LEVERAGE

The _Seriphus_ was a ten thousand ton, straight bow ocean tanker, and

her history was the common one of Clyde-built ships—a voyage here and

a passage there, charters by strange oil companies, petrol for Brazil,

crude petroleum that went to Asia (for anointment purposes among the

heathen) and once there was a hurried call to some unpronounceable Aegean

port where the _Seriphus_ acted against the Turks in their flare-up after

the Great War.

The ordinary and usual—the up and down the trade routes—passed away from

the _Seriphus_ when Ezra Morgan, senior captain in the service of William

Henningay and Son, took over the tanker and drove her bow into strange

Eastern seas, loading with oil at California and discharging cargo in a

hundred unknown ports.

Of Ezra Morgan it was said that he had the daring of a Norseman and

the thrift of a Maine Yankee; he worked the _Seriphus_ for everything

the tanker could give William Henningay and Son; he ranted against the

outlandish people of the Orient and traded with them, on the side, for

all that he could gain for his own personal benefit.

[Illustration]

Trading skippers and engineers with an inclination toward increasing

wage by rum-running and smuggling were common in the Eastern service.

Ezra Morgan’s rival in that direction aboard the _Seriphus_ ruled the

engine-room and took pride in declaring that every passage was a gold

mine for the skipper and himself.

The chief engineer of the _Seriphus_ saw no glory in steam, save

dollars; he mopped up oil to save money. His name was Paul Richter—a

brutal-featured man given to boasting about his daughter, ashore, and

what a lady he was making of her.

Paul Richter—whom Morgan hated and watched—was far too skilled in

anything pertaining to steam and its ramifications to be removed from his

position aboard the _Seriphus_. Henningay, Senior, believed in opposing

forces on his many tankers—it led to rivalry and efficiency, instead of

closeheadedness and scheming against owners.

The _Seriphus_, after a round passage to Laichau Bay, which is in the

Gulf of Pechili, returned to San Francisco and was dry-docked near

Oakland, for general overhauling.

Richter, after making an exact and detailed report to Henningay, Jr.,

visited the opera, banked certain money he had made on the round-passage,

then went south to his daughter’s home. He found trouble in the house;

Hylda, his daughter, had a heart affair with a marine electrician,

Gathright by name, a young man with a meager wage and unbounded ambition.

Through the Seven Seas, from the time of his Bavarian wife’s death, from

cancer of the breast, Richter, chief engineer of the _Seriphus_, had

sweated, slaved, saved and smuggled contraband from port in order to say:

“This is my daughter! _Look at her!_”

Now, as Richter discovered, Hylda, twenty-seven years of age, somewhat

prim and musical, had given her promise to an electrician whom the

engineer believed was not fit to dust her shoes. Richter, used to

breaking and thrashing coolie oilers, ordered Gathright from the house

and locked up his daughter.

She cried for seven days. Gathright was seen in town. Richter’s rage gave

way to an engineer’s calculation.

“What for I study in University and college? Why do I hold certificates?

I fix Gathright!”

No oil was smoother than Richter’s well-laid plan; he sent Hylda away and

met Gathright.

“All right about my daughter,” he told the electrician. “You go one

voyage with me—we’ll see Henningay—I’ll fix you up so that you can draw

one hundred and fifty dollars in wage, with a rating as electrician

aboard the _Seriphus_.”

Gathright went with Richter to San Francisco. They recrossed the Bay,

without seeing Henningay, Jr., and, at dusk, climbed over the shoring

timbers and went aboard the _Seriphus_. Richter’s voice awoke echoes in

the deserted ship and dry-dock:

“Come, I show you my dynamo and motors. We go to the boiler-room first,

where the pumps are.”

The boiler-room, forward the engine-room of the tanker, was a place

of many snakelike pipes, valves, sea-plates and oily seepage from the

feedtanks. The _Seriphus_ was a converted oil-burner, having been built

before crude petroleum was used for steaming purposes. Three double-end

Scotch boilers made the steam that drove the tanker’s triple-expansion

engine.

Richter knew the way down to the boiler-room, blindfolded. He struck

matches, however, to guide Gathright, and remarked that the newer ships

of Henningay’s fleet had a storage-battery reserve for lighting purposes

when the dynamo ceased running.

Gathright, somewhat suspicious of Hylda’s father, took care to keep

two steps behind the chief-engineer. They reached and ducked under

the bulkhead beam where the door connected the engine-room with the

boiler-room. Richter found a flashlamp, snapped it on, swung its rays

around and about as if showing Gathright his new duties.

“There’s a motor-driven feed-pump,” he said. “Something’s the matter with

the motor’s commutator. It sparks under load—can you fix it up?”

There was a professional challenge in the chief engineer’s voice;

Gathright forgot caution, got down on his knees, leaned toward the motor

and ran one finger over the commutator bars. They seemed polished and

free from carbon.

Richter reversed his grip on the flashlamp, swung once, twice, and

smashed the battery-end of the lamp down on Gathright’s head, just over

the top of the electrician’s right ear.

Gathright fell as if pole-axed and dropped with his hands twitching on a

metal plate.

Striking a match, Richter surveyed the electrical engineer.

“Good!” he grunted. “Now I put you where nobody’ll ever look—unless I

give the order.”

* * * * *

A stump of candle, stuck by wax to a feed-pipe, allowed Richter

illumination sufficient to work by. Swearing, sweating, listening once,

he fitted a spanner to bolt-heads on a man-plate in the spare boiler and

removed the stubborn bolts until the plate clanged at his feet.

Gathright was a slender man, easy to insert through the man-hole; Richter

had no trouble at all lifting the electrician and thrusting him out of

sight.

It seemed to the engineer, as he hesitated, that Hylda’s lover moaned

once and filled the boiler with a hollow sound.

Hesitation passed; and Richter swallowed his superstitious fears, put

back the man-hole plate, bolted it tighter than it ever was before,

almost stripping the threads, and stepped back, mopping his brow with the

sleeve of a shore-coat.

There was nothing very unusual in Richter’s further actions that evening.

The ship-keeper, who came aboard at daylight, long before the dry-dock

men began work, noticed a wet shore-hose, a thin plume of steam aft the

tanker’s squat funnel, and there was a trailing line of smoke drifting

aslant the _Seriphus’_ littered deck.

“Been testing that spare boiler,” explained Richter, when the ship-keeper

ducked through the bulkhead door. “I think it’s tight an’ unscaled, but

th’ starboard one will need new tubes and general cleaning. Get me some

soap—I want to wash up.”

Richter dried his hands on a towel, tossed it toward the motor-driven

feed-pump, then, when he left the boiler-room, his glance ranged from the

tightly-bolted man-hole cover up to a gauge on a steam-pipe. The gauge

read seventy-pounds—sufficient to parboil a heavier man than Hylda’s

lover.

“I think that was a good job,” concluded the first engineer of the

_Seriphus_.

The second engineer of the tanker, a Scot with a burr on his voice like a

file rasping the edge of a plate, stood watching Richter balance himself

as the stout chief came along a shoring-beam.

“I mark ye ha’ steam up,” commented the Scotchman, when Richter climbed

over the dry dock’s wall.

“Yes, in the spareboiler.”

Mr. S. V. Fergerson tapped a pipe on his heel.

“I made an inspection, myself, of that, not later than yesterday

forenoon. She was tight as a drum an’ free from scale. I left th’

man-hole—”

“Damn badly gasketed!” growled Richter.

Fergerson started to explain something; but the chief was in a hurry to

get away from sight of the _Seriphus_. There was a memory on the tanker

that required a drink or two in order to bring forgetfulness. Richter

gave the Scot an order that admitted of no answering back.

“Go aboard an’ blow off steam! That boiler’s all right!”

A roar, when Richter strode past the dry-dock’s sheds, caused him to

wheel around and listen. Fergerson, according to orders, was blowing off

the steam from the spare boiler.

Something, perhaps water or waste, clogged the pipe; and the escaping

vapor whistled, sputtered, and rose to a high piercing note that sounded

to the chief’s irritated nerves like the cry of a soul in agony. The note

died, resumed its piercing screeching. Richter’s arm and hand shook when

he mopped his brow and drew a wet sleeve down with an angry motion.

In fancy the noise that came from the _Seriphus’_ starboard side, echoed

and deflated by the hollow dock, was Gathright calling for Hylda. Richter

covered his ears and staggered away.

* * * * *

Ezra Morgan hastened such repairs as were required for making the

_Seriphus_ ready for sea; the tanker left the dry-dock, steamed out the

Golden Gate, and took aboard oil at a Southern California port.

All tanks, a well-lashed deck load of cased-lubricant—consigned to a

railroad in Manchuri—petroleum for the furnaces, brought the _Seriphus_

down to the Plimsoll Mark; she drove from shore and crossed the Pacific

where, at three God-forsaken Eastern roadsteads, she unloaded and made

agents for the oil-purchasers happy with shipments delivered on time.

The romance of caravan routes, and pale kerosene lamps burning in

Tartar tents, escaped both Ezra Morgan and Richter; they went about

their business of changing American and English minted gold for certain

contrabands much wanted in the States. The chief engineer favored

gum-opium as a road to riches; Ezra dealt in liquors and silks, uncut

gems and rare laces.

Fortunately for the chief engineer’s peace of mind, the spare, double-end

Scotch boiler was not used on the Russian voyage. Gathright was forgotten

and Hylda, safe in an eastern music school, was not likely to take up

with another objectionable lover. Richter, relieved of a weight, went

about the engine-room and boiler-room humming a score of tunes, all set

to purring dynamos, clanking pumps, and musical cross-heads.

At mid-Pacific, on a second voyage—this time to an oilless country, if

ever there were one, Mindanao—a frightened water-tender came through

the bulkhead door propelled by scalding steam, and there was much to do

aboard the _Seriphus_. The port boiler had blown out a tube; the spare,

midship boiler was filled with fresh water and the oil-jets started.

Richter, stripped to the waist, it being one hundred and seventeen

degrees hot on deck, drove his force to superhuman effort. Ezra Morgan,

seven hours after the accident, had the steam and speed he ordered, in no

uncertain tones, through the bridge speaking-tube.

Fergerson, a quiet man always, had occasion, the next day, to enter the

chief’s cabin, where Richter sat writing a letter to Hylda, which he

expected to post via a homeward bound ship. Richter glared at the second

engineer.

“That spare boiler—” began Fergerson.

“What of it?”

“Well, mon, it’s been foamin’ an’ a gauge-glass broke, an’ there’s

something wrong wi’ it.”

“We can’t repair th’ port boiler until we reach Mindanao.”

Fergerson turned to go.

“Ye have m’ report,” he said acidly. “That boiler’s bewitched, or

somethin’.”

“Go aft!” snarled Richter, who resumed writing his letter.

He hesitated once, chewed on the end of the pen, tried to frame the words

he wanted to say to Hylda. Then he went on:

“—_expect to return to San Francisco within thirty-five days.

Keep up your music—forget Gathright—I’ll get you a good man,

with straight shoulders and a big fortune, when I come back and

have time to look around._”

Richter succeeded in posting the letter, along with the Captain’s mail,

when the _Seriphus_ spoke a Government collier that afternoon and sheered

close enough to toss a package aboard. Ezra Morgan leaned over the

bridge-rail and eyed the smudge of smoke and plume of steam that came

from the tanker’s squat funnel. He called for Richter, who climbed the

bridge-ladder to the captain’s side.

“We’re only logging nine, point five knots,” said Ezra Morgan. “Your

steam is low—it’s getting lower. What’s th’ matter? Saving oil?”

“That spare boiler is foaming,” the chief explained.

“Damn you and your spare boiler! What business had you leaving San

Francisco with a defective boiler? Your report to Mr. Henningay stated

that everything was all right in engine-room and boiler-room.”

“Foam comes from soap or—something else in the water.”

“Something else—”

Richter got away from Ezra Morgan on a pretense of going below to the

boiler-room. Instead of going below, however, he went aft and leaned

over the taffrail. Somehow or other, he feared that spare boiler and the

consequence of conscience.

Limping, with three-quarters of the necessary steam pressure, the

_Seriphus_ reached Mindanao and was forced to return to California

without repairs to the port boiler. While repairs, new tubes and

tube-sheet were put in place by boilersmiths, Richter saw his daughter,

who had come west from music school.

The change in her was pronounced; she spoke not at all of Gathright,

whose disappearance she could not understand; and Richter, keen where his

daughter was concerned, realized that her thinness and preoccupation was

on account of the missing electrician.

“I get you a fine fellow,” he promised Hylda.

He brought several eligible marine engineers to the house. Hylda snubbed

them and cried in secret.

An urgent telegram called Richter back to the _Seriphus_. He made two

long voyages, one down Chili-way, the other half around the world, before

the tanker’s bow was turned toward California. Much time had elapsed from

the night he had thrust Gathright into the spare boiler and turned on the

oil-jets beneath its many tubes. Once, in Valparaiso, an under engineer

pointed out red rust leaking from the gauge-glass of the spare boiler.

“Looks like blood,” commented this engineer.

Richter scoffed, but that afternoon he drank himself stupid on kummel,

obtained from an engineer’s club ashore. Another time, just after the

tanker left the port of Aden on her homebound passage, a stowaway crawled

out from beneath the cold boiler and gave Richter the fright of his life.

“Why, mon,” said Fergerson, who was present in the boiler-room, “that’s

only a poor wisp o’ an Arab.”

“I thought it was a ghost,” blabbered Richter.

Barometer pressure rose when the _Seriphus_ neared mid-Pacific. Ezra

Morgan predicted a typhoon before the tanker was on the longitude of

Guam. Long rollers came slicing across the _Seriphus’_ bow, drenched the

forecastle, filled the ventilators and flooded the boiler-room.

Richter went below, braced himself in the rolling engine-room, listened

to his engines clanking their sturdy song, then waddled over the gratings

and ducked below the beam that marked the bulkhead door. An oiler in high

rubber-boots lunged toward the chief engineer.

“There’s something inside th’ spare boiler!” shouted the man. “Th’

boiler-room crew won’t work, sir.”

Richter waded toward a frightened group all of whom were staring at

the spare boiler. A hollow rattling sounded when the tanker heaved and

pitched—as if some one were knocking bony knuckles against the stubborn

iron plates.

“A loose bolt,” whispered Richter. “Keep th’ steam to th’ mark, or I’ll

wipe a Stillson across th’ backs of all of you,” he added in a voice that

they could hear and understand.

Superstition, due to the menacing storm and high barometer, the uncanny

noises in the racked boiler-room, Richter’s bullying manner, put fear in

the hearts of the deck crew. Oil-pipes clogged, pumps refused to work,

valves stuck and could scarcely be moved.

“I’ve noo doot,” Fergerson told his Chief, “there’s a ghost taken up its

abode wi’ us.”

Richter drank quart after quart of trade-gin.

* * * * *

The barometer became unsteady, the sky hazy, the air melting hot, and a

low, rugged cloud bank appeared over the _Seriphus’_ port bow.

Down fell the barometer, a half-inch, almost, and the avalanche of rain

and wind that struck the freighter was as if Thor was hammering her iron

plates.

Ezra Morgan, unable to escape from the typhoon’s center, prepared to ride

out the storm by bringing the _Seriphus_ up until she had the sea on the

bow, and he had held her there by going half speed ahead. A night of

terror ruled the tanker; the decks were awash, stays snapped, spume rose

and dashed over the squat funnel aft the bridge.

Morning, red-hued, with greenish patches, revealed a harrowed ocean,

waves of tidal height, and astern lay a battered hulk—a freighter,

dismasted, smashed, going down slowly by the bow.

“A Japanese tramp,” said Ezra Morgan. “Some _Marau_ or other, out of the

Carolines bound for Yokohama.”

Richter, stupid from trade-gin, was on the bridge with the Yankee skipper.

“We can’t help her,” the engineer said heavily. “I think we got all we

can do to save ourselves.”

Ezra Morgan entertained another opinion. The storm had somewhat subsided,

and the wind was lighter, but the waves were higher than ever he had

known them. They broke over the doomed freighter like surf on a reef.

“Yon’s a distress signal flying,” said Ezra Morgan. “There’s a few seamen

aft that look like drowned rats. We’ll go before th’ sea—I’ll put th’ sea

abart th’ beam, an’ we’ll outboard oil enough to lower a small-boat an’

take those men off that freighter.”

The maneuver was executed, the screw turned slowly, oil was poured

through the waste-pipes and spread magically down the wind until the

freighter’s deck, from aft the forehouse, could be seen above the waves.

Over the patch of comparative calm oars dipped, and a mate, in charge of

the small boat lowered from the _Seriphus_, succeeded in getting off the

survivors who were clinging to the freighter’s taffrail.

The small boat lived in a sea that had foundered big ships. It returned

to the tanker’s bow; and the four men, bruised, broken, all half-dead

from immersion, were hoisted to the forepeak and taken aft. Two were

Japanese sailors and two were Americans—a wireless operator and an

engineer. The engineer had a broken leg which required setting, and the

wireless operator was in a bad fix; wreckage had stove in his features,

and twisted his limbs.

Ezra Morgan was a rough and ready surgeon-doctor; he turned the

_Seriphus_ over to the first-mate and made a sick room out of Richter’s

cabin. The chief protested.

“Get below to your damn steam!” roared Ezra Morgan. “You hated to see me

bring aboard these poor seamen; you said I wasted fuel oil; your breath

smells like a gin-mill. Below with you, sir!”

The engine-room and boiler-room of the tanker, she being in water

ballast, was not unlike an inferno; the first-mate, acting on Ezra

Morgan’s instructions, drove the _Seriphus_ at three-quarter speed into a

series of head-on waves; the ship rolled and yawed, tossed, settled down

astern, then her screw raced in mingled foam and brine.

Richter’s stomach belched gas; he became sea-sick, climbed into a

foul-smelling “ditty-box” of a cabin, aft the engine-room, and attempted

to sleep off the effect of the gin. Picture-post-cards, mostly of

actresses, a glaring electric over the bunk, oil and water swishing the

metal deck below, and the irritating clank of irregular-running engines

drove sleep away from him.

Fergerson, the silent second-engineer, came into the “ditty-box” at eight

bells, or four o’clock. Fergerson’s thumb jerked forward.

“I’ll have t’ use that spare boiler,” said he.

“What’s th’ matter, now?”

“Feed-pipes clogged in starb’ard one, sir.”

“Use it,” said Richter.

Steam was gotten up on the spare, double-end Scotch boiler; the

starboard boiler was allowed to cool; Fergerson, despite the tanker’s

rolling motion, succeeded in satisfying Ezra Morgan by keeping up the

three-quarter speed set by the skipper.

Richter sobered when the last of the trade-gin was gone; the _Seriphus_

was between Guam and ’Frisco; the heavy seas encountered were the

afterkick of the simoon.

Rolling drunkenly, from habit, the chief went on the bridge and asked

about getting back his comfortable cabin aft. Ezra Morgan gave him no

satisfaction.

“Better stay near your boilers,” advised the captain. “Everything’s gone

to hell, sir, since you changed from kummel to gin!”

“Are not th’ injured seamen well yet?”

“Th’ wireless chap’s doing all right—but th’ engineer of that Japanese

freighter is hurt internally. You can’t have that cabin, this side of San

Francisco.”

“What were two Americans doing in that cheap service?”

Ezra Morgan glanced sharply at Richter.

“Everybody isn’t money mad—like you. There’s many a good engineer, and

mate, too, in th’ Japanese Merchant Marine. Nippon can teach us a thing

or two—particularly about keeping Scotch boilers up to th’ steaming

point.”

This cut direct sent Richter off the bridge; he encountered a bandaged

and goggled survivor of the freighter’s wreck at the head of the

engine-room ladder. The wireless operator, leaning on a crutch whittled

by a bo’sain, avoided Richter, who pushed him roughly aside and descended

the ladder, backward.

White steam, lurid oaths, Scotch anathema from the direction of the

boiler-room, indicated more trouble. Fergerson came from forward and

bumped into Richter, so thick was the escaping vapor.

“Out o’ my way, mon,” the second engineer started to say, then clamped

his teeth on his tongue.

“What’s happened, now!” queried Richter.

“It’s that wicked spare boiler—she’s aleak an’ foamin’, an’ there’s water

in th’ fire-boxes.”

Richter inclined his bullet shaped head; he heard steam hissing and

oilers cursing the day they had signed on the _Seriphus_. A blast when a

gasket gave way, hurtled scorched men between Richter and Fergerson; a

whine sounded from the direction of the boiler-room, the whine rose to an

unearthly roar: Richter saw a blanket of white vapor floating about the

engine’s cylinders. This vapor, to his muddled fancy, seemed to contain

the figure of a man wrapped in a winding shroud.

He clapped both hands over his eyes, hearing above the noise of escaping

steam a call so distinct it chilled his blood.

“_Hylda!_”

* * * * *

Now there was that in the ghostly voice that brought Richter’s

gin-swollen brain to the realization of the thing he had done in

disposing of Gathright by bolting him in the spare boiler.

No good luck had followed that action; Hylda was still disconsolate;

trade and smuggling was at a low ebb; there was talk, aboard and ashore,

of reducing engineers’ and skippers’ wage to the bone.

Richter had a Teutonic stubbornness; Ezra Morgan had certainly turned

against his chief engineer; the thing to do was to lay the ghostly

voice, make what repairs were necessary in the boiler-room, and give the

tanker’s engines the steam they needed in order to make a quick return

passage to San Francisco and please the Henningays.

An insane rage mastered Richter—the same red-vision he had experienced

when he threw Gathright out of his daughter’s house. He lowered his

bullet head, brushed the curling vapors from his eyes, and plunged

through the bulkhead door, bringing up in scalding steam before the after

end of the midship, or spare boiler.

Grotesquely loomed all three boilers. They resembled humped-camels

kneeling in a narrow shed by some misty river. Steam in quantity came

hissing from the central camel; out of the furnace-doors, from a

feed-pipe’s packing, around a flange where the gauge-glass was riveted.

The _Seriphus_ climbed a long Pacific roller, steadied, then rocked in

the trough between seas; iron plates, gratings, flue-cleaners, scrapers,

clattered around Richter who felt the flesh on neck and wrist rising into

water blisters.

No one had thought to close the globe-valve in the oil supply line, or to

extinguish the fires beneath the spare and leaking boiler. Richter groped

through a steam cloud, searching for the hand-wheel on the pipe line. All

the metal he touched was simmering hot.

A breath of sea air came down a ventilator; Richter gulped this air and

tried to locate the globe-valve with the iron wheel. Vision cleared, he

saw the red and open mouth of the central camel—the flannel-like flames

and he heard through toothed-bars a voice calling, “Hylda!”

Fergerson and a water tender dragged their chief from the boiler room by

the heels; blistered, with the skin peeled from his features, Richter’s

eyes resembled hot coals in their madness. Blabbering nonsense, the

engineer gave one understandable order:

“Put out th’ fire, draw th’ water, search inside th’ spare boiler—there’s

something there, damit!”

Ezra Morgan came below, while the spare boiler was cooling, and entered

Richter’s temporary cabin—the “ditty-box” with the play actresses’

pictures glued everywhere. Fergerson had applied rude doctoring—gauze

bandages soaked in petroleum—on face and arms.

“What’s th’ matter, man?” asked Ezra Morgan. “Have you gone mad?”

“I heard some one calling my daughter, Hylda.”

“Where do you keep your gin?”

“It’s gone! Th’ voice was there inside th’ spare boiler. Did Fergerson

look; did he find a skeleton, or—”

Ezra Morgan pinched Richter’s left arm, jabbed home a hypodermic

containing morphine, and left the chief engineer to sleep out his

delusions. Fergerson came to the “ditty-box” some watches later. Richter

sat up.

“What was in th’ spare boiler?” asked the chief.

“Scale, soda, a soapy substance.”

“Nothing else?”

“Why, mon, that’s enough to make her foam.”

Richter dropped back on the bunk and closed his lashless eyes.

“Suppose a man, a stowaway, had crawled through th’ aft man-hole, an’

died inside th’ boiler? Would that make it foam—make th’ soapy substance?”

“When could any stowaway do that?”

Richter framed his answer craftily: “Say it was done when th’ _Seriphus_

was at Oakland that time th’ boilers were repaired in dry-dock.”

Fergerson drew on his memory. “Th’ time, mon, ye went aboard an’ tested

th’ spare boiler? Th’ occasion when ye took th’ trouble to rig up a

shore-hose in order to fill th’ boiler wi’ water?”

“Yes.”

“Did ye ha’ a man-hole plate off th’ boiler?”

“I removed th’ after-end plate, then went for th’ hose. We had no steam

up, you remember, and our feed-pumps are motor-driven.”

“Ye think a mon might ha’ crawled through to th’ boiler during your

absence?”

“Yes!”

“Ye may b’ right—but if one did he could ha’ escaped by th’ fore man-hole

plate. I had that off, an’ wondered who put it back again so carelessly.

Ye know th’ boiler is a double-ender—wi’ twa man-holes.”

Richter was too numbed to show surprise. Fergerson left the “ditty-box”

and pulled shut the door. The tanker, under reduced steam, made slow

headway toward San Francisco.

One morning, a day out from soundings, the chief engineer awoke, felt

around in the gloom, and attempted to switch on the electric light.

He got up and threw his legs over the edge of the bunk. A man sat leaning

against the after plate. Richter blinked; the man, from the goggles on

him and the crutch that lay across his knees, was the wireless operator

who had been rescued from a sea grave.

“No need for light,” said the visitor in a familiar voice. “You can guess

who I am, Richter.”

“A ghost!” said the chief. “Gathright’s ghost! Come to haunt me!”

“Not exactly to haunt you. I assure you I am living flesh—somewhat

twisted, but living. I got out of that midship boiler, while you were

bolting me in so securely. I waited until you went on deck for a hose,

and replaced the after man-hole cover. I was stunned and lay hidden

aboard for two days. Then I looked for Hylda. She was gone. I shipped as

electrician for a port in Japan. I knocked around a bit—at radio work for

the Japanese. It was chance that the _Seriphus_ should have picked me up

from the _Nippon Maru_.”

“That voice calling for Hylda,” cried Richter.

“Was a little reminder that I sent through the boiler-room ventilator; I

knew you were down there, Richter.”

The marine engineer switched on the electric light.

“What do you want?” he whined to Gathright.

“Hylda—your daughter!”

Paul Richter covered his eyes.

“If she will atone for the harm I have done you, Gathright, she is yours

with her father’s blessing.”

[Illustration]

The Invisible Terror

_An Uncanny Tale of the Jungle_

_By_ HUGH THOMASON

Old man Jess Benson, cattleman and mine owner, rode across the high

plateau, which divided the rich grazing lands between Rock Valley and

Slater Canyon, and let his horse pick its way down the steep slope to

Slater Creek. Here, as the sorrel slaked its thirst, the big man in the

saddle filled and lighted his pipe, while his eyes roved slowly through

the sprinkle of cottonwoods which fringed the creek.

About fifty feet upstream, close to a large bowlder and partly behind

a clump of stunted plum bushes, half a dozen magpies were quarreling

over something that the rider could not clearly distinguish. He could

merely see a dark blotch behind the bushes—the carcass of a cow or steer

probably—and he watched the beautiful black-and-white birds speculatively

as they uttered their shrill, raucous cries, and fluttered about the

thicket.

Since there was a possibility, however, that the dead animal might be

carrying his own brand, Benson finally turned his horse in the direction

of the birds. Half a minute later, having reached a spot from which he

could command a clear view of the thing that lay behind the bushes, his

tanned cheeks went ashen, and he swung himself to the ground with an

exclamation of horrified surprise.

Close to the thicket, and five or six feet from the rock, the body of a

man was huddled in the horrible posture of one who has met a violent end.

He was lying partly on his side, one leg drawn up, the other

outstretched, while both arms were bent under him. His face and neck were

terribly torn and mangled, and his flannel shirt had been ripped half

off his body, which was bruised and covered with wounds. Several paces

away was a trampled felt hat, and the muzzle of a revolver peeped from

beneath the body, its butt evidently clutched in the stiffened fingers of

one hand. For a dozen feet the ground was torn and trampled, as though a

terrible struggle had taken place.

For several minutes Benson stood still and eyed the ghastly thing in

horrified fascination. Long experience as a range rider told him that

the body and the signs of conflict about it could not be more than

forty-eight hours old—the thing had happened since a heavy rain of two

days before—and it slowly dawned on the cattleman that the dead man was

Nathan Smith, a neighbor of his, who owned a small farm some five or six

miles away.

For some time he studied the body and the surrounding soil very

carefully, noting especially that the soft earth was covered with large,

doglike tracks; then he went to his horse and untied his slicker from the

back of the saddle. With this garment he managed to cover the body so

that the magpies could no longer reach it. Then he mounted his horse and

rode off toward Elktooth, ten miles away.

Sheriff Parker and Doctor Morse, the coroner, happened to be together

in the latter’s office when Benson entered and told his story. Both men

listened without any particular comment, and at the end the sheriff got

to his feet.

“I’ll run you out in the car, Horace,” he informed the coroner. “We can

reach the spot easily enough by following the old road up the creek. From

what Benson says, the thing does not look like a crime exactly—it seems

more like the work of wolves, though I never heard of any attacking a man

in this region; but you can never tell. At any rate, we’d better look

into it as soon as we can.”

It was about an hour later when the three men got out of the machine

and walked the few feet which separated them from the scene of the

tragedy. Lifting the slicker, Doctor Morse stooped over the gruesome

object beneath it, while Sheriff Parker gazed at the trodden ground with

interest. While the coroner made his examination, the little officer

paced around the thicket, eying the tracks thoughtfully; more than once

he stooped to apply a pocket rule to some especially distinct impression,

and twice he whistled softly to himself. By the time the doctor’s

examination had ended, he was turning a speculative eye toward a dim

trail which led off at right angles through the cottonwoods.

Returning from washing his hands at the edge of the stream, Doctor Morse

looked at his friend in contemplative silence, as he lighted a cigar and

puffed at it nervously.

“Well?” the sheriff questioned, at length. “What was it? What killed him,

Horace?”

“Bless me if I know, Bert. I never saw anything like this before in all

my experience. It was an animal of some kind, I should say; a wolf,

perhaps, although, as you said, the few wolves we have hereabouts have

never been known to attack humans. But the man is frightfully mangled,

his jugular vein is quite torn out of him. Had his gun in his hand,

too. It’s empty. He must have fought the thing hard, whatever it was. I

wonder—could it have been the ‘plague’?”

Sheriff Parker nodded in an absent way, his eyes still fixed on the faint

trail through the trees and weeds.

“I think it was,” he said. “This spot is only a little way removed from

where the creature has been in the habit of roaming, and poor Smith, I

suppose, was caught here after dark. These tracks match those we found

near Moore, and they look pretty fresh. How long should you say he has

been dead?”

“Killed early last night, I should judge,” was the doctor’s answer. “He

died hard, too, poor chap. Look at that ground.”

Jess Benson, with horror written all over his honest features, had been

staring at the two men as they talked. Big, burly, outdoor giant that he

was, he seemed to be in the grip of a kind of terror—or was it awe?—that

made him incapable of speech.

“Heavens, what an end!” he burst out at length. “What are we going to do,

sheriff? How’ll we ever get the thing that killed him?”

Sheriff Parker made no answer. He merely continued to search the ground

around the body for a few minutes longer, as though he wished to make

doubly sure that his suspicions were correct; then he helped the others

wrap the body in a blanket and stow it in the car. Five minutes later,

save for the trampled ground and some dull-brown, ominous stains on the

grass, there was no sign of the tragedy apparent.

Two hours later, seated at his own desk with a cigar between his teeth,

Sheriff Parker squinted through his glasses at Doctor Morse, who sat

opposite.

“I tell you, Horace,” the sheriff was saying, “it is such a thing as

never has been known before. If I had not been studying the results of

this creature’s work for the past six weeks, I could not believe that

such a thing could be. Still, it _must_ be so! Poor Jack Moore, he was

the first victim; we were morally certain that the thing got him; then

that strange waving of the alfalfa in Pollard’s meadow, and now this. I

tell you, it’s awful, Horace!”

“It is; it’s more than that, Bert; it’s unnatural.” Doctor Morse puffed

jerkily at his cigar. “And yet, science tells us that there are sounds

the ear cannot detect, why not colors the eye cannot see? Take the only

time the beast, or the ‘plague,’ as we have begun to call it, appeared

in daylight. I mean that uncanny agitation in Pollard’s hayfield that

afternoon, when some heavy creature thrashed about there. It could be

heard, and the alfalfa moved, but the thing itself could not be _seen_,

though three different people stood watching.”

“You are quite right, Horace; and I have already spent a great many

sleepless nights milling over that ‘neutral color’ theory. Recently I

have read that at the end of the solar spectrum there are things known as

actinic rays. They represent colors—integral colors in the composition

of light—which we are unable to discern with the naked eye. The human

eye is, after all, an imperfect instrument. Undoubtedly there are colors

which we cannot see, and this beast, this scourge of the neighborhood, is

of some such color.”

“Aside from its color,” the coroner mused, “the creature is tangible

enough. It leaves a track in the ground larger by far than that of a

full-grown timber wolf, and it certainly can fight. Benson says his

hounds were soundly thrashed by it last week, you know, and there is

Smith. He was a very powerful man, and armed, but, so far as we know,

the thing killed him and got away unscathed. The man’s body looked as

if it had been struck by a train. The chest and sides might have been

beaten in with a sledge, his clothes were torn to shreds, and as for his

throat—well, the less said about that the better.”

Sheriff Parker said nothing for several minutes. Getting to his feet, he

began to pace slowly back and forth across the room, fingers interlaced

behind his back and head bowed in the way he sometimes affected when in

deep thought.

He was struggling with a problem the like of which he had never before

tackled; and as he watched him, the coroner, in his turn, strove to

devise some method of wiping out the creature which was terrorizing the

entire valley.

* * * * *

Almost six weeks before, Jack Moore, a stock inspector, whose duties

often carried him far out into the thinly settled portions of the

country, had been found dead under circumstances similar in every way to

those surrounding Smith’s end.

At first, the authorities and general public had attributed the death

to timber wolves, for the sole reason that they could attribute it to

nothing else. The tracks about the body, though exceedingly large, were

shaped like a wolf’s, and the body itself had been torn and mangled as by

some carniverous animal.

Soon after Moore’s death came the killing of a dozen sheep in their

pasture, and, on the heels of this, Judson Pollard, a prosperous farmer

whose word was beyond dispute, with two of his hired men, had seen

something rush through an alfalfa meadow—something that they could not

make out, though it was broad daylight, and they could see the tall hay

wave and shake, and could even hear the creature as it thrashed about

there.

Then Jess Benson’s hounds, a pack of fourteen, which had never met its

match in numerous encounters with wolves and coyotes, had been soundly

whipped, and three of its number killed outright in a fight with some

animal which their owner could not see, although he had witnessed the

fight from a distance.

Now, as a climax to the whole business, had come Nathan Smith’s horrible

death; and no man could say who or what would be the next victim.

No wonder the entire county could talk of little else, and that the

creature, whatever it was, had been named the “plague”!

As he thought over all these things for the hundredth time, Sheriff

Parker cudgeled his brain in an effort to form some plan for trapping and

killing the beast. He knew that there must be a way, somehow, to make an

end of the terror, even though the most skillful trappers and hunters in

the district had failed to discover it. The animal’s range was known. It

seemed, for the most part, to frequent the country between Slater Creek

and White Horse Mountain, probably because this region contained plenty

of timber and natural shelter; and it was in this region that it must

be cornered. For many years the little sheriff had studied the crimes of

men, and few criminals had ever had just cause to boast of outwitting

him; but this was a different task.

“Horace,” the sheriff burst out finally, coming to an abrupt halt in

front of his friend, “this butchery has gone far enough. We must put an

end to it. What do you say to trying this very night? The beast seems to

roam mostly at night, and tonight will be moonlight. We’ll try to trap it

at the Black Pool.”

Doctor Morse stared at the speaker in surprise.

“The Black Pool?” he repeated. “Are you crazy, Bert? To be sure, we have

discovered, so far as possible at any rate, that the beast seems to

frequent the pool more than any other one spot; but how can we trap it?

That has already been tried more than once.”

“True, Horace; but we shall try in a different way. This thing, whatever

it is, though it can’t be seen, can be felt and heard; therefore it must

have a solid body, so to speak. It leaves a distinct trail, you know, and

its victims are proof enough that it is a creature of flesh and blood. My

scheme is to _make_ it visible—then, if we are lucky, we can shoot it.”

The coroner jumped to his feet in his excitement.

“I see what you mean!” he cried. “Why haven’t we thought of that before?

But how, Bert—how will you do it?”

“That remains to be seen.” Sheriff Parker smiled oddly as he looked at

his companion. “If you are willing to risk the thing with me, I think I

have a plan that will work. We’ll leave here in the car about four this

afternoon; that will get us to the pool in plenty of time to set our

trap before dark. Bring along your repeating shotgun—a heavy charge of

buckshot is far more certain after dark than a rifle ball, and we can’t

afford to miss.”

Doctor Morse nodded understandingly.

“I shall not fail you, Bert,” he said.

* * * * *

Early dusk found the two men in the sheriff’s car slowly picking their

way over the stony trail which led to the Black Pool. In the bottom

of the tonneau was a ten-gallon keg, three or four short boards, and

something wrapped in burlap, while the back seat held a pair of repeating

shot guns and a box of cartridges. A hundred yards from the pool, at the

foot of a little hill, Sheriff Parker killed his engine and stepped out

onto the ground.

“We’d better leave the car here,” he remarked. “It is best not to make

any more disturbance in the immediate vicinity of the pool than we can

help, and we can easily carry what we need from here. But let’s look

around a bit first.”

Together, carrying their loaded guns in the manner of men who wish to

be prepared against any sudden emergency, they made their way through a

fringe of trees to the edge of the black, still water, which gave the

pool its name. Even by daylight the place was far from cheerful. The

pool, about seventy feet in diameter, was entirely surrounded by trees

which grew to within a few feet of its oily surface.

There was no sign of life about the place, not even a frog croaked, and

the muddy banks bore mute testimony that none of the many cattle which

roamed that region had been there to drink for many days. In one place

only was the mud broken by fresh tracks; and when his eyes fell on this

spot, the sheriff smiled grimly.

“You see them, Horace,” he said, pointing. “The thing has been here

recently—its trail is as plain as day; this must be its drinking place.

Now for our little trap.”

Returning to the car, the two men first carried the keg to the foot of

a large tree which stood only a few yards from where the “plague” had

approached the pool; then they got the boards and the other articles,

which, on being unwrapped, proved to be a brass hand pump, with a long

spray nozzle, and about a dozen feet of hose.

Doctor Morse regarded this contrivance with considerable perplexity. He

could not see of what use it could be in the task that lay ahead of them;

but when he expressed his puzzlement, his companion laughed softly.

“It’s really very simple,” he explained, “although it is merely an

experiment of my own, and may not work as I hope it will. The keg is full

of whitewash, and this pump will throw a steady stream for over thirty

feet. If we can get the brute within range, my idea is to spray him with

whitewash until we can see enough of him to shoot at. White always shows

up fairly well in the dark. Catch the idea?”

Doctor Morse gazed at his friend in surprised admiration for an instant;

then he impulsively caught his hand in a hard grip.

“You’re a wonder, Bert!” he exclaimed. “I don’t see how you ever thought

of it, but the scheme looks good to me. I am honestly beginning to think

we have a chance. But what are those boards for?”

“For a platform on the tree yonder,” replied the sheriff, nodding toward

a cotton wood. “For obvious reasons I thought it would be safer to do

our watching from above ground, and with these boards we can construct

a support that will enable us to stay in the tree with some degree of

safety. Of course, the thing may be able to climb, for all we know, but

we must chance that. The tree is within easy range of the water, and

those tall ferns and weeds, if we watch them closely, should give us

warning of the beast’s approach. Now let’s get busy, for it will be dark

before we know it.”

At the end of half an hour, just as it was actually growing dark within

the shadows of the trees, the two men had built a substantial platform in

a fork of the cottonwood, some ten feet from the ground, and established

themselves upon it. Sheriff Parker’s gun lay beside him, while he grasped

the nozzle of the high-pressure pump in his hands; but the coroner’s

weapon was ready for instant use.

Swiftly the day turned into night, and for an hour it was as dark as

pitch at the edge of the pool; then the moon, surrounded by myriads of

stars, slowly climbed up over the hill-tops beyond the water. With eyes

riveted upon the ferns, from the movements of which they expected to be

warned of the beast’s approach, the two men waited tensely.

For a long time nothing happened. From the blank darkness around them

came merely the familiar noises of night in the wilderness—the long,

wailing howl of a distant coyote; the chirping drone of the tireless

insects in the trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from

those of the birds of the day; the “plop” of muskrats diving in the still

water, and all the mysterious chorus of small sounds that one never

notices until after night has fallen.

Seated on their narrow platform, the watchers were soon very

uncomfortable, for the mosquitoes were numerous and hungry, and the men

dared not smoke for fear the smell of tobacco would give warning to the

thing they sought. Doctor Morse, eyes fixed on the top of a ridge which

could be seen through a break in the trees, and beyond which the stars

and the moon seemed to be grouped, was half dozing, when suddenly he

straightened up with a little start.

A curious thing had taken place! The stars, rising above the crest of the

ridge, _had successively disappeared from right to left_!

Each was blotted out for but an instant, and not more than two or three

at the same time, but along half the length of the ridge, all that were

within a few degrees of the crest were eclipsed. Something had passed

along between them and the coroner’s line of vision; but he could not see

it, and the stars were not close enough together to define its shape.

After a second of tense watching, Doctor Morse reached out and gripped

the sheriff by the arm.

“Did you see it?” he whispered. “It’s coming, I think.”

“Yes; but be quiet, for your life!” Sheriff Parker leaned forward and

shifted his grip on the hose nozzle.

For several minutes all was silent, then came a faint patter of stealthy

feet, and something like the sniffing of a hound sounded below them,

while the ferns waved violently, although there was no breeze. Almost

immediately came the sounds of lapping in the water—sounds exactly like

those made by a thirsty dog when drinking.

Taking careful aim with the nozzle, Sheriff Parker suddenly pumped out

a steady stream of whitewash which began to splash and spatter on the

edge of the pool and surface of the water. And, as the milky liquid

began to fall, the two watchers saw a strange and wonderful thing. In

a spot, which ten seconds before had been merely opaque darkness, _an

outline grew up and took shape out of the ground_; a strange, monstrous,

misshapen thing, squat and hairy, not unlike a huge wolf in general

appearance, but broader and more powerful than any wolf either man had

ever seen.

For an instant after the whitewash began to fall upon it, the thing

turned a big-jawed, hairy face in the direction of the tree; then, with a

horrible snarl of fury, which both men plainly heard, it charged toward

them.

“Shoot! _Shoot_, Horace!” Sheriff Parker yelled, dropping the useless

nozzle and grabbing his gun.

The two heavy guns, charged with double loads of buckshot, roared out

almost together. There was a coughing snarl from the thing on the ground,

which save for a white patch or two, was almost invisible again, and the

sound of convulsive struggling; then the sheriff fired a second time.

Almost immediately there was a heavy splash in the water; then absolute

silence.

Doctor Morse wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand.

“Did we get it?” he asked in a low tone.

“Yes, I’m almost sure of it.” Sheriff Parker, though tremendously

excited, began to lower himself to the ground. “No animal of the wolf

type could stand up against three charges of buckshot at less than a

dozen yards,” he declared. “I believe it is dead, Horace.”

When they warily approached the edge of the pool, however, the two

men could find no sign of the thing they had shot at, beyond a number

of footprints in the soft ground, and, in one spot, very close to the

water, a large splotch of crimson, which made the little sheriff chuckle

exultantly.

“He was hard hit, and he’s sunk in the pool,” he declared positively,

“sunk in water that no man has ever yet found the bottom of—a fitting

end for such a beast, although I won’t deny that I should have enjoyed

a close look at the body. But it’s too late now, and, at any rate, the

brute is dead. Let’s be getting home, Horace.”

Seek Solution To Sahara Desert Mystery

An attempt is being made this Spring to penetrate the heart of the great

Sahara Desert and solve the mystery that envelops the savage Tribe of

Tauregx, a band of wild Arabs who have never recognized any civilized

authority. Both men and women members of the tribe always keep their

faces veiled in black. The region where they dwell is known as the Land

of Terror. The Chicago Tribune organized the expedition, which is making

the 2,000-mile journey across the hot sands on camels.

* * * * *

Light is the fastest-moving thing in the universe. It travels at the

speed of 186,326 miles a second. This tremendous speed would carry a

person around the earth seven times in one second!

_HELEN ROWE HENZE Spins a Compelling Yarn_

THE ESCAPE

“Are you sure?”

The doctor nodded briefly. “Very sure, and the quicker the better!”

Donaldson gripped the back of the chair beside him till his knuckles

showed white.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” the doctor spoke a trifle

contemptuously. “Appendicitis is quite commonplace. We operate for it as

many as a hundred times a year at the hospital.”

Donaldson rose slowly to his feet.

“I’ll let you know sometime soon,” he said, staring about him vaguely.

“All right. But I’d advise you to have it done quickly.”

Donaldson shuffled toward the door.

“I’ll let you know,” he murmured, and went out.

He descended to the street. He was a man of average height, and rather

thin. He was dressed respectably in clothes of a few years back, but

still good. One felt that he was careful of them, timidly careful.

His blue eyes wandered in odd moments from one object to another, and

his thin lips tried to maintain a firm line, but drooped weakly, if,

perchance, he forgot. Then he twitched them up, reining them hard, trying

to appear casual, indifferent. But his step would drop into its habitual

short uncertainty, his shoulders slump down a bit, his eyes begin their

covert roving, his whole figure expressing a desire to occupy as small a

space as possible, as though his soul and body were squeezed in with a

wish to be inconspicuous.

As he emerged from the doctor’s office, his pale eyes shifted as he

gazed at the moving throng on the street. Why couldn’t it have been some

one else? Here they were, all so gay, so unconscious of him and the

shadow that hung over him. Unconscious! That was the word which had so

terrified his mind for ten long years. And that was what the anesthetic

meant—unconsciousness!

Donaldson threaded his way along and turned into a little side street

until he came to his house. He let himself in with his key. The bare

hall resounded dismally to his footsteps. The gaunt, shadowy room gave

him only a chilly welcome. When Mrs. Saunders had kept house for him, it

had been more cheerful. There was not that deathlike stillness when he

came in. That had been several years ago, and since then his fear had

increased through long keeping, like some great, lank brute, gnawing in

the darkness. It was a sly, suspicious fear that shunned companionship.

He had lived for ten years all alone, except for Mrs. Saunders, the

housekeeper, but finally even her presence had become too much, and he

had sent her away.

He began stupidly preparing dinner. There was some ham, cheese, a half

loaf of bread, and a few potatoes which he peeled, standing by the sink.

There was also a small pie that one of the neighbors had sent him a few

days ago. Kindly people they were, unable to understand Donaldson’s

solitary life, and who took pity on him and occasionally sent him little

bits of pastry or jelly to freshen his meal.

Once, when he was sick with a cold, the husband had brought him over half

a tumbler of whisky, but Donaldson had shuddered and held up his arms as

if to ward off the other, crying, “None of that! Go away! Let me alone!”

And the neighbor had withdrawn, attributing this strange behavior to the

sickness. But no, Donaldson’s fear of whisky was almost equal to that of

the beastlike fear that dogged his footsteps or lurked in the shadows

ahead of him.

Ever since that terrible, unforgettable night when he had drunk it for

the first and last time, he had had a wild terror of it. Even the sight

of it recalled more vividly the white, strained face of his wife as she

fell to the floor, and the red mark of the fender across her temple.

He remembered how he had gone away and brought Jack Dingler home with

him a few hours later, and they had found her. The neighbors had been

so sympathetic toward him in his calamity. Even the same neighbors that

brought him the whisky and went home saying sorrowfully, “Poor Mr.

Donaldson. He’s never been quite himself since the missus was murdered.

It seems to have turned his mind.”

They were right. His mind was turned. John Donaldson knew what it was

to be afraid. For ten terrible years, fear had skulked behind him. His