A MAGAZINE OF THE BIZARRE AND UNUSUAL

| Volume 26 CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER, 1935 Number 3 |

Cover Design.M. Brundage Illustrating a scene in "The Blue ’Woman" The Blue Woman . .-.John Scott Douglas 274 The eery mystery of a beautiful woman whose body glowed in the dark Night Song.Hung Long Tom 291 Verse The Carnival of Death.Arlton Eadie 292 A ghastly adventure with a Golden Mummy, and strange death ihat walked by night The Man Who Chained the Lightning.Paul Ernst 317 Another amazing story about the sinister Doctor Satan, the world’s weirdest criminal Vulthoom.Clark Ashton Smith 336 A terror-tale of frightful tortures and eery horrors, and a doom that menaced Barth Satan in Exile (end)..Arthur William Bernal 353 An astounding weird-scientific story about a daring brigand of the space-ways Vampires.Dorothy Quick 367 Verse The Shambler from the Stars.Robert Bloch 368 A blood-freezing horror was evoked from Ludvig Prinn’s terrible "Mysteries of the Worm” One Chance.Ethel Helene Coen 376 A brief tale of horror and the plague in New Orleans The Toad Idol.Kirk Mashburn 377 The story of a dread stone fetish from an Aztec temple Weird Story Reprint: The Monster-God of Mamurth.Edmond Hamilton 381 An eery, creepy, goose-flesh story from an early issue of WEIRD TALES The Return of Orrin Mannering.Kenneth P. Wood 394 A brief story of a jail-break and its ghostly sequel The Eyrie.395 The readers express their opinions

Published monthly by the Popular Fiction Publishing! Company, 2457 E. Washington Street. Indianapolis, Ind. •*4tered as second-class matter March 20, 1923, at the post office at Indianapolis, Ind., under the act of March 3, -1179. Single copies, 25 cents. Subscription, $3.00 a year in the United States. English office: Charles Lavell, 13, Serjeants’ Inn, Fleet Street, E. C. 4, London. The publishers are not responsible for the loss of unsolicited manu¬ scripts, although every care will be taken of such material while in their possession. The contents of this mag¬ azine are fully protected by copyright and must not be reproduced either wholly or in part without permission from the publishers. NOTE—All manuscripts and communications should be addressed to the publishers’ Chicago office at 840 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. FARNSWORTH WRIGHT, Editor. Copyright 1935, by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company. COPYRIGHTED IN GREAT BRITAIN WEIRD TALES ISSUED 1st OF EACH MONTH W. T.—1 lue Woman By JOHN SCOTT DOUGLAS

The strange and eery mystery of a beautiful woman whose body glowed in the dark with an uncanny blue radiance

IUDWIG MEUSEL rolled over irri- optical illusion, this! There was no other . tably in the four-poster he had light save the ray which touched his carved with his own hands. It wife’s face and hair—and it was yellow, had been the intention of the German not blue. There was no mirror which wood-carver to ask his wife to come to could throw the light on her body, save bed. Five minutes before, she had turned the one into which she stared with a hor¬ out the light. rified fascination. "Mona,” he started to grumble, only Overwhelming was his desire to cry to have the word die in his suddenly tight out: "Mona! Vat is? Effen in darkness throat. your body is more bright than by day! Meusel’s plump body went rigid with Mein Gott!” terror. His Mona—what had happened But Meusel’s lips would not move, his to her? Fragmentary dark tales he had tight throat would make no sound. Fear heard as a boy in Germany leapt into his pinched his heart with icy fingers, as mind. Tales of witchcraft, of werewolves. forgotten stories flashed in a dark pro¬ But how could such things touch his cession through his mind. She had done Mona, mother of his four children? And something wrong, and this was her pun¬ here in America? ishment? She was in league with un- namable creatures of the darkness? His A ray from the street light at the cor¬ gentle Mona! He could not believe it! ner toched her lovely face and soft, mid¬ night hair. By its faint radiance, her fair No! If she were evil, she would know! face was seemingly drained of all color. And yet she stared at her reflection with Her eyes were wide and dark with horror terror-wide eyes. She had discovered per¬ as she stared at her own reflection in the haps when she had turned out the light full-length mirror. that her body glowed bluely in the mir¬ Meusel stared dazedly from the reflec¬ ror. She had stepped to the mirror, un¬ tion to the woman, cold chills darting believing, frightened. And now she down his spine. No light touched her could not draw her eyes away. body, which was covered with a diapha¬ Meusel shuddered. Strong was his de¬ nous nightgown. It was in shadow; and sire to flee from this thing which he did yet it was visible like a marble statue on not understand. But he had been proud which a pale-blue light was cast. of his beautiful young wife. That pride Visible? No, more than that—it even at this moment surmounted the glowed! Glowed with a faintly blue clammy repugnance and fear which radiance! And the reflection in the mir¬ gripped him. ror also glowed with a bluish light. "Mona,” he said in a voice he con¬ Meusel felt the hair rising on his head trived to make petulant, "ain’t you com¬ as his eyes darted about the room. No ing to bed, yet?” 274 THE BLUE WOMAN 275

"Yes, Ludwig,” she faltered. shoulders began shaking. She started to Meusel felt himself shrinking from sob softly. She tried to check her sobs; contact with her as she stepped into bed. and then they began afresh. Ashamed of his disloyalty, he could not Meusel’s damp body grew taut. He goad himself to offer comfort. He was wanted to ask some of the numerous afraid even to question her. In the stories questions which were pounding in his he had heard as a boy, exposure of a head, but he did not dare. He was afraid witch always brought calamity upon the to let her know that he knew. All night he lay stiffly by her side, afraid that if he once relaxed his vigilance she might do She lay face down, scarcely breathing. him some bodily harm. Like a witch— Presently, when she believed him or a vampire! asleep, her breathing quickened. Her In the morning, she was red-eyed from 276 WEIRD TALES weeping; but she made no explanation. Still, it came to Meusel as he went By daylight, he was' unable to observe about his work that a change had come that bluish radiance. But her face was over Mona since that day the doctor had pale and haggard. Steadily, month after brought her home. She had brooded month, Mona had been losing the fresh¬ overmuch, and some mornings she had ness which, as an out-of-work chorus girl, not gotten up. He had humored her, she had possessed. Now her thinness was thinking she would get over her silly pronounced. His heart was pinched with notion sooner or later. Now he won¬ pity as he left her at the breakfast table, dered if she had tricked him about that staring at space with brooding eyes. All thirty thousand dollars. Had she sold that day while he repaired antique furni¬ her soul for money? Why should a good ture in his little shop below their living- woman be paid so much for an illness quarters, Meusel thought of his young which did not impress him as being very wife . . . and wondered. genuine? Meusel was troubled. Three months before, she had been That night the glowing electric blue¬ working for the Kindall Watch Com¬ ness of her body was unmistakable. . . , pany. She had been brought home one So for three weeks the strain between day by a company doctor, and she was them grew into a higher and higher bar¬ sobbing. Meusel was too dazed by his rier, and Meusel did not dare unburden wife’s strange behavior to comprehend himself. much of what the doctor had told him Then one day when the visiting doctor about poisoning and "six months to live.” had left, she looked more tired than Afterward, company officials had come usual. There was a grim quality about with papers. They had explained, too, her mouth, a strange determination dn her but Meusel had not understood very well. eyes. Mona had told him to sign a paper which she had referred to as a "release,” and he Harassed by doubt and fear, he could had signed because he had trusted her not sleep that night. When she knowledge of American ways. Then, to believed him asleep, however, she arose. his amazement, they had given him a Meusel watched through half-closed eyes check for thirty thousand dollars. He —watched in an agony of indecision. He had cashed it, but without a clear under¬ saw her slip across the room to the bureau standing of why it had been given to her. and silently pull it away from the wall. Something about illness; but he had not She was taking money from its secret believed it serious. hiding-place—but still he did not dare He had built a little secret drawer be¬ say anything. She slipped it into her hind the bureau, and put the money there. purse, wrote something on a piece of Mona had tried to talk to him about the paper, and then dressed. tiling later, making plans for her chil¬ To Meusel, this was the last staggering dren; plans he was to carry out when proof of her guilt. A vampire or witch she was gone. Meusel had told her to be she must be! He wanted to leap from still. It was not good, this talk of death! bed to accuse her, but a paralyzing fear He put it down to some silly woman’s restrained him. If she possessed some notion. He would not permit her to dis¬ evil power of which he knew nothing, cuss it. She was sick, perhaps, but she she would not hesitate to bring that in¬ would be well again. He knew her bet¬ fernal power to use against him. ter than any doctor. Not until she had left silently, closing THE BLUE WOMAN 277 the door after her, did he dare move. One week later, Ludwig Meusel was Then he leapt from bed, and stole to the seated uneasily in the inner sanctum door. Opening it to a crack, he saw that of the offices bearing the name, "Kenneth the children’s bedroom door was open. Keith, Private Investigator.” The Ger¬ Perspiration broke out on Meusel’s round man wood-carver clasped and unclasped face. his plump hands nervously. He had just Witches — children! Confusedly old completed a recital of his wife’s strange stories clamored through his mind. behavior, placing his own interpretation Witches eating children at their feasts! upon it. Across the desk from him sat a He could even remember an old color lean-faced young man with cool steel- plate showing such a scene. gray eyes and an unruly thatch of red "Mein Gott!" Meusel thought. "Ellen hair. her own children, she would eat!” "You believe me, ja?” the German His own fear forgotten in alarm over asked anxiously. his children, he was about to rush out. Ken Keith shifted his lean, greyhound But Mona appeared, her cheeks damp, body in the swivel chair, his wide mouth sobbing softly. She was not carrying one tightening. "I believe all you’ve told me. of the children! Meusel went weak with Two hours ago, I might not.” He relief. He watched her going down the shrugged. "I believe you; that’s enough. stairs, and his tight throat would not per¬ But why didn’t you come to me before?” mit him to say a word to stop her. Meusel stared uncomfortably at the And then, when the outside door carpet. "For veek I been asking myself, closed, he remembered the note. His 'Vat vill I do?’ Children ask me, 'Papa, hands trembled as he switched on the ven vill mama come home?’ I t’ink maybe light and examined it. His breath caught yet I vill go to police. But they vill say, short. 'Meusel, vy you kill your vife, yet?’ I "Ach, Himmel!” he groaned. "She is didn’t know vat to do. I see piece in a witch!” paper saying that you solve crime that Meusel put on his spectacles to read fool policemen-” the note again: "Harchmond case?” asked young Keith. Dearest Ludwig— "So? Veil, I come hoping maybe you I am going away so that you and my darling children will always remember me as I now am. find my Mona.” I have but little longer to live, even though you Keith tapped the desk with long fin¬ will not believe this. And with each passing day, I must grow more ugly. gers. "You say you were frightened of You must not try to find me. In time you will your wife for three weeks, and you want learn what has happened. Try not to judge me too harshly. You made me very happy before her back?” this terrible thing happened, and I love you, Meusel’s round face grew damp. "Ach, Ludwig. That is why I cannot make my suffering yours. I didn’t know vat I vant! Eff Mona, she I have taken some of my money. The rest you don’t return, I go to jail-house, no? Eff must keep for our children. Mona. she return, I live in fear of I don’t know vat!” "Ugly!” Meusel shuddered. "Ugly as Keith rose. "Meusel, I advise you to a witch! She is telling me that she is be¬ report your wife’s disappearance to the coming servant of evil one, yet, my beau¬ Missing Persons Bureau. That clears you. tiful Mona! Ach! That is what she mean But it won’t bring back your wife. It by terrible thing which happen to her!” would be better if you’d forget her.” 278 WEIRD TALES

"So?” Meusel snorted. "You vill not the statement of Rex Kindall’s gardener that he had heard a cry about nine-forty-five and had try to find her, no?” seen a yellow-haired, scantily clothed "blue "On the contrary,” said Keith, "I’ll woman” hurrying through the woods. He main¬ tains that the mystery woman’s color was not bend every effort to finding her. But the blueness of cold, possible in one flimsily clad, things won’t ever be the same again for but had a blue quality which he could see despite the darkness. Because of his improbable story, you, Meusel. You had better make up Todd Haskall, the gardener, is being held for your mind to that.” further questioning.

The wood-carver went out shaking his Ken Keith had kept the clipping be¬ head. When the outside door had closed, cause he worked on the theory that every Keith punched a button on his desk. Miss crime repeats itself. Miss Tibbs had filed Tibbs entered primly. Her severe mouth thousands of clippings he had given her settled in a disapproving line as she for similar reasons. watched him slip an automatic into a The story Ludwig Meusel had told holster under his arm. him, and the clipping on his desk, were He glanced up. "Miss Tibbs, among totally without parallel. That it was the the clippings I asked you to file this same woman, Keith did not doubt. Todd morning was one on a blue woman at Haskall had everything to lose and noth¬ Lake Placid. Please bring it to me.” ing to gain by sticking to his story of the "Quite ridiculous, I must say! Anyone “blue woman.” And Meusel was too knows that no woman-” unimaginative a man to have invented his "Is blue,” finished Keith. "But this story. woman, as it happens, appears to radiate No! there must be a "blue woman,” a blue light by dark.” and that woman must be Mona Meusel. "Fiddlesticks!” snapped Miss Tibbs. She had worked for the Kindall Watch "One other thing,” said Keith. “Re¬ Company . . . and now one of the broth¬ serve a seat on the chair-car on the ers, Justin Kindall, had died from a knife- N. Y. C.” thrust. Strong connection—but no mo¬ "You have an appointment with Mr. tives! And why should a woman posses¬ Fordley in fifteen minutes,” she said re¬ sing thirty thousand dollars suddenly provingly. disappear, only to reappear under dam¬ "Money!” Keith snapped his fingers. ning circumstances? Meusel had been “This is a test of skill, Miss Tibbs. The extremely vague about the nature of her thrill of the chase. Can’t you under¬ "accident” at the factory. stand that?” And why did she emit a blue radiance? Miss Tibbs’ mouth pursed primly. "I The case whispered of black magic; of don’t know what you’re talking about.” unexplainable, sinister things Ken Keith “I believe you, Miss Tibbs. Now will had witnessed in Haiti—and never under¬ you get that clipping?” stood; of voodoo and vampirism. And Miss Tibbs stiffly departed, returning yet it had individual aspects which made in two minutes with a clipping over a it in Keith’s experience a case without Lake Placid date-line. It ran: parallel. Justin Kindall, son of the famous watch manu¬ Thoughtfully he picked up the bag facturer, the late Hugo Kindall, was found sup¬ which always stood packed beside his posedly murdered on the densely wooded shore of Lake Stevens at ten o’clock last night by his desk, and strode purposefully out. Miss brother, Rex Kindall, near whose summer cabin Tibbs was signing for a telegram. Keith the corpse was discovered. Evidence pointing to murder with a knife was further complicated by tore it open. It read: THE BLUE WOMAN 279

Sheriff botching matters—Read paper for story we die. The provision of the trust is that Of brother’s murder—Believe Has bill innocent— none of us may sell our shares; but in the Could you come immediately? Cobb Kindall. event of a death of the original sons, their share may pass to male heirs, but only to Keith tossed the telegram to his sec¬ the extent their father would have bene¬ retary. "Wire Kindall at Lake Placid that fited. I’m the only one whom that clause I’m on my way.” And he was gone. would benefit, for my brothers and my sister have not married. But you see the COBB KINDALL met Keith at the sta¬ point, Keith. Justin’s death gives each tion. A quietly dressed, ruddy- of us now a quarter of the income from cheeked man with a trim gray mustache, the trust, instead of a fifth as was the he appeared ill at ease as he escorted the case while he was alive. Each of us, you lanky, red-headed detective to his limou¬ might say, stood to gain by his death.” sine. When the limousine was flying to¬ "Am I to believe that you suspect one ward the town, he turned. of your brothers or your sister?” "Ghastly business, this, Keith! You “Emphatically not! I can believe noth¬ read the accounts?” ing of the sort!” The detective nodded. “You would prefer to believe that that "Of course this blue woman—sensa¬ blue woman-” tional newspaper stuff! I’ve talked to "What rot, Keith! If Haskall were a Haskall; told him to soft-pedal that wild drinking man-” Kindall shook his tale. But he won’t budge—stubborn old well-shaped head. "He must have seen fellow, Haskall. Been with the family a woman. But if she were blue, as he so for years—devoted to Justin. He couldn’t preposterously insists, how could he tell have done it. That’s why you’re here.” what color she was in the darkness?” "Sorry,” said Keith. “I don’t work Keith smiled grimly, remembering that way. If you want me to find who Meusel’s words. killed your brother—that’s different.” "Am I to understand that the five Kin- Kindall gave him a sharp glance; then dalls were staying at Rex Kindall’s sum¬ shrugged. "A nice distinction. Very well; mer lodge?” that’s what I do want. It will clear Has¬ “No; at mine. Rex’s lodge is across a kall, I’m sure.” small arm of the lake from mine. We "And may,” Keith suggested, "involve were having a reunion—business and someone else.” pleasure. Justin went over to see Rex “You mean Rex?” His voice was terse. last night, trying to patch up a trifling Then his eyes shadowed. '‘Yes, it may quarrel over a disagreement in company involve any of us. Even I may be the policy.” murderer, Keith. But you must find him. "Rex,” said Keith, "is in the habit of You see, none of us is safe until he is disagreeing with the others?” found.” "He’s touchy. No; don’t form any pre¬ "Some partnership agreement?” conceived notions about Rex! He built "My father’s will,” said Kindall. "The his own lodge to be away from us; but watch company he built up was left in he’s one of us.” trust. My brothers, Justin, Rex, and Keith was touched by Cobb Kindall’s Robin, and my only sister, Sarah, each loyalty. Rare, that quality! He might be owns an equal portion—or receives an ^ruthless in running down the murderer equal share of the earnings, rather—until of his brother. But until that one were 280 WEIRD TALES

proved guilty, it would remain one for all dankness of a tomb. Ahead, however, and all for one. was a faint radiance which grew brighter Keith thought again of the blue as he neared the opposite wall. He could woman, wondering where she came into feel Kindall’s hand trembling on his arm. the picture. Motives! He could see no Kindall stopped, and coughed—a motive for her; plenty for each of the quick, nervous cough. The charnel scent Kindalls. Why had she been paid was so strong that Keith’s flesh seemed $30,000? For an "accident,” as Meusel to crawl. His eyes becoming adjusted to thought? Or was that merely wool over the darkness, Keith realized with a start Meusel’s eyes to hide the real reason? that the radiance was some phosphor¬ Had a secret love affair existed between escent substance on the forehead of the Mona Meusel and Justin Kindall, dating corpse. The glow seemed to make the bade to her chorus-girl days? Was the glassy eyes of the dead man glitter. money blackmail? Why, then, had she Strange in this dark room! The detec¬ killed him? Surely after living a circum¬ tive’s poise was shaken. spect life for eight years, an affair of the He thought of obscene symbols painted past could not come up to plague her. on the forehead in India. Of voodoo Blackmail—an idea! marks. The very simple explanation of "Suppose,” Keith said slowly, "that the symbol escaped him because he could Todd Haskall had come upon you in the not avoid trying to find a connection be¬ act of killing Justin, Mr. Kindall. Would tween it and the apparent occult powers he have revealed the murderer?” exemplified by the blue woman. "Heavens, man!” Cobb Kindall cried "Curious thing!” Kindall’s strangely hoarsely. "Don’t you suppose I’ve con¬ hoarse voice made him start. "Figure one sidered that angle? The possibility that —done with some radio-active paint.” Rex-” His jaw hardened. "No, it’s "Of course!” Keith’s voice was that woman! It must be her!” strained. "I was looking for something "Some woman in Justin’s past, per¬ difficult. Naturally you’ve noticed the de¬ haps?” sign of that figure one.” Kindall smiled bleakly. "He had a "My God, man! Could I avoid doing period of sowing wild oats.” that? It’s the same shape as the figure "I see. And Rex?” one painted on the Kindall See-at-Nite "Not Rex! He’s a confirmed woman- clocks. Must be radium paint, too.” hater! . . . Well, here we are. Mortuary. "Done,” said Keith, thinking of Mona Nothing significant in Justin’s wound, I Meusel, "by someone who has worked in think.” your plant. Peculiar shape, that one. Practise would be needed to imitate it.” An obsequious attendant ushered "But what does it mean?” t them into a basement room. As he "There are twelve figures on a dock,” reached for the light switch, Kindall said said Keith dryly, "and only four Kindalls huskily: remaining.” "No lights yet, Tabor.” There was a long pause, during which Gripping Keith’s arm, he piloted him the silence hung heavy. through the darkened room. "Six,” said Kindall grimly. "My two There was a charnel scent in the air boys. Seven, if you count my wife, who which caused cold shivers to crawl down could never be an heir to the trust.” Keith’s back. The room had the cold "Seven, then,” said Keith. "You are THE BLUE WOMAN 281 faced by something that your reason re¬ They climbed into the sea-sled, and jects as impossible, Kindail. A blue Curry tinkered with the engine. A few woman! And yet I have talked with the minutes later, it was laying the black husband of that blue woman no later waters back in two white folds as it rose than this morning! Have you ever heard on the glistening surface. The sun was of a certain Mona Meusel?” setting, and there was a chill in the air. "Can’t say I have. But, Keith, a blue "One thing I forgot to tell you,” Kin¬ woman! Preposterous!’’ dail shouted, trying to raise his voice "Preposterous—but true! She is not, above the roar of powerful cylinders however, really blue. Haskall simply de¬ firing in rotation. "The Countess Eritha scribed his impression. The woman does Koeler is staying with us. German give forth blue emanations, at least at countess, in her own right. Lovely night.” woman!” "Like the emanations from the figure Keith nodded. one on Justin’s forehead?” "Of course she wanted to leave after "Not precisely, Kindail. We can this—this tragedy. But this sea-sled is scarcely suppose any woman could paint our only means of transportation, Rex’s her whole body with a radium paint.” speed-boat being temporarily out of com¬ ''"No,” Kindail agreed. "She would be mission. We had to take this boat into hideously burned.” town with the body. Couldn’t ask the "Exactly! So there must be another countess to accompany us on that trip! explanation.” And I haven’t been able to get back for Kindail called to the waiting attend¬ her. A million details!” ant: "Lights, Tabor.” It was a distinct shock to Keith when, rounding the next wooded point, he saw Except for the head, the body was a brilliantly lighted two-story log lodge covered with a sheet. This Keith through the trees. Lighted as if for a removed to make a brief examination. ball! The towering evergreens pressing There were three wounds, one of which close to the lodge, however, explained had pierced the heart. the lights. A gloomy, depressing place "The sheriff has the knife?” it must be, at best. And now, after the "It wasn’t found.” murder of one of the family! . . . "Suppose' we talk now with the sheriff Kindail was pointing at a log cabin and Haskall.” across a small neck of water about a From neither man, however, could quarter of a mile wide. "Rex’s place.” Keith glean any important information. Big trees overshadowed it, making it They departed in the limousine for the dwindle into the lengthening curtains of boat landing on Lake Stevens, the wilder darkness. The place gave an impression of the two lakes touching the town of of being overgrown, neglected and deso¬ Lake Placid. As they walked down the late. Somewhere in the dripping under¬ hill to the landing with Curry, Kindall’s growth near the murk-shrouded cabin a capable driver, Keith glimpsed a lodge murder had been committed the night here and there through the trees border¬ before. A cry had shattered the awesome ing the lake. Save for these evidences of silence of those woods. Haskall had seen civilization, the gloom-shrouded lake a "blue woman”—or had he seen Rex might have been located anywhere in the Kindail killing his brother? And if Mona Canadian wilds. Meusel had murdered Justin, what could 282 WEIRD TALES have been her motive? Haskall claimed A dapper man just under middle age that the "blue woman” had yellow hair - rose languidly from a porch chair —and Mona Meusel’s was midnight as they ascended the steps. "Hi, Cobb,” black. An illusion of that startled he said breezily. moment—or a fabrication to protect Rex? Cobb frowned. The man wore wMte And how could any fabrication of Todd flannels and a brown jacket coat. Haskall’s come so close to the amazing "My youngest brother, Robin,” he ex¬ facts presented by Ludwig Meusel? plained. "Mr. Keith.” A swarthy, heavy-set man with dark, "Glad to know you, Keith,” Robin glowering brows came down to the boat said, gripping the detective’s hand landing to meet them. "Is this any time heartily. "Family are all down on me. to be inviting guests, Cobb?” he de¬ Say I should be wearing black. Can’t see manded sullenly. it! Ugly color, blade. Depressing. Aren’t we depressed enough already? Need "My brother, Rex,” Cobb Kindall ex¬ something to give us a lift, eh?” plained. "This is Mr. Keith, a private "Dinner ready?” Cobb '-asked curtly. detective I called in, Rex.” “Fifteen minutes. Just time to wash "Your pretty countess has been pacing up, Keith. Glad you’re here.” the floor all day,” Rex said, ignoring the Robin showed the red-headed detec¬ introduction. "If you must invite people tive upstairs to a front room overlooking here, why can’t you remember them?” the dark, shimmering lake. "Justin’s "I’ll see that she is taken to Lake room,” he explained. "Family will howl, Placid the first thing in the morning. But but you’ll have to make the best of it. No I’m not going to ask Curry to make an¬ other suitable for a guest. Countess other trip today.” Eritha here, you know. We seldom all "A private detective!” Rex snorted. descend on Cobb en masse. When we do, "What next, Cobb? Haven’t we enough it pinches.” trouble here already?” Keith had scarcely washed when there Cobb calmly turned to Curry. “We’ll was a light knock on his door. Opening be leaving for town about nine.” it, he saw a frail woman. Peculiar-look¬ “The sheriff was poking around here,” ing, she was, and yet somehow hauntingly Rex went on heatedly. "Of course he lovely. Her hair was done in red-gold didn’t have a big enough boat to trans¬ coils about her head; her skin was dead- port the countess’ luggage. You’d think white, her blue eyes haggard. she was coming for a summer.” "I heard about you from Cobb,” she "Mr. Keith,” Cobb said evenly, "has said breathlessly. "I—I’m the Countess a theory about that blue woman.” Eritha Koeler.” "Paugh!” Rex grunted. "Blue wom¬ Keith nodded. an!” She glanced uneasily up and down the He stalked down to the landing, vacant hall. climbed into a small row-boat, and rowed "I—I’m terrified here,” she faltered. toward his cabin, Ms bull-like neck set "I didn’t know, until I came here, what at a stiff angle. strange people the Kindalls are. Except "Rex and Justin were very close,” Cobb Kindall. And this lodge! I have Cobb said, as they walked up the stone the feeling every minute that something flagging. "Naturally he’s cut pretty —something terrible is about to happen.” deeply by what’s happened.” Keith waited, saying nothing. THE BLUE WOMAN 283

"I—I wonder if—if you would take A small, rustic garden it was, taking me to town tonight. I can’t bear to stay advantage of standing trees and a run¬ under this roof another night. They are ning spring. For a long time the two all such—such odd people, ja?” men walked and smoked in silence. Then, Keith pitied her. She looked so frail abruptly, Cobb Kindall remarked: and shaken. But he shook his red head. "Wonder Sarah doesn’t kill Robin "I’m sorry,” he said. "But how could sometime. Always flippant. Sarah has no I take you? I could not operate the boat. sense of humor.” And I understand you have a lot of lug¬ "All you Kindalls are different,” Keith gage” said. "Was your brother Justin like any "fa!” She seemed to wilt. "In the of you?” morning, then, I will leave. It is uncom¬ "Like Robin, a little. Better sense of fortable to be a guest when such a thing the fitness of things, though.” have happened, nein?” "He irritated your sister as much as Robin?” Keith asked casually. When Keith entered the dining¬ Cobb gave him a sidelong glance. room, he saw at the head of the "Sometimes more. She excuses Robin. table a spinster with badly dyed yellow Youngest brother.” Then he added hair. Neither the hair dye nor the heavy quickly: "Never meant anything, how¬ application of cosmetics could hide the ever. Sarah and Justin just never hit hardness of the woman’s eyes and face, it off.” nor the lines etched there by time. Keith "Little I can do tonight,” Keith said. knew even before the introduction that "Think I’ll turn in. Tomorrow I’ll go this must be the sister, Sarah Kindall. over to your brother’s.” She acknowledged the introduction "Yes. Rex will be in better humor with a curt nod. When Keith was seated, tomorrow.” the family began with their fruit cocktails. "With your permission, I’ll go over The uncomfortable silence was broken some letters that are on Justin’s desk. only occasionally when Robin addressed Just possible—feminine handwriting, you some flippant remark to the countess. know.” Finally, the meal finished, and ciga¬ "Go ahead, Keith. I’m putting every¬ rettes lighted, Robin grinned at his sister. thing in your hands.” "Lucky the sheriff didn’t take you into custody, Sarah.” When they entered the sumptuous Her eyes narrowed behind the smoke lodge, it was ablaze with lights. from her cigarette, grew hard. Robin stood gazing into the fire, a ciga¬ "Explain yourself, Robin.” rette in one hand. He shrugged. "Blue woman—yellow Cobb said: "Robin, you’d think there hair. Sort of fits you, Sarah.” was a celebration!” She crushed out her cigarette, almost Robin smiled—a whimsical smile. savagely. "Your humor,” she said idly, "Wouldn’t you? Fraulein Koeler’s idea. "is in poor form, Robin.” Says she hates darkness. Not a bad idea. “As always,” he said cheerfully, wink¬ I shoved up the voltage. Sort of human, ing at Keith. the countess.” "Come, Keith,” Cobb Kindall said Cobb’s face relaxed. "She’s retired?” hastily to the detective. "We’ll have our Robin nodded. "Just.” cigars in the garden.” Keith went upstairs, leaving the two 284 WEIRD TALES brothers to talk. For nearly an hour he it was not sufficiently so. He saw the read Justin’s letters. Nothing pertinent yellow head turn quickly. Then the in the lot. Keith sighed, dropped onto ghostly figure dashed into the woods. his bed to think for some minutes, and Keith bolted. He heard the crackling then retired. of underbrush ahead, and came up short A light sleeper, he was awakened by in a blind alley of intertwined vines and a faint splashing sound. He automatically brush. He veered off toward the lake, glanced at his watch. Two-five. Hearing found a trail skirting the shore, and the sound again, Keith jumped out of plunged along it. He could no longer bed. hear the crackling. From the window he could see nothing He paused, his heart pounding. No for a moment. Stars above, but no moon. sound! Then, far off, the hoot of an owl The opposite shore was drenched in caused a sudden chill to dart down his blackness. The lake, a dark, glistening spine. mirror. A mirror broken in one point The detective started ahead. Coming by a ripple of bluish light! Keith tensed. to the point where he had seen the blue Yellow hair streamed on the water. Slim woman emerge from the water, he white arms rose and sliced the water. plowed through the brush. Striking a Keith’s pulses pounded. A faint bluish match, he searched for footprints. There radiance seemed to form an aura around were none! A moss-covered log jutted the swimmer. The rising and diving arms out into the water; slight, damp depres¬ were a pale, luminous blue. The blue sions in the moss showed where the woman! swimmer had walked. But he could not Her face he could not see in the dark¬ tell the size of the swimmer’s foot. The ness, nor from that distance. She was match burned Keith’s fingers, and he swimming toward this shore. Returning dropped it. from Rex’s cabin? She would strike shore It occurred to him that this blue a quarter of a mile from the house. Her woman might not be Mona Meusel at all. nude body gleamed with a ghostly radi¬ Possible there were two such women in ance as the swimmer stroked swiftly to¬ the world? Not knowing what caused ward shore. that luminous blueness, it was hard even That yellow hair! Keith thought of to guess. Certain, however, that the Sarah Kindall. She was strong, lean and swimmer’s hair was similar to Sarah Kin- hard. Capable, he guessed, of a long dall’s. swim, a long hike, a long ride. But— Returning to the trail, he moved along capable of murder? He remembered her slowly, striking matches and looking for eyes as she had looked at Robin through a chance footprint. her cigarette smoke. Hard eyes! Keith slipped hurriedly into his Suddenly a branch cracked far behind dothes, and dashed down the stairs. From him—a sound like the crack of a gun in the front porch, he saw the swimmer rise the stillness. Keith whirled, and raced out of the water and wade leisurely to¬ down the trail. Another branch cracked, ward shore. That luminous quality about and another. But the runner must be far her made her unreal—an apparition. ahead of him. Keith was not to be deceived. He flew Arriving at the garden, Keith circled down the steps. Silent as was his flight, the house. But the sounds had ceased, THE BLUE WOMAN 285 and nowhere could he find any trace of figure blurred. A frightened light en¬ the swimmer. tered her blue eyes. "Phosphorescent or radium paint?” she Abruptly a shrill cry set Keith’s asked. - nerves quivering. He rounded the Keith shook his head. "Not this time!” house at a run, and darted up the stairs, "But—but,” the frail woman faltered, two at a time. A light was switched on, "what does it mean? I heard someone and Keith saw Robin at the switch. say that—that there was a figure one on "Beastly habit of yours, Keith. Scream¬ Justin Kindall’s forehead. Now a figure ing at night!” three!” Keith felt certain Robin would joke "Perhaps,” Keith said, striding over to on his own death-bed; but he was in no Sarah, "Miss Kindall can explain.” mood for humor. His lean face grim, "I?” she asked. "Just what do you he scanned the faces of the people who mean, young man?” stood in shaken silence in the hall. Cobb, Keith touched her hair. She drew away Robin, Sarah Kindall! And then Keith’s haughtily. jaw hardened. Sarah’s hair lay in damp, "Your hair,” he said, "is damp.” yellow tendrils on her purple dressing- She eyed him coldly. "Is it any of your gown. Damp! business when I wash my hair?” That could wait! The Countess Eritha! "When did you wash it?” She opened the door at that moment, "An hour ago, perhaps. I read late. her eyes wide with horror. I’m a poor sleeper.” "Oh!” she cried tremulously. "I knew "So I observed. And a good swim¬ I shouldn’t spend another night in this mer?” house!” "Sarah’s an excellent swimmer,” Cobb Keith observed that there was a pe¬ said. "But what’s the meaning of this in¬ culiar symbol on her forehead. A figure quisition, Keith?” three! Keith turned. "Just this. I saw a "What made you scream?” he asked. yellow-haired woman swimming across "I—I don’t know, exactly. Perhaps the bay. I dashed out, but she slipped I dreamed it. But I thought something away in the bushes. Now the Countess damp touched my forehead. I screamed. Eritha is awakened by someone entering A ghostly blue figure vanished through her room—awakened perhaps in time to the window. Ach! Is this house avoid being killed. And there is a num¬ haunted?” ber three on her forehead. Where is the Keith slipped past the countess, and number two? Rex Kindall is unac¬ darted to the window. A roof three feet counted for!” below the window connected all the sec¬ Cobb stared at Sarah incredulously. ond-story windows of the lodge. He "Sarah,” he said grimly. "If-” struck a match. Sure enough! A wet She turned on him coldly. "It’s a lie! mark! I have been in my room since nine! If He returned to the hall. "Did you you don’t order this impertinent know,” he asked the countess, "that there young-” is a figure three on your forehead?” "Sarah!” Cobb said curtly. "This is Her mouth parted, and she put a not a matter of form. Did you or did startled hand on her forehead. The damp you not-” 286 WEIRD TALES

An arctic coldness in her narrowed A dread had settled over his heart, and eyes, Sarah stared at her brother con¬ it twisted sharply as Cobb called shakily, temptuously. "I’m not in the habit of "Rex! Oh, Rex!” He felt a surge of having my statements questioned.” sympathy for the older man as the cries "I have no authority here,” Keith said, echoed across the lake, and died away. “except the authority of any citizen to The front door of the cabin was open. restrain a law-breaker. But with your Keith’s lean jaw hardened as he followed consent, Mr. Kindall, I suggest that your Cobb inside. By the flickering light of a sister’s windows be nailed, and her door match held in Cobb’s shaking hand, the locked—from the outside. I further sug¬ interior looked bare and unkempt. gest that someone stand guard at that Cobb hurried on, calling his brother’s door while you and I row over to your name. A small hall led back from the brother’s cabin. The significance of a living-room. At the first door Cobb number three on the Countess Eritha’s paused, and struck a match. Suddenly it forehead worries me.” fell from his nerveless fingers. He ut¬ Sarah’s body shook with anger. "Cobb, tered a choked sound. He gripped the if you permit this insolent fool to lock me door-frame. up like a common hoodlum-” Keith hurried up, seizing Cobb’s arm. Cobb said icily: "Enough of that, "I’m all right,” he said dully. Sarah! If you’re innocent, you can surely On a bed lay a supine figure. By the have no objections. And I’m sure you faint starlight coming through the open are.” window, he observed a knife rising from "Then why-” she began stormily, the man’s chest like a lean tombstone. only to be interrupted by Cobb’s demand On a stand by the bed was a jar contain¬ that Robin awaken Curry and find a ham¬ ing some gleaming substance—radium mer and nails. paint, perhaps. Sarah stalked into her room, her eyes And on the forehead of the dead man wrathful. Nor did she speak while her was a gleaming figure two! window was being nailed. The door was eith lay in bed a short time later, locked from the outside and Robin placed K on guard. his head throbbing with the prob¬ lems confronting him. Curry guarded the Keith bent to the oars as soon as Cobb door of Sarah’s room, and silence had Kindall was seated in the stem of once more descended on the house. the boat. Cobb’s face had lost some of His case against Sarah Kindall was its ruddiness; the scene with his sister fragile; it would not stand up in any had evidently unnerved him. His only court. Yellow hair—nothing more. sister, under the cloud of being a sus¬ Damp yellow hair! For a time after his pected murderess! return, he had worked on the lethal knife He said nothing as the oars clicked in with a white powder—and found no their locks, only leaned forward with a prints. The jar containing the radium strained expression in his eyes. paint was similarly wiped to remove When the boat drew up alongside the finger prints. Or, perhaps, the murderer narrow landing, he leapt out, and with¬ or murderess had used gloves which had out waiting to moor the boat, strode later been dropped into the lake. swiftly toward the cabin. Keith tied up Motives—he had plenty of those! the boat, and followed at a run. Sarah Kindall was apparently at cross- THE BLUE WOMAN 287 purposes with each of her brothers. She dazed impression that a blue skeleton stood to gain tremendously by an in¬ glowed beside his bed; that the bones of creased income from the trust holding the woman’s body were shadows like the her father’s watch company. Possible, bones of a person’s body under a fluoro- too, that she felt them somehow to blame scope. for not in some way helping her to find That fleeting impression of a glowing a marriage partner. Still, Keith wasn’t skeleton beside his bed robbed Keith of satisfied. power for immediate action. Too late, Sarah was strong and sinewy. She he heard something hissing downward. could have swum to Rex Kindall’s cabin A club, a "billy”—he did not know what. and back easily, even carrying the small But he tried to roll out from under that jar of radium paint and a knife. But by swiftly descending arc. Failed! The what means could she have made her heavens seemed to explode before his body take on a luminous blue quality? eyes, and Keith felt himself falling—fall¬ He had not seen her except in a lighted ing—falling, through a star-powdered room. sky. . . . Then he remembered Robin’s remark When his smarting eyes jerked open, about the countess. She wanted lights— he could see nothing for a few moments many lights! Why? For the reason Robin in that darkened room. His hands were suggested, or another? She had screamed, bound, his legs bound, and when he tried and declared that a blue woman had en¬ to roll, he found that sheets held him to tered her room. Was that attack merely a the bed, probably tied to the bed-posts. fabrication to throw attention from her¬ Tape across his lips made outcry impos¬ self? sible. But her hair was red-gold. That was And then he caught a luminous bright¬ not so significant, however, as the fact ness out of the corner of one eye, and that there was something peculiar-looking jerked his head to the side. Leaning over about her, a false note Keith couldn’t the table by his bed was the blue woman! place. Disguise always gave that effect, The room was dark, but in that glowing just as Sarah’s yellow hair made her look face he thought he could see haggard odd. And the countess didn’t like dark¬ eyes below an aura of short, black hair. ness! Mona Meusel? Keith reviewed the facts about Mona "I’m sorry you must die,” she said. Meusel which had been given him by her "But you cannot interfere with my plans. husband. And finally he fell asleep, There seems no other way.” promising himself that he would learn The pulse in Keith’s throat throbbed. the countess’ background on the morrow. The voice was mellow and deep. Not the He was awakened by a soft hand on accented voice of the countess! Not the his face—awakened with nerves taut and dry, rustling voice of Sarah Kindall! A quivering. In that brief instant of start disguised voice? He did not think so; it before he could fully orient himself to seemed altogether natural to the speaker. his surroundings, Keith saw a glowing A cultivated voice such as you might find blue figure. The woman was dressed in among the better actors. a gossamer nightgown. It seemed to him Actor! Mona Meusel was a chorus girl. that he could see through the gown, Perhaps she had played small bits now through the woman’s body. He had the and then. 288 WEIRD TALES

He heard the tinkle of glass as the His senses were ebbing—and there woman raised the glass stopper of a bot¬ was help not many feet away. But he tle. Nauseous fumes readied Keith’s nos¬ could expect no assistance! trils. A sickening chill swept over him. Keith reached out dazedly, put the Chlorine gas! So that’s what she was stopper on the bottle, and hurled it doing with the big bottle! Keith under¬ toward the window. Glass crashed. Fresh stood then what had kept her so long in air entered the room. For a moment, it the room. She had been stopping up door intoxicated Keith, and his head reeled. and window cracks. She would leave him Then he broke the bonds holding him with that deadly gas, to choke, gag, and to the bed, and swung his legs over. For finally die! a moment, he put his head down to clear She slipped silently to the window—a his senses, but the heavy, descending livid blue streak of light. Then she greenish-yellow gas was stronger near the stepped out on the roof, and silently floor. closed the window. Holding his breath to keep out the Keith’s head was already reeling. As fiery fumes, Keith untied his ankles, and the soft patter of her bare feet died away, staggered to the window. He gulped in he wrenched at the ropes the blue woman fresh air, but his lungs seemed to be afire. had made of his sheets. They held! He He threw up the other windows, then twisted his mouth, trying to break the ad¬ staggered drunkenly toward the door. hesion of the tape over it, and although Unlocking it, he pulled it open. he felt as if the skin were being torn off his lips, he could not break its hold. There were voices in Sarah Kindall’s His body became drenched as the gas room, and the door was open. The crept down into his lungs. Soft hands hall was flooded with lights. As Keith seemed to be choking off his breath. Des¬ staggered across the hall, the Countess perately, Keith wrenched at the bonds Eritha Koeler came running toward him, holding his ankles and wrists. her negligee drawn close about her. Her He felt ill, frightfully weak. Balls of blue eyes went wide. fire seemed to break before his pain-filled "Mr. Keith, what’s the matter?” eyes. But he could feel the flesh being He forced a twisted smile, and stum¬ seared on one wrist. The strip of linen bled toward the open door. Cobb Kindall was giving! came out, his face gray and drawn. Robin Keith jerked his doubled fists back and and Curry followed him, and even Rob¬ forth, trying to bridge his body an inch in’s blithe spirits seemed to have been or so by leaning his weight on his head crushed. and feet. Enough clearance to give freer "Dead!” Cobb said heavily. play to his hands. The strips were slip¬ "Your sister?” Keith asked incredu¬ ping. But he was working blindly now. lously. Waves of blackness swept over him. He Cobb nodded; then his eyes became jerked, wrenched and tore, like an animal bleak. caught in a trap. His wrists felt damp. "Keith!” he said sternly. "You heard Blood! And then the strips gave way! those shots! Why didn’t you come soon¬ Suddenly a shot shattered the silence. er? Whoever shot my sister from the He heard a scream. Another shot! Then roof outside must have escaped by now.” running steps; Curry’s excited voice. "On the contrary,” said Keith grimly. W. T.—1 THE BLUE WOMAN 289

"What do you mean?” Cobb asked. Mr. Kindall, and see if you can’t recall "I’d like to ask a few questions. I the name. Among those six girls-” have a theory. You make the See-at-Nite Cobb’s eyes shadowed. "Yes,” he in¬ docks in the Kindall factory, do you not, terrupted, "I believe that Mona Meusel Mr. Kindall?” was one of them, though that’s not my "Certainly,” said Cobb. end of the business. Robin, do you recall "The figures and hands of those docks the name?” are painted with radium paint so that “Mona Meusel was among the six,” they can be seen at night, are they not?” answered Robin. "Yes. We have a whole staff of girls "After receiving that money, Mona doing that work. Recently we had some Meusel felt that she was not yet suffi¬ unfortunate results in the factory due to ciently revenged. She was determined to insufficient knowledge of radium.” seek out every one of the Kindalls—and "That’s what I’m getting at,” Keith kill them. Perhaps in a company bulletin said grimly. "Those unfortunate results, sent her she learned that the heads of the I take it, occurred to the girls painting firm were holding a meeting up here at the figures and hands of your See-at-Nite Lake Stevens. She left $25,000 of the docks?” money with her husband for the care of Cobb nodded his gray head. "The her children. The other $5,000 she was girls 'pointed’ the brushes they used with devoting to vengeance. She bought a their mouths.” number of trunks, and a wardrobe. And "Thereby,” Keith said, "getting ra¬ in the trunks were also other things. dium poisoning.” Radium paint—chlorine gas—certain "Yes,” admitted Cobb Kindall. "Six weapons. cases were discovered less than four "She registered at one of the best ho¬ months ago. Since that time, there have tels as the Countess Eritha Koeler. Or¬ been strict orders against putting the dinarily it would be hard to play such a paint brush in the mouth, and all the part convincingly. Mona Meusel had cer¬ girls must wear a spedal type of glove tain natural advantages. She had doubt¬ when working with radium paint.” less learned from her husband, who had "Now, as I understand it,” Keith said, done wood carving for some of the no¬ "radium poisoning kills in a very short bility of Germany, their ways and man¬ time after it’s discovered. Six months, ners and dress. She was also a specialist perhaps?” in make-up, and knew how to act a part Cobb nodded. "It depends on how convincingly.” long and how often a girl has pointed The countess’ face was deathly pale. her brush with her mouth before the In a heavily accented voice she cried: poisoning shows itself.” "Mr. Kindall, will you stand for these "Did the Kindall Watch Company allegations?” make restitution for the damage those six He looked from the countess to Keith, women suffered—say, to the extent of and back again. $30,000?” Robin’s voice was harsh with criti¬ "Exactly that,” said Cobb. cism: "Keith, this is ridiculous. I have "I see. Now I asked you once before seen Mona Meusel. While there’s a cer¬ if you remembered a certain Mona Meu- tain resemblance, Mrs. Meusel had long, sel. You said you didn’t. Think again, black hair.” W. T.—2 290 WEIRD TALES

“And a fair skin,’’ said Keith. "Mr. The countess started to slide away. Kindall, just how and where did you Keith gripped her arm. meet the countess?” "A moment!” he said grimly. "We "At the Rochester House. The man¬ can settle this quite easily. Mr. Kindall, ager introduced her to us. Being fascinat¬ would you mind turning off the lights?” ed by her charm, we invited her to be "No!” the countess cried. "Don’t— our guest, and she readily accepted.” please don’t! I’m afraid of darkness. "I dare say,” Keith observed dryly. "It Don’t believe this man! He’s insane!” fitted her plans perfectly.” "Why are you afraid of darkness?” “But if Mona Meusel is the countess,” Keith asked. "Because your body can be Robin protested, "why was the countess seen glowing, then? . . . Another way of attacked?” proving what I say is to remove that wig "She was not attacked. The attack was which somehow doesn’t go with your faked!” face, Countess!” Keith snatched off the wig. Beneath The countess drew herself up, her eyes it was a shock of sheared black hair. The flashing. Her lips curved in a contemp¬ woman’s eyes went wide with terror. tuous smile. "You are being very droll, "Mrs. Meusel,” Keith said, "you be¬ Mr. Keith.” lieved your husband for a while when he Her manner and her tones almost con¬ told you you were not going to die. But vinced Keith of a mistake. But he con¬ that night when you saw your body glow¬ tinued doggedly: "I’m not familiar with ing in the darkness, you knew the truth. radium poisoning. But isn’t it conceiva¬ Brooding over your condition, you finally ble that it may make a person’s body glow decided to make someone pay for your bluely at night? That was the way Meu¬ suffering. You killed Justin, Rex and sel described the effects of the poisoning Sarah Kindall. Am I right?” on his wife. He said there was a lumi¬ "Yes,” she quavered; then, turning nous blue quality about her, and that she brimming eyes on Cobb, she said in a first observed it herself after she had choked voice: "Forgive me, Mr. Kin¬ turned out the light, and saw her own dall!” reflection in the mirror.” Suddenly her mood changed. She “But he never-” The countess whirled on Keith—a small storm of fury. caught herself. Her sharp nails raked his face, drawing Cobb Kindall nodded. "That might be blood. In the movement to protect his the effect.” eyes, his grip on her arm loosened. She "That is the effect,” said Robin. "I jerked away, flying down the hall. talked to the doctor. Several of the poi¬ "You’ll never-” she cried. soned women discovered their trouble in Her words were lost as the door that way.” slammed. Moving like a winged thing, "If you knew that,” Cobb snapped, Keith’s body struck the door just a split- "why in the world-” second after the lock clicked. "I never connected Haskall’s blue He heard a drawer open, slam closed. woman with radium poisoning,” said Then the silence was punctuated by a Robin. "How could I? It never occurred staccato crack. Something thumped heav¬ to me that one of the poisoned ily on the floor. .women-” Keith flung himself against the door. THE BLUE WOMAN 291

It crashed inward. He was too late—and breast, the luminous blue was broken in for that reason he felt a surge of relief. one spot by a widening splotch of crim¬ On the floor in the darkness was a son. small, crumpled figure in a disarranged Robin said softly, "She was too beauti¬ negligee. The figure gleamed with a faint ful to die.” bluish radiance. In one hand was still "And too dangerous to live,” said clutched a smoking gun. Below her left Keith.

ight Song

By HUNG LONG TOM

What is the song That the wind Plays -in the tall bamboo?

Oh, gentle lady, In the azure night It is playing My love for you.

Do you not hear The song I breathe into the air Bidding the moonbeams softly To caress your hair?

Am I alone in your thoughts Or are there others there?

Oh, lovely lady, If you love me true Let the wind Whisper your answer In the tall bamboo. Vhe (^arnival of Death By ARLTON EADIE

rA thrilling mystery story of the present day—an eery adventure with a Golden Mummy, and strange death that walked at night

1. The Golden Mummy savagely on the bell-push. "If he starts any killing business he will find it’s a ORD MOUNTHEAD, the million- I game that two can play at!” aire newspaper magnate, lay back In spite of the vehemence with which in his chair and stared fixedly at his lordship voiced this threat, the unex¬ the sheet of paper on the desk before pected and almost noiseless entrance of him. His portly figure was rigid and his private secretary caused him to swing motionless. His clean-shaven lips were round with a nervous start. set in a grim, straight line, and in his narrowed eyes was a look akin to fear. Edwin Lorimer was a youngish man, The room in which he sat, the library slight and rather good-looking. His sleek, of Mounthead Chase, was a thing to glad¬ black hair was brushed straight back den the heart and delight the eyes of any from his pale forehead; a tiny mustache, connoisseur of antiques. On every side close-clipped until it resembled a thin, were priceless tapestries, richly wrought dark line, adorned his upper lip. armor, painted canvases in whose shad¬ "Your lordship rang for me?” owy depths the fire of long-dead genius "I did.” Mounthead tossed the letter still seemed to glow. Yet at that moment across the desk. "What do you make of the owner of all this luxury and mag¬ this rigmarole?” nificence was unheedful of the beauty Lorimer’s thin lips curved in a slight around him. His every thought and emo¬ smile as he slowly read it through. tion were centered on the letter that he “I should say that it was nothing more had just opened: than a practical joke,” he declared with a shrug. Return the golden mummy to the land of "I wish I could think the same,” his Khem, or you’ll die quickly. employer returned grimly. "But I’m cer¬ Below the printed words, by way of a tain that the writer of that letter had signature, was a neatly drawn Ancient something more in his head than a mere Egyptian hieroglyph representing a hu¬ desire to be funny. And I’m equally cer¬ man figure with the head of a jackal. tain that he has more than a smattering A sudden frown creased Lord Mount- of knowledge about Ancient Egypt. No¬ head’s forehead, and a gleam of fury tice the expression, 'the Land of Khem’ shone in his brooding eyes. —that, of course, is the old name for the "It’s blackmail!” he muttered thickly. Valley of the Nile. Moreover, I think I "By heaven! this fellow, whoever he may can detea indications that the figure of be, will find he’s taken on more than he Anubis, the jackal-headed god, which has can manage if he tries to put this melo¬ been used as a kind of signature, has been dramatic black-hand stuff across me!” He drawn with a papyrus-reed pen, such as reached over and jabbed his forefinger the ancients used. The draftsmanship is 292 THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 293

“She felt an icy hand on her shoulder.”

perfect. It has been very carefully traced mail, a preoccupied frown on his face. from a genuine original, or else-” Tossing the last one aside, he again took "Yes, your lordship?” up the cryptic message and stared at it. "Or else the cult of the Death-god is As a public man it was no unusual not so extinct as most people imagine!” thing for him to receive abusive and oc¬ Edwin Lorimer started and looked at casionally threatening letters from anony¬ the old man keenly. Then he dropped his mous writers. Should he ring up the eyes and abruptly changed the topic by police and inform them of the threat? asking an unimportant question about one For an instant his hand hovered hesitat¬ of the other letters, shortly afterward ing over the telephone. Then he turned quitting the room. away with a slight shrug and, after lock¬ Left alone, Lord Mounthead quickly ing the letter and envelope carefully away glanced through the rest of the morning in the wall safe, ordered the car to be 294 WEIRD TALES brought round, and a few minutes later the world than Lord Mounthead himself was being rapidly driven to his dty office. when he realized that the hawk-eyed na¬ Although the letter was out of sight, tive officials had allowed such a prize to it was far from being out of mind. Try slip through their fingers as the Golden as he might he could not banish the Mummy, now the gem of his collection. memory of the mysterious warning. The The find had come after a long period vision of the hideous, jackal-headed God of disheartening failure. Throughout the of Death would keep floating before the Egyptian winter they had toiled, sinking pages on which he sought to fix his atten¬ shaft after shaft in the sun-baked soil, tion. Time and again he found his exploring the chambers and galleries thoughts wandering from the business in hewn, countless ages ago, in the depths hand as he recalled the strange chain of of the Biban-el-Moluk, the towering circumstances which had resulted in the mountain which forms one rampart of Golden Mummy coming into his posses¬ the valley which was the last sleeping- sion. place of Egypt's illustrious dead. It had been by the merest chance that he man who goes excavating in T Wilmer Denton, the young American Egypt nowadays must be an enthusi¬ Egyptologist whom Lord Mounthead had ast indeed, for as matters now stand he engaged to assist him in the work, had has but a slender chance of obtaining any stumbled on the entrance to the huge monetary return for his expenditure of underground temple. Unprovided with capital and energy. The time is past when tools as he had been, he had enlarged the a lucky stroke of his pickax will render hole and peered through one of the shafts him rich for life. The Egyptian Govern¬ which had been constructed for the pur¬ ment, at last alive to the value of the pose of ventilation. For his find was no antiquities which were being carried off mere burial chamber, but a properly wholesale to enrich the galleries of every equipped temple intended to be used as European capital, have forbidden their a place of worship. The find was unique export except by official sanction. in the annals of Egyptian research, and When, a little over a year ago, Lord as a reward the Government allowed Mounthead began to explore the ancient Lord Mounthead to retain the smallest tombs in the Valley of the Kings, he was of the twelve mummy-cases which lay obliged to give very substantial guaran¬ within the temple. tees that all relics discovered would be The case had been handed over to him delivered up to the authorities. At the with the seals unbroken. Imagine, then, end of every season he was to submit to his surprize and delight when he opened the Service des Antiquites an exhaustive it and found it contained the mummy of report on his work, enumerating every a former high priest of Anubis, together find, so that the Government could retain with the full regalia of solid gold that such antiquities as they might require for had been used in the worship of the god. the Cairo Museum, letting the finder keep That had been over a year ago, and what they rejected. now came this dread warning. It will be readily understood that the chances of a foreigner carrying away a After lunch Lord Mounthead gave up valuable and unique antique were very . all pretense of working and rang up small indeed under this system; therefore Wilmer Denton at his house at Lee. there was not a more surprized man in “Are you open for another engage- THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 295 ment?” he asked as soon as he heard the And I wonder if her adorable step- young American’s voice at the other end. mammy has forgotten what happened in "Sure,” came the ready answer. "Are the conservatory?” you thinking of sending another expedi¬ When he quitted the house that eve¬ tion to Egypt?” ning in his little coupe, Wilmer was look¬ There was an appreciable pause. ing forward to a somewhat exciting time, but the actual events of that night were "Well, not exactly,” said Mounthead destined to outdo his wildest dreams. at length. "I was thinking of asking you to take up a line of inquiry in this coun¬ 2. Kareef Makes a Threat try—a purely theoretical investigation, of “T cannot help feeling a little anxious course. I can’t go into details over the A about your father, Celia. He has line. Will you come to dinner at Mount- been looking terribly worried ever since head Chase tonight? We can talk over this morning. Do you think he has re¬ the matter then. You’ll be there? Good!” ceived bad news about his speculations?’" He was about to hang up the receiver The young girl to whom these ques¬ when a sudden thought seemed to strike tions were addressed shrugged slightly him. and a slight but rather bitter smile curved "Hullo! Hold on a moment, Denton. Do you happen to have such a thing as her full red lips. a revolver handy just now?” Celia Mounthead could well under¬ The sound of a slight chuckle came stand the anxiety with which her step¬ over the ’phone. mother asked the last question. Right "Well, I don’t carry a gun around in from the moment of their first meeting, this highly civilized city, but I guess I the young motherless girl had read the could lay my hand on one.” real character of her father’s second wife. "Bring it along with you tonight,” Well enough she had sensed that wealth Mounthead ordered curtly. and title had been the inducements that "That sounds like business!” was Wil- had led the beautiful and talented actress, mer Denton’s comment. "What’s in the Thelma Delorme, to marry an old man of wind, anyway?” nearly double her age. "Kareef—unless I’m much mistaken.” Clever as she was, Thelma was apt to He had time to hear the other’s whistle fall into the not uncommon error of esti¬ of surprize before he rang off. mating other people’s actions by her own "I guess his lordship’s something of an standards. Money and pleasure were the unconscious humorist," Wilmer Denton only things which she permitted to dis¬ grinned as he began to overhaul the turb her sheltered and artificial existence. mechanism of a very serviceable auto¬ Lord Mounthead was worried; therefore matic. "If you want a gun in the back he must have been let down badly on one of your pants in order to do a bit of the¬ of his numerous investments. Such was oretical investigation, I wonder what your her line of reasoning. That there might outfit should be when you have a real job possibly be other, grimmer problems of work on hand? But it sounds like busi¬ overshadowing her husband’s life never ness, anyway,” he mused as he plied the for a moment entered her head. oil-can and cleaning-rod. "I wonder if She repeated her former question, add¬ I shall have the pleasure of renewing my ing: "I’m sure he must have had a big acquaintance with the Honorable Celia? loss.” 296 WEIRD TALES

"Maybe,” Celia laughed lightly. Celia’s white teeth showed in a hearty "Hadn’t you better ask him, as you seem laugh. so anxious? I’m sure it doesn’t worry "Better not let his lordship hear you me,” she went on, turning and looking say so!” she cried in mock dismay. "That the other woman full in the face. "After mummy is covered from head to foot all, we are not so poor that a few thou¬ with plates of solid gold. And I heard sands one way or the other will make Wilmer say once that there might be much difference. Why, I’ve heard that other jewels inside—sometimes there are, Daddy spent a small fortune on his you know-” Egyptian researches—far more than the "Indeed?” There was a curious hard¬ actual value of the Golden Mummy, ening of the lines about Thelma’s mouth great as that is.” as she said the word. A moment later Thelma’s finely arched brows drew she turned the matter off with a laughing down in a sudden frown as she turned shrug. "But there! I fear the subject of away, biting her lips. There were not Egyptian mummies, jeweled or plain, is a very many years’ difference in the ages of little too musty for my taste.” Celia and her stepmother, and, owing to Her stepdaughter was regarding her the artificial aids to beauty affected by the with mischievous eyes. latter, such difference as did exist was by “That’s because you don’t know how no means apparent in the softly shaded romantic and thrilling they really /are,” glow of the lights. A stranger might Celia bantered. "I must ask Wilmer to have taken them to be sisters. tell you the story of what happened when That Thelma was beautiful Celia did he discovered the mummy.” not for a moment deny. Yet, strangely Thelma Mounthead rose to her feet enough, the general effect of her appear¬ with an abrupt movement. ance was far from pleasing. Why this “If by ’Wilmer’ you mean that vulgar should be is difficult to explain, for the American, Wilmer Denton, then I have most captious critic could not have found no desire to be enlightened on the sub¬ fault with any detail of her appearance. ject,” she said with icy insolence. Paradoxical as it may seem, it was the A quick flush came into the cheeks of very perfection of her face and form that the younger girl and her usually serene marred her attractiveness. Although her eyes began to smolder with a light which features were flawless in their classical boded danger. symmetry, her figure as delicately molded "I don’t know what right you have to as that of a Grecian nymph, hers was the say that Wilmer is vulgar,” she said, cold, dead beauty which appealed to the speaking calmly with an effort. "His eye alone. Beautiful as a statue of some mode of expressing himself may be a goddess of old, Thelma Mounthead was little more snappy than ours at times, but as soulless as the sculptured marble of not more so than you hear occasionally in which it was composed. good society.” At the mention of her husband’s hob¬ Thelma raised her eyebrows. by, Thelma’s lips curved in a faint sneer. "Really?” she cried with thinly veiled "It passes my comprehension what sarcasm. “Why, I declare, you are quite your father can see in such things. Ugh! upset. Well, Mr. Denton may count a lot of old dried-up bones! If I had my himself lucky in having such an enthusi¬ way I’d throw the whole lot out of astic advocate as you. But I was not doors.” alluding to his illiteracies. You would do THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 297

well to remember, my dear Celia, that Wilmer denton was conscious of a this Denton man is a mere paid employee strained atmosphere hanging over of your father’s, and as such is as far the palatial dining-room of Mounthead below Lord Mounthead’s station of life Chase when he called that evening. Not only did his host seem preoccupied and ill "As you were when he married you!” at ease, but it was clear that Lady Thelma Celia burst out, her eyes flashing, her openly resented his presence. He felt a voice trembling with anger. "If Wilmer sense of relief when dinner came to an was a paid employee when he discovered end, but it was then that he received his the Golden Mummy, were you not paid first surprize. Naturally he had expected when you acted at the theater-” that Lord Mounthead would wait until "I decline to discuss the matter,” said they were alone before broaching the sub¬ Thelma, crossing to the door. "When ject that had been the reason of his visit. you are calmer I will give you my opinion Imagine his astonishment when he heard of Wilmer Denton." his employer say: "Then you can tell me in front of "Please do not go away, Thelma. If him. He’s coming here tonight.” you and Celia care to remain here you Her stepmother stood like one turned may hear something that will interest to stone. you. I received a somewhat disquieting "Coming here?” she gasped. "I won¬ communication by the morning mail, and der that he has the audacity to enter this I think you should know about it in house after his disgraceful conduct on his case”—he hesitated and cleared his throat last visit.” nervously—"in case of accidents. Here "What disgraceful conduct are you re¬ is the letter.” ferring to?” Celia asked with exasperating He took it from his pocket and passed coolness. it to each of the company in turn. Wil¬ "You know perfectly well that I came mer was the last to read it. upon him making love to you in the "What do you make of it, Mr. Den¬ conservatory.” ton?” Lord Mounthead asked as the "Well, and what about it?” Celia’s young man laid it down. eyes met the other woman’s in frank "It sure sounds like our old friend challenge as she asked the question. "As Kareef all right,” said the American. a matter of fact, my dear interfering step¬ "It looks as though he’s out to keep his mother, when you crept on the scene promise.” like a prowling pussy-cat, Wilmer was "Kareef?” kissing me—and I was kissing him!” she "What promise?” added defiantly. "Is it really serious?” "Like they do on Hampstead Heath Lord Mounthead raised his hand to on a bank holiday!” sneered Lady still the flood of excited questions. Mounthead with a hard little laugh. "I think the best way of explaining the "Indeed?” said Celia sweetly. "Well, matter would be for Wilmer to tell I am not in the habit of frequenting such you exactly what happened when he places, so you have the advantage of me found the ancient Temple of Anubis, there!” then you can form your own conclusions And before the other girl could think about the letter. Go ahead, Wilmer.” of a suitable reply, Celia cut short the Thus enjoined, the young American conversation by quitting the room. plunged into his narrative. In a sketchy 298 WEIRD TALES

fashion he outlined the difficulties which but a moment’s thought made me dismiss had beset the early stages of their work, this idea. These men wear a sort of semi¬ only going into details when he arrived uniform, whereas the stranger was dad in at the description of the actual find. the flowing robes of an Arab. Moreover, "I happened to be alone at the time, there was a stealthiness about his move¬ except for the native laborers; for his ments which seemed to show that he was lordship had gone down to Cairo to see out for no good purpose. Hastily buck¬ about some supplies. We had made a ling on my revolver, I quitted the tent camp in the valley, partly so that I could and, keeping in the shadow as much as keep an eye on things generally and pre¬ possible, made my way cautiously toward vent the pilfering which always goes on the mouth of the gallery into which the out there; partly to save the waste of stranger had now vanished. time traveling from Luxor every day. "It was not long before I gained the mouth of the tunnel. At once it became “I remember that night well. Although clear that my suspicions had been well nothing out of the ordinary routine had founded. The mysterious stranger had happened, or seemed likely to happen, a kindled a small lantern, and by its feeble curious feeling of unrest—of expectancy light he was searching—not the narrow —came over me as I sat smoking before ventilation shaft that I had discovered— my tent and watching the silver rim of but another spot on the opposite side of the full moon push itself up over the the tunnel. Crouching low in the dark¬ jagged edge of the Biban-al-Moluk. ness, I watched his actions with growing "I suppose all of you have seen photo¬ amazement. The man appeared to be graphs of the Valley of the Kings, but no going through some intricate calcula¬ mere pictured representation can give the tions; now pacing a certain distance along sense of aching desolation of the actual the narrow passage; now stopping to con¬ scene. It is, soberly and literally, a Valley sult the scrap of paper he held in his of the Dead. No living thing—not a hand; now retracing his steps; now going single blade of grass or withered bush— forward. At last he came to a halt not breaks the naked outlines of the tumbled ten feet from where I lay. Then he began boulders with which the defile is strewn. to pass his long, brown fingers over the "For a while I sat idly watching the ancient carvings with which the walls fantastic shadows thrown amid the great were covered. blocks of sandstone by the rising moon, my mind dwelling on nothing more oc¬ “"ITT hile he was thus engaged I had cult than a plan of work for the next day, ▼ V a good opportunity of observing when I intended to set the men to enlarg¬ his appearance. I at once saw that he was ing the hole I had discovered in one of no Arab, although he was dressed as one. the galleries in the rock, with a view to His thin, hawk-like features were desti¬ finding out what lay beyond. tute of beard or mustache; which fact, in "Suddenly, as I looked, I was aware of itself, was sufficient to show that he did a white-dad figure clambering down the not profess the Mohammedan faith. His hillside toward the opening of the gal¬ age was as difficult to guess as his race. lery. At first I thought it might be one Judging by his movements, he might of the watchmen employed by the De¬ have been a man in the prime of life; partment of Antiquities to guard the judging by the wrinkled, parchment-like numerous tombs situated in the Valley; features, he might have been a hundred THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 299 years old. And there was something in¬ beneath my feet definably sinister about him, an intangible and I was sliding air of grim mystery which seemed to down an inclined emanate from the man himself. tunnel, gasping with "For quite ten minutes he continued to the heat and half run his daw-like fingers over the sculp¬ stifled by the clouds tured figures of the ancient gods, and, as of fine dust raised nothing happened, I was beginning to by my joy-ride into grow somewhat tired of the business. I the unknown. was just about to step forward and ask "I landed, breath¬ him to give an account of himself, when, less but unhurt, on without the slightest warning, the ground my hands and knees. My first glance opened at his feet and he disappeared.” showed me that I was in a chamber very "In a doud of sulfur?” laughed Celia. different from the usual tomb-chamber— "Upon my word,” Wilmer echoed her an underground temple, nothing less. My laugh, "I could not have been more sur¬ second glance showed me the muzzle of prized if he had. But I quickly saw the a very modern-looking rifle held within explanation of the vanishing trick. You a foot of my head. It was held by my know how the figures of the wall-sculp¬ mysterious visitor, and he seemed as tures are deeply outlined by lines graven pleased to see me as a starving cat is to in the stone? Well, one of the figures make the acquaintance of a nice, plump had been completely separated from the mouse. body of the work, being pivoted in such "For a moment his expression was so a manner that, on being pressed, it would devilish that I didn’t expea to live a mo¬ swing inward, releasing some hidden ment longer. But as we continued to look mechanism which in turn opened a trap¬ at each other, his scowl relaxed until door in the floor of the tunnel. Even in something like a smile twitched his the first moment of my surprize I realized leathery features. that such a device must have been in " 'Denton Effendi,’ he said, addressing pretty recent use to have worked so me by name, and, to my amazement, smoothly, and, as it turned out, I was speaking in cultured English, 'you do me right. too much honor. I am not worthy that "His sudden disappearance left me in you should prostrate yourself at my feet.’ complete darkness. But I have a good "He ended up with a sardonic laugh, sense of direction, and I found no diffi¬ in which I thought it policy to join. culty in making my way to the movable After that the situation seemed to ease panel. I hesitated a moment before press¬ up a little. ing the spring, but my professional " 'Get up,’ said the unknown, 'and curiosity was by this time thoroughly listen to what I am about to say.’ roused. Nothing short of the knowledge "He had quite a lot to say, but I had that certain death awaited me on the heard it all—or similar stuff—before. other side would have kept me back just He was one of those fanatics who look then. Taking a long breath, I planted my upon all archeologists, excavating in feet firmly on the stone and thrust my Egypt, as a pack of ghouls who go about fist into the visage of the god on the ransacking tombs in a mad search for wall. I felt it give beneath my touch; loot—an absurd idea, of course, and one then the ground seemed to slither from that I tried my best to dispel. But I 300 WEIRD TALES might as well have been talking to one for him, and he didn’t get the chance to of the stone idols for all the effect my hold me up—which was perhaps lucky words had on him. for me, as die man seemed almost beside " 'Fate has sent you across my path, himself with rage at what he was pleased Denton Effendi,' he said solemnly. 'Heed to call my treachery and duplicity. Ac¬ well my words. A few minutes ago I cording to him, the mummy which had had you at my mercy; one touch on the fallen to our share was the most impor¬ trigger and it would have been for ever tant of the whole lot. For some reason beyond your power to desecrate this that was not very clear he wanted to get sacred shrine. But I respected your life, hold of that mummy. He went down on O stranger, and in return I ask you to his knees to me, begging that I should respect the dust of the holy priests of make him a present of it. When I gently Anubis who are buried in this tomb. pointed out to him that such a thing was And rest assured that I do not warn in out of the question, he fairly went off the vain. Ill-fortune awaits those who de¬ deep end. He spoke his piece for ten spoil the holy dead!’ minutes on end, cursing the despoilers of "Of course I did my best to explain the tomb by every saint and god in the that there was not the slightest chance of Egyptian calendar, beginning with Amon- our carrying off his precious mummies. Ra and ending up with Zaza-Menkh. I By the very concession under which we guess he only stopped because he’d used were working we were obliged to hand up the whole bunch. At last he stepped over everything to the Egyptian Govern¬ up close to me and fixed me with his ment; so if there was any question of snaky eyes. sacrilege and despoiling he would have " 'You are fated to do this thing?’ he to settle the matter with them. He said, speaking very slowly. cheered up wonderfully after I told him " ’Sure,’ I answered. that; for, as far as I could make out, up "He raised up his skinny arms above to then his chief worry had been the his head, his whole body shaking with fear that the mummies and relics were to rage. be carried to England or the States to form the principal attraction of a dime " 'Then beware the vengeance of the museum. outraged gods of Khem!’ he cried. 'Wo "Mind you, at the time I was speaking unto you, despoilers of tombs! Wo in absolute good faith. It never occurred unto you, who fill your houses and mu¬ to me for a moment that the Egyptian seums with our sacred dead that they Government would be crazy enough to may be made a mockery and a show! Wo hand over the pick of the whole collec¬ unto you, profaners of our ancient sanc¬ tion of relics to Lord Mounthead. But tuaries! Wo unto you, who meddle with that’s exactly what they did, anyway. the dreaded mysteries of the Past! For Naturally enough, his lordship did not thy house shall become a place of mourn¬ refuse the gift. The mummy was care¬ ing; tears and lamentations shall be thy fully packed and placed on board a Nile portion; death shall be thine inheritance! steamer for transport to the coast. I have spoken, I—Kareef, the descendant of the High Priests of Anubis, the God “►TpHE night before we sailed I re- of Death and Destruction. On thy head X ceived another visit from the mys¬ be it! Farewell!’ ” terious Egyptian. This time I was ready Wilmer Denton paused to light anoth- THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 301 er cigar, afterward glancing round the materialistic means, that the curses of his circle of his listeners. old gods came to roost on the right door¬ "Cheerful old boy, this Kareef, eh?” step. The arm of coincidence has a fairly he went on with a smile. "Of course I long reach, I knew, but I did not think it didn’t take his curse-spilling stunt seri¬ would stretch so far as to cover our mis¬ ously. I could see that he was peeved fortunes up to date. pretty considerably at losing the Golden "Well, after that our progress became, Mummy—I thought maybe he’d had his by comparison, tame and uneventful. It eye on the cache himself and we’d is true that there was an outbreak of a jumped his claim. I had forgotten all mysterious disease among the escort, and about him and his curses by the next a narrowly averted accident where a party morning, but they came back to me quick of natives had removed a rail from the enough when things began to happen. track; but we got the mummy safely The run of bad luck which followed our aboard Lord Mounthead’s private yacht, journey to the coast would have made and a fortnight later it was deposited in Jonah’s voyages seem like happy outings this house.” by comparison. He paused dramatically, then added: "First of all the native pilot put us on "The last incident was the very deter¬ a sand-bank. Had the Nile been rising it mined attempt on my own life tonight!” would have been an easy matter to have A chorus of surprized exclamations set this right; but, with the water falling, broke from the group at this unexpected we were four days before we got off. announcement. Above the rest Lord Before that happened we were boarded Mounthead’s voice was heard: one night by a party of natives, and nar¬ "Tonight?” he jerked out the ques¬ rowly escaped being murdered in our tions in rapid succession. "How?— sleep. No sooner had we got under way where?” than the engineer—a European—began "If you care to examine my car you to find pieces of scrap-iron mixed up will find a neat bullet-hole through the with his machinery. The chapter of ac¬ mica windscreen and another through cidents ended up with a spectacular mu¬ the woodwork at the back. The shots tiny of the whole crew, who flatly re¬ were fired at me as I was on my way fused to go any farther unless the mummy here this evening.” was thrown overboard, and at the same "Where?” asked his employer quickly. time the native firemen struck work in "At a spot about a mile from here,” the stokehold. answered the American. "The shots "Fortunately there was enough head of came from the direction of a little wood steam left in the boilers to carry the big on the right-hand side of the road. Of stern-wheeler into the bank, where we course, there wasn’t a soul to be seen, moored. We flagged the first Govern¬ and pursuit was out of the question, to ment steamer that passed and asked them say nothing of being decidedly risky in to send a military escort and transport the twilight.” convoy to protect the mummy and carry Lord Mounthead frowned as he shifted it to the nearest point whence it could uneasily in his chair. be conveyed by rail to Suez. For by this "The shots might have been acci¬ time I was pretty certain that friend dental—poachers, for instance?” he sug¬ Kareef was willing to go to some con¬ gested. siderable trouble to insure, by very Wilmer Denton shook his head. 302 WEIRD TALES

"They don’t shoot game with auto¬ its densely shadowed walks dark and matic pistols,” he said dryly. somber in the feeble light of the moon. Mounthead rose to his feet with a jerk. On emerging from the room, Den¬ "By heaven, this is serious, Wilmer! It ton’s first care was to place himself so simply means-” that his figure was not outlined against A scream from Lady Thelma cut into the light coming from within; then he his words like the stroke of a knife. advanced to the edge of the terrace, and "Look—at the window!” she gasped, raising himself cautiously until he could pointing. peer over the stone balustrade, endeav¬ Every eye was turned in the direction ored to locate the position of his lurking in which her shaking finger was stretched. enemy. Framed in the lower pane of one of the He held his breath, listening. But tall French windows, dimly illuminated there was no sound except the soft whis¬ by the shaded lights within the room, was pering of the wind-stirred trees, and, an apparition which looked more like the once, the mournful hoot of an owl in the figment of a nightmare than the coun¬ distant woods down the hill. For a few tenance of a human being. minutes he stood baffled and undecided. The hawk-like features were so blood¬ Then he turned and made his way back less and emaciated that they might have to the room he had just quitted. passed for a mask of tightly stretched Lord Mounthead looked up as he parchment, had it not been for the entered the room. Wilmer Denton shook gleaming eyes which, jet-black and un¬ his head at the question in the old man’s speakably evil, showed between the eyes. puckered lids. The thin lips were parted in a smile of sneering malignity. "Vanished like a ghost,” was his terse For a moment the sinister figure stood explanation. calmly regarding the four faces turned to Mounthead frowned meditatively. His him. Then he vanished abruptly into the face had become a shade paler and his darkness. eyes glittered with an expression such as Wilmer Denton was no coward—• Denton had never seen in them before. young, vigorous, sane-minded, and de¬ "You think it really was Kareef?” he void of nerves. Yet he had found his asked after a long pause. blood running ice-cold in his veins as "Dead sure of it. I’d recognize him in those malignant eyes had fixed them¬ a thousand. He has a style of beauty selves on his, seeming to search his very which impresses itself on my mind!” soul and paralyze his limbs into a leaden The grim humor of the American’s re¬ torpor. Not until the sinister form van¬ mark drew a smile from all present ex¬ ished did the spell snap, awakening him cept Lady Thelma. She had not moved to sudden action. or spoken since the moment when she had caught sight of the face at the window. "Kareef!” he shouted, and leapt to the She looked round angrily at the sound of window, pistol in hand. the others’ mirth. "This is no jesting matter!” she cried 3. A Night Marauder impatiently. "I wonder that you have the The dining-room windows opened on heart to laugh, with such a creature hov¬ a narrow raised terrace of stone, ering round the place.” She gave a vio¬ beyond which the shrubbery stretched, lent shudder. "Did you ever see such a THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 303 horrible face in the whole of your lives? that Wilmer and I will be quite capable I’m sure it was not human! It looked of seeing that he does no harm. I’ve more like one of the mummies in your spent a fairly considerable amount of museum than anything else I can think money having this place made burglar- of. He looked a thousand years old. And proof, and once the doors and windows his eyes—ugh?” She ended with another are shut and the connection switched on, shudder of loathing. it would take a very clever devil to get Lord Mounthead crossed to her side through without ringing the alarms. And and poured out a glass of wine. it may be an additional comfort to you "Drink this, Thelma,” he said gently. to know that I intend to amuse myself in "It will do you good. Your nerves are the billiard-room until daylight appears.” all on edge-” "I’ll remain up with you, sir,” Wilmer "No wonder!” she exclaimed harshly. volunteered at once. "I’m a keen student "When a dead man stares at you-” of practical spiritualism, and I’ve often "Come, come, Thelma.” He gave an wondered how a spook would stand up impatient shrug as he pressed her to against a really well-aimed bullet.” drink the wine. "You are talking like a foolish child. There certainly was a faint The arrangements for the night were resemblance between his face and that of quickly made. After the ladies had my Golden Mummy, but that is merely retired, Lord Mounthead rang for Mapes, because both belong to the pure Egyptian the butler, and explained how matters type. The man you happened to see-” stood, though he was careful not to dis¬ "That was no mortal man—of that I close the identity of the stranger whom am certain!” Thelma burst out hysterical¬ he had seen lurking on the terrace. ly. "It was a devil—a fiend in human "I want to make sure that everything form!” is fastened up all right,” he concluded. "I guess we’d better catch him and "I’ll make your rounds with you.” put him in a cage,” smiled Wilmer Having satisfied himself that every¬ Denton. thing was secure, Lord Mounthead inti¬ Lady Thelma favored the young man mated that the butler might go to bed. with an acid glance and immediately At the door the old man hesitated. turned to her husband. "Shall I let the dog run loose in the "Don’t you think it high time to put grounds, your lordship?” an end to these witticisms and do some¬ His master considered the suggestion thing practical to insure my safety?” she for a moment, then shook his head. asked, in a tone of cold fury all the more "I think not, Mapes. It might scare bitter because convention demanded that the man away.” it should be suppressed. "When are you Mapes was a servitor who prided him¬ going to ring up the police?” self on his serene and unruffled com¬ Lord Mounthead gave a tolerant laugh. posure, but hi6 master’s unexpected an¬ "Upon my word, Thelma, you are not swer scattered his professional decorum very logical tonight. If the intruder was to the winds. a supernatural being—as you insisted a "Good ’eavens, sir!” he ejaculated in moment ago he was—then it is clearly amazement. "Don’t you want to scare useless to ask Scotland Yard to arrest the scoundrel away?” him. If, on the other hand, he is a Mounthead gave a grim smile. human being like ourselves, then I think "Not until I’ve had a little talk with 304 WEIRD TALES him—he might be able to tell me a whole the Kings, and he plied his assistant with lot of things I want to know. By the questions about the man who so un¬ way, Mapes, did you plug die ’phone line wittingly revealed the secret entrance. through to the billiard room as I told “I've been working up a theory about you?” that,” said Denton. "It’s my firm belief "Yes, sir.” that the worship of the ancient gods has "Then just you toddle off to bed and been carried right down to recent times, leave everything to me. Good-night.” in that old temple—until we discovered After the old servant had taken his it, in fact. I remember it struck me at unwilling departure, Lord Mounthead the time that the temple didn’t have the switched off the lights and made his way look of a place that had not been entered to the room where Wilmer Denton was for two or three thousand years. For one awaiting him. thing, there wasn’t that layer of fine dust The billiard room was on the upper that you always find in a sealed chamber. floor. Its walls were destitute of win¬ I can’t describe it exactly, but the place dows, light being admitted by day seemed to have a kind of inhabited feel¬ through a large skylight in the roof. ing. Of course, I’m quite well aware that Now the only illumination was the row every object in the temple was about three of adjustable electric globes over the thousand or more years old—I’m not table, which, being shaded to throw their such a bonehead as to mistake a genuine rays downward, did not show a telltale antique when I see it. No, my point is glare through the glass overhead. It was that the different objects seemed to have die one room in the house in which been used recently. Why, the light, pow¬ lights might be kept burning without the dery ash of the incense was still lying in fact being observed from outside, and it the bowls where it had been burnt during was for this reason that Lord Mounthead the last service, or celebration-” had selected it for his vigil. "Or sacrifice!” suggested the other Their interest in the game soon man with peculiar emphasis. flagged. The play of both was erratic and Wilmer Denton echoed the word in a half-hearted, their thoughts being far tone of astonishment. from the gently clicking balls. At last "Why do you use that word?” he asked the American threw down his cue with a after a pause. disgusted laugh. Lord Mounthead uttered a curiously "When I start missing nursery can¬ strained laugh. nons it’s time to give myself a rest!” he "Have you forgotten the name of the declared, after performing the feat in god to which the hidden temple was question for the third time in succession. dedicated?” "I’m getting as nervous as a cat tonight.” "No, I haven’t forgotten that,’’, re¬ Mounthead jerked his head toward the turned Wilmer. "It was Anubis.” cigar cabinet. "Exactly.” The voice of the elder man "Bite on one of those, and let’s talk.” was jerky with excitement; a queer, "That sounds good to me,” acquiesced brooding look had come into his eyes. the American. "And Anubis, 'The Jackal-headed,’ is It was only natural that the talk should the god of death and destruction— run on their mysterious visitor. Lord Kareef himself told you that at your first Mounthead had not been present at the meeting. There is not the slightest doubt discovery of the tomb in the Valley of that sacrifices of some sort went on in W. T.—2 THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 305 that temple—what if they were human tap-tap, it went; sacrifices?* faint, elusiva, yet The young American looked up sharp- sinister by reason of its very insist¬ ty- ence. "Gee, I never thought of that!” he ex¬ The eyes of the claimed. "Of course that would explain two listeners met why the worship was conducted in secret. in a questioning And, now I come to think of it, such a look. Then Mount- supposition would explain the ugly-look- head rose to his feet Wilmer Denton ing dagger that was in the mummy-case. and moved slowly After all, there is nothing impossible in toward the door. But Wilmer was by the theory that a sect of Ancient Egyp¬ his side before he reached it. tians has survived to the present day. The "I guess we’ll see this through to¬ priests who served the gods were allowed gether,” he whispered. to marry, you know, and what is likelier than that they should have passed on to Slowly, cautiously, testing every tread their descendants the ancient traditions before putting their weight on it, in and rites of their worship? The very ex¬ case its creaking should betray their pres¬ istence of the Jewish race today proves ence, the two men crept down the wide that such a thing is possible, even in the staircase. A long, listening pause at the face of vigorous persecution; though, of bottom told them that the noise was com¬ course, I am not suggesting that there is ing from the rear of the house. It grew any other parallel between the two cases steadily stronger as they advanced, re¬ except the mere fact of the traditions of solving itself into an unmistakable con¬ each race being preserved intact. When tact of some metallic substance against you stop to consider that the cult of the one of the window-panes of the dining¬ ancient gods was in full swing when the room. Moslems overran Egypt, and that the Wilmer gently turned the handle of only terms they offered the vanquished the door, and, inch by inch, pushed it people were the well-known: 'Pay trib¬ open. The curtains had been drawn over ute, embrace the Koran, or die,’ the se¬ the high French windows, and on the cret worship of Anubis becomes not only center one, faintly illuminated by the feasible, but highly probable. And it ex¬ struggling moonbeams, was thrown the plains a whole bunch of things that have shadow of a vague, blurred figure. Step¬ been pu2zling me. If this Kareef-” ping softly across the carpeted floor, Wil¬ Mounthead suddenly leaned forward mer unfastened the catch, flung open the and gripped his wrist. window, and seized the muffled figure "Hist! Did you hear that?” he which crouched on the threshold. breathed. A sharp yelp of terror burst from the man as he felt their grip close on him. "What?” He struggled and fought like a madman, "A tapping — somewhere downstairs. shaking his captors to and fro in his wild There it is again!” efforts to free himself. In the dead silence of the night an eery As they struggled, a sense of bewilder¬ knocking floated through the great house. ment began to steal over Wilmer Den¬ Tap-tap-tap . , . tap-tap-tap . . . tap- ton. Even in that dim light it was plain W. T—3 306 WEIRD TALES to him that their prisoner was not Kareef. report of my death was greatly exag¬ This man was twice the bulk of the gerated, as you see. I am, I assure you, emaciated Egyptian; moreover, instead of quite alive!” being clean-shaven and bald, he wore a He slapped his broad chest as he spoke, full, bushy beard and hair which reached as though to assure his hearers of his to his massive shoulders. His voice, too, solidity. was deeper and more guttural than Seen in the light, the man’s appearance Kareef’s sibilant tones. was strange enough. His frame was "What is it?” he demanded, with a that of a giant, broad and powerful; but strong foreign accent. "Why do you at¬ his expression was so mild and benevo¬ tack me thus? Who are you?” lent as to appear almost saint-like. With "I am the owner of this house-” his clear-cut, regular features, his long began Mounthead, only to be interrupted flaxen hair and forked beard, he might by a cry of surprize from his prisoner. have been a figure which had stepped "You? Lord Mounthead?” he almost straight out of one of the devotional mas¬ shouted. "And you do not know me— terpieces that the old Italian artists loved your old friend Boris Matrikoff?” to portray. "Matrikoff!” repeated Lord Mount- "The report of my death was spread head, amazed in his turn. "Why do you by my enemies in order to explain my come like this—like a thief in the night?” disappearance when they shut me up in The man lowered his voice to an urgent the asylum,” Matrikoff went on to ex¬ whisper. plain. "Like a simpleton, I told them of "Because I am surrounded by secret my discovery of the hidden Temple of enemies—spies who dog me night and Anubis, and they wished to gain posses¬ day. They put me in prison, but I es¬ sion of the gold and treasure which it caped. They said I was mad-” contained. They said I was mad-” "Mad?” echoed Lord Mounthead. "Hold on,” interrupted Mounthead "Come inside!” quickly. "Are you referring to the buried He drew the Russian within and locked temple in the Valley of the Kings?” the window. It was only when he heard "Of course,” returned the Russian in Wilmer Denton’s shout of laughter that surprize. "What else?” he realized the unconscious humor of his "Then you must be laboring under last remark. some delusion. That temple was un¬ "Anyone would think you were run¬ earthed by Mr. Wilmer Denton,” Lord ning a private lunatic asylum,” Wilmer Mounthead pointed to the young Amer¬ grinned. ican as he spoke. "He discovered the "I shall begin to think so myself, if entrance to it while working on my be¬ this sort of thing continues to go on,” half.” Mounthead answered, passing his hand For a moment Boris Matrikoff stood across his forehead with a bewildered speechless with amazement, a red flush of gesture. "It’s enough to make anybody anger slowly mounting to his forehead. doubt his sanity when he finds himself "That I do not deny,” he returned having a tussle with a man who died two after a long pause. "I cannot deny—nor years ago!” do I seek to—that the actual discovery Boris Matrikoff burst into a hearty was made thus. My only claim is that laugh. your find was directly due to the letter "Not so, not so, my good friend. The which I sent you, describing the position THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 307 of the temple so plainly that it could not "The burglar alarm!” he gasped. "It be missed. When the royal collection at should have rung the moment we opened Petrograd was dispersed, I purchased for the window downstairs. But it’s been put a few rubles a scroll of ancient papyrus, out of action—there’s a traitor inside which, to my amazement, indicated the this house!” site of a hitherto unsuspected temple. Abruptly on his words a terrified Well knowing that I would not be scream rang through the silence of the allowed to leave Russia for some years, night. Dashing out of the room, the and knowing that you were exploring in three men raced along the corridor in the the vicinity, I wrote a letter to you, giv¬ direction of the ominous sound. The ing sufficient data to enable you to find door of the bedroom occupied by Celia it.” stood open. A single shaded globe hung Lord Mounthead shook his head slow- from a bracket over the bed, and by its ty- light they saw the girl lying back on the "I’m sorry, Mr. Matrikoff, but I re¬ pillows, wild-eyed and trembling. ceived no such letter, either from you or "What has happened?” her father anybody else. The discovery was made cried. quite independent of information from Twice she tried to speak, but no sound an outside source.” came from her ashy lips. Then, in a bro¬ Incredulity, suspicion and anger were ken whisper: stamped upon the features of the Russian "I was reading,” she managed to falter as he listened to the explanation. At the out. "I felt the touch of an icy hand on conclusion he started to his feet; his high, my shoulder. A tall figure was standing broad forehead was creased by a heavy by my side. At first its face was in frown, his eyes glinted angrily beneath shadow, but when I screamed it turned, his ragged brows. and I saw-” "It is a lie!” he muttered thickly. "It She broke off and a violent shudder is a trick to rob me of-” ran through her slender form. “You have no right to accuse me of "You saw him—clearly?” Mounthead such a thing!” cried Mounthead, growing cried eagerly. "Can you describe him?” angry in his turn. “Your letter must have Another shudder shook her and her been intercepted—if, indeed, the whole lips moved faintly. thing was not a figment of your imag¬ "It was horrible—the face was exact¬ ination.” ly like that of the Golden Mummy!” A spasm of rage shook the huge frame of the Russian. 4. Blackmail "So? You, too, accuse me of being insane? But you will find that I am not Immediately after the night of mys¬ to be put off so easily, my clever friend. terious happenings at Mounthead Give me my share of the treasure you Chase, Lord Mounthead, fearing that discovered with the Golden Mummy— they had not seen the last of the strange the jewels-” Egyptian, had pressed Wilmer Denton to stay there as his guest. It had not taken A sudden shout from Wilmer Denton Wilmer many seconds to make up his made him pause. The American was mind to accept the invitation. The pros¬ clutching Lord Mounthead’s arm, a look pect of living under the same roof as of consternation on his features. the beautiful Celia; dining with her, rid- 308 WEIRD TALES ing with her, discussing the mysterious suave, deferential manner dropped from Golden Mummy in shuddering whis¬ him like a cloak. pers, was a prospect very much like heav¬ "Well, did you make it plain to that en on earth to him just then. dollar-hunting Yankee that his presence But there was one inmate of the house was not wanted?” he asked. His tone who watched the growing intimacy be¬ was one of aggressive insolence. tween them with a disapproving eye. Lady Thelma, now very different from Lady Thelma had always disliked the her usual proud and haughty self, seemed young American; she had done her best to wilt beneath the glare of the man’s to bring about an open breach between frowning eyes. him and her husband when they had first "I—I did my best,” she returned timid¬ returned from Egypt. Her hatred knew ly. "I gave him a broad enough no bounds when she saw him re-estab¬ hint-” lished in Lord Mounthead’s friendship Lorimer cut her short with a sneering and on the way, apparently, to becoming laugh. his son-in-law. She was far too experi¬ “Hint?” he repeated mockingly. enced an actress to allow her real motives "What’s the use of throwing hints to a to appear, as, subtly and by hints and man like that? You’ll have to do more vague innuendoes rather than direct ac¬ than hint, my lady”—he laid a sarcastic cusations, she began to sow the seeds of emphasis on her title—"if you want to suspicion and distrust in her husband’s satisfy me! If you’ve got any hints to mind. So deliberately did she do her task drop, then drop ’em to your loving step¬ that she never used the term "fortune- daughter, the Honorable Celia. Tell her hunter” once when referring to Wilmer’s what a fine fellow I am. Remind her that attentions to Celia Mounthead. I’m the younger son of a baronet, even Naturally it was not long before Wil- though I am condescending to act as mer sensed her antagonism, and he was private secretary to Lord Mounthead. Tell puzzled to account for it. her-” "What’s biting her?” he muttered to The woman made a gesture of impa¬ himself one evening after her ladyship tience. Much as she feared the man, his had administered a very pointed snub. manner at times drove her almost to des¬ "If my company’s good enough for a peration. born aristocrat like Lord Mounthead, it’s "Why don’t you tell her these things good enough to be tolerated by an ex¬ yourself?” There was a sneer in her chorus girl like her!” voice that she could not wholly repress. Had he been a witness of the scene "You are not usually so modest as to that was being enacted in Lady Thelma’s need a go-between in your love-making!” private room at that moment, he might He stepped close to her, a tigerish grin have understood her strange aversion to showing beneath the thin dark line of his his presence in the house. mustache. Edwin Lorimer had made his way "Don’t take that line of talk with me!” there, ostensibly-to make a trivial inquiry he snarled. "You know as well as I do respecting the sending out of invitations that I might just as well save my breath to a carnival dance which was to be held as try to make love to Celia while that at Mounthead Chase in a few weeks’ cursed Yank is around. That’s why I time. No sooner had Lady Thelma’s want him out of the house—and it’s up maid quitted the room than Lorimer’s to you to see that he goes—at once!” THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 309

Lady Thelma uttered a low, mirthless A sardonic smile flitted over Lorimer’s laugh. face as he gave the assurance. When "You credit me with the ability to once he gets a yielding victim firmly in work miracles,” she said. "I should not his clutches, the blackmailer knows no need any pressing from you to get rid of such word as "enough.” him if it were in my power to do so. I assure you that I haven’t gone out of my During the days that followed, Wil- way to make his stay here a pleasant one! men Denton was conscious of an What more can I do? You yourself know atmosphere about Mounthead Chase how highly Lord Mounthead thinks of which left him puzzled and vaguely un¬ him; in his estimation the wonderful easy. Lady Thelma, who had hitherto Wilmer Denton is a most desirable son- made no effort to conceal her dislike for in-law.” him, now allowed her behavior to veer "Then you’ve got to prove to him that round to the opposite extreme. In place he’s just mud!” of her former air of insolent superiority, She lifted her gleaming white shoul¬ she now greeted him with her most ders in a tiny shrug. dazzling smiles. Instead of openly avoid¬ "A somewhat difficult task,” she ing him, she now seemed to place herself sneered. in his way on the slightest excuse. A He bent closer to her, grasping her more conceited or more suspicious man wrist and speaking in an urgent whisper. than Denton might have guessed the "Not too difficult to a pretty woman plan which lay behind Thelma’s abrupt and an accomplished actress like your¬ desire to make amends for her former self. Listen.” rudeness; but he did his best to meet her He sank his voice even lower and for half-way in a reconciliation. a space spoke eagerly, outlining his Less comprehensible to him was the scheme in all its naked treachery. A changed attitude of Lord Mounthead. slow smile of understanding spread over Although no spoken word had announced Lady Thelma’s features as she listened. the fact, Wilmer was conscious of a "It cannot fail,” she declared at the growing coldness in his employer’s man¬ conclusion. ner; a distant reserve which seemed to "You’ll have to handle the situation denote suspicion. Hitherto he had ad¬ delicately-” mitted the young American fully into his "Leave that to me,” she interposed future plans; now, it was only too plain confidently. Then she turned and looked that such was no longer the case. This searchingly into his shifty eyes. "But fact was brought home to Wilmer with before I go through with this, I want dramatic force one evening as he was your assurance that this is the last service strolling in the grounds enjoying an you will ask of me.” after-dinner cigar. "Of course I give you that assurance," He was traversing one of the dark, Lorimer answered glibly. "Once Wilmer yew-bordered walks, his thoughts far Denton is disgraced, I will never again away from his immediate surroundings remind you of the fact that I hold a when, without the slightest sound, he secret that would, if told in the right felt a giant arm curl about him, while a quarter, make your vaunted title a byword hand equally huge presented the point of and a mockery. Wilmer Denton’s ruin is a long and very efficient-looking dagger the only service I ask for my silence.” at his throat. 310 WEIRD TALES

"So, I have you at last, is it not so?” mummy, for all Lord Mounthead knew growled a guttural voice in his ear. "No to the contrary, the only result of his more will you ignore the letters I send labor and expenditure would be to add a you—no more will you swindle me of my few more exhibits to the Cairo Museum. share in the discovery I helped you to If you have been robbed at all—which I make! Pray, Lord Mounthead, for you deny—it is by the officials of the Egyp¬ are very near to death!” tian Department of Antiquities, who "Not by a jugful,” said the American handed the mummy over to him. I advise pleasantly, as he suddenly bent his body you to take your grievance to them, but forward and, by a well-known Japanese I shouldn’t advise you to try to ram trick, sent his adversary flying over his home your arguments by the aid of a head, to meet the ground with a thud nine-inch bowie knife. They might not which knocked the breath from his body. take it so calmly as I have done. Do you "You seem to have got things wrong, get me?” Mr. Matrikoff,” Wilmer went on as he Boris Matrikoff muttered some unin¬ recognized the bearded face which looked telligible words into his bushy beard. dazedly up at him. "I guess I haven’t "Why not have a quiet talk with Lord been raised to the British peerage yet. Mounthead one day—without your carv¬ And even if I had been the man you ing-knife, of course?” Wilmer suggested, thought I was, it wouldn’t have helped laying his hand on the man’s shoulder. you any to try interviewing me with that Tm sure a little heart-to-heart talk piece of cutlery. What’s the big idea, would straighten things out quite a lot.” anyway?” Matrikoff flung off his grasp with a The Russian scrambled to his feet, sudden movement and thrust his face shaking as much with rage as with the close to Wilmer’s. Rage so ungovernable unexpected jolt he had received. as to amount almost to frenzy seemed to "I came here to kill Lord Mounthead!” possess him. His eyes were staring wild¬ he spluttered. ly; the veins stood out in knotted cords Wilmer nodded as he examined his on his flushed forehead. cigar to ascertain if it was undamaged. "What is the use? I write to him sug¬ "So I gathered,” he rejoined coolly. gesting an interview, and he mocks me "Any particular reason for desiring his with his silence! I beg, I implore him to immediate demise?” see me—he makes no answer! I call here "Reason enough!” cried the Russian in again and again—his servants turn me a voice of fury. "Has he not taken to from the door like a beggar! What is himself the sole credit for the discovery there left for me but revenge?” of the hidden Temple of Anubis? Has Denton had listened to this outburst he not robbed me of my share of the with a growing wonder. The fact that priceless Golden Mummy?” Lord Mounthead had concealed the letters Wilmer Denton smiled patiently. and calls showed, as could nothing else, "I simply hate to rob you of a cher¬ the gulf which now stretched between ished illusion, my dear murderous Musco¬ them. This refusal to hear a claim, how¬ vite, but you’re barking up the wrong ever mistaken and fantastic, was so un¬ gum-tree. I have already explained that like Mounthead’s usual policy that for I made the discovery quite independent the first time a faint suspicion began to of any information supplied by you. And form in Wilmer’s mind. What if Mount- I may add that when we unearthed the head had received the Russian’s letters THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 311 describing the site of the tomb and for Although she was reasons of his own now chose to deny it? quite alone, she still Although Wilmer dismissed the moved with the thought as soon as it came to him, he same studied grace could not help admitting that it would that she would explain some events which till then had have displayed in a puzzled him. He was well aware that crowded social func¬ the immediate clue to the whereabouts of tion. More than one the entrance of the hidden temple had critic had described come from Kareef. Yet the first idea of Thelma Delorme as Lady Thelma exploring that particular rock-gallery in "a born actress” the Valley of the Kings had emanated during her stage career, without realiz¬ from Lord Mounthead. It was all very ing how literally true the description was. puzzling and problematical. Try as he Applied to her, the fulsome, common¬ would, he could not see what Matrikoff place journalese became sober truth. She could have gained even if he had made acted as naturally as she drew breath, and the discovery himself, seeing that in all her acting had not ceased when she had probability the relics would have been quitted the stage. Indeed, her role as Lady claimed by the Egyptian Government. Mounthead was, if anything, more care¬ Turning to the Russian, he put the fully studied than any of her stage char¬ question to him bluntly. The answer acters; but even she did not realize how made him gasp in amazement. tragic that role was destined to become. "Professor Artemus Figg has prom¬ ised to pay me one thousand pounds on With the expert eye of one who well the day I deliver the Golden Mummy to appreciated the importance of correctly him.” dressing the part she was now about to The calm, matter-of-fact tone in which play, she passed down the rows of hang¬ Matrikoff made the statement left no ing dresses, scrutinizing, weighing the doubt in the American’s mind that he emotional effect of each. Her latest ac¬ was stating the truth. quisition, of vivid wine-red and of rath¬ "But why—what interest has Professor er daring cut, she passed without a Figg in the mummy?” he asked. glance, as she did an elaborate gown of "He has discovered a method by which golden tissue. This frock was too rich; it may be restored to life,” said the Rus¬ this too sophisticated. She hesitated a sian simply. long time over a delicate powder-blue cut with that deceptive seeming sim¬ 5. Celia! s Fortune plicity that it takes a master hand to achieve; but finally she rejected it in AS THE soft, liquid chimes of the gilt favor of an exquisite creation of delicate * Louis XIV clock on the boudoir oyster-gray, whose very presence among mantelpiece slowly trickled out the hour her extensive wardrobe she had forgotten. of six, Lady Thelma tossed aside the She held it to her, and the testimony of book with which she had been amusing her full-length mirror confirmed her herself since tea-time, yawned, stretched judgment. She laid it aside with a little herself elegantly, and entered an adjoin¬ nod of satisfaction and rang for her maid. ing room that was nothing more nor less than a huge wardrobe. She saw Annette’s black eyebrows go 312 WEIRD TALES

up when told of her choice; but the maid room with quick, jerky strides, and pulled understood her mistress’s temper too well back the spring catch which operated the to offer any comment. door. "What jewelry will your ladyship "Thelma!" There was a note of sur¬ wear?” she contented herself with asking. prize in his voice as he saw his wife “None," came the sharp reply, and standing outside. It was an unwritten Annette, who had been her dresser long law of the household that he should not before her marriage to Lord Mounthead, be disturbed in his study unless he rang. could only marvel in silence at this "Come in, come in. Is anything the mat¬ strange and unprecedented whim. ter?” Lord Mounthead’s study was on the "No, no—at least, nothing much.” ground floor. To the uninitiated it The vibrating tremor which she in¬ seemed an ordinary enough apartment, fused into her voice seemed to belie her with its tall windows, walnut paneling words. Mounthead closed the door care¬ and heavy, comfortable rather than or¬ fully and crossed to her side. nate, furniture. It would have needed the eye of an expert to detect the fact that the "But there is something troubling you, ornamental transoms and mullions of the dear,” he said, anxiously. "I can read it windows were of specially toughened in your face.” steel; that the innocent-looking door lead¬ She sank on to a low seat near the ing to the private museum was but a fireplace, nervously twisting and un¬ veneer of wood masking an inner door twisting a dainty lace handkerchief in her of steel that would not be out of place if hands. it guarded the strong-room of a bank; "I suppose I’m foolish—childish-” that the walls, ceiling and floor were she paused artistically. meshed every six inches with fine wires, "Yes—yes? Tell me what the trouble the snapping of which would set a dozen is, and let me be the judge of that.” bells jangling their warning in different She laid her slender hands on the old parts of the house. The green-painted man’s shoulders, looking into his face safe in one corner did, it is true, appear with her great pleading eyes. to be quite a trumpery affair, such as "You will not laugh at me—or scold would offer but slight resistance to a me, John?” modem burglar. But it was merely a dummy, containing a few unimportant "Of course not, you foolish darling,” papers. The real safe was concealed so he hastened to assure her. cunningly that a searcher might have She uttered a long-drawn sigh and wasted many hours before locating it, let drooped her head to just the right angle alone prizing its many secrets from its to be most effective. drill-resisting walls. "It’s ... it’s about . . . Celia,” she began, making a hesitating pause now Iord mounthead was seated at the and again to give an air of spontaneity to desk, glancing through some closely what was in reality a carefully rehearsed written sheets of manuscript which he speech. “Yes, John, I’m really worried had brought from the office. So absorbed about poor dear Celia. I really love that was he that he failed to notice the first girl, and I’d do anything to make her light tap on the door. Upon its being happy—and I’d do more to save her from repeated he rose to his feet, crossed the life-long misery.” THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 313

"Celia? . . . misery?” He was looking integrity. And, if Celia really has at his young wife in undisguised amaze¬ formed a liking for him, I can see no ment. adequate reason for interfering in the She made a pathetic gesture and matter.” dabbed her eyes with the filmy square of He came across and laid his hand lace. affectionately on his young wife’s shoul¬ "You must know what I mean, John, der as he went on: "I’m very sorry in¬ dear. That American, Wilmer Denton— deed that you have taken such a dislike he has quite carried the poor child off her to him, Thelma, but”—a very meaning feet-” smile twitched his lips as he concluded— "I don’t suppose you’ll see much of either A somewhat grim laugh from Lord Celia or her husband after they are mar¬ Mounthead interrupted her. ried.” "I'm rather inclined to think that it’s For a moment her mind seemed to the other way about, and that the 'poor freeze as she realized all that his decision child’ has carried him 'off his feet,’ as meant to her. Then she sprang to her you term it.” feet and faced him, her lithe form trem¬ Thelma’s beautiful features took on an bling with baffled fury and with fear. expression of horrified surprize. "You—you would allow your daughter "Surely you will not let this vulgar to condemn herself to a life of beggary?” love affair go on?” she cried. "It would be a sin to allow your dear daughter’s she demanded. generous, unsuspecting heart to lead her "Beggary?” Mounthead laughed aloud into an absolutely disastrous marriage. as he repeated the word. Then he took What is this Denton man? A nobody! her hand in his, and without a word led An upstart! A-” her to the huge bookcase which filled the She halted lamely as she became con¬ farther wall of the room. scious that her husband was regarding Taking out a small bunch of keys, her with a curious look in his eyes. which was attached to his person by a "Really, Thelma, you are talking like fine steel chain, he inserted one in the a character in one of the dramas of the glazed door of the bookcase and swung last century,” he protested with a smile. it open. Lady Thelma watched him "Nowadays the world has outgrown the closely, the breath coming quickly be¬ old shibboleth of judging a man by his tween her parted lips. Some subtle in¬ ancestors rather than his actions. And I tuition seemed to tell her that the next may remind you that there are many few minutes would mark a crisis in her quite exalted people, moving in the best life. circles, who seem to see no necessity of Lord Mounthead ran his eyes over the setting up their family tree where its roots closely packed rows of volumes, then may be examined by all and sundry. You turned to her with a tiny smile hovering asked just now who Wilmer Denton is. I about the corners of his mouth. will tell you. He is a young man whom "Fond of reading, Thelma?” he in¬ I have lived with, worked with, and, on quired jocularly. one occasion, faced death with. Those She shook her head, wondering. are bonds not lightly to be disregarded. Glancing at the titles of the books, she I know him to be a man of unusual lfl- had a vague recollection of having heard tellectual powers, and of unimpeachable of some of them before, but the majority 314 WEIRD TALES

were quite strange to her. Small wonder; "Take a good look at it, my dear,” for the fat, leather-bound tomes con¬ said Mounthead, smiling at her start of tained scientific treatises, ancient his¬ surprize. "It’s well worth looking at. It tories, volumes of legend and folk-lore, contains an idea in the way of combina¬ with a whole row devoted to works re¬ tion-locks that refutes Solomon’s asser¬ lating to Ancient Egypt. tion that there is nothing new under the "Scarcely my idea of light literature,” sun. See here.” she said with a shrug. Her eyes followed the direction of his Mounthead laughed softly. pointing finger. At first glance the little "Ah, you ought to go in for the clas¬ dials seemed in no way different from sics, Thelma. They might reveal many the usual run of such contrivances. Then surprizing things!” He passed his hand she understood. Instead of the usual along the second row from the top, paus¬ numbers and letters, the ciphers consist¬ ing at a heavy volume bound in calfskin. ed of tiny, beautifully engraved Egyptian "Here is Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of hieroglyphics. the Roman Empire, a trifle heavy both Mounthead contemplated the dials literally and figuratively, but containing with pride. much good matter.” "I rather flatter myself that I struck a He removed the volume, laid it on the novel idea when I thought of employing table, and again ran his hand along the the sacred characters of the old Egyptian shelf. priests to safeguard my treasures,” he beamed. "It would have to be a very up- "And here we have Plutarch’s Lives— to-date crook indeed who included a one of the greatest books in the world. working knowledge of Egyptology in his Although he wrote somewhere about the mental equipment.” first century of the Christian era, his work shows an appreciation of picturesque de¬ She looked at the strange figures with tail, dramatic sense and knowledge of thoughtful, narrowed eyes. character-drawing that would not be out "Has it not struck you that some of place in a modern writer, besides con¬ Egyptologist who was not a professional taining powerful and vivid imagery and crook might use his knowledge to open verbal richness surpassed only by the im¬ it?” she asked slowly. mortal Shakespeare.” He dismissed the possibility with a Lady Thelma stifled an elaborate yawn. shake of his head. "Is this going to be a lecture?” she "The great advantage in employing, asked resignedly. hieroglyphics for such a purpose is that "No, my dear Thelma. The lecture is the key to the combination might be just over and the demonstration is about to a meaningless jumble of signs, or it begin.” might be an actual sentence from an inscription, or a prayer to the gods, or As he spoke he thrust his two hands even an extract from the well-known into the spaces left by the removal papyrus, The Book of the Dead. You of the books. Lady Thelma’s lassitude will notice that there are fifteen differ¬ vanished in an instant, as a section of the ent signs. Now, how many different shelves swung outward, disclosing a re¬ combinations do you think it is possible cess in which stood a huge steel safe of to make with them?” the latest pattern. "A hundred?” hazarded the girl. THE CARNIVAL OF DEATH 315

"No. Your estimate is wofully short for 1,800,000 years of the truth, Thelma, and it goes to show before he had ex¬ that you, in common with the great ma¬ hausted all the pos¬ jority of people, are not acquainted with sibilities of that what is termed 'the permutations of num¬ safe!” bers’. If you had studied algebra you "The prospect is would know that it is quite possible to enough to make determine the exact number of possible the most hardened arrangements of any given number of crook mend his signs (or actual objects, for the matter of evil ways!” laughed that). The result is arrived at by multi¬ Thelma. "But what plying consecutively the figures from one is inside the safe that you have taken such upward. Thus if there were only four pains to make it impregnable?” symbols on the combination of that safe, He did not reply for a minute as he you could tell how many times they could deftly manipulated the tiny dials. Then: be varied by this simple sum”: "Look!” he cried, swinging the well- He took a blank sheet of paper and balanced door wide open. hastily scribbled the following figures:— Thelma looked and gasped in open- 1x2x3x4 = 24. eyed amazement. The bottom of the "Thus, without going to the trouble of capacious safe was filled with neatly actually experimenting, we know that stacked canvas bags, each packed tightly the chances against a thief’s hitting on the and secured with a large red seal. The correct combination are twenty-four to shelves were piled with fat, oblong pack¬ one. If there were seven signs:” ages, sealed in the same manner. He took up his pencil and wrote The girl took one long look, then another sum:— turned her wondering eyes on her hus¬ Ix2x3x4x5x6x7 = 5,040. band. "This, as you see, gives the poor crook "Is it . . . money?" the slender odds of five thousand and She breathed the word in the awed forty to one that he will not be success¬ tone which people use in church. She ful. But, as I have already said, the ac¬ was not acting now; Lady Mounthead tual number of signs in the combination was in the presence of the only god she is fifteen. So, if you care to work out acknowledged. the sum when you have a little spare If Lord Mounthead had chanced to time at your disposal, you will find that glance at his wife’s face just then he my fifteen signs can be varied in their might have seen a look which would order no less than 1,307,674,368 times! have surprized him. But he merely gave Hence anyone trying to hit on the correct a little smiling nod, his eyes on the combination of that safe would have wealth before him. more than a billion to one chances against "Oh, yes, it’s real money all right,” he him! You may pity the poor burglar said lightly. "Some is in bullion, some when you realize that if it took him only in the form of banknotes; a few—very one minute to try each possible arrange¬ few—securities. But it’s all good, and it’s ment, and he continued his work without all waiting there for Celia.” intermission day and night, the unfor¬ A hard, steely glitter shone for an in¬ tunate man would have to keep at his job stant between the girl’s drooping lashes. 316 WEIRD TALES

"How much?” she asked, and he men¬ that I was under no circumstances to tioned a sum which was like the whisper allow the money out of my actual posses¬ of a tempting devil in her ear. sion until I handed it over to Celia.” "Isn’t it rather risky keeping such a "When?” huge sum in ready money, even in such a "On her wedding day.” wonderful safe as that?” The careless Thelma Mounthead glanced into the tone took all her art to maintain. face of the man beside her, then quickly He nodded a frowning agreement. lowered her eyes. Such was the light "The risk is there, right enough,” he that blazed in them that she feared her admitted. "Unfortunately I’m bound to husband, fond and unsuspecting though keep it in its original form, and in my he was, would read the sinister plan personal charge, by the terms of the will already shaping in her mind. by which it was bequeathed to Celia. My "A nice comfortable fortune to have brother Henry was always eccentric where dropped into one’s lap!” she murmured money matters were concerned. He never as she waved the old man an affectionate married, and Celia was a great favorite adieu. with him—his god-child, too. He emi¬ grated to South Africa when still in his At the door she turned with a ques¬ teens, and there he amassed a huge for¬ tion: "Does my dear Celia know of the tune. Exactly how he made his money I good fortune that’s awaiting her?” never learnt, but I know that he spent Lord Mounthead closed the secret door many years in Kimberley, so I presume in the bookcase and looked round. that it came from a lucky deal on di¬ "No. You and I are the only living amonds. Poor Henry! He was killed out souls who know the contents of that there—by natives, it was said, though safe. And I must ask you to keep the considerable mystery surrounded the secret.” affair. He had been transferring money “You may rely on me, John dear,” to England for years, and when I learnt she called back to him with smiling lips. the actual amount that was to become "I’ll be as silent ... as the grave.” Celia’s, I was absolutely staggered. But But her eyes did not smile as she made the most extraordinary part was the fact her way slowly to her room.

The astonishing weird adventure with the Golden Mummy will be narrated in next month’s installment. Re¬ serve your copy now at your news dealer’s Chained the Lightning By PAUL ERNST Another amazing tale of Doctor Satan, the world’s weirdest criminal, whose startling exploits will hold you spellbound

1. Death on the Wall tial street. Far off, the flickering of THE wind played an eery chorus lightning split the black September night among the dank leaves of the From behind the high wall bordering trees lining the wealthy residen¬ the Weldman estate came a hoarse cry. It 317 318 WEIRD TALES was not a shout so much as an exclama¬ He stood in the center of the sidewalk, tion; but in it was packed a horror that staring up beyond the end of the Weld- could not have been more vividly ex¬ man wall. A patrolman was running pressed had the person yelled at the top toward him, drawn by the frightful of his voice. screams. But the man did not seem to With the low cry, the wind seemed to see him. He simply stood there, silent die down as if to listen. In the lull the now and motionless, as if turned to rock. slam of a small gate in the high wall And then, with the policeman still a doz¬ rang out. en yards away, he fell. A man sped through that gate. His Full length to the sidewalk his body face was white in the light of the street crashed, stiffly, like a thing of wood rath¬ lamp fifty yards away. His eyes were er than of yielding flesh. And like a rigid wide and staring. His mouth was half thing of wood he lay in the water and open and twisted as if for another cry. mud of the walk. He began to run down the street The patrolman reached his side and toward the town section. He pounded bent over him. through puddles and mud, with his head Glaring, sightless eyes turned up into straining forward and his breath tearing his face. The man’s lips moved stiffly. in sobs from his throat. He was slight, "... master . . . millions . . .” bald, middle-aged, and fear lent such "What?” said the policeman, raising speed to his feet that he ran as a youth the man’s head. "What’s that you said?” might run. But only for an instant did The middle-aged man’s voice sounded he speed through the night. again, muffled and thick: "... master The end of the Weldman wall was still . . . shaving ...” a hundred feet in front of him, when The patrolman almost shook him in suddenly he stopped. This time a pierc¬ his anxiety to hear what was wrong. ing scream came from his lips instead of "What is it?” he snapped. "Are you a suppressed exclamation. The scream sick? Have you been hurt? What’s hap¬ echoed down the midnight quiet of the pened?” street like a banshee wail. The man began to dance, as if gro¬ But the man said no more. His face tesque, horrible music sounded from was blackening and swelling. His lips somewhere near. And as his feet beat were parting over bared teeth, while be¬ clumsily on the muddy sidewalk, he tween them his breath rattled with ever struck himself with his clenched fists. more difficulty and agony. Against his chest his fists beat, and then Then the agonized breathing stopped. against his throat, as though he had gone The man’s eyeballs rolled up so that only mad and was attempting to punish him¬ the whites were visible. And the patrol¬ self for some recent transgression. man lowered him to the sidewalk and His screams ripped out in an almost blew his whistle. unbroken flow of sound while he struck The man was dead. at his throat and chest. But only for a few Instinctively the policeman crossed moments did he dance there, and swing himself as he stood looking down at the his arms. Abruptly his screaming stopped, body. There was something hellish here, as though cut across the middle with a something diabolical beyond all his ex¬ knife-blade. His arms ceased to move. perience in a world of violence. THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 319

A squad car screamed to a stop beside But the night was alive with an intelli¬ the dead man and the cop. A de¬ gence far beyond theirs; an intelligence tective jumped out from beside the driver which was aware of things reaching back and ran forward. One look he took at beyond this death of a servant, and which the dead, blackened face; then he shook was already moving ahead of the death his head and whistled. toward the apprehension of the cause. "Weldman’s valet! He was on his Across the street from the two men way to the station house to tell us some¬ who bent over a blackened corpse was an thing. I was standing near when the desk unusually large tree. In the branches of sergeant took the call. Something terri¬ the tree a shapeless shadow clung. ble, and too important to be told over The black figure slowly and silently the phone, the guy said. Something descended while the plain-clothes man about his employer, John Weldman. Some and the patrolman waited for the coroner danger hanging over him, I gathered.” and the ambulance. Under his arm was what appeared to be a small square box. He stared at the agonized dead face. The figure got to the sidewalk, faced "Well, whatever it was he was going the men unseen for a moment, then to tell us will never be known now. But moved silently off into the night. it must have been something big—for him to have been knocked off like this From a square black box in a pitch- to keep him from spilling it!” dark room came a beam of light, "Hey, he wasn’t knocked off,” said the spreading from a half-inch opening to policeman. "I saw him keel over. There cover a six-foot-square silver screen. On wasn’t anybody else in sight.” the screen showed a high white wall— The detective stared somberly at him. the wall of the Weldman estate. "It doesn’t matter whether anyone was In the blank white wall could be seen in sight or not. This guy was murdered!” a dim oblong which was a small gate. He touched the curiously rigid body with The gate opened suddenly and a man the toe of his shoe. "If only he’d said leaped forth. Even in miniature, on the something before he died-” screen, his face could be read: an expres¬ "He did,” said the policeman. sion of stark terror was on it, twisting "What?” The plain-clothes man’s the partly opened mouth and glinting hand shot out and clutched the cop’s from the wide eyes. shoulder. "What did he say?” Faithfully the movements of Weld- "Just three words. And they don’t man’s valet were reproduced on the seem to make sense at all. He said 'mas¬ screen. Slight, bald, middle-aged, he ran ter .. . millions . . . shaving . . . ’ ” through the night along the white wall. The detective relaxed his tense grip. Then the picture showed him stopping “ 'Master. Millions. Shaving.’ That and beginning his clumsy, inexplicable doesn’t mean anything to me. I guess dance, and beating insanely at his own the valet’s secret died with him.” neck and diest. But the detective spoke too soon. But the picture revealed something As far as the police force went, the more—something which made the halt dead man’s secret might have died when and the self-punishment only too logical! he did. And the three words muttered Just before the man stopped, some¬ by the dying lips might never be made thing moved at the top of the high wall clear to them. ahead of him. The something was a 320 WEIRD TALES hand. The hand curved out over the wall where the valet lay dying. Calmly, ter¬ with fingers contracted as if to pluck ribly, it watched the man twitch, and lie something. But the hand did not gather still. Then, leisurely, indifferently, it dis¬ anything in. Instead, it released an ob¬ appeared. ject—a tiny object which did not show "Doctor Satan-” a 'girl’s half- in the rather dim moving-picture until it stifled cry sounded in the darkened room. had hit the unfortunate valet. Then it There was no reply to the exclamation. showed on the whiteness of the valet’s The picture continued, revealing the throat. movement of the man’s numbing lips. It was a tiny blur, too small to be de¬ A hand slowed the projector. The scribed by the camera lens. But it moved. picture, running at a slower tempo, showed the formed words on the man’s In the picture it showed for just an instant on the running man’s throat, and lips: "... master . . . millions . . . shav¬ ing. ...” then disappeared under his collar. It was Then the lips stopped moving and the just after that that the man stopped and began beating himself. figure of the patrolman edged into the film. The projector stopped. There was "An insect,” a deep, brooding voice a click, and light flooded the room. split the blackness of the room. "A poi¬ son insect! Carried into the Weldman 2. Beneath the Metropolis home, no doubt, for the death of the valet there. But the man had left the IT was a huge room, a library, with house on his way to the police station. books running from floor to ceiling of He nearly escaped. ...” all four walls, crowding windows and the The picture went on, showing the one door of the chamber. The books were valet’s sudden immobility, showing him all volumes of learning—a library such fall and lie like a log in the mud. as few universities have, and containing Then—it showed something else, at some yellowed tomes dealing with the the top of the wall where the hand had occult which no universities would have appeared. permitted on their shelves even had they The hand was withdrawn now, and a the wealth with which to purchase them. face looked over. It was turned toward In the center of the library was a great the dying man and it was a face to haunt ebony desk. Standing beside this was a the soul in nightmares. girl, lovely, tall, lithe, with dark blue There were no features to it. Only a eyes and hair more red than brown. The blank expanse showed from forehead to sudden light revealed in her dark eyes, chin, with black holes for eyes. A face as they rested on a man next to her, a masked as though for a masquerade; but look of perplexity, vague horror, and there was in the masquerade no sugges¬ something soft and glowing and shy, tion of humor. which faded the instant the man’s gaze Over the masked, terrible face was a answered hers. low-brimmed black hat, and the top of The man was one who had brought a the shoulders showing over the wall also glow to many a woman’s eyes. For this showed black; some sort of cloak. was Ascott Keane, interesting to the mer¬ Evil emanated from the masked face cenary for his large fortune, and to the as, like the covered face of a ghoul, it unmercenary for his looks. His face, un¬ bent over the top of the wall toward der coal-black hair, with steely gray eyes W. T.—3 THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 321 shaded by black eyebrows, had been re¬ as Keane. Her soft scream rang out: produced in many a rotogravure section. "Doctor Satan!” To readers of those society sections he Keane’s eyes glittered. He dropped the was a wealthy young man who idled instrument as if it had turned into a ser¬ when he was not playing games, a fellow pent in his fingers. without a serious thought in his head. “I’ve told you death would strike if But the girl beside him, Beatrice Dale, you interfered with my plans again,” the his more-than-secretary, knew better. harsh voice continued, sounding from She knew that Ascott Keane’s playboy the floor where the phone lay. "And I character was a cloak under which was a always keep my promises-” grim seriousness of purpose. She knew The words ended, swiftly and dramat¬ that he was one of the world’s most ically. With their ending, the telephone learned men in all the sciences—and in on the floor jumped like a live thing, those deep arts known, for want of a bet¬ while from transmitter to receiver, in a ter name, as Black Magic. She knew that thick blue arc, crackled a stream of elec¬ he had devoted his life to the running- tricity that would have killed a dozen down of such super-criminals as could men. laugh at the police and rise to the rather The crackling arc streamed just as far lofty altitude of his own attention. lightning flickered in the skies south of And she knew that the masked, terri¬ New York, and died as the lightning ble face that had peered over the top of died. Weldman’s wall for an instant belonged Keane stared at Beatrice, who had to a criminal who was perhaps more than gone white as death. worthy of his attention. A man known "He can harness the lightning!” he only as Doctor Satan, from the Luciferian breathed. "That I cannot do myself! If costume he chose to wear when engaged I can’t stop him soon, God knows what in his fiend’s work. A man of great will happen to this city—to the whole wealth, who had turned to crime to stir country-” his jaded pulses. A man whose name He stared at the instrument. The metal and identity were unknown, but whose was half melted. The hard rubber had erudition, particularly in forbidden fields been utterly consumed. Then he shrugged of learning, matched Keane’s own. and turned toward the screen again, That was the veiled personality which where, dimmed now by the lights in the occupied Keane day and night now, to room but still showing, was the picture his own great danger. That was the devil of the dying valet, showing motionless who had killed the valet with a poison with the stoppage of the projector. insect—and who had done other things "But I will stop him!” Keane’s voice in the last few weeks at which Keane, came bleakly. "Doctor Satan, hear that, till now, had been able only to guess. wherever you are now.” The telephone on the ebony desk He stepped across the melted telephone buzzed, softly. Keane picked it up. with a gesture that' brushed into a past of A harsh voice sounded, speaking in a forgotten dangers the fate he had just flat monotone. narrowly escaped, and stared at the lips "Ascott Keane, you are meddling of the pictured man. again!” "Shaving,” he repeated, while Beatrice Beatrice Dale heard the voice as well gazed at him with the fear in her dark W.T.—4 322 WEIRD TALES blue eyes almost buried by that soft glow been the last to go through the queer which she never, never allowed him to antics. So to the wall outside Weldman’s see. "Shaving. I think in that word lies estate Ascott Keane had taken his special the key to the problem we’ve been work¬ moving-picture camera, which recorded ing on for the last few weeks. The movement in dark night by means of an problem ending with the death of Weld- infra-red ray attachment he had invented. man’s valet.” And the camera had recorded the death of Weldman’s valet—which Keane had Swiftly Keane reviewed the problem, been too far away to prevent—and the one which he alone had become aware movement of his dying lips: "... mas¬ of; a string of events which singly had ter .. . millions . . . shaving. ...” been noted by several people but which Beatrice peered into Keane’s steely gray in their entirety had been remarked on eyes. by no one. "What does it mean?” she whispered. One by one over the past two weeks "Do you know yet, Ascott?” four wealthy men in New York had done "I think I do,” said Keane slowly. "I odd things. Each had disappeared from —think—I—do!” his office without warning, in three cases breaking important business appoint¬ he flickering lightning to the south ments. Each had then been seen neither T of New York lit with its rays a at home nor in any accustomed haunt for small graveyard in the heart of the down¬ many hours. Following that, on his re¬ town section of the city. It was a curious turn, each had seemed to avoid both his little cemetery, less than a hundred yards home and his office, appearing only now square. Long unused, it was dotted with and then at either place and letting his crumbling tombstones over which long business take care of itself. grass grew. Each, in those two weeks, had person¬ On two sides of it a great factory, ally drawn large sums in cash from the built in an L-shape, made a pitch-dark, United Continental Bank of New York five-story wall. On the third side an old —always that bank, never any of the apartment reared its height. On the others in which they kept money. Each fourth side, the street side, a high, rusty of the four was living alone in his great iron fence closed it off. home with only the servants, his family A curious, forgotten place of death in happening to be away at the time. And the heart of New York, encroached on by each, in the few times he was in home or the factory and the apartment building. office, did odd things which seemed to But more curious yet was a figure which indicate a suddenly faulty memory. furtively approached the rusted gate in These things Ascott Keane, alone in the fence and paused a moment to make the city, had noted and pieced together sure no person was near. into a pattern he felt sure had sinister The figure was tall and gaunt. A low- meaning. More, it was a pattern behind brimmed black hat hid its head and most which he thought he could sense the fig¬ of its face. The rest of the face showed ure of Doctor Satan in his red robe, with masked—a blank expanse covered by red red rubber gloves hiding his hands, and fabric. A long black cloak covered the red mask and cap hiding face and hair. figure from neck to ankles, making it John Weldman, copper magnate, had blend into the darkness. THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 323

The gate creaked open and the figure themselves to attention as the black- glided in among the moldering tomb¬ cloaked figure entered the weird chamber, stones. were two creatures that would bring a Beside one which lay prone in the rank chill to the spine of any man. grass, the figure stopped. Then it stepped One was an alert, agile little man with on the six-foot slab—and the slab sank pale eyes shining cruelly through a mat under it. A yawning hole appeared where of hair over his face. And this one, ape¬ the slab had been; a dark pit into which like in movement and thought, was Girse, the figure disappeared. Doctor Satan’s faithful servant. The oth¬ After an instant the slab rose and set¬ er was a giant with no legs, who sup¬ tled into place, apparently as it was be¬ ported his hugely muscled torso on his fore, looking as though it had lain there hands, swinging it along on his knuckles solid and undisturbed for a dozen years. as he moved. This was Bostiff, the sec¬ ond of Doctor Satan’s henchmen. Under it the black-cloaked figure went down a passage that slanted yet lower The figure that had entered the room into the earth. The passage was lined stood straight. Its shoulders moved, and with broken rock, and through the cracks the black cloak dropped. With a sweep occasional bits of rotted wood projected. of a hand, the black hat was removed, They were remnants of ancient coffins, and the figure became a thing to haunt and with them now and then could be for ever the sleep of any who might seen bleached white fragments. Bones. chance to see it. The figure opened a door at the end A red robe sheathed body and limbs. of the passage and stepped into a cham¬ Red rubber gloves were over its hands. ber as bizarre as it was secret. The face was masked in red, and the head It was a cavernous room twenty feet was covered with a red skull-cap so that square, lined with the broken rock as was even its hair did not show. From the the passage. It was very dim, with a small skull-cap, in mocking imitation of Satan’s red lamp in the corner near the door as horns, two small red knobs projected. its only illumination. Along the far wall Lucifer! Someone going robed as Satan were cages, small, about the size of large to a costume ball! But instinct whispered dog-houses. In these cages four white that this was no mere costume, that the figures squatted like animals. In the dim man under the sinister make-up was as light their species could not be deter¬ malevolent as his garb was mocking. mined. They were simply whitish, dis¬ "Master!” breathed Girse. "Doctor torted-looking beasts which seemed too Satan!” large for their small cages. Bostiff scraped his calloused knuckles Leaning against the wall near the light along the floor uneasily and stared at were four figures that looked at first like Doctor Satan out of stupid, dull eyes. sleeping men. But a glance told that they could not be that. Fully clad in ex¬ Doctor satan glanced at the cages pensive clothes, they leaned there like in which were dimly to be seen the sticks, without flexibility or movement, curious, whitish animals. In his eyes, more like dolls than men, perfectly fash¬ peering out of the eyeholes in the red ioned in the image of Man but seeming mask, was a glint of velvet cruelty. to want motive power and direction. "Have they been fed?” he asked, his In the center of the room, drawing voice a harsh monotone. 324 WEIRD TALES

"They have been fed,” replied Girse. tan. "The walls and roof are safe. But ’‘They have given no trouble?” the fires of heaven will consume that car¬ "None, Master,” said Bostiff, grinning cass, and so we are rid of it.” significantly. Bostiff grunted and nodded his great A feeble groan sounded from one of head. He opened the cage in which the the cages. white beast had fallen, and dragged it "One is ill?” snapped Doctor Satan. out. But now as the carcass was drawn "One is near death,” retorted Bostiff. nearer the light, it could be seen that it “The cold down here-” was not a beast at all. It was a man, el¬ "No matter. All have their duplicates, derly, naked, hideously scarred and ema¬ so that any may die without hurting my ciated. And so the other three left alive plans. Any save the last to come here. in their cages were men, penned up like And I intend to remedy that now-” animals in spaces too small to allow them The arrogant, harsh voice of Doctor to lie or stand at full length, pitiful cap¬ Satan was drowned by a shriek from the tives held here for Doctor Satan’s pur¬ cage in which the groan had sounded a pose! moment before. The strange white ani¬ Dumbly, cowering behind their bars, mal in it suddenly reared up, or tried to, they watched the red-robed, fiendish fig¬ beating its head against the top of the ure. cage. It rattled the bars for an instant, Doctor Satan went to a chest as Bostiff and then fell. dragged the dead man through a door There was deathly silence in the cham¬ leading to another underground room ber under the graveyard. Then Doctor like the first. He took from the chest a Satan strode to the cage. small object looking prosaic in this dimly "Dead,” he said, indifferently. lit chamber of horrors beneath a small, At the word, the other three animals forgotten cemetery. It was a checkbook, in the adjoining cages set up a wailing on the United Continental Bank of New and howling, chattering noises that sound¬ York City. ed oddly like words. Doctor Satan walked with the check¬ "Silence!” commanded Doctor Satan. book to the end cage. He handed it, and The chattering ceased. "Bostiff.” a pen, to the shadowy white figure The legless giant hitched his torso within. toward the cage. "Make out five checks,” he command¬ "Take this one into the next chamber.” ed. "Three for a hundred and fifty thou¬ Doctor Satan’s red-gloved hand went un¬ sand dollars apiece, two for a hundred der his robe. It came out with an odd thousand.” thing like a crystal tube an inch in diam¬ The cowering figure in the cage eter and nearly a foot long. "Place this straightened a little, and refused to take against the body, with the free end slant¬ book and pen through the bars. ing toward the south where the lightning "Bostiff,” called Doctor Satan. His still plays.” voice was soft, but there was in it an es¬ Bostiff visibly paled. sence of terror that made Girse, the little "But that draws the lightning in here, ape-man, shiver. Master. The walls and roof will col- The legless giant came from the next chamber, leaving the door open. The "Do as I bid you!” grated Doctor Sa¬ doorway was suddenly flooded with light THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 325 that beat at the eyeballs like whips. money changed hands, and desks at Through the portal could be seen the which transactions involving millions dead man who had been taken out of the were being accomplished. cage. But when the flash was over, only At the rear was a private elevator which charred remnants of the corpse were left. went up to a big office on the fourth That was all. The crystalline rod in their floor of the building. The office was midst waited to bring the next lightning marked, President. flicker from the south to consume even Keane’s name gave him instant entree the remnants. to the president of the bank. For Keane "Yes, Master?” said Bostiff, dragging was known to this man not only as a his great body forward. wealthy citizen whose business would be "This man does not want to do as he useful, but also in his more secret role of is ordered. You will 'persuade’ him-” marvelously capable criminal investigator. "I’ll write them!” screamed the man "Keane!” said Mercer, the president. in the cage suddenly. "My God, don’t let "It’s good to see you. What brings you that legless fiend get me—I’ll write here?” He glanced at the electric clock them!” on his desk. "Only nine-thirty in the Doctor Satan’s red mask moved slight¬ morning! That’s practically dawn for ly, as though beneath it his lips shaped you. At least that’s what you like to let themselves to a smile. He handed pen people think.” and book through the bars to the misera¬ ble, naked creature in the cage. Keane did not smile in return. He studied the man. Mercer was a small man, lean and 3. The Red Trail leathery, with prim nose-glasses like a N the morning, which was flooded with school teacher. One might be tempted calm sunlight after the night’s storm, to dismiss him as prim and fussy—till Ascott Keane paused a moment before the jaw was noted. Mercer had a jaw the impressive stone facade of the United like a steel trap, and blue eyes that were Continental Bank. shrewd, capable, and honest-looking. The bank building looked like a for¬ "I’m here to ask about a few of your tress, with thick walls and bronze doors customers,” he said. that could have withstood an army. It "I think I know which ones,” said spoke of comfortable, prosaic wealth, and Mercer, the smile fading from his leath¬ the power to hold it indefinitely from ery face. "Sit down and tell me about it.” marauders. It spoke of a world of sky¬ Keane took a chair at the end of Mer¬ scrapers and giant industrial plants and cer’s desk. It was an enormous desk. On motor cars. it there was no welter of papers; it was It seemed to give the lie to the possibil¬ bare save for a large onyx electric dock ity of the existence anywhere of a person which was at the back and end of the capable of looting it—a person like Doc¬ desk between Mercer and whoever sat in tor Satan who could laugh ironically at the visitor’s chair. bronze doors and stone walls. "The men I wanted to talk to you Keane passed through the guarded en¬ about,” Keane said, "are Edward Dom- trance of the bank, and went to the rear bey, Harold Kragness, Shepherd Case of the great room within, past marble and and lastly, John Weldman, all rich, and glass counters, cages in which shelves of all depositors here.” 326 WEIRD TALES

Mercer leaned back in his chair, put¬ “That was queer—both his desire to ting the tips of his fingers together and get the sum in cash, and his idea that I saying nothing, letting Keane talk before should countersign his check. I wouldn’t he told what he himself knew. have had to do that. He could get any¬ "I’ve learned,” Keane went on, "that thing up to half a million downstairs all four of these men have been making without special arrangement. But I scrib¬ heavy withdrawals of cash here lately. bled my initials on the check and-” For some reason each of them has found "Just a minute,” said Keane. "Did he it necessary to have hundreds of thou¬ bring the check here already made out?” sands of dollars in bills with him. Yet Mercer shook his head. here’s an odd thing. "He wrote it out here on my desk, be¬ ’’Each of the four has deposits in other fore my eyes. He waved it a minute or large New York banks. Between the two to dry the ink, disregarding a blotter four of them, indeed, they have large I passed him, and then handed it to me.” sums in no less than six of the biggest “It was his signature, all right?” banks in the city. Yet they always have "Oh, yes! No doubting it!” come here to draw their cash.” "Go on.” Mercer stirred. "Kragness went out with the check and cashed it downstairs. I thought about "I didn’t know that,” he said thought¬ it a lot. Why should he want all that in fully. cash? The obvious idea was that he ’’Well, it’s true. So I came here to see might be blackmailed or something. But if I could find out why. And I think I he didn’t look like a man under a strain. have.” Keane glanced at the onyx electric He was cheerful, laughing. And I cer¬ clock. "That is, I believe I have—if the tainly couldn’t question the genuineness checks happened to be made out in this of a check made out here in front of me. office.” Mercer nodded. "They were. All of them.” THOUGHT no more about it, then— till two days later. Then Dombey "All right, tell me about them,” said came in and went through the same rig¬ Keane, leaning back to listen in his turn. marole, only with a check for two hun¬ Mercer cleared his throat. dred thousand dollars. After that the "Those are the four men, and that’s flow started. the business, I expected you to ask about when the girl announced your name,” he "Kragness came in again, and Dom¬ said. "Because there’s something damned bey, and then Case, and finally Weld- queer about it, although I haven’t been man. All well known to me. The four able to puzzle out what it is. of them cashed check after check, all for "It started two weeks ago. Harold big sums. Never did any of the four Kragness came up here. He talked pleas¬ seem worried or terrified, as they would antly enough with me for a moment or have been if they were buying their way two and then said he wanted to cash a clear from some sort of danger. Yet— rather large check. A hundred and sev¬ all those checks! enty-five thousand dollars. He thought "I was certain something was wrong. I’d better put my initials on it so the tel¬ But I couldn’t put my finger on it. In ler would pay the money without ques¬ each case the check was written here in tion. the office by the man himself. Each man THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 327

denied that anything was wrong, when I "Well?” prompted Keane as the man exceeded my rights and asked them stopped. bluntly. "Well, in spite of all that they didn’t "I went so far as to put a private de¬ seem what I would call 'normal’. It’s tective on the trail of one of them, Dom- hard to describe it. And I can’t, as ap¬ bey—though for heaven’s sake don’t ever plied to them. I can only tell my own let anybody know that. The detective re¬ reactions.” ported that Dombey met no suspicious He moistened his lips, and stared past characters. He went home with his mon¬ Keane at the blank office wall. ey, where he seemed cheerful and un¬ "There was something the matter with alarmed. His wife and daughter are those men, Keane! Something devilish! away in Europe, you know-” All the time I talked to each of them, I "I know,” said Keane grimly. He could feel it. A sort of chill along my glanced at the clock again. "Each man spine—a feel of horror.” He tried to made out each check here, before your laugh. "I used to feel that way when I eyes, so that you could testify that noth¬ was a boy and passed near a cemetery at ing could possibly be wrong-” night. That’s all I can tell you, Keane. "Testify?” said Mercer quickly. I’m afraid it isn’t much.” "Let it go,” said Keane. "We’ll put "It’s a lot,” contradicted Keane. He it this way: each check is beyond suspi¬ got up, eyes icy with growing knowledge. cion, and you, the president of the bank, "A lot! Thanks, Mercer.” could swear to it. Which is an important He left the bank. Four men who part of the game.” seemed without worries—but who cashed "Game? Come, Keane! Tell me what’s large checks as though being bled by wrong?” some criminal ring! Four who seemed "It’s too soon, Mercer. Tell me one normal at first glance—but who made the more thing. You say each of these four bank president feel as he had felt when men is known to you personally. You near a graveyard as a boy! couldn’t possibly be fooled by somebody Keane went to the presidents’ offices made up to represent them?” of the five other big banks in which the "Not possibly!” said Mercer. "Besides, four men had large deposits, but from there were the checks, made out in their which none had drawn money in the past handwriting while I watched.” two weeks. He found what he had "The four seemed absolutely normal to thought he would find. you?” Keane persisted. On the desks of none of the five exec¬ Mercer hesitated for a full minute be¬ utives was there anything corresponding fore he answered that. Then his voice to the onyx electric clock on that of Mer¬ was a little strained, a little chilled. cer. Their desks were bare of all but "Normal? That’s a hard word to de¬ papers. fine. Each of them was undoubtedly the man he said he was. The four who came IN his big library, to which none gained in here, and between them have drawn admittance save after searching pre¬ several millions in the last two weeks, liminaries, the frosted glass television were certainly Dombey, Kragness, Case screen on his ebony desk glowed softly. and Weldman. And each seemed cheer¬ The face of Beatrice Dale was reflected. ful and without worries. And yet-” He pressed a button and the door 328 WEIRD TALES swung open. Beatrice came in. He stared four buildings where Dombey, Case, inquiringly at her. She was dressed in Kragness and Weldman have their suites street clothes and had evidently just come of offices. And I talked to the valets of in. Kragness, Case and Dombey. None of 'Tve just come from Mr. Weldman’s them has shaved any of the four in the home,” she said. "I talked to a maid past two weeks.” there. The servants are all terrified, of Her face colored a little. course, at the death of the valet.” "It seemed a silly question to ask Keane nodded impatiently. "They them, Ascott. But I know you must have would be, naturally. But Weldman! How had a good reason for telling me to in¬ about him? How does he act?” quire about it.” Beatrice caught her red lip between her "I did,” said Keane. "The best. The teeth. answer to that question clears up in my "He acts cheerful, absolutely normal. mind almost the last of the mystery of In fact, he seems almost too cheerful, Doctor Satan’s latest crime methods— after the murder of his man. Certainly precisely how he is draining the fortunes he seems in no danger, nor does he act of these rich men.” like a man who is being blackmailed.” Beatrice shook her head, bewildered. "Did you see him?” "Perhaps it’s clear to you. I certainly "Yes, I saw him for a moment from can’t understand it! And I can’t under¬ the servants’ wing. I got just a glimpse. stand what it is that takes place in Doctor But, Ascott”—her voice sank—"I had Satan’s mind! He is master of a hundred the most uncanny sensation when I saw secrets of nature unknown to all others, him! There’s something about that man save perhaps you. He could get all the —something-” She stopped with a money he wanted, if he chose, without shudder. these dreadful crime plots.” "Go on,” said Keane gently. Keane looked at her with his gray eyes "It’s impossible to put into words. He reflecting a knowledge of the motives of frightens me. I don’t know why. And men that was far beyond the knowledge it isn’t exactly fright—it’s horror.” other mortals could glean from human "Do the servants feel the same way contacts. about him?” 'You don’t look at it from the right The girl touched her burnished, red- angle, Beatrice. Money? It isn’t money brown hair distractedly. alone Doctor Satan wants. He has more "Yes. They’re a little afraid of him than enough of that without plotting for without knowing why. Several are leav¬ it. It’s the game itself he is after. The ing, because of the valet’s death, they grisly, stark game of plundering his fel¬ say. But I’m sure that vague feeling of low men of their fortunes and souls and horror is part of their going.” lives—solely for the thrill of conquering Keane’s large, firm mouth tightened. them. Of course he must get the money His strong fingers clenched a little. But too. One of the dark rules of his game his voice was even as he said: is that his crimes must pay. But the fact "The rest of the report, please. You that he is not purely a money-grabbing saw the barbers I listed, and talked to the criminal is what makes him so infinitely other valets?” dangerous. That, and his learning.” "Yes. I talked to the barbers in the His voice lowered, and into it crept the THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 329 resolution that had tempered the steel of they were pawns—to be thrown away his nature since first he had heard of the when the game was over. ruthless, cold-blooded individual who chose to dress in the devil’s masquerade 4. The Fifth Victim and call himself all too appropriately. N the home of Corey Magnus at nine Doctor Satan. I next evening, Magnus’s private secre¬ "But I’m going to stop him, Beatrice! tary opened the library door and almost It may cost me my life, but the cost will tiptoed in. He walked softly to the fire¬ come after the purchase—which is the place, in front of which was standing a destruction of Doctor Satan!” tall, heavy-set, imposing-looking man He smiled, and his voice returned to with gray hair and slate-gray eyes who normal. stared with a frown at the leaping flames. "However, histrionics won’t catch The secretary’s bearing expressed the him, will they? It takes work and per¬ deference due the man who was Chair¬ sistence to do that. Such work as the man of the Board of the American Zinc sifting of news items, for example. And Corporation, president of the New York I think I have one here that is to prove & Northwestern Railway, president of very, very important.” the New York Consolidated Trust, and He took from a drawer a half-page many other huge financial and industrial cut from the society section. It pictured groups. three people, a woman with a granite "Mr. Bowles, of the Gull Oil Corpo¬ chin and gray hair like cast iron in a wave ration, is here to see you, Mr. Magnus,” over her forehead; a girl who was a rep¬ he said. lica of her; and a foppishly handsome Magnus’s slate-colored eyes turned on young man with a harassed look. him. "Mrs. Corey Magnus, wife of the fi¬ "Ask Bowles to wait for a moment. I nancier, is sailing at midnight tonight for don’t feel very well ... a touch of dizzi- England with her daughter, Princess ness. . . . But don’t tell him that!” Rimsky, and her son-in-law, the prince, The secretary nodded and went out, last of the Borsakoffs. They will be re¬ closing the doors of the library behind ceived at court-” him. He was looking worried and per¬ Keane stared long at the pictures and plexed. Asking a man like Bowles to the text. wait! Even Corey Magnus might be sorry "Another wealthy man living without he had done that. his family for a time. Corey Magnus. Behind him, his employer stared dully And all the others were left alone by at the closed door, and then back at the their families before beginning their cash flames in the fireplace. His eyes con¬ withdrawals. ...” tracted as though he were in pain. He He put the clipping carefully away. swayed a little, and caught at the mantel¬ And in his eyes was pity as well as stony piece for support. resolve. For he knew that another man The open French doors leading to his had been marked by Doctor Satan. An¬ garden caught his gaze. He walked other victim for the strange and as yet un¬ toward them, breathing deeply of the conquerable crime-routine contrived by chill fall air. Small beads of perspiration the red-masked, red-robed demon who studded his forehead, and his heavy face juggled with human beings as though was pale. 330 WEIRD TALES

He walked out of the doors. The empty cage had belonged to Harold His head was bent forward on his thick Kragness. neck, and he looked intent, almost rapt, Girse, with ape-like movements, was as though something called him from out clearing out the empty cage. Bostiff, with there and he must find out what it was. a look of stupid awe and fear on his It was ten minutes later when his sec¬ bovine face, was stirring something in a retary came back into the library again, large metal bowl. not daring to keep Bowles waiting long¬ It was curious stuff he stirred, faintly er. He saw that the room was empty, and phosphorescent, like a colorless, opaque went to the open French doors. jelly. It clung to the pestle and, once, The garden was empty too. He rushed splashed sluggishly high enough to touch back to give an alarm—and saw some¬ Bostiff’s hand. When this happened, he thing he had missed before. A note on exclaimed aloud and shook the stuff off the library table. his flesh, to land in the bowl and mingle with the rest. "Send Bowles away,” the note read. "Tell him I’m ill and will see him in the Girse sneered at the exclamation. morning at his office. You may go home, "What are you afraid of, you ox?” yourself. C. M.” "This—this stuff in the bowl,” Bos¬ The secretary bit his lip. No word in tiff rumbled. "It’s kind of alive!” the note as to where his employer had "Sure it’s alive,” chuckled Girse, keep¬ gone so abruptly! No explanations of ing his distance from the bowl. "It’s this any sort! here proto—protoplasm, Doctor Satan But the brusk letter was indubitably in said. The junk you’re made of, and me, Magnus’s handwriting. There was nothing and everybody else.” for him to do but obey its commands. "I don’t like it,” said Bostiff, leaving off his stirring. Under the little cemetery, in the rock- "I do! Anything that brings in the lined chamber, Girse and Bostiff, cash that stuff brings, I like a lot. God, servants of Doctor Satan, were busy. Doctor Satan’s smart!” More lamps had been lit. Now the " 'Smart’?” Even to Bostiff’s limited room was brightly illuminated with gar¬ intelligence the word seemed feeble. But ish red light. In the brighter illumina¬ he could supply no other. "Smart enough tion the cages along the end wall showed to know everything we think or say. And plainly: the one empty cage, the occu¬ to kill us if we don’t think the right pant of which had been consumed by the thing.” trapped lightning in the next chamber, Girse nodded, his ape-like grin fading. and the three occupied cages. He had seen his red-robed master read The figures in these cages, seen in de¬ treachery in one man’s thoughts, and kill tail under the better light, would have him in a blue flame the only materials for astounded the city in the heart of which which were mysterious powdered chem¬ this chamber was buried. Naked, di¬ icals in a little heap. sheveled, gaunt with hunger and mottled The ape-like man started to say some¬ with cold, they were Edward Dombey, thing, then stopped. The red lamp near John Weldman and Shepherd Case, men the door was winking on and off, on and among the two per cent who controlled off. He opened the door and went down four-fifths of the wealth of the country. the passage revealed. THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 331

"Bostiff!” The voice came from a dis¬ These were not mechanical things— tance. dolls the size of men and dressed in The legless giant hitched his way out men’s clothes. These were corpses; bod¬ of the chamber and down the tunnel to ies; dead men, perfectly preserved but join Girse. Beside Girse, at the foot of nevertheless as dead as last year’s leaves! the shaft down which the broad tomb¬ Bostiff, handling the corpse as though stone slid as an elevator, was a motionless it were a thing of wood, clothed it in the figure. A heavy-set, important-looking garments of Corey Magnus. And Girse, man who was breathing stertorously but after feeling the papier-mache sheet over was obviously unconscious. the unconscious man’s face to make sure "Corey Magnus!” Bostiff rumbled. it had hardened properly, carefully lifted "I’ve seen him many a time in his pri¬ it off. vate car when I worked on the New York He held in his hands a perfect mask of & Northwestern Railroad! That’s where the millionaire. I lost my legs. So he’s the next! God, it’ll be a pleasure to handle him!” The red light next to the door winked Even Girse paled a little at the dull again. But it was a different signal ferocity in Bostiff’s eyes. this time. Instead of winking on and off The two of them dragged Magnus to at random, it blinked twice, hesitated, the chamber and shut the door. There, then blinked three times. working with the method of those who "Doctor Satan!” said Girse. "Is every¬ have performed the work before and thing ready for him?” know in advance every move, they began "Everything is ready,” said Bostiff, a strange series of tasks. leaning the freshly clad corpse against the Girse hopped agilely to a box beside wall. the metal mixing-bowl in which Bostiff The door opened, slowly, as though had stirred the protoplasm, afraid of it, no hand had touched it. A step sounded but having no conception of the marvel in the passage. Into the room came Doc¬ of it. From the box Girse took moist¬ tor Satan, red-robed and gloved, with the ened, pulped papier-mache. crimson light reflecting dully from his He pressed a thin blob of it over red mask and the skull-cap with the Magnus’s unconscious face. It slowly mocking, Luciferian horns on it. hardened there. As it did so, Bostiff An instant Doctor Satan stood within stripped the man, leaving his slightly the doorway, black eyes glaring at the paunchy body bare and white in the cold two who served him so well. Then he underground chamber. swung the door shut behind him with an Bostiff moved with the clothes to the impatience of movement that made Bos¬ row of‘figures leaning against the wall tiff and Girse glance apprehensively at near the door like life-sized dolls. And each other. now it could be seen that there were five Doctor Satan was in a rage. The icy figures leaning there instead of four. - brain under the cap and horns was gla¬ One of the figures was naked; and its cially angry at something. They knew nudity revealed a fact about itself and the signs. the clad four beside it that was the most "Has all gone well, Master?” said startling thing about the underground Girse, timidly. room. The coal-black eyes behind the mask 332 WEIRD TALES

narrowed as if their owner would ignore matching Magnus’s body in height and the question of an underling. Then the weight and build is prepared? But yes— mask moved with words. I see it is so clad, and the garments fit "You have the man, Magnus, whom I it well. Bring me the mask, and the directed here in the little death of hyp¬ bowl.” notism. Doesn’t that mean that all has He bent over Corey Magnus. Bostiff gone well? And yet-” and Girse went to the comer and came Doctor Satan strode to the unconscious, back with the bowl of protoplasm, and stripped financier. the papier-mache mask. "All has not gone well,” he grated at Working with deft, gloved fingers, last. "Keane escaped the lightning. And Doctor Satan began a process of scientific he was not in his home awhile ago when sculpture the methods and materials of which transcended anything yet known in I went there to deal personally the death science, art, or plastic surgery. he has avoided so far. Keane. ... A man in my own position—wealthy, learned, making an avocation of crime .5. Chained Lightning prevention as I have made a pastime of Ar a nod from Doctor Satan, Bostiff crime.” hitched his great body over to the The grating, arrogant voice softened newly clad corpse, dragged it down, and with thought, almost with doubt. carried it to him with one huge hand "The ancient Greek theory had it that under the dead man’s belt. every force that reared in the world soon He laid it beside the unconscious finan¬ found an equal, opposing force rearing cier. Doctor Satan carefully placed the against it as an antidote. Can that be mask over the dead face, and thrust a true? Has some high Providence ob¬ small tube into the bowl of living sub¬ served my rise, and in the observing pre¬ stance. The other end of the tube was pared for me an antagonist like Ascott placed between the mask and the dead Keane? But, no! There is no God, no face. higher Providence. Keane is an accident No process of siphoning was begun —an opponent more dangerous than as far as Girse or Bostiff could see. Yet most, but still one to be destroyed by me the level of the protoplasm lowered stead¬ almost at will!” ily in the bow'l as the jelly-like stuff The red-clad figure strode to the cages. flowed sluggishly up the tube and under Doctor Satan stood with folded arms, the mask. staring at the three men who cowered After a while the level ceased to sink within them at his near approach. in the bowl, and Doctor Satan stood up. "And you are three of the world’s "It is done. Tomorrow another indus¬ great,” Doctor Satan’s harsh, glacial tone trial giant shall go to the bank and draw lashed them. "Observe! Three who out the first of many blocks of cash.” thought themselves all-powerful! Cring¬ He removed the mask, and even Girse ing here like animals in a cage! But I and Bostiff, who had seen such things am more powerful than any other, though before, gasped aloud. the world does not yet know that.” The face of the dead man was the face The three men cowered lower. Doctor of Corey Magnus! Satan turned abruptly. Doctor Satan’s coal-black eyes fixed "The mask is prepared? The body themselves on the altered face of the THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 333 corpse. His gaze was electric, compelling, rible than shrieking chaos. Then Satan mystic. whirled and stared at the man who had "Magnus,” he said, "for from now on been lying behind him. you are Magnus—rise!” The man was sitting up now; and The man, lying there nameless in ob¬ though body and features were those of livion, was dead. That was beyond ques¬ Corey Magnus, there was something tioning. His flesh was cold and stiff. For about the eyes . . . something. . . . many hours the heart had not beat. "Keane!” Doctor Satan whispered. But—the body rose slowly, stiffly, at "Ascott Keane! Here!” Doctor Satan’s word! The black eyes glared at the head of Doctor Satan’s eyes impaled the dead the man, so different from the lean, hawk eyes of the moving, standing corpse. face of Keane. Glared amazement—and "Smile,” he said. rage. The dead lips, altered with the proto¬ "You have altered your face and body plasm, moved in a smile. It was the with protoplasm! You blundered onto wolfish grin of Corey Magnus, pictured my method of using and creating it. ...” many a time in cartoons. Keane’s voice came again, amazingly, "Speak. What is your name?” from Magnus’s throat. "My name,” spoke the corpse, "is "That’s only one of the many things Corey Magnus.” I’ve discovered, Doctor Satan. I know "I shall tell you silently what you are all you’ve done and planned to do. to do tomorrow,” said Doctor Satan. "Tomorrow that revivified corpse "Then you shall repeat my instructions.” would take a check, made out in advance For several minutes, the glittering, by Corey Magnus, to the office of the coal-black eyes probed the dead eyeballs president of the United Continental Bank. of the animated body. Then the stiff lips Why to that one bank? Because only on moved. that one presidential desk is there an "I shall go to the United Continental object—such as an electric clock—behind Bank tomorrow. With me I shall have which your puppet could write with a a check written out by the man who lies dry pen over the words and figures al¬ behind you. I shall take this check to ready made out by Magnus, and thus the president’s office--” seem to write the check fresh 'under the But now a new voice spoke in that very eyes’ of the president.” underground room, a voice not heard The coal-black eyes glaring at him before. One that made Bostiff grunt in from the red mask were like living jet, amazement, as though he had been struck. burning with hate. But, relentlessly, One that stiffened Doctor Satan’s red- Keane went on, slowly getting to his feet draped body as if an electric shock had as he spoke. coursed through it. "A clever, if somewhat complicated, The voice came from behind Doctor scheme, Doctor Satan. But like all com¬ Satan. And its message was as electrify¬ plicated plans, it provided its own draw¬ ing as its presence in that chamber. backs as it went along. "Let me tell you what the corpse was "For one thing, your dead men roused to have done for you tomorrow.” an inexplicable feeling of horror and For the space of a heart-beat the si¬ dread in the minds of observers. They lence that chained the room was more ter¬ seemed all right, and acted all right— 334 WEIRD TALES

but something chilled those they came in “Bind him!” contact with, and that fact was remem¬ Rope was wound around Keane’s arms bered. and body and pulled so taut that it cut "For another thing, there was the mat¬ deep into the synthetic flesh with which ter of their queer actions at home and in Keane had built out his hard, firm body their offices. Clever as you are, you to resemble Magnus’s pudgier one. couldn’t know all the. details of their Keane stared at Doctor Satan—and private and business lives, so your mas¬ smiled. querading corpses made mistakes some¬ Doctor Satan’s hand brought from un¬ times. der his red tunic the deadly, crystalline "Again, there was the matter of shav¬ tube. ing. Hair does not grow on the dead, contrary to superstition. And your mask "The lightning tube!” muttered Bos¬ of living protoplasm, of synthetic flesh, tiff, mouth open stupidly. "But, Master, covered the facial hair of the dead who there is no storm tonight. The sky is clear-” did your bidding. So there was no shav¬ ing to be done—to the bewilderment of "Fool,” said Doctor Satan, "there is barbers and valets. It was this that start¬ always lightning, and storm, somewhere ed Weldman’s valet to spying around, as in the world. And distance makes no a result of which he started for the po¬ difference to this.” lice, and his death. He thrust the crystalline tube between "Finally, you had to pick rich victims Keane’s bound atm and his side, jet-black who were not living with their families eyes flaming with triumph. at the moment: No matter how marvel¬ "When the next lightning bolt splits the sky, somewhere on earth,” he said, ous the disguise, immediate relatives of course could not have been fooled. It almost softly, "you die, Keane. That may was that fact which informed me, when be in five seconds—it may be in ten min¬ Corey Magnus’s family went abroad, that utes. But whenever it comes, death comes he would probably be next on your list. with it.” So I persuaded him to go away secretly And still Keane smiled. while I took his place. An easy way to "You’re so sure, Doctor Satan? Under find you, wasn’t it, Doctor Satan?” this synthetic flesh on my body there might be something that would astonish With the fires of hell glittering in you-” his jet-black eyes, Doctor Satan The sentence was never finished. had heard Keane out. They flamed like In some far distant place, lightning fire opals as he finally spoke. flared. "An easy way to get here, Ascott And suddenly the underground cham¬ Keane. Very easy! But you may find it ber was ablaze with blue-white light that more difficult to leave.” dazzled the eyes even through closed lids. "I’ll take my chance on that,” said It was an inferno of light, a soundless, Keane. rending explosion of it. Doctor Satan’s red-clad body quivered. In a blinding sheet it played Over the "Seize him!” body of Ascott Keane. Played over it— Girse and Bostiff clutched Keane’s and as suddenly shot away from it at a arms and held him in apparent helpless¬ crackling right angle! ness. Girse screamed and Bostiff roared like THE MAN WHO CHAINED THE LIGHTNING 335

a lanced bull as a little of the tremendous them caved in, burying many feet deep current rayed into them. But Doctor Sa¬ the passage between them and the room tan made no outcry. in which they had left Doctor Satan, The main stream of blue-white death Girse and Bostiff, and the five dead men was streaming from Keane’s body— who had served Satan’s turn. straight into the red-clad figure! The passage shuddered and quivered. Doctor Satan’s body convulsed at the Air from the cave-in screamed about their touch. A smell of burning fabric filled ears. The four clung to one another for the room, to mingle with the acrid odor support. of burned ozone. Then, in the racking silence succeeding And then Doctor Satan was down, the pandemonium, they stared at each with sheet after sheet of lightning bath¬ other in the faint light of the stars com¬ ing Keane in harmless radiance and ing down the black pit. streaming from him to plunge into the "The end of Doctor Satan,” breathed writhing red figure on the floor. John Weldman at last. "Thank God for that!” Keane's bonds were burned away by But Ascott Keane said nothing. He the force he had redirected. Some was remembering that in the burned of the synthetic flesh over his abdomen patches of Doctor Satan’s red robe he had was charred from him, revealing part of seen some crystalline stuff. And he knew a crystalline plate, like armor over his that was armor such as he himself had body. devised against the lightning’s bolt. Not He dropped Doctor Satan’s tube, as impervious as his own, perhaps—let¬ which smashed on the floor, and leaped ting some of the current through to con¬ over the moaning figures of Girse and vulse the man’s body—but still saving Bostiff toward the cages in which three him from death. men screamed pleas for help. The cave-in? That could not have From walls and roof of the low room harmed Doctor Satan. He must have con¬ bits of rock and earth were falling, loos¬ structed the chamber to resist the light¬ ened by the lightning bolts. The very ning shocks, because he drew them there floor seemed to sway under his feet. himself. Only the passage between the He opened the cages. room and the end of the tunnel could "Run!” he shouted. "Run!” have collapsed. The three staggered to the door and So Keane said nothing to Weldman. into the passage, with Keane behind But he knew the truth: neither lightning them. At his touch on a concealed pro¬ nor cave-in had killed Doctor Satan. He jection, the tombstone from the cemetery was alive—to continue his grim forays above sank down to get them. . . . against all the laws of decency and hu¬ With a soft roar the earth behind manity.

Another thrilling story about Doctor Satan,

"Hollywood Horror,” will appear

next month I'ulthoom By CLARK ASHTON SMITH

A weird-scientific story of two Earthmen on Mars—a tale of frightful tortures and eery horrors in the subterranean caverns of the red planet, and a doom that menaced Earth TO A cursory observer, it might eastern side of the great Yahan Canal. have seemed that Bob Haines and Returning at the sunset hour, and follow¬ Paul Septimus Chanler had little ing the estrade of purple marble beside enough in common, other than the pre¬ the water, they had nearly reached the dicament of being stranded without funds mile-long bridge that would take them on an alien world. back to the modern city, Ignar-Luth, in Haines, the third assistant pilot of an which were the terrestrial consulates and ether-liner, had been charged with insub¬ shipping-offices and hotels. ordination by his superiors, and had It was the Martian hour of worship, been left behind in Ignarh, the commer¬ when the Aihais gather in their roofless cial metropolis of Mars, and the port of temples to implore the return of the pass¬ all space-traffic. The charge against him ing sun. Like the throbbing of feverish was wholly a matter of personal spite; metal pulses, a sound of ceaseless and but so far, Haines had not succeeded in innumerable gongs punctured the thin finding a new berth; and the month’s air. The incredibly crooked streets were salary paid to him at parting had been almost empty; and only a few barges, devoured with appalling swiftness by the with immense rhomboidal sails of mauve pirate rates of the Tellurian Hotel. and scarlet, crawled to and fro on the Chanler, a professional writer of in¬ somber green waters. terplanetary fiction, had made a voyage The light waned with visible swiftness to Mars to fortify his imaginative talent behind the top-heavy towers and pagoda- by a solid groundwork of observation and angled pyramids of Ignar-Luth. The chill experience. His money had given out of the coming night began to pervade the after a few weeks; and fresh supplies, ex¬ shadows of the huge solar gnomons that pected from his publisher, had not yet lined the canal at frequent intervals. The arrived. querulous clangors of the gongs died sud¬ The two men, apart from their misfor¬ denly in Ignar-Vath, and left a weirdly tunes, shared an illimitable curiosity con¬ whispering silence. The buildings of the cerning all things Martian. Their thirst immemorial city bulked enormous upon for the exotic, their proclivity for wander¬ a sky of blackish emerald that was already ing into places usually avoided by terres¬ thronged with icy stars. trials, had drawn them together in spite A medley of untraceable exotic odors of obvious differences of temperament, was wafted through the twilight. The and had made them fast friends. perfume was redolent of alien mystery, Trying to forget their worries, they and it thrilled and troubled the Earthmen, had spent the past day in the queerly who became silent as they approached the piled and huddled maze of old Ignarh, bridge, feeling the oppression of eery called by the Martians Ignar-Vath, on the strangeness that gathered from all sides 336 W. T.—4 VULTHOOM 337

in the thickening gloom. More deeply commerce between the worlds. Their lan¬ than in daylight, they apprehended the guages had been mastered, their history muffled breathings and hidden, tortuous studied, by terrene savants. But it seemed movements of a life for ever inscrutable that there could be no real interchange to the children of other planets. The of ideas. Their civilization had grown void between Earth and Mars had been old in diverse complexity before the traversed; but who could cross the evolu¬ foundering of Lemuria; its sciences, arts, tionary gulf between Earthman and Mar¬ religions, were hoary with inconceivable tian? age; and even the simplest customs were The people were friendly enough in the fruit of alien forces and conditions. their taciturn way: they had tolerated the At that moment, faced with the pre¬ intrusion of terrestrials, had permitted cariousness of their situation, Haines and 338 WEIRD TALES

Chanler felt an actual terror of the un¬ "My master summons you,” bellowed known world that surrounded them with the colossus. "Your plight is known to its measureless antiquity. him. He will help you liberally, in re¬ They quickened their paces. The wide turn for a certain assistance which you can pavement that bordered the canal was render him. Come with me.” seemingly deserted; and the light, rail¬ “This sounds peremptory,” murmured less bridge itself was guarded only by the Haines. "Shall we go? Probably it’s some ten colossal statues of Martian heroes that charitable Aihai prince, who has gotten loomed in war-like attitudes before the wind of our reduced circumstances. Won¬ beginning of the first aerial span. der what the game is?” The Earthmen were somewhat startled "I suggest that we follow the guide,” when a living figure, little less gigantic said Chanler, eagerly. "His proposition than the carven images, detached itself sounds like the first chapter of a thriller.” from their deepening shadows and came "All right,” said Haines, to the tower¬ forward with mighty strides. ing giant. "Lead us to your master.” The figure, nearly ten feet in height, With strides that were moderated to was taller by a full yard than the average match those of the Earthmen, the colos¬ Aihai, but presented the familiar con¬ sus led them away from the hero-guarded formation of massively bulging chest bridge and into the greenish-purple gloom and bony, many-angled limbs. The head that had inundated Ignar-Vath. Beyond was featured with high-flaring ears and the pavement, an alley yawned like a pit-like nostrils that narrowed and ex¬ high-mounted cavern between lightless panded visibly in the twilight. The eyes mansions and warehouses whose broad were sunken in profound orbits, and were balconies and jutting roofs were almost wholly invisible, save for tiny reddish conterminous in midair. The alley was sparks that appeared to burn suspended in deserted; and the Aihai moved like an the sockets of a skull. According to na¬ overgrown shadow through the dusk and tive custom, this bizarre personage was paused shadow-like in a deep and lofty altogether nude; but a kind of circlet doorway. Halting at his heels, Chanler around the neck—a flat wire of curiously and Haines were aware of a shrill metal¬ beaten silver—indicated that he was the lic stridor, made by the opening of the servant of some noble lord. door, which, like all Martian doors, was drawn upward in the manner of a me¬ Haines and Chanler were astounded, diaeval portcullis. Their guide was sil¬ for they had never before seen a houetted on the saffron light that poured Martian of such prodigious stature. The from bosses of radio-active mineral set apparition, it was plain, desired to inter¬ in the walls and roof of a circular ante¬ cept them. He paused before them on chamber. He preceded them, according the pavement of blockless marble. They to custom; and following, they saw that were even more amazed by the weirdly the room was unoccupied. The door de¬ booming voice, reverberant as that of scended behind them without apparent some enormous frog, with which he be¬ agency or manipulation. gan to address them. In spite of the in¬ To Chanler, gazing about the window¬ terminably guttural tones, the heavy slur¬ less chamber, there came the indefinable ring of certain vowels and consonants, alarm that is sometimes felt in a closed they realized that the words were those space. Under the circumstances, there of human language. seemed to be no reason to apprehend dan- VULTHOOM 339* get or treachery; but all at once he was "We go to my master,” replied the filled with a wild longing to escape. Martian with cryptic finality. "He awaits Haines, on his part, was wondering you.” rather perplexedly why the inner door The cluster of lights had become a sin¬ was closed and why the master of the gle star, had dwindled and faded as if house had not already appeared to re¬ in the night of infinity. There was a ceive them. Somehow, the house im¬ sense of irredeemable depth, as if they pressed him as being uninhabited: there had gone down to the very core of that was something empty and desolate in the alien world. The strangeness of their silence that surrounded them. situation filled the Earthmen with increas¬ The Aihai, standing in the center of ing disquiet. They had committed them¬ the bare, unfurnished room, had faced selves to a clueless mystery that began to about as if to address the Earthmen. His savor of menace and peril. Nothing was eyes glowered inscrutably from their to be learned from their conductor. No deep orbits; his mouth opened, showing retreat was possible—and they were both double rows of snaggy teeth. But no weaponless. sound appeared to issue from his moving lips; and the notes that he emitted must The strident shrieking of metal slowed have belonged to that scale of overtones, and sank to a sullen whine. The beyond human audition, of which the Earthmen were da2zled by the ruddy bril¬ Martian voice is capable. No doubt the liance that broke upon them through a mechanism of the door had been actuated circle of slender pillars that had replaced by similar overtones; and now, as if in the walls of the shaft. An instant more, response, the entire floor of the chamber, while they went down through the flood¬ wrought of dark, seamless metal, began ing light, and then the floor beneath them to descend slowly, as if dropping into a became stationary. They saw that it was great pit. Haines and Chanler, startled, now part of the floor of a great cavern saw the saffron lights receding above lit by crimson hemispheres embedded in them. They, together with the giant, were the roof. The cavern was circular, with going down into shadow and darkness, passages that ramified from it in every in a broad circular shaft. There was a direction, like the spokes of a wheel from ceaseless grating and shrieking of metal, the hub. Many Martians, no less gigantic setting their teeth on edge with its insup¬ than the guide, were passing swiftly to and portable pitch. fro, as if intent on enigmatic errands. The Like a narrowing cluster of yellow strange, muted clangors and thunder-like stars, the lights grew dim and small above rumblings of hidden machinery throbbed them. Still their descent continued; and in the air, vibrated in the shaken floor. they could no longer discern each other’s "What do you suppose we’ve gotten faces, or the face of the Aihai, in the ebon into?” murmured Chanler. "We must be blackness through which they fell. Haines many miles below the surface. I’ve never and Chanler were beset with a thousand heard of anything like this, except in doubts and suspicions, and they began to some of the old Aihai myths.. This place wonder if they had been somewhat rash might be Ravormos, the Martian under¬ in accepting the Aihai’s invitation. world, where Vulthoom, the evil god, is “Where are you taking us?” said supposed to lie asleep for a thousand years Haines bluntly. "Does your master live amid his worshippers.” underground?” The guide had overheard him. "You v 340 WEIRD TALES

have come to Ravormos,” he boomed por¬ Haines and Chanler were led along a tentously. "Vulthoom is awake, and will corridor from whose arched roof the red not sleep again for another thousand hemispheres, doubtless formed of arti¬ years. It is he that has summoned you; ficially radio-active metal, glared down and I take you now to the chamber of at intervals like imprisoned suns. Leap¬ audience.” ing from step to step, they descended a Haines and Chanler, dumfounded be¬ flight of giant stairs, with the Martian yond measure, followed the Martian from striding easily before them. He paused the strange elevator toward one of the at the open portals of a chamber hewn ramifying passages. in the dark and basic adamantine stone. "There must be some sort of foolery "Enter,” he said, and withdrew his on foot,” muttered Haines. "I’ve heard bulk to let them pass. of Vulthoom, too, but he’s a mere super¬ The chamber was small but lofty, its stition, like Satan. The up-to-date Mar¬ roof rising like the interior of a spire. Its tians don’t believe in him nowadays; floor and walls were stained by the bloody though I have heard that there is still a violet beams of a single hemisphere far sort of devil-cult among the pariahs and up in the narrowing dome. The place low-castes. I’ll wager that some noble is was vacant, and furnished only with a trying to stage a revolution against the curious tripod of black metal, fixed in reigning emperor, Cykor, and has estab¬ the center of the floor. The tripod bore lished his quarters underground.” an oval block of crystal, and from this "That sounds reasonable,” Chanler block, as if from a frozen pool, a frozen agreed. "A revolutionist might call him¬ flower lifted, opening petals of smooth, self Vulthoom: the trick would be true heavy ivory that received a rosy tinge to the Aihai psychology. They have a from the strange light. Block, flower, taste for high-sounding metaphors and tripod, it seemed, were the parts of a fantastic titles.” piece of sculpture. Both became silent, feeling a sort of awe before the vastness of the cavern- Crossing the threshold, the Earthmen world whose litten corridors reached away became instantly aware that the on every hand. The surmises they had throbbing thunders and cave-reverberant voiced began to appear inadequate: the clangors had ebbed away in profound si¬ improbable was verified, the fabulous lence. It was as if they had entered a had become the factual, and was engulf¬ sanctuary from which all sound was ex¬ ing them more and more. The far, mys¬ cluded by a mystic barrier. The portals terious clangors, it seemed, were of pre- remained open behind them. Their guide, temormal origin; the hurrying giants who apparently, had withdrawn. But, some¬ passed athwart the chamber with un¬ how, they felt that they were not alone, known burdens conveyed a sense of su¬ and it seemed that hidden eyes were peer¬ pernatural activity and enterprise. Haines ing upon them from the blank walls. and Chanler were both tall and stalwart, Perturbed and puzzled, they stared at but the Martians about them were all the pale flower, noting the seven tongue¬ nine or ten feet in height. Some were like petals that curled softly outward from closer to eleven feet, and all were muscled a perforated heart like a small censer. in proportion. Their faces bore a look of Chanler began to wonder if it were really immense, mummy-like age, incongruous a carving, or an actual flower that had with their agility and vigor. been mineralized through Martian ehem- VULTHOOM 341 istry. Then, startlingly, a voice appeared ness, I conferred a longevity that is almost to issue from the blossom: a voice in¬ equal to my own. To ensure this longevity, credibly sweet, clear and sonorous, whose I have also given them the gift of a slum¬ tones, perfectly articulate, were neither ber corresponding to mine. They sleep those of Aihai nor Earthman. and wake with me. "I, who speak, am the entity known as "We have maintained this order of ex¬ Vulthoom,” said the voice. "Be not sur¬ istence for many ages. Seldom have I prized or frightened: it is my desire to meddled in the doings of the surface- befriend you in return for a consideration dwellers. They, however, have converted which, I hope, you will not find impossi¬ me into an evil god or spirit; though ble. First of all, however, I must explain evil, to me, is a word without meaning. certain matters that perplex you. "I am the possessor of many senses and "No doubt you have heard the popular faculties unknown to you or to the Mar¬ legends concerning me, and have dis¬ tians. My perceptions, at will, can be missed them as mere superstitions. Like extended over large areas of space, or all myths, they are partly true and partly even time. Thus I learned your predica¬ false. I am neither god nor demon, but a ment; and I have called you here with being who came to Mars from another the hope of obtaining your consent to a universe in former cycles. Though I am certain plan. To be brief, I have grown not immortal, my span of life is far long¬ weary of Mars, a senile world that draws er than that of any creature evolved by near to death; and I wish to establish the worlds of your solar system. I am myself in a younger planet. The Earth governed by alien biologic laws, with would serve my purpose well. Even now, periods of alternate slumber and wakeful¬ my followers are building the new ether- ness that involve centuries. It is virtually ship in which I propose to make the true, as the Aihais believe, that I sleep voyage. for a thousand years and remain con¬ "I do not wish to repeat the experience scious continually for another thousand. of my arrival in Mars by landing among "At a time when your ancestors were a people ignorant of me and perhaps uni¬ still the blood-brothers of the ape, I fled versally hostile. You, being Earthmen, from my own world to this intercosmic could prepare many of your fellows for exile, banished by implacable foes. The my coming, could gather proselytes to Martians say that I fell from heaven like serve me. Your reward—and theirs— a fiery meteor; and the myth interprets would be the elixir of longevity. And I the descent of my ether-ship. I found a have many other gifts . . the precious matured civilization, immensely inferior, gems and metals that you prize so highly. however, to that from which I came. Also, there are the flowers, whose per¬ "The kings and hierarchs of the planet fume is more seductive and persuasive would have driven me away; but I than all else. Inhaling that perfume, you gathered a few adherents, arming them will deem that even gold is worthless in with weapons superior to those of Mar¬ comparison . . . and having breathed it, tian science; and after a great war, I es¬ you, and all others of your kind, will tablished myself firmly and gained other serve me gladly.” followers. I did not care to conquer Mars, but withdrew to this cavern-world in The voice ended, leaving a vibration which I have dwelt ever since with my that thrilled the nerves of the listen¬ adherents. On these, for their faithful¬ ers for some moments. It was like the 342 WEIRD TALES cessation of a sweet, bewitching music sions were oddly alike. It seemed to with overtones of evil scarcely to be de¬ Chanler, all at once, that the perfume was tected above the subtle melody. It be¬ no longer wholly alien to him, but was mused the senses of Haines and Chanler, something that he had remembered from lulling their astonishment into a sort of other times and places. He tried to re¬ dreamy acceptance of the voice and its call the circumstances of this prior famil¬ declarations. iarity, and his recollections, drawn up as Chanler made an effort to throw off the if from the sealed reservoirs of an old enchantment. existence, took the form of an actual "Where are you?” he said. "And how scene that replaced the cavern-chamber are we to know that you have told us the about him. Haines was no part of this truth?” scene, but had disappeared from his ken, "I am near you,” said the voice, "but and the roof and walls had vanished, giv¬ I do not choose, at this time, to reveal ing place to an open forest of fern-like myself. The proof of all that I have trees. Their slim, pearly boles and tender stated, however, will be revealed to you frondage swam in a luminous glory, like in due course. Before you is one of an Eden filled with the primal daybreak. the flowers of which I have spoken. It The trees were tall, but taller still than is not, as you have perhaps surmised, a they were the flowers that poured down work of sculpture, but is an antholite, or from waving censers of carnal white an fossil blossom, brought, with others of overwhelming and voluptuous perfume. the same kind, from the world to which I Chanler felt an indescribable ecstasy. am native. Though scentless at ordinary It seemed that he had gone back to the temperatures, it yields a perfume under fountains of time in the first world, and the application of hpat. As to the per¬ had drawn into himself inexhaustible life, fume . . . you must judge for yourselves.” youth and vigor from the glorious light The air of the chamber had been neith¬ and fragrance that had steeped his senses er warm nor cold. Now, the Earthmen were to their last nerve. conscious of a change, as if hidden fires The ecstasy heightened, and he heard had been ignited. The warmth seemed a singing that appeared to emanate from to issue from the metal tripod and the the mouths of the blossoms: a singing as block of crystal, beating upon Haines and of houris, that turned his blood to a gold¬ Chanler like the radiation of some invisi¬ en philtre-brew. In the delirium of his ble tropic sun. It became ardent but not faculties, the sound was identified with insupportable. At the same time, insid¬ the blossoms’ odor. It rose in giddying iously, the terrestrials began to perceive rapture insuppressible; and he thought the perfume, which was like nothing they that the very flowers soared like flames, had ever inhaled. An elusive thread of and the trees aspired toward them, and other-world sweetness, it curled about he himself was a blown fire that towered their nostrils, deepening slowly but accel¬ with the singing to attain some ultimate eratively to a spicy flood, and seeming to pinnacle of delight. The whole world mix a pleasant coolness as of foliage- swept upward in a tide of exaltation, and shaded air with the fervent heat. it seemed that the singing turned to ar¬ Chanler was more vividly affected than ticulate sound, and Chanler heard the Haines by the curious hallucinations that words, "I am Vulthoom, and thou art followed; though, apart from this differ¬ mine from the beginning of worlds, and ing degree of verisimilitude, their impres¬ shalt be mine until the end....” VULTHOOM 343

He awoke under circumstances that no less baffling than extraordinary. An might almost have been a contin¬ unknown entity, naming himself after uation of the visionary imagery he had the Martian Devil, had invited them to beheld under the influence of the per¬ become his terrestrial agents or emissa¬ fume. He lay on a bed of short, curling ries. Apart from the spreading of a prop¬ grass the color of verd-antique, with enor¬ aganda designed to facilitate his advent mous tiger-hued blossoms leaning about on Earth, they were to introduce an alien him, and a soft brilliance as of amber drug that was no less powerful than mor¬ sunset filling his eyes between the trailing phine, cocain, or marihuana—and, in all boughs of strange, crimson-fruited trees. likelihood, no less pernicious. Tardily, as he grew cognizant of his sur¬ "What if we refuse?” said Chanler. roundings, he realized that the voice of "Vulthoom said that it would be im¬ Haines had awakened him, and saw that possible to let us return, in that case. Haines was sitting near at hand on the But he didn’t specify our fate—merely curious sward. hinted that it would be unpleasant.” "Say, aren’t you ever coming out of "Well, Haines, we’ve got to think our it?” Chanler heard the crisp query as if way out of this, if we can.” through a film of dreams. His thoughts "I'm afraid that thinking won’t help were bewildered, and his memories were us much. We must be many miles below oddly mixed with the pseudo-recollec¬ the surface of Mars—and the mechanism tions, drawn as if from other lives, that of the elevators, in all probability, is had risen before him in his delirium. It something that no Earthman could ever was hard to disentangle the false from learn.” the real; but sanity returned to him by Before Chanler could offer any com¬ degrees; and with it came a feeling of ment, one of the giant Aihais appeared profound exhaustion and nerve-weariness, among the trees, carrying two of the cu¬ which warned him that he had sojourned rious Martian utensils known as kulpai. in the spurious paradise of a potent drug. These were large platters of semi-metallic "Where are we now? and how did we earthenware, fitted with removable cups get here?” he asked. and rotatory carafes, in which an entire "As far as I can tell,” returned Haines, meal of liquids and solids could be served. "we’re in a sort of underground garden. The Aihai set the platters on the ground Some of those big Aihais must have before Haines and Chanler, and then brought us here after we succumbed to waited, immobile and inscrutable. The the perfume. I resisted the influence Earthmen, conscious of a ravening hun¬ longer than you did; and I remember ger, addressed themselves to the food¬ hearing the voice of Vulthoom as I went stuffs, which had been molded or cut under. The voice said that he would into various geometric forms. Though give us forty-eight hours, terrestrial time, possibly of synthetic origin, the foods in which to think over his proposition. If were delicious, and the Earthmen con¬ we accept, he’ll send us back to Ignarh sumed them to the last cone and lozenge, with a fabulous sum of money—and a and washed them down with a vinous supply of those narcotic flowers.” garnet-colored liquor from the carafes. Chanler was now fully awake. He and When they had finished, their attend¬ Haines proceeded to discuss their situa¬ ant spoke for the first time. tion, but were unable to arrive at any "It is the will of Vulthoom that you definite conclusion. The whole affair was should wander throughout Ravormos and 344 WEIRD TALES behold the wonders of the caverns. You with his expert knowledge of mechanics. are at liberty to roam alone and unat¬ Vulthoom and his people had gone be¬ tended; or, if you prefer, I shall serve yond the spectrum, and beyond the audi¬ you as a guide. My name is Ta-Vho-Shai, ble vibrations of sound, and had com¬ and I am ready to answer any questions pelled the hidden forces of the universe that you ask. Also, you may dismiss me to appear and obey them. at will.” Everywhere there was a loud beating Haines and Chanler, after a brief dis¬ as of metal pulses, a mutter as of pris¬ cussion, decided to accept this offer of oned Afrits and servile iron titans. Valves ciceronage. They followed the Aihai opened and shut with a harsh clangor. through the garden, whose extent was There were rooms pillared with strident hard to determine because of the misty dynamos; and others where groups of amber luminance that filled it as if with mysteriously levitated spheres were spin¬ radiant atoms, giving the impression of ning silently, like suns and planets in the unbounded space. The light, they learned void of space. from Ta-Vho-Shai, was emitted by the They climbed a flight of stairs, colos-. lofty roof and walls beneath the action of sal as the steps of the pyramid of Cheops, an electro-magnetic force of wave-length to a higher level. Haines, in a dream-like shorter even than the cosmic rays; and it fashion, seemed to remember descending possessed all the essential qualities of these stairs, and thought they were now sunlight. nearing the chamber in which he and The garden was composed of weird Chanler had been interviewed by the hid¬ plants and blossoms, many of which were den entity, Vulthoom. He was not sure, exotic to Mars, and had perhaps been im¬ however; and Ta-Vho-Shai led them ported from the alien solar system to through a series of vast rooms that ap¬ which Vulthoom was native. Some of the peared to serve the purpose of laborato¬ flowers were enormous mats of petals, ries. In most of these, there were age-old like a hundred orchids joined into one. colossi, bending like alchemists over fur¬ There were cruciform trees, hung with naces that burned with cold fire, and re¬ fantastically long and variegated leaves torts that fumed with queer threads and that resembled heraldic pennons or scrolls ropes of vapor. One room was untenant¬ of cryptic writing; and others were ed, and was furnished with no apparatus, branched and fruited in outlandish ways. other than three great bottles of clear, un¬ colored glass, taller than a tall man, and Beyond the garden, they entered a having somewhat the form of Roman world of open passages and cham¬ amphoras. To all appearances the bot¬ bered caverns, some of which were filled tles were empty; but they were closed with machinery or with storage-vats and with double-handed stoppers that a hu¬ urns. In others, immense ingots of pre¬ man being could scarcely have lifted. cious and semi-precious metals were piled, "What are these bottles?” Chanler and gigantic coffers spilled their flash¬ asked the guide. ing gems as if to tempt the Earthmen. "They are the Bottles of Sleep,” said Most of the machines were in action, the Aihai, with the solemn and senten¬ though untended, and Haines and Chan¬ tious air of a lecturer. "Each of them is ler were told that they could run in this filled with a rare, invisible gas. When manner for centuries or millenaries. Their the time comes for the thousand-year operation was inexplicable even to Haines slumber of Vulthoom, the gases are re- VULTHOOM 345 leased; and, mingling, they pervade the ship will blast its way to the surface by atmosphere of Ravormos, even to the low¬ means of atomic disintegrators. The very est cavern, inducing sleep for a similar stone will melt before it like vapor. Ig- period in us who serve Vulthoom. Time nar-Luth, which lies directly above, will no longer exists; and eons are no more be consumed as if the central fires of the than instants for the sleepers; and they planet had broken loose.” awaken only at the hour of Vulthoom’s Haines and Chanler, appalled, could awakening.” offer no rejoinder. More and more they Haines and Chanler, filled with curios¬ were stunned by the mystery and magni¬ ity, were prompted to ask many questions, tude, the terror and menace, of this un¬ but most of these were answered vaguely suspected cavern-world. Here, they felt, and ambiguously by Ta-Vho-Shai, who a malign Power, armed with untold ar¬ seemed eager to continue his ciceronage cana of science, was plotting some baleful through other and ulterior parts of Ra¬ conquest; a doom that might involve the vormos. He could tell them nothing peopled worlds of the system was being about the chemical nature of the gases; incubated in secrecy and darkness. They, and Vulthoom himself, if the veracity of it seemed, were helpless to escape and Ta-Vho-Shai could be trusted, was a mys¬ give warning; and their own fate was tery even to his own followers, most of shadowed by insoluble gloom. whom had never beheld him in person. A gust of hot, metallic vapor, mount¬ Ta-Vho-Shai conducted the Earthmen ing from the abyss, burned corrosively in from the room of bottles, and down a their nostrils as they peered from the long straight cavern, wholly deserted, gallery’s verge. Ill and giddy, they drew where a rumbling and pounding as of back. innumerable engines came to meet them. "What lies beyond this gulf?” Chan¬ The sound broke upon them like a Niag¬ ler inquired, when his sickness had ara of evil thunders when they emerged passed. finally in a sort of pillared gallery that "The gallery leads to outer caverns, surrounded a mile-wide gulf illumined little used, which conduct on the dry bed by the terrible flaring of tongued fires of an ancient underground river. This that rose incessantly from its depths. river-bed, running for many miles, It was as if they looked down into emerges in a sunken desert far below sea- some infernal circle of angry light and level, and lying to the west of Ignarh.” tortured shadow. Far beneath, they saw The Earthmen started at this informa¬ a colossal structure of curved and glitter¬ tion, which seemed to offer them a pos¬ ing girders, like the strangely articulated sible avenue of escape. Both, however, bones of a metal behemoth outstretched thought it well to dissemble their inter¬ along the bottom of the pit. Around it, est. Pretending fatigue, they asked the furnaces belched like the flaming mouths Aihai to lead them to some chamber in of dragons; tremendous cranes went up which they could rest awhile and discuss and down perpetually with a motion as Vulthoom’s proposition at leisure. of long-necked plesiosaurs; and the fig¬ Ta-Vho-Shai, professing himself at ures of giants, red as laboring demons, their service in all ways, took them to a moved through the sinister glare. small room beyond the laboratories. It "They build the ether-ship in which was a sort of bedchamber, with two tiers Vulthoom will voyage to the Earth,” said of couches along the walls. These couch¬ Ta-Vho-Shai. "When all is ready, the es, from their length, were evidently de- 346 WEIRD TALES signed to accommodate the giant Mar¬ hind the thick pillars, they followed the tians. Here Haines and Chanler were left long, slowly winding gallery on the right alone by Ta-Vho-Shai, who had tacitly hand. It was lit only by the shuddering inferred that his presence was no longer reflection of the tall flames in the pit needed. below. Moving thus, they were hidden "Well,” said Chanler, "it looks as if from the view of the laboring giants, if there were a chance of escape if we can any of these had happened to look up¬ only reach that river-bed. I took careful ward. Poisonous vapors were blown note of the corridors we followed on our toward them at intervals, and they felt return from the gallery. It should be easy the hellish heat of the furnaces; and the enough—unless we are being watched clangors of welding, the thunder of ob¬ without our knowledge.” scure machineries, beat upon them as they "The only trouble is, it’s too easy. . . . went with reverberations that were like But anyway, we can try. Anything would hammer-blows. be better than waiting around like this. By degrees they rounded the gulf, and After what we’ve seen and heard, I’m be¬ came at last to its further side, where the ginning to believe that Vulthoom really is gallery curved backward in its return the Devil—even though he doesn’t claim toward the entrance corridor. Here, in the to be.” shadows, they discerned the unlit mouth "Those ten-foot Aihais give me the of a large cavern that radiated from the creeps,” said Chanler. "I can readily be¬ gallery. lieve they are a million years old, or This cavern, they surmised, would lead thereabouts. Enormous longevity would them toward the sunken river-bed of account for their size and stature. Most which Ta-Vho-Shai had spoken. Haines, animals that survive beyond the normal luckily, carried a small pocket-flash, and term of years become gigantic; and it he turned its ray into the cavern, reveal¬ stands to reason that these Martian men ing a straight corridor with numerous would develop in a similar fashion.” minor intersections. Night and silence seemed to swallow them at a gulp, and IT was a simple matter to retrace their the clangors of the toiling Titans were route to the pillared gallery that en¬ quickly and mysteriously muted as they circled the great abyss. For most of the hurried along the empty hall. distance, they had only to follow a main The roof of the corridor was fitted corridor; and the sound of the rumbling with metal hemispheres, now dark and engineries alone would have guided them. rayless, that had formerly served to il¬ They met no one in the passages; and the luminate it in the same fashion as the Aihais that they saw through open por¬ other halls of Ravormos. A fine dust was tals in laboratory rooms were deeply in¬ stirred by the feet of the Earthmen as tent on enigmatic chemistries. they fled; and soon the air grew chill and "I don’t like this,” muttered Haines. thin, losing the mild and somewhat hu¬ "It’s too good to be true.” mid warmth of the central caverns. It "I’m not so sure of that. Perhaps it was plain, as Ta-Vho-Shai had told them, simply hasn’t occurred to Vulthoom and that these outer passages were seldom his followers that we might try to es¬ used or visited. cape. After all, we know nothing about It seemed that they went on for a mile their psychology.” or more in that Tartarean corridor. Then Keeping close to the inner wall, be¬ the walls began to straiten, the floor VULTHOOM 347 toughened and fell steeply. There were pected, that they were not living growths, no more cross-passages, and hope quick¬ but were petrified and heavily impreg¬ ened in the Earthmen as they saw plainly nated with minerals. He tried to break that they had gone beyond the artificial one of them loose, but it resisted all his caverns into a natural tunnel. The-tunnel tuggings. However, by hammering it soon widened, and its floor became a se¬ with a loose fragment of stone, he suc¬ ries of shelf-formations. By means of ceeded in fracturing the base of the club, these, they descended into a profound and it toppled over with an iron tinkling. abyss that was obviously the river-channel The thing was very heavy, with a mace¬ of which Ta-Vho-Shai had told them. like swelling at the upper end, and would The small flashlight barely sufficed to make a substantial weapon in case of reveal the full extent of this underground need. He broke off a second club for waterway, in which there was no longer Chanler; and thus armed, they resumed even a trickle of its prehistoric flood. The their flight. bottom, deeply eroded, and riffled with sharp boulders, was more than a hundred IT was impossible to calculate the dis¬ yards wide; and the roof arched into tance that they covered. The channel gloom irresoluble. Exploring the bottom turned and twisted, it pitched abruptly tentatively for a little distance, Haines in places, and was often broken into ledg¬ and Chanler determined by its gradual es that glittered with alien ores or were falling the direction in which the stream stained with weirdly brilliant oxides of had flowed. Following this downward azure, vermilion and yellow. The men course, they set out resolutely, praying floundered ankle-deep in pits of sable that they would find no impassable bar¬ sand, or climbed laboriously over dam¬ riers, no precipices of former cataracts to like barricades of rusty boulders, huge as impede or prevent their egress in the des¬ piled menhirs. Ever and anon, they found ert. Apart from the danger of pursuit, themselves listening feverishly for any they apprehended no other difficulties sound that would betoken pursuit. But than these. silence brimmed the Cimmerian channel, The obscure windings of the bottom troubled only by the clatter and crunch brought them first to one side and then to of their own footsteps. the other as they groped along. In places At last, with incredulous eyes, they the cavern widened, and they came to far- saw before them the dawning of a pale recessive beaches, terraced, and marked light in the further depths. Arch by dis¬ by the ebbing waters. High up on some mal arch, like the throat of Avernus lit of the beaches, there were singular forma¬ by nether fires, the enormous cavern be¬ tions resembling a type of mammoth fun¬ came visible. For one exultant moment, gi grown in caverns beneath the modern they thought that they were nearing the canals. These formations, in the shape channel mouth; but the light grew with of Herculean clubs, arose often to a an eery and startling brilliance, like the height of three feet or more. Haines, im¬ flaming of furnaces rather than sunshine pressed by their metallic sparkling be¬ falling into a cave. Implacable, it crept neath the light as he flashed it upon them, along the walls and bottom and dimmed conceived a curious idea. Though Chan¬ the ineffectual beam of Haines’ torch as ler protested against the delay, he climbed it fell on the dazzled Earthmen. the shelving to examine a group of them Ominous, incomprehensible, the light more closely, and found, as he had sus¬ seemed to watch and threaten. They stood 348 WEIRD TALES amazed and hesitant, not knowing wheth¬ "My God! These monsters are super¬ er to go on or retreat. Then, from the natural!” cried Chanler, shaken and ap¬ flaming air, a voice spoke as if in gentle palled. reproof: the sweet, sonorous voice of Vul- Haines, though palpably startled, was thoom. inclined to a more orthodox explanation. "Go back as you came, O Earthlings. "There must be some sort of television None may leave Ravormos without my behind this,” he maintained, "though I knowledge or against my will. Behold! can’t imagine how it’s possible to project I have sent my Guardians to escort you.” three-dimensional images, and also create The lit air had been empty to all seem¬ the sensation of heat. ... I had an idea, ing, and the river-bed was peopled only somehow, that our escape was being by the grotesque masses and squat shad¬ watched.” ows of boulders. Now, with the ceasing He picked up a heavy fragment of of the voice, Haines and Chanler saw be¬ metallic stone and heaved it at one of fore them, at a distance of ten feet, the the glowing chimeras. Aimed unerring¬ instant apparition of two creatures that ly, the fragment struck the frontal brow were comparable to nothing in the whole of the monster, and seemed to explode in known zoology of Mars or Earth. a shower of sparks at the moment of im¬ They rose from the rocky bottom to pact. The creature flared and swelled the height of giraffes, with shortish legs prodigiously, and a fiery hissing became that were vaguely similar to those of Chi¬ audible. Haines and Chanler were driven nese dragons, and elongated spiral necks back by a wave of scorching heat; and like the middle coils of great anacondas. their wardens followed them pace by pace Their heads were triple-faced, and they on the rough bottom. Abandoning all might have been the trimurti of some hope of escape, they returned toward Ra¬ infernal world. It seemed that each face vormos, dogged by the monsters as they was eyeless, with tongue-shapen flames toiled through yielding sand and over the issuing voluminously from deep orbits ledges and riffles. beneath the slanted brows. Flames also Reaching the point where they had de¬ poured in a ceaseless vomit from the gap¬ scended into the river-channel, they found ing gargoyle mouths. From the head of its upper stretches guarded by two more each monster a triple comb of vermilion of these terrific dragons. There was no flared aloft in sharp serrations, glowing other recourse than to climb the lofty terribly; and both of them were bearded shelves into the acclivitous tunnel. Weary with crimson scrolls. Their necks and with their long flight, and enervated by arching spines were fringed with sword- a dull despair, they found themselves long blades that diminished into rows of again in the outer hall, with two of their daggers on the tapering tails; and their guardians now preceding them like an whole bodies, as well as this fearsome escort of infernal honor. Both were armament, appeared to burn as if they stunned by a realization of the awful and had just issued from a fiery furnace. mysterious powers of Vulthoom; and A palpable heat emanated from these even Haines had become silent, though hellish chimeras, and the Earthmen re¬ his brain was still busy with a futile and treated hastily before the flying splotches, desperate probing. Chanler, more sensi¬ like the blown tatters of a conflagration, tive, suffered all the chills and terrors that broke loose from their ever-jetting that his literary imagination could inflict eye-flames and mouth-flames. upon him under the circumstances. VULTHOOM 349

They came at length to the columned monsters turned to prodigious blossoms; gallery that circled the vast abyss. the pillars of the gallery became gigantic Midway in this gallery, the chimeras who trees in a glamor of primal dawn; the preceded the Earthmen turned upon thunders of the pit were lulled to a far- them suddenly with a fearsome belching off sighing as of gentle seas on Edenic of flames; and, as they paused in their shores. The teeming terrors of Ravormos, intimidation, the two behind continued to the threat of a shadowy doom, were as advance toward them with a hissing as things that had never been. Haines and of Satanic salamanders. In that narrow¬ Chanler, oblivious, were lost in the para¬ ing space, the heat was like a furnace- dise of the unknown drug. . .. blast, and the columns afforded no shel¬ ter. From the gulf below, where the Haines, awakening darkly, found that Martian titans toiled perpetually, a stupe¬ he lay on the stone floor in the cir¬ fying thunder rose to assail them at the cling colonnade. He was alone, and the same time; and noxious fumes were fiery chimeras had vanished. The shad¬ blown toward them in writhing coils. ows of his opiate swoon were roughly dis¬ "Looks as if they are going to drive sipated by the clangors that still mounted us into the gulf,” Haines panted, as he from the neighboring gulf. With grow¬ sought to draw breath in the fiery air. ing consternation and horror, he recalled He and Chanler reeled before the loom¬ everything that had happened. ing monsters, and even as he spoke, two He arose giddily to his feet, peering more of these hellish apparitions flamed about in the semi-twilight of the gallery into being at the gallery’s verge, as if for some trace of his companion. The they had risen from the gulf to render petrified fungus-dub that Chanler had impossible that fatal plunge which alone carried, as well as his own weapon, were could have offered an escape from the lying where they had fallen from the fin¬ others. gers of the overpowered men. But Chan¬ Half swooning, the Earthmen were ler was gone; and Haines shouted aloud dimly aware of a change in the menacing with no other response than the eerily chimeras. The flaming bodies dulled and prolonged echoes of the deep arcade. shrank and darkened, the heat lessened, Impelled by an urgent feeling that he the fires died down in the mouths and must find Chanler without delay, he re¬ eye-pits. At the same time, the creatures covered his heavy mace and started along drew closer, fawning loathsomely, and the gallery. It seemed that the weapon revealing whitish tongues and eyeballs of could be of little use against the preter¬ jet. natural servants of Vulthoom; but some¬ The tongues seemed to divide . . . how, the metallic weight of the bludgeon they grew paler . . . they were like flower- reassured him. petals that Haines and Chanler had seen Nearing the great corridor that ran somewhere. The breath of the chimeras, to the core of Ravormos, Haines was like a soft gale, was upon the faces of overjoyed when he saw Chanler coming the Earthmen . . . and the breath was a to meet him. Before he could call out a cool and spicy perfume that they had cheery greeting, he heard Chanler’s voice: known before ... the narcotic perfume "Hello, Bob, this is my first televisual that had overcome them following their appearance in tridimensional form. Pretty audience with the hidden master of Ra- good, isn’t it? I’m in the private labora¬ vormos. . . . Moment by moment, the tory of Vulthoom, and Vulthoom has 350 WEIRD TALES persuaded me to accept his proposition. than doubtful schemes of Vulthoom. As soon as you’ve made up your mind to Apart from the projected invasion of do likewise, we’ll return to Ignarh with Earth, and the spread of the strange, sub¬ full instructions regarding our terrestrial tle narcotic, there was the ruthless de¬ mission, and funds amounting to a mil¬ struction of Ignar-Luth that would occur lion dollars each. Think it over, and when Vulthoom’s ether-vessel should you’ll see that there’s nothing else to do. blast its way to the planet’s surface. It When you’ve decided to join us, follow was his duty, and Chanler’s, to prevent the main corridor through Ravormos, and all this if prevention were humanly pos¬ Ta-Vho-Shai will meet you and bring you sible. Somehow, they—or he alone if nec¬ into the laboratory.” essary—must stem the cavern-incubated At the conclusion of this astounding menace. Bluntly honest himself, there speech, the figure of Chanler, without was no thought of temporizing even for seeming to wait for any reply from an instant. Haines, stepped lightly to -the gallery’s Still carrying the mineraloid club, he verge and floated out among the wreath¬ strode on for several minutes, his brain ing vapors. There, smiling upon Haines, pre-occupied with the dire problem but it vanished like a phantom. powerless to arrive at any solution. To say that Haines was thunderstruck Through a habit of observation more or would be putting it feebly indeed. In all less automatic with the veteran space-pilot, verisimilitude, the figure and voice had he peered through the doorways of the been those of the flesh-and-blood Chan¬ various rooms that he passed, where the ler. He felt an eery chill before the thau- cupels and retorts of a foreign chemistry maturgy of Vulthoom, which could bring were tended by age-old colossi. Then, about a projection so veridical as to de¬ without premeditation, he came to the ceive him in this manner. He was shocked deserted room in which were the three and horrified beyond measure by Chan¬ mighty receptacles that Ta-Vho-Shai had ter's capitulation; but somehow, it did called the Bottles of Sleep. He remem¬ not occur to him that any imposture had bered what the Aihai had said concern¬ been practised. ing their contents. "That devil has gotten him,” thought In a flash of desperate inspiration, Haines. "But I’d never have believed it. Haines boldly entered the room, hoping I didn’t think he was that kind of a fel¬ that he was not under the surveillance of low at all.” Vulthoom at the moment. There was no Sorrow, anger, bafflement and amaze¬ time for reflection or other delay, if he ment filled him alternately as he strode were to execute the audacious plan that along the gallery; nor, as he entered the had occurred to him. inner hall, was he able to decide on any clearly effective course of action. To Taller than his head, with the swell¬ yield, as Chanler had avowedly done, was ing contours of great amphoras, and unthinkably repugnant to him. If he seemingly empty, the Bottles glimmered could see Chanler again, perhaps he in the still light. Like the phantom of a could persuade him to change his mind bulbous giant, he saw his own distorted and resume an unflinching opposition to image in the upward-curving glass as he the alien entity. It was a degradation, neared the foremost one. and a treason to humankind, for any There was but one thought, one resolu¬ Earthman to lend himself to the more tion, in his mind. Whatever the cost, he VULTHOOM 351 must smash the Bottles, whose released number of Aihais had appeared in the gases would pervade Ravormos and hall. They were running about in an plunge the followers of Vulthoom—if aimless, unconcerted manner, like mum¬ not Vulthoom himself—into a thousand- mies impelled by a failing galvanism. year term of slumber. He and Chanler, None of them tried to intercept the no doubt, would be doomed to share the Earthman. slumber; and for them,' unfortified by the Whether the slumber induced by the secret elixir of immortality, there would gases would be slow or swift in its com¬ be in all likelihood no awakening. But ing, Haines could not surmise. The air under the circumstances it was better so; of the caverns was unchanged as far as and, by the sacrifice, a thousand years of he could tell: there was no odor, no per¬ grace would be accorded to the two plan¬ ceptible effect on his breathing. But al¬ ets. Now was his opportunity, and it ready, as he ran, he felt a slight drowsi¬ seemed improbable that there would ever ness, and a thin veil appeared to weave be another one. itself on all his senses. It seemed that He lifted the petrified fungus-mace, he faint vapors were forming in the corri¬ swung it back in a swift arc, and struck dor, and there was a touch of insubstan¬ with all his strength at the bellying glass. tiality in the very walls. There was a gong-like clangor, sonorous His flight was without definite goal or and prolonged, and radiating cracks ap¬ purpose. Like a dreamer in a dream, he peared from top to bottom of the huge felt little surprize when he found him¬ receptacle. At the second blow, it broke self lifted from the floor and borne along inward with a shrill, appalling sound that through midair in an inexplicable levita¬ was almost an articulate shriek, and tion. It was as if he were caught in a Haines’ face was fanned for an instant rushing stream, or were carried on invisi¬ by a cool breath, gentle as a woman’s ble clouds. The doors of a hundred se¬ sigh. cret rooms, the mouths of a hundred mys¬ Holding his breath to avoid the inhala¬ terious halls, flew swiftly past him, and tion of the gas, he turned to the next he saw in brief glimpses the colossi that Bottle. It shattered at the first stroke, lurched and nodded with the ever-spread¬ and again he felt a soft sighing, that fol¬ ing slumber as they went to and fro on lowed upon the cleavage. strange errands. Then, dimly, he saw A voice of thunder seemed to fill the that he had entered the high-vaulted room as he raised his weapon to assail room that enshrined the fossil flower on the third Bottle: "Fool! you have doomed its tripod of crystal and black metal. A yourself and your fellow Earthman by door opened in the seamless stone of the this deed.” The last words mingled with further wall as he hurtled toward it. An the crash of Haines’ final stroke. A instant more, while he seemed to fall tomb-like silence followed, and the far- downward through a nether chamber be¬ off, muted rumble of engineries seemed yond, among prodigious masses of un- to ebb and recede before it. The Earth- namable machines, upon a revolving disk man stared for a moment at the riven that droned infernally; then he was de¬ Bottles, and then, dropping the useless posited on his feet, with the whole cham¬ remnant of his mace, which had been ber righting itself about him, and the disk shattered into several fragments, he fled towering before him. The disk had now from the chamber. ceased to revolve, but the air still throbbed Drawn by the noise of breakage, a with its hellish vibration. The place was 352 WEIRD TALES

like a mechanical nightmare, but amid its Haines, laboriously trying to compre¬ confusion of glittering coils and dyna¬ hend through his own drowsiness, per¬ mos, Haines beheld the form of Chanler, ceived an evil-looking instrument, like a lashed upright with metal cords to a rack¬ many-pointed metal goad, which drooped like frame. Near him, in a still and stand¬ from the fingers of Ta-Vho-Shai. From ing posture, was the giant Ta-Vho-Shai; the arc of needle-like tips, there fell a and immediately in front of him, there re¬ ceaseless torrent of electric sparks. The clined an incredible thing whose further bosom of Chanler’s shirt had been torn portions and members wound away to an open, and his skin was stippled with tiny indefinite distance amid the machinery. blue-black marks from chin to diaphragm Somehow, the thing was like a gigan¬ . . . marks that formed a diabolic pattern. tic plant, with innumerable roots, pale Haines felt a vague, unreal horror. and swollen, that ramified from a bulbu- Through the Lethe that closed upon lar bole. This bole, half hidden from his senses more and more, he became view, was topped with a vermilion cup aware that Vulthoom had spoken; and like a monstrous blossom; and from the after an interval, it seemed that he under¬ cup there grew an elfin figure, pearly- stood the meaning of the words. "All hued, and formed with exquisite beauty my methods of persuasion have failed; and symmetry; a figure that turned its but it matters little. I shall yield myself Lilliputian face toward Haines and spoke to slumber, though I could remain awake in the sounding voice of Vulthoom: if I wished, defying the gases through "You have conquered for the time, but my superior science and vital power. We I bear no rancor toward you. I blame my shall all sleep soundly . . . and a thou¬ own carelessness.” sand years are no more than a single night to my followers and me. For you, whose o haines, the voice was like a far- T life-term is so brief, they will become— off thunder heard by one who is half eternity. Soon I shall awaken and resume asleep. With halting effort, lurching as my plans of conquest . . . and you, who if he were about to fall, he made his way dared to interfere, will lie beside me then toward Chanler. Wan and haggard, with as a little dust . . . and the dust will be a look that puzzled Haines dimly, Chan¬ swept away.” ler gazed upon him from the metal frame without speaking. The voice ended, and it seemed that “I . . . smashed the Bottles,” Haines the elfin being began to nod in the mon¬ heard his own voice with a feeling of strous vermilion cup. Haines and Chan¬ drowsy unreality. "It seemed the only ler saw each other with growing, waver¬ thing to do . . . since you had gone over ing dimness, as if through a gray mist to Vulthoom.” that had risen between them. There was "But I hadn’t consented,” Chanler re¬ silence everywhere, as if the Tartarean plied slowly. “It was all a deception . . . engineries had fallen still, and the titans to trick you into consenting. . . . And had ceased their labor. Chanler relaxed they were torturing me because I wouldn’t on the torture-frame, and his eyelids give in.” Chanler’s voice trailed away, drooped. Haines tottered, fell, and lay and it seemed that he could say no more. motionless. Ta-Vho-Shai, still clutching Subtly, the pain and haggardness began his sinister instrument, reposed like a to fade from his features, as if erased by mummied giant. Slumber, like a silent the gradual oncoming of slumber. sea, had filled the caverns of Ravormos. W. T.—5 atan in Exile ABy ARTHUR WILLIAM BERNAL A stupendous weird novel of a space bandit whose exploits among the planets of our solar system made him a veritable Robin Hood of the airways

The Story Thus Far reveals his identity as that of a young PARR KERIO receives a strange nobleman of Earth, Price Torgeny, long midnight visitor, Prince Satan, the considered dead. Kerio hears his amazing man with the metal arm. Satan, the tale. most-wanted space pirate in the universe, Back of it all is ruthless High Prince This story began in WEIRD TAXES for June 354 WEIRD TALES

Fane, Overlord of Earth, who is directly of the Atlantic Ocean. The corsair, in responsible for the banishment of young turn, has been trailed by his greatest pro¬ Torgeny and blind Feloth, an aged scien¬ fessional enemy, Inspector Nderso Drexx, tist, to the prison planet, Triton. of the space-police. On the way to Triton, a Neptunian At present, Drexx lies trussed helpless¬ satellite, Torgeny and Feloth secure con¬ ly in the top of the tower, while Satan is trol of the prison-ship and escape, killing peering into a hidden sub-chamber where the ship's officers. The stolen ship is the conspirators are torturing Thorg Lua. manned by a horde of giant Martian peas¬ Under the stress of torture, the inventor ants who look to the Earthmen as their has divulged his terrible secret and now leaders. In the course of battle, Torgeny only Satan can stave off a war which will is crippled for life by having his left arm plunge two worlds into bloody holocaust. charred with a ray-gun. His once hand¬ Fane’s lustful triumph turns to fear as some face is split diagonally by a hideous he suddenly gazes up into the muzzle of whip-scar. the deadliest ray-gun in the universe, and After many hazardous adventures, dur¬ Prince Satan holds the conspirators at bay. ing which the exiled prince turns gen¬ The story continues: uine pirate, Torgeny finds himself pos¬ sessed of a tiny underground kingdom somewhere beneath the crust of the 11. Satan Settles Accounts Jovian satellite, Ganymede. By this time N A trice Satan was down the ladder the nobleman is known only by the fan¬ and on the green-slime floor of the tastic title, Prince Satan, Lord of the hidden chamber. He knew he was still Great Blackness. He is enemy number working against time, it being only a mat¬ one on the lists of the baffled space-police. ter of minutes before some one of Drexx’s Through Feloth’s genius, Satan is crew got restless and disembarked to seek equipped with the fleetest cruiser in the his commander. void, the Space Waif. Satan is also fur¬ nished by Feloth with a miracle of metal His dark eyes swept the small room —a steel forearm and hand to replace his curiously. He saw in a flash that this lost natural limb. Science again proves room was a secret water-lock in the the supremacy of machinery over flesh, tower’s bottom, containing a tiny sub¬ and Satan becomes a superman. With his marine. No wonder Lavorkis had man¬ fast ship he is practically invincible. aged to carry on so much uncaught vil¬ Prince Satan has not forgotten his vow lainy, with this hidden undersea entrance of vengeance against High Prince Fane, and an illicit ship to smuggle in his cap¬ and at last he decides the time has come tives with, the space pirate remarked to when the Overlord must pay for his himself as he signaled the gaunt scientist treacheries. to drop his glittering scalpel. At present, Fane and Lavorkis, a crim¬ "Get over there against the wall— inally-minded scientist, have abducted both of you,” Satan snapped, his low Thorg Lua, a Venusian inventor, to force voice chill as a gust from Pluto’s ice- from him the secret of a terrible lethal wastes. weapon. With this weapon Fane hopes Lavorkis, whimpering like a beaten to conquer the planet Mars. Satan, aware thing, stumbled back against the little sub¬ of the situation, tracks the conspirators marine, hands held high above his head. to their lair, a sunken tower in the depths Fane sullenly followed, with as much dig- SATAN IN EXILE 355 nity as he could muster. Both knew the in a bowl. But deadliness of that menacing ray-gun in the Satan completely hand of metal. Without taking his steady ignored this con¬ gaze from his prisoners, Satan unstrapped spirator; he had the moaning Thorg Lua with his free forgotten that he hand, although he felt that it was already even existed. too late. "But first, "Where are your men, Lavorkis?” de¬ Fane,” said Sa¬ manded the exile. tan in gentle "He—sent them away,” supplied the tones soft as the Fane dying Venusian as Lavorkis hesitated. caress of death "Only two—on guard somewhere-” itself, "I have a few things to settle with The tortured man collapsed. One swift you. I don’t want to burn you just yet. glance at the seared breast told Satan that Thorg Lua would suffer no more. His While he spoke, the grim-visaged exile, acid-eaten heart was stilled. prompted by his strange conceit and "I disposed of your men on the way knowing that his enemies were fully down, Lavorkis, so don’t expect aid from aware of his reputation for uncanny them,” Satan said in his taut half-whisper. speed, had laid his ray-gun on the table He shifted his gaze from the fever- beside him. But Lavorkis, delirious with flushed one of the scientist to that of fear, thought he saw a chance for es¬ Fane. cape. "And now, Overlord, you cold-blooded With one great bound, the owner of murderer, do you know who I am? Be the tower was atop the flat platform by quick—I’m in a hurry!” the tiny submarine's open entrance-port, "You’re Prince Satan, the notorious one skinny hand clutching at a lever in space pirate,” stated the high prince, hav¬ the side of the wall. That was as far as ing regained a little of his habitual com¬ he got. posure. "But why-” "Stop where you are or I’ll burn you "Enough!” Satan could feel the pre¬ through!” The heavy pistol was in the cious seconds slipping past—racing sec¬ gleaming metal hand and aiming at La¬ onds which might mean the difference vorkis’ traitorous heart in the flicker of an between life and death for him. "I’m instant. Fane shrank, terror-stricken, Torgeny,” he blurted without further pre¬ against the rocky wall. amble, his eyes narrowed to slits behind "Don’t let him pull that lever!” cried which dark flames blazed, "and I’ve come the Overlord to Satan, terror clipping off from the depths of space to kill you, as his syllables. "It opens the gates to the I promised.” sea, and we’ll be drowned like rats in "Torgeny!” Fane’s composure was here! Stop him!” completely swept away. "Torgeny!” Something in the brain of Lavorkis The rocky sub-chamber swirled in black had certainly snapped. With one hand chaos. His knees buckled beneath him still on the lever handle, he swung upon and he clutched at the slimy wall for the two men below and cackled trium¬ support, his face white as the snow- phantly. "In a minute more you’ll both heaped plains of Triton. be dead! Ha, ha, ha! Did you think, "Kill us? Kill us?” Lavorkis rasped Fane, that Lavorkis would be for ever insanely, his yellow fangs clicking like ice content to lick your boots? Oh, no! 356 WEIRD TALES

Lavorkis is clever. Lavorkis can escape And outside, the anxious crew of a from here—escape with the secret that stationary space-ship fidgeted with their will make him an emperor of two worlds weapons, as they restlessly paced the —but you, you two, will die in a foam¬ floor of their engine-room in growing ing ocean torrent and none will ever concern over their master’s fate. . . . find your bodies. Ha, ha, ha, ha!” With an angry roar, a white-foamed Sudden movement. The ray-gun in deluge surged into the water-lock. The Satan’s hand bucked, and its beam of dull first leaping gush of green sea-flood red death leapt toward the madman sway¬ dashed the stout table whereon sprawled ing on the rocky shelf. Fane screamed in the dead body of Thorg Lua against the wild fear and made a dash for the ladder far wall, with a crash that shattered the leading to the rooms above. Lavorkis, heavy piece of furniture into kindling- flecks of foam upon his parted lips, was wood. The swiftly climbing Satan him¬ yanking hard upon the handle in the self would have been torn from the lad¬ chamber wall. der and plunged to a watery death by the Simultaneously with the plunging home force of that swirling torrent had not the of the flood-lever, a tiny round hole little submarine borne the initial brunt sprang into smoking existence between of the onrushing wave of destruction. As Lavorkis’ narrow eyes. There was a harsh it was, the submarine of the dead La¬ grating as giant cogs meshed inside the vorkis rocked and tilted in its cradle; but green-grown wall, and at the same instant it saved the flying human from being en¬ that the lifeless body of Lavorkis tum¬ gulfed by cascading doom. bled headlong into the gaping hatchway Satan, breathless from a crushing slap of his little submarine, that Fane’s scram¬ of sea-water, managed to drag his drip¬ bling boots disappeared from the ladder ping body out of danger in the nick of into the tower above, and that Satan time, and staggered forward in gasping flung himself desperately after the fleeing pursuit of his mortal enemy. He realized Overlord, the massive wall at one end of that he had dropped his only useful ray- the undersea chamber split into pivoted gun in his mad climb up the ladder. halves, and swung outward into the cold Fane would easily have made his es¬ green depths of the mighty Atlantic. . . . cape had he not tripped and fallen to his knees at the very entrance to the waiting Far above the level of that secret elevator. Now, before the machinery of chamber where Satan had tracked his the lift could jerk it upward under quarry, Inspector Drexx opened bewil¬ Fane’s jabbing finger, his fearful adver¬ dered eyes to discover himself bound and sary tumbled upon him- and the next sec¬ gagged, in a strange and lightless tower- ond, as a dark green cataract bubbled and top room. Recollection came quickly, swirled out of the open water-lock and however, in spite of a throbbing head, spouted over the bottom of the submerged and in a short time the trussed officer tower, both pirate and prey rushed roof- was thrashing about the floor, straining ward. at his bonds. Cursing his delay, the blond Inside the lift there was hardly a scuf¬ captive rolled wildly in the dark. He did fle. Fane quickly wrenched himself from not see that he was, with each lurch of the water-soaked pirate’s iron grasp, and his giant frame, inching dangerously whining for mercy, crawled off into a close to the brink of a gaping ladder- corner of the cage. Satan laughed grimly well. and pulled himself erect. SATAN IN EXILE 357

"Fane,” he remarked coldly, "when flicked the corsair’s ray-gun from its worn you ask me for mercy, you’re just wast¬ holster and flung himself at the black ing your time. When I get you out of square that indicated a passing floor. this tower, nothing in the universe can His ruse depended entirely upon cor¬ cut me off from vengeance.” rect timing. If he missed his goal, Fane Fane’s only response was a terrified knew he would be hurling himself whimper. It did not occur to Satan that against a solid wall; and even though he his prisoner might be shamming should dive truly at the dark blotch that Then, ignoring his captive completely, was the tenth landing, if his catapulting Satan stoically folded his arms and wait¬ body struck the low safety-gate, it would ed for the rising cage to stop. He won¬ also mean his being crushed to death be¬ dered if the crew of the Falling Leaf tween wall and elevator. were investigating the absence of their But with sure death awaiting him commander yet, and if so, what he would should he remain inside the lift, Fane do to evade them. When he had lost the preferred to take his chances in the mad weapon he borrowed from Drexx, he had leap. Like a bundle of rage, his torn lost his only means of defense, for the black cape streaming out behind, he shot two guns in his holsters were uncharged, from the lighted cage into all-enveloping and thus useless. He shrugged with darkness. He jounced heavily but safely characteristic nonchalance. The proper upon the cold metal floor, rolled over, time to worry about problems was when and sat up. He heard the elevator jerk they actually confronted him, he told to a scraping stop at the eleventh level, himself. and commence to descend. The Overlord was slumped dejectedly Hastily, the Overlord threw himself in his corner as though in a semi-stupor. behind an instrument-littered table, and But actually, the cringing figure was not leveled his captured ray-gun at the ele¬ so cowed as Satan believed; and the crafty vator shaft. An instant later the cage brain of the evil high prince was whirl¬ ground to a stop and presented the bi¬ ing at lightning speed, seeking some av¬ zarre silhouette of Satan’s form against enue of escape. Hate-blurred eyes stole a square of light. Fane squeezed the trig¬ repeated glances first at the various dark ger. levels as they sped past, then at the butt "Too bad, Fane. You’re unlucky to¬ of the ray-gun stuck so loosely in his cap¬ night. Had you asked me, I could have tor’s belt. There were but a few floors told you the gun was uncharged.” Satan, to go now, and Fane snatched a short, bounding from the cage, caught the faint desperate look at the black-shrouded form dick of the pistol’s release catch above of the disfigured exile standing beside the growing murmur of the mounting him, still apparently rapt in somber re¬ flood below. While the baffled high flection. Fane had formulated his plan. prince huddled, cursing, in the darkness, He tensed himself for action. wondering what he should do next, his relentless persecutor fumbled about the The elevator was just passing the black wall for the light-switch. third floor from the tower-top, when During the brief moment of grace al¬ the Overlord woke to lifek His rash plan lowed him before his enemy could lo¬ was executed in a flash. Before the mus¬ cate the neon button, Fane eased himself ing Satan was half aware that anything down the aisle toward the invisible lad¬ was amiss, his heretofore docile prisoner der well. 358 WEIRD TALES

He was not quick enough. . . can’t escape . . . promised I’d The lights flashed on, and the Over¬ kill you . . . keep my promises.” The lord was once more exposed to the bale¬ voice was that of Prince Satan, and it ful glare of the terrible space-black eyes. was vibrant with hate. A second voice, So fearful was the hate asmolder in those so distorted that it could belong to any¬ two dark pits beneath the shaggy bangs, one, choked, "Don’t—don’t kill me!” that Fane shrieked aloud. Inspector Drexx logically assumed that "Great Dzchan—spare me!” the words issued from the throat of La- "Go on and scream,” purred Satan vorkis. Satan was going to commit cold¬ icily, his long steel forefinger pointing at blooded murder under his very nose, his victim’s ashen face. "Scream now, while he lay helplessly bound only a few and get it over with. Because when I yards away! get through with you, you’ll be silent for a long, long time. This mad scheme of Drexx wasted no more time in lis¬ interplanetary war is too much, Fane, too tening. He strained at his bindings much! Oh, don’t think you can escape with the power of a Martian plainsman. me. I promised long ago I’d kill you— Under the sudden surge of energy, he and I always keep my promises.” felt the knots of the bands about his Two stories above, Inspector Drexx, chest slip a little further. He gritted his wriggling about in the black topmost strong teeth and strained mightily. The room of the tower, suddenly felt his head clumsily tied bonds gave a little bit more. and shoulders drop into nothingness. By If only Satan’s exaggerated sense of the a violent wrench he managed to fling theatrical would make him delay that himself back from the brink to safety. murder half a minute longer! Abruptly a light blinked on some¬ After his desperate plan had failed so where below, and the officer twisted his miserably, Fane’s courage melted with blond head until he could peer down the the swiftness of snow on the sun-baked hole into which he had so nearly toppled. surface of Mercury. Now, with all fight Two levels beneath him, the steel-gray taken out of him, he trembled as he eyes glimpsed a slowly advancing figure watched the advance of his macabre ad¬ robed in black. The shrouded form ex¬ versary, shuddered at the twitching of tended a hand in the gesture of pointing, the dread white scar, seethed with horror and it sparkled in the clear neon glow. at the invincible talons of glittering steel Drexx knew the hand was made of steel. which remorselessly reached out for him. The police officer redoubled his efforts Held powerless in the grip of hypnotic to free himself. In his haste, Satan had eyes, the Overlord staggered backward. not tied the strips of cloth as well as he For several slow steps he was unable to might have, and Drexx joyfully found summon the will to turn and flee, but his bonds to be gradually loosening. finally the swelling mutter of the angry From the lighted floor beneath came flood spurred him to action. If he was a sudden stifled scream. Panting from to save himself, he must act quickly. his exertion, Drexx strained his ears and Fane leapt around the corner of a long listened attentively. Wafted up the lad¬ apparatus table standing conveniently der-well came an indistinct murmuring. near, and was about to make another The trussed giant hung his head over the great leap for the ladder-steps. Satan pit’s edge, until he faintly caught a few continued his relentless advance without words. haste. He was secure in the belief that SATAN IN EXILE '359 any attempt at escape could be but a tem¬ long would it be before that trigger’s porary staving off of the vengeance to slack would be taken up? come. Fane’s ebon locks shook as he tilted Abruptly the anxiety in Fane’s dark his head in evil laughter. "You waited eyes vanished, to be replaced by a gleam years for the moment when you and I of incredulous joy. Hanging on the back would stand face to face, didn’t you, Tor¬ of a close-at-hand chair, beside a chem¬ geny? All right, now enjoy it! ical-stained work apron, was the forgot¬ "Enjoy your last minute in this world, ten weapon belt of one of Lavorkis’ la¬ Torgeny; and then go to your death' borers. From one of its holsters, the knowing that High Prince Fane will pro¬ black shiny butt of a ray-gun protruded ceed with his original plans, unmolested. invitingly. i You know that I alone have the key to Satan saw his danger too late. As he Thorg Lua’s documents now, and there abandoned his melodramatics and rushed is another copy of his experiments on file toward his opponent, Fane triumphantly at my palace. No sooner will the news¬ jerked up the forgotten pistol with eager casters have their fling at telling of your fingers and pointed it at the pirate’s head. sudden demise, than they’ll start flash¬ "Stop!” cried the Overlord, his sharp ing reports of interplanetary war. War, white teeth bared in a fierce grin. "One Torgeny, war between worlds, war that step forward and I’ll bum a hole right will make me the first Overlord to rule between those hellish eyes of yours!” two planets. Think of it, Torgeny! I, Satan stopped. Space-blade eyes meas¬ Fane, emperor over Earth and Mars com¬ uring the distance between the two men bined! told him it was useless to go on. The "Oh, no you don’t!” the power-mad pirate cursed himself for having let his monarch snapped, stepping backward a personal desire for revenge prevent his pace. And Satan realized it would be dispatching this enemy of the universe at impossible to inch forward until he could first sight. Now the tables were turned. get within arm’s reach of his taunting "Well, Prince Torgeny, alias Prince enemy. "No you don’t, Prince. I’m the Satan, which one of us will leave this one who’s going to spill blood this night. tower alive tonight? You thought you And I’m the one who’s going to spill had me trapped, didn’t you? But I’ll the blood of Mars too, soon enough! Is show you how High Prince Fane, Over- it not ironic that I shall be accounted a lord of Earth, deals with those who hero for both deeds, Torgeny?” threaten his life. If you know any pray¬ The long-cloaked Overlord bellowed ers, I’d advise you to start saying them with mirth. The exile licked his dry lips, now, you ghastly devil!” and waited woodenly for his tormenter to Satan glared stonily at the slender rod tire of making speeches and send forth of death in the hand of his arch-enemy the needle of fire that would release and wondered if his time had come. Out Prince Satan from this life. of that tiny round hole could spurt a thin From close beneath came the gurgle beam of destruction to sear its way of mounting waters. Fane’s blazing eyes through his brain. Prince Satan was narrowed in crafty thought as he heard it. standing face to face with the black- "I’m not going to burn you dead, Tor¬ shrouded form of the man he had sworn geny,” he smiled darkly. "I have a much to kill, and that man was tightening his better plan. Listen. I shall merely drill finger on the trigger of a ray-gun. How you in both thighs until your legs buckle 360 WEIRD TALES beneath you in paralysis. Then I shall STARTLED half out of his wits, the take the elevator to the top floor and black-cloaked Overlord shot a hasty simply watch. What a spectacle! Imag¬ glance upward, and by that one instant’s ine, Torgeny, the amusement that will be delay sealed his doom. For if Fane’s mine as I watch you struggle vainly to nerves were jarred by the unexpected drag your body up the ladder hand over outburst, Satan’s were not. The tensed hand, racked with pain and handicapped exile knew only that the moment of his deliverance was at hand, and he did not by the weight of useless legs, while be¬ hesitate. With the swiftness of a beam low you the whole ocean creeps up to of light, he struck. engulf you! Magnificent, eh? Listen to that torrent roar into the room below us! All the unbearable torture of all those Oh, how I’ll rock with merriment when long years of exile and shame surged in I see that dark flood dose over your a fever-flood through Satan’s tingling sweating face, as you try to scale the lad¬ fibers. For one short instant, while his ebon eyes, ablaze with all the savagery of der to safety! And, Prince, just to make sure you will not cheat the ocean, I shall man’s age-old killer lust, probed like a be waiting with this gun, just over you a searing heat-pencil into the numbed brain few yards above sea level, so if you seem of his long-sought enemy, Satan’s every to be winning your race with the rising nerve quivered with pulsations of raw madness. waters, I shall carefully pepper your right hand with little burning holes! Ha, Then, ere the fright-staggered Over- ha!” lord could force his dead fingers even to Fane was now slowly backing toward twitch upon the trigger of his dangling the elevator, widening the margin of weapon—even before the globes of frigid safety between him and the helpless exile sweat could spring up on a brow parch¬ before daring to cut the latter’s legs from ment-pale with the agony of impending beneath him with a sword of flame. Satan annihilation—with a strength more than steeled himself against the expected human concentrated in this great effort, charge. the exile of space flung himself in one swift motion across intervening distance, "I hope I have made this moment like a giant metal spring released, and worth your long wait,” Fane shouted swung the clenched fist of his steel left above the now deafening roar of rushing arm through the air in a murderous, water. Then the Overlord felt the guard¬ flashing arc, squarely at the center of rail of the ladder-well pressing against Fane’s terror-twisted countenance. his back, and knew it was time to shoot down his enemy. The polished barrel of The savage crunch of snapping bone his weapon glinted as he lowered it which followed the shock of the piston- slightly to cover Satan’s thighs. rod blow rocked Satan’s brain with un¬ holy delight, and from his taut throat But Fane never lived to press the trig¬ ripped a triumphant bark that was not a ger his eager finger tightened on. For laugh, yet was more than a laugh. For at that moment, the excited voice of In¬ one eternal instant Satan’s whole heritage spector Drexx yelled from two levels of civilization was stripped from him and above. he felt the same joy thrilling through his "Drop that gun, Satan! I’ve got you frame that his ancient, less than human covered!” he bluffed. ancestors must have felt when they glared SATAN IN EXILE 361

with red drip¬ gaged in one of the wildest, most fero¬ ping fangs at the cious hand-to-hand combats ever partici¬ torn jugular of pated in by civilized mortals. a fallen foe. "You knew I didn’t have a weapon, Then the pri¬ you beast,” snarled Drexx as he plunged meval feeling from the ladder full upon Satan’s shoul¬ abruptly ebbed ders. away, and Satan saw his gleam¬ With his brain fighting its way fog¬ ing metal fore¬ gily back to complete clearness, Prince Satan arm splashed Satan shook off his flailing opponent and with warm crimson to the elbow, saw the dragged himself to his feet. pale blob of flesh that had been a human "Wait, Drexx!” he protested, trying to face vanish in a gush of scarlet as it ward off his savage attacker. "That man seemed to leap away from him, saw —you thought to be me—was . . . that Fane’s sprawling corpse plunge limply was—Fane! I had to kill him—inter¬ against the guard-rail around the ladder- planetary w-” shaft, slip inertly between its bars, and "Fane!” bellowed Drexx, slugging topple into the frothing flood below. with greater frenzy than ever. "You mur¬ He saw all this and became aware, as dered Overlord Fane, right in front of the fever of madness melted swiftly from me—you filthy ghoul?” his being, that his ancient enemy, High Satan was beginning to realize that the Prince Fane, Overlord of Earth, was no officer would not listen to reason, and more. And with the realization that at reluctantly broke off his unheeded ex¬ last Fane was indeed dead partly clearing planations to save his breath for battle. his brain like a dash of icy water, the Drexx was a herculean madman of right¬ exile returned to the present, became cog¬ eous ire, and Satan was groveling in the nizant of the facts that somewhere be¬ knee-deep swirl of sea-water before he neath, Fane’s lifeless body was sinking could save himself from the other’s slowly through the foaming maelstrom pounding fists. to join the bodies of the insane Lavorkis But once under the surface of the cold and the unfortunate Thorg Lua, that all green tide, the exile’s senses cleared, and danger of a war between two worlds had he soon had the scarlet-uniformed police been averted, and that an arch-enemy of officer gasping and sputtering helplessly the universe was cold in death and with at arm’s length. him had gone the last brain that held In vain did the secret of a terrible weapon. the space pirate He also became aware that murky sea¬ plead with his water was lapping noisily at his frayed wriggling foe to boots, that the metal ladder which con¬ pay attention to nected the various tower floors was vi¬ his explanations, brating from the touch of rapidly de¬ but the half- scending feet, and that the man who drowned blond would trade his soul to see him taken had giant could not inadvertently spared his life. long be stayed The next second Inspector Drexx was even by the vise- upon him, and Satan found himself en¬ grip of Satan’s Inspector Drexx 362 WEIRD TALES steel fingers. He wrenched free and fool¬ plunged down toward the foaming whirl¬ ishly flung himself at the perplexed exile, pool that pursued them. strong hands again seeking the pirate’s Once again that night Satan’s hand of throat. steel stood him in good stead, and its But now Satan knew his only recourse clutching fingers wrapped themselves se¬ was to down his wrathful adversary and curely about one of the uprushing ladder flee, leaving his explanations unuttered, rungs, even as he dropped. With a terrific unless he wanted another useless murder jolt that almost pulled the arm from its on his hands. Accordingly, he ducked socket, the pirate stayed his fall. However, beneath the wild onslaught of his irra¬ even that tremendous jerk was not too tional assailant, and sent the other rock¬ much for the furious Inspector Drexx. ing back on his heels with a carefully Tenaciously he hung on to the booted controlled swing of his metal fist. A legs as the pair, like a human pendulum, second short jab sent the officer stum¬ swung precariously to and fro above the bling to his knees, with a line of red leaping surge of oncoming waves. creeping from his mouth until it was For the life of him, Satan could neith¬ wiped away by lapping tongues of frothy er raise his other hand high enough to green. pull himself upward, nor dislodge his A single, splashing stride carried the frenzied opponent, to free his weighted panting corsair to the shaft’s submerged legs. Wild-eyed, powerless to move an safety-rail. In another moment he was inch from the spot whence he dangled dragging his dripping body up the steel helplessly from a ladder rung, Satan cast ladder, leaving his insane attacker to a hopeless look around him. As he shift for himself. feared, he hung at least three yards be¬ But Drexx was not to be defeated so low sea level, the point of safety. For easily. His vision was a hazy fog of red the pirate knew that the uprushing waters as he staggered upright and struck off would cease only when they had reached through the rising cataract around him. the same level within the tower as they were without. Satan’s amazement was unbounded when long fingers sank into his legs from At the same time when Satan’s left below. With a kick, he jerked away and shoulder seemed ready to rend itself from sped up a few more rungs. He was above his body under the torturing strain, the the eleventh level now, and half-way clinging officer spluttered angrily. Dur¬ toward the topmost story—Drexx would ing the minutes they had been crazily have to be more than human to stop suspended above the flood, neither had him this time. spoken a word. Now, however, at But it seemed that Drexx was super¬ Drexx’s gurgle of wrath, Satan’s hopes human on this occasion, for half a sec¬ rose again, for he knew the green torrent ond later grasping hands again tugged was closing over his foe’s blond head. savagely upon Satan’s climbing boots. He summoned all his strength to hang That his wild enemy could still be after on for just a moment more, until he him, Satan could not comprehend. In¬ should feel the paralyzing fingers on his deed, so entirely unexpected was this last legs release their powerful hold. attack from below that Satan’s scaling When that moment came, Satan swung hands slipped from their polished holds, his weary body ladderward and slowly and the desperately battling couple resumed his painful climb, too tired even SATAN IN EXILE 363 to worry about his enemy. With a grate¬ punished body, the pale, heroic counte¬ ful gasp, the exile drew himself to safety nance shut its bleary eyes in a grimace above sea level and dropped soddenly to of superhuman effort, but to no avail. the floor of the tower. Gradually, fighting each inch of the way By the time the roar of the inflowing with the courageous will of a man who water died away below as the flood ap¬ would not die, the blond head began to proached sea level, Satan’s strength had sink weakly below the floor-edge, down somewhat returned. The ebon-eyed exile toward hungry waves. dragged himself unsteadily to his feet. Frozen to the spot, his mind the battle¬ He wanted to get to his ship and change ground for a wild tumult of emotions, clothes before he caught pneumonia from Satan gaped unbelievingly at the slowly the cold night air. But as he reeled awk¬ vanishing head of his dauntless foe. If wardly erect, Satan saw something that what his eyes saw was true, he was watch¬ widened his eyes in utter astonishment. ing the last struggles for life of a being It was with great effort he kept himself who was more than human—a veritable from collapsing again. god of courage was sinking to horrible For there, peering above the floor-edge, watery doom. with cold fire flashing from the narrowed But that was nonsense! Satan shook gray eyes like the sparks cast off by clash¬ his head sharply to clear it. God of ing steel, streaming with salty rivulets, courage or not, this man was called Nder- cut and bruised in half a dozen places, so Drexx, and he was an officer of the teeth gritted in a painful attempt to rise space-police. And this avenging demon further, blue with cold, was the weaving of the Code was powerless, offering an blond head of Inspector Drexx! excellent chance for Prince Satan to rid "You monster!” the sickly apparition himself of one more enemy. panted weakly, still vainly striving to Yet—he was a fighter, and a fearless writhe itself upward. "You cursed fiend! one, too. . . . But that also was nonsense! I’m not afraid of you. . . . And I’m not Besides, Satan had already too foolishly licked yet, either. Wait ten seconds—till spared this fellow’s life on a previous I climb up where you are, and I’ll tear occasion, and this was the thanks he had you apart—with my bare hands!” received, the thanks he would always re¬ ceive from Nderso Drexx. IF satan had doubted his eyes, he dis¬ Satan glared at the half-fainting man believed his ears still more. Here was whose quivering head was descending a a man who had suffered enough punish¬ trifle faster now. This was an opportu¬ ment in the last few minutes to kill even nity the like of which might never pre¬ a rubber-hided Martian, and now—in sent itself again. The exile grunted in such awful condition that his strengthless grim satisfaction—Dzchan was. surely hands could not even raise his body out with him on this night of nights! of the ladder-shaft—this incredible su¬ As the crimson-doubleted corsair of perman was muttering curses and chal¬ the void approached Drexx’s head, the lenges! steel-gray eyes fastened on him a basilisk "I’ll get you tonight, Satan—if it’s the glare of unabated fury. From the agon¬ last thing I ever do! You-” ized face came a checked groan of feeble Breathless, complete exhaustion sap¬ anguish. Nderso Drexx was about to ping the energy from every cell in his tumble from the ladder into the hungry 364 WEIRD TALES torrent underneath . . . and a well-aimed "But my real problem was to get first kick would greatly speed that water- aid for him. He was in no immediate soaked blond head on its journey. danger—that fellow Drexx is tougher "Lu’ul sholem, Inspector,” Satan mur¬ than Martian leather—but he did need mured softly, drawing back a heavy, attention. Also, I had to decoy the in¬ square-toed boot. spector’s men away from my life-shell, because I knew that should that tiny de¬ Epilog: Into the Great Blackness fenseless boat attempt to shove off it would be blasted right out of existence. rince satan, with less than even a A two-man life-shell isn’t much of a bruise to indicate that he had that cruiser, is it, Kerio?” night battled in brutal combat for his "Go on,” I urged. "How did you get very life, leaned back in his chair. out, then?” "But—what happened to Inspector "Why, I solved both problems at once. Drexx?” I demanded, aghast. "You mean Being as careful as I could, I lowered to say you—killed him ... in spite of the unconscious Drexx down the ladder all his heroism?” until the water just barely reached his There was a brief silence, during chin; and tied him there. Then I scram¬ which the exile of space was immobile bled up to the top story again, and did except for the slight twitching of his some investigating. scarred cheek. Then Prince Satan’s thin lips twisted in his sardonic half-smile. "After I discovered a hiding-place, I "Kerio, I am an idiot,” he murmured went over to where I had previously in that voice like a soft caress. "No, I dumped Drexx’s weapon belt and radio¬ didn’t kill Inspector Drexx. I couldn’t whistle, and blew upon the latter the do it, I like the infernal fool too much. Interplanetary Code signal for help. Then You can’t deliberately murder a comrade I again put out the lights and scurried you admire, you know. And Nderso for cover. Just over the doorway I had Drexx is my comrade, even though he spied a stout water-pipe, and it took me calls me his enemy. but half a second to pull myself up to it "He’s a great fellow, Kerio, and de¬ out of sight. serves to live if ever a man did. Anyway, "When Drexx’s men got to the tower men like Drexx just aren’t born to die in door—and I knew that it is in the Code lonely towers, after superhumanly heroic regulations for all officers within hearing battles. I may be lawless and depraved, distance to rally round whoever sounds but I realized that fact, and my resolu¬ that S. O. S.—they found the top floor tion failed me at the crucial moment.” in total darkness, but a light shining I sighed in relief. "Well, how did from the eleventh. you save him, and how did you get out "As I had intended, the first thing of the tower yourself?” I persisted. they saw—it was the whole crew—was A hand that had steel fingers carefully their insensible commander bound secure¬ smoothed the buccaneer’s shaggy bangs of ly up to his chin in water, with the rising silky black. "Oh, it was very simple,” he tide bringing its level each moment closer said. "To save Drexx, I merely pulled to his mouth and nostrils.” him up to safety, where he glared at me "But,” I expostulated, "at this hour of with deadly hate for the one instant he the night the tide is not rising—it’s ebb¬ remained conscious. ing!” SATAN IN EXILE 365

"Yes, I was aware of that,” remarked was carefully packed up the ladder and Satan dryly, "but you see, the police were the man irr the doorway had rolled over not quite sure! Anyway, in their quite and groaned again, I was rocketing out natural haste to rescue poor Drexx from of sight in a sheet of white flame.” a possible death by drowning, they left he dark head bent over a timepiece. but one man stationed on the top floor. T It uttered an exclamation of intense That was their mistake. surprize. "This one fellow who was left behind "I’ve got to go at once. It’s nearly —a husky-looking brute—posted him¬ dawn. If I don’t hurry, the space-police self just inside the doorway where he will be coming back to Earth looking for could keep an eye on what went on in¬ me. Then I would be caught.” side as well as on the outside tower roof. "I see you believe in the old principle It would have gone hard with anyone that people never look for their enemies who showed his nose to that sentry, too. in their own camp,” I smiled admiringly, I’ll tell the universe, for he had a ready as the cosmic buccaneer rose and drew his ray-gun in each hand and he was pretty ebon cape about him. "But listen, Your nervous. But, as I said, he stationed him¬ Highness,” I continued hastily, "why not self just inside the doorway, directly be¬ let me hide you here until I explain to neath where I crouched. That was his the authorities who the notorious Prince mistake. Satan really is, and why he-” "As silently as I could, I leaned care¬ The saturnine face grew hard in an fully down from my perch and suddenly instant. A steel forefinger reached out crooked this,” his silvery forearm flashed and prodded me meaningly in the chest. in a sparkling gesture, "about his thick "That would be the rashest thing you neck. He must have been considerably ever did, Kerio, if you told anyone who surprized, and he wriggled quite a bit, I really am. Prince Torgeny is dead— but he never said a word. and he has to stay that way.” "For a short while we clung there in "But, Prince, you are really a great the darkness, with his feet about a foot hero. A savior of civilization. A cosmic from the floor, and except for the little war at this-” clatter his guns made as they slipped "You repeat a word of what I have from his grasp, neither he nor I felt in¬ told you while I am yet alive, and your clined to break the stillness. It was very life won’t be worth a Venuzian xeelez,” considerate of him. iced the soft voice grimly. "You said "After a couple of minutes, I loosened earlier tonight that the Code does not my hold and my unknown friend slumped forgive murder. You promised me si¬ in a heap. Still he spoke not a word, unless lence as long as I live—and I’ll see that you can call a soft groan a word. I relin¬ you keep it if I have to-” A steel quished my hold on the pipe after lower¬ hand tapped significantly against the butt ing myself till my feet touched the thresh¬ of a holstered ray-gun. old. In the next second I was rubbing the "I always keep my word,” I choked tired fingers of my right hand—it was hurriedly. quite a strain on them, you know—and "Good. I knew you wouldn’t make an scampering into the welcoming arms of exception in my case. But, lu’ul sholem grinning Waugh. —it is sunrise, and the Space Waif "And then, by the time Drexx’s body awaits me!” 366 WEIRD TALES

"Oh, yes. The Space Waif—where foolish enough to oppose me. All of has she been all night?” them—first Stully, then Threepa, and "I told Tina to take her out into space now Fane. There have been other fool¬ and creep along in Earth’s shadow, till it hardy ones too, of whom I have not was dawn in Nyork. She’s probably on spoken. your own roof-level by this time, for "Yet still there are some whose exist¬ that’s where I told Tina to poise her. ence upon our planets is a curse. I have Where Earth’s shadow falls in space a few more debts to pay—a few more there’s always a great area of complete wrongs to avenge before I am done. lightlessness, and in there the Space "One by one these people must stand Waif’s black hull makes her invisible. face to face with Prince Satan and look So she has been as safe as though she upon his hideousness. And always, after were in her own cradle at Home. But I each one has drunk his fill of my—my must go!” beauty, there will be one less score to "Wait, Prince!” settle, unless-” "No time to wait any longer, my This strange personage interrupted brother. Each minute’s delay now means himself, struck by a new thought. For increased danger of discovery. Besides, a moment eery lights glowed in the ebon if I don’t shove off right away I won’t eyes. be in time to meet the Lady of Asia in a "But no!” he said abruptly, and his deserted stretch of space. And Feloth tones told me he was still speaking his would be terribly disappointed if I didn’t thoughts aloud. "I shall not die until I bring Home her new solar-furnace, as I have balanced my last account and have promised him I would.” no more quarrels with anyone . . . ex¬ The somber-faced pirate dropped his cept, of course, the space-police, for I levity like a cloak. "One thing more,” shall always have a quarrel with them. he said gravely, tenderly. "Lady Myryam Yes, and I shall always have a quarrel —she is still unwed?” with the Interplanetary Code. "Yes,” I replied hesitantly. "Still "The Code is one law; but I am Satan faithful to the memory of her prince.” —and Satan lives by another law. For the flicker of an instant the scarred "But after I have canceled my last visage brightened again. He said no debt? What then will become of Satan word, but I am sure that even then Prince —Satan, whom no one loves and most Satan was conceiving his audacious plan men fear? What then will he have to of abduction that was so soon to astound live for? I know not. But after all, is three worlds. When Satan desired a not death but a sleep—a long period of thing, there was no power under the sun forgetfulness, through which all men rest that could prevent his getting it. Now, soundly without fear of being waked? though, he spoke nothing of this, relaps¬ And is there any reason for Satan to be ing instead into a fit of morbid revery as afraid of death? On the contrary, some¬ he peered unseeingly out the window at times death offers a release from great the deserted, gray levels below. suffering. And life can sometimes be "I have made them pay, haven’t I, very empty, very bitter, very terrible. Kerio?” he asked softly, in a manner in¬ Especially when one has been caught and dicating that he expected no response. crushed by the wheels of circumstance, "Yes, they’ve all paid—those who were as Satan has been caught and crushed. SATAN IN EXILE 367

"But all that lies in the future, and turned to the warmth of my rooms. Pres¬ Satan concerns himself only with the ently, hearing the roar of thrumming- present. And at present not all debts are space-motors, I glanced quickly out at the paid, and not all wrongs are righted. So dreary sky, to glimpse the slender black there is much work yet to be done, eh, shape of the Space Waif just before she Kerio? Much work—and I must be off vanished spaceward in a tiny puff of to attend to it. light. "Farewell, comrade—and may life Wearily I sought my couch, but could bring you joy in half the measure that it not sleep. As I lay, wide awake in the has brought sorrow to me. Lu’ul sholem!” stillness, there was constantly pictured in Then, almost before I was aware of it, my mind the sad, grim face of Prince he was gone, like the whisper of a fleet¬ Satan, lonely exile of the void. And my ing memory. heart, brimming with pity, went out to that heroic, melancholy mortal with the I sprang to my balcony and looked out, gleaming metal arm and the horribly mu¬ but I could distinguish naught in the tilated face, as he nosed his phantom ship uncertain light of dawn. Shivering, not through the all-enveloping Great Black¬ alone from the early morning chill, I re- ness that is infinity. . . .

[THE END]

Tampires

By DOROTHY QUICK

The old books tell of how the werewolf came With white fangs gleaming redly in the night, Of evil things that haven’t any name, That cannot bear the searching rays of light. They tell of unknown horrors, deadly deeds; Of vampires, who can leave their coffin bed And fly abroad to satisfy their needs With human blood. So age-old books have said.

There still are vampires walking on our ways, Not creatures from the grave, but men who live On someone else’s heart’s blood all their days, Men who take all they can but never give; Strange men who ever striving for their goals Achieve their way by crushing human souls. Vhe ©/Ambler From the Stars* By ROBERT BLOCH

The story of a blood-freezing horror, evoked by the magic of Ludvig Prinn’s terrible "Mysteries of the Worm”

I HAVE nobody but myself to blame my art interested me in obscure realms for the whole affair. It was my own of musical composition; the symphonic blundering that precipitated that un¬ strains of the Danse Macabre and the foreseen horror upon us both; my own like became my favorites. My inner life stupidity that caused our downfall. The soon became a ghoulish feast of eldritch, acknowledgment of my fault does not tantalizing horrors. help us now; my friend is dead, and in My outer existence was comparatively order to escape an impinging doom dull. Days of grammar school and ado¬ worse than death I must follow him into lescent high school soon passed. As the darkness. So far I have relied upon time went on I found myself drifting the ever-diminishing potency of alcohol more and more into the life of a penuri¬ and drugs to dull the pangs of memory, ous recluse; a tranquil, philosophical ex¬ but I shall find true peace only in the istence amidst a world of books and grave. dreams. Before I go I shall inscribe my story A man must live. By nature constitu¬ as a warning, lest others make the same tionally and spiritually unfitted for mistake and suffer a similar fate. manual labor, I was at first puzzled about I am what I profess to be—a writer of the choice of a suitable vocation. The weird fiction. Since earliest childhood I depression complicated matters to an have been enthralled by the cryptic fas¬ almost intolerable degree, and for a time cination of the unknown and the un- I was close to utter economic disaster. It guessable. The nameless fears, the gro¬ was then that I decided to write. tesque dreams, the queer, half-intuitive I procured a battered typewriter, a fancies that haunt our minds have always ream of cheap paper, and a few carbons. exercised for me a potent and inexplica¬ My subject matter did not bother me. ble delight. What better field than the boundless In literature I have walked the mid¬ realms of a colorful imagination? I night paths with Poe or crept amidst the would write of horror, fear, and the rid¬ shadows with Machen; combed the dle that is Death. At least, in the cal¬ realms of horrific stars with Baudelaire, lowness of my unsophistication, this was or steeped myself with earth’s inner my intention. madness amidst the tales of ancient lore. My first attempts soon convinced me A meager talent for sketching and crayon how utterly I had failed. Sadly, miser¬ work led me to attempt crude picturiza- ably, I fell short of my aspired goal. My tions involving the outlandish denizens vivid dreams became on paper merely of my nighted thoughts. The same som¬ meaningless jumbles of ponderous ad¬ ber trend of intellect which drew me in jectives, and I found no ordinary words * This story is dedicated to H. P. Lovecraft. to express the wondrous terror of the 368 W. T.—6 THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS 369

unknown. My first manuscripts were my dream-life and my beloved books, miserable and futile documents; the few My stories afforded me a somewhat magazines using such material being meager livelihood, and for a time this unanimous in their rejections. sufficed. But not for long. Ambition, I had to live. Slowly but surely I be- ever an illusion, was the cause of my gan to adjust my style to my ideas, undoing. Laboriously I experimented with words, I wanted to write a real story; not the phrases, sentence-structure. It was work, stereotyped, ephemeral sort of tale I and hard work at that. I soon learned to turned out for the magazines, but a real sweat. At last, however, one of my stories work of art. The creation of such a mas- met with favor; then a second, a third, a terpiece became my ideal. I was not a fourth. Soon I had begun to master the good writer, but that was not entirely due more obvious tricks of the trade, and the to my errors in mechanical style. It was, future looked brighter at last. It was I felt, the fault of my subject matter, with an easier mind that I returned to Vampires, werewolves, ghouls, mytho- W. T.—7 370 WEIRD TALES

logical monsters—these things constituted deemed able to aid me in my quest. He material of little merit. Commonplace was a writer of notable brilliance and imagery, ordinary adjectival treatment, wide reputation among the discriminating and a prosaically anthropocentric point of few, and I knew he was keenly interested view were the chief detriments to the in the outcome of the whole affair. production of a really good weird tale. As soon as his precious list came into I must have new subject matter, truly my possession, I began a widespread unusual plot material. If only I could postal campaign in order to obtain access conceive of something utterly ultra-mun¬ to the desired volumes. My letters went dane, something truly macrocosmic, some¬ out to universities, private libraries, re¬ thing that was teratologically incredible! puted seers, and the leaders of carefully I longed to learn the songs the demons hidden and obscurely designated cults. sing as they swoop between the stars, or But I was foredoomed to disappointment. hear the voices of the olden gods as they The replies I received were definitely whisper their secrets to the echoing void. unfriendly, almost hostile. Evidently the I yearned to know the terrors of the rumored possessors of such lore were grave; the kiss of maggots on my tongue, angered that their secret should be thus the cold caress of a rotting shroud upon unveiled by a prying stranger. I was sub¬ my body. I thirsted for the knowledge sequently the recipient of several anony¬ that lies in the pits of mummied eyes, mous threats through the mails, and I had and burned for wisdom known only to one very alarming phone-call. This did the worm. Then I could really write, and not bother me nearly so much as the dis¬ my hopes be truly realized. appointing realization that my endeavors had failed. Denials, evasions, refusals, I sought a way. Quietly I began a cor¬ respondence with isolated thinkers threats—these would not aid me. I must and dreamers all over the country. There look elsewhere. was a hermit in the western hills, a savant The book stores! Perhaps on some in the northern wilds, a mystic dreamer musty and forgotten shelf I might dis¬ in New England. It was from the latter cover what I sought. that I learned of the ancient books that Then began an interminable crusade. I hold strange lore. He quoted guardedly learned to bear my numerous disappoint¬ /from the legendary Necronomicon, and ments with unflinching calm. Nobody in spoke timidly of a certain Book of Eibon the common run of shops seemed ever to that was reputed to surpass it in the utter have heard of the* frightful Necronomi¬ wildness of its blasphemy. He himself con, the evil Book of Eibon, or the dis¬ had been a student of these volumes of quieting Cultes des Goules. primal dread, but he did not want me to Milwaukee was barren ground. Chi¬ search too far. He had heard many cago became my next hunting-place. I strange things as a boy in witch-haunted made the trip, planning to spend a week Arkham, where the old shadows still leer there. Instead, I was forced to remain in and creep, and since then he had wisely that city for well over a month. Never shunned the blacker knowledge of the have I seen so many book stores! forbidden. Persistence brings results. In a little At length, after much pressing on my old shop on South Dearborn Street, part, he reluctantly consented to furnish amidst dusty shelves seemingly forgotten me with the names of certain persons he by time, I came to the end of my search. THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS 371

There, securely wedged between two cen¬ At any rate, his declining days were tury-old editions of Shakespeare, stood a spent in the Flemish lowland country of great black volume with iron facings. his birth, where he resided, appropriately Upon it, in hand-engraved lettering, was enough, in the ruins of a pre-Roman the inscription De Vermis My stems, or tomb that stood in the forest near Brus¬ "Mysteries of the Worm.” sels. Ludvig was reputed to have dwelt there amidst a swarm of familiars and The proprietor could not tell how it fearsomely invoked conjurations. Manu¬ had come into his possession. Years be¬ scripts still extant speak of him guarded¬ fore, perhaps, it had been included in ly as being attended by "invisible com¬ some second-hand job-lot. He was ob¬ panions” and "star-sent servants”. Peas¬ viously unaware of its nature, for I pur¬ ants shunned the forest by night, for they chased it with a dollar bill. He wrapped did not like certain noises that resounded the ponderous thing for me, well pleased to the moon, and they most certainly at this unexpected sale, and bade me a were not anxious to see what worshipped very satisfied good-day. at the old pagan altars that stood crum¬

I left hurriedly, the precious prize bling in certain of the darker glens. under my arm. What a find! I had heard For years the old thaumaturgist was of this book before. Ludvig Prinn was infamously notorious throughout the its author; he who had perished at the countryside, and many a pilgrim came to inquisitorial stake in Brussels when the him for prophecies, horoscopes, and the witchcraft trials were at their height. A dubious service of his potions, philtres, strange character—alchemist, necroman¬ and talismans. There are a few surviving cer, reputed mage—he boasted of having accounts which speak cautiously of his attained a miraculous age when he at last sepulchral dwelling-place, the Saracenic suffered a fiery immolation at the hands relics, and the invisible servitors he had of the secular arm. He was said to have summoned from afar. There is a curious¬ proclaimed himself the sole survivor of ly uniform reticence on the part of these the ill-fated ninth crusade, exhibiting as chroniclers when it comes to describing proof certain musty documents of attesta¬ these servitors in detail, but all agree that tion. It is true that a certain Ludvig the terrible old man was gifted with Prinn was numbered among the gentle¬ baleful and unholy powers.

men retainers of Montserrat in the olden Be that as it may, these creatures that chronicles, but the incredulous branded he commanded were never seen after Ludvig as a crack-brained impostor, Prinn’s capture by the inquisitorial min¬ though perchance a lineal descendant of ions. Searching soldiers found the tomb the original warrior. entirely deserted, though it was thor¬ Ludvig attributed his sorcerous learn¬ oughly ransacked before its destruction. ing to the years he had spent as a captive The supernatural entities, the unusual in¬ among the wizards and wonder-workers struments, the obscure herds and com¬ of Syria, and glibly he spoke of encoun¬ pounds—all had most curiously vanished. ters with the djinns and efreets of elder A search of the forbidding woods and a Eastern myth. He is known to have spent timorous examination of the strange some time in Egypt, and there are legends altars did not add to the information. among the Libyan dervishes concerning There were fresh blood-stains on the the old seer’s deeds in Alexandria. altars, and fresh blood-stains on the rack, 372 WEIRD TALES too, before the questioning of Prinn was ingly I addressed a hasty letter to him, finished. A series of particularly atro¬ and shortly thereafter received my reply. cious tortures failed to elicit any further He would be glad to assist me—I must disclosures from the silent wizard, and at by all means come at once. length the weary interrogators ceased, and cast the aged sorcerer into a dungeon. 2 It was in prison, while awaiting trial, Providence is a lovely town. My that he penned the morbid, horror-hint¬ friend’s house was ancient, and ing lines of De Vermis Mysteriis, known quaintly Georgian. The first floor was a today as Mysteries of the Worm. How it gem of Colonial atmosphere. The sec¬ was ever smuggled through the alert ond, beneath antique gables that shad¬ guards is a mystery in itself, but a year owed the enormous window, served as a after his death it saw print in Cologne. workroom for my host. It was immediately suppressed, but a few It was here that we pondered that copies had already been privately dis¬ grim, eventful night last April; here tributed. These in turn were transcribed, beside the open window that overlooked and although there was a later censored the azure sea. It was a moonless night; and deleted printing, only the Latin orig¬ haggard and wan with a fog that filled inal is accepted as genuine. Throughout the darkness with bat-like shadows. In the centuries a few of the elect have read my mind’s eye I can see it still—the tiny, and pondered on its secret. The secrets lamplit room with the big table and the of the old archimage are known today high-backed chairs; the book-cases bor¬ only to the initiated, and they discourage dering the walls; the manuscripts stacked all attempts to spread their fame, for cer¬ in special files. tain very definite reasons. My friend and I sat at the table, the This, in brief, was what I knew of the volume of mystery before us. His lean volume’s history at the time it came into profile threw a disturbing shadow on the my possession. As a collector’s item alone wall, and his waxen face was furtive in the book was a phenomenal find, but on the pale light. There was an inexplicable its contents I could pass no judgment. It air of portentous revelation quite dis¬ was in Latin. Since I can speak or trans¬ turbing in its potency; I sensed the pres¬ late only a few words of that learned ence of secrets waiting to be revealed. tongue, I was confronted by a barrier as My companion detected it too. Long soon as I opened the musty pages. It was years of occult experience had sharpened maddening to have such a treasure-trove his intuition to an uncanny degree. It of dark knowledge at my command and was not cold that made him tremble as yet lack the key to its unearthing. he sat there in his chair; it was not fever For a moment I despaired, since I was that caused his eyes to flame like jewel- unwilling to approach any local classical incamed fires. He knew, even before he or Latin scholar in connection with so opened that accursed tome, that it was hideous and blasphemous a text. Then evil. The musty scent that rose from came an inspiration. Why not take it east those antique pages carried with it the and seek the aid of my friend? He was reek of the tomb. The faded leaves were a student of the classics, and would be maggoty at the edges, and rats had less likely to be shocked by the horrors gnawed the leather; rats which perchance of Prinn’s baleful revelations. Accord¬ had a ghastlier food for common fare. THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS 373

I had told my friend the volume’s his¬ enchantments. I recall allusions to such tory that afternoon, and had unwrapped gods of divination as Father Yig, dark it in his presence. Then he had seemed Han, and serpent-bearded Byatis. I shud¬ willing and eager to begin an immediate dered, for I knew these names of old, translation. Now he demurred. but I would have shuddered more had I It was not wise, he insisted. This was known what was yet to come. evil knowledge—who could say what It came quickly. Suddenly he turned demon-dreaded lore these pages might to me in great agitation, and his excited contain, or what ills befall the ignorant voice was shrill. He asked me if I re¬ one who sought to tamper with their membered the legends of Prinn’s sorcery, contents? It is not good to learn too and the tales of the invisible servants he much, and men had died for exercising commanded from the stars. I assented, the rotted wisdom that these leaves con¬ little understanding the cause of his sud¬ tained. He begged me to abandon the den frenzy. quest while the book was still unopened Then he told me the reason. Here; and to seek my inspiration in saner under a chapter on familiars, he had things. found an orison or spell, perhaps the very I was a fool. Hastily I overruled his one Prinn had used to call upon his un¬ objections with vain and empty words. I seen servitors from beyond the stars! Let was not afraid. Let us at least gaze into me listen, while he read. the contents of our prize. I began to turn the pages. I sat there dully, like a stupid, uncom¬ The result was disappointing. It was prehending fool. Why did I not an ordinary-looking volume after all— scream, try to escape, or tear that mon¬ yellow, crumbling leaves set with heavy strous manuscript from his hands? In¬ black-lettered Latin texts. That was all; stead I sat there—sat there while my no illustrations, no alarming designs. friend, in a voice cracked with unnatural excitement, read in Latin a long and My friend could no longer resist the sonorously sinister invocation. allurement of such a rare bibliophilic treat. In a moment he was peering in¬ "Tibi, Magnum lnnominandum, signa tently over my shoulder, occasionally stellarum nigrarum et bujaniformis Sado~ muttering snatches of Latin phrasing. qua sigillum . . .” Enthusiasm mastered him at last. Seizing The croaking ritual proceeded, then the precious tome in both hands, he seat¬ rose on wings of nighted, hideous hor¬ ed himself near the window and began ror. It stabbed my soul with exquisite reading paragraphs at random, occasion¬ pain, even though I did not understand. ally translating them into English. The words seemed to writhe like flames His eyes gleamed with a feral light; in the air, burning into my brain. The his cadaverous profile grew intent as he thundering tones seemed to echo into in¬ pored over the moldering runes. Sen¬ finity, beyond the farthermost star. They tences thundered in fearsome litany, then seemed to pass into primal and undimen¬ faded into tones below a whisper as his sioned gates, to seek out a listener there, voice became as soft as a viper’s hiss. I and summon him to earth. Was it all an caught only a few phrases now, for in illusion? I did not pause to ponder. his introspection he seemed to have for¬ For that unwitting summons was an¬ gotten me. He was reading of spells and swered. Scarcely had my companion's 374 WEIRD TALES voice died away in that little room before ror, I realized that that blood was being the terror came. The room turned cold. drained to feed the invisible entity from A sudden wind shrieked in through the beyond! What creature of space had open window; a wind that was not of been so suddenly and unwittingly in¬ earth. It bore an evil bleating from afar, voked? What was that vampiric mon¬ and at the sound my friend’s face became strosity I could not see? a pale white mask of newly awakened Even now a hideous metamorphosis fear. Then there was a crunching at the was taking place. The body of my com¬ walls, and the window-ledge buckled panion became shrunken, wizened, life¬ before my staring eyes. From out of the less. At length it dropped to the floor nothingness beyond that opening came a and lay nauseatingly still. But in midair sudden burst of lubricious laughter—a another and a ghastlier change was tak¬ hysterical cackling born of utter madness. ing place. It rose to the grinning quintessence of all A reddish glow filled the corner by the horror, without mouth to give it birth. window — a bloody glow. Slowly but The rest happened with startling surely the dim outlines of a Presence swiftness. All at once my friend began came into view; the blood-filled outlines to scream as he stood by the window; of that unseen shambler from the stars. scream and claw wildly at empty air. In It was red and dripping; an immensity the lamplight I saw his features contort of pulsing, moving jelly; a scarlet blob into a grimace of insane agony. A mo¬ with myriad tentacular trunks that waved ment later, his body rose unsupported and waved. There were suckers on the from the floor, and began to bend out¬ tips of the appendages, and these were ward to a back-breaking degree. A sec¬ opening and closing with ghoulish lust. ond later came the sickening grind of . . . The thing was bloated and obscene; broken bones. His form now hung in a headless, faceless, eyeless bulk with the midair, the eyes glazed and the hands ravenous maw and titanic talons of a star- clutching convulsively as if at something born monster. The human blood on unseen. Once again there came the sound which it had fed revealed the hitherto in¬ of maniacal tittering, but this time it visible outlines of the feaster. It was not came from within the room! a sight for sane eyes to see. Fortunately for my reason, the creature The stars rocked in red anguish; the did not linger. Spurning the dead and cold wind gibbered in my ears. I crouched flabby corpse-like thing on the floor, it in my chair, my eyes riveted on that as¬ purposely seized the dreadful volume tounding scene in the corner. with one slimy, sinuous feeler and My friend was shrieking now; his shambled swiftly to the window; then screams blended with that gleeful, atro¬ squeezed its rubbery, viscous body cious laughter from the empty air. His through the opening. There it disap¬ sagging body, dangling in space, bent peared, and I heard its far-off, derisive backward once again as blood spurted laughter floating on the wings of the from the torn neck, spraying like a ruby wind as it receded into the gulfs from fountain. whence it had come. That blood never reached the floor. It stopped in midair as the laughter ceased, That was all. I was left alone in the and a loathsome sucking noise took its room with the limp and lifeless body place. With a new and accelerated hor¬ at my feet The book was gone; but THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS 375 there were bloody prints upon the wall, and calm throughout the penning of this bloody-swaths upon the floor, and the face screed. I was even calm when I read of of my poor friend was a bloody death’s- my friend’s curious accidental death in head, leering up at the stars. the fire that destroyed his dwelling. For a long time I sat alone in silence It is only at nights, when the stars before I set on fire that room and all gleam, that dreams return to drive me it contained. After that I went away, into a gigantic maze of frantic fears. laughing, for I knew that the blaze Then I take to drugs, in a vain attempt would eradicate all trace of what re¬ to ban those leering memories from my mained. I had arrived only that after¬ sleep. But I really do not care, for I shall noon, and there were none who knew, not be here long. and none to see me go, for I departed I have a curious suspicion that I shall ere the glowing flames were detected. I again see that shambler from the stars. I stumbled for hours through the twisted think it will return soon without being re¬ streets, and quaked with renewed and summoned, and I know that when it idiotic laughter as I looked up at the comes it will seek me out and carry me burning, ever-gloating stars that eyed me down into the darkness that holds my furtively through wreaths of haunted fog. friend. Sometimes I almost yearn for the After a long while I became calm advent of that day, for then I too shall enough to board a train. I have been learn once and for all, the Mysteries of calm throughout the long journey home. the Worm.

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A brief tale of horror and the plague in New Orleans

IT WAS the terrible summer of 1720. glimmered fitfully over the scene of deso¬ The plague hung darkly over shud¬ lation. Paul and Marie crept in and went dering New Orleans. Its black wings to the casket of the mayor’s daughter. beat at every door, and there were few Paul rapidly unscrewed the wooden top, that had not opened to its dread pres¬ removed the slight body, put it into a ence. Paul had seen his mother, father, large sack; and Marie, nearly swooning sisters and friends swept down by its from terror, got into the coffin. mowing sickle. Only Marie remained "Here is a flask of water,” Paul whis¬ for him—beautiful Marie with her love pered, "and remember—not a sound, no for him that he knew was stronger than matter what happens. I shall sneak any plague—the one thing in all the aboard the boat before it sails at nine. world that was left to sustain him. After we are out for half an hour I will "Let us fly from this accursed place,” let you out of this. It is our only chance.” he pleaded. "Let us try to find happi¬ "Yes, I know,” Marie whispered chok¬ ness elsewhere. Neither of us has a tie ingly. "I shall make no sound . . . now to bind us here—is not your sister to be go ... the priests will soon be back, so buried this very day? Ah, Saint Louis one last kiss, until we are on the boat.” has seen many such scenes in this last month—we will fly to Canada and begin He kissed her passionately, then loose¬ all over.” ly screwed the top on the casket "But, my darling,” she protested, "you Stealing with his awful burden to the forget the quarantine: no one is allowed yard in the back of the cathedral he re¬ to enter or leave the city; your plan is membered a deep, dried-up well in one hopeless.” comer of the yard. Just the place to dis¬ "No—no—I have a plan—such a ter¬ pose of the body. rible one that I shudder to think of it. "God rest the poor girl's soul,” he Here it is-” thought; "she, wherever she is, will un¬ While he rapidly sketched their one derstand that I meant no sacrilege to her desperate chance Marie’s face blanched, remains, but this is my one chance of but when he finished, she agreed. happiness . . . my only chance.” The daughter of the mayor had died His task ended, he climbed the iron that morning. A special dispensation had wall and walked rapidly up Pirates Alley been secured to ship her body to Charles¬ and wandered over the Vieux Carre until ton for burial. The body rested in its eight-thirty. Thank God—it was time to casket in Saint Louis Cathedral and was try the success of their daring venture. to be shipped by boat that night His head whirled and his heart beat like At six o’clock that evening the cathe¬ a trip-hammer as he slipped onto the boat dral was empty save for its silent occu¬ unobserved by any but the dock hands, pants awaiting burial. The tall wax tapers who probably considered him one of 376 ONE CHANCE 377 their number. He secreted himself in a er. From his comer Paul could distinctly dark corner and waited. After centuries see the silhouettes of the two men who had passed, or so it seemed to him, the were approaching. boat started moving. It would not be "Yes,” said one, "it is sad. The mayor long now. He did not stop to think is broken-hearted—we were going to what would happen when they were take her body to Charleston—but the caught—that would take care of itself. mayor had her buried from Saint Louis Ah—voices, coming nearer and near¬ just after the sun went down.”

Vhe GJ c/o;oad Idol By KIRK MASHBURN

A ten-minute story about a horrible stone toad that came from an Aztec temple

THE thing—the toad—comes from lignant impression I received from it); a small, mined Aztec temple in yet I strongly suspect that, had I not been Central Mexico. My standing as formidably armed, the Indians would an archeologist has not come unearned, have forcibly compelled me to leave it and I know that none of the Aztec gods untouched. I would to God they had was represented by a toad; nor does evi¬ done so! dence exist that the reptile had any other Overcome by a perverse fascination for sacred significance in their religious sym¬ the thing, notwithstanding my dislike of bolism. Yet this one occupied the place toads and reptiles in any form, to say of honor in the temple; and except for it, nothing of my steadily mounting (if then there was no image in the ruins. unreasoning) repugnance for the thing, The thing struck me with an odd loath¬ I smuggled out the amphibian idol upon ing, a sense of dread and oppression, al¬ my return to this country, circumventing most at sight. As for my Indian work¬ the Mexican laws which prohibit exporta¬ men, they were persuaded to enter the tion of archeological objects. temple only with difficulty. No explana¬ Who has not experienced similar at¬ tion was obtainable, but their terror of traction for some very thing that repels the place was manifest. and disgusts, even while it fascinates? When I removed the toad from its So, in my case with this toad. Instead of pedestal overlooking a small altar, they turning it over to the museum, I placed groveled on the ground in abject misery, it upon the writing-desk in my study. frantically beseeching me to leave the Each passing day has added to my re¬ image undisturbed. It was nothing but a pugnance; but now, finally, something of small, curved piece of obsidian stone the horror and terror of those Indians has (though I have already admitted the ma¬ succeeded my former mere loathing. 378 WEIRD TALES

For the toad has come alive! It de¬ the idol that should have rested upon my serts my desk, by night, to sit upon the desk—the idol come alive. floor, looking at the windows, waiting— I am naturally neurotic, and the appari¬ for God alone knows what. tion stabbed at every taut nerve in my As I write, I feel the beady eyes of the body. I determined to evict the thing; to accursed reptile, the loathsome, mottled throw it out and have done with it, once toad, burning into my back from where and for all. I rose and, taking a section it squats behind me in a comer of this of newspaper in order to avoid contact room. It is but a common, ordinary toad, of my bare hand with the reptile’s loath¬ to all appearances; and that is what lends some hide (I was convinced the thing was it the significance of a small but horrific clammily alive), I stooped to take it from monster out of hell—for it should be a the floor and cast it out the window. thing of carved volcanic obsidian, life¬ The toad made no effort to escape as less upon my desk. I have not even the the paper descended, and I gathered it power to touch it, cast it with loathing up. I could not feel my captive beneath through the open window. I have tried, the several thicknesses of paper; but I once, and failed. . . . had no doubt of its being wrapped in the wad of newsprint I tossed through the Whether I am mad, or the victim window. I turned with a feeling of re¬ of hallucinations induced by some lief and satisfaction—and there in the tropic fever hitherto dormant in my comer the toad squatted as before. blood—whether I have, in violating the With an exclamation of annoyance, I Temple of the Toad, brought upon my again moved to enfold the reptile in head some dread, nameless curse, I do paper, using a small, thin piece. Again not know. I am aware, only, that the it appeared that I had secured the thing; figurine monster upon the floor has be¬ but this time I turned my hand over, to come an obsession of torment and dread. make certain. Expecting to see the bloat¬ More than anything else, it is the thing’s ed belly of the creature exposed, I beheld, attitude of waiting, ... instead, nothing but the wadded news¬ I have lived and worked alone in this paper! The toad blinked balefully up, house for years; the one servant who at¬ from the floor at my feet! tends my scant wants stays only through Stupidly, I stared from the paper in the day. Thus, as usual, I was alone in my hand to the toad upon the floor. A my study, resting wearily at my desk, upon third time I essayed to seize the elusive the evening when the toad first moved. monstrosity, in the same manner as before It was dusk; but there was yet enough —and with the same result. I moved light for shadowy visibility. Something then to turn on the lights, as dusk had intruded upon my tired thoughts; some deepened into night. My hand trembled indistinct prompting impelled me to raise so violently that I pressed the switch with my head and look down to the floor in the difficulty. nearest comer of the room. I decided to dispense with the paper It was then that I saw the toad, re¬ and, overcoming my natural repugnance, moved from its place upon my desk— grasp the toad with my naked hand. and alive. What I saw was not of itself Determinedly, I bent down; my fingers alarming, to other eyes than mine. But swooped to snatch the thing. With a gasp I knew the toad, huddled in the comer I straightened, stepped back uncertainly. with its beady eyes meeting my own, for I had thought to scoop up the toad, but THE TOAD IDOL 379 my hand had clutched nothing more than nightfall. When I came to the door of empty air! my workroom, I hesitated for long min¬ I laughed. Even in my own ears, the utes before entering. sound possessed a startling quality. The Groping through the darkness, I thing had been a carven stone toad upon switched on the lights. After one fearful, my desk, and had become alive. And revealing glance, I sank into my chair, now, to my touch, there was no toad! utterly abject with terror and despair. For, “Hallucination,” I muttered; "I am settled in the same corner it had occupied seeing things that do not exist.” the night before, the toad regarded me The implications of that conclusion with bright, malevolent eyes. were far from comforting, however. And If I am mad, I have every reason to be. whatever I might think—or whatever else Night after night, for so many nights that than a stone idol it might be—there it it wearies me to number them, I have sat upon the floor, its sardonic eyes un¬ been stared out of countenance by a fiend swerving from my face, blinking . . . in the shape of a malformed toad. Hop¬ waiting. . . . ing that its manifestations were confined to this room, I have fled the house more I sat down at the desk, stared back, than once at night. But wherever I seek baffled—and afraid—into those cold, to hide, my familiar demon appears with glittering eyes. Gradually, sullen rage pos¬ darkness. Seemingly, it has been ages sessed me. I sprang up, furiously, and since I have known sleep that was not stamped upon the small monster. I fell induced either by drunkenness or soporific upon my knees, sought to seize it with drugs; more often than not, neither of my hands, to tear and rend it into noth¬ these suffices to bring merciful oblivion. ingness. Each time I lifted my grinding Tomorrow, I shall leave this country heel, each time I drew back my clawing for ever; I have already completed my fingers, the thing was there: gloating up arrangements. Perhaps if, as I intend, the at me with its cold, demon’s eyes. end of my flight places half the world Finally, I staggered again to my chair, between us, I shall elude my tormenter. and fell forward across the desk, burying That I am not mad, I have established my head in my arms. I awoke in that po¬ to my satisfaction, by writing this ac¬ sition, in the chill, gray dawn that suc¬ count. Obviously, the effort and orderly ceeded. My first coherent thought moved thought required for a coherent narrative me to rouse, groaning with misery, and of this length is outside the scope of a look toward that corner where the ac¬ deranged mind. And in the course of this cursed toad had huddled the night before. exercise, there remains but one further Even in abjection, I found heart to re¬ item to be set down. joice, for the living creature that had been This has to do with the pebbles that upon the floor was gone with the night; have accompanied the idol’s latter nightly and the small idol rested in its accustomed transformations. I noticed the first of place atop my desk—clearly, a carved, them, a little longer than a fortnight ago. lifeless piece of obsidian. Upon each succeeding night, there has But chill dread awoke with the sudden been one more pebble, each about the thought that life might return with an¬ size of a small walnut, added to the grow¬ other night. All through that day, the ap¬ ing pile beside the creature. These appear prehension lay like a somber shadow upon only at night, like the living reptile that my mind. I left the house, returning after squats beside them; they are not on the 380 WEIRD TALES desk with the lifeless, obsidian toad in as that is, the circumstance that constricts the daytime. my heart is that, raised above its head What this addition to the toad’s noc¬ in the act of casting as I turned—the turnal animation may portend, I have frightful little monster gripped a pebble sought to fathom, with growing unease. in its tiny, hand-like forefeet! Even as I I have lately recalled that there was a pile saw and gasped, the missile hurtled of just such pebbles, heaped at the foot of through the air, struck inside my fore¬ the altar in the ancient temple, from head with stunning impact. which—may God forgive the stupid act! The pile of pebbles—those pebbles, —I took the vile toad.... the purpose of which I now know!— probably is diminished by more than half. At intervals, one of them crashes into the omething very dreadful has occurred. S back of my brain. I am paralyzed now, since I wrote the preceding words. I all except, oddly, this arm with which I am impelled to write the few remaining write. I can not move aside, seek to lines that will be necessary—or possible evade the battering pebble hail. But I —by some power, some gleeful and tri¬ feel that I should not escape, though the umphantly malignant force outside of power to move, to cry out, still remained me: to me. While I was writing, I felt a blow All about this room, there are intan-* upon the back of my head. It was more gible rustlings and scurryings. There are as if I had been hit forcibly, inside, upon things around me, unseen but present, my uncovered brain, by an object thrown that have come to watch with grim, un¬ from behind my back. For a moment, I hallowed satisfaction as the toad hurls was unable to move, so great was the pebbles into my brain. pain. Partly recovering, I turned to dis¬ My death, beyond doubt, will be at¬ cover the source of the missile with which tributed to cerebral hemorrhage. My head, I had been struck. Then my blood chilled, to all outward appearances, will be whole seemed truly to freeze in my veins. . . . and unmutilated; for the toad’s missiles The toad has moved out of its usual pass unscathing through my skull, by squatting position. About it there is an some unholy means, and batter only upon unfathomable impression of unholy joy¬ my brain. ousness; I know without understanding, I shall die—very soon, now—beneath that the thing no longer is waiting—its the barrage of pebbles cast by the paws hour has struck! of that thing in the comer behind me. I wrote that the toad has moved. It I shall die as, in all likelihood, no man stands erect, upon its deformed and twist¬ ever met death before: stoned to death by ed rear members. Grotesque and unnatural a foul, loathsome toad! . . . onster-God of Mamurth’

By EDMOND HAMILTON

OUT of the desert night he came for a moment. "It’s not always good to to us, stumbling into our little dig up dead secrets. There are some circle of firelight and collapsing things the past should be allowed to at once. Mitchell and I sprang to our hide.” feet with startled exclamations, for men He caught the look that passed be¬ who travel alone and on foot are a tween Mitchell and me. strange sight in the deserts of North "No, I’m not mad,” he said. "You Africa. will hear, I’ll tell you the whole thing. For the first few minutes that we But listen to me, you two,” and in his worked over him, I thought he would die earnestness he raised himself to a sitting at once, but gradually we brought him position, "keep out of Igidi Desert. Re¬ back to consciousness. While Mitchell member that I told you that. I had a held a cup of water to his cracked lips, I warning, too, but I disregarded it. And looked him over and saw that he was too I went into hell—into hell! But there, I far gone to live much longer. His clothes will tell you from the beginning. were in rags, and his hands and knees "My name—that doesn’t matter now. literally flayed, from crawling over the I left Mogador more than a year ago, sands, I judged. So when he motioned and came through the foot-hills of the feebly for more water, I gave it to him, Atlas ranges, striking out into the desert knowing that in any case his time was in hopes of finding some of the Car¬ short. Soon he could talk, in a dead, thaginian ruins the North African deserts croaking voice. are known to hold. "I’m alone,’’ he told us, in answer to "I spent months in the search, trav¬ our first question; "no more out there to eling among the squalid Arab villages, look for. What are you two—traders? I now near an oasis and now far into the thought so. No, I’m an archeologist. A black, untracked desert. And as I went digger-up of the past.” His voice broke farther into that savage country, I found * From WEIRD TALES for August, 1926. more and more of the ruins I sought, 381 382 WEIRD TALES crumbled remnants of temples and for¬ desert light made it seem very near. My tresses, relics, almost destroyed, of the age maps placed that mountain range all when Carthage meant empire and ruled right, as a lower branch of the Atlas, and all of North Africa from her walled the expanse behind the mountains was city. And then, on the side of a massive marked as 'Igidi Desert’, but that was block of stone, I found that which turned all I got from them. All that I could me toward Igidi. reckon on as certain was that it was “It was an inscription in the garbled desert that lay on the other side of the Phenician of the traders of Carthage, pass, and I must carry enough supplies short enough so that I remembered it and to meet it. can repeat it word for word. It read, “But the Arabs knew more! Though literally, as follows: I offered what must have been fabulous "Merchants, go not into the city of Mamurth, riches to those poor devils, not one would which lies beyond the mountain pass. For I, San- come with me when I let them know Drabat of Carthage, entering the city with four companions in the month of Eschmoun, to trade, what place I was heading for. None had on the third night of our stay came priests and ever been there, they would not even ride seized my fellows, I escaping by hiding. My com¬ panions they sacrificed to the evil god of the city, far into the desert in that direction; but who has dwelt there from the beginning of time, all had very definite ideas of the place and for whom the wise men of Mamurth have built a great temple the like of which is not on beyond the mountains as a nest of devils, earth elsewhere, where the people of Mamurth a haunt of evil Jinns. worship their god. I escaped from the city and set this warning here that others may not turn "Knowing how firmly superstition is their steps to Mamurth and to death. implanted in their kind, I tried no longer “Perhaps you can imagine the effect to persuade them, and started alone, with that inscription had on me. It was the two scrawny camels carrying my water last trace of a city unknown to the and supplies. So for three days I forged memory of men, a last floating spar of a across the desert under a broiling sun, civilization sunken in the sea of time. and on the morning of the fourth I That there could have been such a city at reached the pass. all seemed to me quite probable. What do we know of Carthage even, but a few “T T WAS only a narrow crevice to begin names? No city, no civilization was ever with, and great boulders were strewn so completely blotted off the earth as so thickly on its floor that it was a long, Carthage, when Roman Scipio ground hard job getting through. And the cliffs its temples and palaces into the very dust, on each side towered to such a height and plowed up the ground with salt, and that the space between was a place of the eagles of conquering Rome flew shadows and whispers and semi-darkness. across a desert where a metropolis had It was late in the afternoon when I finally been. came through, and for a moment I stood “It was on the outskirts of one of those motionless; for from that side of the pass wretched little Arab villages that I had the desert sloped down into a vast basin, found the block and its inscription, and and at the basin’s center, perhaps two I tried to find someone in the village to miles from where I stood, gleamed the accompany me, but none would do so. I white ruins of Mamurth. could plainly see the mountain pass, a "I remember that I was very calm as I mere crack between towering blue cliffs. covered the two miles between myself and In reality it was miles and miles away, the ruins. I had taken the existence of but the deceptive optical qualities of the the city as a fact, so much so that if the THE MONSTER-GOD OF MAMURTH 383! ruins had not been there I should have death was awful. There were no laugh¬ been vastly more surprized than at find¬ ing human voices, or cries of animals, or ing them. even cries of birds or insects. There was "From the pass I had seen only a nothing but the darkness and silence that tangled mass of white fragments, but as crowded around me, flowed down upon I drew nearer, some of these began to me, beat sullenly against the glowing take outline as crumbling blocks, and spears of light my little fire threw out. walls, and columns. The sand had drift¬ "As I sat there musing, I was startled ed, too, and the ruins were completely by a slight sound behind me. I turned to buried in some sections, while nearly all see its cause, and then stiffened. As I were half covered. have mentioned, the space directly around "And then it was that I made a curious my camp was clear sand, smoothed level discovery. I had stopped to examine the by the winds. Well, as I stared at that material of the ruins, a smooth, veinless flat expanse of sand, a hole several inches stone, much like an artificial marble or a across suddenly appeared in its surface, superfine concrete. And while I looked yards from where I stood, but clearly about me, intent on this, I noticed that on visible in the firelight. almost every shaft and block, on broken "There was nothing whatever to be cornice and column, was carved the same seen there, not even a shadow, but there symbol—if it was a symbol. It was a it was, one moment the level surface of rough picture of a queer, outlandish crea¬ the sand, the next moment a hole appear¬ ture, much like an octopus, with a round, ing in it, accompanied by a soft, crunch¬ almost shapeless body, and several long ing sound. As I stood gazing at it in tentacles or arms branching out from the wonder, that sound was repeated, and body, not supple and boneless, like simultaneously another hole appeared in those of an octopus, but seemingly stiff the sand’s surface, five or six feet nearer and jointed, like a spider’s legs. In fact, to me than the other. the thing might have been intended to "When I saw that, ice-tipped arrows represent a spider, I thought, though of fear seemed to shoot through me, and some of the details were wrong. I specu¬ then, yielding to a mad impulse, I lated for a moment on the profusion of snatched a blazing piece of fuel from the these creatures carved on the ruins all fire and hurled it, a comet of red flame, around me, then gave it up as an enigma at the place where the holes had ap¬ that was unsolvable. peared. There was a slight sound of "And the riddle of the city about me scurrying and shuffling, and I felt that seemed unsolvable also. What could I whatever thing had made those marks find in this half-buried mass of stone had retreated, if a living thing had made fragments to throw light on the past? I them at all. What it had been, I could could not even superficially explore the not imagine, for there had been abso¬ place, for the scantiness of my supplies lutely nothing in sight, one track and and water would not permit a long stay. then another appearing magically in the It was with a discouraged heart that I clear sand, if indeed they were really went back to the camels and, leading tracks at all. them to an open spot in the ruins, made "The mystery of the thing haunted me. my camp for the night. And when night Even in sleep I found no rest, for evil had fallen, and I sat beside my little fire, dreams seemed to flow into my brain the vast, brooding silence of this place of from the dead city around me. All the WEIRD TALES dusty sins of ages past, in the forgotten well-proportioned, even, but the face, the place, seemed to be focused on me in the expression, suggested no kinship what¬ dreams I had. Strange shapes walked ever with humanity as we know it. Were through them, unearthly as the spawn of they carved from life? I wondered. If a distant star, half seen and vanishing so, it must have been a strange sort of again. people who had lived in this city and set "It was little enough sleep I got that up these two statues. night, but when the sun finally came, "And now I tore my gaze away from with its first golden rays my fears and them, and looked around. On each side oppressions dropped from me like a of those shapes, the remains of what must cloak. No wonder the early peoples were once have been a mighty wall branched sun-worshippers! out, a long pile of crumbling ruins. But "And with my renewed strength and there had been no wail between the courage, a new thought struck me. In the statues, that being evidently the gateway inscription I have quoted to you, that through the barrier. I wondered why the long-dead merchant-adventurer had men-" two guardians of the gate had survived, tioned the great temple of the city and apparently entirely unharmed, while the dwelt on its grandeur. Where, then, wall and the city behind me had fallen were its ruins? I wondered. I decided into ruins. They were of a different that what time I had would be better material, I could see; but what was that spent in investigating the ruins of this material? temple, which should be prominent, if "And now I noticed for the first time that ancient Carthaginian had been cor¬ the long avenue that began on the other rect as to its size. side of the statues and stretched away into the desert for a half-mile or more. “T ascended a near-by hillock and The sides of this avenue were two rows A looked about me in all' directions, of smaller stone figures that ran in and though I could not perceive any vast parallel lines away from the two colossi. pile of ruins that might have been the So I started down that avenue, passing temple’s, I did see for the first time, far between the two great shapes that stood away, two great figures of stone that at its head. And as I went between them, stood out black against the rosy flame of I noticed for the first time the inscription the sunrise. It was a discovery that filled graven on the inner side of each. me with excitement, and I broke camp at "On the pedestal of each figure, four once, starting in the direction of those or five feet from the ground, was a raised two shapes. tablet of the same material, perhaps a “They were on the very edge of the yard square, and covered with strange farther side of the city, and it was noon symbols—characters, no doubt, of a lost before I finally stood before them. And language, undecipherable, at least to me. now I saw clearly their nature: two great, One symbol, though, that was especially sitting figures, carved of black stone, all prominent in the inscription, was not new of fifty feet in height, and almost that to me. It was the carven picture of the far apart, facing both toward the city and spider, or octopus, which I have men¬ toward me. They were of human shape tioned that I had found everywhere on and dressed in a queer, scaled armor, but the ruins of the city. And here it was the faces I can not describe, for they were scattered thickly among the symbols that unhuman. The features were human, made up the inscription. The tablet on W. T.—7 WEIRD TALES 385 the other statue was a replica of the first, and I could learn no more from it. So I started down the avenue, turning over in my mind the riddle of that omnipresent symbol, and then forgetting it, as I ob¬ served the things about me. "That long street was like the avenue of sphinxes at Kamak, down which WHICH CONTROLS YOU? Pharaoh swung in his litter, borne to his Science says that the chemical elements cotn| mg a man’s body may be bought (or sixty cent temple on the necks of men. But the fM pharmacy shop. P * '*-* -- -*~ statues that made up its sides were not infinite, creative pc By the proper use of this creative, sleeping force sphinx-shaped. They were carved in within you, you can DOMINATE YOUR LIFE and MASTER THE CONDITIONS WHICH strange forms, shapes of animals un¬ SURROUND YOU. The Rosicrucians have shown, known to us, as far removed from any¬ thing we can imagine as the beasts of • of your mind. This Free Book Explains another world. I can not describe them, The Rosicrucians will send any more than you could describe a SEEKER a free copy of the n Wisdom of the Sages,” which tel dragon to a man who had been blind all a letter (not a postcard of. his life. Yet they were of evil, reptilian shapes; they tore at my nerves as I looked ROSKRIKIAN BROTHERHOOD at them. "Down between the two rows of them SAN JOSE. CALIFORNIA I went, until I came to the end of the “The Rosicrucians are NOT a religious order.” avenue. Standing there between the last two figures, I could see nothing before me but the yellow sands of the desert, as CAMERA BARGAINS BIG Listing Hundreds 171? 171? far as the eye could reach. I was puzzled. BOOK of Super-Values What had been the object of all the No matter what you want in cameras or photo¬ graphic materials for t pains that had been taken, the wall, the two great statues, and this long avenue, if it but led into the desert? Truly Sensational Savings "Gradually I began to'see that there Also a complete line of Binoculars; other optical was something queer about the part of goods and Weather Instruments are listed at equally low prices. Write today for this great the desert that lay directly before me. It time and money saving book. It’s Free! was flat. For an area, seemingly round CENTRAL CAMERA CO. in shape, that must have covered several 230 S. Wabash Ave.. Dept. Z-6, Chicago, Ill. acres, the surface of the desert seemed absolutely level. It was as though the Attention, Ladies sands within that great circle had been packed down with tremendous force, YOU CAN BE BEAUTIFUL. START BEAUTY SHOP OF YOUR OWN.—This wonderful sys¬ leaving not even the littlest ridge of dune tem shows you how to attain both wealth and on its surface. Beyond this flat area, and beauty. Full instructions. Scores of valuable sec¬ rets. Beautify yourself, start a Beauty Shop, Man¬ all around it, the desert was broken up ufacture Beauty specialties. Complete system 50c. by small hills and valleys, and traversed Particulars Free. JNO. J. GREINER, by whirling sand-clouds, but nothing P. O. Box 242-T, Ogden, Utah stirred on the flat surface of the circle. j CENT STAMP will explain healing at home old J stubborn skin diseases no matter how old or bad. "Interested at once, I strode forward J. GERNAND, Dept. —-- W. T.—8 386 WEIRD TALES to the edge of the circle, only a few yards “T stood back and threw pebbles into away. I had just reached that edge when the air, toward the circle. No mat¬ an invisible hand seemed to strike me a ter how high I threw them, when they great blow on the face and chest, knock¬ reached the line of the circle’s edge they ing me backward in the sand. rebounded with a clicking sound; so I knew that the wall must tower to a great "It was minutes before I advanced height above me. I was on fire to get again, but I did advance, for all my inside the wall, and examine the place curiosity was now aroused. I crawled from the inside, but how to do it? There toward the circle’s edge, holding my must be an entrance, but where? And I pistol before me, pushing slowly for¬ suddenly remembered the two guardian ward. statues at the head of the great avenue, "When the automatic in my out¬ with their carven tablets, and wondered stretched hand reached the line of the what connection they had with this place. circle, it struck against something hard, "Suddenly the strangeness of the and I could push it no farther. It was whole thing struck me like a blow. The exactly as if it had struck against the great, unseen wall before me, the circle side of a wall, but no wall or anything of sand, flat and unchanging, and my¬ else was to be seen. Reaching out my self, standing there and wondering, won¬ hand, I touched the same hard barrier, dering. A voice from out the dead city and in a moment I was on my feet. behind me seemed to sound in my heart, "For I knew now that it was solid mat¬ bidding me to turn and flee, to get away. ter I had run into, not force. When I I remembered the warning of the inscrip¬ thrust out my hands, the edge of the cir¬ tion, 'Go not to Mamurth.’ And as I cle was as far as they would go, for there thought of the inscription, I had no they met a smooth wall, totally invisible, doubt that this was the great temple de¬ scribed by San-Drabat. Surely he was yet at the same time quite material. And right: the like of it was not on earth the phenomenon was one which even I elsewhere. could partly understand. Somehow, in "But I would not go, I could not go, the dead past, the scientists of the city until I had examined the wall from the behind me, the 'wise men’ mentioned in inside. Calmly reasoning the matter, I the inscription, had discovered the secret decided that the logical place for the of making solid matter invisible, and had gateway through the wall would be at applied it to the work that I was now the end of the avenue, so that those who examining. Such a thing was far from came down the street could pass directly impossible. Even our own scientists can through the wall. And my reasoning was make matter partly invisible, with the good, for it was at that spot that I found X-ray. Evidently these people had known the entrance: an opening in the barrier, the whole process, a secret that had been several yards wide, and running higher lost in the succeeding ages, like the secret than I could reach, how high I had no of hard gold, and malleable glass, and means of telling. others that we find mentioned in ancient writings. Yet I wondered how they had “T felt my way through the gate, and done this, so that, ages after those who -I stepped at once upon a floor of hard had built the thing were wind-driven material, not as smooth as the wall’s sur- dust, it remained as invisible as ever. (Please turn to page 388X COMING NEXT MONTH THE woman swerved when she saw him. Northwest Smith watched her subtly swaying approach without a flicker of expression on his face. But when she laid a milky-white hand upon his arm he gave a queer little start, involun¬ tarily, like a shiver quickly suppressed. A ripple of annoyance crossed his face briefly and was gone, as if the muscular start had embarrassed him. He turned upon her an absolutely expressionless stare and waited. "Who are you?” cooed a throatily velvet voice from the depths of the hood. "Northwest Smith.” He said it crisply, and his lips snapped shut again. He moved a little away from her, for her hand still lay upon his right arm, and his right hand was still hidden in the coat pocket. He moved far enough to free his arm, and stood waiting. "Will you come with me?” Her voice throbbed like a pigeon’s from the shadow of her hood. For a quick instant his pale eyes appraised her, as caution and curiosity warred within him. Smith was a wary man, very wise in the dangers of the spaceways life. Not for a moment did he mistake her meaning. Here was no ordinary woman of the streets. A woman robed in snow-cat furs had no need to accost casual strangers along the Lakklan. "What do you want?” he demanded. His voice was deep and harsh, and the words fairly clicked with a biting brevity. “Come,” she cooed, moving nearer again and slipping one hand inside his arm. "I will tell you that in my own house. It is so cold here.” . . . Was there ever such a duel in the whole universe as was waged between North¬ west Smith and the nameless being that fought him in that Martian room? You can¬ not afford to miss this unusual and gripping tale by the author of Shambleau. It will be published complete in the October Weird Tales: THE COLD GRAY GOD By C. L'. MOORE

-Also- HOLLYWOOD HORROR THE DEAD-ALIVE MUMMY By Paul Ernst By Seabury Quinn Doctor Satan, the world’s weirdest criminal, in a A startling and amazing story about an ancient powerful thrill-tale of blind, unreasoning fear and Egyptian mummy and a beautiful American girl— panic terror. a tale of Jules de Grandin. THE SIX SLEEPERS THE MYSTERY OF THE By Edmond Hamilton LAST GUEST A fascinating story about six fighting-men, each By John Flanders from a different century, who slept through the ages, to awaken at last amid the ruins of a super¬ Out of the black night came a grisly horror—a civilization of the future. gripping tale of stark terror.

October Weird Tales . . . . Out October 1 387 388 WEIRD TALES

(Continued from page 386) a portcullis, though of this I am not sure. face, but equally invisible. Inside the "But the door was safely opened, and entrance lay a corridor of equal width, I passed through it. Moving about, like leading into the center of the circle, and a blind man in a strange place, I found I felt my way forward. that I was in a vast inner court, the walls "I must have made a strange picture, of which sloped away in a great curve. had there been any there to observe it. When I discovered this, I came back to For while I knew that all around me the spot where the corridor opened into were the towering, invisible walls, and I the court, and then walked straight out knew not what else, yet all my eyes could into the court itself. see was the great flat circle of sand be¬ "It was steps that I encountered: the neath me, carpeted with the afternoon first broad steps of what was evidently a sunshine. Only, I seemed to be walking staircase of titanic proportions. And I a foot above the ground, in thin air. That went up, slowly, carefully, feeling before was the thickness of the floor beneath me every foot of the way. It was only the me, and it was the weight of this great feel of the staircase under me that gave floor, I knew, that held the circle of sand reality to it, for as far as I could see, I under it for ever flat and unchanging. was simply climbing up into empty "I walked slowly down the passage¬ space. It was weird beyond telling. way, with hands outstretched before me, "Up and up I went, until I was all of and had gone but a short distance when a hundred feet above the ground, and I brought up against another smooth then the staircase narrowed, the sides wall that lay directly across the corridor, drew together. A few more steps, and I seemingly making it a blind alley. But came out on a flat floor again, which, I was not discouraged now, for I knew after some groping about, I found to be that there must be a door somewhere, a broad landing, with high, railed edges. and began to feel around me in search I crawled across this landing on hands of it. and knees, and then struck against another wall, and in it, another door. I “T found the door. In groping about went through this too, still crawling, and A the sides of the corridor my hands though everything about me was still in¬ encountered a smoothly rounded knob set visible, I sensed that I was no longer in in the wall, and as I laid my hand on the open air, but in a great room. this, the door opened. There was a sigh¬ "I stopped short, and then, as I ing, as of a little wind, and when I again crouched on the floor, I felt a sudden felt my way forward, the wall that had prescience of evil, of some malignant, lain across the passageway was gone, and menacing entity that was native here. I was free to go forward. But I dared Nothing I could see, or hear, but strong not go through at once. I went back to upon my brain beat the thought of some¬ the knob on the wall, and found that no thing infinitely ancient, infinitely evil, amount of pressing or twisting of it that was a part of this place. Was it a would close the door that had opened. consciousness, I wonder, of the horror Some subtle mechanism within the knob that had filled the place in ages long had operated, that needed only a touch dead? Whatever caused it, I could go of the hand to work it, and the whole no farther in the face of the terror that end of the corridor had moved out of the possessed me; so I drew back and way, sliding up in grooves, I think, like walked to the edge of the landing, lean- WEIRD TALES 389 ing over its high, invisible railing and surveying the scene below. LET ME TELL YOU About your business, travel, "The setting sun hung like a great changes, matrimony, love affairs, ball of red-hot iron in the western sky, friends, enemies, lucky days and many other interesting and im¬ and in its lurid rays the two great statues portant affairs of your life as in¬ dicated by astrology. Send for cast long shadows on the yellow sands. your special Astral Reading. All work strictly scientific, individual Not far away, my two camels, hobbled, and guaranteed satisfactory. FOR MANY YEARS PRIVATE AS¬ moved restlessly about. To all appear¬ TROLOGICAL ADVISER TO ROYALTY and the ELITE. Write ances I was standing on thin air, a hun¬ name, address and date of birth plainly. No money required, but dred feet or more above the ground, but if you like send 15 cents (stamps; No Coins), to help defray costs. in my mind’s eye I had a picture of the Address: PUNDIT TABORE, (Dept. great courts and corridors below me, through which I had felt my way. “As I mused there in the red light, it Write for free booklet describing "87 Plans for was clear to me that this was the great o—-sting a Successful Business of Your Own”. temple of the city. What a sight it must I from $20 to 5100 a week starting in spare --- No peddling or house-to-house selling. Booklet sent free, and without obligation. Write for have been, in the time of the city’s life! r copy today. I could imagine the long procession of . ELITB PUBLISHING CO. Dept. V 214 Grand St. New York. N. Y. priests and people, in somber and gor¬ geous robes, coming out from the city, between the great statues and down the LONESOME? long avenue, dragging with them, per¬ Let me arrange a romantic correspondence far , you. 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"A moment only it held me, for that past. It was like a giant spider, with an¬ cold grasp filled me with such deep, gled limbs that were yards long, and a shuddering abhorrence that I wrenched hairy, repellent body. Even as I stood there, myself loose and fled madly across the I wondered that the thing, invisible as it court, stumbling again on the first step was, was yet visible by the life-blood in of the great staircase. I raced up the it, when that blood was spilled. Yet so stairs, and even as I ran I heard the thing it was, nor can I even suggest a reason. in pursuit. But one glimpse I got of its half-visible, “Up I went, and across the landing, purple-splashed outline, and then, hug¬ and grasped the edge of the railing, for ging the farther side of the stairs, I I meant to throw myself down from descended. When I passed the thing, the there, to a clean death on the floor intolerable odor of a crushed insect below. But under my hands, the top of almost smothered me, and the monster the railing moved, one of the great blocks itself made frantic efforts to loosen itself that evidently made up its top was loos¬ and spring at me. But it could not, and ened and rocked toward me. In a flash I I got safely down, shuddering and hardly grasped the great block and staggered able to walk. across the landing with it in my arms, to "Straight across the great court I went, the head of the staircase. Two men and ran shakily through the corridor, could hardly have lifted it, I think, yet I and down the long avenue, and out be¬ did more, in a sudden access of mad tween the two great statues. The moon¬ strength; for as I heard that monster light shone on them, and the tablets of coming swiftly up the great stairs, I inscriptions stood out clearly on the sides raised the block, invisible as ever, above of the statues, with their strange symbols my head, and sent it crashing down the and carved spider forms. But I knew staircase upon the place where I thought now what their message was! the thing was at that moment. "It was well that my camels had wan¬ “For an instant after the crash there dered into the ruins, for such was the was silence, and then a low humming fear that struck through me that I would sound began, that waxed into a loud never have returned for them had they droning. And at the same time, at a lingered by the invisible wall. All that spot half-way down the staircase where night I rode to the north, and when the block had crashed, a thin, purple morning came I did not stop, but still liquid seemed to well out of the empty pushed north. And as I went through air, giving form to a few of the invisible the mountain pass, one camel stumbled steps as it flowed over them, and outlin¬ and fell, and in falling burst open all my ing, too, the block I had thrown, and a water supplies that were lashed on its great hairy limb that lay crushed beneath back. it, and from which the fluid that was the “No water at all was left, but I still monster’s blood was oozing. I had not held north, killing the other camel by my killed the thing, but had chained it down constant speed, and then staggered on, with the block that held it prisoner. afoot. On hands and knees I crawled “There was a thrashing sound on the forward, when my legs gave out, always staircase, and the purple stream ran north, away from that temple of evil and more freely, and by the outline of its its evil god. And tonight, I had been splashes, I saw, dimly, the monstrous god crawling, how many miles I do not know, that had been known in Mamurth in ages and I saw your fire. And that is all.” WEIRD TALES 393

He lay back exhausted, and Mitchell and I looked at each other’s faces CifvtLst unt& a in the firelight. Then, rising, Mitchell miArt diuBIG lnLumBsINCOMES strode to the edge of our camp and looked for a long time at the moonlit lessons desert, which lay toward the south. What his thoughts were, I do not know. I was a nursing my own, as I watched the man ! led with natural abi! Inga Commercial Art, Oi *J> Impost who lay beside our fire. It was early the next morning that he died, muttering about great walls around u order^promptly. ing.eX*YouG :11s him. We wrapped his body securely, and r instruction illustrations, i $1.95 for complete 60 Leeatm Course POSTPAID, or Day postman plus postage. MONEY BACK GUARANTEE—You may order Mr. bearing it with us held our way across Murray's Course for inspection. If not delighted, your money will the desert. EDUCATIONAL SUPPLY CO„ Dept. A161-J, Racing Wigs In Algiers we cabled to the friends whose address we found in his money- belt, and arranged to ship the body to them, for such had been his only request. Later they wrote that he had been buried in the little churchyard of the New Eng¬ land village that had been his childhood home. I do not think that his sleep there will be troubled by dreams of that place of evil from which he fled. I pray that it will not. Often and often have Mitchell and I discussed the thing, over lonely camp¬ fires and in the inns of the seaport towns. MAILING SECRETARIES Did he kill the invisible monster he spoke of, and is it lying now, a withered WANTED cessary. Pay weekly, par remnant, under the block on the great and details, 10c and 3c si staircase? Or did it gnaw its way loose; S. Y. MORSE, Dept. W. does it still roam the desert and make its 1009 Oak Street,Elmira, N. Y« lair in the vast, ancient temple, as un¬ LONESOME? i seen as itself? _is different. Members every- Or, different still, was the man simply where. Send 10c for magazine. J. N. HENRY, 1049 Daldn St., Chicago. . crazed by the heat and thirst of the des¬ ert, and his tale but the product of a CURIOUS BOOKS Privately Printed maddened mind? I do not think that this THE LARGEST PUBLISHERS IN THE is so. I think that he told truth, yet I INITED STATES of privately printed1 do not know. Nor shall I ever know, for Oriental Love, Uncensored Exotics* ry Adventures and other Curious Sex; never, Mitchell and I have decided, shall Customs. Send for free Catalogs we be the ones to venture into the place DEPT. 1809 of hell on earth where that ancient god PANURGE PRESS, 70 fifth Ave., New York Please send me your illustrated brochures of evil may still be living, amid the in¬ FREE on curious, privately printed bgoks. visible courts and towers, beyond the un¬ seen wall. eturn of Orrin Mannering 4 By KENNETH P. WOOD A brief story of a *ail-break and its ghostly sequel

JUST how Orrin Mannering, mur¬ into an old road, and there before him derer and fugitive from justice, was saw indistinctly the figure of a man returned to the security of his cell with a rifle slung over one arm, standing is a ghostly legend down in Dunham motionless in the gloom, evidently posted County, Tennessee, although it occurred there to intercept him. It was too late to many years ago, and the ancient jail has retreat. The fugitive felt that at the first long since been demolished. movement back toward the thicket he In the fall of the year, Mannering was would be instantly shot down. So the confined in the county jail to await trial two stood there like trees, Mannering for the brutal slaying of his brother-in- nearly choking to death as his heart law. Mannering was a desperate man, a mounted into his throat; the emotions of cold-blooded killer, and no coward. He the other are not of record. had escaped prison by knocking down A moment later—it may have been an John Duff the jailer with an iron bar, hour—the moon entered a patch of un¬ then robbing him of his keys; after which clouded sky and the hunted man saw that he opened the outer door and stole out visible embodiment of Law raise his free into the night. The jailer being unarmed, arm without a word and point significant¬ Mannering got no weapon with which to ly toward and beyond him. Mannering defend his recovered liberty. As soon as he understood. Turning his back to his cap- was out of the town, he had the folly to tor, he walked submissively away in the enter a forest; this was, of course, when direction indicated, looking neither to the that region was wilder than it is now. right nor the left; hardly daring to The slowly rising moon aided Manner- breathe, for he felt a burning sensation ing’s flight, but as he had never dwelt in between the shoulder-blades just where the immediate locality, he knew nothing the rifle must be pointing. And his spine of the lay of the land. He was not long actually ached with the prophecy of lead¬ in losing himself, for he had doubled en bullets. several times. But he could not determine Mannering was as courageous a crimi¬ if he were getting farther away from the nal as ever lived to be hanged. That was town or getting back to it—a most im¬ shown by the conditions of awful per¬ portant matter to Orrin Mannering. He sonal peril under which he had coolly knew that in either case the sheriff, with murdered his brother-imlaw. It is need¬ a posse of armed citizens and a pack of less to relate them here. They came out bloodhounds, would soon be on his trail at his trial, and his calmness in confront¬ and his chance of escape was very slen¬ ing them came near to saving his neck. der. But he did not wish to assist in his Nevertheless he was now doggedly plod¬ own pursuit. Even an added hour of ding his way toward the town, a brave freedom was worth having. man beaten and submitting to the inev¬ Suddenly he emerged from the woods itable. 394 WEIRD TALES 395

So the two men pursued their journey up the main street the criminal held his jailward in silence along the old road way; straight up to the entrance of the through the woods. Only once did Man- jail he walked and laid his hand upon the nering venture a turn of his head; just knob, opening without command the big once, when he was in the deep shadow iron-bound door. Passing through the of a big overhanging elm tree and he dimly lighted corridor, Mannering opened knew that the other was in the full light a second door and found himself in the of the moon, he looked backward. His presence of half a dozen armed men who captor was John Duff, the jailer, as white were crowding round a table. But the as death and bearing upon his brow the street door had not opened and closed livid mark of the iron bar. Orrin Man- behind him to admit his captor, so he nering had no further curiosity. turned round. Nobody else had entered. The armed men walked quickly toward Eventually they entered the town, Mannering to catch him as he collapsed, which was all alight, but deserted. for he saw on the table the dead body of Not a soul appeared to be abroad. Straight John Duff.

FROM time to time we receive letters little masterpiece. One reader points out that from you, the readers of this magazine, E. Hoffmann Price’s tale of devil worship. commenting on the fact that some of The Stranger from Kurdistan, "one of the our finest stories are what are known as most powerful and perfect stories ever print¬ "filler” stories, or "short shorts;” that is, ed anywhere,” took up only four pages in stories of less than five pages in length, Weird Tales. Two other "filler” stories printed in the back pages of the magazine, for which votes and letters are still coming usually without illustrations. Some of these in are The Cats of Ulthar by H. P. Love- short shorts continue to receive votes from craft and The Night Wire by H. F. Arnold, you for months, and even years, after they which were printed several years ago. And are printed. Prime example of this last year there are others. Mere length does not make was Mary Elizabeth Counselman’s intriguing a story great; and although we will continue short yarn, The Three Marked Pennies; and to put our main efforts into seeking out and this year Walker G. Everett’s bizarre fantasy publishing the best weird novelettes and fea¬ entitled The Woman in Gray bids fair to ture-length stories written today, we also equal the popularity of Miss Counselman’s take pride in our very short fiction. We rec- 396 WEIRD TALES omraend our short tales to you. Despite the not want sexy nudes. We want Brundage faa that they are merely “filler” stories in nudes.” length, they are chosen for publication just The Very Short Stories as carefully as the longer stories. Dwight A. Boyce, of Ludlow, Massachu¬ Really Great Stuff setts, writes: "Always, without exception, I enjoy the short stories in Weird Tales T. O. Mabbott, of New York City, in much in preference to the feature-length casting his vote for Fitz-James O’Brien’s stories and serials. The longer fiction is too The Wondersmith, our Weird Story Reprint often obviously written around a formula, for the July issue, writes: “O’Brien’s tale is too deliberately written to sell. Every author very fine, though not his best; but voting wants to sell his output, of course; but, it should be for the new ones, I think. Keep seems to me, the shorter tales are more often them weird. They Called Him Ghost is your ingenious and interesting, displaying great best story in ages. . .. Your readers who say inventiveness and a clever faculty for telling things are better than Poe and Verne amuse a lot in a small space—the most difficult me, since the old standards remain, but the detail of good story-telling.” new perfections are soon forgotten. But some of your short things are really great stuff, A Reprint Suggestion which is higher praise than comparison.” D. M. Roberts, of Syracuse, New York, writes: “Why don’t you reprint some of the For Her Grandchildren older weird tales from your own magazine Mrs. Virginia Parker, of Merigold, Missis- that have been requested several times, in¬ sippi, writes: "I have been reading Weird stead of using the 1776 reprints? Nobody Tales for years and am an avid science- cares for the dry, colorless chromos of a cen¬ fiction fan, but this is my first letter to the tury ago. You must realize that there are Eyrie. I wish to congratulate you on the fine several thousand unfortunates who have publication you have. If you don’t want my never read your earlier issues, and probably grandchildren to curse you, please continue never will be able to do so, as they are out to publish WT.” {We will continue to pub¬ of print. Why not give these people a taste lish Weird Tales as long as we have the of what Weird Tales used to be? You support of you who like to read good weird could even reprint the longer stories and fiction. You have loyally supported this serials, seeing that you reprinted Franken¬ magazine through the lean years of the Great stein and The Wolf-Leader, both of them Depression, and we will strive mightily to eight-part serials. I would suggest that you keep the magazine worthy of your continued start in with Volume 1, Number 1, and re¬ support in the future.—The Editor.} print one story each month until you reach the stories still in print. Anent the cover For Nuder Nudes controversy: Personally I don’t care whether you have a naked lady or a Filipino dele¬ A. V. Pershing, of Bloomington, Indiana, gate on the cover, as I buy the magazine for writes: “Clothing is a disgrace to the for¬ the reading matter it contains.” mer nudes of the rare artistry of M. Brun- dage. I had just begun saving the nude Some Ghosts, Please covers when die began to put veils about John L. Robson, of Charleston, West Vir¬ their lovely nakedness—and thereby ruined ginia, writes: “Donald Wandrei is my fa¬ the splendid covers. How can people be so vorite sdence-fiction author and Seabury vulgar as to always see evil and wantonness Quinn my favorite writer of mysteries. . . . in such sublime masterpieces of artistry as But I was thinking the other day that I’d M. Brundage gives her nudes? Won’t you like to read a ghost story. You remember please return diem to your covers so I may what a ghost was, don’t you, one of those continue my collection ? Take the new July white-sheeted things? I should appreciate issue. M. Brundage failed to produce com¬ a resurrection of a few stories in the reprint plete weirdness because of the green dress department, containing some of these rare draped about the girl. I do hope you change specimens. In the June and July issues M. your policy and restore our nudes. We do Brundage’s covers had just the correct el- WEIRD TALES 397 ement of the supernatural. I would suggest that you keep the nudes off of your covers and send them to some spicy periodical, BRAIN MAGIC where they would seem more at home. After all, the thrill of viewing a nude isn’t ex¬ actly a weird one. The best stories in your June number were The Woman in Gray by W. G. Everett and Together by Ida M. Kier. They are two of the most original and well- done weird stories that I have read in months —and I’ve read plenty. In the July num¬ ber, Paul Ernst’s Waiter Number 34 was swell. I’m eagerly awaiting his Doctor Satan series.” Quick, Major, the Gong! ARE YOU AVOIDED Jack Darrow, of Chicago, writes: "Brun- BECAUSE YOU CAN’T DANCE WELL? dage did a nice cover this time. The only fault I could find is that the tangle of fig¬ • Prof. Orlianoff, America’s Finest Dance Master; ures is a little too messy. Jack Binder did will teach you to dance in a week if you are * beginner. And he will improve your dancing a some nice art work for July. I enjoyed The you are just an average dancer. Avenger from Atlantis by Edmond Hamil¬ ton very much. .. . Did you notice that Aalla Learn to Dance This Easy Way Zaata’s story, A Grave Is Five Feet Deep, is called A Grave Must Be Deep on the con¬ easy, illustrated lessons. You will learn everything you should know about Modern Ballroom Danc¬ tents page?” [Thanks, Jack, for calling this ing. Ail important popular dances as they shoult egregious blunder to our attention. We are be danced. How to lead, follow, turn, get rhythm, and Ballroom Etiquette. Complete course only fl. overwhelmed with chagrin, and shall cer¬ postpaid. No more to pay. Simply send $1 with name and address to Prof. Orlianoff, Studio 534 tainly ask Major Bowes to give us the gong. Michigan-Chestnut Bldg., Chicago, III. We must have had Theodore Roscoe’s story, A Grave Must Be Deep, in our subconscious Disease mind when we prepared the table of con¬ CONTROLS of Blood tents. Aalla Zaata’s original title for the An effective treatment against disease of blood. tale was Nothing but the Truth. This was Used for 60 years. Home Treatment. Hundreds of Endorsements. Whatever the cause, however changed to Black Earth of India, but the far advanced, write for FREE Book. title A Grave Is Five Feet Deep was the JOHN STERLING REMEDY CO. KaMDX». name under which it was finally printed.— The Editor.] CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS SMALL ADS WORTH WATCHING Best Brundage Cover Lewis F. Torrance, of Winfield, Kansas, Back Copies For Sale writes: "The July issue, having been in my THE MYSTERY IN ACATLAN—It happened la Acatlan, and the horror of it drove the Americas hands some four hours, is perused. It is an to seek forgetfulness in strange drugs. While they last, you can get a copy of the November 192f improvement over any this year. WT prints issue containing this fascinating story and others. only the best, has always done so, and prob¬ Send 26c to WEIRD TALES, 840 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago, Ill._ ably always will. The month-to-month al¬ THE CHAPEL OF MYSTIC HORKOR by Seabury ternation of artists is not too advisable. Such Quinn—A Jules de Grandin thriller. As long as tbs supply lasts, you can get a copy of the December conduct put the July issue behind the June 1928 issue containing this startling story and artistically. The cover, however, was Brun- others, by sending 26c to WEIRD TALES, 840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill._ dage’s best to date, being mysterious, and at ORIENTAL STORIES—Vol. I, No. 1—containing the same time containing the much-quarreled- stories by Paul Ernst, Otis Adelbert Kline, Franlt Owen, Robert E. Howard and others—26c. ORI¬ over female, sparsely draped, with the vile ENTAL STORIES, 840 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, gleam in her eyes. . . . You will probably Ill.__ The MAGIC CARPET Magazine—Vol. 4, No. 1— receive much 'weeping, wailing and gnash¬ containing stories by Seabury Quinn, Robert BL ing of teeth’ because she is not clad in less Howard. Frank Owen, S. Gordon Gurwit and others —26c. MAGIC CARPET MAGAZINE. 840 N. Michi¬ satin. Be that as it may, WT should be the gan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 398 WEIRD TALES

f roudest pulp on the ladder of magazine ame. The greatest surprize was to learn of NEXT MONTH the coming of Montgomery to Weird Tales. Literarily, Anne of Green Gables was a suc¬ HOLLYWOOD cess—if only her weird fiction is as good. The two translated German narratives added HORROR literary spice to the magazine of weird fic¬ tion. . . . Give us more from Robert Bloch, By PAUL ERNST and his colleagues of horror, C. L. Moore and Frank B. Long, Jr.” ■pvocTOR satan shifts the scene of The Avenger from Atlantis his weird crimes to the movie G. H. January, of Memphis, writes: "That colony in Hollywood. There he per¬ grand July issue that I’ve just finished has petrates a ghastly horror, so terrible, so inspired me to write another letter. If the remainder of the pages had been blank, that undreamed-of, that the film actors and marvelous story. The Avenger from Atlantis, executives are gripped in the icy clutch would have filled the need capably. I have of stark panic terror. On this scene never read a story by Mr. Hamilton that I enjoyed half as much as I did his latest. suddenly appears Ascott Keane, the You may be certain that it will go down on world’s most capable criminologist; my 'preferred* list with such other master¬ pieces as The Woman of the Wood, The and the struggle between these two ti¬ Phantom Farmhouse, and the King Kull fan¬ tanic figures makes a thrill-story that tasies. Incidentally, don’t let Conan (en¬ will hold your breathless interest. joyable as he is) replace the colorful heroes of the Shadow Kingdom. The Death Cry I found a very well-written and entertaining lt^EET them now: the mysterious detective story but sadly lacking in eery qual¬ and sinister figure who calls him¬ ities. Again I sound the age-old chant— self Doctor Satan, the world’s weird¬ Keep Weird Tales weird. As to the nudes on the cover, I have found many of them est criminal; and Ascott Keane, the that added to the idea of the magazine and world’s strangest crime-fighter. This were really splendid, while others with their excessive voluptuousness made the magazine compelling and breath-taking story appear a cheaper type. Let’s keep our nudes will be published complete but keep them in reason. Here’s hoping for another issue like the July.” in the October issue of Science Fiction WEIRD TALES Clifford Shine, of Denver, writes: "I want to enter into the discussions in the Eyrie. I on sale October 1st am for nudes and against The Death Cry. And I wish to say that I think weird-scien¬ To avoid missing your copy, clip and mail this tific stories should remain in WT. The ar¬ OFFER!°day ^ SPECIAL SUBSCRJPTr ~~ gument against them is that there are sev¬ eral magazines devoted to them already; however, I don’t think they do as good a job as WT. Perhaps the readers remember Corsairs of the Cosmos in WT. If you do, I think you will agree that no story ever printed in the science-fiction magazines was anything like it. Neither did I ever see in those magazines a story like Rulers of the Future or The Man Who Was Two Men. These stories take up science fiction where WEIRD TALES 399 other magazines leave off. . . . For reprints CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS I would like, first. The Slithering Shadow SMALL ADS WORTH WATCHING by Robert E. Howard, and second, Penelope by Vincent Starrett. Both these tales are from Agents Wanted

July "issue “are' jlnl'Meets"^^ C. L. Moore, and The Avenger from Atlantis by are Robert E. Howard and C. L. Moore.” Books & Periodicals

July Issue Nearly Perfect B. M. Reynolds, of North Adams, Mas- Business Opportunities TALES^a^w6 near^^ferfert * that °l h^Tto

you on it. All of the stories were good, and

Atlantis by Edmond Hamilton was absolute- SERVICE, 634 Ash St., Dickson City, Pa. ly the best he has ever written* not only in novelty of plot, but in the excellent way in which he handled the theme. C. L. Moore, with a long line of successes already to her credit, certainly gave us the best to date in Jirel Meets Magic. Moore’s stories are fol¬ lowing, more and more, a trend toward sheer fantasy, of which there is a pitiful lack in present-day fiction. Parts of this story were

rive descriptions, and I hardly believe a bet¬ Personal ter compliment could be given a writer than to compare one with the incomparable. Gus¬ tav Mevrink’s strange little tale. The Violet rZSSSrSs Death, Light have faken first place if it had not been so brief. An extraordinary plot SwaSSS superb novelette. But, at any rate, it was Je§ cand?” C. L. Moore’s Stories

"I first started reading Weird Tales in 1925, and have scarcely missed an issue since. You have published some very poor stories, but on the whole, you stand alone in Photo Finishing your field. The stories which I do not like are those which, after building up an atmos¬ phere of weirdness, proceed to explain the whole affair as a dream, or as having a per-

tiates the whole story. ... I have just fin¬ ished the July 1935 issue. The leading story therein, in my opinion, is C. L. Moore’s Jirel Poems—Songs ivieeuMeetr iMarie via vie. As far a*as thatuwi guco,eoes wiwicMoore’s s stories are the best that you have published. SSSTUSt Sr “““ 400 WEIRD TALES

Shambleau, which was the first one that I leans: "My congratulations on the July num¬ encountered, is, in my opinion, the master¬ ber: there isn’t a weak story in it. My choice piece of weird fiction. While I have enjoyed for best wavers between The Avenger from Moore’s stories since, that author has never Atlantis and A Grave Is Five Feet Deep. come up to the sheer horror of Shambleau.” You’ve made quite a find in Aalla Zaata.” C. B. H. writes from New York City: The Unique Magazine "firel Meets Magic was the best Jirel story, William J. Smith, of New Brunswick, in my estimation, that I have ever read. Jirel New Jersey, writes: "I have no fault to find is my favorite character.” whatever with Weird Tales. It is still the Herbert Zettler, of New York City, writes: Unique Magazine. Other publications spe¬ "The Avenger from Atlantis is a swell story. cializing in horror have been put out, but It puts a new light on historical people. But their basis is practically always one of beau¬ couldn’t Etain teach someone to put her tiful women and fiends. The story nearly brain in a new body?” always turns out as a hoax. Therefore, Miss Mildred L. Doctor, of Minneapolis, Weird Tales is still the only magazine writes: ”1 have all your magazines since which gives us weird literature. I hope it 1930, and have read all the stories and continues in business a good long time.” verses. I think your magazine is the best on the market. The more gruesome they are, Brief Paragraphs the better I like them.” Parker Dehn, of New York City, writes: "The Horror in the Studio by Dorothy Quick Favorite Story in your June issue is one of the most vivid Readers, what is your favorite story in this tales I have ever read. It had all the power issue? Write us a letter, or fill out the vote of a real thriller.” coupon on this page and send it to the Eyrie, David W. Sallume, of Yellow Springs, Weird Tales. And if there are any stories Ohio, writes: “I wish to offer you my con¬ you do not like, we want to know which gratulations on your publication of Paul ones, and why you do not like them. Your Ernst’s story, Waiter Humber 34. It is not favorite story in the July issue, as shown by often that one encounters in pulp fiction a your votes and letters, was The Avenger story which has any appreciable social vision, from- Atlantis, by Edmond Hamilton. This so that the discovery is the more pleasing was closely pressed for first place by Waiter when it does come.” Number 34, by Paul Ernst, and Jirel Meets Richard H. Hart writes from New Or¬ Magic, by C. L. Moore.

MY FAVORITE STORIES IN THE SEPTEMBER WEIRD TALES ARE:

Story Remarks (1) - - (2) - -

(3)--- - I do not like the following stories: (1) - Why?_ (2) - -

It will help us to know what kind of j Reader’s name and address: stories you want in Weird Tales if you ■ will fill out this coupon and mail it to | The Eyrie, Weird Tales, 840 N. Michigan I Ave., Chicago, Ill. | W. T.—8 Back Copies • •

Because of the many requests for back issues of Weird Tales, the pub¬ lishers do their best to keep a sufficient supply on hand to meet all de¬ mands. This magazine was established early in 1923 and there has been a steady drain on the supply of back copies ever since. At present, we have the following back numbers on hand for sale:

1928 1929 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 _ _ Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. Jan. _ _ Feb.-Mar. Feb. Feb. Feb. Feb. Mar. _ Mar. Mar. Mar. _ _ Apr.-May Apr. Apr. Apr. Apr. _ _ — May May May _ June June-July June June June June _ _ July July July July Aug. _ — Aug. Aug. Aug. Aug. _ _ _ Sept. Sept. Sept. — _ _ _ Oct. Oct. Oct. _ Nov. _ Nov. Nov. Nov. Nov. _ Dec. _ _ Dec. Dec. Dec. —

These back numbers contain many fascinating stories. If you are in¬ terested in obtaining any of the back copies on this list please hurry your order because we can not guarantee that the list will be as complete as it now is within the next 30 days. The price on all back issues is 25c per copy. Mail all orders to:

WEIRD TALES 840 N. Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois SAVE.¥550% bi/ BUYING YOUR RADIO ^Detect MIDWEST LABORATORIES