Page:Strange Tales Volume 02 Number 03 (1932-10).djvu/54

man strength, such as comes to one who, in a trance, draws upon the hidden storehouse of his vitality. Coyne went down under a smashing blow that stretched him full length in the water that was now more than knee-deep upon the floor.

I could never fight Neil and the princess. But fate intervened. Neil, reaching forward in the swing that knocked Coyne to the floor, tripped over the fallen chair and lay prostrate. Again I wrestled with Amen-Ra. I had her by the broken wrist, but, even with the bone snapped, she was delivering frantic swings and lunges at Rita with the scissors. I flung my body in the way. The points caught in my coat—and then, by a miracle, I succeeded in wresting the weapon out of the creature's hand.

"Menes! Menes!" she wailed, and that cry was like the echoing cry of one eternally lost.

Neil had picked himself up. He roared, he came on like a madman. And what happened next was, by the grace of God, a matter of a split second's advantage.

I had the shears. I swung at Neil with my left hand, and dealt him a stinging blow in the face that halted him. I turned upon Amen-Ra, and plunged the deadly weapon straight into her heart.

The shears pierced through her body. So hard I struck that my fist collided with her breast. Blood spouted, ceased. For a moment Amen-Ra stood upright, pinned by the steel. And then it was as if all the devilishness went out of her face.

She was the young girl, the beauteous maiden whom I had seen in the casket, whom I remembered dimly, as if in a dream, to have seen in Egypt. A smile of heavenly sweetness flickered about her mouth. And then, before my eyes, she was dissolving into dust.

The weapon eased itself from the crumbling form. No mummy this—nothing but a little heap of dust that flaked down upon the dais. Of Amen-Ra, as I had seen her in the casket, no trace remained.

I choked with the horror of it, I flung the scissors from me and turned to await Neil's mad onset. But Neil was standing against the wall, looking about him as if he had awakened from a dream. And Coyne was rising out of the water and coming toward me.

He gasped, he looked at the heap of dust, already covered by the oncoming stream. He ran to Rita Ware and raised her out of the water, which was lapping against her face. And I saw that her eyes were open, and she was staring confusedly about her.

Coyne carried her to a couch and laid her down. She was mumbling, still half conscious. Neil was muttering too. Coyne turned to me.

"Thank God, Dewey!" he cried. "I knew that I could trust you not to falter. That was not Amen-Ra. This girl is Amen-Ra, reborn. So long as that vampiric double of hers had lived, three souls would have remained in hell—her own, and Farrant's, and this girl's. Thank God the evil spell is ended!"

Neil Farrant came staggering toward us. "Where am I?" he muttered. "Where's all this water coming from? What happened? The experiment—it didn't work? I don't seem to—remember—but I dreamed. I dreamed I was that fellow Menes, and you two were in the dream too."

He began laughing hysterically, and then of a sudden his eyes fell upon Rita Ware. "Who is she?" he whispered hoarsely to the doctor.

"I'll tell you later, Farrant," answered Coyne. "We've got to get out of here. The water's rising