Page:Weird Tales 1928-08.pdf/145
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The
DEVIL-PLANT
By
JOHN MURRAY REYNOLDS
In the tangled jungles of the upper Amazon River, far from the haunts of men, a great botanist had built his strange laboratory, and there he created his garden of horrors—weird monstrosities, eery giants, nightmare plants and horrible man-eating flowers. Into this terrible garden came a beautiful Portuguese girl, bearing food for that blood-chilling plant-horror whose foul breath tainted the evening breeze, and then—but that is the story.
A weird-scientific tale of powerful interest, about a plant that was more animal than it was plant—a vegetable thing that left the place where it was grown and went stalking forth into the night in search of human food. This story will be printed complete in the
September issue of
WEIRD TALES
On Sale August 1
CJi£ ^aJJJailjhis Coupon^ TodayJ_ WEIRD TAI.ES «tO East Ohio St., Chicago, Ill. Enclosed find {1 for special five months subscription to "Weird Tales" to begin with the September Issue ($1.25 in Canada). Special offer void unless remittance is accompanied by coupon.
City
The Vengeance of Nitocris
(Continued from page 260)
revelers and all had been killed. However, this theory was speedily dispelled when a voyager from down the river reported having passed the temple in a perfectly firm condition but declared that he had seen no signs of life about the place—only the brightly canopied boats, drifting at their moorings.
Uneasiness steadily increased throughout the day. Sage persons recalled the great devotion of the queen toward her dead brother, and noted that the guests at the banquet of last night had been composed almost entirely of those who had participated in his slaying.
When in the evening the queen arrived in the city, pale, silent, and obviously nervous, threatening crowds blocked the path of her chariot, demanding roughly an explanation of the disappearance of her guests. Haughtily she ignored them and lashed forward the horses of her chariot, pushing aside the tight mass of people. Well she knew, however, that her life would be doomed as soon as they confirmed their suspicions. She resolved to meet her inevitable death in a way that befitted one of her rank, not at the filthy hands of a mob.
Therefore upon her entrance into the palace she ordered her slaves to fill instantly her boudoir with hot and smoking ashes. When this had been done, she went to the room, entered it, closed the door and locked it securely, and then flung herself down upon a couch in the center of the room. In a short time the scorching heat and the suffocating thick fumes of the smoke overpowered her. Only her beautiful dead body remained for the hands of the mob.