Page:Weird Tales Volume 27 Number 02 (1936-02).djvu/6

canter. He longed for a stiff swig from the decanter. His lips were fearfully dry. He rolled his head sidewise.

There, on the floor, lay a shapeless thing, a formless something, within the clothing of a man—Trehearne's clothing. The trunk was elongated. Barry blinked. But it had Trehearne's head.

Barry's stomach suddenly went cold and roily. He rolled his head to the other side. There was Vroom, stamping his high heels and shouting, as he drove the gigantic silver serpent back from its prey. The reptile was weaving and darting. Vroom lunged and struck at it with a red-hot poker.

"Back!" he shouted, and stamped. "Back, I tell you!"

Barry saw the immense serpent swing swiftly sidewise. With a movement almost as swift as lightning, its blunt head shot past the stamping zoologist. Its scaly body slithered and scraped across the floor.

"So!" croaked Vroom savagely. "So! You want your supper, eh? . . . Take that! . . . I'll show you who's master here! . . . So!"

The glowing poker slashed through the air. It swished across the serpent's thick body, some six feet below its head.

A little curl of blue smoke arose from the scaly, silver form. Instantly the serpent was transformed into a thrashing, writhing mass. A sickening odor of burning flesh became perceptible.

Barry gazed, fascinated.

The writhing, tortured serpent twisted itself into a knot. But when, an instant later, it uncoiled, it was farther back, away from Vroom. It reared its head high, always facing the man with the glowing poker. And Barry could see, alongside the searing mark of the red-hot iron, a dozen other similar, but older scars.

Vroom shouted, "Back!" and stamped again. Barry wondered why he stamped. He was unaware that the tympanum is lacking in a serpent's ear—that it cannot hear, but that it is sensitive to the vibrations produced by stamping.

For a moment man and snake battled, like two fencers, but always the serpent was losing ground. Thrice Vroom lunged at the reptile with the glowing iron. Thrice the monster evaded the thrust with the swiftness of lightning. Then the two vanished through the library door.

Abruptly Barry was conscious that every muscle in his body was taut. As he realized the significance of the zoologist's battle with the reptile—that the man was driving it back to prevent it from devouring Trehearne's body, from swallowing it whole—he was gripped by a sudden nausea.

Things began to swim again before his eyes. He closed his lids. The last thing he saw was Cariaco, the little brown monkey-man. Cariaco was eyeing him speculatively and testing the edge of his machete with his thumb.

The next thing he heard was Vroom's croaking voice:

"So! You did well, Cariaco. . . . What? No, no, my boy—put that machete down! Do not kill him, unless he tries to escape!"

Barry took a deep breath. He opened his eyes. As loudly as he could, he bellowed, three times:

"Help!"

Vroom smiled, and fingered his pointed Vandyke.

"So? . . . And who will hear you, my dear officer? . . . Twenty-eight stories up, you must remember. And sound does not go down easily. Roar all you please. And then, tell me how you came to be in wait at my door!"

Barry swallowed.

"Go to hell!" he snapped.