Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/53

fiend! Tears? Yes-of the crocodile brand. Part of her stock-in-trade. Don't know what the rest of 'em are like here. Maybe there aren't any others. Maybe she and that old hag I saw are the last of a rotten crop. But fifty or a thousand, take this from me: little Susan is head-devil of the lot! We're all due to go West. One at a time or en masse. No difference. But she's going with us! Oh, she's wise. Kept out of my reach just now. If she hadn't, I'd have—But no matter. She'll release us again. She'll trust that crawling horror to protect her. And then-" "The vengeful correspondent's voice sank to a sinister whisper-"then I'll get her!"

Night had returned, bringing the silent, strange little food-bearer with her basket of fruit and small water-jars. She had come alone as before, but there had been a slight variation. The first time she had handed in the provisions at close range, seeming assured that the prisoners would not try to harm her.

Tonight she had brought a second, much smaller basket. Before each cell she had filled this small receptacle from the large one, and gravely extended it, keeping such distance that the reach of a man's arm through one of the triangular windows might achieve a grasp on the basket, but not on her hands. Emptied by the cell's occupant, the basket must be tossed back and used again.

The procedure indicated a clear understanding of the bitterness toward her. Yet, aside from this, there had been no change in appearance or manner. The eyes that blessed and grieved were innocent of evil as before.

While she passed along the rank, none of the four had spoken a word to her. She had never indicated that she understood, when they had addressed her. Words were useless. Moreover, there had come to be something indescribably shocking in that difference between her acts and the promise of all gentle good in her appearance.

One flash of mockery, one taunting curl of the childlike mouth, and the whole affair, terrible though it was, would have seemed a shade more endurable. But the taunt never came. She pitied them, it seemed, deeply. She had no consciousness of wrong toward them, but to witness their captivity and consider the fate on its way to them, grieved her. Sad, very sad, that in the world should be pain and mourning and the ludicrous, maddening helplessness of four strong men at the mercy of one slender maiden!

In Waring, the effect of all this came dangerous near to real madness. Agony over Tellifer's lingering death had instilled his friend with a ruthless hate, against which dissuasive arguments beat vainly. Waring's threats uttered after the girl had gone, were sincere!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN AN AWFUL CRIME

AN HOUR later, and again the grotesque ceremonial progress of victims and captors about the sacrifical pit.

Between this occasion and the first, however, were differences. Not only was the captive band's number reduced to four, but these four moved with a strangely absorbed interest in each other.

Otway, blinking desperately, must rely on the steward alone to warn and guide him. Young Sigsbee had lost his enthusiasm for "nature dancing."

Silently, without admission of their purpose, he and Waring were engaged in a duel of approach and defense.

At the cells, as if aware of her danger, the girl had passed Waring by and laid on John B. the task of releasing himself and his fellows. The last had been first and the first last with such effect that when Waring finally emerged, sinister purpose in the very poise of his massive person, he had found a barrier of three men between him and his quarry.

There had been some words exchanged, then. In the very shadow of death, the quartette had come close to a violent quarrel. Unreasoning accusations of disloyalty from Waring, however, were met by a cool counter-accusation from Otway that headed off active strife. Woman-killing aside, said the naturalist, Waring had no right to rob the rest of any slim little chance for life the evening might bring.

On that score, Waring had grimly yielded. But he made no promises for his behavior in the court's more open field. There, should he attack the dancer, he would surely be slain. But while the monster's attention was upon him, the others might grasp their "slim chance for life" and welcome.

The compromise was neither accepted nor declined, because just at that point the obligato from the Pau's pipes had ceased and the disputants had hastily taken the hint and the outward path. But though no more was said, Waring's set determination was plain enough.

The dancer, as before, danced as though alone in the hollow pyramid. The hideous, scampering coils that followed and surrounded them all might have been bodiless smoke-wreaths, so far as she was concerned. The angry, maddened giant of a man whose blood-shot glances gloated threateningly on her light movements had no seeming existence for her.

But young Sigsbee knew that her danger was very real indeed. Forty-eight hours in the pyramid had reduced a big, good-humored, civilized man to a savage with one idea in his head, and one only. Waring had stood by helpless while the friend he loved was tortured to death. Now, unshaven, red-eyed, massive and dangerous as the "cave-man" he resembled, the correspondent stalked his indifferent prey, while again and again Sigsbee took outrageous risks to keep his own person between them.

In actual physical conflict, the young yacht-owner would have had little chance with the correspondent. For all his fleshiness, Waring was quick as a cat, light-moving almost as the little dancer herself-far more powerful than Sigsbee. But even a few seconds of bodily struggle would mean death for both. Neither dared pause an instant in that constant avoidance of hideous running claws.

Sigsbee got no help from the girl's official defender. Whatever its training, the monstrous guardian lacked intelligence to understand that strange duel between captives over the life of their tyrant. Its scampering talons threatened defender and attacker alike. The end came at last with great suddenness.

For just an instant the girl poised motionless in one of the graceful poses that interspersed the dance steps. Tellifer's avenger had achieved a place not six feet from her. Sigsbee was momentarily entrapped in a running loop, the inner edge of which had flung up knee-high above the floor.

Seeing his chance, Waring took it like a flash.

In almost the same instant a number of things happened. What some of them were was understood by only one person; the rest merely found themselves involved in a chaos of peril. Waring sprang. Sigsbee, taking another desperate chance, bounded over the clawing loop. He collided in midair with his massive opponent. The two crashed heavily down at the girl's very feet. John B., a little distance off, saw the hovering yellow death's head swing around with a darting motion. He shouted warningly. But the combat-