Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/54

ants on the floor were seeking each other's throats with a whole-hearted attention which ignored the shout. The girl shrank back a step-and lowered her Pan's pipes.

At that signal, John B. saw the hovering head rise a trifle. Those curved daggers, its poison-fangs, opened wide. All the scampering pattern of segments halted the head poised-

And then, instead of shooting downward, John B. saw the head give a great, sweeping jerk sideways

Inexplicably, it flung over and struck the side of the faceted, luminous crystal above the pit.

Next instant it was as if a yellowish tornado had been loosed in the central court. The air seemed full of a blurred chaos of convulsive segments.

The yellow blur flashed around the pit, enveloped the eight pillars in a coiling cloud. The cloud condensed became the taloned, yellow length again, but wrapped around the columns in a straining, writhing skein. Up from this skein rose the head, twisting from side to side as if in agony.

Above the pit, a single, distinct, ringing sound shivered out-a quivering ping-g-g, as of a great crystal goblet sharply struck. It was followed by a silent concussive shock-a kind of bursting scintillance of white glare. Then, like the downward swoop of a vast, black wing, utter darkness.

IN THE central court men called to one another in hoarse shouts, groped and blindly sought each other.

They could not understand! The monstrous creature of talons and venom was gone. At least, the dry rustle and clash which had accompanied its presence were no longer heard. Cautiously exploring feet found none of the dangerous segments.

In that first mad flurry of rage, convulsive agony, or whatever had smitten it, the thing had knocked John B. and the explorer off their feet, and one of the talons, catching in Otway's furry tunic, had broken the shoulder-straps and jerked it partly off him. Aside from this, no damage had been sustained by any of the four captives.

Waring and Sigsbee had forsaken their death-grapple. Meeting at last, the other couple found them like a pair of dazed children, hand in hand, seeking nothing save escape from the incomprehensible.

The light of Sunfire had exploded to a scintillant glare and left them blind. Overhead, in a humid, blue-black sky, great stars winked down at them, but not brightly enough to shed one revealing ray on this latest mystery of the pyramid.

Girl, monster and glowing crystal, the three presiding elements of their strange captivity, seemed to have been simultaneously wiped out of existence.

The jaguar-hide tunics alone were left as assurance that the experience had been a real one.

Suddenly, in the dark, young Sigsbee grasped the arm of his late adversary.

"Look!" he gasped. "Look up at the rim there! A light-and somebody crouched down beside it!"

There on the pyramid's rim indeed, fifty feet above, a small light glowed warm and yellow. It showed what seemed to be the form of a man. It was not standing nor even looking down toward them. The form squatted with rounded shoulders and bent head. Its face was hidden in its hands. The attitude was one of overpowering grief.

A moment later and the figure had risen slowly. It raised the light, evidently a common oil lantern, and began a leisurely descent of the inner stair. As it came on, the head was still bent and the shoulders drooped dejectedly.

"Who in God's name?" breathed Waring-and was silent.

They were four civilized men, who did not believe in demons, apparitions, nor that, as primitive folk hold, the newly dead are restless and may rise in their lifeless flesh. Therefore they stood their ground.

It was true that for Mr. Theron Narcisse Tellifer, or any other man of flesh and blood, to have spent those last hours exposed without water in the heat of the pit, passed at least ten min- there somewhere and alive, for I heard you swearing. I trust that you are satisfied! You denied that Sunfire, that lost miracle of loveliness, was a diamond. You were wrong. Sunfire was a diamond, though it is now, alas, only a shattered wreck of dust and fragments! Wondrous though its beauty, Sunfire was but a vast carbon crystal. The heat beating upward from the pit must long since have pre- pared this end. The stone could never have been re-cut. It could hardly have been lifted down intact from the col- umns. The impact of my unlucky air- gun bullet striking the side dissolved it in a shining cloud of dust! My friends, I was fairly certain yesterday that Sunfire's ruin had been wrought. But to have finished the evil work of those ignorant vandals with my own hand! I wish-I wish that I had re- turned to New York by liner from Para, as I was tempted to do!" While the voice spoke, no one had even thought of interrupting its sad discourse. As it ceased, Waring drew a great breath. "That," said he with deep convic- tion, "that's Tellifer! Darn you, TNT! All these hours and-yes, you even took time to shave! How'd you get out of that bowl? Why didn't you come back sooner? D'you know you nearly made a damn, cold-blooded woman murderer of me? Come here with that lantern. My foot just struck something. It's the girl! Is she-is she badly hurt, Sigsbee?" CHAPTER FOURTEEN FLIGHT light, the mysterious little tyrant of the pyramid was found to be still breathing. As there were no wounds on her, it was decided that she had fainted from shock or fright. utes beneath the fully-focussed rays, ON EXAMINATION by lantern- and finally been dropped five hundred feet or so to some dark pool within the pyramid's base, and still survive, was, on the face of it, more incredible than even the living-dead theory. It was also true that Waring's hand closed on Otway's bare shoulder in a grip that left the shoulder numb, and the ex- plorer was not even conscious of it. Still-they stood their ground. He it-the thing that wore Telli- fer's seeming-had gotten rid of the indecorous jaguar-hide-and-gold-ban- gles effect, and was again dressed for roughing it in civilized style. A very small, light rifle was carried under one arm. Reaching the lower level, the mys- terious being raised its dejected head, lifted the lantern, and spoke. "The final consummation of an awful crime," it began, "has been accom- plished! Alcot, I know that you are Dread that her monstrous companion might be lurking near in the darkness was soon dissipated. Over beyond the pit, a vast tangled heap of loathsome yellow proved to be the thing's lifeless body. The head-shield trailed out on the pavement, presented a very pecu- liar appearance. One of the eyes was pierced by a small, round bullet hole. Also, the entire head plate was scarred with innumerable scratches and per- forations through which oozed a whit- ish, semi-liquid substance. Chalmers replied listlessly to many questions, while Sigsbee and the stew- ard bathed the unconscious girl's brow with some of the water she had brought them in their cells.