Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 1 (1926-01).djvu/49

dreaded presence calling on him to stop.

On! On! On! Up! Up! Up! At last the top!

Half paralyzed with the unwonted exertion, the Sexton steadied himself by the rickety rail, paused for an instant, and looked down. On the next landing beneath him came the glimmer of the pursuing light. Only a few steps divided them. Only a few seconds separated him from the supernatural terror which he dreaded more than death.

To wait and grapple with this dread assailant was impossible. To run any farther was out of the question; he had come to the end of his strength, Where to turn? What to do? How to escape?

Often, to save himself the trouble of climbing the steep stairway, he had let himself down by the rope. At the thought, the Sexton bent eagerly forward in the darkness, and the noose by which he had fixed the bell to the landing that very afternoon after ringing the dead Squire's obsequies struck against his hands, which were full of jewels! Ruling passion strong in death, the miser hand still held them as in a vise.

Stronger than terror, more maddening than fear, came the thought that if he held the rope with his hands he must let the jewels fall.

"I've got you at last, have I?"

Only three steps between him and the Black Crusader!

The Sexton, screaming with terror, slipped his head into the noose and leapt into the dark.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

As the young Squire peered over the rickety railing, petrified with horror, the great bell unloosed from captivity clanged out the first notes of the Sexton's funeral knell.

So the legend fulfilled itself.

When the people aroused by the ringing came rushing in from the vicarage, they found the young Squire standing like a man in a dream, watching the body of the dead Sexton caught in a noose of his own making, slowly swinging to and fro.

"Flighty" McGill entered the warden's office and saluted him.

"McGill," said Warden Fowles, "you seem very anxious to get a parole this week."

"Yes, sir, I am," said McGill.

"You say you have an appointment to keep outside?" said the warden.

"Yes, sir."

"Will you tell me just what sort of appointment. it is?"

"It's pretty—personal, sir."

"Hm. You wanted to get out so you could get to the city tonight, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Hm. Well, I have an idea what you wanted to do when you got out," said the warden.

There was a touch of malignity in his voice. He reached for the telephone.