Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 3 (1926-09).djvu/52

was one of incredible bestiality. The narrow head was no larger than a child's, his little piglike eyes were narrowed with fear and cunning and he presented that extreme symmetry of feature which, as Nordau was the first to point out, is constantly associated with the criminal type. I was gazing at him in horror, yet unable to tear myself away, when I heard Brodsky's voice speaking behind me.

"It is a striking commentary upon our so-called civilization that we put such a creature as that to death," he said. "One might more justly slaughter a gorilla."

"It is cruel," I answered. "But, Dr. Brodsky, is not such a creature, after all, better off out of the world than in it? A moment's suffering—and he has ceased to exist."

That was the first time that I ever saw Brodsky lose his self-control.

"Is it possible," he cried, "that you consider that death will really wipe out that individuality?"

"Well, doctor," I said, with some hesitation, "I don't pretend to know what's going to happen to the immortal part of him, assuming that there is any immortal part to survive. But at least he will be removed from our human world, as we know it."

The doctor gave a short laugh and tapped me on the shoulder.

"My boy," he said impressively, "he will not be removed at all, because, since he has presumably never experienced any spiritual yearnings, he will continue to haunt this only world that he knows, but in a discarnate form. The death of Brodsky will set free a certain conglomerate mass of soul-stuff, uncertain of its destiny, humbly anxious to learn, but at any rate not desirous of remaining in contact with a world which it has thoroughly experienced and come to be weary of. But the death of Radovitch will set at liberty a vast, chaotic lump of animal soul, actuated by the same vicious and untrained desires that controlled it during the life of the body, yet freed from the dynamic laws of its mortal prison and"—I had never seen him appear more earnest —"seeking to incarnate itself in some other body which will grant it the gratification of its earthly desires. The death of Radovitch will be the release of just so much additional force of evil."

He turned away and then the jailer came to usher us out of the prison. It was then that Dr. Brodsky asked me to assist him at the autopsy, to which I eagerly agreed.

During those last days of the murderer's life he somehow became acquainted with the jailer's little daughter, a child of eight or nine years. It should never have been allowed, but jail discipline is notoriously lax in country towns; the child had been in the habit of helping her father carry the prisoners their food, and had somehow wandered into that part of the jail which was set apart for the condemned, of course not knowing what these men's fate was to be. The acquaintance proved mutually attractive. The savage Slav took a curious fancy to the child. The jailer, a devout Catholic, was at first horrified, but finally assented to the prolongation of this curious friendship, moved partly by the child's entreaties, and hoping, also, that the softening influence of the little girl might bring Radovitch to a realization of his impending fate and induce him to accept the consolations of religion, which he had rejected. Radovitch had seemed to possess no more idea of the meaning of death than any animal; during those last days, however, some inkling of the doom approaching seemed to awaken him to a sense of his spiritual needs. He was persuaded to accept the ministrations of a priest, and ultimately died in the full peace of the church, his little friend believing he had passed out of prison to the free world beyond.