Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 3 (1926-09).djvu/54

our dead friend, who, by the way, was never more than half dead at best, is waking up in somebody else's house."

"Nothing is any use," the jailer gasped. "We sprinkled holy water over her, and the priest pronounced the exorcism, but it was no use at all."

"Of course not," said the doctor. "Don't blame the priest for that, though. All truth is relative in that world that Radovitch is now an inhabitant of. Had he ever had it knocked into his hard head that the devil flies from holy water, no doubt a single drop would have sent him howling into limbo, but as he dosen't know what it means you can hardly consider him impolite to stay. But take us to the patient."

At the same instant the crash of breaking furniture resounded through the house, intermingled with strange, guttural interjections. The jailer led the way hastily to a room at the end of a long corridor, the doctor and I followed him. Upon the floor, partly freed from the ropes with which she had been bound, was the child, struggling to release herself from the chair she had overturned, whose broken pieces seemed to have been subjected to the physical strength of a powerful athlete. Her face was distorted with rage, and low, unintelligible sounds came from her lips. Though violently inclined, she seemed restrained by some lethargy from active violence, and she glanced around at us, not recognizing anyone. As the doctor and her father caught her to readjust the bonds, she struck at them viciously. It needed our united strength to hold her, while the doctor injected a few doses of morphine into her arm.

But what will haunt me to the last day of my life was the girl's face. No longer that of a young child, it presented rather the aspect of a man's—a man who had spent years in evil living and thinking. The glazed eyes, the puffy skin, bespoke a life of debauchery; while over the coarsened features were stamped the imprints of the most devilish passions that ever ruled over the flesh. And in an instant I perceived, ridiculously implanted upon the little face, the stamp of the Russian murderer.

"When did this begin?" asked Brodsky, holding the girl tightly and with amazing strength.

"The day after his death," the jailer answered. "She could not be awakened easily the next morning. She seemed stupid and sleepy and complained of evil dreams. Then she tried to get into the cell which he had occupied, and when we prevented her she became sullen and angry. She did not seem to recognize us at all, and she began to mutter in an outlandish speech that none of us could understand. Then she would fall asleep for a moment and wake up, herself again. She kept sleeping and waking, and each time she was different."

"Yes," murmured Brodsky to me in an aside. "Her own personality was fighting that of the invader, with varying success. And as he grew stronger he came to usurp his place more easily. Go on."

"I knew who it was," the jailer whispered, trembling. "One who has had charge of a prison sees—sees so many things after an execution. Things that one never dares to make public, for fear of being called insane. All jailers know of them. My wife knew—she sent for the priest. He knew, too. He tried the exorcism, but to no purpose."

"Nevertheless, a wise attempt," said Brodsky to me. "Nothing that makes for good, as all religion does, can cause evil."

"The last time she awoke she was wholly insane," continued the jailer. "She didn't recognize either me or her mother. She muttered all the time in a strange tongue. Sometimes