Chapter III: Part 3

The sound died out. The lights, too, began to sink. For a few moments not a word was spoken; there was the stillness of death, of the end of things. Presently all the illumination was gone save the solitary hooded light in front of the altar.

From his place at the head of the steps the high priest, Kwo-Sung-tao, made a gesture. Silently, and by unseen means, the deep yellow hangings rolled away.

There, to my amazement, the whole end of the temple was open, and we could look off from the mountaintop across innumerable valleys to the great range of peaks that walled the east. Out there the stars were shining, and near the horizon the blue-green heavens were tinged with a swimming silver mist.

The altar itself, if such it might be called, was a single block of undraped stone, about three feet high and four feet long, rising in the center of the platform.

Hardly had I taken in the scene before two of the priests hurried forward, dragging between them a nearly-naked and half-swooning Chinaman. Carrying him up the steps, they flung him on his back upon the altar block and swiftly fastened his hands and feet to manacles on the sides of the stone, so that his naked chest was centered upon the pedestal. The priests then descended from the altar, leaving Kwo-Sung-tao alone beside the prisoner.

Still within the temple the profound silence reigned. There was not a whisper, not a rustle of the silken vestments.

But all at once we noticed that the eastern sky was growing brighter.

Then from before the altar a single somber bass rolled forth in a wailing prayer—a mystical, unearthly sound, coming in shattered sobs:

“_Na-mo O-mi-t’o-fo! Na-mo O-mi-t’o-fo!_”

Suddenly, from over the edge of the world, the moon began to rise!

This was the signal for another hellish blast from the trumpets, followed by the beginning of a steady humming of countless gongs. Other voices joined the quivering bass, together growing louder—seeming to complain and sob and wail like the voices of tortured demons in the abyss.

The rhythmic sounds swelled louder and louder, higher and higher, until the orb of night had climbed clear of the wall of mountains.

Directly against the silver disk I now saw silhouetted the stone altar holding its shrinking prisoner, with the high priest standing close beside him. The priest’s right arm was upraised, and in his hand there gleamed a knife.

Still the music grew in volume—tremendous, stunning, a terrific battle of sound.

All at once the high priest’s knife flashed downward—straight and deep into the breast of the quivering wretch upon the stone—and in a moment his other hand was raised in salutation to the moon, and in it was clutched the dripping heart of the human sacrifice!

At the sight my limbs grew shaky and my senses swam.

But at this instant, like a blow upon the head, came a lightning-crash of cymbals, a smiting of great gongs, and a climacteric roar from those agonizing trumpets of hell. Then even the single altar light went out, plunging the great hall in darkness.

Instantly I felt Dr. Gresham’s hand upon my arm, and, dazed and helpless, I was dragged out of the temple.

Outside the air released me from my stupor, and I raced beside the scientist to the spot where we had left our outer garments. In the shadow of the wall we slipped these on, and then fled panic-stricken down the mountainside.

_CHAPTER VIII._

THE JAWS OF DEATH

We did not pause in our flight from the temple until we reached the foot of the mountain; then, still shaken by the horror of the scene we had witnessed, we sat down to rest until the climbing moon should send its light into the depths of the gorge.

We could discern little of our surroundings, but close at hand we could hear the river rushing between its rocky walls.

Not a word was spoken until finally I inquired: “What next?”

In a low voice that indicated the need of caution even here, Dr. Gresham announced:

“The real work of the night still is before us. I would not have taken the risk of visiting the temple but for the hope that we would learn more of the Seuen-H’sin’s layout than we did. Since nothing was gained there, we must reconnoiter the country.”

“That sacrifice of human life,” I asked—“what was its purpose?”

“To propitiate their god,” the astronomer told me. “Every month, on the night of the full moon—in every Seuen-H’sin temple in the world—that hideous slaughter takes place. At certain times the ceremony is elaborated into a thing infinitely more horrible.”

At this juncture the moon lifted itself clear of the valley’s eastern rim, and the depression was bathed in silvery radiance. This was the signal for our start.

Heading toward the sound of the river, we soon came to the road that led to the _Nippon’s_ wharf. Beside this highway was an electric transmission line, running on up into the canyon. Turning away from the wharf and the village, we proceeded to follow this line toward its source.

Instead of traversing the road, however, we kept in the shadows of the timber at its side; and it was well that we did so, for we had not gone far before a group of Chinamen appeared around a bend in the highway, walking rapidly toward the town. They wore dark clothes of the same pattern as our own outer garments; and they passed without seeing us.

For fully two miles we followed the power line, until we began to pass numerous groups of Chinamen in close succession—like crowds of men getting off work.

To diminish the chance of our being discovered, Dr. Gresham and I turned up the mountainside. We climbed until we had reached a considerable height above the floor of the gorge, and then, keeping at this elevation, we again pursued the course of the electric line.

Another half hour passed in this scramble along the steep slope, and my companion began to betray uneasiness lest the road and its paralleling copper wires which we could not see from here, had ended or had turned off up some tributary ravine—when suddenly there came to our ears a faint roaring, as of a distant waterfall. At once Dr. Gresham was all alertness, and with quickened steps we pressed forward in the direction of the sound.

Five minutes later, as we rounded a shoulder of the mountain, we were stricken suddenly speechless by the sight, far below us, of a great brilliantly-lighted building!

For a few moments we could only stand and gaze at the thing; but presently, as the timber about us partially obstructed our view, we moved forward to a barren rocky promontory jutting out from the mountainside.

The moon now was well up in the heavens, and from the brow of this headland a vast expanse of country was visible—its every feature standing out, almost as clearly as in the daylight. But, to take advantage of this view, we were obliged to expose ourselves to discovery by any spies the Seuen-H’sin might have posted in the region. The danger was considerable, but our curiosity regarding the lighted building was sufficient to outweight our caution.

The structure was too far distant to reveal much to the naked eye, so we quickly brought our field glasses into use: then we saw that the building was directly upon the bank of the river, and that from its lower wall spouted a number of large, foaming streams of water, as if discharged under terrific pressure. From these torrents, presumably, came the sound of the waterfall. The angle at which we were looking down upon the place prevented our seeing inside the building except at one corner, where, through a window, we could catch a glimpse of machinery running.

But, little as we could see, it was enough to convince me that the place was a hydro-electric plant of enormous proportions, producing energy to the extent of probably hundreds of thousands of horsepower.

Even as I was reaching this conclusion, Dr. Gresham spoke:

“There,” he said, “is the source of the Seuen-H’sin’s power, which is causing all these upheavals throughout the world! That is where the yellow devils are at work upon their second moon!”

Just as he spoke another of the great ground shocks rocked the earth. Too amazed for comment, I stood staring at the plant until my companion added:

“There is where those brilliant flashes in the heavens came from last night. They were due to some accident in the machinery, causing a short circuit. For two nights I had been circling over this entire range of mountains in the hydroplane, in search of the sorcerers’ workshop. The flashes were a fortunate circumstance that led me to the place.”

“At last I understand,” I remarked presently, “why you were so deeply interested, back there in Washington, in the Steamship _Nippon_ and the electric plant she was transporting to Hong-kong. I suppose that is where the sorcerers obtained all this machinery!”

“Precisely!” agreed the astronomer. “That morning in Washington, when I got you to look up the inventory of the _Nippon’s_ cargo, I had this solution of the mystery in mind. I knew from my years in Wu-yang that electricity was the force the sorcerers would employ, and I was certain I had seen mention in the newspapers of some exceptionally large electrical equipment aboard the _Nippon_. Those supposed pirates of the Yellow Sea were in reality the murderous hordes of the Seuen-H’sin, who had come out to the coast after this outfit.”

“But why,” I asked, “should these Chinamen, whose development of science is so far in advance of our own, have to get machinery from an inferior people? I should think their own appliances would have made anything from the rest of the world seem antiquated.”

“You forget what I told you that first night we spoke of the Seuen-H’sin. Their discoveries never were backed up by manufacturing; they possessed no raw materials or factories or industrial instincts. They did not need to make machinery themselves. In spite of their tremendous isolation, they were watching everything in the outside world. They knew they could get plenty of machinery ready made—once they had perfected their method of operations.”

I was still staring at the monster power plant below us when Dr. Gresham announced:

“I know now that my theory of the earthquakes’ origin was correct, and if we get safely back to the _Albatross_ the defeat of the sorcerers’ plans is assured.”

“Tell me one thing more,” I put in. “Why did the Chinamen come so far from their own country to establish their plant?”

“Because,” the doctor replied, “this place was so hidden—yet so easy to reach. And the further they came from their own country to apply their electric impulses to the earth, the less danger their native land would run.”

“Still, for my part, the main point of the whole problem remains unsolved,” I asserted. “How do the sorcerers use this electricity to shake the world?”

“That,” replied the scientist, “requires too long an explanation for the present moment. On the way back to the ship I will tell you the whole thing. But now I must get a closer view of Kwo-Sung-tao’s strange workshop.”

As Dr. Gresham was speaking, some unexplained feeling of uneasiness—perhaps some faint sound that had registered itself upon my subconscious thoughts without my ears being aware of it—led my gaze to wander over the mountainside in our vicinity. As my eyes rested for a moment upon some rocks about a hundred yards away, I fancied I saw something stir at the side of them.

At this moment Dr. Gresham made a move to leave the promontory. Laying a detaining hand swiftly upon his arm, I whispered:

“_Wait! Stand still!_”

Unquestioningly the astronomer obeyed; and for a couple of minutes I watched the neighboring clump of rocks out of the corner of my eye. Presently I saw a darkly-clad figure crawl out of the shadow of the pile, cross a patch of moonlight, and join two other figures at the edge of the timber. The trio stood looking in our direction a moment, while apparently holding a whispered conference. Then all three disappeared into the shadow of the woods.

Immediately I announced to my companion:

“We have been discovered! There are three Chinamen watching us from the timber, not a hundred yards away!”

The scientist was silent a moment. Then:

“Do they know you saw them?” he asked.

“I think not,” I replied.

Still without looking around, he asked:

“Where are they—directly behind us?”

“No; well to the side—the side nearest the power plant.”

“Good! Then we’ll move back toward the timber at once—go leisurely, as if we suspected nothing. If we reach the cover of the woods all right, we’ll make a dash for it. Head straight up for the top of the ridge—cross over and descend into the gulch on the other side—then detour back toward the _Albatross_. Stick to the shadows—travel as fast as we can—and try to throw off pursuit!”

Moving off as unconsciously as if we were totally unaware that we had been observed, we struck out for the timber—all the time keeping a sharp lookout, for we half expected the spies to head us off and attempt a surprise attack. But we reached the darkness of the woods without even a glimpse of the Celestials; and instantly we broke into a run.

The ascent was too steep to permit much speed; moreover, the roughness of the ground and the down-timber hampered us greatly—yet we had the consolation of knowing that it equally hampered our pursuers.

For nearly an hour we pressed on. The mountaintop was crossed, and we descended into a canyon on the other side. No sight or sound of the Chinamen had greeted us. Could they have surmised the course we would take, and calmly let us proceed, while they returned for reinforcements to head us off? Or were they silently stalking us to find out who we were and whence we came? We could not tell. And there was the other chance, too, that we had shaken off pursuit.

Gradually this latter possibility became a definite hope, which grew as our overtaxed strength began to fail. Nevertheless, we pushed on until we were so spent and winded that we could scarcely drag one foot after the other.

We had now reached a spot where the floor of the canyon widened out into a tiny level park. Here the timber was so dense that we were swallowed up in almost complete darkness; and in this protecting mantle of shadow we decided to stop for a brief rest. Stretching out upon the ground, with our arms extended at our sides, we lay silent, inhaling deep breaths of the cool, refreshing mountain air.

We were now on the opposite side of a long and high mountain ridge from the Chinese village, and, as nearly as we could estimate, not more than a mile or two from the _Albatross_.

Lying there on the ground, we could feel the earthquakes with startling violence. We noticed that they no longer occurred only at intervals of eleven minutes and a fraction—although they were particularly severe at those periods—but that they kept up an almost continuous quivering, as if the globe’s internal forces were bubbling restlessly.

Suddenly, in the wake of one of the heavier shocks of the eleven-minute period, the intense stillness was broken by a sharp report, followed by a ripping sound from the bowels of the earth, that seemed to start close at hand and rush off into the distance, quickly dying out. From the mountainside above us came the crash of a falling tree and the clatter of a few dislodged rocks bounding down the slope. The earth swayed as if a giant gash had opened and closed within a few rods of us.

The occurrence made Dr. Gresham and myself sit up instantly. Nothing, however, was visible through the forest gloom of any changes in the landscape. Again silence settled about us.

Several minutes passed.

Then abruptly, from a short distance away, came the sound of something stirring. Sitting motionless, alert, we listened. Almost immediately we heard it again, and this time the sound did not die out. Something off there in the timber was moving stealthily toward us!

Dropping back at full length upon the ground, with only our heads raised, we kept a sharp watch.

Only a few more moments were we kept in suspense; then, across a slit of moonlight, we saw five Chinamen swiftly moving. They were slinking along almost noiselessly, as if following a scent—and, with a shock, we realized that it was ourselves they were tracking! We had not shaken off our pursuers, after all!

Even before we could decide, in a whispered debate, what our next move should be, our nerves again were whipped taut by other sounds close at hand—but now on the opposite side of the little valley from the first ones. This time the sounds grew fainter—only to become louder again almost immediately, as if the intruders were searching back and forth across the flat. In a short while it became plain that they were drawing closer to us.

“What fools we were to stop to rest!” the astronomer complained.

“I have a hunch we would have run into some of those spies if we had kept on,” I rejoined. “They must have headed us off and found that we didn’t pass on down this canyon, else they wouldn’t be searching here so thoroughly.”

“Right!” my friend agreed. “And now they’ve got us in a tight place!”

“Suppose,” I suggested, “we slip across the valley and climb part way up that other mountainside—then try to work along through the timber up there until we’re near the ship?”

“Good!” he assented. “Come on!”

Lying at full length upon the ground and wriggling along like snakes, we headed between two groups of the searchers. It was slow work, but we did not dare even to rise to our knees to crawl. Twice we dimly made out, not fifty feet away, some of the Chinamen slinking along, apparently hunting over every foot of the region. We could not tell how many of them there were now.

After a time that seemed nearly endless we reached the edge of the flat. Here we rose to our feet to tackle the slope in front of us.

As we did so, two figures leaped out of the gloom close at hand and split the night with cries of “_Fan kuei! Fan kuei!_” (“Foreign devils!”)

Then they sprang to seize us.

Further concealment being impossible, we darted back into the valley, no longer avoiding the patches of moonlight, but rather seeking them, so we could see where we were going. We were heading for the fiord.

In a few seconds other cries arose on all sides of us. It seemed we were surrounded and that the whole region swarmed with Chinamen. Dark forms began to plunge out of the woods ahead to intercept us; the leading ones were not sixty feet away.

“We’ll have to fight for it!” called Dr. Gresham. And our hands flew to our revolvers.

But before we could draw the weapons a great ripping and crashing sound burst forth upon the mountainside above us—the terrifying noise of rocks splitting and grinding—an appalling turmoil! Terrified, pursued and pursuers alike paused to glance upward.

There, in the brilliant moonlight, we saw a monster avalanche sweeping downward, engulfing everything in its way!

Abandoning the astronomer and myself, the Chinamen turned to flee further from the path of the landslide—and we all began running together down the valley.

Only a few steps had we gone, however, when above the roaring of the avalanche a new sound rang out—short, sharp, booming, like the report of a giant gun.

As I glanced about through the blotches of moonlight and shadow, I saw several of the sorcerers just ahead suddenly halt, stagger and then drop from sight.

Dr. Gresham and I stopped instantly, but not before we beheld other Chinamen disappearing from view.

_The earth had opened and they were falling in!_

Even as we stood there, hesitating, the black maw yawned wider—to our very feet—and with cries of horror we tried to stagger back. But we were too late. The sides of the crack were crumbling in, and in another instant the widening gash overtook us.

As his eyes met mine, I saw the astronomer topple backward and disappear.

A second later the ground gave way beneath my own feet and I was plunged into the blackness of the pit.

_This extraordinary novel will be concluded in the June issue of WEIRD TALES._

_Tell your newsdealer to reserve a copy for you._

THE SECRET FEAR

_A “Creepy” Detective Story_

By KENNETH DUANE WHIPPLE

The night was hot and breathless, as had been the day, and the humid _tang_ of the salt air smote my nostrils as, envying Martin his vacation respite from the grind of police reporting, I turned off the broad, paved thoroughfare of Washington Avenue and started down Wharf Street, narrow and dimly lighted, toward my lodgings beyond the bridge.

As I passed the second dirty-globed street light I halted suddenly, with the staccato sound of hurrying footsteps in my ears. Homeward bound from the Journal office, where Martin’s work had kept me until after midnight, I had yielded to the temptation offered by the short cut. Now, with the peculiar emphatic insistence of the footfalls behind me, I began to wonder if I had chosen wisely.

Brass buttons, glinting dully under the corner arc, reassured me. The next instant I was roughly ordered to halt. I recognized the hoarse, panting voice of Patrolman Tom Kenton of the fourth precinct, whose beat, as I knew, lay along the wharves.

“It’s me, Kenton—Jack Bowers, of the _Journal_,” I said. “What’s doing?”

Kenton peered at me keenly in the bad light. Then his face relaxed.

“Man killed in Kellogg’s warehouse, just around the corner there,” he replied.

“Killed? How?”

“The sergeant didn’t say. I got it from him just now when I reported. Someone ’phoned in a minute ago. Come along and see, if you want. It’s right in your line, and you’re a good friend of the captain’s.”

I fell into step with him, finding some difficulty in keeping pace.

“Do you know who ’phoned?” I asked.

“No. May be a joke. May be a frame-up. May be anything.”

His deep voice rumbled through the gloom of the dingy street, deserted save for our hurrying figures. We crossed to the opposite side, passing beneath a blue arc which flamed and sputtered naked through a jagged gash in its dirty, frosted globe.

Just around the corner loomed the ramshackle bulk of Kellogg’s warehouse, a four-story, wooden structure squatting above the river piers. On the ground floor a broad entrance gaped blackly. At the left of the doorway, about three feet above street level, the end of a loading platform jutted out of the darkness.

Beyond the warehouse a narrow pier ran out toward midstream. I caught a glimpse of the riding lights of some small vessel, dimly outlined against the gray-black of the oily water.

Kenton stopped at the corner of the warehouse to draw his revolver, motioning me to remain where I was.

“Stay here,” he said under his breath. “I’ll take a look. If it’s a frame-up there’s no need to get anyone else into it. Besides, you’d be more help here.”

He squared his broad shoulders and was swallowed up by the oblong of black. It did not require much urging to persuade me to stay outside. Timidly I peeped through a crack in the warped boarding. The dim ray of light which Kenton cast before him seemed only to accentuate the obscurity.

The light became stationary. I could distinguish Kenton bending over something on the dirt floor not fifteen feet inside the entrance. He looked up and spoke softly.

“Come ahead, Mr. Bowers,” he said. “No joke about this.”

There was a grim edge to his tone. With a shiver, I stepped through the doorway and crossed to where he crouched above a motionless shape huddled against the side of the long loading platform.

The body was that of a man of large stature—more than six feet in height, as nearly as I could judge from the cramped position in which he lay. There were no visible marks of violence, except for a frayed linen collar pulled awry, which dangled by a single buttonhole from the shirt about the powerful, corded neck. But as I bent closer to look at the features, I drew back with a gasp.

The face of the dead man was distorted by an expression of the utmost horror and loathing. Around the dilated pupils of his large, bluish-gray eyes, the ghastly whites showed in a pallid rim of fear. His irregular, reddish features, even in death, seemed fairly to writhe with terror. One long, sinewy arm was thrown up across the lower part of his face, as if to ward off some unseen and terrible menace.

Shuddering, I stared across the body at Kenton’s homely, impassive face.

“In heaven’s name, what happened to him?” I asked.

Kenton’s hands had been moving swiftly over the body. Now he spread them apart in a little puzzled gesture.

“There doesn’t seem to be any wound,” he said. “See if there isn’t a switch around somewhere, Mr. Bowers. There ought to be a way of lighting up here.”

I fumbled along the wall until my fingers encountered the round porcelain knob. A single grimy bulb, pendant from a cobwebbed rafter, threw a dim circle of grewsome yellow light upon the floor of the warehouse.

The body had lain on its left side, facing the doorway. Kenton methodically turned the corpse upon its face, his searching fingers exploring the back. To me, at least, it was a relief that the staring, terrified eyes were hidden from view, rather than gazing fearfully through the arch of the doorway into the narrow, empty street beyond.

“There’s something queer about this,” said Kenton. “No wound at all, Mr. Bowers, that I can find. No blood—not even a bruise, only this mark at the throat.”

I had not seen the mark before, and even now I had to look closely to find it. It was scarcely more than a discoloration of the skin in a broad band beneath the chin. But there was no abrasion, much less a wound sufficient to cause the death of a powerful man like the one who lay before us.

With a shrug of his shoulders, Kenton rolled the body back to its original position. At once the ghastly eyes renewed their unwinking stare at the empty street.

* * * * *

A sound from the doorway caused us both to turn. Only Kenton himself can say what his imagination pictured there. For my part, I owned a feeling of distinct relief at sight of nothing more startling than a pair of ragged-looking men peering in at the open door.

As we looked, a third derelict of the wharves joined them, pressing inquisitively forward toward the body on the floor.

“Whassa trouble here?” asked one, curiously. “Somebody croak a guy?”

“Yes,” said Kenton tersely. “Know him, any of you?”

His companion, who had been staring at the body, suddenly spoke in a startled tone:

“By gorry, it’s Terence McFadden! I’d never have known the boy with that look on his face, except for the scar over his right eye. Look, Jim! Sure, and he looks as if the divil was after him!”

A confirmatory murmur came from the others. The grind of a street car’s wheels on the curve of Washington Avenue cut clearly across the low lapping of the waves against the rotting piles outside the warehouse. The humid air, impregnated with the foul odors of the waterfront, was stifling.

The three men huddled closer, with fearful glances over their shoulders, as if striving to glimpse that which the eyes of the dead man watched. Kenton alone seemed unaffected by the tension.

“Know where he lives?”

“Over on Twenty-fourth Street,” volunteered the third man. “But he’d been on the Tiger yonder this evening. I saw him go aboard. Why not call Captain Dolan? Him and Terry was pals.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dolan—Captain Ira Dolan.”

“Go and get him,” ordered Kenton, removing his cap and mopping his forehead.

The man, not unwillingly, passed out of the circle of light. We heard his footsteps on the planking of the pier, and his hail to the ship anchored there.

Kenton turned to me, a worried look on his face.

“Would you mind going down to Patton’s place on the corner and ’phoning in, Mr. Bowers?” he asked. “I wouldn’t ask it, but the captain knows you well. Tell him I’m staying with the body. And ask him to have Doctor Potts come, if he’s there. I’d like to get to the bottom of this.”

I was only too glad to get out of the warehouse, for the eerie atmosphere was beginning to get on my nerves. When I returned, two of the somnolent loafers from Patton’s greasy lunch room, roused by my telephone message to Captain Watters of the fourth precinct, followed in my wake, muttering and rubbing their bleared eyes.

Less than ten minutes had passed since we had found the dead man in Kellogg’s old warehouse. Yet now a dozen frowsy wharf-rats fringed the doorway, brought thither by some mysterious telepathic message borne on the murky night air.

“Be here in ten minutes,” I said, nodding to Kenton.

Suddenly a man made his way through the crowd and hastened toward us. His rugged, weather-beaten face took deeper lines from the dim light overhead, its high lights gleaming in the ghastly radiance like pieces of yellowed parchment. Yet there was power in the piercing blue eye, and strength in every line of the tall, gaunt figure, now stooping suddenly over the body of the dead man.

“Terence!” he cried, his voice harsh with grief. “Terence, lad!”

Kenton bent over and touched him on the shoulder.

“Are you Captain Dolan?” he asked.

The old man looked up, one hand still resting upon the motionless body beside which he knelt.

“I am,” he said simply.

“I understand this man—Terence McFadden, his name is?—”

Captain Dolan nodded.

“I understand he was on board your ship tonight?”

“Yes,” said Captain Dolan, rising to his feet.

“What time did he leave?”

“’Twas not more than half an hour ago, officer. Shortly after midnight, I would say. He was just aboard for a little farewell banquet, y’understand—just a friendly visit, eating and drinking and the like, before I leave at daybreak for another trip. I’m going down the coast.”

Kenton shook his head.

“Never mind that. Have you any idea how he met his death? Had he any enemies that you know?”

Captain Dolan ran his bony fingers through his grizzled locks, his eyes still on the body of his friend.

“Enemies he had aplenty, officer, like any two-fisted man with the disposition of Terence McFadden. ’Twas only last week he cleaned up two of the Jerry Kramer gang that tried to hold him up with a pistol down on this very street. But his worry tonight had nothing to do with them. A man like Terence could take care of himself against any man. Truth to tell, he was his own worst enemy.”

Kenton broke in sharply.

“What’s that? He was worried tonight, you say?”

There seemed to be a trace of evasion in Captain Dolan’s manner.

“It was a piece he read in the paper. It fair spoiled his supper for him.”

“What was it about?”

“It was an item from the Zoo,” replied Captain Dolan.

Kenton fingered a button puzzledly, casting a mystified glance at me. It was evident that his inquiries were not getting him anywhere.

Before he could question Captain Dolan further, the group about the doorway behind us was thrust roughly aside, and Patrolman Corcoran, the new officer from the adjacent beat, shouldered his way in. His right hand was twisted in the lapels of a short, squat foreigner with a swarthy face half hidden by a coarse, reddish-brown beard. The neck of his sweat-soaked undershirt was open, and his sleeves were rolled above hairy, muscular forearms.

Corcoran stared at the group about the lifeless body of Terence McFadden.

“So it’s true, is it?” he curiously asked. “I thought ‘Big Jim’ here was trying to give me a wrong steer.”

“Who?” asked Kenton.

“Dobrowski, or some such name—‘Big Jim,’ they call him. He’s one of the Kramer gang, they say.”

“Where’d you get him?”

“Caught him coming out of a basement over on Efton Street. He took one look at me and ran like hell. So I rounded him up and asked him what was the big idea of running. He just looked dumb, but I knew he’d been up to something. So I frisked him, and found—these!”

He pulled a watch and purse from the side pocket of his coat. Captain Dolan leaned forward eagerly.

“Terence’s!” he cried. “See if his initials are not in the back!”

He fairly snatched the watch from Corcoran’s hand. The younger patrolman turned to Kenton.

“Who’s the old bird, anyway?” he asked in an undertone.

Kenton established the captain’s connection with the affair in a few words. In the meantime the old man had pried open the gold case with his heavy thumbnail and was squinting inside.

“See!” he affirmed, pointing to the initials “_T. J. M._” engraved there.

Corcoran nodded carelessly.

“‘Big Jim,’ all right,” he said decisively. “He’s the man that killed McFadden here.”

“Big Jim” stared at his captor, chewing vigorously.

“No kill!” he exclaimed. “No kill!”

Kenton had been frowning perplexedly. Now he turned to Corcoran.

“Say, Bill,” he demanded, “how did you get over here, anyhow? Who told you there’d been a man killed?”

To our utter amazement, Corcoran jerked his thumb toward “Big Jim.”

“He did,” he said.

“_He_ did?” repeated Kenton incredulously. “Then you were the one that ’phoned in to the sergeant?”

Corcoran nodded, taking a tighter grip on the captive’s lapels.

“I was going to call the wagon and go straight in with ‘Big Jim’ here. Then he told such a funny story that I thought maybe he was trying to string me, so I marched him over here to make sure.”

Kenton shook his head.

“That was no way to go,” he muttered under his breath. “Well, no matter. What does he say?”

“Says he took this stuff away from McFadden, but didn’t kill him,” sneered Corcoran. “Doesn’t know who killed him, but he didn’t. Fishy? Well, I’ll tell the world!”

Captain Dolan again bent over the body of Terence McFadden. Then he looked up at “Big Jim.”

“Tell us what happened,” he commanded.

Words popped turbulently from “Big Jim.” Either he was actually telling the truth, or he had committed his story to heart.

“No Kill!” he vociferated, gesticulating. “No kill! Take watch, but no kill! Hide for man—pull him in—fight—he dead! Take money—run—hide—”

Fear shone in his shifting eyes and on his swarthy, perspiring face. As he glanced nervously about the building, the fantastic idea occurred to me that his fear was less of the police than of some unseen, intangible force beyond his comprehension. I caught myself looking apprehensively over my own shoulder.

Corcoran spat on the floor disgustedly.

“Part of that yarn’s all right,” he said. “That part about his stealing the watch and all, I mean. The rest is all bull. How would he get the stuff off a big guy like that without croaking him? How did he kill him, anyway?”

Captain Dolan leaned forward, his eyes gleaming.

“Yes, officer,” he repeated. “How did he kill him? Tell us that if you can.”

Corcoran thrust his captive toward Kenton and knelt beside the body. When he looked up, his face was blank. Rising he turned savagely on “Big Jim.”

“Come, now!” he ordered roughly, shaking the foreigner by the shoulder. “How did you kill him? Speak up!”

“No kill!” repeated “Big Jim” stubbornly. “No kill!”

Corcoran raised his club menacingly. Whether he would have struck “Big Jim,” or merely wished to intimidate him, I do not know; he had not been long on the force, and he felt his authority keenly. But Captain Dolan stepped forward, holding out an imperative hand.

“One moment, officer!” he said sternly.

* * * * *

For a breathless instant the tableau held. Then Corcoran, closing his amazed mouth, thrust his flushed face close to Captain Dolan’s.

“What business have you got butting in on this, anyway?” he shouted. “Who told you to give orders? You seem to have been a friend of this fellow’s, by what Tom here says. But how do we know you didn’t have a grudge against him and doped him tonight aboard your boat? How do we know you didn’t give him wood alcohol or something to drink that put him down and out? You’d better just keep quiet and stick around here till the doc takes a look at him.”

Captain Dolan’s wrinkled, parchment-like face turned an angry red, and his bony hands clenched. Then, suddenly, he relaxed, uttering a short, mirthless laugh.

“In remaining here, as you request,” he replied, “’tis my idea to see justice done. Little love as Terence had for Jerry Kramer and his gang, he would wish fair play, even for ‘Big Jim’ there. And for that reason I’ll be asking your kind indulgence while I tell you a little of Terence McFadden.”

Corcoran glared at the old man. Kenton shrugged his shoulders.

“Go ahead,” he said. “We’ve got to wait for the car.”

Captain Dolan stood erect beneath the grimy electric bulb, which cast a brassy gleam upon his grizzled locks. At his left stood Corcoran, scowling, one hand gripping his subdued prisoner. Beyond him Kenton leaned against the loading platform. I watched them from the shadows.

“Every man of us has his secret fear,” began Captain Dolan abruptly, and a trifle oratorically. “With one it’s the open sea. With another it’s a horror of great heights. But we all have it. As for Terence McFadden, it took no more than a little, long-tailed, hand-organ monkey to set him a-shivering.

“And they seemed to know it, too, the grinning devils. No sooner would he pass a Dago organ-grinder on the corner than the little red-capped ape would let out a chatter and make a rush for Terence. And would you believe me, the man would actually turn pale.

“‘Come away, Ira,’ he’d say, clutching at me, ‘come away, Ira. Sure, and he’ll be looking for a bite from the leg of ye.’

“I mind me of a day when we went to the Zoo, Terence and I. ‘’Tis understood,’ says he, when we reached the gates, ‘that we make no visit to the monkey house.’

“But I give him the laugh, with hints about his courage, d’ye mind, till at last he sets his teeth determined-like.

“‘No man shall say Terence McFadden is a coward,’ says he. ‘Let us go in.’

“The minute we enter the room, the place is in an uproar. The little yellow-haired monkeys are hanging by their tails and chattering, and even the big apes down in the corner are roaring like devils let loose. ’Tis no use for me to point out to Terence that the hour for feeding is at hand. He will have none of it.

“‘The beasts know me,’ he mutters between chattering teeth. ‘’Tis my blood they would be having.’

“‘For why would they be having your blood?’ I asks.

“‘I know not the why of it,’ says he, shaking in every limb, ‘but ’tis so.’

“‘Rubbish!’ says I, for I wished to rid him of this foolish fear of his. ‘Walk with me to this cage, and look the big chap in the eye. There’s no harm he can be doing to you, and him safe behind the bars!’

“Terence was fair sweating with fear, but he grits his teeth, and arm in arm we walk over to the cage. The big tawny fellow—the ugly-faced one by the far door—sits there humped up in his corner, glowering at us with eyes like coals.

“‘Look, man,’ says I, ‘and give over your foolishness. Why, even in the open ye’d be a match for him.’

“No sooner are the words out of my mouth than the beast makes one jump from his corner and lands half way up the bars at the front of the cage, with a roar that would blast the very soul of ye. I own I was startled, little as I fear monkeys and their likes.

“But poor Terence gives a sort of gasp and leans against me, actually paralyzed with fear. His eyes are set in a glassy stare, like a dead man’s. And I swear to you that after I got him outside, it was half an hour before the color came back to his cheeks and his knees gave over their quivering.

“‘Did ye see the horrible face of him?’ he gasps. ‘And the long arms reachin’ for me throat?’

“And then he’d fall to trembling again.”

* * * * *

Captain Dolan paused as abruptly as he had begun. So vividly had he told his story that he had been for the moment transported bodily to the monkey house at the Zoo. Now, in the sudden silence, we moved uneasily, glancing at one another.

Corcoran scratched his head in a puzzled manner.

“What’s all this got to do with finding the murderer?” he burst out.

Captain Dolan shook his head.

“There is no murderer,” he said.

We all looked startled, I imagine. Kenton would have spoken, but Captain Dolan motioned him to silence. Even Corcoran, for once, found himself without words.

“I spoke of an item in the paper tonight,” continued Captain Dolan. “Doubtless ’twas seen by all of you. Did you not read that one of the gorillas at the Zoo had escaped from its cage and was at large in the city?”

In the breathless silence which ensued I felt a peculiar thrill of terror pass up my spine. Kenton was fingering the holster of his revolver with nervous, clumsy motions. In some uncanny manner the gaunt old sea-captain’s grim words of doubtful import had woven about us all a web of superstitious fear in which we vainly struggled, unable to grasp the saving clew.

“’Twas that item which spoiled his supper for Terence, when he read it aboard the ship tonight. And no use I found it to reason with him. To his mind the grinning face of the big ape was peeping in at every porthole!”

Suddenly Corcoran whirled, peering into the blackness at the far end of the warehouse, where something stirred softly. Kenton drew his pistol. I felt the goose-flesh rising along my arms. Only the dead man, undisturbed, stared unwinkingly in the opposite direction.

The next moment a stray cat wandered leisurely into the circle of light and sat herself down to wash her dusty fur, blinking complacently up at our pallid faces. I wiped the cold drops from my forehead and breathed a deep sigh.

Corcoran turned almost pleadingly to Captain Dolan.

“The gorilla—” he said. “Was it the gorilla from the Zoo that killed Terence McFadden?”

Captain Dolan shook his head.

“I would not say that,” he answered.

I stared at the parchment-like face in amazement. Like Corcoran, I had jumped to this conclusion. Kenton drew his hand across his forehead in perplexity.

“But you said there was no murder!” cried Corcoran. “Was it ‘Big Jim’ that killed him, after all?”

“I would not say that,” repeated Captain Dolan.

Corcoran looked at the old man dazedly. Then he spoke very softly and soothingly, as one might interrogate a backward child:

“Then tell me, Captain Dolan,” he said. “How did Terence McFadden die?”

“He was murdered,” replied Captain Dolan.

Corcoran stared.

“Murdered? But you said there was no murderer!”

“Nor was there,” said the captain.

Corcoran dropped his hands helplessly. Kenton took up the interrogation.

“Did he kill himself?” he demanded. “Was it suicide?”

“I would not say that,” repeated Captain Dolan for the third time.

But Kenton was not to be baffled.

“With what weapon was the man killed?” he asked doggedly.

Captain Dolan gazed at the contorted face of the man at his feet.

“With one of the oldest weapons in the world,” he answered. “A weapon which has caused the death of many a brave man—aye, braver and more powerful than Terence here.”

The waves lapped saltily against the rotting piles at the far end of the warehouse. In the darkness a rat squeaked, and the cat, interrupting its toilet, darted out of the circle of light and vanished. In the darkness was heard the sound of a speeding motor.

Captain Dolan raised his eyes from the corpse of his friend, and his voice was very soft and compassionate:

“Did I not say that Terence was his own worst enemy? Had it not been for that foolish bewitchment of his—”

He turned and pointed suddenly toward “Big Jim,” standing stupidly there in the shadows. It seemed almost that the eyes of the dead man, following the direction of his extended arm, were staring at the bestial, repulsive features of the prisoner with sentient terror.

“Look at the hairy arms of him!” he cried. “Look at the long, shaggy beard! When he stood on the platform yonder by the door and crooked his elbow about the throat of Terence, do you think the poor lad knew of the pistol stuck in his back, or the words of warning jabbered in some haythin lingo? To the mind of Terence ’twas nothing less than the coming true of all his nightmares! Small wonder that his eyes are bursting from their sockets as he lies there with the grip of terror stopping the valves of his heart and curdling the very blood in his veins!”

“Then the name of the weapon—”

“It is called Fear,” said Captain Dolan.

The throbbing motor sounded at the end of the street. With a _squeal_ of brakes, the police car halted outside. Doctor Potts pushed through the crowd and bent briefly over the body.

“Heart failure,” he said.

_Whether or Not You Believe in Reincarnation, You Will Be Thrilled By Reading_

JUNGLE BEASTS

_A Complete Novelette_

_By_ WILLIAM P. BARRON

“Look!” said the nurse to the young interne on the second floor of Dr. Winslow’s sanatorium. “See what I found in the table drawers of 112—the patient who was discharged last evening. Do you suppose this horrible story can be true?”

The interne took the manuscript with a blase air. He had read so many of these ravings on paper!

“This one is really unusual,” said the nurse, noticing his manner. “Please read it.”

Mildly interested, the interne began to read:

THE STORY OF A VAMPIRE

Why am I here in this place of madness, this house of diseased minds? Because of a cat!

And it is a cat that takes me away from this place—to go to my death! And maybe this cat will follow on to haunt me in some other world, as it has in this. Who knows?

This doom had its beginning, as far as this life is concerned, when I was a boy, a lonely boy in my grandmother’s house. My grandmother had a great yellow Tartar cat that she loved as only a lonely old woman can love a cat.

Perhaps it was because I was jealous of the love and attention my grandmother lavished on Toi Wah—a boy’s natural antipathy for anything that usurps the place he thinks is his by right. Or perhaps it was the same inborn cruelty, the same impish impulse to inflict suffering on a helpless dumb creature, which I have observed in other boys.

Anyway, with or without reason, I hated this self-complacent, supercilious animal that looked at me out of topaz eyes, with a look that seemed to see through and beyond me, as if I did not exist.

I hated her with a hatred that could be satisfied only with her death, and I thought and brooded for hours, that should have been devoted to my studies, of ways and means to bring this death about.

I must be fair to myself. Toi Wah hated me too. I could sense it as I sat by my grandmother’s chair before the fire and looked across at Toi Wah, who lay in a chair on the opposite side. At such times I would always catch her watching me out of half-closed eyes, stealthily, furtively, never off her guard.

If she lay in my grandmother’s lap and I leaned over to stroke her beautiful yellow fur, I could feel her actually shrink from my hand, and she would never purr, as she always did when my grandmother stroked her.

Sometimes I would hold her on my lap and pretend that I loved her. But as I stroked her, my hands would itch and twitch with the desire to clinch my hand in her satiny skin, and with the other hand choke her until she died.

My desire to kill would become so over-powering that my breath would become hurried, my heart would beat almost to suffocation and my face would flush.

Usually my grandmother, noticing my reddened face would glance up over her spectacles, from the book she was reading and say, “What ails you, Robert? You look flushed and feverish. Perhaps the room is too warm for you. Put Toi Wah down and run out in the air for a while.”

I would take Toi Wah then, and, holding her as tightly as I dared, and with my teeth clenched to restrain myself, I would put her on her cushion and go out.

My grandfather had brought Toi Wah, a little yellow, fluffy, amber-eyed kitten, home with him in his ship from that mysterious land washed by the Yellow Sea.

And with Toi Wah had come a strange tale of her taking, stolen from an old Buddhist Monastery garden nestling among age-old pines beside the Grand Canal of China.

About her neck was a beautifully-wrought collar of flexible gold, with a dragon engraved along its length, together with many Chinese characters and set with stones of Topaz and Jade. The collar was made so as to allow for expansion as the need arose, so that Toi Wah was never without her collar from her kittenhood to adult age. In fact, the collar could not be loosened without injury to the metal.

One day I descended into the kitchen with the cat in my arms and showed Charlie, our Chinese cook, who had sailed the Seven Seas with my grandfather, the collar about her neck.

The old Chinaman stared until his eyes started from his head, all the time making queer little noises in his throat. He rubbed his eyes and put on his great horn spectacles and stared again, muttering to himself.

“What is it, Charlie?” I asked, surprised at the old man, who was usually so stoically calm.

“These velly gleat words,” he said at last, shaking his head cryptically. “Words no good flo you. Words good for velly gleat cat; Gland Lama cat.”

“But what do the words say?” I urged.

He mooned over the inscription for a long time, fingering the collar lovingly, while Toi Wah lay passively in my arms and looked at him.

“He say what I no can say good in English,” he explained at last. “He say, ‘Death no can do, no can die.’ See? When Gland Lama cat wear this colla’, no can die. No can be kill him—just change flom cat to some other thing; monkey—tiger—hoss—maybe man—next time,” he concluded vaguely.

“He say, ‘Love me, I love you, hate me, I hate you.’ No can say good in English what Chinese say. See?”

And with this I had to be content for the time. Now I know the characters engraved on Toi Wah’s collar referred to a quotation from the seventh book of Buddha, which, freely translated, reads as follows:

“_That which is alive hath known death, and that which lives
can never die. Death is not; there is only a changing from
shape to shape, from life to life._

“_Mayhap the despised animal, walking in the dust of the road,
was one time King of Ind, or the consort of Ghengis Khan._

“_Do me no harm. Protect me, O Man, and I will protect thee.
Feed me, O Man, and I will feed thee. Love me, O Man, and I
will love thee. Hate me, and I will hate thee. Slay me, and I
will slay thee._

“_We be brothers, O Man, thou and I, from life to life, from
death to death, until Nirvana be won._”

If I had only known then, and stayed my hand, I would not now be haunted by this yellow terror that peers out at me from the dark; that follows after me with softly padding feet; never nearer, never receding, until....

Toi Wah was mated with another Tartar cat of high degree, and became the mother of a kitten.

And such a mother! Only the hard heart made cruel by fear would remain unsoftened by the great cat’s untiring devotion to her kitten.