Title: Skull-Face

Author: Robert E. Howard

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Language: English

Date first posted: November 2006

Date most recently updated: November 2006



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Skull-Face

Robert E. Howard







Chapter 1. The Face in the Mist







_"We are no other than a moving row_

_Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go."_



   --Omar Khayyam



The horror first took concrete form amid that most unconcrete of

all things--a hashish dream. I was off on a timeless, spaceless

journey through the strange lands that belong to this state of being,

a million miles away from earth and all things earthly; yet I became

cognizant that something was reaching across the unknown voids--

something that tore ruthlessly at the separating curtains of my

illusions and intruded itself into my visions.



I did not exactly return to ordinary waking life, yet I was

conscious of a seeing and a recognizing that was unpleasant and seemed

out of keeping with the dream I was at that time enjoying. To one who

has never known the delights of hashish, my explanation must seem

chaotic and impossible. Still, I was aware of a rending of mists and

then the Face intruded itself into my sight. I though at first it was

merely a skull; then I saw that it was a hideous yellow instead of

white, and was endowed with some horrid form of life. Eyes glimmered

deep in the sockets and the jaws moved as if in speech. The body,

except for the high, thin shoulders, was vague and indistinct, but the

hands, which floated in the mists before and below the skull, were

horribly vivid and filled me with crawling fears. They were like the

hands of a mummy, long, lean and yellow, with knobby joints and cruel

curving talons.



Then, to complete the vague horror which was swiftly taking

possession of me, a voice spoke--imagine a man so long dead that his

vocal organ had grown rusty and unaccustomed to speech. This was the

thought which struck me and made my flesh crawl as I listened.



"A strong brute and one who might be useful somehow. See that he

is given all the hashish he requires."



Then the face began to recede, even as I sensed that I was the

subject of conversation, and the mists billowed and began to close

again. Yet for a single instant a scene stood out with startling

clarity. I gasped--or sought to. For over the high, strange shoulder

of the apparition another face stood out clearly for an instant, as if

the owner peered at me. Red lips, half-parted, long dark eyelashes,

shading vivid eyes, a shimmery cloud of hair. Over the shoulder of

Horror, breathtaking beauty for an instant looked at me.







Chapter 2. The Hashish Slave







_"Up from Earth's center through the Seventh Gate_

_I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate."_



   --Omar Khayyam



My dream of the skull-face was borne over that usually uncrossable

gap that lies between hashish enchantment and humdrum reality. I sat

cross-legged on a mat in Yun Shatu's Temple of Dreams and gathered the

fading forces of my decaying brain to the task of remembering events

and faces.



This last dream was so entirely different from any I had ever had

before, that my waning interest was roused to the point of inquiring

as to its origin. When I first began to experiment with hashish, I

sought to find a physical or psychic basis for the wild flights of

illusion pertaining thereto, but of late I had been content to enjoy

without seeking cause and effect.



Whence this unaccountable sensation of familiarity in regard to

that vision? I took my throbbing head between my hands and laboriously

sought a clue. A living dead man and a girl of rare beauty who had

looked over his shoulder. Then I remembered.



Back in the fog of days and nights which veils a hashish addict's

memory, my money had given out. It seemed years or possibly centuries,

but my stagnant reason told me that it had probably been only a few

days. At any rate, I had presented myself at Yun Shatu's sordid dive

as usual and had been thrown out by the great Negro Hassim when it was

learned I had no more money.



My universe crashing to pieces about me, and my nerves humming

like taut piano wires for the vital need that was mine, I crouched in

the gutter and gibbered bestially, till Hassim swaggered out and

stilled my yammerings with a blow that felled me, half-stunned.



Then as I presently rose, staggeringly and with no thought save of

the river which flowed with cool murmur so near me--as I rose, a light

hand was laid like the touch of a rose on my arm. I turned with a

frightened start, and stood spellbound before the vision of loveliness

which met my gaze. Dark eyes limpid with pity surveyed me and the

little hand on my ragged sleeve drew me toward the door of the Dream

Temple. I shrank back, but a low voice, soft and musical, urged me,

and filled with a trust that was strange, I shambled along with my

beautiful guide.



At the door Hassim met us, cruel hands lifted and a dark scowl on

his ape-like brow, but as I cowered there, expecting a blow, he halted

before the girl's upraised hand and her word of command which had

taken on an imperious note.



I did not understand what she said, but I saw dimly, as in a fog,

that she gave the black man money, and she led me to a couch where she

had me recline and arranged the cushions as if I were king of Egypt

instead of a ragged, dirty renegade who lived only for hashish. Her

slim hand was cool on my brow for a moment, and then she was gone and

Yussef Ali came bearing the stuff for which my very soul shrieked--and

soon I was wandering again through those strange and exotic countries

that only a hashish slave knows.



Now as I sat on the mat and pondered the dream of the skull-face I

wondered more. Since the unknown girl had led me back into the dive, I

had come and gone as before, when I had plenty of money to pay Yun

Shatu. Someone certainly was paying him for me, and while my

subconscious mind had told me it was the girl, my rusty brain had

failed to grasp the fact entirely, or to wonder why. What need of

wondering? So someone paid and the vivid-hued dreams continued, what

cared I? But now I wondered. For the girl who had protected me from

Hassim and had brought the hashish for me was the same girl I had seen

in the skull-face dream.



Through the soddenness of my degradation the lure of her struck

like a knife piercing my heart and strangely revived the memories of

the days when I was a man like other men--not yet a sullen, cringing

slave of dreams. Far and dim they were, shimmery islands in the mist

of years--and what a dark sea lay between!



I looked at my ragged sleeve and the dirty, claw-like hand

protruding from it; I gazed through the hanging smoke which fogged the

sordid room, at the low bunks along the wall whereon lay the blankly

staring dreamers--slaves, like me, of hashish or of opium. I gazed at

the slippered Chinamen gliding softly to and fro bearing pipes or

roasting balls of concentrated purgatory over tiny flickering fires. I

gazed at Hassim standing, arms folded, beside the door like a great

statue of black basalt.



And I shuddered and hid my face in my hands because with the faint

dawning of returning manhood, I knew that this last and most cruel

dream was futile--I had crossed an ocean over which I could never

return, had cut myself off from the world of normal men or women.

Naught remained now but to drown this dream as I had drowned all my

others--swiftly and with hope that I should soon attain that Ultimate

Ocean which lies beyond all dreams.



So these fleeting moments of lucidity, of longing, that tear aside

the veils of all dope slaves--unexplainable, without hope of

attainment.



So I went back to my empty dreams, to my phantasmagoria of

illusions; but sometimes, like a sword cleaving a mist, through the

high lands and the low lands and seas of my visions floated, like

half-forgotten music, the sheen of dark eyes and shimmery hair.



You ask how I, Stephen Costigan, American and a man of some

attainments and culture, came to lie in a filthy dive of London's

Limehouse? The answer is simple--no jaded debauchee, I, seeking new

sensations in the mysteries of the Orient. I answer--Argonne! Heavens,

what deeps and heights of horror lurk in that one word alone! Shell-

shocked--shell-torn. Endless days and nights without end and roaring

red hell over No Man's Land where I lay shot and bayoneted to shreds

of gory flesh. My body recovered, how I know not; my mind never did.



And the leaping fires and shifting shadows in my tortured brain

drove me down and down, along the stairs of degradation, uncaring

until at last I found surcease in Yun Shatu's Temple of Dreams, where

I slew my red dreams in other dreams--the dreams of hashish whereby a

man may descend to the lower pits of the reddest hells or soar into

those unnamable heights where the stars are diamond pinpoints beneath

his feet.



Not the visions of the sot, the beast, were mine. I attained the

unattainable, stood face to face with the unknown and in cosmic

calmness knew the unguessable. And was content after a fashion, until

the sight of burnished hair and scarlet lips swept away my dream-built

universe and left me shuddering among its ruins.







Chapter 3. The Master of Doom







_"And He that toss'd you down into the Field,_

_He knows about it all--He knows! He knows!"_



   --Omar Khayyam



A hand shook me roughly as I emerged languidly from my latest

debauch.



"The Master wishes you! Up, swine!"



Hassim it was who shook me and who spoke.



"To Hell with the Master!" I answered, for I hated Hassim--and

feared him.



"Up with you or you get no more hashish," was the brutal response,

and I rose in trembling haste.



I followed the huge black man and he led the way to the rear of

the building, stepping in and out among the wretched dreamers on the

floor.



"Muster all hands on deck!" droned a sailor in a bunk. "All

hands!"



Hassim flung open the door at the rear and motioned me to enter. I

had never before passed through that door and had supposed it led into

Yun Shatu's private quarters. But it was furnished only with a cot, a

bronze idol of some sort before which incense burned, and a heavy

table.



Hassim gave me a sinister glance and seized the table as if to

spin it about. It turned as if it stood on a revolving platform and a

section of the floor turned with it, revealing a hidden doorway in the

floor. Steps led downward in the darkness.



Hassim lighted a candle and with a brusque gesture invited me to

descend. I did so, with the sluggish obedience of the dope addict, and

he followed, closing the door above us by means of an iron lever

fastened to the underside of the floor. In the semi-darkness we went

down the rickety steps, some nine or ten I should say, and then came

upon a narrow corridor.



Here Hassim again took the lead, holding the candle high in front

of him. I could scarcely see the sides of this cave-like passageway

but knew that it was not wide. The flickering light showed it to be

bare of any sort of furnishings save for a number of strange-looking

chests which lined the walls--receptacles containing opium and other

dope, I thought.



A continuous scurrying and the occasional glint of small red eyes

haunted the shadows, betraying the presence of vast numbers of the

great rats which infest the Thames waterfront of that section.



Then more steps loomed out of the dark in front of us as the

corridor came to an abrupt end. Hassim led the way up and at the top

knocked four times against what seemed the underside of a floor. A

hidden door opened and a flood of soft, illusive light streamed

through.



Hassim hustled me up roughly and I stood blinking in such a

setting as I had never seen in my wildest flights of vision. I stood

in a jungle of palm trees through which wriggled a million vivid-hued

dragons! Then, as my startled eyes became accustomed to the light, I

saw that I had not been suddenly transferred to some other planet, as

I had at first thought. The palm trees were there, and the dragons,

but the trees were artificial and stood in great pots and the dragons

writhed across heavy tapestries which hid the walls.



The room itself was a monstrous affair--inhumanly large, it seemed

to me. A thick smoke, yellowish and tropical in suggestion, seemed to

hang over all, veiling the ceiling and baffling upward glances. This

smoke, I saw, emanated from an altar in front of the wall to my left.

I started. Through the saffron-billowing fog two eyes, hideously large

and vivid, glittered at me. The vague outlines of some bestial idol

took indistinct shape. I flung an uneasy glance about, marking the

oriental divans and couches and the bizarre furnishings, and then my

eyes halted and rested on a lacquer screen just in front of me.



I could not pierce it and no sound came from beyond it, yet I felt

eyes searing into my consciousness through it, eyes that burned

through my very soul. A strange aura of evil flowed from that strange

screen with its weird carvings and unholy decorations.



Hassim salaamed profoundly before it and then, without speaking,

stepped back and folded his arms, statue-like.



A voice suddenly broke the heavy and oppressive silence.



"You who are a swine, would you like to be a man again?"



I started. The tone was inhuman, cold--more, there was a

suggestion of long disuse of the vocal organs--the voice I had heard

in my dream!



"Yes," I replied, trance-like, "I would like to be a man again."



Silence ensued for a space; then the voice came again with a

sinister whispering undertone at the back of its sound like bats

flying through a cavern.



"I shall make you a man again because I am a friend to all broken

men. Not for a price shall I do it, nor for gratitude. And I give you

a sign to seal my promise and my vow. Thrust your hand through the

screen."



At these strange and almost unintelligible words I stood

perplexed, and then, as the unseen voice repeated the last command, I

stepped forward and thrust my hand through a slit which opened

silently in the screen. I felt my wrist seized in an iron grip and

something seven times colder than ice touched the inside of my hand.

Then my wrist was released, and drawing forth my hand I saw a strange

symbol traced in blue close to the base of my thumb--a thing like a

scorpion.



The voice spoke again in a sibilant language I did not understand,

and Hassim stepped forward deferentially. He reached about the screen

and then turned to me, holding a goblet of some amber-colored liquid

which he proffered me with an ironical bow. I took it hesitatingly.



"Drink and fear not," said the unseen voice. "It is only an

Egyptian wine with life-giving qualities."



So I raised the goblet and emptied it; the taste was not

unpleasant, and even as I handed the beaker to Hassim again, I seemed

to feel new life and vigor whip along my jaded veins.



"Remain at Yun Shatu's house," said the voice. "You will be given

food and a bed until you are strong enough to work for yourself. You

will use no hashish nor will you require any. Go!"



As in a daze, I followed Hassim back through the hidden door, down

the steps, along the dark corridor and up through the other door that

let us into the Temple of Dreams.



As we stepped from the rear chamber into the main room of the

dreamers, I turned to the Negro wonderingly.



"Master? Master of what? Of Life?"



Hassim laughed, fiercely and sardonically.



"Master of Doom!"







Chapter 4. The Spider and the Fly







_"There was the Door to which I found no Key;_

_There was the Veil through which I might not see."_



   --Omar Khayyam



I sat on Yun Shatu's cushions and pondered with a clearness of

mind new and strange to me. As for that, all my sensations were new

and strange. I felt as if I had wakened from a monstrously long sleep,

and though my thoughts were sluggish, I felt as though the cobwebs

which had dogged them for so long had been partly brushed away.



I drew my hand across my brow, noting how it trembled. I was weak

and shaky and felt the stirrings of hunger--not for dope but for food.

What had been in the draft I had quenched in the chamber of mystery?

And why had the "Master" chosen me, out of all the other wretches of

Yun Shatu's, for regeneration?



And who was this Master? Somehow the word sounded vaguely

familiar--I sought laboriously to remember. Yes--I had heard it, lying

half-waking in the bunks or on the floor--whispered sibilantly by Yun

Shatu or by Hassim or by Yussef Ali, the Moor, muttered in their low-

voiced conversations and mingled always with words I could not

understand. Was not Yun Shatu, then, master of the Temple of Dreams? I

had thought and the other addicts thought that the withered Chinaman

held undisputed sway over this drab kingdom and that Hassim and Yussef

Ali were his servants. And the four China boys who roasted opium with

Yun Shatu and Yar Khan the Afghan and Santiago the Haitian and Ganra

Singh, the renegade Sikh--all in the pay of Yun Shatu, we supposed--

bound to the opium lord by bonds of gold or fear.



For Yun Shatu was a power in London's Chinatown and I had heard

that his tentacles reached across the seas into high places of mighty

and mysterious tongs. Was that Yun Shatu behind the lacquer screen?

No; I knew the Chinaman's voice and besides I had seen him puttering

about in the front of the Temple just as I went through the back door.



Another thought came to me. Often, lying half-torpid, in the late

hours of night or in the early grayness of dawn, I had seen men and

women steal into the Temple, whose dress and bearing were strangely

out of place and incongruous. Tall, erect men, often in evening dress,

with their hats drawn low about their brows, and fine ladies, veiled,

in silks and furs. Never two of them came together, but always they

came separately and, hiding their features, hurried to the rear door,

where they entered and presently came forth again, hours later

sometimes. Knowing that the lust for dope finds resting-place in high

positions sometimes, I had never wondered overmuch, supposing that

these were wealthy men and women of society who had fallen victims to

the craving, and that somewhere in the back of the building there was

a private chamber for such. Yet now I wondered--sometimes these

persons had remained only a few moments--was it always opium for which

they came, or did they, too, traverse that strange corridor and

converse with the One behind the screen?



My mind dallied with the idea of a great specialist to whom came

all classes of people to find surcease from the dope habit. Yet it was

strange that such a one should select a dope-joint from which to

work--strange, too, that the owner of that house should apparently

look on him with so much reverence.



I gave it up as my head began to hurt with the unwonted effort of

thinking, and shouted for food. Yussef Ali brought it to me on a tray,

with a promptness which was surprizing. More, he salaamed as he

departed, leaving me to ruminate on the strange shift of my status in

the Temple of Dreams.



I ate, wondering what the One of the screen wanted with me. Not

for an instant did I suppose that his actions had been prompted by the

reasons he pretended; the life of the underworld had taught me that

none of its denizens leaned toward philanthropy. And underworld the

chamber of mystery had been, in spite of its elaborate and bizarre

nature. And where could it be located? How far had I walked along the

corridor? I shrugged my shoulders, wondering if it were not all a

hashish-induced dream; then my eye fell upon my hand--and the scorpion

traced thereon.



"Muster all hands!" droned the sailor in the bunk. "All hands!"



To tell in detail of the next few days would be boresome to any

who have not tasted the dire slavery of dope. I waited for the craving

to strike me again--waited with sure sardonic hopelessness. All day,

all night--another day--then the miracle was forced upon my doubting

brain. Contrary to all theories and supposed facts of science and

common sense the craving had left me as suddenly and completely as a

bad dream! At first I could not credit my senses but believed myself

to be still in the grip of a dope nightmare. But it was true. From the

time I quaffed the goblet in the room of mystery, I felt not the

slightest desire for the stuff which had been life itself to me. This,

I felt vaguely, was somehow unholy and certainly opposed to all rules

of nature. If the dread being behind the screen had discovered the

secret of breaking hashish's terrible power, what other monstrous

secrets had he discovered and what unthinkable dominance was his? The

suggestion of evil crawled serpent-like through my mind.



I remained at Yun Shatu's house, lounging in a bunk or on cushions

spread upon the floor, eating and drinking at will, but now that I was

becoming a normal man again, the atmosphere became most revolting to

me and the sight of the wretches writhing in their dreams reminded me

unpleasantly of what I myself had been, and it repelled, nauseated me.



So one day, when no one was watching me, I rose and went out on

the street and walked along the waterfront. The air, burdened though

it was with smoke and foul scents, filled my lungs with strange

freshness and aroused new vigor in what had once been a powerful

frame. I took new interest in the sounds of men living and working,

and the sight of a vessel being unloaded at one of the wharfs actually

thrilled me. The force of longshoremen was short, and presently I

found myself heaving and lifting and carrying, and though the sweat

coursed down my brow and my limbs trembled at the effort, I exulted in

the thought that at last I was able to labor for myself again, no

matter how low or drab the work might be.



As I returned to the door of Yun Shatu's that evening--hideously

weary but with the renewed feeling of manhood that comes of honest

toil--Hassim met me at the door.



"You been where?" he demanded roughly.



"I've been working on the docks," I answered shortly.



"You don't need to work on docks," he snarled. "The Master got

work for you."



He led the way, and again I traversed the dark stairs and the

corridor under the earth. This time my faculties were alert and I

decided that the passageway could not be over thirty or forty feet in

length. Again I stood before the lacquer screen and again I heard the

inhuman voice of living death.



"I can give you work," said the voice. "Are you willing to work

for me?"



I quickly assented. After all, in spite of the fear which the

voice inspired, I was deeply indebted to the owner.



"Good. Take these."



As I started toward the screen a sharp command halted me and

Hassim stepped forward and reaching behind took what was offered. This

was a bundle of pictures and papers, apparently.



"Study these," said the One behind the screen, "and learn all you

can about the man portrayed thereby. Yun Shatu will give you money;

buy yourself such clothes as seamen wear and take a room at the front

of the Temple. At the end of two days, Hassim will bring you to me

again. Go!"



The last impression I had, as the hidden door closed above me, was

that the eyes of the idol, blinking through the everlasting smoke,

leered mockingly at me.



The front of the Temple of Dreams consisted of rooms for rent,

masking the true purpose of the building under the guise of a

waterfront boarding house. The police had made several visits to Yun

Shatu but had never got any incriminating evidence against him.



So in one of these rooms I took up my abode and set to work

studying the material given me.



The pictures were all of one man, a large man, not unlike me in

build and general facial outline, except that he wore a heavy beard

and was inclined to blondness whereas I am dark. The name, as written

on the accompanying papers, was Major Fairlan Morley, special

commissioner to Natal and the Transvaal. This office and title were

new to me and I wondered at the connection between an African

commissioner and an opium house on the Thames waterfront.



The papers consisted of extensive data evidently copied from

authentic sources and all dealing with Major Morley, and a number of

private documents considerably illuminating on the major's private

life.



An exhaustive description was given of the man's personal

appearance and habits, some of which seemed very trivial to me. I

wondered what the purpose could be, and how the One behind the screen

had come in possession of papers of such intimate nature.



I could find no clue in answer to this question but bent all my

energies to the task set out for me. I owed a deep debt of gratitude

to the unknown man who required this of me and I was determined to

repay him to the best of my ability. Nothing, at this time, suggested

a snare to me.







Chapter 5. The Man on the Couch







_"What dam of lances sent thee forth to jest at dawn with Death?"_

   --Kipling



At the expiration of two days, Hassim beckoned me as I stood in

the opium room. I advanced with a springy, resilient tread, secure in

the confidence that I had culled the Morley papers of all their worth.

I was a new man; my mental swiftness and physical readiness surprized

me--sometimes it seemed unnatural.



Hassim eyed me through narrowed lids and motioned me to follow, as

usual. As we crossed the room, my gaze fell upon a man who lay on a

couch close to the wall, smoking opium. There was nothing at all

suspicious about his ragged, unkempt clothes, his dirty, bearded face

or the blank stare, but my eyes, sharpened to an abnormal point,

seemed to sense a certain incongruity in the clean-cut limbs which not

even the slouchy garments could efface.



Hassim spoke impatiently and I turned away. We entered the rear

room, and as he shut the door and turned to the table, it moved of

itself and a figure bulked up through the hidden doorway. The Sikh,

Ganra Singh, a lean sinister-eyed giant, emerged and proceeded to the

door opening into the opium room, where he halted until we should have

descended and closed the secret doorway.



Again I stood amid the billowing yellow smoke and listened to the

hidden voice.



"Do you think you know enough about Major Morley to impersonate

him successfully?"



Startled, I answered, "No doubt I could, unless I met someone who

was intimate with him."



"I will take care of that. Follow me closely. Tomorrow you sail on

the first boat for Calais. There you will meet an agent of mine who

will accost you the instant you step upon the wharfs, and give you

further instructions. You will sail second class and avoid all

conversation with strangers or anyone. Take the papers with you. The

agent will aid you in making up and your masquerade will start in

Calais. That is all. Go!"



I departed, my wonder growing. All this rigmarole evidently had a

meaning, but one which I could not fathom. Back in the opium room

Hassim bade me be seated on some cushions to await his return. To my

question he snarled that he was going forth as he had been ordered, to

buy me a ticket on the Channel boat. He departed and I sat down,

leaning my back against the wall. As I ruminated, it seemed suddenly

that eyes were fixed on me so intensely as to disturb my sub-mind. I

glanced up quickly but no one seemed to be looking at me. The smoke

drifted through the hot atmosphere as usual; Yussef Ali and the

Chinese glided back and forth tending to the wants of the sleepers.



Suddenly the door to the rear room opened and a strange and

hideous figure came haltingly out. Not all of those who found entrance

to Yun Shatu's back room were aristocrats and society members. This

was one of the exceptions, and one whom I remembered as having often

entered and emerged therefrom. A tall, gaunt figure, shapeless and

ragged wrappings and nondescript garments, face entirely hidden.

Better that the face be hidden, I thought, for without doubt the

wrapping concealed a grisly sight. The man was a leper, who had

somehow managed to escape the attention of the public guardians and

who was occasionally seen haunting the lower and more mysterious

regions of East End--a mystery even to the lowest denizens of

Limehouse.



Suddenly my supersensitive mind was aware of a swift tension in

the air. The leper hobbled out the door, closed it behind him. My eyes

instinctively sought the couch whereon lay the man who had aroused my

suspicions earlier in the day. I could have sworn that cold steely

eyes glared menacingly before they flickered shut. I crossed to the

couch in one stride and bent over the prostrate man. Something about

his face seemed unnatural--a healthy bronze seemed to underlie the

pallor of complexion.



"Yun Shatu!" I shouted. "A spy is in the house!"



Things happened then with bewildering speed. The man on the couch

with one tigerish movement leaped erect and a revolver gleamed in his

hand. One sinewy arm flung me aside as I sought to grapple with him

and a sharp decisive voice sounded over the babble which broke forth.



"You there! Halt! Halt!"



The pistol in the stranger's hand was leveled at the leper, who

was making for the door in long strides!



All about was confusion; Yun Shatu was shrieking volubly in

Chinese and the four China boys and Yussef Ali were rushing in from

all sides, knives glittering in their hands.



All this I saw with unnatural clearness even as I marked the

stranger's face. As the fleeing leper gave no evidence of halting, I

saw the eyes harden to steely points of determination, sighting along

the pistol barrel--the features set with the grim purpose of the

slayer. The leper was almost to the outer door, but death would strike

him down ere he could reach it.



And then, just as the finger of the stranger tightened on the

trigger, I hurled myself forward and my right fist crashed against his

chin. He went down as though struck by a trip-hammer, the revolver

exploding harmlessly in the air.



In that instant, with the blinding flare of light that sometimes

comes to one, I knew that the leper was none other than the Man Behind

the Screen!



I bent over the fallen man, who though not entirely senseless had

been rendered temporarily helpless by that terrific blow. He was

struggling dazedly to rise but I shoved him roughly down again and

seizing the false beard he wore, tore it away. A lean bronzed face was

revealed, the strong lines of which not even the artificial dirt and

grease-paint could alter.



Yussef Ali leaned above him now, dagger in hand, eyes slits of

murder. The brown sinewy hand went up--I caught the wrist.



"Not so fast, you black devil! What are you about to do?"



"This is John Gordon," he hissed, "the Master's greatest foe! He

must die, curse you!"



John Gordon! The name was familiar somehow, and yet I did not seem

to connect it with the London police nor account for the man's

presence in Yun Shatu's dope-joint. However, on one point I was

determined.



"You don't kill him, at any rate. Up with you!" This last to

Gordon, who with my aid staggered up, still very dizzy.



"That punch would have dropped a bull," I said in wonderment; "I

didn't know I had it in me."



The false leper had vanished. Yun Shatu stood gazing at me as

immobile as an idol, hands in his wide sleeves, and Yussef Ali stood

back, muttering murderously and thumbing his dagger edge, as I led

Gordon out of the opium room and through the innocent-appearing bar

which lay between that room and the street.



Out in the street I said to him: "I have no idea as to who you are

or what you are doing here, but you see what an unhealthful place it

is for you. Hereafter be advised by me and stay away."



His only answer was a searching glance, and then be turned and

walked swiftly though somewhat unsteadily up the street.







Chapter 6. The Dream Girl







_"I have reached these lands but newly_

_From an ultimate dim Thule."_



   --Poe



Outside my room sounded a light footstep. The doorknob turned

cautiously and slowly; the door opened. I sprang erect with a gasp.

Red lips, half-parted, dark eyes like limpid seas of wonder, a mass of

shimmering hair--framed in my drab doorway stood the girl of my

dreams!



She entered, and half-turning with a sinuous motion, closed the

door. I sprang forward, my hands outstretched, then halted as she put

a finger to her lips.



"You must not talk loudly," she almost whispered. "He did not say

I could not come; yet--"



Her voice was soft and musical, with just a touch of foreign

accent which I found delightful. As for the girl herself, every

intonation, every movement proclaimed the Orient. She was a fragrant

breath from the East. From her night-black hair, piled high above her

alabaster forehead, to her little feet, encased in high-heeled pointed

slippers, she portrayed the highest ideal of Asiatic loveliness--an

effect which was heightened rather than lessened by the English blouse

and skirt which she wore.



"You are beautiful!" I said dazedly. "Who are you?"



"I am Zuleika," she answered with a shy smile. "I--I am glad you

like me. I am glad you no longer dream hashish dreams."



Strange that so small a thing should set my heart to leaping

wildly!



"I owe it all to you, Zuleika," I said huskily. "Had not I dreamed

of you every hour since you first lifted me from the gutter, I had

lacked the power of even hoping to be freed from my curse."



She blushed prettily and intertwined her white fingers as if in

nervousness.



"You leave England tomorrow?" she said suddenly.



"Yes. Hassim has not returned with my ticket--" I hesitated

suddenly, remembering the command of silence.



"Yes, I know, I know!" she whispered swiftly, her eyes widening.

"And John Gordon has been here! He saw you!"



"Yes!"



She came close to me with a quick lithe movement.



"You are to impersonate some man! Listen, while you are doing

this, you must not ever let Gordon see you! He would know you, no

matter what your disguise! He is a terrible man!"



"I don't understand," I said, completely bewildered. "How did the

Master break me of my hashish craving? Who is this Gordon and why did

he come here? Why does the Master go disguised as a leper--and who is

he? Above all, why am I to impersonate a man I never saw or heard of?"



"I cannot--I dare not tell you!" she whispered, her face paling.

"I--"



Somewhere in the house sounded the faint tones of a Chinese gong.

The girl started like a frightened gazelle.



"I must go! _He_ summons me!"



She opened the door, darted through, halted a moment to electrify

me with her passionate exclamation: "Oh, be careful, be very careful,

sahib!"



Then she was gone.







Chapter 7. The Man of the Skull







_"What the hammer? What the chain?_

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

_Dare its deadly terrors clasp?"_



   --Blake



A while after my beautiful and mysterious visitor had left, I sat

in meditation. I believed that I had at last stumbled onto an

explanation of a part of the enigma, at any rate. This was the

conclusion I had reached: Yun Shatu, the opium lord, was simply the

agent or servant of some organization or individual whose work was on

a far larger scale than merely supplying dope addicts in the Temple of

Dreams. This man or these men needed co-workers among all classes of

people; in other words, I was being let in with a group of opium

smugglers on a gigantic scale. Gordon no doubt had been investigating

the case, and his presence alone showed that it was no ordinary one,

for I knew that he held a high position with the English government,

though just what, I did not know.



Opium or not, I determined to carry out my obligation to the

Master. My moral sense had been blunted by the dark ways I had

traveled, and the thought of despicable crime did not enter my head. I

was indeed hardened. More, the mere debt of gratitude was increased a

thousand-fold by the thought of the girl. To the Master I owed it that

I was able to stand up on my feet and look into her clear eyes as a

man should. So if he wished my services as a smuggler of dope, he

should have them. No doubt I was to impersonate some man so high in

governmental esteem that the usual actions of the customs officers

would be deemed unnecessary; was I to bring some rare dream-producer

into England?



These thoughts were in my mind as I went downstairs, but ever back

of them hovered other and more alluring suppositions--what was the

reason for the girl, here in this vile dive--a rose in a garbage-

heap--and who was she?



As I entered the outer bar, Hassim came in, his brows set in a

dark scowl of anger, and, I believed, fear. He carried a newspaper in

his hand, folded.



"I told you to wait in opium room," he snarled.



"You were gone so long that I went up to my room. Have you the

ticket?"



He merely grunted and pushed on past me into the opium room, and

standing at the door I saw him cross the floor and disappear into the

rear room. I stood there, my bewilderment increasing. For as Hassim

had brushed past me, I had noted an item on the face of the paper,

against which his black thumb was tightly pressed as if to mark that

special column of news.



And with the unnatural celerity of action and judgment which

seemed to be mine those days, I had in that fleeting instant read:



 *African Special Commissioner Found Murdered!*



*The body of Major Fairlan Morley was yesterday discovered in a

rotting ship's hold at Bordeaux...*



No more I saw of the details, but that alone was enough to make me

think! The affair seemed to be taking on an ugly aspect. Yet--



Another day passed. To my inquiries, Hassim snarled that the plans

had been changed and I was not to go to France. Then, late in the

evening, he came to bid me once more to the room of mystery.



I stood before the lacquer screen, the yellow smoke acrid in my

nostrils, the woven dragons writhing along the tapestries, the palm

trees rearing thick and oppressive.



"A change has come in our plans," said the hidden voice. "You will

not sail as was decided before. But I have other work that you may do.

Mayhap this will be more to your type of usefulness, for I admit you

have somewhat disappointed me in regard to subtlety. You interfered

the other day in such manner as will no doubt cause me great

inconvenience in the future."



I said nothing, but a feeling of resentment began to stir in me.



"Even after the assurance of one of my most trusted servants," the

toneless voice continued, with no mark of any emotion save a slightly

rising note, "you insisted on releasing my most deadly enemy. Be more

circumspect in the future."



"I saved your life!" I said angrily.



"And for that reason alone I overlook your mistake--this time!"



A slow fury suddenly surged up in me.



"This time! Make the best of it this time, for I assure you there

will be no next time. I owe you a greater debt than I can ever hope to

pay, but that does not make me your slave. I have saved your life--the

debt is as near paid as a man can pay it. Go your way and I go mine!"



A low, hideous laugh answered me, like a reptilian hiss.



"You fool! You will pay with your whole life's toil! You say you

are not my slave? I say you are--just as black Hassim there beside you

is my slave--just as the girl Zuleika is my slave, who has bewitched

you with her beauty."



These words sent a wave of hot blood to my brain and I was

conscious of a flood of fury which completely engulfed my reason for a

second. Just as all my moods and senses seemed sharpened and

exaggerated those days, so now this burst of rage transcended every

moment of anger I had ever had before.



"Hell's fiends!" I shrieked. "You devil--who are you and what is

your hold on me? I'll see you or die!"



Hassim sprang at me, but I hurled him backward and with one stride

reached the screen and flung it aside with an incredible effort of

strength. Then I shrank back, hands outflung, shrieking. A tall, gaunt

figure stood before me, a figure arrayed grotesquely in a silk

brocaded gown which fell to the floor.



From the sleeves of this gown protruded hands which filled me with

crawling horror--long, predatory hands, with thin bony fingers and

curved talons--withered skin of a parchment brownish-yellow, like the

hands of a man long dead.



The hands--but, oh God, the face! A skull to which no vestige of

flesh seemed to remain but on which taut brownish-yellow skin grew

fast, etching out every detail of that terrible death's-head. The

forehead was high and in a way magnificent, but the head was curiously

narrow through the temples, and from under penthouse brows great eyes

glimmered like pools of yellow fire. The nose was high-bridged and

very thin; the mouth was a mere colorless gash between thin, cruel

lips. A long, bony neck supported this frightful vision and completed

the effect of a reptilian demon from some medieval hell.



I was face to face with the skull-faced man of my dreams!







Chapter 8. Black Wisdom







_"By thought a crawling ruin,_

By life a leaping mire.

By a broken heart in the breast of the world

_And the end of the world's desire."_



   --Chesterton



The terrible spectacle drove for the instant all thought of

rebellion from my mind. My very blood froze in my veins and I stood

motionless. I heard Hassim laugh grimly behind me. The eyes in the

cadaverous face blazed fiendishly at me and I blanched from the

concentrated satanic fury in them.



Then the horror laughed sibilantly.



"I do you a great honor, Mr. Costigan; among a very few, even of

my own servants, you may say that you saw my face and lived. I think

you will be more useful to me living than dead."



I was silent, completely unnerved. It was difficult to believe

that this man lived, for his appearance certainly belied the thought.

He seemed horribly like a mummy. Yet his lips moved when he spoke and

his eyes flamed with hideous life.



"You will do as I say," he said abruptly, and his voice had taken

on a note of command. "You doubtless know, or know of, Sir Haldred

Frenton?"



"Yes."



Every man of culture in Europe and America was familiar with the

travel books of Sir Haldred Frenton, author and soldier of fortune.



"You will go to Sir Haldred's estate tonight--"



"Yes?"



_"And kill him!"_



I staggered, literally. This order was incredible--unspeakable! I

had sunk low, low enough to smuggle opium, but to deliberately murder

a man I had never seen, a man noted for his kindly deeds! That was too

monstrous even to contemplate.



"You do not refuse?"



The tone was as loathly and as mocking as the hiss of a serpent.



"Refuse?" I screamed, finding my voice at last. "Refuse? You

incarnate devil! Of course I refuse! You--"



Something in the cold assurance of his manner halted me--froze me

into apprehensive silence.



"You fool!" he said calmly. "I broke the hashish chains--do you

know how? Four minutes from now you will know and curse the day you

were born! Have you not thought it strange, the swiftness of brain,

the resilience of body--the brain that should be rusty and slow, the

body that should be weak and sluggish from years of abuse? That blow

that felled John Gordon--have you not wondered at its might? The ease

with which you mastered Major Morley's records--have you not wondered

at that? You fool, you are bound to me by chains of steel and blood

and fire! I have kept you alive and sane--I alone. Each day the life-

saving elixir has been given you in your wine. You could not live and

keep your reason without it. And I and only I know its secret!"



He glanced at a queer timepiece which stood on a table at his

elbow.



"This time I had Yun Shatu leave the elixir out--I anticipated

rebellion. The time is near--ha, it strikes!"



Something else he said, but I did not hear. I did not see, nor did

I feel in the human sense of the word. I was writhing at his feet,

screaming and gibbering in the flames of such hells as men have never

dreamed of.



Aye, I knew now! He had simply given me a dope so much stronger

that it drowned the hashish. My unnatural ability was explainable

now--I had simply been acting under the stimulus of something which

combined all the hells in its makeup, which stimulated, something like

heroin, but whose effect was unnoticed by the victim. What it was, I

had no idea, nor did I believe anyone knew save that hellish being who

stood watching me with grim amusement. But it had held my brain

together, instilling into my system a need for it, and now my

frightful craving tore my soul asunder.



Never, in my moments of worst shell-shock or my moments of

hashish-craving, have I ever experienced anything like that. I burned

with the heat of a thousand hells and froze with an iciness that was

colder than any ice, a hundred times. I swept down to the deepest pits

of torture and up to the highest crags of torment--a million yelling

devils hemmed me in, shrieking and stabbing. Bone by bone, vein by

vein, cell by cell I felt my body disintegrate and fly in bloody atoms

all over the universe--and each separate cell was an entire system of

quivering, screaming nerves. And they gathered from far voids and

reunited with a greater torment.



Through the fiery bloody mists I heard my own voice screaming, a

monotonous yammering. Then with distended eyes I saw a golden goblet,

held by a claw-like hand, swim into view--a goblet filled with an

amber liquid.



With a bestial screech, I seized it with both hands, being dimly

aware that the metal stem gave beneath my fingers, and brought the

brim to my lips. I drank in frenzied haste, the liquid slopping down

onto my breast.







Chapter 9. Kathulos of Egypt







_"Night shall be thrice night over you,_

_And Heaven an iron cope."_



   --Chesterton



The Skull-faced One stood watching me critically as I sat panting

on a couch, completely exhausted. He held in his hand the goblet and

surveyed the golden stem, which was crushed out of all shape. This my

maniac fingers had done in the instant of drinking.



"Superhuman strength, even for a man in your condition," he said

with a sort of creaky pedantry. "I doubt if even Hassim here could

equal it. Are you ready for your instructions now?"



I nodded, wordless. Already the hellish strength of the elixir was

flowing through my veins, renewing my burnt-out force. I wondered how

long a man could live as I lived being constantly burned out and

artificially rebuilt.



"You will be given a disguise and will go alone to the Frenton

estate. No one suspects any design against Sir Haldred and your

entrance into the estate and the house itself should be a matter of

comparative ease. You will not don the disguise--which will be of

unique nature--until you are ready to enter the estate. You will then

proceed to Sir Haldred's room and kill him, breaking his neck with

your bare hands--this is essential--"



The voice droned on, giving the ghastly orders in a frightfully

casual and matter-of-fact way. The cold sweat beaded my brow.



"You will then leave the estate, taking care to leave the imprint

of your hand somewhere plainly visible, and the automobile, which will

be waiting for you at some safe place nearby, will bring you back

here, you having first removed the disguise. I have, in case of

complications, any amount of men who will swear that you spent the

entire night in the Temple of Dreams and never left it. But here must

be no detection! Go warily and perform your task surely, for you know

the alternative."



I did not return to the opium house but was taken through winding

corridors, hung with heavy tapestries, to a small room containing only

an oriental couch. Hassim gave me to understand that I was to remain

here until after nightfall and then left me. The door was closed but I

made no effort to discover if it was locked. The Skull-faced Master

held me with stronger shackles than locks and bolts.



Seated upon the couch in the bizarre setting of a chamber which

might have been a room in an Indian zenana, I faced fact squarely and

fought out my battle. There was still in me some trace of manhood

left--more than the fiend had reckoned, and added to this were black

despair and desperation. I chose and determined on my only course.



Suddenly the door opened softly. Some intuition told me whom to

expect, nor was I disappointed. Zuleika stood, a glorious vision

before me--a vision which mocked me, made blacker my despair and yet

thrilled me with wild yearning and reasonless joy.



She bore a tray of food which she set beside me, and then she

seated herself on the couch, her large eyes fixed upon my face. A

flower in a serpent den she was, and the beauty of her took hold of my

heart.



"Steephen!" she whispered, and I thrilled as she spoke my name for

the first time.



Her luminous eyes suddenly shone with tears and she laid her

little hand on my arm. I seized it in both my rough hands.



"They have set you a task which you fear and hate!" she faltered.



"Aye," I almost laughed, "but I'll fool them yet! Zuleika, tell

me--what is the meaning of all this?"



She glanced fearfully around her.



"I do not know all"--she hesitated--"your plight is all my fault

but I--I hoped--Steephen, I have watched you every time you came to

Yun Shatu's for months. You did not see me but I saw you, and I saw in

you, not the broken sot your rags proclaimed, but a wounded soul, a

soul bruised terribly on the ramparts of life. And from my heart I

pitied you. Then when Hassim abused you that day"--again tears started

to her eyes--"I could not bear it and I knew how you suffered for want

of hashish. So I paid Yun Shatu, and going to the Master I--I--oh, you

will hate me for this!" she sobbed.



"No--no--never--"



"I told him that you were a man who might be of use to him and

begged him to have Yun Shatu supply you with what you needed. He had

already noticed you, for his is the eye of the slaver and all the

world is his slave market! So he bade Yun Shatu do as I asked; and

now--better if you had remained as you were, my friend."



"No! No!" I exclaimed. "I have known a few days of regeneration,

even if it was false! I have stood before you as a man, and that is

worth all else!"



And all that I felt for her must have looked forth from my eyes,

for she dropped hers and flushed. Ask me not how love comes to a man;

but I knew that I loved Zuleika--had loved this mysterious oriental

girl since first I saw her--and somehow I felt that she, in a measure,

returned my affection. This realization made blacker and more barren

the road I had chosen; yet--for pure love must ever strengthen a man--

it nerved me to what I must do.



"Zuleika," I said, speaking hurriedly, "time flies and there are

things I must learn; tell me--who are you and why do you remain in

this den of Hades?"



"I am Zuleika--that is all I know. I am Circassian by blood and

birth; when I was very little I was captured in a Turkish raid and

raised in a Stamboul harem; while I was yet too young to marry, my

master gave me as a present to--to _Him_."



"And who is he--this skull-faced man?"



"He is Kathulos of Egypt--that is all I know. My master."



"An Egyptian? Then what is he doing in London--why all this

mystery?"



She intertwined her fingers nervously.



"Steephen, please speak lower; always there is someone listening

everywhere. I do not know who the Master is or why he is here or why

he does these things. I swear by Allah! If I knew I would tell you.

Sometimes distinguished-looking men come here to the room where the

Master receives them--not the room where you saw him--and he makes me

dance before them and afterward flirt with them a little. And always I

must repeat exactly what they say to me. That is what I must always

do--in Turkey, in the Barbary States, in Egypt, in France and in

England. The Master taught me French and English and educated me in

many ways himself. He is the greatest sorcerer in all the world and

knows all ancient magic and everything."



"Zuleika," I said, "my race is soon run, but let me get you out of

this--come with me and I swear I'll get you away from this fiend!"



She shuddered and hid her face.



"No, no, I cannot!"



"Zuleika," I asked gently, "what hold has he over you, child--dope

also?"



"No, no!" she whimpered. "I do not know--I do not know--but I

cannot--I never can escape him!"



I sat, baffled for a few moments; then I asked, "Zuleika, where

are we right now?"



"This building is a deserted storehouse back of the Temple of

Silence."



"I thought so. What is in the chests in the tunnel?"



"I do not know."



Then suddenly she began weeping softly. "You too, a slave, like

me--you who are so strong and kind--oh Steephen, I cannot bear it!"



I smiled. "Lean closer, Zuleika, and I will tell you how I am

going to fool this Kathulos."



She glanced apprehensively at the door.



"You must speak low. I will lie in your arms and while you pretend

to caress me, whisper your words to me."



She glided into my embrace, and there on the dragon-worked couch

in that house of horror I first knew the glory of Zuleika's slender

form nestling in my arms--of Zuleika's soft cheek pressing my breast.

The fragrance of her was in my nostrils, her hair in my eyes, and my

senses reeled; then with my lips hidden by her silky hair I whispered,

swiftly:



"I am going first to warn Sir Haldred Frenton--then to find John

Gordon and tell him of this den. I will lead the police here and you

must watch closely and be ready to hide from _Him_--until we can break

through and kill or capture him. Then you will be free."



"But you!" she gasped, paling. "You must have the elixir, and only

he--"



"I have a way of outdoing him, child," I answered.



She went pitifully white and her woman's intuition sprang at the

right conclusion.



"You are going to kill yourself!"



And much as it hurt me to see her emotion, I yet felt a torturing

thrill that she should feel so on my account. Her arms tightened about

my neck.



"Don't, Steephen!" she begged. "It is better to live, even--"



"No, not at that price. Better to go out clean while I have the

manhood left."



She stared at me wildly for an instant; then, pressing her red

lips suddenly to mine, she sprang up and fled from the room. Strange,

strange are the ways of love. Two stranded ships on the shores of

life, we had drifted inevitably together, and though no word of love

had passed between us, we knew each other's heart--through grime and

rags, and through accouterments of the slave, we knew each other's

heart and from the first loved as naturally and as purely as it was

intended from the beginning of Time.



The beginning of life now and the end for me, for as soon as I had

completed my task, ere I felt again the torments of my curse, love and

life and beauty and torture should be blotted out together in the

stark finality of a pistol ball scattering my rotting brain. Better a

clean death than--



The door opened again and Yussef Ali entered.



"The hour arrives for departure," he said briefly. "Rise and

follow."



I had no idea, of course, as to the time. No window opened from

the room I occupied--I had seen no outer window whatever. The rooms

were lighted by tapers in censers swinging from the ceiling. As I rose

the slim young Moor slanted a sinister glance in my direction.



"This lies between you and me," he said sibilantly. "Servants of

the same Master we--but this concerns ourselves alone. Keep your

distance from Zuleika--the Master has promised her to me in the days

of the empire."



My eyes narrowed to slits as I looked into the frowning, handsome

face of the Oriental, and such hate surged up in me as I have seldom

known. My fingers involuntarily opened and closed, and the Moor,

marking the action, stepped back, hand in his girdle.



"Not now--there is work for us both--later perhaps." Then in a

sudden cold gust of hatred, "Swine! Ape-man! When the Master is

finished with you I shall quench my dagger in your heart!"



I laughed grimly.



"Make it soon, desert-snake, or I'll crush your spine between my

hands."







Chapter 10. The Dark House







_"Against all man-made shackles and a man-made hell--_

_Alone--at last--unaided--I rebel!"_



   --Mundy



I followed Yussef Ali along the winding hallways, down the steps--

Kathulos was not in the idol room--and along the tunnel, then through

the rooms of the Temple of Dreams and out into the street, where the

street lamps gleamed drearily through the fogs and a slight drizzle.

Across the street stood an automobile, curtains closely drawn.



"That is yours," said Hassim, who had joined us. "Saunter across

natural-like. Don't act suspicious. The place may be watched. The

driver knows what to do."



Then he and Yussef Ali drifted back into the bar and I took a

single step toward the curb.



"Steephen!"



A voice that made my heart leap spoke my name! A white hand

beckoned from the shadows of a doorway. I stepped quickly there.



"Zuleika!"



"Shhh!"



She clutched my arm, slipped something into my hand; I made out

vaguely a small flask of gold.



"Hide this, quick!" came her urgent whisper. "Don't come back but

go away and hide. This is full of elixir--I will try to get you some

more before that is all gone. You must find a way of communicating

with me."



"Yes, but how did you get this?" I asked amazedly.



"I stole it from the Master! Now please, I must go before he

misses me."



And she sprang back into the doorway and vanished. I stood

undecided. I was sure that she had risked nothing less than her life

in doing this and I was torn by the fear of what Kathulos might do to

her, were the theft discovered. But to return to the house of mystery

would certainly invite suspicion, and I might carry out my plan and

strike back before the Skull-faced One learned of his slave's

duplicity.



So I crossed the street to the waiting automobile. The driver was

a Negro whom I had never seen before, a lanky man of medium height. I

stared hard at him, wondering how much he had seen. He gave no

evidence of having seen anything, and I decided that even if he had

noticed me step back into the shadows he could not have seen what

passed there nor have been able to recognize the girl.



He merely nodded as I climbed in the back seat, and a moment later

we were speeding away down the deserted and fog-haunted streets. A

bundle beside me I concluded to be the disguise mentioned by the

Egyptian.



To recapture the sensations I experienced as I rode through the

rainy, misty night would be impossible. I felt as if I were already

dead and the bare and dreary streets about me were the roads of death

over which my ghost had been doomed to roam forever. A torturing joy

was in my heart, and bleak despair--the despair of a doomed man. Not

that death itself was so repellent--a dope victim dies too many deaths

to shrink from the last--but it was hard to go out just as love had

entered my barren life. And I was still young.



A sardonic smile crossed my lips--they were young, too, the men

who died beside me in No Man's Land. I drew back my sleeve and

clenched my fists, tensing my muscles. There was no surplus weight on

my frame, and much of the firm flesh had wasted away, but the cords of

the great biceps still stood out like knots of iron, seeming to

indicate massive strength. But I knew my might was false, that in

reality I was a broken hulk of a man, animated only by the artificial

fire of the elixir, without which a frail girl might topple me over.



The automobile came to a halt among some trees. We were on the

outskirts of an exclusive suburb and the hour was past midnight.

Through the trees I saw a large house looming darkly against the

distant flares of nighttime London.



"This is where I wait," said the Negro. "No one can see the

automobile from the road or from the house."



Holding a match so that its light could not be detected outside

the car, I examined the "disguise" and was hard put to restrain an

insane laugh. The disguise was the complete hide of a gorilla!

Gathering the bundle under my arm I trudged toward the wall which

surrounded the Frenton estate. A few steps and the trees where the

Negro hid with the car merged into one dark mass. I did not believe he

could see me, but for safety's sake I made, not for the high iron gate

at the front, but for the wall at the side where there was no gate.



No light showed in the house. Sir Haldred was a bachelor and I was

sure that the servants were all in bed long ago. I negotiated the wall

with ease and stole across the dark lawn to a side door, still

carrying the grisly "disguise" under my arm. The door was locked, as I

had anticipated, and I did not wish to arouse anyone until I was

safely in the house, where the sound of voices would not carry to one

who might have followed me. I took hold of the knob with both hands,

and, exerting slowly the inhuman strength that was mine, began to

twist. The shaft turned in my hands and the lock within shattered

suddenly, with a noise that was like the crash of a cannon in the

stillness. An instant more and I was inside and had closed the door

behind me.



I took a single stride in the darkness in the direction I believed

the stair to be, then halted as a beam of light flashed into my face.

At the side of the beam I caught the glimmer of a pistol muzzle.

Beyond a lean shadowy face floated.



"Stand where you are and put up your hands!"



I lifted my hands, allowing the bundle to slip to the floor. I had

heard that voice only once but I recognized it--knew instantly that

the man who held that light was John Gordon.



"How many are with you?"



His voice was sharp, commanding.



"I am alone," I answered. "Take me into a room where a light

cannot be seen from the outside and I'll tell you some things you want

to know."



He was silent; then, bidding me take up the bundle I had dropped,

he stepped to one side and motioned me to precede him into the next

room. There he directed me to a stairway and at the top landing opened

a door and switched on lights.



I found myself in a room whose curtains were closely drawn. During

this journey Gordon's alertness had not relaxed, and now he stood,

still covering me with his revolver. Clad in conventional garments, he

stood revealed a tall, leanly but powerfully built man, taller than I

but not so heavy--with steel-gray eyes and clean-cut features.

Something about the man attracted me, even as I noted a bruise on his

jawbone where my fist had struck in our last meeting.



"I cannot believe," he said crisply, "that this apparent

clumsiness and lack of subtlety is real. Doubtless you have your own

reasons for wishing me to be in a secluded room at this time, but Sir

Haldred is efficiently protected even now. Stand still."



Muzzle pressed against my chest, he ran his hand over my garments

for concealed weapons, seeming slightly surprized when he found none.



"Still," he murmured as if to himself, "a man who can burst an

iron lock with his bare hands has scant need of weapons."



"You are wasting valuable time," I said impatiently. "I was sent

here tonight to kill Sir Haldred Frenton--"



"By whom?" the question was shot at me.



"By the man who sometimes goes disguised as a leper."



He nodded, a gleam in his scintillant eyes.



"My suspicions were correct, then."



"Doubtless. Listen to me closely--do you desire the death or

arrest of that man?"



Gordon laughed grimly.



"To one who wears the mark of the scorpion on his hand, my answer

would be superfluous."



"Then follow my directions and your wish shall be granted."



His eyes narrowed suspiciously.



"So that was the meaning of this open entry and non-resistance,"

he said slowly. "Does the dope which dilates your eyeballs so warp

your mind that you think to lead me into ambush?"



I pressed my hands against my temples. Time was racing and every

moment was precious--how could I convince this man of my honesty?



"Listen; my name is Stephen Costigan of America. I was a

frequenter of Yun Shatu's dive and a hashish addict--as you have

guessed, but just now a slave of stronger dope. By virtue of this

slavery, the man you know as a false leper, whom Yun Shatu and his

friends call 'Master,' gained dominance over me and sent me here to

murder Sir Haldred--why, God only knows. But I have gained a space of

respite by coming into possession of some of this dope which I must

have in order to live, and I fear and hate this Master. Listen to me

and I swear, by all things holy and unholy, that before the sun rises

the false leper shall be in your power!"



I could tell that Gordon was impressed in spite of himself.



"Speak fast!" he rapped.



Still I could sense his disbelief and a wave of futility swept

over me.



"If you will not act with me," I said, "let me go and somehow I'll

find a way to get to the Master and kill him. My time is short--my

hours are numbered and my vengeance is yet to be realized."



"Let me hear your plan, and talk fast," Gordon answered.



"It is simple enough. I will return to the Masters lair and tell

him I have accomplished that which he sent me to do. You must follow

closely with your men and while I engage the Master in conversation,

surround the house. Then, at the signal, break in and kill or seize

him."



Gordon frowned. "Where is this house?"



"The warehouse back of Yun Shatu's has been converted into a

veritable oriental palace."



"The warehouse!" he exclaimed. "How can that be? I had thought of

that first, but I have carefully examined it from without. The windows

are closely barred and spiders have built webs across them. The doors

are nailed fast on the outside and the seals that mark the warehouse

as deserted have never been broken or disturbed in any way."



"They tunneled up from beneath," I answered. "The Temple of Dreams

is directly connected with the warehouse."



"I have traversed the alley between the two buildings," said

Gordon, "and the doors of the warehouse opening into that alley are,

as I have said, nailed shut from without just as the owners left them.

There is apparently no rear exit of any kind from the Temple of

Dreams."



"A tunnel connects the buildings, with one door in the rear room

of Yun Shatu's and the other in the idol room of the warehouse."



"I have been in Yun Shatu's back room and found no such door."



"The table rests upon it. You noted the heavy table in the center

of the room? Had you turned it around the secret door would have

opened in the floor. Now this is my plan: I will go in through the

Temple of Dreams and meet the Master in the idol room. You will have

men secretly stationed in front of the warehouse and others upon the

other street, in front of the Temple of Dreams. Yun Shatu's building,

as you know, faces the waterfront, while the warehouse, fronting the

opposite direction, faces a narrow street running parallel with the

river. At the signal let the men in this street break open the front

of the warehouse and rush in, while simultaneously those in front of

Yun Shatu's make an invasion through the Temple of Dreams. Let these

make for the rear room, shooting without mercy any who may seek to

deter them, and there open the secret door as I have said. There

being, to the best of my knowledge, no other exit from the Master's

lair, he and his servants will necessarily seek to make their escape

through the tunnel. Thus we will have them on both sides."



Gordon ruminated while I studied his face with breathless

interest.



"This may be a snare," he muttered, "or an attempt to draw me away

from Sir Haldred, but--"



I held my breath.



"I am a gambler by nature," he said slowly. "I am going to follow

what you Americans call a hunch--but God help you if you are lying to

me!"



I sprang erect.



"Thank God! Now aid me with this suit, for I must be wearing it

when I return to the automobile waiting for me."



His eyes narrowed as I shook out the horrible masquerade and

prepared to don it.



"This shows, as always, the touch of the master hand. You were

doubtless instructed to leave marks of your hands, encased in those

hideous gauntlets?"



"Yes, though I have no idea why."



"I think I have--the Master is famed for leaving no real clues to

mark his crimes--a great ape escaped from a neighboring zoo earlier in

the evening and it seems too obvious for mere chance, in the light of

this disguise. The ape would have gotten the blame of Sir Haldred's

death."



The thing was easily gotten into and the illusion of reality it

created was so perfect as to draw a shudder from me as I viewed myself

in a mirror.



"It is now two o'clock," said Gordon."Allowing for the time it

will take you to get back to Limehouse and the time it will take me to

get my men stationed, I promise you that at half-past four the house

will be closely surrounded. Give me a start--wait here until I have

left this house, so I will arrive at least as soon as you."



"Good!" I impulsively grasped his hand. "There will doubtless be a

girl there who is in no way implicated with the Master's evil doings,

but only a victim of circumstances such as I have been. Deal gently

with her."



"It shall be done. What signal shall I look for?"



"I have no way of signaling for you and I doubt if any sound in

the house could be heard on the street. Let your men make their raid

on the stroke of five."



I turned to go.



"A man is waiting for you with a car, I take it? Is he likely to

suspect anything?"



"I have a way of finding out, and if he does," I replied grimly,

"I will return alone to the Temple of Dreams."







Chapter 11. Four Thirty-Four







_"Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."_

   --Poe



The door closed softly behind me, the great dark house looming up

more starkly than ever. Stooping, I crossed the wet lawn at a run, a

grotesque and unholy figure, I doubt not, since any man had at a

glance sworn me to be not a man but a giant ape. So craftily had the

Master devised!



I clambered the wall, dropped to the earth beyond and made my way

through the darkness and the drizzle to the group of trees which

masked the automobile.



The Negro driver leaned out of the front seat. I was breathing

hard and sought in various ways to simulate the actions of a man who

has just murdered in cold blood and fled the scene of his crime.



"You heard nothing, no sound, no scream?" I hissed, gripping his

arm.



"No noise except a slight crash when you first went in," he

answered. "You did a good job--nobody passing along the road could

have suspected anything."



"Have you remained in the car all the time?" I asked. And when he

replied that he had, I seized his ankle and ran my hand over the soles

of his shoe; it was perfectly dry, as was the cuff of his trouser leg.

Satisfied, I climbed into the back seat. Had he taken a step on the

earth, shoe and garment would have showed it by the telltale dampness.



I ordered him to refrain from starting the engine until I had

removed the apeskin, and then we sped through the night and I fell

victim to doubts and uncertainties. Why should Gordon put any trust in

the word of a stranger and a former ally of the Master's? Would he not

put my tale down as the ravings of a dope-crazed addict, or a lie to

ensnare or befool him? Still, if he had not believed me, why had he

let me go?



I could but trust. At any rate, what Gordon did or did not do

would scarcely affect my fortunes ultimately, even though Zuleika had

furnished me with that which would merely extend the number of my

days. My thought centered on her, and more than my hope of vengeance

on Kathulos was the hope that Gordon might be able to save her from

the clutches of the fiend. At any rate, I thought grimly, if Gordon

failed me, I still had my hands and if I might lay them upon the bony

frame of the Skull-faced One--



Abruptly I found myself thinking of Yussef Ali and his strange

words, the import of which just occurred to me, _"The Master has

promised her to me in the days of the empire!"_



The days of the empire--what could that mean?



The automobile at last drew up in front of the building which hid

the Temple of Silence--now dark and still. The ride had seemed

interminable and as I dismounted I glanced at the timepiece on the

dashboard of the car. My heart leaped--it was four thirty-four, and

unless my eyes tricked me I saw a movement in the shadows across the

street, out of the flare of the street lamp. At this time of night it

could mean only one of two things--some menial of the Master watching

for my return or else Gordon had kept his word. The Negro drove away

and I opened the door, crossed the deserted bar and entered the opium

room. The bunks and the floor were littered with the dreamers, for

such places as these know nothing of day or night as normal people

know, but all lay deep in sottish slumber.



The lamps glimmered through the smoke and a silence hung mist-like

over all.







Chapter 12. The Stroke of Five







_"He saw gigantic tracks of death,_

_And many a shape of doom."_



   --Chesterton



Two of the China-boys squatted among the smudge fires, staring at

me unwinkingly as I threaded my way among the recumbent bodies and

made my way to the rear door. For the first time I traversed the

corridor alone and found time to wonder again as to the contents of

the strange chests which lined the walls.



Four raps on the underside of the floor, and a moment later I

stood in the idol room. I gasped in amazement--the fact that across a

table from me sat Kathulos in all his horror was not the cause of my

exclamation. Except for the table, the chair on which the Skull-faced

One sat and the altar--now bare of incense--the room was perfectly

bare! Drab, unlovely walls of the unused warehouse met my gaze instead

of the costly tapestries I had become accustomed to. The palms, the

idol, the lacquered screen--all were gone.



"Ah, Mr. Costigan, you wonder, no doubt."



The dead voice of the Master broke in on my thoughts. His serpent

eyes glittered balefully. The long yellow fingers twined sinuously

upon the table.



"You thought me to be a trusting fool, no doubt!" he rapped

suddenly. "Did you think I would not have you followed? You fool,

Yussef Ali was at your heels every moment!"



An instant I stood speechless, frozen by the crash of these words

against my brain; then as their import sank home, I launched myself

forward with a roar. At the same instant, before my clutching fingers

could close on the mocking horror on the other side of the table, men

rushed from every side. I whirled, and with the clarity of hate, from

the swirl of savage faces I singled out Yussef Ali, and crashed my

right fist against his temple with every ounce of my strength. Even as

he dropped, Hassim struck me to my knees and a Chinaman flung a man-

net over my shoulders. I heaved erect, bursting the stout cords as if

they were strings, and then a blackjack in the hands of Ganra Singh

stretched me stunned and bleeding on the floor.



Lean sinewy hands seized and bound me with cords that cut cruelly

into my flesh. Emerging from the mists of semi-unconsciousness, I

found myself lying on the altar with the masked Kathulos towering over

me like a gaunt ivory tower. About in a semicircle stood Ganra Singh,

Yar Khan, Yun Shatu and several others whom I knew as frequenters of

the Temple of Dreams. Beyond them--and the sight cut me to the heart--

I saw Zuleika crouching in a doorway, her face white and her hands

pressed against her cheeks, in an attitude of abject terror.



"I did not fully trust you," said Kathulos sibilantly, "so I sent

Yussef Ali to follow you. He reached the group of trees before you and

following you into the estate heard your very interesting conversation

with John Gordon--for he scaled the house-wall like a cat and clung to

the window ledge! Your driver delayed purposely so as to give Yussef

Ali plenty of time to get back--I have decided to change my abode

anyway. My furnishings are already on their way to another house, and

as soon as we have disposed of the traitor--you!--we shall depart

also, leaving a little surprize for your friend Gordon when he arrives

at five-thirty."



My heart gave a sudden leap of hope. Yussef Ali had misunderstood,

and Kathulos lingered here in false security while the London

detective force had already silently surrounded the house. Over my

shoulder I saw Zuleika vanish from the door.



I eyed Kathulos, absolutely unaware of what he was saying. It was

not long until five--if he dallied longer--then I froze as the

Egyptian spoke a word and Li Kung, a gaunt, cadaverous Chinaman,

stepped from the silent semicircle and drew from his sleeve a long

thin dagger. My eyes sought the timepiece that still rested on the

table and my heart sank. It was still ten minutes until five. My death

did not matter so much, since it simply hastened the inevitable, but

in my mind's eye I could see Kathulos and his murderers escaping while

the police awaited the stroke of five.



The Skull-face halted in some harangue, and stood in a listening

attitude. I believe his uncanny intuition warned him of danger. He

spoke a quick staccato command to Li Kung and the Chinaman sprang

forward, dagger lifted above my breast.



The air was suddenly supercharged with dynamic tension. The keen

dagger-point hovered high above me--loud and clear sounded the skirl

of a police whistle and on the heels of the sound there came a

terrific crash from the front of the warehouse!



Kathulos leaped into frenzied activity. Hissing orders like a cat

spitting, he sprang for the hidden door and the rest followed him.

Things happened with the speed of a nightmare. Li Kung had followed

the rest, but Kathulos flung a command over his shoulder and the

Chinaman turned back and came rushing toward the altar where I lay,

dagger high, desperation in his countenance.



A scream broke through the clamor and as I twisted desperately

about to avoid the descending dagger, I caught a glimpse of Kathulos

dragging Zuleika away. Then with a frenzied wrench I toppled from the

altar just as Li Kung's dagger, grazing my breast, sank inches deep

into the dark-stained surface and quivered there.



I had fallen on the side next to the wall and what was taking

place in the room I could not see, but it seemed as if far away I

could hear men screaming faintly and hideously. Then Li Kung wrenched

his blade free and sprang, tigerishly, around the end of the altar.

Simultaneously a revolver cracked from the doorway--the Chinaman spun

clear around, the dagger flying from his hand--he slumped to the

floor.



Gordon came running from the doorway where a few moments earlier

Zuleika had stood, his pistol still smoking in his hand. At his heels

were three rangy, clean-cut men in plain clothes. He cut my bonds and

dragged me upright.



"Quick! Where have they gone?"



The room was empty of life save for myself, Gordon and his men,

though two dead men lay on the floor.



I found the secret door and after a few seconds' search located

the lever which opened it. Revolvers drawn, the men grouped about me

and peered nervously into the dark stairway. Not a sound came up from

the total darkness.



"This is uncanny!" muttered Gordon. "I suppose the Master and his

servants went this way when they left the building--as they are

certainly not here now!--and Leary and his men should have stopped

them either in the tunnel itself or in the rear room of Yun Shatu's.

At any rate, in either event they should have communicated with us by

this time."



"Look out, sir!" one of the men exclaimed suddenly, and Gordon,

with an ejaculation, struck out with his pistol barrel and crushed the

life from a huge snake which had crawled silently up the steps from

the blackness beneath.



"Let us see into this matter," said he, straightening.



But before he could step onto the first stair, I halted him; for,

flesh crawling, I began dimly to understand something of what had

happened--I began to understand the silence in the tunnel, the absence

of the detectives, the screams I had heard some minutes previously

while I lay on the altar. Examining the lever which opened the door, I

found another smaller lever--I began to believe I knew what those

mysterious chests in the tunnel contained.



"Gordon," I said hoarsely, "have you an electric torch?"



One of the men produced a large one.



"Direct the light into the tunnel, but as you value your life, do

not put a foot upon the steps."



The beam of light struck through the shadows, lighting the tunnel,

etching out boldly a scene that will haunt my brain all the rest of my

life. On the floor of the tunnel, between the chests which now gaped

open, lay two men who were members of London's finest secret service.

Limbs twisted and faces horribly distorted they lay, and above and

about them writhed, in long glittering scaly shimmerings, scores of

hideous reptiles.



The clock struck five.







Chapter 13. The Blind Beggar Who Rode







_"He seemed a beggar such as lags_

_Looking for crusts and ale."_



   --Chesterton



The cold gray dawn was stealing over the river as we stood in the

deserted bar of the Temple of Dreams. Gordon was questioning the two

men who had remained on guard outside the building while their

unfortunate companion, went in to explore the tunnel.



"As soon as we heard the whistle, sir, Leary and Murken rushed the

bar and broke into the opium room, while we waited here at the bar

door according to orders. Right away several ragged dopers came

tumbling out and we grabbed them. But no one else came out and we

heard nothing from Leary and Murken; so we just waited until you came,

sir."



"You saw nothing of a giant Negro, or of the Chinaman Yun Shatu?"



"No, sir. After a while the patrolmen arrived and we threw a

cordon around the house, but no one was seen."



Gordon shrugged his shoulders; a few cursory questions had

satisfied him that the captives were harmless addicts and he had them

released.



"You are sure no one else came out?"



"Yes, sir--no, wait a moment. A wretched old blind beggar did come

out, all rags and dirt and with a ragged girl leading him. We stopped

him but didn't hold him--a wretch like that couldn't be harmful."



"No?" Gordon jerked out. "Which way did he go?"



"The girl led him down the street to the next block and then an

automobile stopped and they got in and drove off, sir."



Gordon glared at him.



"The stupidity of the London detective has rightfully become an

international jest," he said acidly. "No doubt it never occurred to

you as being strange that a Limehouse beggar should ride about in his

own automobile."



Then impatiently waving aside the man, who sought to speak

further, he turned to me and I saw the lines of weariness beneath his

eyes.



"Mr. Costigan, if you will come to my apartment we may be able to

clear up some new things."







Chapter 14. The Black Empire







_"Oh the new spears dipped in life-blood as the woman_



shrieked in vain!



_Oh the days before the English! When will those days come

again?"_



   --Mundy



Gordon struck a match and absently allowed it to flicker and go

out in his hand. His Turkish cigarette hung unlighted between his

fingers.



"This is the most logical conclusion to be reached," he was

saying. "The weak link in our chain was lack of men. But curse it, one

cannot round up an army at two o'clock in the morning, even with the

aid of Scotland Yard. I went on to Limehouse, leaving orders for a

number of patrolmen to follow me as quickly as they could be got

together, and to throw a cordon about the house.



"They arrived too late to prevent the Master's servants slipping

out of the side doors and windows, no doubt, as they could easily do

with only Finnegan and Hansen on guard at the front of the building.

However, they arrived in time to prevent the Master himself from

slipping out in that way--no doubt he lingered to effect his disguise

and was caught in that manner. He owes his escape to his craft and

boldness and to the carelessness of Finnegan and Hansen. The girl who

accompanied him--"



"She was Zuleika, without doubt."



I answered listlessly, wondering anew what shackles bound her to

the Egyptian sorcerer.



"You owe your life to her," Gordon rapped, lighting another match.

"We were standing in the shadows in front of the warehouse, waiting

for the hour to strike, and of course ignorant as to what was going on

in the house, when a girl appeared at one of the barred windows and

begged us for God's sake to do something, that a man was being

murdered. So we broke in at once. However, she was not to be seen when

we entered."



"She returned to the room, no doubt," I muttered, "and was forced

to accompany the Master. God grant he knows nothing of her trickery."



"I do not know," said Gordon, dropping the charred match stem,

"whether she guessed at our true identity or whether she just made the

appeal in desperation.



"However, the main point is this: evidence points to the fact

that, on hearing the whistle, Leary and Murken invaded Yun Shatu's

from the front at the same instant my three men and I made our attack

on the warehouse front. As it took us some seconds to batter down the

door, it is logical to suppose that they found the secret door and

entered the tunnel before we affected an entrance into the warehouse.



"The Master, knowing our plans beforehand, and being aware that an

invasion would be made through the tunnel and having long ago made

preparations for such an exigency--"



An involuntary shudder shook me.



"--the Master worked the lever that opened the chest--the screams

you heard as you lay upon the altar were the death shrieks of Leary

and Murken. Then, leaving the Chinaman behind to finish you, the

Master and the rest descended into the tunnel--incredible as it

seems--and threading their way unharmed among the serpents, entered

Yun Shatu's house and escaped therefrom as I have said."



"That seems impossible. Why should not the snakes turn on them?"



Gordon finally ignited his cigarette and puffed a few seconds

before replying.



"The reptiles might still have been giving their full and hideous

attention to the dying men, or else--I have on previous occasions been

confronted with indisputable proof of the Master's dominance over

beasts and reptiles of even the lowest or most dangerous orders. How

he and his slaves passed unhurt among those scaly fiends must remain,

at present, one of the many unsolved mysteries pertaining to that

strange man."



I stirred restlessly in my chair. This brought up a point for the

purpose of clearing up which I had come to Gordon's neat but bizarre

apartments.



"You have not yet told me," I said abruptly, "who this man is and

what is his mission."



"As to who he is, I can only say that he is known as you name

him--the Master. I have never seen him unmasked, nor do I know his

real name nor his nationality."



"I can enlighten you to an extent there," I broke in. "I have seen

him unmasked and have heard the name his slaves call him."



Gordon's eyes blazed and he leaned forward.



"His name," I continued, "is Kathulos and he claims to be an

Egyptian."



"Kathulos!" Gordon repeated. "You say he claims to be an

Egyptian--have you any reason for doubting his claim of that

nationality?"



"He may be of Egypt," I answered slowly, "but he is different,

somehow, from any human I ever saw or hope to see. Great age might

account for some of his peculiarities, but there are certain lineal

differences that my anthropological studies tell me have been present

since birth--features which would be abnormal to any other man but

which are perfectly normal in Kathulos. That sounds paradoxical, I

admit, but to appreciate fully the horrid inhumanness of the man, you

would have to see him yourself."



Gordon sat at attention while I swiftly sketched the appearance of

the Egyptian as I remembered him--and that appearance was indelibly

etched on my brain forever.



As I finished he nodded.



"As I have said, I never saw Kathulos except when disguised as a

beggar, a leper or some such thing--when he was fairly swathed in

rags. Still, I too have been impressed with a strange difference about

him--something that is not present in other men."



Gordon tapped his knee with his fingers--a habit of his when

deeply engrossed by a problem of some sort.



"You have asked as to the mission of this man," he began slowly.

"I will tell you all I know."



"My position with the British government is a unique and peculiar

one. I hold what might be called a roving commission--an office

created solely for the purpose of suiting my special needs. As a

secret service official during the war, I convinced the powers of a

need of such office and of my ability to fill it.



"Somewhat over seventeen months ago I was sent to South Africa to

investigate the unrest which has been growing among the natives of the

interior ever since the World War and which has of late assumed

alarming proportions. There I first got on the track of this man

Kathulos. I found, in roundabout ways, that Africa was a seething

cauldron of rebellion from Morocco to Cape Town. The old, old vow had

been made again--the Negroes and the Mohammedans, banded together,

should drive the white men into the sea.



"This pact has been made before but always, hitherto, broken. Now,

however, I sensed a giant intellect and a monstrous genius behind the

veil, a genius powerful enough to accomplish this union and hold it

together. Working entirely on hints and vague whispered clues, I

followed the trail up through Central Africa and into Egypt. There, at

last, I came upon definite evidence that such a man existed. The

whispers hinted of a living dead man--a _skull-faced_ man. I learned

that this man was the high priest of the mysterious Scorpion society

of northern Africa. He was spoken of variously as Skull-face, the

Master, and the Scorpion.



"Following a trail of bribed officials and filched state secrets,

I at last trailed him to Alexandria, where I had my first sight of him

in a dive in the native quarter--disguised as a leper. I heard him

distinctly addressed as 'Mighty Scorpion' by the natives, but he

escaped me.



"All trace vanished then; the trail ran out entirely until rumors

of strange happenings in London reached me and I came back to England

to investigate an apparent leak in the war office.



"As I thought, the Scorpion had preceded me. This man, whose

education and craft transcend anything I ever met with, is simply the

leader and instigator of a world-wide movement such as the world has

never seen before. He plots, in a word, the overthrow of the white

races!



"His ultimate aim is a black empire, with himself as emperor of

the world! And to that end he has banded together in one monstrous

conspiracy the black, the brown and the yellow."



"I understand now what Yussef Ali meant when he said 'the days of

the empire,'" I muttered.



"Exactly," Gordon rapped with suppressed excitement. "Kathulos'

power is unlimited and unguessed. Like an octopus his tentacles

stretch to the high places of civilization and the far corners of the

world. And his main weapon is--dope! He has flooded Europe and no

doubt America with opium and hashish, and in spite of all effort it

has been impossible to discover the break in the barriers through

which the hellish stuff is coming. With this he ensnares and enslaves

men and women.



"You have told me of the aristocratic men and women you saw coming

to Yun Shatu's dive. Without doubt they were dope addicts--for, as I

said, the habit lurks in high places--holders of governmental

positions, no doubt, coming to trade for the stuff they craved and

giving in return state secrets, inside information and promise of

protection for the Master's crimes.



"Oh, he does not work haphazardly! Before ever the black flood

breaks, he will be prepared; if he has his way, the governments of the

white races will be honeycombs of corruption--the strongest men of the

white races will be dead. The white men's secrets of war will be his.

When it comes, I look for a simultaneous uprising against white

supremacy, of all the colored races--races who, in the last war,

learned the white men's ways of battle, and who, led by such a man as

Kathulos and armed with white men's finest weapons, will be almost

invincible.



"A steady stream of rifles and ammunition has been pouring into

East Africa and it was not until I discovered the source that it was

stopped. I found that a staid and reliable Scotch firm was smuggling

these arms among the natives and I found more: the manager of this

firm was an opium slave. That was enough. I saw Kathulos' hand in the

matter. The manager was arrested and committed suicide in his cell--

that is only one of the many situations with which I am called upon to

deal.



"Again, the case of Major Fairlan Morley. He, like myself, held a

very flexible commission and had been sent to the Transvaal to work

upon the same case. He sent to London a number of secret papers for

safekeeping. They arrived some weeks ago and were put in a bank vault.

The letter accompanying them gave explicit instructions that they were

to be delivered to no one but the major himself, when he called for

them in person, or in event of his death, to myself.



"As soon as I learned that he had sailed from Africa I sent

trusted men to Bordeaux, where he intended to make his first landing

in Europe. They did not succeed in saving the major's life, but they

certified his death, for they found his body in a deserted ship whose

hulk was stranded on the beach. Efforts were made to keep the affair a

secret but somehow it leaked into the papers with the result--"



"I begin to understand why I was to impersonate the unfortunate

major," I interrupted.



"Exactly. A false beard furnished you, and your black hair dyed

blond, you would have presented yourself at the bank, received the

papers from the banker, who knew Major Morley just intimately enough

to be deceived by your appearance, and the papers would have then

fallen into the hands of the Master.



"I can only guess at the contents of those papers, for events have

been taking place too swiftly for me to call for and obtain them. But

they must deal with subjects closely connected with the activities of

Kathulos. How he learned of them and of the provisions of the letter

accompanying them, I have no idea, but as I said, London is

honeycombed with his spies.



"In my search for clues, I often frequented Limehouse disguised as

you first saw me. I went often to the Temple of Dreams and even once

managed to enter the back room, for I suspected some sort of

rendezvous in the rear of the building. The absence of any exit

baffled me and I had no time to search for secret doors before I was

ejected by the giant black man Hassim, who had no suspicion of my true

identity. I noticed that very often the leper entered or left Yun

Shatu's, and finally it was borne on me that past a shadow of doubt

this supposed leper was the Scorpion himself.



"That night you discovered me on the couch in the opium room, I

had come there with no especial plan in mind. Seeing Kathulos leaving,

I determined to rise and follow him, but you spoiled that."



He fingered his chin and laughed grimly.



"I was an amateur boxing champion in Oxford," said he, "but Tom

Cribb himself could not have withstood that blow--or have dealt it."



"I regret it as I regret few things."



"No need to apologize. You saved my life immediately afterward--I

was stunned, but not too much to know that that brown devil Yussef Ali

was burning to cut out my heart."



"How did you come to be at Sir Haldred Frenton's estate? And how

is it that you did not raid Yun Shatu's dive?"



"I did not have the place raided because I knew somehow Kathulos

would be warned and our efforts would come to naught. I was at Sir

Haldred's that night because I have contrived to spend at least part

of each night with him since he returned from the Congo. I anticipated

an attempt upon his life when I learned from his own lips that he was

preparing, from the studies he made on this trip, a treatise on the

secret native societies of West Africa. He hinted that the disclosures

he intended to make therein might prove sensational, to say the least.

Since it is to Kathulos' advantage to destroy such men as might be

able to arouse the Western world to its danger, I knew that Sir

Haldred was a marked man. Indeed, two distinct attempts were made upon

his life on his journey to the coast from the African interior. So I

put two trusted men on guard and they are at their post even now.



"Roaming about the darkened house, I heard the noise of your

entry, and, warning my men, I stole down to intercept you. At the time

of our conversation, Sir Haldred was sitting in his unlighted study, a

Scotland Yard man with drawn pistol on each side of him. Their

vigilance no doubt accounts for Yussef Ali's failure to attempt what

you were sent to do.



"Something in your manner convinced me in spite of yourself," he

meditated. "I will admit I had some bad moments of doubt as I waited

in the darkness that precedes dawn, outside the warehouse."



Gordon rose suddenly and going to a strong box which stood in a

corner of the room, drew thence a thick envelope.



"Although Kathulos has checkmated me at almost every move," he

said, "I have not been entirely idle. Noting the frequenters of Yun

Shatu's, I have compiled a partial list of the Egyptian's right-hand

men, and their records. What you have told me has enabled me to

complete that list. As we know, his henchmen are scattered all over

the world, and there are possibly hundreds of them here in London.

However, this is a list of those I believe to be in his closest

council, now with him in England. He told you himself that few even of

his followers ever saw him unmasked."



We bent together over the list, which contained the following

names: "Yun Shatu, Hongkong Chinese, suspected opium smuggler--keeper

of Temple of Dreams--resident of Limehouse seven years. Hassim, ex-

Senegalese Chief--wanted in French Congo for murder. Santiago, Negro--

fled from Haiti under suspicion of voodoo worship atrocities. Yar

Khan, Afridi, record unknown. Yussef Ali, Moor, slave-dealer in

Morocco--suspected of being a German spy in the World War--an

instigator of the Fellaheen Rebellion on the upper Nile. Ganra Singh,

Lahore, India, Sikh--smuggler of arms into Afghanistan--took an active

part in the Lahore and Delhi riots--suspected of murder on two

occasions--a dangerous man. Stephen Costigan, American--resident in

England since the war--hashish addict--man of remarkable strength. Li

Kung, northern China, opium smuggler."



Lines were drawn significantly through three names--mine, Li

Kung's and Yussef Ali's. Nothing was written next to mine, but

following Li Kung's name was scrawled briefly in Gordon's rambling

characters: "Shot by John Gordon during the raid on Yun Shatu's." And

following the name of Yussef Ali: "Killed by Stephen Costigan during

the Yun Shatu raid."



I laughed mirthlessly. Black empire or not, Yussef Ali would never

hold Zuleika in his arms, for he had never risen from where I felled

him.



"I know not," said Gordon somberly as he folded the list and

replaced it in the envelope, "what power Kathulos has that draws

together black men and yellow men to serve him--that unites world-old

foes. Hindu, Moslem and pagan are among his followers. And back in the

mists of the East where mysterious and gigantic forces are at work,

this uniting is culminating on a monstrous scale."



He glanced at his watch.



"It is nearly ten. Make yourself at home here, Mr. Costigan, while

I visit Scotland Yard and see if any clue has been found as to

Kathulos' new quarters. I believe that the webs are closing on him,

and with your aid I promise you we will have the gang located within a

week at most."







Chapter 15. The Mark of the Tulwar







_"The fed wolf curls by his drowsy mate_

_In a tight-trod earth; but the lean wolves wait."_



   --Mundy



I sat alone in John Gordon's apartments and laughed mirthlessly.

In spite of the elixir's stimulus, the strain of the previous night,

with its loss of sleep and its heartrending actions, was telling on

me. My mind was a chaotic whirl wherein the faces of Gordon, Kathulos

and Zuleika shifted with numbing swiftness. All the mass of

information Gordon had given to me seemed jumbled and incoherent.



Through this state of being, one fact stood out boldly. I must

find the latest hiding-place of the Egyptian and get Zuleika out of

his hands--if indeed she still lived.



A week, Gordon had said--I laughed again--a week and I would be

beyond aiding anyone. I had found the proper amount of elixir to use--

knew the minimum amount my system required--and knew that I could make

the flask last me four days at most. Four days! Four days in which to

comb the rat-holes of Limehouse and Chinatown--four days in which to

ferret out, somewhere in the mazes of East End, the lair of Kathulos.



I burned with impatience to begin, but nature rebelled, and

staggering to a couch, I fell upon it and was asleep instantly.



Then someone was shaking me.



"Wake up, Mr. Costigan!"



I sat up, blinking. Gordon stood over me, his face haggard.



"There's devil's work done, Costigan! The Scorpion has struck

again!"



I sprang up, still half-asleep and only partly realizing what he

was saying. He helped me into my coat, thrust my hat at me, and then

his firm grip on my arm was propelling me out of his door and down the

stairs. The street lights were blazing; I had slept an incredible

time.



"A logical victim!" I was aware that my companion was saying. "He

should have notified me the instant of his arrival!"



"I don't understand--" I began dazedly.



We were at the curb now and Gordon hailed a taxi, giving the

address of a small and unassuming hotel in a staid and prim section of

the city.



"The Baron Rokoff," he rapped as we whirled along at reckless

speed, "a Russian free-lance, connected with the war office. He

returned from Mongolia yesterday and apparently went into hiding.

Undoubtedly he had learned something vital in regard to the slow

waking of the East. He had not yet communicated with us, and I had no

idea that he was in England until just now."



"And you learned--"



"The baron was found in his room, his dead body mutilated in a

frightful manner!"



The respectable and conventional hotel which the doomed baron had

chosen for his hiding-place was in a state of mild uproar, suppressed

by the police. The management had attempted to keep the matter quiet,

but somehow the guests had learned of the atrocity and many were

leaving in haste--or preparing to, as the police were holding all for

investigation.



The baron's room, which was on the top floor, was in a state to

defy description. Not even in the Great War have I seen a more

complete shambles. Nothing had been touched; all remained just as the

chambermaid had found it a half-hour since. Tables and chairs lay

shattered on the floor, and the furniture, floor and walls were

spattered with blood. The baron, a tall, muscular man in life, lay in

the middle of the room, a fearful spectacle. His skull had been cleft

to the brows, a deep gash under his left armpit had shorn through his

ribs, and his left arm hung by a shred of flesh. The cold bearded face

was set in a look of indescribable horror.



"Some heavy, curved weapon must have been used," said Gordon,

"something like a saber, wielded with terrific force. See where a

chance blow sank inches deep into the windowsill. And again, the thick

back of this heavy chair has been split like a shingle. A saber,

surely."



"A tulwar," I muttered, somberly. "Do you not recognize the

handiwork of the Central Asian butcher? Yar Khan has been here."



"The Afghan! He came across the roofs, of course, and descended to

the window-ledge by means of a knotted rope made fast to something on

the edge of the roof. About one-thirty the maid, passing through the

corridor, heard a terrific commotion in the baron's room--smashing of

chairs and a sudden short shriek which died abruptly into a ghastly

gurgle and then ceased--to the sound of heavy blows, curiously

muffled, such as a sword might make when driven deep into human flesh.

Then all noises stopped suddenly.



"She called the manager and they tried the door and, finding it

locked, and receiving no answer to their shouts, opened it with the

desk key. Only the corpse was there, but the window was open. This is

strangely unlike Kathulos' usual procedure. It lacks subtlety. Often

his victims have appeared to have died from natural causes. I scarcely

understand."



"I see little difference in the outcome," I answered. "There is

nothing that can be done to apprehend the murderer as it is."



"True," Gordon scowled. "We know who did it but there is no

proof--not even a fingerprint. Even if we knew where the Afghan is

hiding and arrested him, we could prove nothing--there would be a

score of men to swear alibis for him. The baron returned only

yesterday. Kathulos probably did not know of his arrival until

tonight. He knew that on the morrow Rokoff would make known his

presence to me and impart what he learned in northern Asia. The

Egyptian knew he must strike quickly, and lacking time to prepare a

safer and more elaborate form of murder, he sent the Afridi with his

tulwar. There is nothing we can do, at least not until we discover the

Scorpion's hiding-place; what the baron had learned in Mongolia, we

shall never know, but that it dealt with the plans and aspirations of

Kathulos, we may be sure."



We went down the stairs again and out on the street, accompanied

by one of the Scotland Yard men, Hansen. Gordon suggested that we walk

back to his apartment and I greeted the opportunity to let the cool

night air blow some of the cobwebs out of my mazed brain.



As we walked along the deserted streets, Gordon suddenly cursed

savagely.



"This is a veritable labyrinth we are following, leading nowhere!

Here, in the very heart of civilization's metropolis, the direct enemy

of that civilization commits crimes of the most outrageous nature and

goes free! We are children, wandering in the night, struggling with an

unseen evil--dealing with an incarnate devil, of whose true identity

we know nothing and whose true ambitions we can only guess.



"Never have we managed to arrest one of the Egyptian's direct

henchmen, and the few dupes and tools of his we have apprehended have

died mysteriously before they could tell us anything. Again I repeat:

what strange power has Kathulos that dominates these men of different

creeds and races? The men in London with him are, of course, mostly

renegades, slaves of dope, but his tentacles stretch all over the

East. Some dominance is his: the power that sent the Chinaman, Li

Kung, back to kill you, in the face of certain death; that sent Yar

Khan the Moslem over the roofs of London to do murder; that holds

Zuleika the Circassian in unseen bonds of slavery.



"Of course we know," he continued after a brooding silence, "that

the East has secret societies which are behind and above all

considerations of creeds. There are cults in Africa and the Orient

whose origin dates back to Ophir and the fall of Atlantis. This man

must be a power in some or possibly all of these societies. Why,

outside the Jews, I know of no oriental race which is so cordially

despised by the other Eastern races, as the Egyptians! Yet here we

have a man, an Egyptian by his own word, controlling the lives and

destinies of orthodox Moslems, Hindus, Shintos and devil-worshippers.

It's unnatural.



"Have you ever"--he turned to me abruptly--"heard the ocean

mentioned in connection with Kathulos?"



"Never."



"There is a widespread superstition in northern Africa, based on a

very ancient legend, that the great leader of the colored races would

come out of the sea! And I once heard a Berber speak of the Scorpion

as 'The Son of the Ocean.'"



"That is a term of respect among that tribe, is it not?"



"Yes; still I wonder sometimes."







Chapter 16. The Mummy Who Laughed







_"Laughing as littered skulls that lie_



_After lost battles turn to the sky_



_An everlasting laugh."_



   --Chesterton



"A shop open this late," Gordon remarked suddenly.



A fog had descended on London and along the quiet street we were

traversing the lights glimmered with the peculiar reddish haze

characteristic of such atmospheric conditions. Our footfalls echoed

drearily. Even in the heart of a great city there are always sections

which seem overlooked and forgotten. Such a street was this. Not even

a policeman was in sight.



The shop which had attracted Gordon's attention was just in front

of us, on the same side of the street. There was no sign over the

door, merely some sort of emblem, something like a dragon. Light

flowed from the open doorway and the small show windows on each side.

As it was neither a cafe nor the entrance to a hotel we found

ourselves idly speculating over its reason for being open. Ordinarily,

I suppose, neither of us would have given the matter a thought, but

our nerves were so keyed up that we found ourselves instinctively

suspicious of anything out of the ordinary. Then something occurred

which was distinctly out of the ordinary.



A very tall, very thin man, considerably stooped, suddenly loomed

up out of the fog in front of us, and beyond the shop. I had only a

glance of him--an impression of incredible gauntness, of worn,

wrinkled garments, a high silk hat drawn close over the brows, a face

entirely hidden by a muffler; then he turned aside and entered the

shop. A cold wind whispered down the street, twisting the fog into

wispy ghosts, but the coldness that came upon me transcended the

wind's.



"Gordon!" I exclaimed in a fierce, low voice; "my senses are no

longer reliable or else Kathulos himself has just gone into that

house!"



Gordon's eyes blazed. We were now close to the shop, and

lengthening his strides into a run he hurled himself into the door,

the detective and I close upon his heels.



A weird assortment of merchandise met our eyes. Antique weapons

covered the walls, and the floor was piled high with curious things.

Maori idols shouldered Chinese josses, and suits of medieval armor

bulked darkly against stacks of rare oriental rugs and Latin-make

shawls. The place was an antique shop. Of the figure who had aroused

our interest we saw nothing.



An old man clad bizarrely in red fez, brocaded jacket and Turkish

slippers came from the back of the shop; he was a Levantine of some

sort.



"You wish something, sirs?"



"You keep open rather late," Gordon said abruptly, his eyes

traveling swiftly over the shop for some secret hiding-place that

might conceal the object of our search.



"Yes, sir. My customers number many eccentric professors and

students who keep very irregular hours. Often the night boats unload

special pieces for me and very often I have customers later than this.

I remain open all night, sir."



"We are merely looking around," Gordon returned, and in an aside

to Hansen: "Go to the back and stop anyone who tries to leave that

way."



Hansen nodded and strolled casually to the rear of the shop. The

back door was clearly visible to our view, through a vista of antique

furniture and tarnished hangings strung up for exhibition. We had

followed the Scorpion--if he it was--so closely that I did not believe

he would have had time to traverse the full length of the shop and

make his exit without our having seen him as we came in. For our eyes

had been on the rear door ever since we had entered.



Gordon and I browsed around casually among the curios, handling

and discussing some of them but I have no idea as to their nature. The

Levantine had seated himself cross-legged on a Moorish mat close to

the center of the shop and apparently took only a polite interest in

our explorations.



After a time Gordon whispered to me: "There is no advantage in

keeping up this pretense. We have looked everywhere the Scorpion might

be hiding, in the ordinary manner. I will make known my identity and

authority and we will search the entire building openly."



Even as he spoke a truck drew up outside the door and two burly

Negroes entered. The Levantine seemed to have expected them, for he

merely waved them toward the back of the shop and they responded with

a grunt of understanding.



Gordon and I watched them closely as they made their way to a

large mummy-case which stood upright against the wall not far from the

back. They lowered this to a level position and then started for the

door, carrying it carefully between them.



"Halt!" Gordon stepped forward, raising his hand authoritatively.



"I represent Scotland Yard," he said swiftly, "and have sanction

for anything I choose to do. Set that mummy down; nothing leaves this

shop until we have thoroughly searched it."



The Negroes obeyed without a word and my friend turned to the

Levantine, who, apparently not perturbed or even interested, sat

smoking a Turkish water-pipe.



"Who was that tall man who entered just before we did, and where

did he go?"



"No one entered before you, sir. Or, if anyone did, I was at the

back of the shop and did not see him. You are certainly at liberty to

search my shop, sir."



And search it we did, with the combined craft of a secret service

expert and a denizen of the underworld--while Hansen stood stolidly at

his post, the two Negroes standing over the carved mummy-case watched

us impassively and the Levantine sitting like a sphinx on his mat,

puffing a fog of smoke into the air. The whole thing had a distinct

effect of unreality.



At last, baffled, we returned to the mummy-case, which was

certainly long enough to conceal even a man of Kathulos' height. The

thing did not appear to be sealed as is the usual custom, and Gordon

opened it without difficulty. A formless shape, swathed in moldering

wrappings, met our eyes. Gordon parted some of the wrappings and

revealed an inch or so of withered, brownish, leathery arm. He

shuddered involuntarily as he touched it, as a man will do at the

touch of a reptile or some inhumanly cold thing. Taking a small metal

idol from a stand nearby, he rapped on the shrunken breast and the

arm. Each gave out a solid thumping, like some sort of wood.



Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "Dead for two thousand years anyway

and I don't suppose I should risk destroying a valuable mummy simply

to prove what we know to be true."



He closed the case again.



"The mummy may have crumbled some, even from this much exposure,

but perhaps it did not."



This last was addressed to the Levantine who replied merely by a

courteous gesture of his hand, and the Negroes once more lifted the

case and carried it to the truck, where they loaded it on, and a

moment later mummy, truck and Negroes had vanished in the fog.



Gordon still nosed about the shop, but I stood stock-still in the

center of the floor. To my chaotic and dope-ridden brain I attribute

it, but the sensation had been mine, that through the wrappings of the

mummy's face, great eyes had burned into mine, eyes like pools of

yellow fire, that seared my soul and froze me where I stood. And as

the case had been carried through the door, I knew that the lifeless

thing in it, dead, God only knows how many centuries, was laughing,

hideously and silently.







Chapter 17. The Dead Man from the Sea







_"The blind gods roar and rave and dream_



_Of all cities under the sea."_



   --Chesterton



Gordon puffed savagely at his Turkish cigarette, staring

abstractedly and unseeingly at Hansen, who sat opposite him.



"I suppose we must chalk up another failure against ourselves.

That Levantine, Kamonos, is evidently a creature of the Egyptian's and

the walls and floors of his shop are probably honeycombed with secret

panels and doors which would baffle a magician."



Hansen made some answer but I said nothing. Since our return to

Gordon's apartment, I had been conscious of a feeling of intense

languor and sluggishness which not even my condition could account

for. I knew that my system was full of the elixir--but my mind seemed

strangely slow and hard of comprehension in direct contrast with the

average state of my mentality when stimulated by the hellish dope.



This condition was slowly leaving me, like mist floating from the

surface of a lake, and I felt as if I were waking gradually from a

long and unnaturally sound sleep.



Gordon was saying: "I would give a good deal to know if Kamonos is

really one of Kathulos' slaves or if the Scorpion managed to make his

escape through some natural exit as we entered."



"Kamonos is his servant, true enough," I found myself saying

slowly, as if searching for the proper words. "As we left, I saw his

gaze light upon the scorpion which is traced on my hand. His eyes

narrowed, and as we were leaving he contrived to brush close against

me--and to whisper in a quick low voice: 'Soho, 48.'"



Gordon came erect like a loosened steel bow.



"Indeed!" he rapped. "Why did you not tell me at the time?"



"I don't know."



My friend eyed me sharply.



"I noticed you seemed like a man intoxicated all the way from the

shop," said he. "I attributed it to some aftermath of hashish. But no.

Kathulos is undoubtedly a masterful disciple of Mesmer--his power over

venomous reptiles shows that, and I am beginning to believe it is the

real source of his power over humans.



"Somehow, the Master caught you off your guard in that shop and

partly asserted his dominance over your mind. From what hidden nook he

sent his thought waves to shatter your brain, I do not know, but

Kathulos was somewhere in that shop, I am sure."



"He was. He was in the mummy-case."



"The mummy-case!" Gordon exclaimed rather impatiently. "That is

impossible! The mummy quite filled it and not even such a thin being

as the Master could have found room there."



I shrugged my shoulders, unable to argue the point but somehow

sure of the truth of my statement.



"Kamonos," Gordon continued, "doubtless is not a member of the

inner circle and does not know of your change of allegiance. Seeing

the mark of the scorpion, he undoubtedly supposed you to be a spy of

the Master's. The whole thing may be a plot to ensnare us, but I feel

that the man was sincere--Soho 48 can be nothing less than the

Scorpion's new rendezvous."



I too felt that Gordon was right, though a suspicion lurked in my

mind.



"I secured the papers of Major Morley yesterday," be continued,

"and while you slept, I went over them. Mostly they but corroborated

what I already knew--touched on the unrest of the natives and repeated

the theory that one vast genius was behind all. But there was one

matter which interested me greatly and which I think will interest you

also."



From his strong box he took a manuscript written in the close,

neat characters of the unfortunate major, and in a monotonous droning

voice which betrayed little of his intense excitement he read the

following nightmarish narrative:



"This matter I consider worth jotting down--as to whether it has

any bearing on the case at hand, further developments will show. At

Alexandria, where I spent some weeks seeking further clues as to the

identity of the man known as the Scorpion, I made the acquaintance,

through my friend Ahmed Shah, of the noted Egyptologist Professor Ezra

Schuyler of New York. He verified the statement made by various

laymen, concerning the legend of the 'ocean-man.' This myth, handed

down from generation to generation, stretches back into the very mists

of antiquity and is, briefly, that someday a man shall come up out of

the sea and shall lead the people of Egypt to victory over all others.

This legend has spread over the continent so that now all black races

consider that it deals with the coming of a universal emperor.

Professor Schuyler gave it as his opinion that the myth was somehow

connected with the lost Atlantis, which, he maintains, was located

between the African and South American continents and to whose

inhabitants the ancestors of the Egyptians were tributary. The reasons

for his connection are too lengthy and vague to note here, but

following the line of his theory he told me a strange and fantastic

tale. He said that a close friend of his, Von Lorfmon of Germany, a

sort of free-lance scientist, now dead, was sailing off the coast of

Senegal some years ago, for the purpose of investigating and

classifying the rare specimens of sea life found there. He was using

for his purpose a small trading-vessel, manned by a crew of Moors,

Greeks and Negroes.



"Some days out of sight of land, something floating was sighted,

and this object, being grappled and brought aboard, proved to be a

mummy-case of a most curious kind. Professor Schuyler explained to me

the features whereby it differed from the ordinary Egyptian style, but

from his rather technical account I merely got the impression that it

was a strangely shaped affair carved with characters neither cuneiform

nor hieroglyphic. The case was heavily lacquered, being watertight and

airtight, and Von Lorfmon had considerable difficulty in opening it.

However, he managed to do so without damaging the case, and a most

unusual mummy was revealed. Schuyler said that he never saw either the

mummy or the case, but that from descriptions given him by the Greek

skipper who was present at the opening of the case, the mummy differed

as much from the ordinary man as the case differed from the

conventional type.



"Examination proved that the subject had not undergone the usual

procedure of mummification. All parts were intact just as in life, but

the whole form was shrunk and hardened to a wood-like consistency.

Cloth wrappings swathed the thing and they crumbled to dust and

vanished the instant air was let in upon them.



"Von Lorfmon was impressed by the effect upon the crew. The Greeks

showed no interest beyond that which would ordinarily be shown by any

man, but the Moors, and even more the Negroes, seemed to be rendered

temporarily insane! As the case was hoisted on board, they all fell

prostrate on the deck and raised a sort of worshipful chant, and it

was necessary to use force in order to exclude them from the cabin

wherein the mummy was exposed. A number of fights broke out between

them and the Greek element of the crew, and the skipper and Von

Lorfmon thought best to put back to the nearest port in all haste. The

skipper attributed it to the natural aversion of seamen toward having

a corpse on board, but Von Lorfmon seemed to sense a deeper meaning.



"They made port in Lagos, and that very night Von Lorfmon was

murdered in his stateroom and the mummy and its case vanished. All the

Moor and Negro sailors deserted ship the same night. Schuyler said--

and here the matter took on a most sinister and mysterious aspect--

that immediately afterward this widespread unrest among the natives

began to smolder and take tangible form; he connected it in some

manner with the old legend.



"An aura of mystery, also, hung over Von Lorfmon's death. He had

taken the mummy into his stateroom, and anticipating an attack from

the fanatical crew, had carefully barred and bolted door and

portholes. The skipper, a reliable man, swore that it was virtually

impossible to affect an entrance from without. And what signs were

present pointed to the fact that the locks had been worked from

within. The scientist was killed by a dagger which formed part of his

collection and which was left in his breast.



"As I have said, immediately afterward the African cauldron began

to seethe. Schuyler said that in his opinion the natives considered

the ancient prophecy fulfilled. The mummy was the man from the sea.



"Schuyler gave as his opinion that the thing was the work of

Atlanteans and that the man in the mummy-case was a native of lost

Atlantis. How the case came to float up through the fathoms of water

which cover the forgotten land, he does not venture to offer a theory.

He is sure that somewhere in the ghost-ridden mazes of the African

jungles the mummy has been enthroned as a god, and, inspired by the

dead thing, the black warriors are gathering for a wholesale massacre.

He believes, also, that some crafty Moslem is the direct moving power

of the threatened rebellion."



Gordon ceased and looked up at me.



"Mummies seem to weave a weird dance through the warp of the

tale," he said. "The German scientist took several pictures of the

mummy with his camera, and it was after seeing these--which strangely

enough were not stolen along with the thing--that Major Morley began

to think himself on the brink of some monstrous discovery. His diary

reflects his state of mind and becomes incoherent--his condition seems

to have bordered on insanity. What did he learn to unbalance him so?

Do you suppose that the mesmeric spells of Kathulos were used against

him?"



"These pictures--" I began.



"They fell into Schuyler's hands and he gave one to Morley. I

found it among the manuscripts."



He handed the thing to me, watching me narrowly. I stared, then

rose unsteadily and poured myself a tumbler of wine.



'"Not a dead idol in a voodoo hut," I said shakily, "but a monster

animated by fearsome life, roaming the world for victims. Morley had

seen the Master--that is why his brain crumbled. Gordon, as I hope to

live again, _that face is the face of Kathulos_!"



Gordon stared wordlessly at me.



"The Master hand, Gordon," I laughed. A certain grim enjoyment

penetrated the mists of my horror, at the sight of the steel-nerved

Englishman struck speechless, doubtless for the first time in his

life.



He moistened his lips and said in a scarcely recognizable voice,

"Then, in God's name, Costigan, nothing is stable or certain, and

mankind hovers at the brink of untold abysses of nameless horror. If

that dead monster found by Von Lorfmon be in truth the Scorpion,

brought to life in some hideous fashion, what can mortal effort do

against him?"



"The mummy at Kamonos'--" I began.



"Aye, the man whose flesh, hardened by a thousand years of non-

existence--that must have been Kathulos himself! He would have just

had time to strip, wrap himself in the linens and step into the case

before we entered. You remember that the case, leaning upright against

the wall, stood partly concealed by a large Burmese idol, which

obstructed our view and doubtless gave him time to accomplish his

purpose. My God, Costigan, with what horror of the prehistoric world

are we dealing?"



"I have heard of Hindu fakirs who could induce a condition closely

resembling death," I began. "Is it not possible that Kathulos, a

shrewd and crafty Oriental, could have placed himself in this state

and his followers have placed the case in the ocean where it was sure

to be found? And might not he have been in this shape tonight at

Kamonos'?"



Gordon shook his head.



"No, I have seen these fakirs. None of them ever feigned death to

the extent of becoming shriveled and hard--in a word, dried up.

Morley, narrating in another place the description of the mummy-case

as jotted down by Von Lorfmon and passed on to Schuyler, mentions the

fact that large portions of seaweed adhered to it--seaweed of a kind

found only at great depths, on the bottom of the ocean. The wood, too,

was of a kind which Von Lorfmon failed to recognize or to classify, in

spite of the fact that he was one of the greatest living authorities

on flora. And his notes again and again emphasize the enormous age of

the thing. He admitted that there was no way of telling how old the

mummy was, but his hints intimate that he believed it to be, not

thousands of years old, but millions of years!



"No. We must face the facts. Since you are positive that the

picture of the mummy is the picture of Kathulos--and there is little

room for fraud--one of two things is practically certain: the Scorpion

was never dead but ages ago was placed in that mummy-case and his life

preserved in some manner, or else--he was dead and has been brought to

life! Either of these theories, viewed in the cold light of reason, is

absolutely untenable. Are we all insane?"



"Had you ever walked the road to hashish land," I said somberly,

"you could believe anything to be true. Had you ever gazed into the

terrible reptilian eyes of Kathulos the sorcerer, you would not doubt

that he was both dead and alive."



Gordon gazed out the window, his fine face haggard in the gray

light which had begun to steal through them.



"At any rate," said he, "there are two places which I intend

exploring thoroughly before the sun rises again--Kamonos' antique shop

and Soho 48."







Chapter 18. The Grip of the Scorpion







_"While from a proud tower in the town_



_Death looks gigantically down."_



   --Poe



Hansen snored on the bed as I paced the room. Another day had

passed over London and again the street lamps glimmered through the

fog. Their lights affected me strangely. They seemed to beat, solid

waves of energy, against my brain. They twisted the fog into strange

sinister shapes. Footlights of the stage that is the streets of

London, how many grisly scenes had they lighted? I pressed my hands

hard against my throbbing temples, striving to bring my thoughts back

from the chaotic labyrinth where they wandered.



Gordon I had not seen since dawn. Following the clue of "Soho 48"

he had gone forth to arrange a raid upon the place and he thought it

best that I should remain under cover. He anticipated an attempt upon

my life, and again he feared that if I went searching among the dives

I formerly frequented it would arouse suspicion.



Hansen snored on. I seated myself and began to study the Turkish

shoes which clothed my feet. Zuleika had worn Turkish slippers--how

she floated through my waking dreams, gilding prosaic things with her

witchery! Her face smiled at me from the fog; her eyes shone from the

flickering lamps; her phantom footfalls re-echoed through the misty

chambers of my skull.



They beat an endless tattoo, luring and haunting till it seemed

that these echoes found echoes in the hallway outside the room where I

stood, soft and stealthy. A sudden rap at the door and I started.



Hansen slept on as I crossed the room and flung the door swiftly

open. A swirling wisp of fog had invaded the corridor, and through it,

like a silver veil, I saw her--Zuleika stood before me with her

shimmering hair and her red lips parted and her great dark eyes.



Like a speechless fool I stood and she glanced quickly down the

hallway and then stepped inside and closed the door.



"Gordon!" she whispered in a thrilling undertone. "Your friend!

The Scorpion has him!"



Hansen had awakened and now sat gaping stupidly at the strange

scene which met his eyes.



Zuleika did not heed him.



"And oh, Steephen!" she cried, and tears shone in her eyes, "I

have tried so hard to secure some more elixir but I could not."



"Never mind that," I finally found my speech. '"Tell me about

Gordon."



"He went back to Kamonos' alone, and Hassim and Ganra Singh took

him captive and brought him to the Master's house. Tonight assemble a

great host of the people of the Scorpion for the sacrifice."



"Sacrifice!" A grisly thrill of horror coursed down my spine. Was

there no limit to the ghastliness of this business?



"Quick, Zuleika, where is this house of the Master's?"



"Soho, 48. You must summon the police and send many men to

surround it, but you must not go yourself--"



Hansen sprang up quivering for action, but I turned to him. My

brain was clear now, or seemed to be, and racing unnaturally.



"Wait!" I turned back to Zuleika. "When is this sacrifice to take

place?"



"At the rising of the moon."



"That is only a few hours before dawn. Time to save him, but if we

raid the house they'll kill him before we can reach them. And God only

knows how many diabolical things guard all approaches."



"I do not know," Zuleika whimpered. "I must go now, or the Master

will kill me."



Something gave way in my brain at that; something like a flood of

wild and terrible exultation swept over me.



"The Master will kill no one!" I shouted, flinging my arms on

high. "Before ever the east turns red for dawn, the Master dies! By

all things holy and unholy I swear it!"



Hansen stared wildly at me and Zuleika shrank back as I turned on

her. To my dope-inspired brain had come a sudden burst of light, true

and unerring. I knew Kathulos was a mesmerist--that he understood

fully the secret of dominating another's mind and soul. And I knew

that at last I had hit upon the reason of his power over the girl.

Mesmerism! As a snake fascinates and draws to him a bird, so the

Master held Zuleika to him with unseen shackles. So absolute was his

rule over her that it held even when she was out of his sight, working

over great distances.



There was but one thing which would break that hold: the magnetic

power of some other person whose control was stronger with her than

Kathulos'. I laid my hands on her slim little shoulders and made her

face me.



"Zuleika," I said commandingly, "here you are safe; you shall not

return to Kathulos. There is no need of it. Now you are free."



But I knew I had failed before I ever started. Her eyes held a

look of amazed, unreasoning fear and she twisted timidly in my grasp.



"Steephen, please let me go!" she begged. "I must--I must!"



I drew her over to the bed and asked Hansen for his handcuffs. He

handed them to me, wonderingly, and I fastened one cuff to the bedpost

and the other to her slim wrist. The girl whimpered but made no

resistance, her limpid eyes seeking mine in mute appeal.



It cut me to the quick to enforce my will upon her in this

apparently brutal manner but I steeled myself.



"Zuleika," I said tenderly, "you are now my prisoner. The Scorpion

cannot blame you for not returning to him when you are unable to do

so--and before dawn you shall be free of his rule entirely."



I turned to Hansen and spoke in a tone which admitted of no

argument.



"Remain here, just without the door, until I return. On no account

allow any strangers to enter--that is, anyone whom you do not

personally know. And I charge you, on your honor as a man, do not

release this girl, no matter what she may say. If neither I nor Gordon

have returned by ten o'clock tomorrow, take her to this address--that

family once was friends of mine and will take care of a homeless girl.

I am going to Scotland Yard."



"Steephen," Zuleika wailed, "you are going to the Master's lair!

You will be killed. Send the police, do not go!"



I bent, drew her into my arms, felt her lips against mine, then

tore myself away.



The fog plucked at me with ghostly fingers, cold as the hands of

dead men, as I raced down the street. I had no plan, but one was

forming in my mind, beginning to seethe in the stimulated cauldron

that was my brain. I halted at the sight of a policeman pacing his

beat, and beckoning him to me, scribbled a terse note on a piece of

paper torn from a notebook and handed it to him.



"Get this to Scotland Yard; it's a matter of life and death and it

has to do with the business of John Gordon."



At that name, a gloved hand came up in swift assent, but his

assurance of haste died out behind me as I renewed my flight. The note

stated briefly that Gordon was a prisoner at Soho 48 and advised an

immediate raid in force--advised, nay, in Gordon's name, commanded it.



My reason for my actions was simple; I knew that the first noise

of the raid sealed John Gordon's doom. Somehow I first must reach him

and protect or free him before the police arrived.



The time seemed endless, but at last the grim gaunt outlines of

the house that was Soho 48 rose up before me, a giant ghost in the

fog. The hour grew late; few people dared the mists and the dampness

as I came to a halt in the street before this forbidding building. No

lights showed from the windows, either upstairs or down. It seemed

deserted. But the lair of the scorpion often seems deserted until the

silent death strikes suddenly.



Here I halted and a wild thought struck me. One way or another,

the drama would be over by dawn. Tonight was the climax of my career,

the ultimate top of life. Tonight I was the strongest link in the

strange chain of events. Tomorrow it would not matter whether I lived

or died. I drew the flask of elixir from my pocket and gazed at it.

Enough for two more days if properly eked out. Two more days of life!

Or--I needed stimulation as I never needed it before; the task in

front of me was one no mere human could hope to accomplish. If I drank

the entire remainder of the elixir, I had no idea as to the duration

of its effect, but it would last the night through. And my legs were

shaky; my mind had curious periods of utter vacuity; weakness of brain

and body assailed me. I raised the flask and with one draft drained

it.



For an instant I thought it was death. Never had I taken such an

amount.



Sky and world reeled and I felt as if I would fly into a million

vibrating fragments, like the bursting of a globe of brittle steel.

Like fire, like hell-fire the elixir raced along my veins and I was a

giant! A monster! A superman!



Turning, I strode to the menacing, shadowy doorway. I had no plan;

I felt the need of none. As a drunken man walks blithely into danger,

I strode to the lair of the Scorpion, magnificently aware of my

superiority, imperially confident of my stimulation and sure as the

unchanging stars that the way would open before me.



Oh, there never was a superman like that who knocked commandingly

on the door of Soho 48 that night in the rain and the fog!



I knocked four times, the old signal that we slaves had used to be

admitted into the idol room at Yun Shatu's. An aperture opened in the

center of the door and slanted eyes looked warily out. They slightly

widened as the owner recognized me, then narrowed wickedly.



"You fool!" I said angrily. "Don't you see the mark?"



I held my hand to the aperture.



"Don't you recognize me? Let me in, curse you."



I think the very boldness of the trick made for its success.

Surely by now all the Scorpion's slaves knew of Stephen Costigan's

rebellion, knew that he was marked for death. And the very fact that I

came there, inviting doom, confused the doorman.



The door opened and I entered. The man who had admitted me was a

tall, lank Chinaman I had known as a servant at Kathulos. He closed

the door behind me and I saw we stood in a sort of vestibule, lighted

by a dim lamp whose glow could not be seen from the street for the

reason that the windows were heavily curtained. The Chinaman glowered

at me undecided. I looked at him, tensed. Then suspicion flared in his

eyes and his hand flew to his sleeve. But at the instant I was on him

and his lean neck broke like a rotten bough between my hands.



I eased his corpse to the thickly carpeted floor and listened. No

sound broke the silence. Stepping as stealthily as a wolf, fingers

spread like talons, I stole into the next room. This was furnished in

oriental style, with couches and rugs and gold-worked drapery, but was

empty of human life. I crossed it and went into the next one. Light

flowed softly from the censers which were swung from the ceiling, and

the Eastern rugs deadened the sound of my footfalls; I seemed to be

moving through a castle of enchantment.



Every moment I expected a rush of silent assassins from the

doorways or from behind the curtains or screen with their writhing

dragons. Utter silence reigned. Room after room I explored and at last

halted at the foot of the stairs. The inevitable censer shed an

uncertain light, but most of the stairs were veiled in shadows. What

horrors awaited me above?



But fear and the elixir are strangers and I mounted that stair of

lurking terror as boldly as I had entered that house of terror. The

upper rooms I found to be much like those below and with them they had

this fact in common: they were empty of human life. I sought an attic

but there seemed no door letting into one. Returning to the first

floor, I made a search for an entrance into the basement, but again my

efforts were fruitless. The amazing truth was borne in upon me: except

for myself and that dead man who lay sprawled so grotesquely in the

outer vestibule, there were no men in that house, dead or living.



I could not understand it. Had the house been bare of furniture I

should have reached the natural conclusion that Kathulos had fled--but

no signs of flight met my eye. This was unnatural, uncanny. I stood in

the great shadowy library and pondered. No, I had made no mistake in

the house. Even if the broken corpse in the vestibule were not there

to furnish mute testimony, everything in the room pointed toward the

presence of the Master. There were the artificial palms, the lacquered

screens, the tapestries, even the idol, though now no incense smoke

rose before it. About the walls were ranged long shelves of books,

bound in strange and costly fashion--books in every language in the

world, I found from a swift examination, and on every subject--outre

and bizarre, most of them.



Remembering the secret passage in the Temple of Dreams, I

investigated the heavy mahogany table which stood in the center of the

room. Bur nothing resulted. A sudden blaze of fury surged up in me,

primitive and unreasoning. I snatched a statuette from the table and

dashed it against the shelf-covered wall. The noise of its breaking

would surely bring the gang from their hiding-place. But the result

was much more startling than that!



The statuette struck the edge of a shelf and instantly the whole

section of shelves with their load of books swung silently outward,

revealing a narrow doorway! As in the other secret door, a row of

steps led downward. At another time I would have shuddered at the

thought of descending, with the horrors of the other tunnel fresh in

my mind, but inflamed as I was by the elixir, I strode forward without

an instant's hesitancy.



Since there was no one in the house, they must be somewhere in the

tunnel or in whatever lair to which the tunnel led. I stepped through

the doorway, leaving the door open; the police might find it that way

and follow me, though somehow I felt as if mine would be a lone hand

from start to grim finish.



I went down a considerable distance and then the stair debouched

into a level corridor some twenty feet wide--a remarkable thing. In

spite of the width, the ceiling was rather low and from it hung small,

curiously shaped lamps which flung a dim light. I stalked hurriedly

along the corridor like old Death seeking victims, and as I went I

noted the work of the thing. The floor was of great broad flags and

the walls seemed to be of huge blocks of evenly set stone. This

passage was clearly no work of modern days; the slaves of Kathulos

never tunneled there. Some secret way of medieval times, I thought--

and after all, who knows what catacombs lie below London, whose

secrets are greater and darker than those of Babylon and Rome?



On and on I went, and now I knew that I must be far below the

earth. The air was dank and heavy, and cold moisture dripped from the

stones of walls and ceiling. From time to time I saw smaller passages

leading away in the darkness but I determined to keep to the larger

main one.



A ferocious impatience gripped me. I seemed to have been walking

for hours and still only dank damp walls and bare flags and guttering

lamps met my eyes. I kept a close watch for sinister-appearing chests

or the like--saw no such things.



Then as I was about to burst into savage curses, another stair

loomed up in the shadows in front of me.







Chapter 19. Dark Fury







_"The ringed wolf glared the circle round_



_Through baleful, blue-lit eye,_



Not unforgetful of his debt.



Quoth he, 'I'll do some damage yet



_Or ere my turn to die!'"_



   --Mundy



Like a lean wolf I glided up the stairs. Some twenty feet up there

was a sort of landing from which other corridors diverged, much like

the lower one by which I had come. The thought came to me that the

earth below London must be honeycombed with such secret passages, one

above the other.



Some feet above this landing the steps halted at a door, and here

I hesitated, uncertain as to whether I should chance knocking or not.

Even as I meditated, the door began to open. I shrank back against the

wall, flattening myself out as much as possible. The door swung wide

and a Moor came through. Only a glimpse I had of the room beyond, out

of the corner of my eye, but my unnaturally alert senses registered

the fact that the room was empty.



And on the instant, before be could turn, I smote the Moor a

single deathly blow behind the angle of the jawbone and be toppled

headlong down the stairs, to lie in a crumpled heap on the landing,

his limbs tossed grotesquely about.



My left hand caught the door as it started to slam shut and in an

instant I was through and standing in the room beyond. As I had

thought, there was no occupant of this room. I crossed it swiftly and

entered the next. These rooms were furnished in a manner before which

the furnishings of the Soho house paled into insignificance. Barbaric,

terrible, unholy--these words alone convey some slight idea of the

ghastly sights which met my eyes. Skulls, bones and complete skeletons

formed much of the decorations, if such they were. Mummies leered from

their cases and mounted reptiles ranged the walls. Between these

sinister relics hung African shields of hide and bamboo, crossed with

assagais and war daggers. Here and there reared obscene idols, black

and horrible.



And in between and scattered about among these evidences of

savagery and barbarism were vases, screens, rugs and hangings of the

highest oriental workmanship; a strange and incongruous effect.



I had passed through two of these rooms without seeing a human

being, when I came to stairs leading upward. Up these I went, several

flights, until I came to a door in a ceiling. I wondered if I was

still under the earth. Surely the first stairs had let into a house of

some sort. I raised the door cautiously. Starlight met my eyes and I

drew myself warily up and out. There I halted. A broad flat roof

stretched away on all sides and beyond its rim on all sides glimmered

the lights of London. Just what building I was on, I had no idea, but

that it was a tall one I could tell, for I seemed to be above most of

the lights I saw. Then I saw that I was not alone.



Over against the shadows of the ledge that ran around the roof's

edge, a great menacing form bulked in starlight. A pair of eyes

glinted at me with a light not wholly sane; the starlight glanced

silver from a curving length of steel. Yar Khan the Afghan killer

fronted me in the silent shadows.



A fierce wild exultation surged over me. Now I could begin to pay

the debt I owed Kathulos and all his hellish band! The dope fired my

veins and sent waves of inhuman power and dark fury through me. A

spring and I was on my feet in a silent, deathly rush.



Yar Khan was a giant, taller and bulkier than I. He held a tulwar,

and from the instant I saw him I knew that he was full of the dope to

the use of which he was addicted--heroin.



As I came in he swung his heavy weapon high in the air, but ere he

could strike I seized his sword wrist in an iron grip and with my free

hand drove smashing blows into his midriff.



Of that hideous battle, fought in silence above the sleeping city

with only the stars to see, I remember little. I remember tumbling

back and forth, locked in a death embrace. I remember the stiff beard

rasping my flesh as his dope-fired eyes gazed wildly into mine. I

remember the taste of hot blood in my mouth, the tang of fearful

exultation in my soul, the onrushing and upsurging of inhuman strength

and fury.



God, what a sight for a human eye, had anyone looked upon that

grim roof where two human leopards, dope maniacs, tore each other to

pieces!



I remember his arm breaking like rotten wood in my grip and the

tulwar falling from his useless hand. Handicapped by a broken arm, the

end was inevitable, and with one wild uproaring flood of might, I

rushed him to the edge of the roof and bent him backward far out over

the ledge. An instant we struggled there; then I tore loose his hold

and hurled him over, and one single shriek came up as he hurtled into

the darkness below.



I stood upright, arms hurled up toward the stars, a terrible

statue of primordial triumph. And down my breast trickled streams of

blood from the long wounds left by the Afghan's frantic nails, on neck

and face.



Then I turned with the craft of the maniac. Had no one heard the

sound of that battle? My eyes were on the door through which I had

come, but a noise made me turn, and for the first time I noticed a

small affair like a tower jutting up from the roof. There was no

window there, but there was a door, and even as I looked that door

opened and a huge black form framed itself in the light that streamed

from within. Hassim!



He stepped out on the roof and closed the door, his shoulders

hunched and neck outthrust as he glanced this way and that. I struck

him senseless to the roof with one hate-driven smash. I crouched over

him, waiting some sign of returning consciousness; then away in the

sky close to the horizon, I saw a faint red tint. The rising of the

moon!



Where in God's name was Gordon? Even as I stood undecided, a

strange noise reached me. It was curiously like the droning of many

bees.



Striding in the direction from which it seemed to come, I crossed

the roof and leaned over the ledge. A sight nightmarish and incredible

met my eyes.



Some twenty feet below the level of the roof on which I stood,

there was another roof, of the same size and clearly a part of the

same building. On one side it was bounded by the wall; on the other

three sides a parapet several feet high took the place of a ledge.



A great throng of people stood, sat and squatted, close-packed on

the roof--and without exception they were Negroes! There were hundreds

of them, and it was their low-voiced conversation which I had heard.

But what held my gaze was that upon which their eyes were fixed.



About the center of the roof rose a sort of teocalli some ten feet

high, almost exactly like those found in Mexico and on which the

priests of the Aztecs sacrificed human victims. This, allowing for its

infinitely smaller scale, was an exact type of those sacrificial

pyramids. On the flat top of it was a curiously carved altar, and

beside it stood a lank, dusky form whom even the ghastly mask he wore

could not disguise to my gaze--Santiago, the Haiti voodoo fetish man.

On the altar lay John Gordon, stripped to the waist and bound hand and

foot, but conscious.



I reeled back from the roof edge, rent in twain by indecision.

Even the stimulus of the elixir was not equal to this. Then a sound

brought me about to see Hassim struggling dizzily to his knees. I

reached him with two long strides and ruthlessly smashed him down

again. Then I noticed a queer sort of contrivance dangling from his

girdle. I bent and examined it. It was a mask similar to that worn by

Santiago. Then my mind leaped swift and sudden to a wild desperate

plan, which to my dope-ridden brain seemed not at all wild or

desperate. I stepped softly to the tower and, opening the door, peered

inward. I saw no one who might need to be silenced, but I saw a long

silken robe hanging upon a peg in the wall. The luck of the dope

fiend! I snatched it and closed the door again. Hassim showed no signs

of consciousness but I gave him another smash on the chin to make sure

and, seizing his mask, hurried to the ledge.



A low guttural chant floated up to me, jangling, barbaric, with an

undertone of maniacal blood-lust. The Negroes, men and women, were

swaying back and forth to the wild rhythm of their death chant. On the

teocalli Santiago stood like a statue of black basalt, facing the

east, dagger held high--a wild and terrible sight, naked as he was

save for a wide silken girdle and that inhuman mask on his face. The

moon thrust a red rim above the eastern horizon and a faint breeze

stirred the great black plumes which nodded above the voodoo man's

mask. The chant of the worshipers dropped to a low, sinister whisper.



I hurriedly slipped on the death mask, gathered the robe close

about me and prepared for the descent. I was prepared to drop the full

distance, being sure in the superb confidence of my insanity that I

would land unhurt, but as I climbed over the ledge I found a steel

ladder leading down. Evidently Hassim, one of the voodoo priests,

intended descending this way. So down I went, and in haste, for I knew

that the instant the moon's lower rim cleared the city's skyline, that

motionless dagger would descend into Gordon's breast.



Gathering the robe close about me so as to conceal my white skin,

I stepped down upon the roof and strode forward through rows of black

worshipers who shrank aside to let me through. To the foot of the

teocalli I stalked and up the stair that ran about it, until I stood

beside the death altar and marked the dark red stains upon it. Gordon

lay on his back, his eyes open, his face drawn and haggard, but his

gaze dauntless and unflinching.



Santiago's eyes blazed at me through the slits of his mask, but I

read no suspicion in his gaze until I reached forward and took the

dagger from his hand. He was too much astonished to resist, and the

black throng fell suddenly silent. That he saw my hand was not that of

a Negro it is certain, but he was simply struck speechless with

astonishment. Moving swiftly I cut Gordon's bonds and hauled him

erect. Then Santiago with a shriek leaped upon me--shrieked again and,

arms flung high, pitched headlong from the teocalli with his own

dagger buried to the hilt in his breast.



Then the black worshipers were on us with a screech and a roar--

leaping on the steps of the teocalli like black leopards in the

moonlight, knives flashing, eyes gleaming whitely.



I tore mask and robe from me and answered Gordon's exclamation

with a wild laugh. I had hoped that by virtue of my disguise I might

get us both safely away but now I was content to die there at his

side.



He tore a great metal ornament from the altar, and as the

attackers came he wielded this. A moment we held them at bay and then

they flowed over us like a black wave. This to me was Valhalla! Knives

stung me and blackjacks smashed against me, but I laughed and drove my

iron fists in straight, steam-hammer smashes that shattered flesh and

bone. I saw Gordon's crude weapon rise and fall, and each time a man

went down. Skulls shattered and blood splashed and the dark fury swept

over me. Nightmare faces swirled about me and I was on my knees; up

again and the faces crumpled before my blows. Through far mists I

seemed to hear a hideous familiar voice raised in imperious command.



Gordon was swept away from me but from the sounds I knew that the

work of death still went on. The stars reeled through fogs of blood,

but Hell's exaltation was on me and I reveled in the dark tides of

fury until a darker, deeper tide swept over me and I knew no more.







Chapter 20. Ancient Horror







_"Here now in his triumph where all things falter,_



_Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,_



_As a God self-slain on his own strange altar,_



_Death lies dead."_



   --Swinburne



Slowly I drifted back into life--slowly, slowly. A mist held me

and in the mist I saw a Skull--



I lay in a steel cage like a captive wolf, and the bars were too

strong, I saw, even for my strength. The cage seemed to be set in a

sort of niche in the wall and I was looking into a large room. This

room was under the earth, for the floor was of stone flags and the

walls and ceiling were composed of gigantic block of the same

material. Shelves ranged the walls, covered with weird appliances,

apparently of a scientific nature, and more were on the great table

that stood in the center of the room. Beside this sat Kathulos.



The sorcerer was clad in a snaky yellow robe, and those hideous

hands and that terrible head were more pronouncedly reptilian than

ever. He turned his great yellow eyes toward me, like pools of livid

fire, and his parchment-thin lips moved in what probably passed for a

smile.



I staggered erect and gripped the bars, cursing.



"Gordon, curse you, where is Gordon?"



Kathulos took a test-tube from the table, eyed it closely and

emptied it into another.



"Ah, my friend awakes," he murmured in his voice--the voice of a

living dead man.



He thrust his hands into his long sleeves and turned fully to me.



"I think in you," he said distinctly, "I have created a

Frankenstein monster. I made of you a superhuman creature to serve my

wishes and you broke from me. You are the bane of my might, worse than

Gordon even. You have killed valuable servants and interfered with my

plans. However, your evil comes to an end tonight. Your friend Gordon

broke away but he is being hunted through the tunnels and cannot

escape.



"You," he continued with the sincere interest of the scientist,

"are a most interesting subject. Your brain must be formed differently

from any other man that ever lived. I will make a close study of it

and add it to my laboratory. How a man, with the apparent need of the

elixir in his system, has managed to go on for two days still

stimulated by the last draft is more than I can understand."



My heart leaped. With all his wisdom, little Zuleika had tricked

him and he evidently did not know that she had filched a flask of the

life-giving stuff from him.



"The last draft you had from me," he went on, "was sufficient only

for some eight hours. I repeat, it has me puzzled. Can you offer any

suggestion?"



I snarled wordlessly. He sighed.



"As always the barbarian. Truly the proverb speaks: 'Jest with the

wounded tiger and warm the adder in your bosom before you seek to lift

the savage from his savagery.'"



He meditated awhile in silence. I watched him uneasily. There was

about him a vague and curious difference--his long fingers emerging

from the sleeves drummed on the chair arms and some hidden exultation

strummed at the back of his voice, lending it unaccustomed vibrancy.



"And you might have been a king of the new regime," he said

suddenly. "Aye, the new--new and inhumanly old!"



I shuddered as his dry cackling laugh rasped out.



He bent his head as if listening. From far off seemed to come a

hum of guttural voices. His lips writhed in a smile.



"My black children," he murmured. "They tear my enemy Gordon to

pieces in the tunnels. They, Mr. Costigan, are my real henchmen and it

was for their edification tonight that I laid John Gordon on the

sacrificial stone. I would have preferred to have made some

experiments with him, based on certain scientific theories, but my

children must be humored. Later under my tutelage they will outgrow

their childish superstitions and throw aside their foolish customs,

but now they must be led gently by the hand.



"How do you like these under-the-earth corridors, Mr. Costigan?"

he switched suddenly. "You thought of them--what? No doubt that the

white savages of your Middle Ages built them? Faugh! These tunnels are

older than your world! They were brought into being by mighty kings,

too many eons ago for your mind to grasp, when an imperial city

towered where this crude village of London stands. All trace of that

metropolis has crumbled to dust and vanished, but these corridors were

built by more than human skill--ha ha! Of all the teeming thousands

who move daily above them, none knows of their existence save my

servants--and not all of them. Zuleika, for instance, does not know of

them, for of late I have begun to doubt her loyalty and shall

doubtless soon make of her an example."



At that I hurled myself blindly against the side of the cage, a

red wave of hate and fury tossing me in its grip. I seized the bars

and strained until the veins stood out on my forehead and the muscles

bulged and crackled in my arms and shoulders. And the bars bent before

my onslaught--a little but no more, and finally the power flowed from

my limbs and I sank down trembling and weakened. Kathulos watched me

imperturbably.



"The bars hold," be announced with something almost like relief in

his tone. "Frankly, I prefer to be on the opposite side of them. You

are a human ape if there was ever one."



He laughed suddenly and wildly.



"But why do you seek to oppose me?" he shrieked unexpectedly. "Why

defy me, who am Kathulos, the Sorcerer, great even in the days of the

old empire? Today, invincible! A magician, a scientist, among ignorant

savages! Ha ha!"



I shuddered, and sudden blinding light broke in on me. Kathulos

himself was an addict, and was fired by the stuff of his choice! What

hellish concoction was strong enough, terrible enough to thrill the

Master and inflame him, I do not know, nor do I wish to know. Of all

the uncanny knowledge that was his, I, knowing the man as I did, count

this the most weird and grisly.



"You, you paltry fool!" he was ranting, his face lit

supernaturally.



"Know you who I am? Kathulos of Egypt! Bah! They knew me in the

old days! I reigned in the dim misty sea lands ages and ages before

the sea rose and engulfed the land. I died, not as men die; the magic

draft of life everlasting was ours! I drank deep and slept. Long I

slept in my lacquered case! My flesh withered and grew hard; my blood

dried in my veins. I became as one dead. But still within me burned

the spirit of life, sleeping but anticipating the awakening. The great

cities crumbled to dust. The sea drank the land. The tall shrines and

the lofty spires sank beneath the green waves. All this I knew as I

slept, as a man knows in dreams. Kathulos of Egypt? Faugh! _Kathulos

of Atlantis_!"



I uttered a sudden involuntary cry. This was too grisly for

sanity.



"Aye, the magician, the sorcerer.



"And down the long years of savagery, through which the barbaric

races struggled to rise without their masters, the legend came of the

day of empire, when one of the Old Race would rise up from the sea.

Aye, and lead to victory the black people who were our slaves in the

old days.



"These brown and yellow people, what care I for them? The blacks

were the slaves of my race, and I am their god today. They will obey

me. The yellow and the brown peoples are fools--I make them my tools

and the day will come when my black warriors will turn on them and

slay at my word. And you, you white barbarians, whose ape-ancestors

forever defied my race and me, your doom is at hand! And when I mount

my universal throne, the only whites shall be white slaves!



"The day came as prophesied, when my case, breaking free from the

halls where it lay--where it had lain when Atlantis was still

sovereign of the world--where since her empery it had sunk into the

green fathoms--when my case, I say, was smitten by the deep sea tides

and moved and stirred, and thrust aside the clinging seaweed that

masks temples and minarets, and came floating up past the lofty

sapphire and golden spires, up through the green waters, to float upon

the lazy waves of the sea.



"Then came a white fool carrying out the destiny of which he was

not aware. The men on his ship, true believers, knew that the time had

come. And I--the air entered my nostrils and I awoke from the long,

long sleep. I stirred and moved and lived. And rising in the night, I

slew the fool that had lifted me from the ocean, and my servants made

obeisance to me and took me into Africa, where I abode awhile and

learned new languages and new ways of a new world and became strong.



"The wisdom of your dreary world--ha ha! I who delved deeper in

the mysteries of the old than any man dared go! All that men know

today, I know, and the knowledge beside that which I have brought down

the centuries is as a grain of sand beside a mountain! You should know

something of that knowledge! By it I lifted you from one hell to

plunge you into a greater! You fool, here at my hand is that which

would lift you from this! Aye, would strike from you the chains

whereby I have bound you!"



He snatched up a golden vial and shook it before my gaze. I eyed

it as men dying in the desert must eye the distant mirages. Kathulos

fingered it meditatively. His unnatural excitement seemed to have

passed suddenly, and when he spoke again it was in the passionless,

measured tones of the scientist.



"That would indeed be an experiment worthwhile--to free you of the

elixir habit and see if your dope-riddled body would sustain life.

Nine times out of ten the victim, with the need and stimulus removed,

would die--but you are such a giant of a brute--"



He sighed and set the vial down.



"The dreamer opposes the man of destiny. My time is not my own or

I should choose to spend my life pent in my laboratories, carrying out

my experiments. But now, as in the days of the old empire when kings

sought my counsel, I must work and labor for the good of the race at

large. Aye, I must toil and sow the seed of glory against the full

coming of the imperial days when the seas give up all their living

dead."



I shuddered. Kathulos laughed wildly again. His fingers began to

drum his chair arms and his face gleamed with the unnatural light once

more. The red visions had begun to seethe in his skull again.



"Under the green seas they lie, the ancient masters, in their

lacquered cases, dead as men reckon death, but only sleeping. Sleeping

through the long ages as hours, awaiting the day of awakening! The old

masters, the wise men, who foresaw the day when the sea would gulp the

land, and who made ready. Made ready that they might rise again in the

barbaric days to come. As did I. Sleeping they lie, ancient kings and

grim wizards, who died as men die, before Atlantis sank. Who,

sleeping, sank with her but who shall arise again!



"Mine the glory! I rose first. And I sought out the site of old

cities, on shores that did not sink. Vanished, long vanished. The

barbarian tide swept over them thousands of years ago as the green

waters swept over their elder sister of the deeps. On some, the

deserts stretch bare. Over some, as here, young barbarian cities

rise."



He halted suddenly. His eyes sought one of the dark openings that

marked a corridor. I think his strange intuition warned him of some

impending danger but I do not believe that he had any inkling of how

dramatically our scene would be interrupted.



As he looked, swift footsteps sounded and a man appeared suddenly

in the doorway--a man disheveled, tattered and bloody. John Gordon!

Kathulos sprang erect with a cry, and Gordon, gasping as from

superhuman exertion, brought down the revolver he held in his hand and

fired point-blank. Kathulos staggered, clapping his hand to his

breast, and then, groping wildly, reeled to the wall and fell against

it. A doorway opened and he reeled through, but as Gordon leaped

fiercely across the chamber, a blank stone surface met his gaze, which

yielded not to his savage hammerings.



He whirled and ran drunkenly to the table where lay a bunch of

keys the Master had dropped there.



"The vial!" I shrieked. "Take the vial!" And he thrust it into his

pocket.



Back along the corridor through which he had come sounded a faint

clamor growing swiftly like a wolf-pack in full cry. A few precious

seconds spent with fumbling for the right key, then the cage door

swung open and I sprang out. A sight for the gods we were, the two of

us! Slashed, bruised and cut, our garments hanging in tatters--my

wounds had ceased to bleed, but now as I moved they began again, and

from the stiffness of my hands I knew that my knuckles were shattered.

As for Gordon, he was fairly drenched in blood from crown to foot.



We made off down a passage in the opposite direction from the

menacing noise, which I knew to be the black servants of the Master in

full pursuit of us. Neither of us was in good shape for running, but

we did our best. Where we were going I had no idea. My superhuman

strength had deserted me and I was going now on willpower alone. We

switched off into another corridor and we had not gone twenty steps

until, looking back, I saw the first of the black devils round the

corner.



A desperate effort increased our lead a trifle. But they had seen

us, were in full view now, and a yell of fury broke from them to be

succeeded by a more sinister silence as they bent all efforts to

overhauling us.



There a short distance in front of us we saw a stair loom suddenly

in the gloom. If we might reach that--but we saw something else.



Against the ceiling, between us and the stairs, hung a huge thing

like an iron grille, with great spikes along the bottom--a portcullis.

And even as we looked, without halting in our panting strides, it

began to move.



"They're lowering the portcullis!" Gordon croaked, his blood-

streaked face a mask of exhaustion and will.



Now the blacks were only ten feet behind us--now the huge grate,

gaining momentum, with a creak of rusty, unused mechanism, rushed

downward. A final spurt, a gasping straining nightmare of effort--and

Gordon, sweeping us both along in a wild burst of pure nerve-strength,

hurled us under and through, and the grate crashed behind us!



A moment we lay gasping, not heeding the frenzied horde who raved

and screamed on the other side of the grate. So close had that final

leap been, that the great spikes in their descent had torn shreds from

our clothing.



The blacks were thrusting at us with daggers through the bars, but

we were out of reach and it seemed to me that I was content to lie

there and die of exhaustion. But Gordon weaved unsteadily erect and

hauled me with him.



"Got to get out," he croaked; "go to warn--Scotland Yard--

honeycombs in heart of London--high explosives--arms--ammunition."



We blundered up the steps, and in front of us I seemed to hear a

sound of metal grating against metal. The stairs ended abruptly, on a

landing that terminated in a blank wall. Gordon hammered against this

and the inevitable secret doorway opened. Light streamed in, through

the bars of a sort of grille. Men in the uniform of London police were

sawing at these with hacksaws, and even as they greeted us, an opening

was made through which we crawled.



"You're hurt, sir!" One of the men took Gordon's arm.



My companion shook him off.



"There's no time to lose! Out of here, as quick as we can go!"



I saw that we were in a basement of some sort. We hastened up the

steps and out into the early dawn which was turning the east scarlet.

Over the tops of smaller houses I saw in the distance a great gaunt

building on the roof of which, I felt instinctively, that wild drama

had been enacted the night before.



"That building was leased some months ago by a mysterious

Chinaman," said Gordon, following my gaze. "Office building

originally--the neighborhood deteriorated and the building stood

vacant for some time. The new tenant added several stories to it but

left it apparently empty. Had my eye on it for some time."



This was told in Gordon's jerky swift manner as we started

hurriedly along the sidewalk. I listened mechanically, like a man in a

trance. My vitality was ebbing fast and I knew that I was going to

crumple at any moment.



"The people living in the vicinity had been reporting strange

sights and noises. The man who owned the basement we just left heard

queer sounds emanating from the wall of the basement and called the

police. About that time I was racing back and forth among those cursed

corridors like a hunted rat and I heard the police banging on the

wall. I found the secret door and opened it but found it barred by a

grating. It was while I was telling the astounded policemen to procure

a hacksaw that the pursuing Negroes, whom I had eluded for the moment,

came into sight and I was forced to shut the door and run for it

again. By pure luck I found you and by pure luck managed to find the

way back to the door.



"Now we must get to Scotland Yard. If we strike swiftly, we may

capture the entire band of devils. Whether I killed Kathulos or not I

do not know, or if he can be killed by mortal weapons. But to the best

of my knowledge all of them are now in those subterranean corridors

and--"



At that moment the world shook! A brain-shattering roar seemed to

break the sky with its incredible detonation; houses tottered and

crashed to ruins; a mighty pillar of smoke and flame burst from the

earth and on its wings great masses of debris soared skyward. A black

fog of smoke and dust and falling timbers enveloped the world, a

prolonged thunder seemed to rumble up from the center of the earth as

of walls and ceilings falling, and amid the uproar and the screaming I

sank down and knew no more.







Chapter 21. _The Breaking of the Chain_



_"And like a soul belated,_



_In heaven and hell unmated;_



_By cloud and mist abated;_



_Come out of darkness morn."_



   --Swinburne



There is little need to linger on the scenes of horror of that

terrible London morning. The world is familiar with and knows most of

the details attendant to the great explosion which wiped out a tenth

of that great city with a resultant loss of lives and property. For

such a happening some reason must needs be given; the tale of the

deserted building got out, and many wild stories were circulated.

Finally, to still the rumors, the report was unofficially given out

that this building had been the rendezvous and secret stronghold of a

gang of international anarchists, who had stored its basement full of

high explosives and who had supposedly ignited these accidentally. In

a way there was a good deal to this tale, as you know, but the threat

that had lurked there far transcended any anarchist.



All this was told to me, for when I sank unconscious, Gordon,

attributing my condition to exhaustion and a need of the hashish to

the use of which he thought I was addicted, lifted me and with the aid

of the stunned policemen got me to his rooms before returning to the

scene of the explosion. At his rooms he found Hansen, and Zuleika

handcuffed to the bed as I had left her. He released her and left her

to tend to me, for all London was in a terrible turmoil and he was

needed elsewhere.



When I came to myself at last, I looked up into her starry eyes

and lay quiet, smiling up at her. She sank down upon my bosom,

nestling my head in her arms and covering my face with her kisses.



"Steephen!" she sobbed over and over, as her tears splashed hot on

my face.



I was scarcely strong enough to put my arms about her but I

managed it, and we lay there for a space, in silence, except for the

girl's hard, racking sobs.



"Zuleika, I love you," I murmured.



"And I love you, Steephen," she sobbed. "Oh, it is so hard to part

now--but I'm going with you, Steephen; I can't live without you!"



"My dear child," said John Gordon, entering the room suddenly,

"Costigan's not going to die. We will let him have enough hashish to

tide him along, and when he is stronger we will take him off the habit

slowly."



"You don't understand, sahib; it is not hashish Steephen must

have. It is something which only the Master knew, and now that he is

dead or is fled, Steephen cannot get it and must die."



Gordon shot a quick, uncertain glance at me. His fine face was

drawn and haggard, his clothes sooty and torn from his work among the

debris of the explosion.



"She's right, Gordon," I said languidly. "I'm dying. Kathulos

killed the hashish-craving with a concoction he called the elixir.

I've been keeping myself alive on some of the stuff that Zuleika stole

from him and gave me, but I drank it all last night."



I was aware of no craving of any kind, no physical or mental

discomfort even. All my mechanism was slowing down fast; I had passed

the stage where the need of the elixir would tear and rend me. I felt

only a great lassitude and a desire to sleep. And I knew that the

moment I closed my eyes, I would die.



"A strange dope, that elixir," I said with growing languor. "It

burns and freezes and then at last the craving kills easily and

without torment."



"Costigan, curse it," said Gordon desperately, "you can't go like

this! That vial I took from the Egyptian's table--what is in it?"



"The Master swore it would free me of my curse and probably kill

me also," I muttered. "I'd forgotten about it. Let me have it; it can

no more than kill me and I'm dying now."



"Yes, quick, let me have it!" exclaimed Zuleika fiercely,

springing to Gordon's side, her hands passionately outstretched. She

returned with the vial which he had taken from his pocket, and knelt

beside me, holding it to my lips, while she murmured to me gently and

soothingly in her own language.



I drank, draining the vial, but feeling little interest in the

whole matter. My outlook was purely impersonal, at such a low ebb was

my life, and I cannot even remember how the stuff tasted. I only

remember feeling a curious sluggish fire burn faintly along my veins,

and the last thing I saw was Zuleika crouching over me, her great eyes

fixed with a burning intensity on me. Her tense little hand rested

inside her blouse, and remembering her vow to take her own life if I

died I tried to lift a hand and disarm her, tried to tell Gordon to

take away the dagger she had hidden in her garments. But speech and

action failed me and I drifted away into a curious sea of

unconsciousness.



Of that period I remember nothing. No sensation fired my sleeping

brain to such an extent as to bridge the gulf over which I drifted.

They say I lay like a dead man for hours, scarcely breathing, while

Zuleika hovered over me, never leaving my side an instant, and

fighting like a tigress when anyone tried to coax her away to rest.

Her chain was broken.



As I had carried the vision of her into that dim land of

nothingness, so her dear eyes were the first thing which greeted my

returning consciousness. I was aware of a greater weakness than I

thought possible for a man to feel, as if I had been an invalid for

months, but the life in me, faint though it was, was sound and normal,

caused by no artificial stimulation. I smiled up at my girl and

murmured weakly:



"Throw away your dagger, little Zuleika; I'm going to live."



She screamed and fell on her knees beside me, weeping and laughing

at the same time. Women are strange beings, of mixed and powerful

emotions, truly.



Gordon entered and grasped the hand which I could not lift from

the bed.



"You're a case for an ordinary human physician now, Costigan," he

said. "Even a layman like myself can tell that. For the first time

since I've known you, the look in your eyes is entirely sane. You look

like a man who has had a complete nervous breakdown, and needs about a

year of rest and quiet. Great heavens, man, you've been through

enough, outside your dope experience, to last you a lifetime."



"Tell me first," said I, "was Kathulos killed in the explosion?"



"I don't know," answered Gordon somberly. "Apparently the entire

system of subterranean passages was destroyed. I know my last bullet--

the last bullet that was in the revolver which I wrested from one of

my attackers--found its mark in the Master's body, but whether he died

from the wound, or whether a bullet can hurt him, I do not know. And

whether in his death agonies he ignited the tons and tons of high

explosives which were stored in the corridors, or whether the Negroes

did it unintentionally, we shall never know.



"My God, Costigan, did you ever see such a honeycomb? And we know

not how many miles in either direction the passages reached. Even now

Scotland Yard men are combing the subways and basements of the town

for secret openings. All known openings, such as the one through which

we came and the one in Soho 48, were blocked by falling walls. The

office building was simply blown to atoms."



"What about the men who raided Soho 48?"



"The door in the library wall had been closed. They found the

Chinaman you killed, but searched the house without avail. Lucky for

them, too, else they had doubtless been in the tunnels when the

explosion came, and perished with the hundreds of Negroes who must

have died then."



"Every Negro in London must have been there."



"I dare say. Most of them are voodoo worshipers at heart and the

power the Master wielded was incredible. They died, but what of him?

Was he blown to atoms by the stuff which he had secretly stored, or

crushed when the stone walls crumbled and the ceilings came thundering

down?"



"There is no way to search among those subterranean ruins, I

suppose?"



"None whatever. When the walls caved in, the tons of earth upheld

by the ceilings also came crashing down, filling the corridors with

dirt and broken stone, blocking them forever. And on the surface of

the earth, the houses which the vibration shook down were heaped high

in utter ruins. What happened in those terrible corridors must remain

forever a mystery."



My tale draws to a close. The months that followed passed

uneventfully, except for the growing happiness which to me was

paradise, but which would bore you were I to relate it. But one day

Gordon and I again discussed the mysterious happenings that had had

their being under the grim hand of the Master.



"Since that day," said Gordon, "the world has been quiet. Africa

has subsided and the East seems to have returned to her ancient sleep.

There can be but one answer--living or dead, Kathulos was destroyed

that morning when his world crashed about him."



"Gordon," said I, "what is the answer to that greatest of all

mysteries?"



My friend shrugged his shoulders.



"I have come to believe that mankind eternally hovers on the

brinks of secret oceans of which it knows nothing. Races have lived

and vanished before our race rose out of the slime of the primitive,

and it is likely still others will live upon the earth after ours has

vanished. Scientists have long upheld the theory that the Atlanteans

possessed a higher civilization than our own, and on very different

lines. Certainly Kathulos himself was proof that our boasted culture

and knowledge were nothing beside that of whatever fearful

civilization produced him.



"His dealings with you alone have puzzled all the scientific

world, for none of them has been able to explain how he could remove

the hashish craving, stimulate you with a drug so infinitely more

powerful, and then produce another drug which entirely effaced the

effects of the other."



"I have him to thank for two things," I said slowly; "the

regaining of my lost manhood--and Zuleika. Kathulos, then, is dead, as

far as any mortal thing can die. But what of those others--those

'ancient masters' who still sleep in the sea?"



Gordon shuddered.



"As I said, perhaps mankind loiters on the brink of unthinkable

chasms of horror. But a fleet of gunboats is even now patrolling the

oceans unobtrusively, with orders to destroy instantly any strange

case that may be found floating--to destroy it and its contents. And

if my word has any weight with the English government and the nations

of the world, the seas will be so patrolled until doomsday shall let

down the curtain on the races of today."



"At night I dream of them, sometimes," I muttered, "sleeping in

their lacquered cases, which drip with strange seaweed, far down among

the green surges--where unholy spires and strange towers rise in the

dark ocean."



"We have been face to face with an ancient horror," said Gordon

somberly, "with a fear too dark and mysterious for the human brain to

cope with. Fortune has been with us; she may not again favor the sons

of men. It is best that we be ever on our guard. The universe was not

made for humanity alone; life takes strange phases and it is the first

instinct of nature for the different species to destroy each other. No

doubt we seemed as horrible to the Master as he did to us. We have

scarcely tapped the chest of secrets which nature has stored, and I

shudder to think of what that chest may hold for the human race."



"That's true," said I, inwardly rejoicing at the vigor which was

beginning to course through my wasted veins, "but men will meet

obstacles as they come, as men have always risen to meet them. Now, I

am beginning to know the full worth of life and love, and not all the

devils from all the abysses can hold me."



Gordon smiled.



"You have it coming to you, old comrade. The best thing is to

forget all that dark interlude, for in that course lies light and

happiness."







THE END