Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/132

132 bidding of his terror-numbed mind.

"Mortain!" he choked at last. "Mon dieu! What are you doing here? How—that is," he faltered. "Have you come from Hell?"

Huge, ape-like, with a face that was at once foul and ugly, Mortain rose, grinning mockingly from the easy chair.

"I have come a long way, friend Perdeau, a very long way. I have searched a year to find you. Remember, I swore I would find you some day?"

Perdeau said nothing, his mouth suddenly too dry to speak,

"You thought me dead, eh, Perdeau?" Mortain continued. "You thought me dead on the Island of the Devil."

Perdeau gazed at him with the fascination of a rabbit for a coiling snake.

"But I did not die," Mortain said. "I lived; even after my release from that living hell of a prison, even as I served out an equal number of years as a libré, half-starving in the native filth. I lived on—knowing that someday I would find you."

Perdeau spoke at last, his voice a croak.

"What, what is it you seek from me, Mortain?"

Mortain smiled, relishing the other's fear.

"I am not certain as yet. I could kill you. Perhaps I shall. Certainly I should. But another idea had been in my mind. You have wealth and luxury. To one who has lived in hell as I have for those years, wealth and luxury are very tempting."

Perdeau sighed half audibly, the tight lines at the corners of his mouth relaxing somewhat.

"If it is money you want, I will give you plenty of it. But you must promise to go far away."

And then Mortain laughed; deep, bellowing, bullish. His voice was as harsh as the scraping of a saw on stone.

"If I promise to go far away," he mocked. "If I promise to go far away!"

Perdeau again grew pale.

"You cannot stay here!"

Mortain turned back to the bottle of Perdeau's finest whisky. He lifted it to his lips, scorning a tumbler, and drank deeply. He put it down, smacking his lips in satisfaction. He wiped his sleeve across his thick wet lips.

"I'm staying here," he declared. "I'm staying here as long as it pleases me."

ERDEAU edged back to a wall desk, and suddenly his hand darted into a drawer of the desk, jerking forth an automatic pistol which he trained instantly on Mortain.

"You are not staying," Perdeau said softly. "You are an intruder; for all anyone would know, a thief. I can kill you now. Your record on Devil's Island would bear out my story."

Mortain grinned twistedly.

"You think I am completely thick-witted, eh? You think I would come here without protecting myself from a threat such as this?"

"You are a fool," Perdeau's hand was steady on the automatic. "You are a fool and I am going to kill you."

Mortain's words came fast'

"A moment, consider! I have left papers with a certain priest. Papers that tell everything about you, about your past. I have left words that those papers be opened should anything happen to me. The priest knows that I have come here. If you want to feel the guillotine snicking off your stupid skull—" he left his sentence dangling meaningly, pig eyes gleaming as he saw fear returning to Perdeau's face.

"Do you think I believe that?" Perdeau said. But he lowered the gun slightly.

"You can hardly afford not to believe