Page:Weird Tales Volume 02 Number 2 (1937-02).djvu/104

 instinctive knowledge of his heart, that his father had never ceased to hate him, and never would.

Now, he thought, I must be calm, and figure a way out! His trembling fingers locked together, he stood in the center of the tomb; dark in a corner of his brain, like a beast that would slay him, waited panic. Unaware that he was gnawing his knuckles, panting like a dog, he faced what it was he had to face—no one except Mrs. Briggs knew he was at the estate, and he had told her he was not staying. No matter what happened, it would be two weeks before she would be back. And by that time

With a gasp, he snatched up the broken prie-dieu, and one by one, battered at the windows until the floor was littered with shattered glass and the prayer-bench nothing but a few sticks of splintered wood in his hands. The steel shutters, hardly marred, had not yielded an inch. Reduced to his bare hands, he smashed at the steel foolishly with his fists, stopping at last only when his knuckles were bloodied and pain shot up his arms.

For a long while then, he stumbled blindly about the mausoleum, seeking like a trapped and terrified animal, a way out, stopping now and then to cry for help, his voice thrown back at him torn and distorted by the hollow echoing dome, until at last he returned to the center of the mausoleum and stood there, trembling. His underclothing was soaked with sweat. Just beyond waited the panic he had feared; he was very thirsty and the pain in his injured hands was almost intolerable.

And then, with a nip of terror about his heart, he saw that it was growing darker in the small rounded room; the oil in the lantern had almost run out. In the silence above his hoarse gasping breath, he could hear the mild sputtering of the drying wick as it sought for oil in the empty reservoir. How softly and gently the light faded, how softly and patiently the shadows advanced from the dark corners, an inch at a time! He had knocked into and upset the case of jewels a moment ago. Spilled everywhere upon the floor, the fire of them was diminishing and fading too, as though they had no life away from light, and now lay dying.

Awaiting the terror of darkness, his legs gave way beneath him, and he sank to the littered floor, his breath coming and going weakly at his lips. Did that small sound of sobbing come from his lips too? His eyes, turning desperately, yet once more, before the last moment when he could see nothing, came to rest upon the still face of the body in the casket.

The meaning of the smile upon those sunken waxen lips was plain to him now. The very last light in the darkening room seemed to linger upon that bitterly mocking grin of triumph.

The blue bubble dancing upon the wick faded, faded—and the dark came down.