Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 4 (1927-10).djvu/18

 barely long enough to gasp, audibly, so that others as well as myself heard him: "The—Devil"

Truly, I knew myself the beloved of Hesperus!

the tragic episode broke up the ball. It was then just a few minutes past midnight, and naturally, all the guests went to their respective homes. I, however, had no intention of losing any sleep beeause of the regrettable circumstance. Wherefore, by 1:30 I was in my bed and sound asleep. But before 2:30 I was once more wide awake. Moved by an impulse I did not pause to analyze, I arose, donned a light kimono and slipped from my room to that empty chamber wherein I was accustomed to perform my strange and unhallowed practises.

Deliberately I caused the mystic lamps to ignite, and equally deliberately I refrained from drawing the protecting lines of the mighty ring "Pass Not", although I knew full well that unless I stood in the center of the potent dodecagon formed by the interlaced triangles, there would be no protection or safety for my spirit from the Haters who Haunt.

Yet I, in my arrogance, ignored that awful danger. It was well enough for lesser souls, I thought, contemptuously, to take all due precautions; but for me they were superfluous, puerile.

Was not I the beloved of the great Hesperus? Most assuredly, yes! Then what lesser powers dared molest me, when to do so would be to incur die full wrath of their puissant Overlord, whose terrific vengeance could nowise be escaped or averted?

Even more rashly, that I might omit no single detail which could aid in filling my cup of folly brimful and running over; after I had cast aside my earthly habiliments, with the exception of that wondrous necklace of ruby-colored, bleeding stone human hearts, I once more voiced that same incantation that had first brought my Dark Angel to my presence.

I had not uttered a third of the spell ere he arrived! And wondrous power that was his, for one moment he was a mighty spirit, devoid of material substance; and the next moment, his was a form as solid as my own, into whose arms I yielded myself! Our lips met—and in the next instant—I was in the halls of hell!

Nor have I ever seen that body which was Lura Veyle since!

But I presume that they—my relatives and friends—interred the inert form with appropriate ceremonials; and praised the departed soul; and mourned my loss, after the fashion of earth's dwellers.

I suppose I should have been either terror-stricken or else enraged, because of what had happened to me. But in truth I was neither angry nor frightened. I say it honestly—my sole reaction to that stupendous change was a certitude that I had reached home! For I actually felt thus. I had attained to my own proper place, my true environment!

To my added satisfaction I found that I was robed in splendor far surpassing the fairest dream of any earthly costumer. On my brow was a scintillant diadem of many-colored jewels. In my hand I was holding a scepter of gold, gem-studded, tipped with a great amethystine stone which was carven into a symbol strange to me; but which, I knew in some indefinable way, possessed in itself some very potent properties.

Obviously I was in a palace—the palace of Hesperus, Ruler of one of the realms of hell. Equally obviously, I was in a chamber which had been prepared against my coming, for it was virtually a duplicate of my own personal room back upon earth; excepting that the furnishings and fittings were of more splendid