Page:Weird Tales Volume 13 Number 06 (1929-06).djvu/129

 queries floating in his mind. Was Hi Ling sane? For that matter, was he sane himself?

All through the night he sat at the door of the house of Hi Ling. He could not sleep. His brain was a cauldron of seething, fantastic thoughts. He was on the roof of the world. Much could he see that was invisible to the millions of people down in the valleys of Earth. The sky was as brilliant as a diamond-studded crown. It bore down upon him, crushing him beneath the weight of its splendor. He was breathing hard. The air was so rarefied that even in the night he could see for miles about him. From the jagged mountain peaks came the constant din and babble of the winds. On up they came from the valleys on a constant trail that is very old—nobody knows how old.

During the days that followed John Steppling felt as if he were living in a dream. The house, the moon-lantern, Hi Ling, all seemed but wraiths in a rather pleasant sleep. Hi Ling took his continued presence as a matter of course. Every night before they supped, Hi Ling opened the massive windows of the room of the jade vase, and the winds came tumbling through. Night after night the selfsame happenings were repeated and yet they never seemed to grow monotonous. Hi Ling endeavored to teach him the art of listening, but his efforts were in vain.

night, as Hi Ling opened the windows, the blast that drove in was so intense that it shook the house as if it had been on rockers. It bellowed and roared like a lion with a thorn in its foot. By comparison, the other winds which had drifted through seemed to possess much culture. The moon-lantern swayed perilously.

Hi Ling seized Steppling's arm. His face was more cadaverous and drawn than ever. His fingers bit into the flesh like talons.

"It is the Wind," he muttered hoarsely.

How can one describe the events that followed? Hi Ling seemed to have gone stark mad. He pranced about the room with as much agility as an ape in a jungle swamp. His mouth was drawn back until his decayed yellow teeth showed like fangs. All the while he chanted a wild, weird refrain which occasionally rose above the howling of "The Wind that Tramps the World."

Involuntarily John Steppling shrank back into the shadows of the farthest corner of the room. He shivered. He was gripped by a crushing fear, which he could not shake from him. He knew that events of great portent in the life of Hi Ling were about to happen. For forty years Hi Ling had waited for this moment.

Fascinated, Steppling watched the actions of the old Chinaman. At times Hi Ling gyrated like a whirling dervish. Sometimes he sprang into the air as if clutching the moon-lantern. Froth foamed horribly in the corners of his lips.

As the actions of Hi Ling grew more fanatical, the intensity of the Wind increased. It struck against the ears like something solid. And all the time Steppling listened intently, more intently than he had ever listened before. He thought he heard the sound of singing, in a voice sweet-low and sadder than the autumautumn [sic] breeze through the tree-tops. He strained every effort. His heart even slowed down to catch the melody, so superb was its beauty. At first he imagined that his ears were at fault, that the beautiful notes existed only in his subconscious mind, but even as the thought occurred to him, he banished it. A sound so beautiful could not be buried in his subconsciousness, for never in his life had he heard music