Page:Weird Tales Volume 14 Issue 2 (1929-08).djvu/59

Rh feed. Crashing through the trees came a second gray terror and down came Tai Hoong in the arms of a great she-ape. In ten minutes they were joined by other apes, each bearing a human burden, and the screams of Brigham of Bristol were silenced by a blow of an ape's double fist which drew blood from his blue-mottled lips. Thereafter, for the space of many minutes, silence reigned.

Sunset glow penetrated the clearing in flickering color. A strange company even for a tropic jungle stared at one another. Gray-faced white men, the yellow countenance of Tai Hoong a sickly green, the grinning circle of apes in charge, and along the river shore dark water split to reveal the long black snout and murderously fanged jaws of a crocodile.

"Ha-ail, ha-ail, the ga-ang's a-all he-ere," sang from the pink leathery throat. "R-re-mem-ber Po-o Su-ung tha-at ma-ade us wha-at we a-are. Here's w'hi-ite men tha-at ca-an do a-anything. Gi-ive us ba-ack o-our sha-apes."

Captain McTeague remembered. In his sickening fever dream the terrible Po Sung had glutted vengeance on humans, transplanted their brains to this saurian and some orang-outangs. Now, he knew the nightmare had taken flesh and blood, and caught him in its insane power. A maniacal fear lashed his blood to frenzy. He spoke as a man might who howls at nightmare fury to depart.

"Go on, kill us, only do it quick. We are not Po Sung. He is dead as hell. Why torture us? We didn’t harm any of you."

"No. But ye'll do us go-ood. Ye’ll fetch anoo-other like Po Sung an' gi-ive us ba-ack our sha-apes."

Half fainting for the first time in his life, McTeague glanced at Tai Hoong. The Chinese eyes flickered; the green skin had regained its normal yellow.

"I have studied under Po Sung," he said. "But you would not care to emerge in the body of a slant-eyed yellow-faced Chinese?"

"Na-aw," roared from the mugger's throat. "They's just two av us to bo-other abo-out. Tri-icky an' me-e. The gals isna-ative an' so's the o'other buck. Spe-eak up, Tri-icky, w'hi-ich wan'll ye cho-oose?"

"Not de Chink," howled from the throat of the ape which held Captain McTeague fast. "Dis bloke suits me."

"Captain McTeague is a guardian of N'Yeng Sen," said Tai Hoong. "Also I shall need help with this work. A third reason is that he is the only one capable of sailing his ship to a port. You will want to get away from the jungle, of course."

McTeague saw that Klein and Brigham lay limp, inert. And Schartz was in a stupor of fear. None of the three understood this terrible doom impending or the hell circle formed in the jungle, where powers of darkness loosed by a fiend in human form had gathered for vengeance too terrific to contemplate. There came a time when gathering darkness, the miasmic stench of swamps, the nauseating filth of the walk-about ground crowded McTeague until he was hardly aware of what went forward, except the voice of the mugger endlessly howling argument and the quiet, controlled speech of Tai Hoong, playing a desperate game for time, for life.

He knew only that presently he was lifted, swung through the jungle, with lianas clutching and dragging at his feet, and hunched in the circle of fires deserted by the natives, piled high by the jungle ghouls. There, a gourd of palm wine started his blood again and the icy clutch of fear about his heart retreated. Reason mounted its throne and he understood many things.

The mugger had left his river and lay basking on the heated coral and an ape poured wine down the great pink gullet. They were like trained servants for Red Murphy the mugger and Tricky Turner the man-ape, obeying commands, fetching, carrying, al-