Page:Weird Tales Volume 23 Issue 5 (1934 05).djvu/103

 had meant to call Smith on the carpet, but not in this manner. No, indeed!

"Not another sound if you wish to live, Landrigan!" warned Smith, in a ghost-voice which would not carry more than ten feet. "You are coming with me. Any noise, I warn you, will be your last noise on earth! Take off your shoes, and carry them."

"Wha-what does this mean?" stammered Landrigan.

"Not another word! Come!"

There was no sign of yielding or compromise in the stern, gaunt face behind the automatic. Landrigan thought irrelevantly to himself that Smith looked ten years older; that he still clung to his absurd habit of shaving daily

later, shoes in hand, and shivering despite the warmth of the night, Landrigan preceded his captor through the gallery doorway, down the steps, and out into the enshrouding, moon-checkered jungle.

"Sit down and put on your shoes!"

Landrigan obeyed. But with the re-turn of leather to covet his tender soles, something of self-possession came as well. He began to talk indignantly, though in a low tone. What did Smith think he was doing? Had the man gone mad?

"I ought to kill you," interrupted Smith coldly. "If ever a white man deserved death, you do—yellow dog!" The last two words grated. "I knew that sometime you would come back, so I waited. Now, either get up and go, and keep your mouth shut, or I'll blow your gizzard all over the ferns!"

Landrigan shivered. He knew only too well that Smith had never been a bluffer. So the terrified manager clutched at the one offered straw of hope. Smith hinted that he would not actually kill his quarry. Landrigan, trying his best to regain some semblance of his usual jaunty demeanor, strode ahead through the jungle in the direction of the sinister bam-boo forest. With all his heart he damned himself for venturing back into this accursed region. Natheshire had been right in respect to Smith.

Why had not he, Landrigan, discharged Smith long ago instead of letting him keep the Mazaruni River station?

Down in his heart the manager knew the answer to that. He had been afraid at first that, if discharged, Smith might come down and make a horrible scene in the offices at Georgetown. Later there had been the feeling that sooner or later Smith, like all jungle traders soon or late, would fall victim to a poisoned dart, or the cut of a keen machete. But Smith had survived!

On and on. Half an hour more, and they reached the first of the giant bamboos. Here the underbrush was scant. The great stalks, some of them a foot in diameter and more, thin of shell, hard as baked shellac, slanted upward like royal palms on an atoll in the zone of the trade winds.

The spot was eery, hushed like the vault of a cathedral. There was no moonlight at first, only a vague diffusion which let a man pick his way between the stalks.

Once Landrigan started back with a stifled shriek. A dark, low-hung shape had whisked from just in front of his feet. Instantly the muzzle of the automatic jammed into his spine.

"Only a black jaguar," reassured the caustic voice of Smith. '"There are worse specters here—in this forest of fleeing souls!"

"What do you mean to do with m-me?" quavered Landrigan. The last vestiges of his nerve were deserting him now.

No answer. The grim, gaunt man