Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/91

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"It can't be done," he whispered. "Neither the apparatus or the elements of which it is composed can be replaced. I'll not go into details, but it can't be done,"

I groaned.

Then we talked a while. The conversation I shall not record. It was purely personal and had to do with matters that he wished me to attend to. Finally he said:

"Thanks, old man, and good-by !" and he extended a hairy paw. "I am going now to solve another riddle," and he stole out of the fateful room, leaving me alone with his body and—the ape.

HE next day, in several New York papers, the following news item appeared.

"'Monkey Soares Automobilists

'While R. J. Farley was riding with Mrs. Farley and Mr. and Mrs. B. M. Greene on the North Shore road yesterday, they almost ran over a large monkey or ape that suddenly appeared in front of their car. Mr. Farley states that the animal acted as if it wanted to be run over. Mr. Farley stopped his car just in time, and the animal ran off. It was probably the same monkey that was later found drowned in the lake on the estate of G. L. Hirt, a Wall street broker.'"

Several days after this item appeared two eminent alienists committed Dr. Robert Belmore Johnstone to an asylum for the insane. Both of these gentlemen knew him, and after they had signed the commitment papers, one of them, a large gentleman who always spoke in a large way, remarked to me, "A very peculiar case, Doctor!—a very peculiar case. I really cannot understand it. Even if the psychosis has been of sudden development, it is most bizarre and entirely different from any that I have ever seen. It would seem as if the man's brain had been changed into that of a beast—a simian, I would say."

I held my peace. He never knew how close to the truth he came.

Now, when I hear, as I heard only the other day, that the soul, the individuality, is nothing more than the sum of the reactions of the ductless glands—that the ego can be resolved into a chemical formula, I turn away; for I know differently.

trio, lay also dead, her withered remains sealed up in a crypt of the pyramid.

But Ama-Hotu, Lord of Day, has been worshiped in many lands. Invariably has he survived his worshipers; outlived a multitude of fellow-gods as well. The empty shrine of Huac, the drying segments of Corya, made no difference at all in the glory of Ama-Hotu.

Four hard-working humans had retreated before his potency. In one of the ancient pyramidal dwellings they lay about in pajamas, sweated, drowsed, and waited for the undisputed Lord of Day to go seek his victims elsewhere.

All morning they had been at work taking the measurements, photographs and notes which were to make the name of Widdiup famous. Sigsbee, however, was not among the toilers. The gray hydro-airplane was missing from the derelict fleet.

"Miss Enid's pyramid," yawned Waring after a time, "was a wonderful find!"

No one disputed this. He redistributed his mass to a more comfortable posture.

"We never had a chance, you know. First to last—not the ghost of one!"

Otway looked up with a flash of philosophic gray eyes behind the shell-rims.

"I am entirely willing," he said, "to surrender all the honors to Dr. Widdiup's memory."

"Of course you are! So'm I willing to surrender writing it up. TNT was willing—we all were—to surrender the diamonds stored in the pyramid's crypts. Benefit of starving Armenian orphans. Splendid idea. Girl with eyes like hers, bound to think of it. Sig is willing to surrender himself. That is, if she'll have him. Ex-actly! First to last—not a chance!"

"The treacherous spirit of Kuyam-bira-Petro," began Tellifer—and for the first known time in his life broke off as if for lack of ideas to continue.

"Quite right," approved his friend. "Treacherous cannibal wizard, not worth mentioning. Half-ton diamond cut to broil you alive—easy. Pyramids—monsters—night-hags—burning pits—got a chance with all of 'em. But a girl like Miss Enid—never! Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy! The penalty of being fat and forty! Declined with thanks for the air-trip. Yet I've flown and Sig hasn't. What's your trouble, John B.?"

"I was just thinking, sir, that maybe I might have tried a little harder to get her to take me, Before the War, after I quit the Buffalo Bill show, I used to make exhibition flights in a little old Antoinette I got off a flyer that broke