Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/147

 A human voice came quietly from a distance. "How is Wright this morning, Doctor?"

It was his mother’s voice.

"I have just dressed the wound in his side. It is healing nicely. The crisis is passed. He seems to show some signs of consciousness and I think that he will be able to go home in the course of a month."

Pilot Wright Nelson opened his eyes and found himself in a hospital, his mother at his bedside. A smile showed in the corners of his mouth.

"Did the plane land all right, Mother?" he asked in a whisper.

"Yes, it is all right; but do you know that you have lain here for five days without showing any signs of life while I worried about you?" She leaned over and kissed his cheek. "Are you going to fly again?" she appealed.

"Never! I saw too much," was the quick response.

A Fantastic Fragment of Fiction

T is near the first of the month when the sacrifice to "Yuano," the alligator, is made. The natives of the village daily pay homage to the brutes as they float in the swamp. They are afraid Yuano may cast his baleful glance upon them, when, such being the case, they would be offered up as sacrifices, since the lots would be sure to be against them.

It is the custom at this time for all in the village to assemble in the sacrificial hut and draw lots. These are of two sizes, long and short. Those who are unfortunate enough to draw short lots are sacrificed one month and the long lots are given the next, and so on.

Horrible? No, just customary sacrifice, not especially pleasant for the unlucky devils, but they believe in thus dying so that their spirits may be assured of eternal rest and happiness.

Is it strange that these words should come from a white man’s pen? No, it is not, for I am dead and so am permitted to speak to the material world through others. Thus it is of my former life and death I shall tell.

It was the drawing of the lots, as I have said, and all were assembled to hear the chief Yuano priest read the sacrificial notes and decrees. He stated that twenty natives would appease the Gods this month and that old and young alike should draw.

I trembled and clung closer to my mother’s skirts, for I was but a young lad and life was sweet to me. I did not like the ugly, grinning jaws and wickedly gleaming small eyes of the God Yuano. I did not wish to leave the flowers and beasts of this world for the "Eternal Sphere." So I clung the closer to my mother and tremblingly drew one of the straws the old priest ''held out to me. It was a short straw!'' Did I live, or—was I to be thrown in among those slimy, squirming bodies to be engulfed at one swallow; or broken in so many pieces by the swish of a mighty tail?

Horrible shivers ran up and down my spine, little icy tinglings formed in my blood, cold sweat beaded my forehead, I trembled and shook and leaned heavily against my mother as the script was read. The short ones were to be offered this month!

God in heaven, what a death! I swayed limply forward in a dead faint as I dimly heard the wailing for those chosen twenty. Then all was blackness.

When I "came to," I was lying in a basket floating in the swamp! Huge jaws yawned about and stretched toward me; slimy, slippery bodies lunged against my frail craft. I screamed in my terror, one scream after another, till it seemed my lungs must surely burst under the strain. Still my craft remained intact, and gradually I became more quiet.

I then looked around for my other nineteen companions, but they were nowhere to be seen. At some distance from me I beheld another basket-like craft floating upside down, I shuddered and threw my arm up over my face. My very much beloved companions had already met death. I alone remained! Probably my life was prolonged because of this very fact, and Yuano was no longer hungry! Thus was I given a few more minutes respite in which to think upon the horrible death before me.

Day after day I floated down the swampy river propelled by the swishing of the heavy bodies of my tormentors in the black and rank waters. My little craft was still unhurt and I was buoyed up by the hope that I might starve to death before one of their lunges should upset me. But no, I was not to cheat the Gods thus, for a huge log crashed into me, and over I went with a shrill horrified cry into the open jaws of a waiting Yuano!

A terrible feeling of sharp knives literally tearing the tender flesh from my body, of huge breakers or stones crushing the life from me, and then, after a final moment of excruciating pain, I awoke to find myself standing calmly upon the back of a one time much-feared Yuano, while he crunched between his massive jaws a mass of blood and bones which had once been I!

I felt no emotion either of fear or of pain. But when the Yuano had finished his repast, I calmly stepped from one back to another and in less than five minutes had arrived in my native village. As I walked along the streets I spoke to several people, all of whom passed me by unseeing. I was rather hurt by this, as I thought they should be glad of my escape. However, I consoled myself with the thought of my mother’s joy when she should again behold her beloved and much cherished son.

Hastening my stride I set forth for her hut. What was my surprise upon entering and greeting her to hear her say to my sister, "Vellen, Vellen, why couldn't it have been you? Oh, if only my son were here again. You are good 4—W T