Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/59

Rh came only with the proximity of the loved dead. I had traveled in a wide semicircle. If I pushed steadily ahead, midnight would bring me to the cemetery where I had laid away my parents years before. My only hope, I felt certain, Jay in reaching this goal before I was overtaken. With a silent prayer to the devils that dominated my destiny I turned leaden feet in the direction of my last stronghold.

God! Can it be that a scant twelve hours have passed since I started for my ghostly sanctuary? I have lived an eternity in each leaden hour. But I have reached a rich reward. The noxious odors of this neglected spot are frankincense to my suffering soul!

The first streaks of dawn are greying the horizon. They are coming! My sharp ears catch the far-off howling of the dogs! It is but a matter of minutes now before they find me and shut me away forever from the rest of the world, to spend my days in ravaging yearnings till at last I join the dead I love!

They shall not take me! A way of escape is open! A coward’s choice, perhaps, but better—far better—than endless months of nameless misery. I will leave this record behind me that some soul may perhaps understand why I make this choice.

The razor! It has nestled forgotten in my pocket since my flight from Bayboro. Its blood-stained blade gleams oddly in the waning light of the thin-edged moon. One slashing stroke across my left wrist and deliverance is assured

Warm, fresh blood spatters grotesque patterns on dingy, decrepit slabs phantasmal hordes swarm over the rotting graves  spectral fingers beckon me  ethereal fragments of unwritten melodies rise in celestial crescendo  distant stars dance drunkenly in demoniac accompaniment  a thousand tiny hammers beat hideous dissonances on anvils inside my chaotic brain  gray ghosts of slaughtered spirits parade in mocking silence before me  scorching tongues of invisible flame sear the brand of Hell upon my sickened soul  I can—write—no—more





HREE days after the battle of Doryleum the army commenced its march, and entered the mountainous country of Phrygia. Unforeseen distresses encompassed them. The co-operation of Alexius was cold and confined, when his great object, the reduction of Nice, was achieved; and his fears of the virtue of his allies had made him conceal from them the horrors of a passage through Asia Minor to Syria. From the ruins of the Nissian Seljuks, Saisan, the son of Kilidge Arslan, raised a force of ten thousand horsemen, and travelling into those countries which they knew would be traversed by the Croises, they represented themselves as victors. The people were unable to oppose assertions which could be supported by the sword; and they admitted the Turks into their towns. The churches were despoiled, the public treasures were robbed, and the stores in the granaries were eaten or destroyed. The miserable Christians followed their enemies through this wasted land. The soil too was dry and sterile; and Europeans could ill endure the heat of a Phrygian summer. In one day five hundred people died. Women, no longer able to afford sustenance to their infants, exposed their breasts to the swords of the soldiers. Many of the horses perished; the baggage (it was lamentable yet a laughable sight, says an eye-witness) was placed on the backs of goats, hogs and dogs. These animals too died of thirst and neither the dogs nor the chase nor the falcons could hunt the prey which the woods afforded. The Crusaders passed the Phrygian mountains and deserts, and reached a country where the very means of life were fatal to many. They threw themselves without caution into the first river that presented itself; and nature could not support the transition from want to satiety.





SINGULAR circumstance took place in the year 1820, at the Comedie Francaise.

Baptiste, who was playing the part of a bailiff, drew from his pocket a paper to represent the warrant by virtue of which he exercised his authority. What was his astonishment on reading the name of one of his female relations, who, through ignorance of a will which had been made in her favor at Dresden, was deprived of a considerable fortune bequeathed to her by her uncle. The paper was a true copy of this will.

Baptiste uttered several exclamations of surprise, accompanied by such comic gesticulations, that the theatre resounded with applause. The audience, however, were far from suspecting the real cause. Baptiste having carefully deposited the paper in his pocket, continued his part, and the next day communicated the discovery to his relation, whose claims were shortly after acknowledged.

This strange adventure is explained as follows: Some time before, a party of the performers of the Comedie Francaise proceeded to Dresden, to play in the presence of the sovereigns, who were assembled in that city. Among other scenic accessories, they found it necessary to procure a number of old parchments, and it is probable the document in question remained ever since in the pocket of the dress worn by Baptiste when he made the fortunate discovery. 