Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/83

 mentally styled the Hindoo's extravagant behavior.

"Guess I've been sick," he hazarded. "Must have been a little off. Touch of fever. Seems I had a dream. The Thing was on my breast. Sucking my breath like a cat. I can still feel the way its paws prodded up and down on my chest. Ugh! It was pretty awful. Glad it wasn't the truth. Queer, the tricks delirium plays."

Worthington, entering the tent, heard Payne's last remark.

"Yes, but, old dear, it wasn't delirium," he said lightly to cover his real emotion. "It was pure facts. Only for Nanah, God bless his darned old hide, you'd be filling the seventh grave today with every prospect auspicious for the number to go up to twelve."

Payne drew his aching body erect.

"The truth!" he cried, "Why man, it could not be!"

Worthington pushed his friend back on the cot, seated himself and struck match to pipe. When it was going good he answered Payne's protest.

"It both could be and was," he said soberly, "we have the answer to the puzzle. Nanah, here, because he is Indian, suspected something. But he, even, never came in a million miles of the truth. When Dean accused him of the crime he simply, to save his own skin as well as to have a free hand in working out the riddle, made himself scarce. Nanah knew that if suspicion once fastened on to him his chances of getting in the clear was about, zero. So, logically, he took leg-bail, laid low, and saved you from being the seventh victim of the purple death."

Worthington stopped and mopped his brow. When he resumed his face was pale.

"The story has its inception in an event which occurred a year ago when some man, an explorer and curio-seeker, came into this part of the country. As I understood it the priests of the Temple of Indra have, there in the temple, a god called Indra. This, as all such heathen junk, is sacred in the sight of the devotees.

"But the curio-seeker determined to annex the god. One night he stole into the temple, shot the priest on guard, swiped the image and was making his getaway when two other priests surprised him. One he killed outright but the other, shot through the spine, became a paralytic.

"I am not sure as to the thief's fate. Anyway. he fell into the hands of the priests and. from what I've gotten from the blacks, I guess it was enough.

"The man whom the explorer shot lived for weeks. On one subject, he was violently insane. When he thought, which I guess was pretty much all the time, about white men, his whole desire was to kill. He, himself, was out of the running. The poisoned bullet had done its work well.

"It was not only of his own misfortune that he thought. The young priest on guard at the shrine of Indra that particular night was the paralytic's baby brother, a young chap who'd just taken orders. He was the first man murdered.

"You may imagine something of the helpless priest's agony of spirit. His kid brother dead, himself a paralytic. Hate and revenge seethed in his blood. His soul cried out for vengeance. Nothing but the lives of white men—not one only, but as many as his malignity could reach—would satisfy him.

"Obviously, he, in his condition, could do nothing. But, because of much brooding, he evolved an idea."

Payne held up his hand.

"What has all this—the god of Indra, the thieving explorer, the slain and maimed priests—to do with the murders here in camp and my own narrow escape, if, as you say, it was fact and not hallucination?"

"It does seem sort of rambling and far-fetching, doesn't it?" agreed Worthington, "But it all correlates. I have to lead up to the climax gradually. If I took it on high the chances are you'd think I was stepping on the gas!"

Nanah nodded.

"The Sidar is right,” he said, "White men cannot understand Indian ways."

Worthington resumed.

"As the injured priest lay on his hard pallet in the palm-thatched hut he, because he was insane, devised one of the most diabolically clever plots a human's mind ever conceived.

"The kid brother whom he loved, even though priests are not supposed to love, had as a pet and companion a trained cheetah. This eat was exceptionally large. It was the sole witness to the brutal murder in the temple.

"The plan which matured in the mind of the stricken priest was horrible and unique. It was to have a part of the cheetah's brain removed and the diseased section of his own brain grafted in its place.

"At first the surgeon, the scoundrel we got to look at poor old Arnold, refused. But the paralytic was importunate. He pointed out that he must surely die. With his brain functioning in that of the animal, the work of revenge would go on as long as the cat lived. As the cheetah was less than a year old, the chances were good that it would secretly slay its tens, aye, its hundreds.

"The operation was performed. It was a success so far as the cheetah was concerned. But the priest died.

"The surgeon took the cheetah in hand. Talking to it he made it understand its mission. The hate cells of the priest's brain grew and functioned in the cat's head. Among the natives it was docile, gentle. But when it scented or saw a white man it became the prototype of the insane priest. The hate which had racked the man lashed the animal to fury.

"When we arrived on the scene the operation was three months old. The cat was perfectly recovered and ready for the test.

"The night of Borden's death the surgeon-priest, holding the cheetah in leash, crept up to camp. Everything was silent.

"Gloatingly the hell-fiend watched as Borden stirred, woke, sensed the presence of the creature upon his breast. With devilish joy he watched the cheetah as it laid foul lips to the mouth of its victim and sucked away his life.

"Enjoying the prospect of a long-drawn-out reign of terror the wretch called the cheetah, snapped back the chain and returned to the temple.

"You know the rest."

Great beads of perspiration were rolling down Payne's face. Vividly, as his friend talked, he re-lived the hideous experience of the night before.

Worthington knocked the dead ashes from his pipe.

"Only for Nanah, ever watchful, you'd—"

He broke off, abruptly.

Payne, wide-eyed, white and shaken gasped: "How did you learn all this?"

Sirdar Worthington's lips tightened, grimly.

"From the surgeon-priest, before he died. Nanah got the cheetah, but we got the priest."

He shrugged and changed the subject.

"Old Dean's right as a trivet now that—"

Payne interrupted.

"What did you do with that damned hound?" he cried.

Worthington's gray eyes hardened.

"What did we do with him? What does it matter? Anyway, it wasn't nearly good enough for him!"

Nanah nodded a wise head.

"Where he is now, Sahib Payne, they do not perform surgical operations. There is too much heat!"