Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 3 (1924-11).djvu/91

90 making fourteen in all. The first man read the unfolded one, and groaned vengeance.

"Poor woman, now a guest of charity," he mumbled and passed it to another.

Each man in turn did read the much worn document, and each was deeply pained.

The leader spoke an inaudible word and six men stepped back in line.

Lucifer's hands reached out clutchingly toward the papers; his lips moved, but no word could get beyond his teeth. He gasped, shuddered and shrank back into the chair. Muscles of his waxen face twitched, wrinkles became quickly deeper, a quiver, and he was limp. His eyes closed slowly; he breathed with effort.

The leader raised his hand, and, pointing to the man across the table, commanded: "Look you upon the wan face for a moment! Bear well in mind the documents you have read and the punishment they have inflicted upon the people who came to him to borrow. Consider with a kindly heart the weight of ripening years, and (his voice became more firm) "in the balances of justice place the good he might have done—and did not."

He looked each man squarely in the face, and went on more slowly: "Weigh the value of his life, and be not rash. When your minds have reached a judgment, state the penalty. I wait."

The minister was the first to speak. "Upon his promise to further wrong no man, I vote to give him one more chance."

"No, no!" cautioned the leader quickly. "You understand wrongly. This is a final judgment. Tonight he pays. No other chance did he give to the lonely widow or the others he did rob. Again, I state, the penalty must be paid tonight, even as he does demand when settlement is due."

The three mystics stepped forward as if they were one man.

"We pass judgment—"

Lucifer leaned forward and a groan crept through his straight-cut lips.

The mystic second from the end raised his hand.

"Just now I call a spell."

His voice was strong but weird.

"Lucifer shall hear but can not speak, he shall feel but shall not move; this, that we need not mince words with him, that he may remain helpless in our power."

"What is your judgment, men?"

The leader stepped forward as he asked.

The man who stood beside the doctor answered for the three.

"He shall pay in flesh. For each small amount, we take a toe; larger amounts, a foot; and still larger, a limb."

"It is granted," declared the leader in a solemn tone. "Doctor of medicine and practitioner of surgery, prepare your instruments. Men of the mystic art, make bare the table and lay his body straight upon its top."

The minister stepped back and took a chair.

"You can not count me a party to the plan. I did not come to mete out a punishment such as this, I came to show this man his wrong and turn him to the right. No, men, I shall drop out but shall remain. And should his life be blotted out, I shall say the last rites over his remains."

"Proceed," ordered the leader, "the hours say that the day is soon to break, and we must of this make haste."

HE table was soon cleared, and while the mystics placed the helpless form upon its top, the surgeon