Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 1 (1925-01).djvu/124



HRISTOPHE, who called himself Henri I, Emperor of Northern Haiti, was the greatest monster in all history. He killed for the love of killnigkilling [sic]. He murdered innocent people who dared to gaze upon his face without permission. To question his orders and commands was to give oneself to the executioner. This black monster of the Haitian hills took whatever pleased him, be it lands, movable property, or women. His word was law, as immutable as that of the Medes and Persians, and his hand was quick to punish.

None knew this better than did General Luisma Llansal, the greatest soldier in the pay of the emperor. Luisma was a little man as to body; but his arms hung below his knees as he walked, like those of a giant anthropoid ape. His mind was slow to thought, and mental pictures came sluggishly. Even so, he could look into the near future and picture what Christophe would say and do to him when he should return to report failure in the mission which Christophe had assigned him, out there in the Haitian wilderness. He had tried with all his power to succeed, as evidenced by his dragging gait as he walked up the streets of Cap Haitien—proof that he was tired to exhaustion. Only the knowledge that his little black sweetheart awaited him at the end of the street kept him on his leaden feet.

The girl's mother met him at the door of the hut, and he read in her dry eyes and expression of utter hopelessness that something terrible had happened. His lips trembled a bit as he asked for Madeleine.

"Have you not heard then, Luisma?" asked the old woman, hopelessly.

"Have I heard what, old woman?" demanded Luisma. "I have asked for the little sweetheart. Where is she?"

"Alas!" cried the old woman "Henri has taken her!"

"But—Henri! I do not understand. What could he want with the girl?"

"Henri does not explain his actions to common people," replied the old woman. "I only know that the soldiers from the citadel came for her and that she has gone. Who knows? The queen is very old and very fat. Perhaps Henri craves the freshness of youth."

"Hush, aged one, do not speak thus of the emperor's consort! Dost wish to be hurled from the cliff at sunrise?"