Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/91



R. GRAY shook his head.

"I don't understand it at all. Physically, the man is perfectly all right. If he would just let us take that contraption off his head—"

He turned to the wasted figure on the bed and again cautiously stretched forth a hand. But, as before, the instant his fingertips touched the queer helmet the old man slatted violently away.

"I told you, sir," quavered a servant. "Mr. Krieg has said time and again that the thing must never, under any circumstances, be removed except by himself. Our regular doctor and I started to take it off once a few years ago when master had a spell 'most as violent as this, and he became terribly angry. He made us promise not to try it again, ever."

"But what kind of a thing is it, anyway? Why has he lain here all these years with it on his head? What's it for? Didn't he ever tell you?"

"Oh, no, sir. He has guarded its secret very carefully. I don't know what it's for, but between you and me, sir, I have an idea. I think it's something that might be a blessing to anyone bedridden almost all his life, like master. It's something that makes him dream, and see and hear things; that's what it is!"

"Bosh!"

"Why, he lies there a-wearing that dingus, sir, and going through the funniest actions imaginable. Of course he can't move very much, but he has managed to worm himself all over that bed, a-hollering sometimes, with his face working with every possible emotion, just like a person's at the movies."

"Does he keep it on every minute?"

"When he first began to use it, Mr. Krieg wore the headgear only through the day, taking it off at night when he slept. Then he got to sleeping days and lying awake with it nights. But it wasn't long before he began to leave it on day and night for weeks at a time, sleeping at all sorts of odd hours. Soon he got so far gone in the habit, or whatever it is, that he refused to take the apparatus off at all. It must be five years now since any of us has seen any more of master's face than just the lower half. Why, sir, I've forgotten what color his eyes are!

"Though never so bad as this one, he has had awful spells many times in the past. I don't know, sir; I—I don't hardly want to take that dome off him. You know he may get over