Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 4 (1925-04).djvu/135

 tide of mist and darkness had risen almost to their feet. McIvor's confusion of thought was increasing, but he clung stubbornly to one idea.

"Moving picture stunts—tales of Captain Kidd's buried treasure—all pure moonshine," he muttered. "I tell you it is time for us to get away from here."

"I tell you that we can't escape—you can't leave me," said the girl, clinging to him. "Another man once sought to run away from fate. He was a great sinner, but there was no blood on his hands. He found a way out, but it was not by a road that you would care to travel."

In their walk they had reached a place where their path was partly blocked by fallen rock.

"O stiff-necked one," she said in an impatient tone, "look beneath yon rock and see what you see."

With an impatient shrug McIvor bent over the rock indicated, but at the sight of what lay underneath he tried to scream; his tongue, however, clove to the roof of his mouth and no sound came forth.

Beneath the crushing weight lay the figure of a man. Caught by the descending rock, he lay asprawl like a beetle smashed by a heavy foot. The hair and beard had continued to grow after death and formed an unkempt tangle about the fleshless features. White mold covered the partly mummified body with ghastly garments. Lying on its back, with mouth agape, the horror seemed to mock the living man.

In fascinated horror McIvor bent closer over the dreadful thing, and as he did so a little stream of ice-cold water, issuing from the seamed roof above him. touched the back of his neck and partly roused his dormant faculties.

"Hell's fire, am I really mad?" he shrieked.

He would have seized the girl with a sweep of his long arm, but just at that instant the light sputtered and went out, and his groping hand clutched at empty darkness. Moving quickly he bumped his head sharply against the roof. A trickle of blood ran down his face, but the pain and shock were kind, for they broke the spell that had bound him for so long and he was once more alert and capable. An odor like a faint perfume assailed his nostrils and he needed no one to tell him that this was the deadly black-damp.

death and nightmare terror urging him on, he began a mad race. The darkness about him was now absolute, but blind fear guided him well, for his feet found a path free from obstacles. Nature, however, has limits beyond which it cannot be driven, and the spark that drove the human machine was about to go out as the light had gone, when like a draft from some magical fountain a breath of pure air came to his laboring lungs and his hand touched an iron rail. Here was one of the galleries where men lived and worked—here a fan sent gusts of living air.

He had not reached this haven any too soon, for behind him he heard the sound of breaking timbers and the crash of falling rocks. The mountain was settling, burying anew whatever secrets the old mine might hold. In so far as he was concerned they might lie there undisturbed until the judgment day.

He staggered on until he saw a gleam of light, then, plunging forward like a drunken man, he slumped down on the hard ties of the tram road. He was so utterly weary that they seemed like a very comfortable bed. An electric light gleamed above him but no human beings were near.

He lay very still, and presently the great rats crept from their hiding places and stared at him with their shifty eyes. Some of the bolder ones came very near him, but he made no