Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 6 (1925-06).djvu/11

, too, was a hobby of yours, doctor.”

He eyed me sharply.

“It’s more than a hobby,” he said, "as you will soon see. As for insects, well, you will see my insects—later.”

I felt much like telling him that he need not go to that trouble. Creeping things had always horrified me, and I had seen quite enough of them since I had been working in Africa. However, it was my plan to keep him in a good humor until we could reach an understanding, so I followed him into a distant portion of the great house.

“As far as bacteria are concerned,” I told him, “I haven’t even as much as peeped into a microscope.”

Professor Denham laughed.

“Microscope!” he leered. “You won’t need a magnifying glass to see my collection!”

Was the man mad? I felt a chill creep over me.

reached a sort of laboratory, and the professor withdrew a cloth from a glass case. I looked over his shoulder, then, and received one of the shocks of my life. What were these horribly squirming things? Not insects, for never in my dreams had I pictured things like these ! They were writhing like maggots in a substance that appeared to be a sticky gelatin. Some of them resembled scorpions, but most of them were rod-shaped things the size of my little finger. They were moving, moving—never still.

“What—what are they?” I stammered in an awed voice.

“Bacilli,” chuckled the doctor.

“You mean germs—of disease?” I asked, horrified. “Exactly! What do you think of my work? I have multiplied them a million times, in size. Some of those organisms literally breathe death. It has taken me twenty years to find the secret, and do you know what it means? I am lord of the world!”

It was devilish, and I longed to get out of the room. This man was mad, surely, yet here was the hideous proof before me.

“There they are,” went on the scientist, with a horrible smile. “There they are till I am ready to use them, safe in the glass case and in a culture medium of agar agar."

I wiped the cold sweat from my face, and told him that I had seen quite enough and was ready to leave.

“Not until you have seen the most interesting specimens in my exhibit of insect life,” smiled the professor. “I wouldn’t have you miss that, for worlds."

I wanted to tell him that I wouldn’t see another sight like those writhing things in his laboratory for worlds, either, but I followed him from the room and into a corridor. A huge black was waiting for us there.

“Well, Sahem?” asked the professor, in a harsh metallic voice.

The black giant showed his teeth in a look of anxiety.

“The slaves, master,” he muttered. “They threaten to fly. They are afraid, and even the cattle whip cannot make them stay longer. Some of them will talk, unless—”

The doctor whipped a revolver from his blouse and handed it to the great negro.

“Tell them that I will have them thrown into the great pit,” he snarled, “if they breathe a word! Kill them, Sahem, if they do not obey; and as for yourself, if you make one slip, the black pit will yawn for your carcass also!”

The slave’s face twitched with fear, and it was nearly livid when he bowed to the ground and backed out of the dank passage on his hands and knees. Before I had time to recover from my astonishment a terrible sound echoed at my feet. It was an agonized bellow, ending in a gurgling wail, and it seemed to come from a cavern under the house. The hair tightened on my scalp at that fearful sound—the death