Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 3 (1925-09).djvu/144

 sea and the ivory image whose carving was duplicated on the frieze and columns of the temple before me. I thought of poor Klenze, and wondered where his body rested with the image he had carried back into the sea. He had warned me of something, and I had not heeded—but he was a soft-headed Rhinelander who went mad at troubles a Prussian could bear with ease.

rest is very simple. My impulse to visit and enter the temple has now become an inexplicable and imperious command which ultimately cannot be denied. My own German will no longer controls my acts, and volition is henceforward possible only in minor matters. Such madness it was which drove Klenze to his death, bareheaded and unprotected in the ocean; but I am a Prussian and man of sense, and will use to the last what little will I have. When first I saw that I must go, I prepared my diving suit, helmet, and air regenerator for instant donning; and immediately commenced to write this hurried chronicle in the hope that it may some day reach the world. I shall seal the manuscript in a bottle and entrust it to the sea as I leave the U-29 for ever.

I have no fear, not even from the prophecies of the madman Klenze. What I have seen cannot be true, and I know that this madness of my own will at most lead only to suffocation when my air is gone. The light in the temple is a sheer delusion, and I shall die calmly, like a German, in the black and forgotten depths. This demoniac laughter which I hear as I write comes only from my own weakening brain. So I will carefully don my diving suit and walk boldly up the steps into that primal shrine; that silent secret of unfathomed waters and uncounted years.  Next Month

The

Wicked Flea

By J. U. GIESY

A riproaring, side-splitting tale about an ordinary flea, Pulex Irri-tans, from which the growth limitations were removed. When Pulex got as large as a coal scuttle and escaped from the "perfissor's" laboratory, things happened in bewildering succession. One can understand why Pulex chased Brown's dog into the house, for he came from Brown's dog in the first place; but when he bit ladies on the ankles, and jumped into taxicabs after passengers—well, the police sergeant's patience was exhausted. This mirth-provoking weird story will be printed complete

in the

October Issue of

WEIRD TALES

The Unique Magazine On Sale September l