Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/129

 yellow. Except for this one peculiar twist to his mind, he was sane enough. Although now quite poor, he had once been extremely wealthy, one of the pioneer scientists who fought and conquered yellow fever in the Canal Zone.

He went color-mad in 1912 after he had been lost for several days in the deadly swamps near Panama. He had wandered out into the wilds one morning, as was his frequent custom, on some particular branch of research work. So interested did he become in his observations that he lost all track of time. He wandered through the maze of yellow bushes, not heeding the direction he took. It was intensely hot, so hot that the very air seemed molten yellow, and the yellow-chrome sky seemed to merge into the golden jungle-swamp. Toward midday the sun grew so glaring that it seemed as though all the fires of the heavens were concentrated solely upon him. He was almost blinded by the terrific yellow brilliance. He plunged forward like a drunken man. He knew not where he was going, but even had he known he could not have found his way in the burning glare.

Two days later he was found by a searching party that had been scouring the country for miles around. For three days he remained unconscious. Then one morning he awoke, weak but apparently perfectly rational. He remembered nothing of his experience and was very much interested in all his comrades had to say about it. To talk of the swamplands caused him no revulsion.

Within ten days he was up and around again. It was then that he was seized with color madness. He went wild over yellow. Every other color ceased to exist for him. His every emotion was mirrored in a yellow tone. His house inside and out he painted yellow. Furniture, bedding, carpets and rugs all changed in rapid succession. Everything about his house was soon of a single tone of yellow. When one visited him in the heat of the day, it was like a visit to the sun. The light glistened and flashed back and forth, intensified by every object. The glazed finish to the walls made of them yellow mirrors. It was a veritable madhouse, but still there was something awe-inspiring about the weirdly burnished glow. And the silent swamps in back of the house, stretching for miles toward the west, served only to emphasize the oddness of the spot.

Not far from the house in the heart of the swamps was a stagnant yellow pool about a hundred feet wide and of unfathomed depth. The mixture of yellow muck and water shone in the sunlight like a pool of liquid gold. It was this pool that Paul Benoit used in much of his research work. He had built a stone ledge along one side of it so that one might approach in safety to the very brink.

Dr. Colton who first suggested to Paul Benoit that he go off to California for a rest.

"A bit of quiet and peace in a white man's country will do you a world of good," he said.

Although he did not express his feelings, Dr. Colton believed that Paul Benoit was going mad from the sun. He believed that only in a sea-voyage was there any hope.

We had expected Paul Benoit to object to the suggestion, but to our surprize he seemed to welcome it.

"I do feel a bit fagged out," he admitted, "and I guess I'm about due for a fortnight's holiday."

Paul Benoit remained away for three weeks. Then he returned one morning when the sun glowed down unmercifully from a yellow-orange sky. But he did not return alone. He brought with him a golden girl who, he asserted, was a Mancha princess.