Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 2 (1926-02).djvu/14

156 the wings of the giant "whoosh," and the onlookers choked in the stifling swirl. The clouds settled, the air was almost clear, and there in the glare of the searchlights was a pile of reddish dust.

The world did not stop to worry over this new devastation. It sat waiting for the ether to bring forth the majestic voice announcing new dreads. The world was not disappointed. While whirls of dust eddied up occasionally from the great pile that marked the historic old quadrangle, the wings of the air carried the voice of mystery.

"My second demonstration has been made. April ninth at 10 p. m. I will destroy The Breakers on the Isle of Palms near Charleston, South Carolina. Keep clear of the building."

Just that, but it was enough. There was no one to doubt now, and though explanations were printed by the score, the churches were crowded that day with those who refused to believe that mortal could wreak such havoc. Boats streamed out from Charleston to the Isle of Palms. Human curiosity must be satisfied. An afternoon newspaper, departing from the dignity of the press which once held the South Carolina city in its thrall, commented proudly on the fact that Charleston should have been chosen for one of the demonstrations.

The reporter who wrote the story was one of the thousands that ringed about the rambling frame hotel, whose glories were dead, whose life was to be shorter than the memory of the many summer flirtations it once had housed under the guise of romance. It was not much of a building now; bare of paint in broad patches; window blind sagging from broken hinges; panes mere memories; doors ajar on wide verandas that shook with the palsy of age in passing breezes. All of it was bathed in glaring lights that brought out starkly each sign of decay.

Yet never in the proudest days of its popularity had the hotel drawn such earnest gaze as was bent upon it now from intent thousands, most of them holding watches in hand, ticking off the minutes as they hastened on to the appointed hour. No search of the building was made this time. They feared its sagging floors and creaking stairs might give way before the master power scattered its cosmic dust. They all were satisfied that, what would destroy it was beyond discovery by a mere search here. Impatiently they waited the action of that power.

It came to the instant, as before. Yet there was a difference. The disintegration began without warning and ended in the cloud of dust. But they saw no rippling shimmer along the weather-beaten boards as brick and stone had quivered before. Instead the building was there and suddenly it was not. Only blinding clouds of dust drove them, choking, to cover their faces in order that they might breathe. Yet when the clouds had settled or were carried away on a breeze out toward the sea, the same pile of reddish dust marked the spot where once had stood the hotel. Somewhere in the crowd a woman sobbed, for the happy hours she had known on the polished floor beneath the massive beams that now mingled together in the dust heap.

destruction of the hotel faded into insignificance the next morning in the press, beside the greater news of the message following the destruction, a message that must have astounded the very ether that bore it. As before it came within fifteen minutes after the dread force had whirled solid matter into a powder that chemists could not classify. There was not a paper published that morning of April tenth which did not