Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 1 (1927-01).djvu/19

 A few seconds, and that winged horror had disappeared.

"I turned to Long. I have seen some horrible sights in my time but never anything so horrible as what I saw now. For there was Long, my companion, my friend—there he was raised up on his hands, his arms rigid as steel, and the blood pouring from his throat. And I—I could only weep and watch him as he bled to death. But it did not last long. In God's mercy, the horror was ended soon.

"And then—well, what followed is not very clear in my mind. I know that a madness seemed to come over me. But I did not flee from that place of mystery and horror; the madness was not like that. It was not of myself that I was thinking, of escape. It was as though a bloody mist had fallen. Vengeance was what I wanted—vengeance and blood, vengeance and slaughter. I reloaded my revolver, picked up Long's and thrust it into my pocket, then caught up White's weapon with my left hand and started for the rocks, shouting defiance and terrible curses as I went.

"I reached the pile of stone, found the tracks of the angel and the man and of that winged horror; but, at the edge of the rocks, the tracks vanished, and I could not follow farther. But I did not stop there. I went on, clear around that pile, and again and yet again. I climbed it, clear to the summit, searched everywhere; but I could not find a single trace of them I sought. Once, indeed, I thought that I heard a voice, the angel's voice—thought that I heard that cursed word 'Drome.'

"But I can not write any more now. Why—oh, why—didn't we listen to Sklokoyum and keep away from this hellish mountain? That, of course, would have been foolish; but it would not have been this horror, which will haunt me to my dying hour."

closed the journal, leaned back in his chair and looked ques-tioningly at Milton Rhodes.

"There you are!" he said. "I told you that I was bringing a mystery, and I trust that I have, at least in a great measure, met your expectations."

"Hellish mountain! Hellish mountain! Noble old Rainier a hellish mountain!" said Milton. Then suddenly: "Pardon my soliloquy, and I want to thank you, Mr. Scranton, for bringing me a problem that, unless I am greatly in error, promises to be one of extraordinary scientific interest."

Extraordinary scientific interest! What on earth did he mean by that?

"Still," he added, "I must confess that there are some things about it that are very perplexing, and more than perplexing."

"I know what you mean. And that explains why the story has been kept al secret all these years."

"Your grandfather, Mr. Scranton, seems to have been a well-educated man."

"Yes; he was."

Milton Rhodes' pause was a significant one, but Scranton did not enlighten him further.

"On his return from Old He, did he tell just what had happened up there?"

"He did not, of course, care to tell everything, Mr. Rhodes, for fear he would not be believed. And little wonder. He was cautious, very guarded in his story, but, at that, not a single soul believed him. Perhaps, indeed, his very fear of distrust and suspicion, and his consequent caution and vagueness, hastened and enhanced those dark and sinister thoughts and suspicions of his neighbors, and, indeed, of everyone else who heard the story. There was talk