Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 4 (1927-04).djvu/126

  feeling that, concealed somewhere in the trees, something was lurking, watching us.

Thumbra, mounted upon the shoulders of Narkus, cut down the victim. It took three strokes to cleave his sword through the tentacle. Along it ran two rows of suckers, like those of a devil-fish. So powerful was the grip upon the victim's neck, we could not remove the severed end of the tentacle; and so we buried the poor Droman, in his shallow grave, with those coils around his throat.

Forthwith we quitted the cursed spot, though Rhodes, I believe, wanted to climb up into that tree and subject the monster to a scientific scrutiny!

And, as we pushed on through that dreadful wood, it was as though some sixth sense bore to my brain a warning vague but persistent, sinister:

"It is following!" 



ES," said the dealer, "our Af windfalls are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge. Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case," he continued, "I profit by my virtue."

Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.

The dealer chuckled. "You come to me on Christmas Day," he resumed, "when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I remark in you today very strongly. I am the essence of discretion, and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer can not look me in the eye, he has to pay for it." The dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of irony, "You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came into the possession of the object?" he continued. "Still your uncle's cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!"

And the little, pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tiptoe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and a touch of horror. "This time," said he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell, but