Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 4 (1927-04).djvu/43

 well, this footgear had made those extraordinary footprints.

"You—you demon! You monster!" Darrell continued furiously. "You killed Connaughton and dragged him away! You killed Don Ramon and dragged him away! I don't know how you did it! But I know that you are going to die for it! Get ready, you!"

Darrell swung up his automatic.

"Good God!" I muttered. I couldn't understand at all. Was Darrell really going to shoot this woman? What had she done? Left Connaughton and Don Ramon to be killed, so I thought. Certainly he couldn't mean that he believed she did the killing herself!

I moved toward Darrell to stop him and tried to call him. But I never said what I wanted to say.

like a flash. Bonita whirled to one side and Darrell's gun roared. He missed her. With a tigerish spring she was on him.

And then I saw what I never would have believed had I not seen it myself. With a quick blow she knocked the automatic from Darrell's hand. Then she flung her arms around him. Darrell fought furiously, screaming curses. But that was only for a moment. And then I saw his face turn crimson, his eyes seemed to pop from his head, we heard a dull crash, a smothered gurgle, blood rushed from Darrell's mouth, and he was flung aside, broken, dead.

This woman, still not much more than a girl, had

I think none of us moved. The speed, the ghastly horror of it, had us paralyzed.

But Bonita swung around with fury in her eyes. I was close, for I had jumped to intercept Darrell's shooting. And she seized me. I wanted to tear away, but I was helpless, my own boasted strength like that of a babe against hers. She grabbed me by the arm, pulled me toward herself and embraced me.

I felt an agony of shock tingling to my forehead and fingertips, a surging protest, a revolting horror at the inhuman thing that was happening to me. Then everything went black and I knew nothing more.

Apparently I was out only a few minutes. As I awoke I felt numb and helpless. With some difficulty I rolled over and tried to rise. It was painful. Something in my side ached furiously, stabbing me as I moved—a broken rib, as we found later.

Janis and Arnheimer were standing near me, while farther away Lassignac was busy winding ropes around an inert body. That body was Bonita, unconscious or dead.

"What—what has happened?" I wheezed.

Janis turned around. "Oh, you are alive? Thank God! I feared she had gotten you, after all!"

"Feel half alive," I said. "All right otherwise. Only weak in the back and ribs. But what's happened to Bonita?"

"Janis threw her," Arnheimer answered. "Struck her in the neck or back of the head."

"No," Janis corrected. "I thumbed her on the vagus nerve. The pneumogastric, you know. A little Jap trick I learned over in Kioto. You may have heard of it. I wasn't sure I could shoot quick enough or straight enough to prevent her from crushing you, so I thumbed her and made her faint. Lassignac is tying her up with all the ropes he can find. Hope they'll hold her. If they don't"—he paused reflectively—"well, we may have to shoot her yet!"

Lassignac was still winding ropes around Bonita until she began to look like a bandaged Egyptian mummy. Even at that, I had my doubts about the ropes. They were old and 