Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 5 (1927-05).djvu/22

 6 now. As soon as the sun falls, we must hurry in, for there is a fullmoon tonight. Then, too, this is a great event and I must be there early. The counselors from every region will be guests at the Palace tonight. I have heard, too, that some new proclamation is to be issued. I do not know the nature of it, though."

Graham did not answer him. His mind had gone back over the long years of his deathlike sleep, to a girl with Titian hair, a girl whose cheek showed a mischievous dimple as she smiled up archly at him. A gnawing loneliness came upon him, almost a regret that he had ever awakened from that terrible sleep. For the people of this Earthband were not his people—their minds moved in different ways, and their spirit had been crushed almost before it had begun to take form. He was alone in a strange world, and his heart was aching for a girl who had died five hundred years before.

the signal," whispered Latta through almost closed lips. "When the bronze bell sounds—that is the Master's coming."

Graham's nod was imperceptible, but under his blue helmet his eyes took on a fierce gleam. Except for this, there was nothing in which he differed from the other guards who stood impassively beside the throne-like dais in the brilliantly lighted courtroom.

He was surreptitiously scanning the throng of richly attired counselors and officials when the great bell pealed a signal note of warning. The hum of conversation ceased instantly. Stiffening into immobility, Graham faced straight ahead, following the action of the other guards.

Slowly a door at the rear of the great room opened, and a procession appeared, flanked by still other guards. Graham's pulses leaped to racing speed as he saw for the second time the malignant features of the man who called himself "Master." His writhing stride was gone, though there was still a suspicion of the hunched and twisted body. Except for this, and an increased appearance of age about his eyes, five centuries seemed to have made little change.

Beside him walked another man, one whose face also was strangely familiar. As he turned slightly toward the guards, Graham saw that it was Hayden. But all this was forgotten as his eyes rested upon two slender, robed figures following with halting steps and downcast eyes. The first was an unusually beautiful girl, with dark hair and a delicate, oval face. But the second was the one at sight of whom Graham almost jumped from his place. For the girl who followed the Master, her fair head bent in despair, was Betty—whom he had given up as dead!

Feverishly intent, he watched her approach, noting with keen anguish the deep sadness upon her lovely face. Then, realizing the danger of a sudden recognition if she should look up, he stolidly glanced away, steeling himself against any suspicious movement or expression. His fatalistic plan to sacrifice himself in killing the Master was quickly forgotten as the little procession moved by him. Why was Betty here at this time? Had she lived in some horrible slavery through all these years?

Half dazed, he listened to a proclamation read by an official as the Master mounted to his seat upon the dais. Slowly a cold horror descended upon him. Betty was to become the Master's consort! She was a super-woman (so read the proclamation) created by the Master to live forever as mistress of the Earthband. And at the same ceremony which effected this union, Hayden would be given the dark-eyed girl, Rosita. At this last, Latta reeled as though struck and his face went a sickly white.