Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 6 (1927-06).djvu/51



T WAS seldom that Charles Breinbar was excited. That he was excited then meant two things: first, that the matter was vastly important; second, that no crisis was immediately imminent, for in a crisis no man was ever more collected than he.

"Yes!" He was speaking in the explosive style which characterized him when excited. "If we fail—the whole world dies. And for me it is—vengeance as well. Come! Look and listen!" And he dragged me to some of his apparatus. Whirling the control dials, he motioned for me to watch a screen. There was a rapid play of lights and shadows, much as though I was looking at the reflection on a ceiling of a water surface disturbed by ripples. Suddenly he reached the right combination. The movement ceased and there was shown, plainly, a snow-covered surface, and on it was sprawled the body of a man, seemingly dead. I looked at Breinbar questioningly.

"Yes, dead!" he answered my unvoiced question. "That is an old friend, Amos Toble. Yesterday I got a letter from him. Said he was on a trip—up on the Dubaunt. Thought it would amuse me to see him. And so I turned the dials for him. Saw him tramping along. He came on a small animal, dead. Picked it up, seemed puzzled. Picked up another, also dead. It puzzled him. He walked on. Suddenly he stumbled. Seemed to regain his balance. Then collapsed. Quite dead!

"I quickly turned the dials to the 'Q' vibrations. They show up what we can't see by ordinary light, you know. I knew I would see his spirit, but I did not expect to see it struggling with Something! Trying to get back into his prone body, while the