Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/58

Rh struck that lunging mottled head. Halted in mid-strike, that evil wisdom splattered like an egg, brain pan ripped wide.

The rattler lashed in its last agony, its tremendously muscular tail beating the ground with thumping blows, its yellow eyes still blazing with hate, but closing fast in doom.

I tried to say "Thanks, Red!"

Some mesmerism in those yellow, dying eyes! Shaking with disgust, Red Roane bent above that fen watcher, put down his hand to pick up that stricken sin, over whose eyes thin eye-membrane already lowered in death.

"Don't touch it, Red! Wait till the sun goes down."

''Hark! The rattle!'' Those opaque eyes shuttered back. Those yellow glances, though in mortal pain, were still furious and glistening. Those horny tail-bells clattered. Fangs in that shattered, insensate head yawned, closing in Red Roane's arm above the wrist.

I see him. Sweat upon his broad brown forehead; his laughing eyes astounded: his thick strong body shivering; wind stirring up his dark red hair. Behind him the brown-green marshes, grasses rippling, a stir going through their depths. His cheeks had never been so red.

Before I could move, he unlocked those jaws and hollow fangs, gripped hard in his arm with mortal rigor. He shivered now from the knees. His face went white.

"Cut!" he whispered. "I'll sit down."

With hunting knife I slashed his arm, deep driving four crossed cuts. He laughed, and tried to shout. Howling would have been more pleasant. I sucked those wounds, out of which slow blood was spouting from an artery. We panted now, both of us. He leaned heavily on my shoulder—he, the strong. I bound his arm, my own fingers so numb I fumbled at the work. Sweat on Red Roane's face was cold, and cold his wrists.

My arms clung about him. He swayed, almost toppling, clutching at grass stems with fading laughter. I picked up his marching stock and beat that golden, gory thing within the mire. Beat it till clay-white flesh, and bone and skin were one with the mucky mire of the swamp. But still its heart ebbed with deep purple pulsing. A smashing blow, and that, too, died.

"It's over!" Grimly I flung the bloody stave into the swaying grass.

"Yes, Jerry," whispered Red Roane, "it's nearly over."

I could not believe it. Red Roane, the strong man, the shouter, the singer, the gay-hearted lover! Is death then, so much stronger than life?

"A woman, Jerry," he whispered, "in Havana—Delores! She dances—"

"For God's sake, Red, wake up!"

"Dances at the—"

"Red! Red Roane! I'm here, boy!"

Out from the way, whence we had come, faintly I heard a cry. Who wept thus for the soul departing, sang paean for the dead? Was it wind over the stagnant grasses? Frail in the solitude, rose that wail again. The whimper of new-born life! In the squatter's hut the child had found its soul!

"Dolores!" whispered Red Roane. Beneath that brazen sky he whispered the name of love. "Dorores!"

Past a hundred miles of swamp, past a hundred miles of sea, did Dolores, the dancer, hear him calling her?

"Dolores!"

I hope she heard, for he was a good lad, though wild.

With a throat strangling in sobs, I sang to Red Roane. His eyes were closed, yet he heard me. Old campaign songs, songs of the march and the bivouac. Marchers' tunes.

Then he whispered for a lullaby, and, last of all, for a drinking song.

IMI TAL had danced up to us—Bimi Tal, daughter of Red Roane and of Dolores, the dancer.

She laughed and tossed her dark red hair. Her broad nostrils sucked in the hot night wind.