Page:Weird Tales v01n01 (1923-03).djvu/59

58 ''Stamp! Stamp! Stamp!'' Her body rippled. She cast her eyes at me.

Tain Dirk's head was rising. His thin, dry, red lips opened wide. His golden eyes burned with undying hate. ''Tat! tat! tat!'' his fingers drummed.

"In a minute, Jerry," whispered Bimi Tal, not pausing from her dance.

Her lovely eyes looked downward, seeing Dirk. She screamed. The music silenced. She struck her arm at him, not knowing what she did.

Mad! the Man was mad! His jaw opened wide. He bit her arm above the wrist.

Before the rush of frantic people had fallen over us, I struck his venomous face. With both fists, blow on blow. Blood came from his damned lips.

What madness seized him I don't know. Likely it was a memory surging back through dead life—the venom of the rattler, hate undying. But of that who can say? A strange thing is memory.

Yet I knew for sure that to him the mad sculptor, born in that hut in the hot savannahs, had passed the soul of the dying rattlesnake.

Hands dragged me back from him. I shouted and tore. He quivered, wounded heavily. His nervous fingers faintly clattered on the table, drumming with dreadful music. Police came in.

"Look!" I shouted to them. "Look at those marks of teeth on Bimi Tal's wrist. Two deep fangs. There's the man who killed Ynecita, the dancer!"