Page:Weird Tales v02 n01 (1923-07-08).djvu/13

12 There was a large, painted clay water jar. Neatly folded across its top lay a little heap of what might have been unbleached linen, though on examination the fabric proved to be woven of a soft, yellowish fiber, probably derived from one of the many useful species of palms. Near this jar stood another smaller vessel, of the same general appearance, but surrounded by a half-dozen handleless bowls or cups carved out of smooth, yellow wood, highly polished. And still beside these things was another offering.

Waring removed his hat again and ran his fingers through his hair.

"What’s the big idea?" he demanded at large. "Water and towels—fine. Sig and TNT sure need 'em. Festive bowls. May be finger-bowls, but I doubt it. Well and good. Though I, for one, draw the line at cocktails where I don’t know my bootlegger. But why all the furriers' display? Does she want us to assume the native costume?"

Otway raised the largest of five black jaguar hides which were ranged in a neat row on the pavement.

"Here’s yours, Waring," he chuckled. "The beast that grew this was a lord among his kind. You see, it fastens over the shoulders with these gold clasps. And there's a chain girdle. Suppose you retire to one of those eight convenient dressing-rooms and change? Then if the rest of us like the effect—"

"Set the example yourself! I'm no cave-man. But what's her idea?"

"She is trying to drive it through our thick skulls that she means only kindness toward us!" This from Sigsbee, who, having reverently allowed his hostess to pour water over his hands was now, with equal reverence, accepting a fiber napkin to dry them.

As if handling the heavy water jar had at last wearied her, the girl thereupon surrendered it to the steward. Tellifer, with a vengeful glare at his luckier predecessor, proceeded to his ablutions.

"My experience," said Otway, "has been that among strange peoples it is always well to accept any friendly acts that are offered. No matter what one's private misgivings may be, no trace of them should show in one’s manner. By that simple rule I have kept my life and liberty in many situations where others had been less fortunate. Despite our suspicions, we have shown not a trace of hostility toward this girl. We have offered no violence nor rudeness. Who knows? If we continue on our good behavior we may find ourselves accepted as friends, not only by the girl but all her foster-people. I’ve proved it to work out that way more than once."

"She's a mighty nice girl." Waring was weakly accepting a polished yellow cup. "But d'you think we should risk drinking this—purple stuff?"

The explorer sipped testingly at the liquor which his hostess had gracefully poured from the wine-jar.

"It is only assai wine,'’ he announced. "No harm in it—unless one indulges too freely. See—she is pouring herself a cup! We had best drink, I believe, and then indicate that we would like to meet her people."

"Sensible girl, too," approved Waring. "Cave-man costumes. Nice little gift. But no effort to force 'em on us. Well-bred kid. Out-of-place here, hm?"

"Oh, decidedly," the explorer agreed. "I shall take her away with me when we go."

Otway was a man of morally spotless reputation. As leader of the expedition, he had every right to use the first personal pronoun in announcing his intent to rescue this white girl. Yet the statement seemed displeasing to every one of the explorer's four companions. The glances of all turned upon him with sudden hostility. Sigsbee was heard to mutter something that sounded like "Infernal cheek!"

But Otway gave their opinion no heed. Like the rest, he had drained his cup of purple wine. Innocent though he had claimed the vintage to be, it had deepened the color of his sun-burned face with amazing quickness. The cool gray eyes behind the shell-rims had grown bright and strangely eager. He swayed slightly. He took an unsteady step toward the girl, who had thus far barely stained her lips with the purple liquor.

"Sure!" he added thickly, "Queer I didn’t realize that sooner. Girl I’ve been—waiting for—always! Never got married, just that reason. Looking for this one. Take her away now!"

"You will not!"

Waring's mighty hand closed viselike on the naturalist's shoulder, wrenching him backward.

"Tha’s right, Alcot," Tellifer approved, "He couldn' half 'preciate loveliness like hers. Tha's for me! I 'preciate such things. Lovely girl—lovely diamond—lovely place—lovely 'dventure—"

As if in adoration of the prevailing loveliness of everything, Tellifer sank to his knees, and subsided gently with his head on one of the jaguar hides.

Waring discovered that he was not restraining Otway, but supporting his sagging weight. He released it, stared stupidly as the explorer’s form dropped limply to the floor.

Something was very much wrong. Waring knuckled his eyes savagely. They cleared for an instant. There stood the girl. Her dawn-blue eyes were looking straight into his. There were great tears shining in them! Her whole attitude expressed mournful, drooping dejection. The golden-yellow cup had fallen from her hand. Across the pavement a purple pool spread and crept toward the little bare white feet.

ARING knew that he, too, had fallen to the floor, and that he could not rise.

Over him was bending—a face. Above it a circlet of star-white gems gleamed with a ghostly luster. The form beneath was draped in the spotted hide of a jaguar, fastened at the shoulders with fine golden chains.

But that face! Old, seamed, haggard, framed in wild locks of ragged, straying gray hair, with terrible eyes whose dark light had feasted through unnumbered years upon vicious cruelty, with toothless mouth distended in awful laughter—a hag's face, the face of a very night-hag—and up beside it rose a wrinkled, clawlike hand, and hovered above his throat! The vision passed. Merciful oblivion ensued.

S HE had been last to succumb under the terrific potency of that "harmless assai wine," so the correspondent was first to recover his normal senses. After a few minutes of fogginess, he grasped the main facts of the situation well enough.

In a way, they scarcely even surprised him. Now that the thing was done, he saw with dreary clearness that this had been a foregone conclusion from the instant when five fools, ignoring all circumstantial evidence, had placed their trust in a pair of dawn-blue eyes.

Just at first he had no way of being sure that he was not the sole fool who had survived. But as the others, one by one, awakened and replied to the correspondent's sardonic inquiries, he learned that their number was still complete.

Their voices, however, reached him with a muffled, hollow sound. They were accompanied by a clanking of heavy bronze chains, appropriately dismal.

Through the triangular opening in his cell door, Waring could see along a narrow lane in the greenery to the central court. The place was no longer illum-