Page:Weird Tales v33n05 (1939-05).djvu/143

Rh of ancient Egypt. But why this questioning?"

Sternberg flicked the stub of his cigarette across the rail into the Nile.

"Mr. Lawson," he said, speaking slowly, as one who measures his words, "you are an American and I presume you are quite capable of managing your own business without outside interference. At the same time I am old enough in body to be your father and old enough in knowledge to be your long-forgotten ancestor, and I am thick-skinned enough to risk insulting you if thereby I may do you a service. There are several reasons for my curiosity, but one is sufficient for the moment. Frankly, it seems to me that this Von Schrimm is far more interested in your wife's society than should be good for your peace of mind."

Lawson flushed angrily.

"Indeed?" he said with frigid politeness.

"Oh, you are insulted, of course," continued Sternberg, calmly lighting a fresh cigarette, "yet if you will be fair, you will see that there is no cause for offense. What I say, I say in the greatest friendship. Were I less of a friend I should keep silent. I do not suggest that your wife is in the slightest degree a party to this situation. I do not believe she suspects it. I will say, however, that Von Schrimm does not beget my confidence. He is a man of powerful personality—of evil personality. If I were you I should view him with suspicion and distrust."

"Mrs. Lawson is quite capable of looking after herself," remarked Lawson, still with some annoyance.

"No woman is capable of looking after herself when dealing with a man of Von Schrimm's type," returned the Austrian calmly. "Have you ever looked into his eyes?"

"Well, his eyes, at least, don't fascinate Hetty. She has even said unkind things about them."

"What did she say?"

"She said that they looked like the eyes of a 'dead soul' and she hated them."

TERNBERG sat up in his chair so suddenly that his glowing cigarette fell from his lips and rolled across the deck.

"Did she say that?" he demanded

"Those were the very words she used. Rather original, don't you think—the eyes of a 'dead soul'?"

"Very," answered the Austrian with an emphasis that was lost upon Lawson.

He extracted and lit another cigarette. There was a silence.

"Did you ever meet a 'dead soul'?"

There was an intenseness in the question which caused Lawson to stare at his companion in surprise.

"Good God, no! Did you?"

"Once," said the Austrian, quietly. "It was a ghastly business."

"What on earth are you talking about?" cried Lawson in horrified amazement.

"Life is an awful mystery, whichever way you look at it," continued Sternberg imperturbably, speaking in a low voice, almost as though to himself. "We moderns are apt to forget that the ancients came closer to solving some of its mysteries than we with our boasted science have ever done. Even the ancients did not solve the mystery of the soul, but they did discover that man has still several bodily vehicles remaining to him after he has discarded his earth body in the change which we call death. Each of these finer bodies he discards in turn, but they, being possessed of a certain inherent life of their own, do not immediately disintegrate when the 'soul' abandons them. Instead, they drift around more or less aimlessly for indefinite periods. They form the foundation of most of the ghost stories. Sometimes through some tragic disaster a 'soul' is arrested in its evolution and is doomed to wander for vast spaces of time