Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/101

244 ment. There is but the softest movement of the air now."

Tis true," Griswold nodded, turning his head as though listening. "I didn't notice myself how marked the change was."

"And," added the other, "it seems warmer up here."

"It does. Probably that is because the breeze, gentle though it was, has fallen."

A thermometer at sea-level and another here at the summit would have shown a difference of more than 15°, Fahrenheit. Not that Griswold, had he known it, would have given this fact a second thought. Nor did he once think that something might be hidden there beyond that distant skyline. Nor would he have given that more than a second thought had he known it.

Already the Fairy Morgana was waving her wand—she whose magic was to bring the secret of Griswold and the man himself to wrack and utter ruin.

"Well,” Griswold said suddenly, "let's go down, Ferdy."

His victim arose with alacrity.

"But," Griswold added, "not to the Gorgon just yet. Let's go over there," waving a hand toward the eastern extremity of the island. The other made no response, and they made their way down in silence, the wolf-dog following, savage of visage and almost as noiseless as some gliding shadow.

Suddenly—they were then drawing near the edge of the rock wall, here some fifty feet in height—Griswold jerked out his revolver.

"Watch me," he said, his look upon a passing gull, "plug that fellow."

"What," Chantrell asked, "do you want to shoot the poor devil for?"

"Sport, Ferdy, sport. And just to see if my eye and hand are in trim. I used to be considered a crack shot with a revolver, Ferdy. But no," said Griswold, turning until the weapon was bearing directly upon the other, "why should I send a bullet into the bird? It never harmed me."

"Look out!" cried Chantrell. "Turn that thing the other way!"

He stepped quickly to one side, but the weapon followed him.

"Watch what you're doing! That thing's pointed right at me!"

"At you?" queried Griswold with simulated surprize. "I'm glad you told me, Ferdy. You see, I was thinking of something else."

The victim made another swift movement, but it was only to find, as before, that the weapon was still bearing upon him.

Then of a sudden Ferdinand Chantrell understood, and he stood very straight and still, looking squarely into the terrible, fiendish eyes of Griswold.

"Ha, ha!" said Griswold, his voice harsh and quivering with passion. "You see the joke now, Handsome Ferdy! You thought that I didn't mean it. You thought that I was acting when I wasn't and that I wasn't when I was. Ha, ha! If you have a prayer to make, Handsome Ferdy, be about it quick, for I am going to kill you as I said I would, and as I said I wouldn't—kill you and feed you to the fishes and the slimy things. You'll never steal another Amanda."

"You beast! You insane, cowardly beast!"

Griswold's answer was a taunting laugh.

Of a sudden the eyes of the victim moved, and the next instant they had fixed themselves, it seemed, on some object directly behind Griswold.

"Look!" cried Ferdinand Chantrell, pointing. "Look at that!"

But Griswold chuckled and shook his head knowingly.

"Don't think that you can play that old trick on me!" he said. "Don't you ever think, Handsome Ferdy,