Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/44

Rh Suddenly they stopped with shadowy arms uplifted. In the exact center of the dancing-floor, something was rising; inch by inch it seemed to struggle through the hard-packed earth. Finally, Jarvais could partly distinguish what it was—a huge stone; and by the paleness of the moon, now dimming on the horizon’s edge, he could make out its odd shape, which seemed like a monstrous half-moon lying on its back with its two sharp horns pointing skyward. Beside it was another shadow with arms uplifted: that of a man, huge and powerful. Jarvais had never seen a man of such stature. He could see the shadow’s giant torso: the swelling chest, the pillar-like legs, and the arms long and muscular with great, long-fingered, prehensile hands—all this cast in high relief against the whiteness of the altar, for altar he now knew it to be. At last the moor had given up to him her deepest secret, and he knew, too, why the search of all but Gilbert had been unsuccessful—and Gilbert had paid with his life for the secret.

The shadow-man lowered his arms and the multitude of shades threw themselves on their faces as the altar finally came to rest on the surface of the floor. To Jarvais it seemed as if thick smoke rolled before his eyes. As through a cloud he saw the shadow-man rise and turn toward him and point a commanding finger. For the first time real terror smote him, and he knew such fear as few men have ever known. He tried to turn and run, but it was as if he were turned to stone as heavy and solid as those silent gray rocks about him. Amid the gathering blackness he saw the shadows, now dimmed, spring suddenly upon him. He felt hot breaths on his cheek. Shapeless, shadowy hands tore at him; strong hands they were. Surely such strength could not belong to bodiless shadows. But he could see no one—just a rolling mass of deeper blackness in the mist before his eyes.

The shadows overbore him and carried him along. Strong arms lifted him up, and now he caught a stench as of something long dead, and of rottenness beyond human ken—yet not dead, but alive, for the dead have no strength, and here was strength abundant. High, high aloft he was lifted; up, up to the altar. The mist that had been before his eyes cleared and he could still feel unseen shadowy hands that tugged at him, pulled at his feet. Up he went, until he could plainly see the fearful carvings on the altar—too horrible even to glance at again. He felt himself wrenched and stretched out and out, and then found himself strung between the horns of the mighty altar.

The moon had almost set, and it was throwing its last dim rays across the plain. Unseen fingers tore the cotton from his ears, and at last he heard what he had dreaded to hear: that uncanny, bestial music of the ruins. It was playing, now softly, now rising in a hellish crescendo, while all about him danced the shadows, noiselessly, ceaselessly. He turned his eyes away and looked up. Towering over him was the tremendous man, or rather the shadow of some giant from the ancient past when the world must have been young and terrible. Stretching his arms toward the dying moon the man knelt. The music ceased with a throb, and the shadows prostrated themselves in a ring about the altar.

The sudden silence beat on Jarvais’ frayed nerves more horribly than the din of the music. Long it lasted, this silent prayer to the dying moon, but finally the huge shadow-man arose, reached below Jarvais, and took from its hiding-place a knife. There was nothing shadowy about the knife. It