Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/52

Rh flash of amusement—"there he lies. Come, let us convey Mademoiselle to your office. I doubt not she can tell us something of much interest."

we assisted the still fainting girl to the cross street and signaled a passing taxicab. As the vehicle started toward my house I demanded: "Why in the world did you knock that fellow out, de Grandin? He really might have been afriend of this young lady's, and"

"The good God protect us from such friends," the little Frenchman cut in. "Attend me, if you please. As we turned away from the monument in the park I did first see this woman. She was running in a zigzag course, like a hare seeking to elude the pack, and I greatly wondered at her antics. All Americans are a little mad, I think, but"—he gave a short chuckle—"there is usually method behind their madness. That a young lady of fashionable appearance should run thus through the public park at a quarter to midnight seemed to be beyond the bounds of reason, but what I saw next gave me to think violently. Before she had gone a dozen steps, a man appeared from behind a patch of bushes and took off his hat to her, speaking words which seemed to cause her fright. She turned and ran toward the other side of the park, and another man arose from behind a bench, removed his hat and said something, whereat she flung up her hands and turned again, running toward us, and going faster with each step. A moment before I invited your attention to her, a third man—morbleu, it was the same one I later caressed with my heel!—addressed her. It was immediately afterward, as she came toward us with a great fear upon her, that I called your attention."

"H'm," I muttered, "he-flirts?"

"Non," he negatived. "I do not think they were making the—how do you say it? mash?—on her. No, it was something more serious, my friend. Listen: I did behold the faces of the men who accosted her, and each face was as it had been aflame with fire!"

"Wha—what?" I shot back. "Aflame with—whatever are you talking about?"

"I tell you no more than what I saw," he returned equably. "Each man’s face glowed with a light like that of a long-dead carcass which shines and stinks in the swamps at night. Also, my friend, I did perceive that each man reached out and touched her with a wand like that with which the so detestable rogue would have struck me, had I not spoiled his plan with my boot."

"My dear chap, you're surely dreaming!" I scoffed. "Men with fiery faces accosting young women in the public park, and touching them with magic wands! This is the State of New Jersey in the Twentieth Century, not Bagdad in the days of the Calif Haroun!"

"U'm," he returned noncommittally. The flame of his match flared lambently as he set a cigarette alight. "Perhaps, my friend. Let us see what the young lady has to say when we have restored her to consciousness. Pardieu, I shall be greatly surprized if we are not astounded at her story!"

{{di|A}|fl="} ether, if you please, Friend Trowbridge," de Grandin ordered when we had carried the swooning girl into my surgery and laid her on the examination table. "Her heart action is very slow, and the ether will stimulate"

A deep-drawn, shuddering moan from our patient interrupted him. "Ach, lieber Himmel!" she exclaimed feebly, throwing out her arms with a convulsive movement as her lids