Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/59

202 "But certainly," he nodded with perfect aplomb, "she is the goat who lures the tigers within range of our guns."

His small, even teeth came together with a sharp, decided click. "Come, my friend," he bade as we drew up before my house, "let us to bed. We shall have need of a good night's sleep, for tomorrow—parbleu, I damn think we shall have much good sport before we take the pelts from off these two-legged tigers!"

dwarf, whose excessively ugly features were rendered still less prepossessing by deep smallpox pits, opened the stained-glass-and-walnut door of the big house in Tecumseh Street where we called with Fraulein Mueller about 4 o'clock the following afternoon.

"Have you an appointment with the Sibyl?" he asked arrogantly as he ushered us into the rug-strewn hall and paused before a heavily curtained doorway.

"La, la," de Grandin murmured wonderingly, "is she then a dentist or physician that one must arrange beforehand to consult her? We have no appointment, my friend; nevertheless, you will inform her that we desire to see her, and without unnecessary delay."

The undersized servitor blinked in amazement. Callers on Madame Laïla were wont to arrive in humble mien, apparently, and the little Frenchman's high-handed manner was a distinct novelty.

"Perhaps the Seeress will consent to see you, even though it's usual to arrange for a sitting beforehand," he replied in a slightly more cordial tone, presenting de Grandin with a pencil and pad of paper. "Kindly write your name on this tablet," he requested, then, as the Frenchman complied: "Tear the sheet off and put it in your pocket. It is not necessary for the Sibyl to see it in order to know your name; we only ask that you write it as a guaranty of good faith. Await me here; I will see if you can be admitted."

We had not long to wait, for the attendant returned almost before the curtains through which he had vanished had ceased to sway, and bowed formally to us. "The Sibyl will see you, Dr. de Grandin," he announced, holding the draperies aside.

I gave a slight start as my companion was addressed by name, for I had seen him stow the folded sheet of paper on which he had scribbled his signature in his waistcoat pocket.

"Laïla the Seeress sees all and knows all," the black dwarf informed me, as though reading my mind. "There are no secrets from her. This way, if you please."

The room we entered was hung with unrelieved black and lighted only by a lamp with three burners suspended from the ceiling by a bronze chain. Slightly beyond the center of the apartment sat a young woman garbed in a long, loose robe of some clinging black stuff with a headdress resembling a nun's wimple of the same sable hue. Her face denoted she was about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, though, contrary to the usual feminine custom, she appeared anxious to seem older. Her long, excessively thin arms were bare, as were her neck and feet, and the contrast of her pale flesh and black draperies in the room was an eery one. About her waist was a wide belt of shining black leather clasped with a garnet fastening which flashed fitfully in the chamber's half-light. In one hand she held a three-foot wand tipped with an ivory hand with outspread fingers, and she was seated on a sort of three-legged stool roughly resembling an ancient Greek tripod. From a brazen censer standing on the floor before her emanated penetrating, acrid