Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 06.djvu/51

Rh "Hullo, de Grand in!" I began. "I've found"

A crashing in the undergrowth near by cut short my hail, and I drew the pistol which de Grandin had insisted that I carry as the thing or person neared me.

The rhododendron branches parted as a pair of groping hands thrust forth, and Appleby came staggering out. "Th' black 'un, sir," he gasped in a hoarse voice. "Hi passed 'im 'fore I knew it, sir, then seen 'is turban shinin' hin th' leaves. I myde to shoot 'im, but 'e stuck me with a forked stick. Hi'm a-dyin', sir, a-dy"

He dropped upon the grass, the fatal word half uttered, made one or two convulsive efforts to regain his feet, then slumped down on his face.

"De Grandin!" I called frenziedly. "I say, de Grandin"

He was beside me almost as I finished calling, and together we cut the poor chap's trouser leg away, disclosing two small parallel pin-pricks in the calf of his left leg. A little spot of ecchymosis, like the bruise left by a blow, was round the wounds, and beyond it showed an area of swelled and reddened skin, almost like a scald. When de Grandin made a small incision with his knife in the bruised flesh, then pressed each side the wounds, the blood oozed thickly, almost like a semi-hardened gelatin.

"C'est fini," he pronounced as he rose and brushed his knees. "He did not have a chance, that poor one. This settles it."

"What settles what?"

"This, parbleu! If we needed further proof that we are menaced by a band of desperate dakaits we have it now. It is the mark and sign-manual of the criminal tribes of Burma. The man is dead of cobra venom—but these wounds were not made by a snake's fangs."

good heavens, man, if this keeps up there won't be one of us to tell the tale!" cried Pemberton as we completed ministering to Appleby's remains. "Twice they almost got me with their knives; they almost murdered Doctor Trowbridge; they've done for Annie and poor Appleby"

"Exactement," de Grandin nodded. "But this will not keep up. Tonight, this very evening, we shall call their promontory—non, I mean their bluff. The co-incidences of your kinsmen's deaths by fire, those might have been attributed to Hindoo curses; myself, I think they are; but these deliberate murders and attempts at murder are purely human doings. Your cousin, Monsieur Ritter"

"Not an earthly!" Pemberton smiled grimly. "Did you ever see a British Indian jail? Not quite as easy to walk out of 'em as it is from an American prison"

"Notwithstanding which, Monsieur"—the little Frenchman smiled sarcastically—"this Monsieur Ritter is at large, and probably within a gun-shot of us now. When I was in the village this forenoon I cabled the police at Bombay. The answer came within three hours:

"You see? His jail-break almost coincided with the passing of your kinsman in America. He knew about the family curse, undoubtlessly, and determined to make profit by it. But he was practical, that one. Mais oui. He did not intend to wait the working of a curse which might be real or only fanciful. Not he, by blue! He bought the service of a crew of Burman cutthroats, and they came with all their bag of villain's tricks—their knives, their subtle poisons, even an hyena! That it was your servants and not you who met their deaths is not