Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu/36

 with Two Horses." She indicated the Indian who had brought them. "You can help him bring back our baggage." With a grunt Nahma swung herself into the canoe and followed the two with her beady eyes as they mounted the path to the house.

Roger Benton reached the porch steps, stumbled as he mounted them, and was cursed for his clumsiness. As Hilda opened the door, a sudden swell of sound smote his ears. He raised his head quickly, like a startled animal.

The tribesmen had begun their yearly chant across the lake.

Hilda chuckled dryly, "You've heard that before. This is the singing season for these fools."

"Yes—" he muttered, "it's the 'Moon of Falling Leaves—of dying things'." Then he fell groveling at her feet. "I can't go in that house," he sobbed, "I've got to leave this island! I'm afraid here—I'm afraid!"

She swung the door open, pushed him inside and down on the nearest chair. Then she cursed, sneered, threatened and cajoled until his hysteria had spent itself. When his sobs of unreasoning terror ceased, she thrust a flask of whiskey in his hand and told him, "I'm going to have a look through the house and make sure that squaw's taken care of things. You stay quiet here till I come back and,"—with a sneer—"don't let that conscience of yours get going again."

The chant from across the lake beat monotonously against his ears. After awhile he became aware of another sound—a dry little rasping that seemed somehow familiar, native to the place. He found a kind of peace in the strangely wonted sound—until his mind snapped open and he realized what it was.

It was an invalid's rasping cough.

His scream brought Hilda down the stairs almost instantly.

Voice breaking to treble pitch in his terror, he indicated the closed door that led to the living room, "I heard Bernice coughing—in there!"

She slammed him back into the chair. "You've got her on your brain, that's all."

"No—no," he whispered. "I heard her, I tell you!"' He stiffened, sat upright.

Behind that closed door something had coughed again. Hilda wheeled, a light of bewilderment in her face. "Say, I heard something that time!" She strode purposefully to the door.

He found her laughing. "Absolutely empty—not a soul here but ourselves." Then both heard the cough again.

He stood as if frozen she, puzzled. "Funny — we both hear it, yet this room is empty. Oh—!" impatiently, she threw off the unaccustomed fear that strove to grip her—"You've got me imagining things now, that's the whole answer."

Neither spoke for a full minute. Both stood tense. Listening. Waiting. Finally, Hilda shivered slightly. "Must be going to rain," she muttered, "feel how damp it's grown suddenly?"

"Yes," he quavered, "very damp—suddenly." She followed his gaze, riveted to a spot on the floor.

"Where did that come from? A minute ago this room was as neat as a pin. What is it?"

He mumbled thickly, his hands shaking: "It's slime—green slime, from the bottom of the lake."

"That squaw didn't clean——"

He interrupted her, "It wasn't there a minute ago. You said that yourself."

"I must have overlooked it!" Her voice was wavering, uncertain now. "There's another—and another, right on the divan!"

"Yes! And there—and there——"

All over the room began to appear patch after patch of the filthy slime forming silently under their horrified eyes. As they