Lukundoo | Page 6

ground by the cot and brought the butt down once and twice, viciously.
We went back to our hut, but I doubt if I slept.
Chapter VI
Next day, near noon, in broad daylight, we heard the two voices from Stone's hut. We found Etcham dropped asleep by his charge. The swelling on the left had broken, and just such another head was there miauling and spluttering. Etcham woke up and the three of us stood there and glared. Stone interjected hoarse vocables into the tinkling gurgle of the portent's utterance.
Van Rieten stepped forward, took up Stone's razor and knelt down by the cot. The atomy of a head squealed a wheezy snarl at him.
Then suddenly Stone spoke English.
"Who are you with my razor?"
Van Rieten started back and stood up.
Stone's eyes were clear now and bright, they roved about the hut.
"The end," he said; "I recognize the end. I seem to see Etcham, as if in life. But Singleton! Ah, Singleton! Ghosts of my boyhood come to watch me pass! And you, strange specter with the black beard and my razor! Aroint ye all!"
"I'm no ghost, Stone," I managed to say. "I'm alive. So are Etcham and Van Rieten. We are here to help you."
"Van Rieten!" he exclaimed. "My work passes on to a better man. Luck go with you, Van Rieten."
Van Rieten went nearer to him.
"Just hold still a moment, old man," he said soothingly. "It will be only one twinge."
"I've held still for many such twinges," Stone answered quite distinctly. "Let me be. Let me die in my own way. The hydra was nothing to this. You can cut off ten, a hundred, a thousand heads, but the curse you can not cut off, or take off. What's soaked into the bone won't come out of the flesh, any more than what's bred there. Don't hack me any more. Promise!"
His voice had all the old commanding tone of his boyhood and it swayed Van Rieten as it always had swayed everybody.
"I promise," said Van Rieten.
Almost as he said the word Stone's eyes filmed again.
Then we three sat about Stone and watched that hideous, gibbering prodigy grow up out of Stone's flesh, till two horrid, spindling little black arms disengaged themselves. The infinitesimal nails were perfect to the barely perceptible moon at the quick, the pink spot on the palm was horridly natural. These arms gesticulated and the right plucked toward Stone's blond beard.
"I can't stand this," Van Rieten exclaimed and took up the razor again.
Instantly Stone's eyes opened, hard and glittering.
"Van Rieten break his word?" he enunciated slowly. "Never!"
"But we must help you," Van Rieten gasped.
"I am past all help and all hurting," said Stone. "This is my hour. This curse is not put on me; it grew out of me, like this horror here. Even now I go."
His eyes closed and we stood helpless, the adherent figure spouting shrill sentences.
In a moment Stone spoke again.
"You speak all tongues?" he asked quickly.
And the mergent minikin replied in sudden English:
"Yea, verily, all that you speak," putting out its microscopic tongue, writhing its lips and wagging its head from side to side. We could see the thready ribs on its exiguous flanks heave as if the thing breathed.
"Has she forgiven me?" Stone asked in a muffled strangle.
"Not while the moss hangs from the cypresses," the head squeaked. "Not while the stars shine on Lake Pontchartrain will she forgive."
And then Stone, all with one motion, wrenched himself over on his side. The next instant he was dead.
When Singleton's voice ceased the room was hushed for a space. We could hear each other breathing. Twombly, the tactless, broke the silence.
"I presume," he said, "you cut off the little minikin and brought it home in alcohol."
Singleton turned on him a stern countenance.
"We buried Stone," he said, "unmutilated as he died."
"But," said the unconscionable Twombly, "the whole thing is incredible."
Singleton stiffened.
"I did not expect you to believe it," he said; "I began by saying that although I heard and saw it, when I look back on it I cannot credit it myself."
THE END

A free ebook from http://www.dertz.in/