By ROBERT E. HOWARD
A grim tale of stark horror—of the terrible
disfigurement inflicted upon Adam Grimm by the
dark priests of Inner Mongolia, and the frightful
vengeance that pursued his enemy to the United States.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales November 1936.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
1. The Killer in the Dark
Egyptian darkness! The phrase is too vivid for complete comfort,suggesting not only blackness, but unseen things lurking in thatblackness; things that skulk in the deep shadows and shun the light ofday; slinking figures that prowl beyond the edge of normal life.
Some such thoughts flitted vaguely through my mind that night as Igroped along the narrow trail that wound through the deep pinelands.Such thoughts are likely to keep company with any man who dares invade,in the night, that lonely stretch of densely timbered river-countrywhich the black people call Egypt, for some obscurely racial reason.
There is no blackness this side of Hell's unlighted abyss as absoluteas the blackness of the pine woods. The trail was but a half-guessedtrace winding between walls of solid ebony. I followed it as muchby the instincts of the piny woods dweller as by the guidance ofthe external senses. I went as hurriedly as I dared, but stealthwas mingled with my haste, and my ears were whetted to knife-edgealertness. This caution did not spring from the uncanny speculationsroused by the darkness and silence. I had good, material reason to bewary. Ghosts might roam the pinelands with gaping, bloody throats andcannibalistic hunger as the negroes maintained, but it was no ghost Ifeared. I listened for the snap of a twig under a great, splay foot,for any sound that would presage murder striking from the blackshadows. The creature which, I feared, haunted Egypt was more to bedreaded than any gibbering phantom.
That morning the worst negro desperado in that part of the state hadbroken from the clutches of the law, leaving a ghastly toll of deadbehind him. Down along the river, bloodhounds were baying through thebrush and hard-eyed men with rifles were beating up the thickets.
They were seeking him in the fastnesses near the scattered blacksettlements, knowing that a negro seeks his own kind in his extremity.But I knew Tope Braxton better than they did; I knew he deviated fromthe general type of his race. He was unbelievably primitive, atavisticenough to plunge into uninhabited wilderness and live like a blood-madgorilla in solitude that would have terrified and daunted a more normalmember of his race.
So while the hunt flowed away in another direction, I rode towardEgypt, alone. But it was not altogether to look for Tope Braxton thatI plunged into that isolated fastness. My mission was one of warning,rather than search. Deep in the mazy pine labyrinth, a white man andhis servant lived alone, and it was the duty of any man to warn themthat a red-handed killer might be skulking about their cabin.
I was foolish, perhaps, to be traveling on foot; but men who wear thename of Garfield are not in the habit of turning back on a task onceattempted. When my horse unexpectedly went lame, I left him at one ofthe negro cabins which fringe the edge of Egypt, and went on afoot.Night overtook me on the path, and I intended remaining until morningwith the man I was going to warn—Richard Brent. He was a taciturnrecluse, suspicious and peculiar, but he could scarcely refuse to putme up for the night. He was a mysterious figure; why he chose to hidehimself