The life-eater Chapter 4: Part 4

had recognized the only barrier in his way; therefore he had set upon Lamontaine the dreadful thing that his sorcery had conjured from behind the veil. His hypnotic power had paved the way for the monstrosity's attack. Only the chance finding of the gun with its content of iron had kept him from glutting his vengeance to the full. Why? Lamontaine believed that he knew the reason and could bring the orgy of horror to a stop. It was a question of obtaining the evidence. Little use to search for Kronk in the midst of the swamp. It was filled with tiny islets and oases where a man might hide for weeks without being found. No, there were other ways of laying the fiend by the heels. The red-haired physician's battered car was in the shed at the rear of the house. Scribbling a hasty note to Le Front, telling him that he had been called away for the day, he hurried out and climbed painfully beneath the wheel. Five minutes later the little village lay behind him and he was on his way to New Orleans. It was late in the evening when he returned. Instead of stopping at his own home, he skirted the village, coming in from the opposite direction. The streets were deserted, with only an occasional light showing in the windows behind which the afflicted lay fighting their battle for life. He drove straight to the little cottage of the schoolmaster and, parking his car in the rear, hastened inside. Le Front was there. The dominie looked up at the newcomer with feverish eyes in which there was no light of recognition. Lamontaine hastily mixed him a sleeping-potion, then turned to the constable. "Worse," he said non-committally. Le Front nodded. "I theenk zat devil weel come for heem tonight," he answered, crossing himself hastily. Lamontaine gave him his instructions. He made several trips to the car, returning each time bending under the weight of many packages. Laying them on the floor, he turned to the physician. "You are determin' to see thees theeng through?" he asked. Lamontaine nodded. Le Front turned and, without a single backward glance, hurried out of the house like a man laboring under a great fright. * * * * * Turning the kerosene lamp down low, Lamontaine busied himself in the semi-darkness with the packages that Le Front had carried in from the car. Most of them contained long strips of iron rolled as thin as tin. Using a small tack-hammer, he nailed them over all the doors and windows except one. He took great precautions to see that all the holes were covered, not even a keyhole being left open. The window that he did not close, he stripped with iron so that when it was pulled down, the strips protruded over the edges. His task completed, he opened the window again and, leaving the lamp turned low, settled down to his lonely vigil. In his hand was a small pentagon made of iron, attached to a handle. This was his only weapon. The sick man on the bed breathed heavily, the result of the sleeping-potion Lamontaine had given him. The physician was weary after what he had gone through the night before and the activities of the day; yet he did not sleep. Then that for which he had been waiting made its appearance. Lamontaine drew a quick breath. There had been no sound, yet its dim shadow was easily discernible as it lurked for a moment in the darkness. The big physician, his eyes apparently closed, watched it with a queer, tingling sensation creeping up and down his backbone as it waited, seemingly planning its attack. It finally drew itself slowly through the window, a cloud-like, shapeless monstrosity, almost formless, yet having the general outlines of a human being. It was horrible, grotesque, diabolical. For a moment it floated in midair as if debating which of the two men to attack. Then, its mind--if mind it had--made up, it settled down over the bed where the little schoolmaster lay. Lamontaine's hand moved slowly to the window. He was about to pull it down.... From outside came a muffled report. Lamontaine slid slowly from the chair as a bullet grazed his head. The window crashed shut. The automatic latch clicked. He was locked inside the room, unconscious, with the sick man and the horrible thing from the beyond, caught in the trap of his own making. The monstrosity hovered, bat-like, over the form of the little dominie for an instant. Then it settled like a malignant miasma. Its vaporish arms wrapped themselves about the sick man; its cruel slash of a mouth was pressed against the lips of its victim. Sleeping though he was, his senses dulled by the potion Lamontaine had given him, Pelletier, nevertheless, groaned in agony. Lamontaine, who had tasted the power of the hellish thing and lived, alone knew the torture the other's stupefied body was undergoing. He was dizzy from his own injury, his head spinning like a gyroscope. Yet he managed to drag himself to his feet, the handle of the pentagon in his hand. It took him a moment to see things clearly--to make out the outlines of the diabolical creature crouched upon the dominie's breast. Then something within his brain exploded like a bomb. He charged forward, roaring angrily. The spirit form squealed like a cornered rat as the cold iron touched its vaporish body. Then it whirled away, turning on Lamontaine, its serpentine arms stretched forward like tentacles. Lamontaine dodged around the bed, the pentagon extended like a sword. For a moment the creature crouched close to the floor, its smudgy, shapeless face turned toward its attacker. Every detail of its exaggerated deformity was brought out in bold relief. Its dead, slate-like eyes glared malevolently. Its incredibly horrible mouth snapped like that of an angry cuttle-fish. Lamontaine charged again. The thing dodged toward the window through which it had entered, only to bound back again with a squeal of fright as it came in contact with the iron bands. It twisted in midair like a vortex and bounded toward Lamontaine. The big man held it off with the pentagon. It floated through the air with incredible speed, touching the form on the bed again as if loth to be cheated of its victim. But once more Lamontaine warded it off with his exorcistical pentagon. It squealed wildly and darted away again. Little by little, he drove it into a distant corner. It dodged from side to side, but the five-sided iron emblem always stood in its way. It shrieked like a cornered rat.... Suddenly it changed tactics. Leaping high into the air, it crashed against the ceiling and bounded back upon the bed. Its long, spiderish legs wrapped themselves about the body of its victim again. In spite of his stupor, the sick man shrieked with misery as the monstrosity strove to lap the last of his vitality. Its slit of a mouth was pressed close to the face of the dying man. One attenuated arm was twisted about the frail body. The other was stretched forth in an effort to seize Lamontaine. It succeeded ... the big physician felt himself jerked through the air. He swung the pentagon forward. The weight of the physician's body as he was thrown through the air worked to the undoing of the monstrosity. The iron pentagon pierced the vaporish body--went through it and touched against the bared breast of the man on the bed. The wraith-like form faded into nothingness. All that was left was the horrible, stifling odor of diabolical hatred.... Upon the white flesh of the dominie's breast was a five-sided mark where the pentagon had touched.... Lamontaine whirled as he heard the crash of glass. The shade was pushed aside, and through the opening peered a saturnine countenance, the sunken eyes gleaming with malevolence. In the claw-like fingers was a revolver. The physician threw himself sideways as the gun crashed. The bullet missed him by the fraction of an inch. He brought the iron pentagon down across the wrist of the other with a wild, over-hand blow. Aaron Kronk uttered a scream of rage as the weapon dropped from his fingers. He leaped away from the window, his broken arm hanging uselessly by his side. Turning, he raced madly in the direction of the swamp. A second report split the darkness as Constable Pierre Le Front, lying in ambush in accordance with Lamontaine's orders, fired. Kronk's cadaverous form crashed to the ground. He rolled over and over, then lay still. Le Front ran forward. Bending over the crumpled form of his victim, he strove to gaze into the twisted face. The other's long arm reached out and, seizing him by the ankle, gave a sudden jerk. He went down like a log, his weapon exploding harmlessly in the air, all the wind knocked from his body. Kronk bounded to his feet like a rubber ball. Then, kicking the weapon from the unconscious man's hand, he charged through the long, dank grass that lined the edge of the swamp. _5. Denouement_ Lamontaine, climbing through the broken window, saw what had happened and increased his speed. As he reached Le Front, the little constable pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the gun on the ground. Lamontaine seized it and emptied its contents after the fleeing man. Kronk chuckled derisively as he leaped into his boat and pushed it out into the blackness of the swamp. Lamontaine returned to the house, the crestfallen little constable at his heels. Hastily mixing a potion, he raised the sick man's head and forced a few drops between his lips. Pelletier stirred weakly, then opened his eyes. "Did it--come?" he asked finally. Lamontaine nodded. The dominie winced as he straightened himself in bed. "_Mon Dieu!_" he gasped. "My entire body aches." Then he noticed for the first time the mark of the pentagon on his breast. "That?" he exclaimed, "What is it?" "The brand of a man who was willing to go through hell for the sake of the woman he loved," Lamontaine answered. "Your worries are over, my friend. Evelyn l'Brest will live--to make you a good wife. The horror is ended. * * * * * "It is easily explained, once we understand," Lamontaine said enigmatically, stretching forth his hand for the rum-jug and filling the battered cup. He waited until the constable had poured a libation. The two men touched cups silently and drank. "You gave me the idea," he continued. "In N'Orleans today I confirmed my suspicion. A man answering the description of Kronk has secured title to the whole of the swamp. It is wanted for a paddy