By ROBERT E. HOWARD
A gripping, thrilling tale of a ghastly horror
that stalked the swamps of the Mississippi—a tale
of glorious heroism and the hunger of a black god.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales February 1935.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
1. The Horror in the Pines
The silence of the pine woods lay like a brooding cloak about the soulof Bristol McGrath. The black shadows seemed fixed, immovable as theweight of superstition that overhung this forgotten back-country.Vague ancestral dreads stirred at the back of McGrath's mind; for hewas born in the pine woods, and sixteen years of roaming about theworld had not erased their shadows. The fearsome tales at which he hadshuddered as a child whispered again in his consciousness; tales ofblack shapes stalking the midnight glades....
Cursing these childish memories, McGrath quickened his pace. The dimtrail wound tortuously between dense walls of giant trees. No wonder hehad been unable to hire anyone in the distant river village to drivehim to the Ballville estate. The road was impassable for a vehicle,choked with rotting stumps and new growth. Ahead of him it bent sharply.
McGrath halted short, frozen to immobility. The silence had been brokenat last, in such a way as to bring a chill tingling to the backs ofhis hands. For the sound had been the unmistakable groan of a humanbeing in agony. Only for an instant was McGrath motionless. Then hewas gliding about the bend of the trail with the noiseless slouch of ahunting panther.
A blue snub-nosed revolver had appeared as if by magic in his righthand. His left involuntarily clenched in his pocket on the bit of paperthat was responsible for his presence in that grim forest. That paperwas a frantic and mysterious appeal for aid; it was signed by McGrath'sworst enemy, and contained the name of a woman long dead.
McGrath rounded the bend in the trail, every nerve tense and alert,expecting anything—except what he actually saw. His startled eyes hungon the grisly object for an instant, and then swept the forest walls.Nothing stirred there. A dozen feet back from the trail visibilityvanished in a ghoulish twilight, where anything might lurk unseen.McGrath dropped to his knee beside the figure that lay in the trailbefore him.
It was a man, spread-eagled, hands and feet bound to four pegs drivendeeply in the hard-packed earth; a black-bearded, hook-nosed, swarthyman. "Ahmed!" muttered McGrath. "Ballville's Arab servant! God!"
For it was not the binding cords that brought the glaze to the Arab'seyes. A weaker man than McGrath might have sickened at the mutilationswhich keen knives had wrought on the man's body. McGrath recognizedthe work of an expert in the art of torture. Yet a spark of life stillthrobbed in the tough frame of the Arab. McGrath's gray eyes grewbleaker as he noted the position of the victim's body, and his mindflew back to another, grimmer jungle, and a half-flayed black manpegged out on a path as a warning to the white man who dared invade aforbidden land.
He cut the cords, shifted the dying man to a more comfortable position.It was all he could do. He saw the delirium ebb momentarily in thebloodshot eyes, saw recognition glimmer there. Clots of bloody foamsplashed the matted beard. The lips writhed soundlessly, and McGrathglimpsed the bloody stump of a severed tongue.
The black-nailed fingers began scrabbling in the dust. They shook,clawing erratically, but with purpose, McGrath bent close, tense withinterest, and saw