Page:Weird Tales Volume 26 Number 03 (1935-09).djvu/106

their number. He secreted himself in a dark corner and waited. After centuries had passed, or so it seemed to him, the boat started moving. It would not be long now. He did not stop to think what would happen when they were caught—that would take care of itself.

Ah—voices, coming nearer and nearer. From his corner Paul could distinetly see the silhouettes of the two men who were approaching.

"Yes," said one, "it is sad. The mayor is broken-hearted—we were going to take her body to Charleston—but the mayor had her buried from Saint Louis just after the sun went down."

The thing—the toad—comes from a small, ruined Aztec temple in Central Mexico. My standing as an archeologist has not come unearned, and I know that none of the Aztec gods was represented by a toad; nor does evidence exist that the reptile had any other sacred significance in their religious symbolism. Yet this one occupied the place of honor in the temple; and except for it, there was no image in the ruins.

The thing struck me with an odd loathing, a sense of dread and oppression, almost at sight. As for my Indian workmen, they were persuaded to enter the temple only with difficulty. No explanation was obtainable, but their terror of the place was manifest.

When I removed the toad from its pedestal overlooking a small altar, they groveled on the ground in abject misery, frantically beseeching me to leave the image undisturbed. It was nothing but a small, curved piece of obsidian stone (though I have already admitted the malignant impression I received from it); yet I strongly suspect that, had I not been formidably armed, the Indians would have forcibly compelled me to leave it untouched. I would to God they had done so!

Overcome by a perverse fascination for the thing, notwithstanding my dislike of toads and reptiles in any form, to say nothing of my steadily mounting (if then unreasoning) repugnance for the thing, I smuggled out the amphibian idol upon my return to this country, circumventing the Mexican laws which prohibit exportation of archeological objects.

Who has not experienced similar attraction for some very thing that repels and disgusts, even while it fascinates? So, in my case with this toad. Instead of turning it over to the museum, I placed it upon the writing-desk in my study. Each passing day has added to my repugnance; but now, finally, something of the horror and terror of those Indians has succeeded my former mere loathing.