Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 06 (1942-07).djvu/20

der. Down he went at my knee, the gushing blood all black and shiny in that pallid light. I stepped across him, and into the melee that had sprung into being around Jaeger.

No less than myself, those invaders must have been keyed up to expectation of violence. When Jaeger’s first shot felled their comrade, they threw themselves upon the sender of that shot. A big mask-wearer came in under the revolver muzzle, stood up under a terrific blow with the barrel, and grappled Jaeger. Others seized him by the arms, beard, throat, legs. They were pulling him down, as dogs pull down a bear. The pudgy one who held the five-fingered light stood apart, drawing another of those straight daggers. The look of the hand that held the dagger convinced me more than ever that here was a woman in men’s garments.

Coming upon the press, I slid my saber-point into the back of the big fellow whose arms were around Jaeger. He subsided, coughing and struggling, and I cleared my weapon in time to face another who quitted his assault on Jaeger to leap at me. He tried to avoid my slash, and I smote his jaw with the curved guard that enclosed my knuckles. He sprawled upon a comrade, and both fell.

Then Jaeger, fighting partially free, fired two more shots. One of his attackers fell limply, and another flopped away, screaming and cursing by the names of gods I did not recognize.

The light-holder now gave tongue in a shrill warning:

“Betrayed, we’re betrayed! Run! Get away!”

THOSE who could respond did so. Jaeger fired yet again, his fourth bullet. The last of those who fled was down, floundering awkwardly to crawl across the hewn log outside the door. Two of the others caught the squirming body and dragged it clear. We were suddenly alone.

“Don’t close that door,” said Jaeger from the dimness that fell again—for the five-fingered light had been knocked down and extinguished. “I doubt if we need to be fenced in from them.” He was kindling his own kerosene lamp, that gave a healthier radiance. “Count the dead, Wickett.”

I did so, noting that all wore coats or jackets turned inside out. Two had perished by my saber, two more by Jaeger’s bullets, while a third whom he had shot, died even as I bent over him. The man I uppercutted with the saber-hilt was still alive and breathing heavily, but quite unconscious. I reckoned the one dragged away must be badly hurt, if not also dying.

“We killed or wounded seven,” was my report. Jaeger had led Susan to one side, where she might not look. Then he went from one body to the other, pulling away their horned masks of dingy black cloth. At the sight of each face he grunted his recognition.

“All of them are my neighbors,” he announced, “and all of them in my congregation, or pretending to be. Look Wickett! This one is a woman—she and that first man you sabered were husband and wife. I would have spared her had I known her sex. But here is one who seems to be awakening.”

The single survivor sat up. He fingered his bruised chin, waggling it tenderly. His face, unmasked, looked long and sharp and vicious. His small, dark eyes burned as they fixed upon Susan.

“She tricked us,” he accused, spitting blood.

“It was I who tricked you,” corrected Jaeger. “Stand up, Splain. But make any sudden move, and I will fire one of the two bullets still in this revolver.” He held it up significantly.

The captive stood up. Like the others, he wore his coat inside out. “My name