Part 2

"True," he answered finally. "And the thing that's agitating my mind, my friend, is the reason for all this? Why should Kronk wreak such diabolical vengeance upon this little village?"

Le Front helped himself to the rum. Then, as the fiery liquor raced through his veins, he grew more loquacious.

"I theenk I know," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.

He leaned forward and poured forth his story to Doctor Lamontaine. The big man listened quietly; then, when Le Front had finished, he burst forth.

"May a just God burn his damned soul in hell!" he snarled. "God! Le Front! Can a man be so cold-blooded for the sake of gold?"

"Zat ees my opinion," the constable said earnestly. "I haff reason' eet out een my head."

Lamontaine wagged his long red beard solemnly. That for which he had been groping for so long was gradually filtering through his brain. He was beginning to see a bright and shining light.

"In the morning I will go to N'Orleans and look into that," he promised.

The little constable nodded and, helping himself to the rum again, left to take up his lonely vigil in the bachelor quarters of the schoolmaster.

Neither of them noticed the sinister figure that had been standing in the darkness close beside the open window listening to their conversation. Now, as the constable left, he darted to the shadow of a near-by bush, his sunken eyes gleaming malevolently at the big man who sat just inside the window, his long beard resting on his breast, his head bowed in thought.

It was Aaron Kronk.

* * * * *

Lamontaine was weary--horribly so. All of the night before he had sat by the bedside of one of the dying villagers. The day had been spent in study and in making his rounds. Now, sitting with his feet upon the desk again, his chair tilted backward, he tried to concentrate--to reason out the horrible events of the past few days. What Le Front told him had placed things in a new light. If it proved correct, he might be able to win yet over the monster from beyond the pale.

Then outraged nature finally gave way, and he slept.

Someone was looking at him. He knew it--_felt_ it. He was aware, too, of a feeling of bodily discomfort--a peculiar sensation that, beginning in his brain, crept down through his nerves and muscles, leaving him cramped and paralyzed. His subconscious physician's mind automatically analyzed it as a sort of _rigor_. It constricted his throat, twisting itself around his huge limbs like hoops of steel, crushing him like an incubus. He fought with himself in an effort to open his eyes. A voice was commanding him to sleep. He mastered the desire and raised his eye-lids. A mocking face was glaring into his own. It was that of Aaron Kronk.

Hugo Lamontaine had yet to know the meaning of fear. He had faced death laughingly in a thousand ways on modern battlefields. Yet, gazing into the malevolent eyes of Aaron Kronk, bound hand and foot by invisible bands, he realized now what it meant. The thin man was gazing at him with malignant ferocity. His eyes, bearing a message of hatred, seemed to tear the physician's brain from its very roots. He tried to struggle against them, but in vain. They dissolved themselves into a single, glittering orb--an eye that whirled and grew closer and closer like the headlight of an oncoming locomotive.

A voice commanded him to sleep ... sleep ... sleep....

Then consciousness left him.

In spite of the command that had chiseled itself into his brain, he was subconsciously fighting against it. He floated back from his hebetude ... wondered if he was dreaming. At first he believed that he was--that he would soon wake up and find that he suffered from a nightmare. Then, by slow gradations, realization crept over him....

He was surrounded by something. It enveloped him like a thin cloud, pressing him down like a weight, inhibiting his breathing. He tried to struggle against it--to open his eyes. But that commanding voice continued to order him to sleep ... _sleep_....

His throat and chest seemed to constrict. He attempted to summon his laggard will-power--in vain. The slow, relentless pressure continued. The breath was being slowly pumped from his body, from his lungs, his heart....

He knew that he was on the verge of asphyxiation--that his huge frame was being slowly deflated--robbed of its vitality as surely and inexorably as it had been stolen from the emaciated body of old Jacques d'Arcy. He tried to open his eyes. They were held down by invisible fingers.

He did not realize that he had succeeded. Yet he suddenly found himself looking into two gleaming orbs--red, blood-shot, filled with hatred and demoniac fury. Upon his breast rested a _thing_--a horrible, nauseous, formless monstrosity, shapeless, faceless, headless. Yet it had a face and head, for its eyes were the eyes that were glaring into his own. And, too, it had a mouth--a red gash framed by leathery lips. It was pressed against his own in a clammy, vacuum-like kiss. It was lapping his breath, sucking the vitality from his great body, deflating it until it was rapidly growing as flat as a bursted tire. Its long, sinuous arms were fastened about him, its legs wrapped, leech-like, about his own.

[Illustration: "Upon his breast rested a thing."]

And, knowing these things, Lamontaine brought to his aid all of the tremendous will-power that was his heritage. He tried to push the incubus from him, but he could not lift his arms. But as he struggled, he felt the mental influence that was oppressing him gradually lessen.

A sort of inertia swept over him and he ceased his struggles for an instant. The incubus, which had been driven back a pace, sprang forward again, once more pressing him to his chair.

Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dolefully. It awakened him from his lethargy. Subconsciously he knew that it foretold the death of someone. Was he to be the victim? Like a man in a dream, he threw his arms about. His twitching fingers came in contact with something cold and hard. A thrill went through his benumbed body. It was his gun snugly tucked away in the open drawer of his desk.

His fingers clutched the weapon spasmodically. He felt the thing that was smothering him shrink away. With a tremendous effort of will, he drew the weapon from the drawer, pressed it protectingly to his breast. Again the loathsome spirit form shrank back.

His breath was returning to him now. And with the fresh night air came realization. He remembered that elementals fear the touch of iron; the steel from which the gun was made had been manufactured from this element.

He thrust the weapon forward until it touched the horrible monstrosity pressing him down--passed through its vaporish body. It squeaked like a cornered rat as it darted away.

Then it slowly floated out through the open window, leaving him gasping and panting....

_4. Exorcism_

Consciousness returned to Doctor Lamontaine slowly. For a few moments he lay in a daze trying to recollect what had happened. He opened his eyes. The first gray of dawn was breaking in the east. He straightened up, almost over-turning the chair in which he was still sitting.

He wondered if it had all been a dream. The sight of the gun lying on the floor beside the chair told him that such was not the case. His throat and lungs ached; the pressure on his windpipe had been such that breathing was still difficult. He leaned across the desk, and picking up the rum-jug, managed to pour himself a drink. The potion strengthened him. He staggered back to the living-quarters in the rear of the house and brewed himself a pot of strong coffee. Mixing rum with the black coffee, he gulped down several cupfuls. Feeling better, he returned to his little office and, filling and lighting his pipe, sat down to think the problem out.

Bit by bit the happenings of the night were coming back to him. Somewhere in the hidden fastness of the fetid swamp the man who called himself Aaron Kronk had his habitat. From this hiding-place he was directing the campaign which was rapidly laying waste the little hamlet of La Foubelle and which would, unless speedily checked, make of it another deserted village. In the red-headed physician he 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 by the rice corporation. Kronk--or Koshier, as he is known there--stands to make a cool million if the swamp can be drained.

"Unfortunately--for him--the natural watercourse leads through the site of the village and thence to the creek which empties into the peninsula. There is no other way. It was necessary, therefore, for him to get rid of the village. But you La Foubellites are stubborn and superstitious. You would never leave your homes, nor sell them, knowing that the dead in your cemetery would be disturbed----"

"_Tout au contraire!_" Le Front interrupted excitedly.

"Exactly. Therefore he took this method of frightening you to a point where you would leave your homes."

Le Front scratched his grizzled head wonderingly.

"Eet does not seem possible," he said. "I can scarcely believe it."

Lamontaine massaged his bruised throat tenderly.

"Perhaps it was all a bad dream," he said with a wry grin. "Kronk is a mesmerist of ability. Maybe we were all hypnotized _en masse_."

He jerked his thumb toward the rum-jug.

"Drink?" he queried. "Rum. Good Jamaica rum. Good liquor hurts nobody."

The parrot opened its filmy eyes and gazed at its master languidly.

"_Rum!_" it croaked. "_Good Jamaica rum! Hotter'n hell! Hotter'n hell!_"