The life-eater
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!_"