"I walked along slowly, and it was well toward noon before I left the beaten road and started at random off over the hills, following a narrow and little-used path.
"Progress now became doubly slow and painful, leading often up steep inclines and hard descents, with the aspect momentarily becoming more and more rugged, as I left the lower hills and climbed toward the mountain.
"By this time, however, I had got a kind of exhilaration sought in vain dur-
ing the earlier hours of the morning, and climbed on and on, glad to free body and mind thus of the poison of brooding and lassitude. I would return to the town at night and take supper at one of the small inns that abounded thereabouts. This would give me some hours yet before I turned back. For the time being, the thought of searching for was forgotten. I had freed my mind of him entirely.
"tjresently the path I had been fol-X lowing branched, and the right half narrowed into an all but obliterated trail, leading up a laborious slope. Forcing my way over dry, snapping underbrush and under low-hanging spruce boughs, occasionally starting an indignant partridge from its hidden nest, often put to a wide detour to avoid some hazardous gully cut deep by centuries of spring and autumn freshets, I at last emerged upon a small, circular clearing, evidently the work of some lone woodchopper.
"Here I sat down, tired by the climb, and refreshed myself with a sandwich from my knapsack. Then I pushed on to the summit, pausing frequently to examine some uncommon species of insect life with which the hills abounded.
"So much was I enjoying myself and such scant notice of the time did 1 take, that sunset came upon me unawares and I found myself, with darkness settling in on all sides with a startling rapidity, still on the summit of the mountain, with a good three-mile descent before me. Indeed, the prospect was not altogether a cheering one and I reproached myself for my heedlessness. But I had found a species of spider for which I had searched in vain for months; so, somewhat reassured by its precious body in a pill-box in my pocket, I started down.
"In spite of my best speed, however, night shut in on me before I had made
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one quarter of the return, leaving me to grope the rest of the way in utter darkness, with not even the light of a dim star to go by. Vague fear awoke within me, but I shielded my eyes and stumbled to the bottom, sliding, falling, clutching here and there at some projecting tree-limb to check my headlong descent. Finally, torn and disheveled and shaking, I emerged upon the clearing. Pausing only for breath, I plunged on into the dark. Fear was growing—growing—that peculiar fear of the dark which is the heritage of those who have taken human life.
"What was that? Something lay gleaming queerly ahead, with a dull phosphorescent glow. I stooped and picked it up —and flung it from me shuddering. It was the skeleton of a human foot)
"I groped on, my every heartbeat choking at my throat. Of a sudden I came forcefully against a barrier of rock. I tried to feel my way around it, to get beyond it, but could not. It seemed continuous, a solid wall that would not let me by. Had I fallen into a trap in the darkness? Terrified, I turned—and there lay something else gleaming with that same weird phosphorescent glow! Sick with terror and dread, half fearing what it might be, I sprang on it and picked it up— picked it up —-the rotting hand of a human being! With a stifled gasp I flung it from me, reeled, tripped through some vines, and fell swooning.
"yl7" !IEN I came t0 myself, I struck a ▼ T match and looked about me. Its feeble flame revealed a pair of damp, rocky walls,, low and vaulted. I was in some sort of cavern.
"Later on .1 crept out, collected an armful of sticks, brought them back, and soon had a fire started. By its light I observed that the rear of the cave was still in darkness, and judging that it must ex-
tend back indefinitely, I gave my attention to my immediate surroundings— when with a shock I saw, directly in front of me, a granite slab. On it lay several loose sheets of manuscript, scrawled wildly on odd scraps of paper.
"With a prophetic dread I bent forward and gathered the loose sheets together. Holding them near the fire, I peered closer. Then I think a cry must have escaped me. The writing was in
's hand, curiously scrawled and
scraggy, but still recognizable.
"So fate had brought me to my victim!
"For the rest, there is little more to say. I am doomed as I deserve, even as he was doomed. His words speak all that can be spoken. They follow:
April 4th —/ had meant to spend only * the week-end in these hills, yet here 1 am, after two weeks — still here, and suffering the pains of hell. What has come over me 1 cannot imagine. And yet — can I not? I am not so sure! Perhaps — perhaps —■—■— has in some devilish way managed to poison me. He is insanely jealous. He thinks there was something between his wife and me. Verily I believe he harassed her to death on the subject. And, having thus brought her to her grave, he wishes to send me there.
Perhaps he will succeed —;'/ it is true. that in some fiendish way he has got some of his germs into my blood. That bite, at his house that evening. 2 am not so sure. It was a most unusual bite. It seemed upon the instant to sour ail my blood.
And yet, if he accomplishes my death, how vain it will be — for as God is my witness I swear I never harmed his wife. We were the best of friends, nothing more. And she loved him with a wholeness, a passion that any but a man maddened by groundless jealousy must at once have seen.
THE PURPLE CINCTURE
501
How he has wrecked his life! A mind so brilliant — and yet, ivith her dead, a closed room.
However, I may be wrong. I will wait. By the symptoms I will know. I write this down, for I must do something.
April 5th —// is he now, bis hellish work. I am sure of it. Today my left leg, which for two weeks has felt positively numb, turned a sickening yellow, from the ankle down, which began at once to deepen, until it now flames orange. And oh! the pain is hellish! Yes, 1
am sure it is 's work. But I will
still withhold judgment.
April 6th — Today a deep, virulent blue cincture has appeared just at the ankle of the affected leg. What a hellish contrast to the orange!
It is . / am sure now. Oh,
what a fend!
April 7th — The cincture has deepened to purple, and seems to cut into the very flesh. It seems jometimes as if the pain would drive me mad.
April. 8th— My flaming foot dropped off tonight, seared at the ankle by the purple cincture, and I flung it outside the cave. I wonder. Perhaps I may yet live to return to the world. Ah, I will be avenged for this!
May 23RD—/ am cursed, cursed! Today, just as I teas beginning to believe the hellish thing had left me, it returned, this time in my left hand. Oh, I can see it all: tomorrow and the next day and the next, for just two weeks, my hand will be numb; then will come that frightful yellow; then the orange; then — then the purple cincture!
Curse the man who discovered this hellish disease — and turned it into me! I could tear him limb from limb. Oh, I
pray to return! I would go now, yet I fear my malady is of a vilely contagious nature. I have not the heart to menace a whole community, perhaps a whole nation, perhaps humanity itself — merely to avenge myself on one man.
June 6th —/ was right! This mow ing I awoke with my hand that death-yellow. Oh, it is too regular, too certain — too cruelly certain!
June 9th — Thank God! My hand is gone — out there where my foot went. It happened tonight. Perhaps I may yet return! Perhaps I may yet be avenged. 1 wonder.
July 21st —Doomed! That fearful numbness again — this time in my head. I cannot think —/ cannot -write —/ can scarcely breathe. Oh, the pain — the pain
"TT ere it ended in a sputter of ink. -i-A Trembling in every limb, filled with a horror and anguish and remorse no man can know, spellbound by the awful tale those few sheets told, I sat there motionless.
"So I had been wrong. Oh, my jealousy, my insane jealousy! As
I sat there, all desire of life suddenly left me, and I thrilled with joy at the remembrance of the hand and foot I had come upon, outside the cave. They were his. I had touched them. I was contaminated with the dread disease.
"What was that? I listened, straining every nerve. From the back of the cavern had come a sound.
"Five minutes passed—ten—fifteen (I was oblivious of time)—but it was not repeated. Slight!/ I relaxed my aching nerves and tried to think. Already I fancied I could feel the fearful poison of the diseased spider working in my veins.
"Suddenly the significance of that last
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-'s diary burst upon me,
entry in
and I sat shivering as under a sudden deluge of icy water. r ]uly 21st.' Two weeks more would make it August 5th, and three days more would bring it to— August 8th!
" 'Great God!' I cried aloud, 'tonight is the night!'
" 'Yes, tonight is the night!' echoed a sepulchral voice from the cavern's inner darkness.
"In an agony of dread I looked, and the blood within, me paled to water at the sight that met my gaze. Something— something with but a single hand and foot —emerged from the shadows of the back of the cavern and began to come forward, leaning heavily upon a rough staff for support.
" 'Stay back— stay back! For the love of God!" I shrieked. But the terrible thing came on and on, and the awful eyes fastened themselves upon my person and suddenly recognized me—and it smiled a hideous smile.
"When it drew nearer, I could see that all above the shoulders flamed orange, while around the neck a livid purple cincture seemed actually to be searing its way into the flesh.
" 'This is your revenge,' it spoke. 'And this is mine,' raising the hellish stump of
its mutilated left arm and panting heavily at me: 'My suffering is over—but yours is all to come. And to the bodily pains of hell will be added the mental tortures of hopeless remorse—knowing your wife was innocent. With that I curse you.'
"Even as it spoke, the eyes rolled out of sight behind horrible lids, the tongue protruded itself in flaming agony, and the whole head, suddenly severed at the neck, thudded upon the cavern floor.
"I came to my feet widi a mad cry, that, shattering the silence beyond the deepest shadows, swelled up in a thousand echoes, from the wail of a soul in torment to the screech of a crucified demon. Then I rushed headlong out.
"For the rest "
The last page was illegible, as the first had been, worn and corroded by the slow action of years of decay.
I put the notebook slowly in my pocket and sat there thinking, sickened and awed by the astounding manuscript.
Again I went over to the skeleton there in the fissure. Now I understood why the hand and foot were missing, and why I had found the head many feet from the body.
There it lay, mute evidence that the retribution was complete.
J
fter Two Nights of the Ear-Ache
By FRANCIS HARD
Most gentle Sleep! Two nights I wooed in Tain; Thou wouldst not come to banish racking pain: For what is Sleep but Life in stone bound fast? Oblivion of the Present, Future, Past.
THE letter from G. M. Wilson, printed below, makes an astonishing accusation against Weird Tales; astonishing because this magazine has often been blamed for a policy the exact opposite of that attributed to us by Mr. Wilson. He says, in effect, that our stories lack interest because the reader knows in advance that they will all end happily, the villain will be defeated and virtue will triumph no matter what odds are against such an ending. We recall that Weird Tales was once rebuked by one of the magazines for writers because of our publication of The Seeds of Death by David H. Keller (July, 1931). Hie story was called "immoral" because the hero was given over to a lingering death, and the vil-lainess succeeded in her evil schemes. One of our interplanetary stories was criticized by some of our readers because the red-headed reporter, who had endeared himself to the readers, was killed on Mars and could not return to Earth with die rest of the space-traveling party. A glance at the August issue (which is on the stands as this is written) shows at least four stories that refute Mr. Wilson's accusation against us. In one of these (The Will of the Dead by Loretta Burrough) a scheming mother, who had dominated her son's life, wrought a hideous doom upon her innocent daughter-in-law; all of which makes a fascinating story but does not allow virtue to triumph. In another (The Last Pharaoh by Thomas P. Kelley), the lovable English girl and her brother had their bodies taken from them so that the Pharaoh and his paramour could acquire their healthy bodies on which to transplant their own heads—surely a defeat of all that is good; the evil deed is not undone either, even though destruction overtakes the guilty pair at the last. Most of our stories do end happily because that is the way the authors
write them; but our readers can never know in advance whether the ending will be happy or otherwise. Mr. Wilson's letter follows.
Does Virtue Always Win?
G. M. Wilson, whose letter we have answered above, writes from Rosebank, New York: "I realize that this epistle is slated for immediate deposit in the nethermost depths of the wastebasket, but nevertheless I still am having the satisfaction of getting something off my chest that has been bothering me for some time. The point I am bringing up is, I suppose, one of the unmentionables of the 'pulps'. It is, to put it tersely: why must virtue always triumph? I read some years ago that a writer who wished to achieve success with your type of magazine must never let heroism be overcome by villainy. I see that your authors have taken this lesson to heart, or perhaps it is your editorial policy to accept only stories which follow this category. Now there is no doubt that your publication could be one of the best 'escape mechanisms' in the literary field; however, it becomes monotonous to an extreme after the first two issues. The remedy is simple: you need only to vary your menu slightly. Your authors display enough ingenuity and skill; your field, that of the uncanny, is interesting; in fact, you lack only the quality of variety to elevate your magazine far above the pulp class. Why not let the reader have some reasonable doubt as to whether the 'fair-haired boy' will conquer the nasty villain or monstrosity. As it is now, no one is ever in doubt as to the outcome. Our upright young American will win, no matter what the odds. Ic is similar to the old-time movie serials where the hero falls down a thousand-foot cliff at the end of part nine and comes up as strong as ever in part ten. It is true that 503
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you publish stories of the extraordinary, but, God, it is too extraordinary to stomach having right win continually. It isn't life. You may say that you are not writing about life, that I can get my sordid realism in the contemporary fiction of the Hemingway school, bur I think you can get my point. The point is that you have the makings of an excellent magazine, above the class of the usual pulp, yet you usually and deliberately tie yourself down with this one flaw. I suppose you are a success financially and have a large reading public, but don't you think you could widen your appeal and increase your circulation by adopting the above suggestion? No doubt I am wrong, for it is your business to know the psychology of your reading public; and yet I'm nor so sure I'm wrong. I think there's something in all of us that delights in the exaltation of evil. I am no publicity hound, but I think if you were to publish this letter and ask for comments you would find that many of your readers would agree with me. In any event, if you could answer me personally and state your reasons for the exclusion of all stories in which the hero doesn't triumph, I should be grateful. Frankly, I am curious."
Save the Necronomicon!
Elaine Mclntire, of Maiden, Massachusetts, writes: "Madam Brundage certainly can draw, but she doesn't make her 'femmes' look scared. They are roo beautiful. I iiked Virgil Finlay's cover last month; hope he does more soon. That reminds me—is Mr. Ball going to give us more of Raid, prince of thieves? I sincerely wish he would. [Yes; you shall have more Raid stories.— The Editor.] Bur! what in tarnation is The Terrible Parchment? Is our frien
d Wellman trying to put my pet book Necronomicon on the spot? Well, he'd better not try! I'm up in arms! I like to think that there is such a thing. It gives me something to think about coming home alone late at night along dark streets. What about it, readers? Are we going to let that pass? . . . For myself, I like nice, gray, werewolf stories. And the more murky, gory, and slinky a story is the better I like it."
Some Suggestions
Lawrence Miller, of Norfolk, Virginia, writes: "The stories in your magazine are all good. You have no kides coming. But
I have several suggestions that would tend to make the magazine perfect. The first: Why such a strict policy in your reprint department? As matters stand, Weird Tales readers are given only the shorter stories from your back issues. Weren't there some praiseworthy longer ones? Of course there is the old cry against long reprints—Authors must eat!—but you could easily circumvent that. When you plan to reprint a novelette, merely skip a reprint for one month and make up for it the second month. Or use smaller type. After all, the type in the Eyrie has not harmed my eyes. The second idea concerns those two great writers who died recently—Lovecraft and Howard. For a long time they carried the burden of writing Weird Tales largely between them, and the great majority of your readers has probably never seen either of them. How about pictures? A photograph of each carried inside your cover. Make good likenesses of them (they deserve it) and have no writing on the picture! If necessary, charge extra for that particular issue. Or skip the other illustrations. Or even skip the stories. But give us those photographs. I will close with an appreciation of Henry Kuttner. He is the most vetsatile artist to ever appear in Weird Tales. The Jest of Droom Avista is every bit as good as The Eater of Souls, which up to last month was the best ever printed. He is one of the two really worthwhile weird poets. The other is—or was—Edgar Allan Poe. Let's have another as good as Ragna-rok."
Trudy Answers Our Critics
Weird Tales volume 30 number 04 Page 20