Various

“ I’m going to cheat you if I have to become a drunkard or a dope fiend the rest of my life! I’m not going to let a conscience, or a voice or a chuckle, drive me to insanity—or to confessing—or to suicide!”
Defoe was steady enough now, supporting himself against the upper berth. His voice grew more strident.
“No, I’m not going to let my conscience get the best of me! You thought you could keep after me endlessly, but I’ll get rid of you. I’m never going to be bothered with you or your voice again! Never! Now get out of here! Get out of here, I say!” ”

“ Marston, so far as morals were considered, might have been almost anything: you saw it in his curious eyes, with their pale irises, the flat, dead color of his skin, like the belly of a snake; in the grim, traplike mouth. Quarrier had never deceived himself as to the President of Intervale Steel. The thing was fantastic, unreal—and yet. It might easily be a trap, and worse. Peril, the more subtile because unknown, was all about him; he felt it, like an emanation. What was it that the psychological sharps would call it? An aura, as of some invisible and deadly presence, seeing, although unseen. ”

“ The house, raised on pile foundations a dozen feet above the ground, shook beneath the rush of retreating footsteps. With the swiftness of a wild animal, he gathered himself for the spring—and landed squarely astride the back of the last of the blacks to quit the place.
The weight of the white man brought the native to the ground. Seizing the black by the hair, he jerked him to his feet, keeping the naked body between himself and the crowd that lurked in the darkness, just beyond the ring of light that shone down through the open door. ”

“ Who will die, and what will die, that this new life may be born? Whimpering agony. And an old crone singing a song....
All people who sat within the Palm Grove were hushed, watching Bimi Tal. Fat hands fanning powdered breasts; silk handkerchiefs wiping ox necks; sweat beneath armpits. Still heat. Far away thunder. The stars going by.
Music swelled. Beneath its discord sounded a steady drumming rhythm. The arms of Bimi Tal waved about her head. She shouted for joy of life.
The pale eyes of Dirk, basking in mystery, gleamed into fire, blazed up in fury and hate undying! ”

“ Conscience is a terrible thing once it is aroused, Stevenson. It is living, vibrant, and it lashes and scourges until it has exacted its toll. That was what it did to me there in the darkness, alone and at its mercy, and with no chance to escape. And in my agony and fear I cursed the God who had created me and saddled me with this thing. I learned my lesson, though, before I was through. ”

“ In her daring and startling book Margaret Sanger gives to the women of the world the knowledge she dared to print—the knowledge for which she faced jail and fought through every court to establish as woman’s inalienable right to know.
In “Woman and the New Race” she shows how woman can and will rise above the forces that, in too many cases, have ruined her beauty through the ages—that still drag her down today—that wreck her mental and physical strength—that disqualify her for society, for self-improvement—that finally shut her out from the thing she cherishes most: her husband’s love. ”

“ If I sought to peer through the veil as formerly—to witness her pathetic attempts to resume the old life with Louis—again those eyes!
It may perhaps sound strange for a disembodied creature—one whom you would call a ghost—to wail of being haunted. Yet haunting is of the spirit, and we of the spirit world are immeasurably more subject to its conditions than those whose consciousness is centered in the material sphere.
God! Those eyes. There is a refinement of physical torture which consists of allowing water to fall, drop by drop, for an eternity of hours, upon the forehead of the victim. ”

“ No sooner had the wagon drawn out of sight than the heavens seemed to loosen in wrath. Rain fell in torrents, driving the spectators in a wild rush for shelter. As I reached the hotel, the water dripping from my drenched garments, the storm increased its fury. All that day it rained—and the next.
As I lay on my bed that night and listened to the roar of wind and rain beating upon the roof and window panes, my mind kept drifting to the inmates of Thornsdale place—the queer doctor, Simple Will and his ward, Horace, the gigantic gorilla. ”

“ For some moments it stood thus, then, seizing the bars of the cage in its hands, it rattled the framework with tremendous [176] force, at the same time giving vent to a peculiar sound. At its cry, the other two ran forward and the extraordinary spectacle was seen of all three creatures staring fixedly at Needham as he made his way toward them.
There were not many people in the tent—the hour being early—but the few who were there turned toward the spot. Needham laughed and shook hands with Meldrum, at the same time waving one of his hands playfully in the direction of the old baboon. ”

“ A whole day I listened to yarns of the days which preceded Cranmer’s escape from Elizabeth Ritter Hospital—days in which furtive men sniffed poisoned air for miles around Dead House, finding the odor intolerable. Days in which it seemed none possessed nerve enough to approach close. Days when the most fanciful tales of mediaeval superstitions were spun. These tales I shall not give; the truth is incredible enough.
At noon upon the eleventh day I chanced upon Rori Pailleron, a Cajan—and one of the least prepossessing of all with whom I had come in contact. “Chanced” perhaps is a bad word. ”

“ The white-hot iron that seared his flesh, tormenting the agonized ends of nerves that already had borne past the breaking point, was the final, exquisite touch of agony.
Coulter was one of those men who bear pain—even a slight pain—with difficulty. Even the sight of blood made him faint. This was horrible beyond anything he had ever dreamed. The physical racking; the feel of the steel blade cutting through his own flesh and sinew, down to the bone, made him bite his lips till they spurted blood, in the effort to keep from screaming aloud. ”

“ A poker game was going on, lackadaisically, in one corner of the saloon; scattered in chairs and cushioned seats along the windows were perhaps a dozen or fifteen men. But, for the life of him, Defoe could not pick out any one in the room who might be watching him, now he gave his fleeting impression indulgence long enough to look about him.
Finishing a cigar, Defoe decided on a deck stroll before retiring. It was too cold and damp, with a fog beginning to gather, to permit of sitting on deck, so he paced to and fro briskly up near the fore deck beneath the pilot’s tower. ”

“ Coulter’s ignorance of the South and of the woods had been, perhaps, to blame. He did not know. All that he could remember was that he had been bending over the spring, his left arm resting upon the brink. He had not seen the moccasin until it was too late.
Vividly, even yet, he saw the darkish head and body, the supple, writhing, the swift dart and the flash of pain—and then agony; much agony, deep, soul-biting torture.
THERE was no doctor at the camp. There had been a delay before, stupefied, he thought to let them know he had been bit. And then—more agony; agony piled upon agony. ”

“ I struggled to rise in the coffin, gasping for the breath of life, and then the lid was pried off, and, summoning all my dying strength, I rose to my feet, waving my arms wildly back and forth and inhaling a great breath of life-giving night air.
The doctor let the shovel fall to the ground without a word, and staggered back and sank to his knees, while my wife gave a hideous scream of terror. Then she snatched a knife from his kit of dissecting instruments and drew the razor-sharp blade across her throat. She then threw herself upon the prostrate doctor, her blood drenching his body. ”

“ Where was lovely Bimi Tal on that stifling day we saw the fanged thing coil, and death struck us there by Okechobee?
Your eyes, Bimi Tal, are the laughing eyes of Red Roane!...
Now the snake dance. The piccolo screams.
Life immortal in your glistening lips, Bimi Tal; in your deep bosom promise of everlasting fecundity. Passion and power of the earth! Life is immortal. Your laughing eyes, Bimi Tal, will never dull. Yet I saw Red Roane die....
Beneath the shifting lights, Bimi Tal leaped and spun, scarcely treading the floor. Her eyes sparkled at me. She did not see Tain Dirk. Stamp! Stamp! ”

“ III. I HAVE wondered, since, how I could remain so long in touch with the objective world—why I did not at once, or very soon, find myself shut off from earthly sights and sounds as those in physical form are shut off from the things beyond.
The matter seems to have been determined by my will. Like weights of lead, envy of Louis and passionate longing for Velma held my feet to the sphere of dense matter. ”

“ We sat in a cave of potted palms close by the dancing floor. Over us lay blue-black night, strange and deep. Yellow as roses were the splotches of stars swimming down the sky.
“It shows you’ve been away from New York, Dirk, if you don’t know Bimi Tal. She’s made herself more famous as a dancer than ever was Ynecita. Some mystery is supposed to hang about her; and these simple children of New York love mysteries.” ”

“ The Unique MAGAZINE WEIRD TALES offers such fiction as you can find in no other magazine—fantastic stories, extraordinary stories, grotesque stories, stories of strange and bizarre adventure—the sort of stories, in brief, that will startle and amaze you. Every story in this issue of WEIRD TALES is an odd and remarkable flight of man’s imagination. Some are “creepy,” some deal in masterly fashion with “forbidden” subjects, like insanity, some are concerned with the supernatural and others with material things of horror—all are out of the ordinary, surprisingly new and unusual. ”

“ Marriage is a more difficult readjustment with some than others. It had evidently been so with Gladys. If a child came to us it would make everything right.
A child—our child! It was wonderful to think of. She had always refused to consider the subject saying she wished to enjoy life while she was young. But she knew I wanted a son to bear my name, a daughter to inherit her beauty, and she had accepted the inevitable. A wave of exaltation made me feel as if I were treading on clouds. ”

“ But he swung lightly to the saddle and galloped out through the settlement, into the shadows of the giant cypress trees.
THE MARE was a spirited and nervous animal, and she leaped and shied as she danced among the stagnant pools that lay black in the swamp road.
In thus going out deliberately to use himself as a bait for the Unknown Beast, Ed felt that he could depend largely upon her agility and quickness to prevent being taken unawares by a sudden rush from the darkness. He drew from its holster his heavy Colt’s revolver and thrust it through his belt in front, within convenient reach. ”