Various

“ Last night I killed a man. Of this I am almost certain. I, a man sworn to avenge crime and to track down criminals, have the brand of Cain upon my brow. My hands are dripping with blood. I should be in a cell in murderers’ row, waiting for an avenging law to hang me, instead of breathing the air of freedom. But am I free? No! A thousand times no! I am as much a prisoner as I would be behind the bars of a felon’s cage.
“As one watches a motion picture thrown upon the silver screen, I see myself with Meta by my side.... We cross a darkened thoroughfare.... The details are fragmentary—occasional. ”

“ Peret was undoubtedly a brave man. He had the heart of a lion and the strength of many men twice his size. But for once in his life he knew fear—real fear—a terrible, overpowering apprehension of impending danger.
The tragic happenings in the vicinity of Berjet’s house were still so fresh in his mind that even his lively imagination could scarcely have lent color to the deadly peril in which he knew he stood. ”

“ Violent death means nothing to the average police official; he comes in almost daily contact with the most brutal and horrible form of it.
Therefore, while the utter unexpectedness of the corpse’s arrival in their midst had a very noticeable effect on the excitable French sleuth, and more especially on Deweese, with his wracked nerves, the others, though momentarily startled, seemed to consider it all in the day’s work.
Strange flashed a brief glance at Peret, and then finding him glaring blankly at the cadaver, shifted his gaze to encompass the gruesome object of the Frenchman’s regard. ”

“ Lessman allowed me the freedom, to a certain extent, of the house. With Avis by my side, I wandered up and down the long, dusty corridors, exploring, searching. I told myself that I was looking for evidence—that sooner or later I would make my escape and bring The Bodymaster to justice. And I found none—nothing but the poor wretches locked in their cells, mad—all of them. And who would believe a maniac? No, there was absolutely nothing that could be used against the monster. It would be my word and that of Avis against that of Lessman and Meta. ”

“ He had, with one ear, however, been drinking in every word of the conversation, and now he rose from his chair with such suddenness that he all but upset the little finger-print expert standing in front of him.
“Yes, cold,” repeated Deweese, the perspiration dripping from his brow, “cold and clammy.”
“Dame!” cried the Frenchman, breathing on his hand as if to test the temperature of his breath. “Think well, my friend, of what you are saying. The breath of living things is warm. Perhaps it was not the breathing of a monster that you heard. ”

“ She went to the funeral of a child who had died at its mother’s breast. But neither the child in the little white casket, nor the mother, with her streaming hair and wild eyes, could bring tears to Leonore.
One night she sat before the fireplace in her bedroom, staring at the flames. The flickering light fascinated her. For a long time she sat motionless, watching it.
Then, out of the glowing heart of the fire, Donald spoke to her:
“Leonore, you can feel, but you will not.”
She shook her head sadly. “I can not—I can not.”
“The fire—feel!” he cried. “Surely you can feel the fire. Try!” ”

“ Forgetting my impotence, I strove with desperate hands to bar the door more tightly. I seized my rifle—or tried to seize it. It was vain. Spirit has no fear from dangers of this world; equally it has no means of defense.
Round the cabin the wolves circled cautiously. I could hear them sniffing at the door.
Then one brute dashed himself against the panels. The stout frame quivered, but held. A long-drawn howl came; it thrilled me with terror. Then another clawed at the caribou-skin of the window.
A gleaming claw shot through, a pair of slavering jaws followed. ”

“ He came closer, at last laying his parchment-skinned hand upon the vibrant coil, seeking a grip that would keep him safe from a scratch of fangs.
But something was amiss with Ssu Yin’s mastery over the snake. He recognized this in a thrill of terror at the moment when he knew it was forever too late. He would have explained, had there been time for such inquiry, that it was jealousy in the soul of the transmigrated woman who had been his wife—jealousy of the Crimson Lotus. ”

“ Chained, backs outward, Porterfield and Christensen were spread-eagled against the fetid, oozing wall!
They were stripped to the waist. Across their white backs, greenish now in the light of the floating wick, were the red criss-crosses of flagellations.
“Thank God you’ve come!” cried the usually silent Christensen, as Roberts shot away the rusted chains binding his arms and ankles to the wall. “This place ... do you know what it is?”
“All about it!” answered Roberts, succinctly. “Here, take these!” He handed a brace of revolvers and a handful of clips to his Norwegian comrade. ”

“ All this impressed Bart Condon, standing in the protecting shade of the softly rustling banana jungle, eyes focused on the busy scene across the river, brain busy with the disquieting events of the past few weeks.
Bart Condon was troubled. Here was something he knew not how to fight, because it was something he could not see. Until recently, he had thought himself fairly familiar with Honduras and the trials of a plantation manager there, but this was something new—something which hid in the shadows and struck when one was not looking. ”

“ I am willing to admit that to the man of science my tale bristles with errors—errors of interpretation, but not of fact—for I am a detective, not a scientist.
Did such a man as The Bodymaster really exist? Or was it only the writhing of my tortured imagination which transformed Doctor Darius Lessman, theologist and philanthropist, into a fiend incarnate? ”

“ Bonacieux, the child grown to womanhood, awaiting her death under the famous sword in the hands of a Capeluche.”
Jacques paused for breath. The old Abbé had endeavored to follow the harangue of the peasant.
“Understand? A portent!” shouted Jacques, in desperation. “Mlle. Bonacieux is to die tonight by the sword of the headsman, Capeluche.”
“Nay! Nay! Jacques,” in turn exclaimed the Abbé. “I know not of what you prate, save that it be Godless. But there will be a wedding in Peptonneau this eve, and no woman will die by the hand of Capeluche.” ”

“ In that second I thought of my delinquent boyhood, of dozens of cruel impulses since practically forgotten—of the mutilated, dying beetles which had been instrumental in embarking me upon an art career.
“Blood rose in torrents to my own temples. A fever consumed me. There was life and there could be death. I could renew the inspiration of those tortured beetles.”
“With agitated stealth, I glanced out into the empty hallway, locked the door of the studio, drew four shades over windows through which I might be seen, and crept to the rabbit cage. ”

“ Lessman holds that the body is a shell, a house built only to hold the soul, deriving its power from the spirit, the will. To him there is no crime in murder, for his theology holds that the snapping of the thread of life is merely the release of the soul which soars away to realms on high. ”

“ I smile when I think of the things that I have been—I who am now the head of a modern detective agency, hired to run down the man whose gigantic brain has made these things all possible. I have been among the best and the worst of them in days gone by. Yet who would believe such a story? Lessman is too far in advance of his time. Yet there is a possibility that a few centuries hence some eye may read these lines and wonder how the men of today could be so dense.
“I am no longer afraid of death. I know now that such fear is only a superstitious idea. There is no such thing as death. ”

“ Vile as I have become, degraded as he has made me, my very being revolts at the thought of what he has forced me to do. It were better that I were dead—a thousand times better. But I can not even die. For he, curse him, will not let me. He owns my body and my soul.
“Yesterday I am certain that I killed another man. It was Johnston, the broker—a man I knew well in my other days—as kind-hearted an old fellow as ever lived. Many is the favor that he has done for me. Yet, at the dictation of Lessman, I took the poor old fellow’s life. ”

“ Reaching his apartment house, he descended to the sidewalk, paid and dismissed the chauffeur without doing him bodily harm—which, considering the size of the fare, was little less than remarkable—and even wished the bandit good-night.
Peret entered the apartment house with a sprightly step. Had he been attending his own funeral he would have done no less. His vast supply of nervous energy had to have some outlet, and even in moments of depression he walked as if he had springs in his heels. ”

“ And again the fear began to play upon my heart with chill fingers; again I strove to banish it with grim resolve.
On the fourth day the snow ceased, but the wind remained unabated. It grew terribly cold. And on that day my woodpile dwindled to nothing, my last scrap of food vanished.
It grew colder. I kept the fire burning charily, feeding it, bit by bit, the scanty furniture that Norton had made with axe and hammer. I husbanded every bit, crouching over the merest spark of a flame, wrapping my thin body in robe and fur to conserve the precious warmth. ”

“ For it is only the strong who can sip safely at the pleasant vices of a mellower civilization.
On a day squally with the pestilent dust of an obscure Chinese outport, Allister sat gazing at a wooden door in a wall. He was oblivious to outward discomfort, although his clothes were remnants through which the wind drove chill misery. He felt only one need, and his mind had room for but one thought, and that was the gratification of an unholy lust. It was three days since opium had caressed his shrieking nerves. ”

“ Slowly Allister’s bleared sight, following the direction of Ssu Yin’s comprehended the significance of those cold-blue darts of phosphorescence. They were set in a rigid, cylindrical, limblike standard, projecting motionless from a pyramid of symmetrical coils. Often as he had beheld the serpent of Ssu Yin, on the poppy excursions that brought him so frequently to the sea cook’s illicit den, he had never conquered a subtle fear, a rage for crushing, stamping out, obliterating. He had tried to explain this as an expression of man’s traditional enmity toward the creeping creatures of the earth. ”

“ Fear beset Gerald Marston at the very moment of his entry into the chamber—an intense, gripping horror which laid an icy hand upon his forehead and fingers of a damp coldness about his heart.
It was as if one invisible from within had reached forth to make him prisoner to its atmosphere, which, heightened physically by the slimy walls, the velvet darkness, and the ceaseless, slow dripping of liquid upon stone, chilled his soul with a nameless foreboding, a daunting menace of unutterable dread. ”

“ As he spoke, as if in obedience to some rehearsed cue, the door opened. A vague perfume assailed my nostrils—a faint, elusive scent—a zephyr from the East. Through the opening Meta stepped. She wore a kimona—a soft, silken, figured affair reminiscent of the Orient. I can only remember that beneath its folds protruded a glimpse of tiny, bare feet clad in the smallest of sandals.
“There are silences more eloquent than words. For an instant my eyes sought hers—deep, dark, lustrous, glowing like great pools of liquid fire. ”

“ It was necessary, Allister well knew, to wait for the soya-brown eye that glistened intently through the peephole at a certain hour of the day—the eye of Ssu Yin, focused expectantly upon some indeterminate object within the temple grounds.
The impatient accents of a woman, half-concealed behind the discolored marble flank of a stone lion with the head of a dog, roused Allister. He had been long enough in the Orient to absorb an understanding of many dialects. ”

“ His is the belief that might is right. He needs the bodies of his victims in order to practice his devilish arts. He has the power to take them, and he uses it to the utmost. He holds that the body is not a prison house, but a slave to will. In his philosophy, it is simply a useful tool over which the spirit possesses absolute control. He is neither a spiritualist nor a theosophist. His is a theory all by itself and of itself.
“Lessman has elected to live forever! Of that I am certain. He and Meta—the woman he loves.” ”

“ He leaned back in his chair and laughed mirthlessly for an instant.
“‘I am not here to argue the right or wrong of the thing, however,’ he continued. ‘I am a man born to rule; I would rather be a big devil in hell than a little angel in heaven—if there be such places as heaven and hell, which I greatly doubt.
“‘I need help in my work—my experiments. True, I have Meta—but she is only a weak woman. I need others—men whom I can teach—men whom I can trust—men with the will to conquer. You have proved to me that you are such a man. ”

“ She has seen me throw off the baleful influence of The Bodymaster when a wild fit of passion seized me. She probably fears that I will again rise against him and that he will blast me where I stand.
“My hands are tied. In turning myself over to The Bodymaster I have betrayed the woman I love. May Heaven have mercy on my soul!” ”

“ She half rose to her feet and staggered toward them as Lessman dragged his shrieking victim toward the door which led to the other room. He turned toward her, his fiery eyes snapping with uncontrolled anger.
For the moment I was forgotten.... Something snapped. I found myself again within my own body, the lust for battle raging within me.... Lessman, surrounded by his enemies, turned like a stag at bay.... I felt the currents of his powerful [69] mind surge around me again like great waves beating against a rock-bound coast. ”

“ Yet even as I write I know that The Bodymaster is planning my death. He has it within his power to drive my soul from out my body—to usurp this tenement of clay with his own polluted brain. How he works his wonders I will describe later if I am able. It is hard for me to think consecutively.
“Lessman’s is the greatest brain, his the most wonderful intellect, the world has ever known. His is the accumulated wisdom of the centuries—since Jesus of Nazareth trod this earth there has been none who could accomplish the wonders he has performed. ”