Read The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard for Free Online Page B

climax.
    “Ju ju!” he whispered fearsomely. “Fetish man!”
    Suddenly an idea came to me. I had heard vague tales, little more than hints of legends, of the devilish leopard cult that existed on the West Coast. No white man had ever seen one of its votaries, but Dom Vincente had told us tales of beast-men, disguised in skins of leopards, who stole through the midnight jungle and slew and devoured. A ghastly thrill traveled up and down my spine and in an instant I had Gola in a grasp which made him yell.
    “Was that a leopard-man?” I hissed, shaking him viciously.

    “Massa, massa!” he gasped. “Me good boy! Ju ju man get! More besser no tell!”
    “You’ll tell me!” I gritted, renewing my endeavors, until, his hands waving feeble protests, he promised to tell me what he knew.
    “No leopard-man!” he whispered, and his eyes grew big with supernatural fear. “Moon, he full, woodcutter find, him heap clawed. Find ’nother woodcutter. Big Massa (Dom Vincente) say, ‘leopard.’
    No leopard. But leopard-man, he come to kill. Something kill leopard-man! Heap claw! Hai, hai!
    Moon full again. Something come in lonely hut; claw um woman, claw um pick’n in. Man find um claw up. Big Massa say ‘leopard.’ Full moon again, and woodcutter find, heap clawed. Now come in castle.
    No leopard. But always footmarks of a man! ”
    I gave a startled, incredulous exclamation.
    It was true, Gola averred. Always the footprints of a man led away from the scene of the murder. Then why did the natives not tell the Big Massa that he might hunt down the fiend? Here Gola assumed a crafty expression and whispered in my ear, “The footprints were of a man who wore shoes!”
    Even assuming that Gola was lying, I felt a thrill of unexplainable horror. Who, then, did the natives believe was doing these frightful murders?
    And he answered: Dom Vincente!
    By this time, Messieurs , my mind was in a whirl.
    What was the meaning of all this? Who slew the German and sought to ravish Marcita? And as I reviewed the crime, it appeared to me that murder rather than rape was the object of the attack.
    Why did de Montour warn us, and then appear to have knowledge of the crime, telling us that Desmarte was innocent and then proving it?
    It was all beyond me.
    The tale of the slaughter got among the natives, in spite of all we could do, and they appeared restless and nervous, and thrice that day Dom Vincente had a black lashed for insolence. A brooding atmosphere pervaded the castle.
    I considered going to Dom Vincente with Gola’s tale, but decided to wait awhile.

    The women kept their chambers that day, the men were restless and moody. Dom Vincente announced that the sentries would be doubled and some would patrol the corridors of the castle itself. I found myself musing cynically that if Gola’s suspicions were true, sentries would be of little good.
    I am not, Messieurs , a man to brook such a situation with patience. And I was young then. So as we drank before retiring, I flung my goblet on the table and angrily announced that in spite of man, beast or devil, I slept that night with doors flung wide. And I tramped angrily to my chamber.
    Again, as on the first night, de Montour came. And his face was as a man who has looked into the gaping gates of hell.
    “I have come,” he said, “to ask you–nay, Monsieur , to implore you–to reconsider your rash determination.”
    I shook my head impatiently.
    “You are resolved? Yes? Then I ask you to do this for me, that after I enter my chamber, you will bolt my doors from the outside.”
    I did as he asked, and then made my way back to my chamber, my mind in a maze of wonderment. I had sent Gola to the slave quarters, and I laid rapier and dagger close at hand. Nor did I go to bed, but crouched in a great chair, in the darkness. Then I had much ado to keep from sleeping. To keep myself awake, I fell to musing on the strange words of de Montour. He seemed to be laboring under great excitement;