Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 14, 1928 — page 80: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

218 Trelawney had been racking his brain. for tales to tell. He thought of those old folk tales of Cornwall, of “ Jack the Giant Killer,” and, add- ing his own details and coloring, he made of them a never ending story, for he remembered a certain lady of the Orient who prolonged her life by telling unending tales to a sultan. It was not long before the emperor snored. The guards still stood like au- tomatons, and the black physician waited at one side of the room, evi- dently interested in Trelawney’s tales, which he translated into such French as he could command for their under- standing. He was weary to exhaustion, his voice sank to a whisper when suddenly the emperor’s body jerked and he twisted as if in the clutch of a night- mare. “ Away!” he cried. “ Get back, Sans Souci, and hide those finger marks on your throat. Get back to purgatory. I’ll have amends made to your soul, in church—and lay your spirit. I swear it by my royal word! “Take him away!” he screamed, sitting bolt upright and fighting the phantoms of his dream. “ There’s Dessalines—come to haunt me—Des- salines and Sans Souci. Take them away!” The physician sprang to his side, ~put the arm of the emperor swept him back. His eyes were open and rolling so that only the whites were visible, streaked with red veins. His thick lips were blue from constriction of the heart. They drew back, showing his blue gums and white teeth set in an animal snarl. The doctor clutched his shoulder and shook him awake, But Christophe was still in the thrall of fear bred of those ghosts of conscience troubling him. He turned in fury on the physi- cian, called to the huge black men guarding his couch, and, pointing to a wall hung with Gobelin tapestry, cried in his loud voice: ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “This dog’s physic has made me dream. To the slide with him. He’s poisoned Christophe!’ The wretched victim of his imperial displeasure screamed piteously. He threw himself on his knees and plead- ed with wild cries for mercy. But the guards dragged him, kicking and struggling toward the wall. They drew back the tapestry and opened a door in one panel, disclosing a yawning black gap in the masonry. Then lifting the physician, they insert- ed him, head down, and sent him hurtling and screaming to his death. Basil sat as if frozen to the stool. The emperor’s gaze turned on him. The guards closed the wall aperture and swung the tapestry into place. “So die all foes of Christophe!’ announced the emperor. “ Sing love songs, fool, and drive away the phan- toms of the night. Your voice is pleas- ant. I slept awhile ago. But the physic of that rogue disturbed my mind. Christophe is not afraid of ghosts or dreams.” He seemed to comfort himself with that assurance. Basil could not sing, but he fitted the tales he had been re- lating to a tune so familiar that it sang itself, and at-last the eyes of the emperor closed. Only when his breathing became regular and deep did a guard near the door beckon Basil from the room, and once outside another servitor es- corted him to a chamber far down the passageway. Here he found a feminine softness of furnishings, a lace-covered couch, and Jace curtains at the window, through which he saw the sky flushed by dawn light. The stars were gone. It was early day. Basil stripped to that fine linen provided for him in the house of Chilefia where Gefondo had taken him, crept between the coverlets, and sighed. But he was not to sleep at once. His eyes were scarcely closed, when a voice called him, and, jerking to a sit- Gomichooks (E@)