Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 16, 1921 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

56 hole as the old man swung back a door that had covered a stairway of stone leading un- der the huge sand mound. ‘“[ have traveled far, far, to come to this place again,” the old man_ said, straightening up and stroking his sweeping beard, while his sunken eyes seemed to phosphoresce under their terrible brows; “let us go down; you first, I after.” He waved his hand. Pierre stepped to the head of the stairway, impelled thereto by a feeling of irresistible yearning. The air was not dank; it seemed warm, invit- ing. The stairs were few and not steep, yet brought him to a passageway that seemed deep and ample. Urged by Ben Youself, La Forge went forward and felt his way along a hollow-sounding corridor. Suddenly he came to a door, nail-studded, ‘and paused. “Let me find the torch and make a light,” the old man said, his voice reso- nant yet queerly distant, in the gloom. His finger-nails scratched against the rock; then came the touch of steel on hard stone. A spark glowed on tinder, then came the flare from the torch. The flame of it swept back over the big, stooping shoul- der of him; his eyes gleamed dully. Pierre saw a hand-grip on the door, and, urged by his mentor, twisted the grip and sent the door swinging wide. the threshold together. The torch, slaying the writhing shadows, showed merely a small cavelike room and at its far end the figure of a man seated on a stone, his back against the wall. The figure was dressed in burnoose and robes of white. The hands, resting in the lap, were with- ered. The eyes were sunken, spectral proofs that once they had looked abroad and in- formed their owner of things afar or anear. ‘“‘ Behold the body of the holy Marabout of El Yaoub,” the old man said grimly. For the second time that night, and in his life, fear knocked at La Forge’s heart. But he put the feeling from him with the valiance of pulsing manhood. “No real man fears to look upon death.” The old sheik’s hollow chuckle behind him was like the rasping of bleaching bones. They stepped over. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ‘“No man fears to look upon the dead, mayhap, but to look wpon death! See the eyes of the dead!” Pierre glanced more and more sharply at the eves, and, as the torch wavered and flickered, they seemed to dance in their sockets, dried and sunken as they were, and a peculiar glaze seemed to film them over, the pupils especially becoming cloud- ed; then they appeared wrinkled, evil. ‘This Marabout,”’ Ben Yousef said soft- ly, his words falling like echoes of distant omens, “lived long, long ago. He sought for a mew way, and, we believe, found it. He was a follower of Mohammed, but add- ed a new belief—that of the power of the dead over the living. It would weary you if I were to go into details, but we come there, my tribe, who are all his followers, once in ten years, to visit his tomb and to have danced before him the dance that he taught us—for he was a dervish. The dance will be soon. It will be danced by a woman of the tribe: one set apart for the service of death.” “This is a strange belief, so different from any sect that I have heard of,” as the torch flared and the dead eyes shim- mered. “Yes, strange, odd, but we believe! Will you stay for the dance? It will be given on the sands above.” “ T will stay.” “It is well. Let us go above now.”’ They stepped outside; their feet shuf- fled along the dust-strewn corridor. Then they mounted the stairs, and the old man, insisting that he should be left to do it, let down the great door again, covering the trap. In silence they paced toward the tents. Afar the jackal howled. “The dance will be at moon-set,” Ben Yousef said as they were seated upon the mat again. “ My people all will be ready then; let us talk.” “Of what shall we talk?” when they were comfortable on the mat again. “ Talk to me of what you meant when you said that you, like the jackal, lived by death.” “ Said I so?” ‘In very deed.” His white beard rippled as he laughed into it. The faintest echo of the jackal’s Go DOO ANG S C@