Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 16, 1921 — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

EYES OF THE DEAD. So far she spoke, then: “Thank you, Merim,” came the reso- nant voice of the old sheik, “ for remain- ing with the stranger while I was away.” He had paced up to them so softly that Pierre had not heard him. He sat down and felt along the edge of the mat. swirled low, chattering. ‘“‘ The stranger was athirst; I gave your sherbet to him,” she said. “It is well; I can have another made if ‘I desire,” he said, crossing his hands and letting them rest in his lap. “ You may go now, Merim, and be ready. I shall stay with the young man now.” She let her veil down and sprang up light- ly and was gone down the line of tents quickly; The drum’s throbbing went up in intensity; the pipe’s wail came clearer, more and more alluring. The old man waited, as if for a signal. Pierre, musing upon the girl’s strange be- havior, was silent as well. The liquor’s tang warmed him. : Suddenly the drum ceased; the pipe was still. From the tents shadowy figures emerged; a line of human beings formed. The old sheik sprang erect and reached down for La Forge’s hand. Pierre gave him hiss hand and felt the persistent tug that drew him erect. The hand that he gripped was bony, cold, but of surprising vigor. — : “The old man assists the young to his feet,” the sheik chuckled. ‘ It should not be so; you should have assisted me, but I am able to renew my strength in ways that you would not understand.” Again Pierre felt the flame of fear flick over him, but it passed in a breath and he found himself at the end of the line of waiting folk, the old man at his side. Ahead of them, unaccompanied, went the girl. The old sheik called an urgent order. The drum throbbed; the pipe skirled. The rhythm of the wild strain was communi- cated to the feet of the waiting ones, and the line moved off between the line of tents, toward the great sand hill. The reek of the red liquid the had swallowed surged up into the back of Pierre’s throat again and again as the line went on and on. The drum A bat. 59 and pipe heightened their minor disso- nances; the feet took on quicker and quicker movements. The far moon ‘was bending toward the glowing horizon. Pierre felt. himself impelled to grasp the slender figure of the woman before him; his body fairly pulsed with some mad de- sire. The drum suddenly stopped—the pipe, too, stilled. The marchers opened up, and, guided ‘by the hand of the sheik on this elbow, Pierre, following the ‘girl, went through the ordered press and foynd that they were then in the foreground of a half-moon of people who, at a signal, seat- ed themselves. The drummer, the man with the reed pipe, took station before the center of the crescent. The sheik sank to the ground, as did Pierre. The girl remained standing erect. She was on the stone door- way to the crypt beneath the sands! She clapped her hands, raised them over her head. The drum took up its throbbing; the reed pipe cut into its hooming. ‘The girl, in time to the beats, began to dance, at first timidly, hesitatingly, then, aban- doning herself to the wilding urge of the music, more and more terribly in earnest. Body, limbs, head, all in play, she began to show forth the greatness of her desert- born art. La Forge watched, wonder dawning upon and then possessing him as Merim, in graphic gestures, showed forth the meaning of her dance—the homage of life to death. Her obeisance to the stone portal to the tomb, her wild, yearning appeals with open arms to the earth and sky, her advances, her retreats, wove themselves together into a perfect figure of renunciation. Then, as drum and pipe went into higher and higher frenzy, she began to disregard the stone portal and to dance more and more toward Pierre, chanting, low, sweet, alluring: | “The eves of the dead are on us twain; Come, let us dance—and dance again!” He felt an overmastering desire to join her, to link his energy with her own, to be part of her wooing of the unseen. Merim stood, at the close of one of her swaying figures, before him. He half arose. The people were still. Only the drummer and piper stirred as they played. CoOmiclbool (C@