AGAIN!
"What was that? The angel's voice again, seeming to issue from the
very heart of that mass of rocks. A loud cry and a succession of sharp
cries--cries that, I thought, ended in a sobbing sound. Then silence.
But no. What was that, that rustling, that flapping in the air?
"Long and I looked wildly--overhead, and then I knew a fear that sent
an icy shudder into my heart.
"I cried out--probably it was a scream that I gave--and sprang
backward. My soles were well calked, but this could not save me, and
down I went flat on my back. The revolver was knocked from my hand and
went sliding along the ice for many feet. I sprang up. At this instant
the thing came driving down at Long.
"He fired, but he must have missed. The thing struck him in the
throat and chest and drove him to the ice. I sprang for my weapon.
Long screamed, screamed as White had done, and fought with the fury of
a fiend. I got the revolver and started back. The thing had its teeth
buried in Long's throat. So fierce was the struggle that I could not
fire for fear lest I should hit my companion. As I came up, the monster
loosened its hold and sprang high into the air, flapping its bat wings,
then it came diving straight at me.
"I fired, but the bullet must have gone wild. Again, and it screamed
and went struggling upward. I emptied my revolver, but I fear that I
missed with every shot, except that second one. A few seconds, and that
winged monster had disappeared.
"I turned to Long. I have seen some horrible sights in my time but
never anything so horrible as what I saw now. For there was Long, my
companion, my friend--there he was raised up on his hands, his arms
rigid as steel, and the blood pouring from his throat. And I--I could
only weep and watch him as he bled to death. But it did not last long.
In Heaven's mercy, the horror was ended soon.
"And then--well, what followed is not very clear in my mind. I know
that a madness seemed to come over me. But I did not flee from that
place of mystery and death; the madness, if madness it was, was not
like that. It was not of myself that I was thinking; it was not of
escape. It was as though a bloody mist had fallen upon the place.
Vengeance was what I wanted--vengeance and blood, vengeance and
slaughter. I reloaded my revolver, picked up Long's and thrust it into
my pocket, then caught up White's weapon with my left hand and started
for the rocks, shouting defiance and curses as I went.
"I reached that pile of stone, found the tracks of the angel and the
man and of that winged beast; but, at the edge of the rocks, the tracks
vanished, and I could not follow farther. But I did not stop there. I
went on, clear around that pile, and again and yet again. I climbed it,
clear to the summit, searched everywhere; but I could not find a single
trace of them I sought. Once, indeed, I thought that I heard a voice,
the voice of the angel--thought that I heard that cursed word _Drome_.
"But I can not write any more now. Why, oh, why didn't we listen to
Sklokoyum and keep away from this hellish mountain? That, of course,
would have been foolish; but it would not have been this thing which
will haunt me to my dying hour."