_A vivid thrill-tale of the black altar
on the hill-top, and the dark doom that
hung over two lovers like a living
horror--by the author of "Golden Blood"._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales May 1937.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_1. The Brooding Horror_
Beyond the miserable poverty of Creston, its squalid ignorance and its
rotting antiquity, there is something more appalling--something that
has always seemed to me like a colossal, invisible spider, gloating
over the broken victims in its intangible, unbreakable web. I had
escaped it once; now I dared it again to set free Valyne Kirk.
Brakes shrieking, the antiquated bus pitched down the rutted mountain
road. Carrying away all the sanity of the modern world, it left me
alone and oppressed amid the sinister shadows of the time-crushed
village.
I shuddered, for I felt that Creston was the unhappy ghost of a town,
sprawling dead in this desolate vale. Its narrow, high-peaked houses
were bleached and gray as decaying skulls; their broken windows leered
like vacant eyeholes at the gloomy, frowning hills.
The spirited young all have fled from Creston. No children laugh in the
ancient, cobbled streets. And I found nothing new in the years since I
had gone--unless it was this spirit of festering evil, come to haunt
the old town's tomb.
Valyne Kirk had promised to meet me; for I had come with seven years'
earnings, to take her away from Creston, for ever. Eagerly I looked for
her, up and down the unkempt squalor of the narrow street. After seven
years, the sweet memory of her burned still like a sacred flame within
my soul. The picture of her quiet, violet-eyed face, framed in dark and
shining hair, remained etched into my heart.
But she didn't come. And somber premonitions rose to cloud my joy. For
in my pocket was that strange letter from Doctor Kyle, my aged adopted
father. Upon my very heart was graven its puzzling and sinister warning:
My son, you write that you are coming home to marry Valyne Kirk.
I shall not, I dare not, tell you why--but may God in his mercy
forbid that so monstrous a crime should be!
Have you never felt the strangeness in you, Clay? Have you never
sensed the stain upon your soul? Are you never conscious of the
black venom flowing in your blood?
Much as Sarah and I long to see you, we both prefer that you should
live and die in your new foreign home, than that you should wed
Valyne, and drench her life in terror.
Heed this warning--you must sense its truth, like a cold serpent
coiled around your heart! And accept all our congratulations upon
your new prosperity.