"You killed Gird!" I accused it, in a voice steady enough but rather
strained and shrill. "Come on and kill me! I promise you a damned hard
bargain of it."
The creature shrank away in turn, as though it understood the words and
was momentarily daunted by them. Its head, which I could not make out,
sank low before those crooked shoulders and swayed rhythmically like
the head of a snake before striking. The rush was coming, and I knew it.
"Come on!" I dared it again. "What are you waiting for? I'm not chained
down, like Gird. I'll give you a devil of a fight."
I had my fists up and I feinted, boxer-wise, with a little weaving jerk
of the knees. The blot of blackness started violently, ripped out a
snarl from somewhere inside it, and sprang at me.
I had an impression of paws flung out and a head twisted sidewise, with
long teeth bared to snap at my throat. Probably it meant to clutch my
shoulders with its fingers--it had them, I had felt them on my knee at
the séance. But I had planned my own campaign in those tense seconds. I
slid my left foot forward as the enemy lunged, and my left fist drove
for the muzzle. My knuckles barked against the huge, inhuman teeth, and
I brought over a roundabout right, with shoulder and hip driving in
back of it. The head, slanted as it was, received this right fist high
on the brow. I felt the impact of solid bone, and the body floundered
away to my left. I broke ground right, turned and raised my hands as
before.
[Illustration: "I felt the impact of solid bone, and the body
floundered away."]
"Want any more of the same?" I taunted it, as I would a human
antagonist after scoring.
The failure of its attack had been only temporary. My blows had set it
off balance, but could hardly have been decisive. I heard a coughing
snort, as though the thing's muzzle was bruised, and it quartered
around toward me once more. Without warning and with amazing speed it
rushed.
I had no time to set myself now. I did try to leap backward, but I
was not quick enough. It had me; gripping the lapels of my coat and
driving me down and over with its flying weight. I felt the wet ground
spin under my heels, and then it came flying up against my shoulders.
Instinctively I had clutched upward at a throat with my right hand,
clutched a handful of skin, loose and rankly shaggy. My left, also by
instinct, flew backward to break my fall. It closed on something hard,
round and smooth.
The rank odor that I had known at the séance was falling around me like
a blanket, and the clashing white teeth shoved nearer, nearer. But
the rock in my left hand spelled sudden hope. Without trying to roll
out from under, I smote with that rock. My clutch on the hairy throat
helped me to judge accurately where the head would be. A moment later,
and the struggling bulk above me went limp under the impact. Shoving it
aside, I scrambled free and gained my feet once more.
The monster lay motionless where I had thrust it from me. Every nerve
a-tingle, I stooped. My hand poised the rock for another smashing blow,
but there was no sign of fight from the fallen shape. I could hear only
a gusty breathing, as of something in stunned pain.
"Lie right where you are, you murdering brute," I cautioned it, my
voice ringing exultant as I realized I had won. "If you move, I'll
smash your skull in."
My right hand groped in my pocket for a match, struck it on the back of
my leg. I bent still closer for a clear look at my enemy.
Had the thing been so hairy? Now, as I gazed, it seemed only sparsely
furred. The ears, too, were blunter than I thought, and the muzzle not
so----
Why, it was half human! Even as I watched, it was becoming more human
still, a sprawled human figure! And, as the fur seemed to vanish in
patches, was it clothing I saw, as though through the rents in a
bearskin overcoat?
My senses churned in my own head. The fear that had ridden me all night
became suddenly unreasoning. I fled as before, this time without a
thought of where I was going or what I would do. The forbidden grove,
lately so welcome as a refuge, swarmed with evil. I reached the edge
of the clearing, glanced back once. The thing I had stricken down was
beginning to stir, to get up. I ran from it as from a devil.
Somehow I had come to the stream again, or to another like it. The
current moved more swiftly at this point, with a noticeable murmur. As
I tried to spring across I landed short, and gasped in sudden pain, for
the water was scalding hot. Of such are the waters of hell....
* * * * *
I cannot remember my flight through that steaming swamp that might have
been a corner of Satan's own park. Somewhere along the way I found a
tough, fleshy stem, small enough to rend from its rooting and wield
as a club. With it in my hand I paused, with a rather foolish desire
to return along my line of retreat for another and decisive encounter
with the shaggy being. But what if it would foresee my coming and lie
in wait? I knew how swiftly it could spring, how strong was its grasp.
Once at close quarters, my club would be useless, and those teeth might
find their objective. I cast aside the impulse, that had welled from I
know not what primitive core of me, and hurried on.
Evergreens were before me on a sudden, and through them filtered a
blast of cold air. The edge of the grove, and beyond it the snow and
the open sky, perhaps a resumption of the hunt by the mob; but capture
and death at their hands would be clean and welcome compared to----
Feet squelched in the dampness behind me.
I pivoted with a hysterical oath, and swung up my club in readiness to
strike. The great dark outline that had come upon me took one step
closer, then paused. I sprang at it, struck and missed as it dodged to
one side.
"All right then, let's have it out," I managed to blurt, though my
voice was drying up in my throat. "Come on, show your face."
"I'm not here to fight you," a good-natured voice assured me. "Why, I
seldom even argue, except with proven friends."