“Skull-Face” chapters 9 and 10 by Robert E. Howard (in English)

Chapter 9. Kathulos of Egypt

"Night shall be thrice night over you,

And Heaven an iron cope."

Chesterton

The Skull-faced One stood watching me critically as I sat panting on a couch, completely exhausted. He held in his hand the goblet and surveyed the golden stem, which was crushed out of all shape. This my maniac fingers had done in the instant of drinking.

                "Superhuman strength, even for a man in your condition," he said with a sort of creaky pedantry. "I doubt if even Hassim here could equal it. Are you ready for your instructions now?"

                I nodded, wordless. Already the hellish strength of the elixir was flowing through my veins, renewing my burnt-out force. I wondered how long a man could live as I lived being constantly burned out and artificially rebuilt.

                "You will be given a disguise and will go alone to the Frenton estate. No one suspects any design against Sir Haldred and your entrance into the estate and the house itself should be a matter of comparative ease. You will not don the disguise - which will be of unique nature - until you are ready to enter the estate. You will then proceed to Sir Haldred's room and kill him, breaking his neck with your bare hands--this is essential -"

                The voice droned on, giving the ghastly orders in a frightfully casual and matter-of-fact way. The cold sweat beaded my brow.

                "You will then leave the estate, taking care to leave the imprint of your hand somewhere plainly visible, and the automobile, which will be waiting for you at some safe place nearby, will bring you back here, you having first removed the disguise. I have, in case of complications, any amount of men who will swear that you spent the entire night in the Temple of Dreams and never left it. But there must be no detection! Go warily and perform your task surely, for you know the alternative."

                I did not return to the opium house but was taken through winding corridors, hung with heavy tapestries, to a small room containing only an oriental couch. Hassim gave me to understand that I was to remain here until after nightfall and then left me. The door was closed but I made no effort to discover if it was locked. The Skull-faced Master held me with stronger shackles than locks and bolts.

                Seated upon the couch in the bizarre setting of a chamber which might have been a room in an Indian zenana, I faced fact squarely and fought out my battle. There was still in me some trace of manhood left - more than the fiend had reckoned, and added to this were black despair and desperation. I chose and determined on my only course.

                Suddenly the door opened softly. Some intuition told me whom to expect, nor was I disappointed. Zuleika stood, a glorious vision before me - a vision which mocked me, made blacker my despair and yet thrilled me with wild yearning and reasonless joy.

                She bore a tray of food which she set beside me, and then she seated herself on the couch, her large eyes fixed upon my face. A flower in a serpent den she was, and the beauty of her took hold of my heart.

                "Steephen!" she whispered, and I thrilled as she spoke my name for the first time.

                Her luminous eyes suddenly shone with tears and she laid her little hand on my arm. I seized it in both my rough hands.

                "They have set you a task which you fear and hate!" she faltered.

                "Aye," I almost laughed, "but I'll fool them yet! Zuleika, tell me - what is the meaning of all this?"

                She glanced fearfully around her.

                "I do not know all" - she hesitated -"your plight is all my fault but I - I hoped - Steephen, I have watched you every time you came to Yun Shatu's for months. You did not see me but I saw you, and I saw in you, not the broken sot your rags proclaimed, but a wounded soul, a soul bruised terribly on the ramparts of life. And from my heart I pitied you. Then when Hassim abused you that day" - again tears started to her eyes - "I could not bear it and I knew how you suffered for want of hashish. So I paid Yun Shatu, and going to the Master I – I - oh, you will hate me for this!" she sobbed.

                "No – no – never -"

                "I told him that you were a man who might be of use to him and begged him to have Yun Shatu supply you with what you needed. He had already noticed you, for his is the eye of the slaver and all the world is his slave market! So he bade Yun Shatu do as I asked; and now - better if you had remained as you were, my friend."

                "No! No!" I exclaimed. "I have known a few days of regeneration, even if it was false! I have stood before you as a man, and that is worth all else!"

                And all that I felt for her must have looked forth from my eyes, for she dropped hers and flushed. Ask me not how love comes to a man; but I knew that I loved Zuleika - had loved this mysterious oriental girl since first I saw her - and somehow I felt that she, in a measure, returned my affection. This realization made blacker and more barren the road I had chosen; yet - for pure love must ever strengthen a man - it nerved me to what I must do.

                "Zuleika," I said, speaking hurriedly, "time flies and there are things I must learn; tell me - who are you and why do you remain in this den of Hades?"

                "I am Zuleika - that is all I know. I am Circassian by blood and birth; when I was very little I was captured in a Turkish raid and raised in a Stamboul harem; while I was yet too young to marry, my master gave me as a present to - to _Him_."

                "And who is he - this skull-faced man?"

                "He is Kathulos of Egypt - that is all I know. My master."

                "An Egyptian? Then what is he doing in London - why all this mystery?"

                She intertwined her fingers nervously.

                "Steephen, please speak lower; always there is someone listening everywhere. I do not know who the Master is or why he is here or why he does these things. I swear by Allah! If I knew I would tell you. Sometimes distinguished-looking men come here to the room where the Master receives them - not the room where you saw him - and he makes me dance before them and afterward flirt with them a little. And always I must repeat exactly what they say to me. That is what I must always do - in Turkey, in the Barbary States, in Egypt, in France and in England. The Master taught me French and English and educated me in many ways himself. He is the greatest sorcerer in all the world and knows all ancient magic and everything."

                "Zuleika," I said, "my race is soon run, but let me get you out of this - come with me and I swear I'll get you away from this fiend!"

                She shuddered and hid her face.

                "No, no, I cannot!"

                "Zuleika," I asked gently, "what hold has he over you, child – dope also?"

                "No, no!" she whimpered. "I do not know - I do not know - but I cannot - I never can escape him!"

                I sat, baffled for a few moments; then I asked, "Zuleika, where are we right now?"

                "This building is a deserted storehouse back of the Temple of Silence."

                "I thought so. What is in the chests in the tunnel?"

                "I do not know."

                Then suddenly she began weeping softly. "You too, a slave, like me - you who are so strong and kind - oh Steephen, I cannot bear it!"

                I smiled. "Lean closer, Zuleika, and I will tell you how I am going to fool this Kathulos."

                She glanced apprehensively at the door.

                "You must speak low. I will lie in your arms and while you pretend to caress me, whisper your words to me."

                She glided into my embrace, and there on the dragon-worked couch in that house of horror I first knew the glory of Zuleika's slender form nestling in my arms - of Zuleika's soft cheek pressing my breast. The fragrance of her was in my nostrils, her hair in my eyes, and my senses reeled; then with my lips hidden by her silky hair I whispered, swiftly:

                "I am going first to warn Sir Haldred Frenton - then to find John Gordon and tell him of this den. I will lead the police here and you must watch closely and be ready to hide from _Him_ - until we can break through and kill or capture him. Then you will be free."

                "But you!" she gasped, paling. "You must have the elixir, and only he -"

                "I have a way of outdoing him, child," I answered.

                She went pitifully white and her woman's intuition sprang at the right conclusion.

                "You are going to kill yourself!"

                And much as it hurt me to see her emotion, I yet felt a torturing thrill that she should feel so on my account. Her arms tightened about my neck.

                "Don't, Steephen!" she begged. "It is better to live, even -"

                "No, not at that price. Better to go out clean while I have the manhood left."

                She stared at me wildly for an instant; then, pressing her red lips suddenly to mine, she sprang up and fled from the room. Strange, strange are the ways of love. Two stranded ships on the shores of life, we had drifted inevitably together, and though no word of love had passed between us, we knew each other's heart - through grime and rags, and through accouterments of the slave, we knew each other's heart and from the first loved as naturally and as purely as it was intended from the beginning of Time.

                The beginning of life now and the end for me, for as soon as I had completed my task, ere I felt again the torments of my curse, love and life and beauty and torture should be blotted out together in the stark finality of a pistol ball scattering my rotting brain. Better a clean death than -

                The door opened again and Yussef Ali entered.

                "The hour arrives for departure," he said briefly. "Rise and follow."

                I had no idea, of course, as to the time. No window opened from the room I occupied - I had seen no outer window whatever. The rooms were lighted by tapers in censers swinging from the ceiling. As I rose the slim young Moor slanted a sinister glance in my direction.

                "This lies between you and me," he said sibilantly. "Servants of the same Master we - but this concerns ourselves alone. Keep your distance from Zuleika - the Master has promised her to me in the days of the empire."

                My eyes narrowed to slits as I looked into the frowning, handsome face of the Oriental, and such hate surged up in me as I have seldom known. My fingers involuntarily opened and closed, and the Moor, marking the action, stepped back, hand in his girdle.

                "Not now - there is work for us both - later perhaps." Then in a sudden cold gust of hatred, "Swine! Ape-man! When the Master is finished with you I shall quench my dagger in your heart!"

                I laughed grimly.

                "Make it soon, desert-snake, or I'll crush your spine between my hands."

Chapter 10. The Dark House

"Against all man-made shackles and a man-made hell -

Alone - at last – unaided - I rebel!"

Mundy

I followed Yussef Ali along the winding hallways, down the steps - Kathulos was not in the idol room - and along the tunnel, then through the rooms of the Temple of Dreams and out into the street, where the street lamps gleamed drearily through the fogs and a slight drizzle. Across the street stood an automobile, curtains closely drawn.

                "That is yours," said Hassim, who had joined us. "Saunter across natural-like. Don't act suspicious. The place may be watched. The driver knows what to do."

                Then he and Yussef Ali drifted back into the bar and I took a single step toward the curb.

                "Steephen!"

                A voice that made my heart leap spoke my name! A white hand beckoned from the shadows of a doorway. I stepped quickly there.

                "Zuleika!"

                "Shhh!"

                She clutched my arm, slipped something into my hand; I made out vaguely a small flask of gold.

                "Hide this, quick!" came her urgent whisper. "Don't come back but go away and hide. This is full of elixir - I will try to get you some more before that is all gone. You must find a way of communicating with me."

                "Yes, but how did you get this?" I asked amazedly.

                "I stole it from the Master! Now please, I must go before he misses me."

                And she sprang back into the doorway and vanished. I stood undecided. I was sure that she had risked nothing less than her life in doing this and I was torn by the fear of what Kathulos might do to her, were the theft discovered. But to return to the house of mystery would certainly invite suspicion, and I might carry out my plan and strike back before the Skull-faced One learned of his slave's duplicity.

                So I crossed the street to the waiting automobile. The driver was a Negro whom I had never seen before, a lanky man of medium height. I stared hard at him, wondering how much he had seen. He gave no evidence of having seen anything, and I decided that even if he had noticed me step back into the shadows he could not have seen what passed there nor have been able to recognize the girl.

                He merely nodded as I climbed in the back seat, and a moment later we were speeding away down the deserted and fog-haunted streets. A bundle beside me I concluded to be the disguise mentioned by the Egyptian.

                To recapture the sensations I experienced as I rode through the rainy, misty night would be impossible. I felt as if I were already dead and the bare and dreary streets about me were the roads of death over which my ghost had been doomed to roam forever. A torturing joy was in my heart, and bleak despair--the despair of a doomed man. Not that death itself was so repellent - a dope victim dies too many deaths to shrink from the last--but it was hard to go out just as love had entered my barren life. And I was still young.

                A sardonic smile crossed my lips - they were young, too, the men who died beside me in No Man's Land. I drew back my sleeve and clenched my fists, tensing my muscles. There was no surplus weight on my frame, and much of the firm flesh had wasted away, but the cords of the great biceps still stood out like knots of iron, seeming to indicate massive strength. But I knew my might was false, that in reality I was a broken hulk of a man, animated only by the artificial fire of the elixir, without which a frail girl might topple me over.

                The automobile came to a halt among some trees. We were on the outskirts of an exclusive suburb and the hour was past midnight. Through the trees I saw a large house looming darkly against the distant flares of nighttime London.

                "This is where I wait," said the Negro. "No one can see the automobile from the road or from the house."

                Holding a match so that its light could not be detected outside the car, I examined the "disguise" and was hard put to restrain an insane laugh. The disguise was the complete hide of a gorilla! Gathering the bundle under my arm I trudged toward the wall which surrounded the Frenton estate. A few steps and the trees where the Negro hid with the car merged into one dark mass. I did not believe he could see me, but for safety's sake I made, not for the high iron gate at the front, but for the wall at the side where there was no gate.

                No light showed in the house. Sir Haldred was a bachelor and I was sure that the servants were all in bed long ago. I negotiated the wall with ease and stole across the dark lawn to a side door, still carrying the grisly "disguise" under my arm. The door was locked, as I had anticipated, and I did not wish to arouse anyone until I was safely in the house, where the sound of voices would not carry to one who might have followed me. I took hold of the knob with both hands, and, exerting slowly the inhuman strength that was mine, began to twist. The shaft turned in my hands and the lock within shattered suddenly, with a noise that was like the crash of a cannon in the stillness. An instant more and I was inside and had closed the door behind me.

                I took a single stride in the darkness in the direction I believed the stair to be, then halted as a beam of light flashed into my face. At the side of the beam I caught the glimmer of a pistol muzzle.

Beyond a lean shadowy face floated.

                "Stand where you are and put up your hands!"

                I lifted my hands, allowing the bundle to slip to the floor. I had heard that voice only once but I recognized it - knew instantly that the man who held that light was John Gordon.

                "How many are with you?"

                His voice was sharp, commanding.

                "I am alone," I answered. "Take me into a room where a light cannot be seen from the outside and I'll tell you some things you want

to know."

                He was silent; then, bidding me take up the bundle I had dropped, he stepped to one side and motioned me to precede him into the next room. There he directed me to a stairway and at the top landing opened a door and switched on lights.

                I found myself in a room whose curtains were closely drawn. During this journey Gordon's alertness had not relaxed, and now he stood, still covering me with his revolver. Clad in conventional garments, he stood revealed a tall, leanly but powerfully built man, taller than I but not so heavy - with steel-gray eyes and clean-cut features. Something about the man attracted me, even as I noted a bruise on his jawbone where my fist had struck in our last meeting.

                "I cannot believe," he said crisply, "that this apparent clumsiness and lack of subtlety is real. Doubtless you have your own reasons for wishing me to be in a secluded room at this time, but Sir Haldred is efficiently protected even now. Stand still."

                Muzzle pressed against my chest, he ran his hand over my garments for concealed weapons, seeming slightly surprized when he found none.

                "Still," he murmured as if to himself, "a man who can burst an iron lock with his bare hands has scant need of weapons."

                "You are wasting valuable time," I said impatiently. "I was sent here tonight to kill Sir Haldred Frenton -"

                "By whom?" the question was shot at me.

                "By the man who sometimes goes disguised as a leper."

                He nodded, a gleam in his scintillant eyes.

                "My suspicions were correct, then."

                "Doubtless. Listen to me closely - do you desire the death or arrest of that man?"

                Gordon laughed grimly.

                "To one who wears the mark of the scorpion on his hand, my answer would be superfluous."

                "Then follow my directions and your wish shall be granted."

                His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

                "So that was the meaning of this open entry and non-resistance," he said slowly. "Does the dope which dilates your eyeballs so warp your mind that you think to lead me into ambush?"

                I pressed my hands against my temples. Time was racing and every moment was precious - how could I convince this man of my honesty?

                "Listen; my name is Stephen Costigan of America. I was a frequenter of Yun Shatu's dive and a hashish addict - as you have guessed, but just now a slave of stronger dope. By virtue of this slavery, the man you know as a false leper, whom Yun Shatu and his friends call 'Master,' gained dominance over me and sent me here to murder Sir Haldred - why, God only knows. But I have gained a space of respite by coming into possession of some of this dope which I must have in order to live, and I fear and hate this Master. Listen to me and I swear, by all things holy and unholy, that before the sun rises the false leper shall be in your power!"

                I could tell that Gordon was impressed in spite of himself.

                "Speak fast!" he rapped.

                Still I could sense his disbelief and a wave of futility swept over me.

                "If you will not act with me," I said, "let me go and somehow I'll find a way to get to the Master and kill him. My time is short – my hours are numbered and my vengeance is yet to be realized."

                "Let me hear your plan, and talk fast," Gordon answered.

                "It is simple enough. I will return to the Master’s lair and tell him I have accomplished that which he sent me to do. You must follow closely with your men and while I engage the Master in conversation, surround the house. Then, at the signal, break in and kill or seize him."

                Gordon frowned. "Where is this house?"

                "The warehouse back of Yun Shatu's has been converted into a veritable oriental palace."

                "The warehouse!" he exclaimed. "How can that be? I had thought of that first, but I have carefully examined it from without. The windows are closely barred and spiders have built webs across them. The doors are nailed fast on the outside and the seals that mark the warehouse as deserted have never been broken or disturbed in any way."

                "They tunneled up from beneath," I answered. "The Temple of Dreams is directly connected with the warehouse."

                "I have traversed the alley between the two buildings," said Gordon, "and the doors of the warehouse opening into that alley are, as I have said, nailed shut from without just as the owners left them. There is apparently no rear exit of any kind from the Temple of Dreams."

                "A tunnel connects the buildings, with one door in the rear room of Yun Shatu's and the other in the idol room of the warehouse."

                "I have been in Yun Shatu's back room and found no such door."

                "The table rests upon it. You noted the heavy table in the center of the room? Had you turned it around the secret door would have opened in the floor. Now this is my plan: I will go in through the Temple of Dreams and meet the Master in the idol room. You will have men secretly stationed in front of the warehouse and others upon the other street, in front of the Temple of Dreams. Yun Shatu's building, as you know, faces the waterfront, while the warehouse, fronting the opposite direction, faces a narrow street running parallel with the river. At the signal let the men in this street break open the front of the warehouse and rush in, while simultaneously those in front of Yun Shatu's make an invasion through the Temple of Dreams. Let these make for the rear room, shooting without mercy any who may seek to deter them, and there open the secret door as I have said. There being, to the best of my knowledge, no other exit from the Master's lair, he and his servants will necessarily seek to make their escape through the tunnel. Thus we will have them on both sides."

                Gordon ruminated while I studied his face with breathless interest.

                "This may be a snare," he muttered, "or an attempt to draw me away  from  Sir  Haldred,  but -"

                I held my breath.

                "I am a gambler by nature," he said slowly. "I am going to follow what you Americans call a hunch - but God help you if you are lying to me!"

                I sprang erect.

                "Thank God! Now aid me with this suit, for I must be wearing it when I return to the automobile waiting for me."

                His eyes narrowed as I shook out the horrible masquerade and prepared to don it.

                "This shows, as always, the touch of the master hand. You were doubtless instructed to leave marks of your hands, encased in those hideous gauntlets?"

                "Yes, though I have no idea why."

                "I think I have - the Master is famed for leaving no real clues to mark his crimes - a great ape escaped from a neighboring zoo earlier in the evening and it seems too obvious for mere chance, in the light of this disguise. The ape would have gotten the blame of Sir Haldred's death."

                The thing was easily gotten into and the illusion of reality it created was so perfect as to draw a shudder from me as I viewed myself in a mirror.

                "It is now two o'clock," said Gordon. "Allowing for the time it will take you to get back to Limehouse and the time it will take me to get my men stationed, I promise you that at half-past four the house will be closely surrounded. Give me a start - wait here until I have left this house, so I will arrive at least as soon as you."

                "Good!" I impulsively grasped his hand. "There will doubtless be a girl there who is in no way implicated with the Master's evil doings, but only a victim of circumstances such as I have been. Deal gently with her."

                "It shall be done. What signal shall I look for?"

                "I have no way of signaling for you and I doubt if any sound in the house could be heard on the street. Let your men make their raid on the stroke of five."

                I turned to go.

                "A man is waiting for you with a car, I take it? Is he likely to suspect anything?"

                "I have a way of finding out, and if he does," I replied grimly, "I will return alone to the Temple of Dreams."