Lord of the Dead | Robert E. Howard | Podcast - Nightshade Diary

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you feel a sharer up your spine from fear? Yes,
it's another story from the Night's Shade Diary. You know
what that means. Check under the bed and make sure
no one or nothing is there. Is the closet door
securely shut. Then leave your disbelief behind, amp up your
imagination and hang on tight for another ride into terror

(00:22):
and mystery. And like all good horror stories, just imagine
it's a dark and stormy night, and remember screaming like
a little girl is permitted. Lord of the Dead by
Robert E. Howard. The onslaught was as unexpected as a

(00:44):
stroke of an unseen cobra. One second, Steve Harrison was
plodding profanely but prosaically through the darkness of the alley.
The next he was fighting for his life with a snarling,
mouthing fury that had fallen on him talon and tooth.
The thing was obviously a man, though in the first
few days seconds Harrison doubted even this fact. The attacker's

(01:05):
style of fighting was appallingly vicious and beastlike, even to Harrison,
who was accustomed to the foul battling of the underworld.
The detective felt the other's teeth in his flesh, and
yelped for faintly. But there was a knife too. It
ribboned his coat and shirt and drew blood. An only
blind chance that locked his fingers about a sinewy wrist,

(01:26):
kept a point from his vitals. It was dark as
the back door of Erebus. Harrison saw as assailant only
as a slightly darker chunk in the blackness. The muscles
under his grasping fingers were taut and steely as piano wire,
and there was a terrifying suppleness about the frame writhing
against his which filled Harrison with panic. The big Detective

(01:52):
had seldom met a man his equal in strength. This
denizen of the dark not only was as strong as he,
but was lither and quicker and tougher than a civilized
man ought to be. They rolled over into the mud
of the alley, biting, kicking and slugging, and though the

(02:12):
unseen enemy grunted each time one of Harrison's maul like
fists threaded against him, he showed no signs of weakening.
His wrist was like a woven mass of steel wires,
threatening momentarily to wrythe out of Harrison's clutch. His flesh
crawling with fear of the cold steel. The detective grasp
that wrist with both his own hands and tried to

(02:33):
break it. A bloodthirsty hawl acknowledged his futile attempt, and
a voice, which had been mouthing in an unknown tongue,
hissed in Harrison's ear, Dog, you shall die in the
mud as I died in the sand. You gave my
body to the vultures. I give yours to the rats
of the alley. A grimy thumb was feeling for Harrison's

(02:55):
eye and fired to desperation. The detective heaved his body backwards,
springing up his knee with bone crushing force. The unknown
gasped and rolled clear, squalling like a cat. Harrison staggered up,
lost his balance, coroambed against the wall with a scream
and a rush. The other was up and at him.
Harrison heard the knife whistle and chunk into the wall

(03:17):
beside him, and he lashed out blindly with all the
power of his massive shoulders. He landed solidly, felt his
victims shoot off his feet backward, and heard him crash
headlong into the mud. Then Steve Harrison, for the first
time in his life turned his back on a single
foe and ran lumberingly but swiftly up the alley. His

(03:38):
breath came pantingly, his feet splashed the refuse and clanged
over rusty cands. Momentarily expected a knife in his back,
Hogan he bawled desperately behind himself of the quick and
lethal pattern of flying feet. He catapulted out of the
back alley mouthed head on into patrolman Hogan, who had
heard his urgent bellow and was coming on the run.

(04:00):
The breath went out of the patrolman in an agonized gasp,
and the two hate the sidewalk together. Harrison did not
take time to rise. Ripping the Cult thirty eight special
from Hogan's holster, he blazed away at a shadow that
hovered for an instant in the black mouth of the alley. Rising,
he approached the dark entrance, the smoking gun in his hand.
No sound came from the stygian gloom. Give me your flashlight,

(04:24):
he requested, and Hogan rose one hand in his capacious
belly and proffered the article. The white beam showed no
corpse stretched in the alley mud got away, muttered Harrison,
who demanded Hogan with some spleen. What is this anyway?
I hear you bellowing, Hogan, like the devil had you

(04:45):
by the seat of the breeches, and the next thing
you ran me like a charging bull. What shut up
and let's explore this alley, snapped Harrison. I didn't mean
to run into you. Something jumped me. I'll say something did,
but Troman surveyed his companion in the uncertain light of
the distant corner lamp. Harrison's coat hung in ribbons. His

(05:07):
shirt was slashed to pieces, revealing his broad, hairy chest,
which head from his exertions. Sweat ran down his corded neck,
bingling with blood from gashes on arms, shoulders, and breast muscles.
His hair was clotted with mud, his clothes smeared with it.
Must have been a whole gang, decided Hogan. It was
one man, said Harrison, one man or one gorilla. But

(05:31):
it talked Are you coming? I am not. Whatever it was,
it'll be gone now shine that light up the alley,
see nothing in sight. It wouldn't be waiting around for
us to grab it by the tail. You'd better get
them cuts dressed. I've warned you against short cuts through
dark alleys plenty men of grudges against you. I'll go

(05:53):
to Richard Bryd's place, said Harrison. He'll fix me up.
Go along with me, will you? Sure? But you'd better
let me whatever it is, no, growled Harrison, smarting from
cuts and wounded vanity. And listen, Hogan, don't mention the sea.
I want to work it out for myself. This is

(06:14):
no ordinary affair. It must not be. When one critter
licks the tar out of iron man Harrison was Hogan's
biting comment, whereupon Harrison cursed under his breath. Richard Brant's
house stood just off Hogan's beat, one lone bulwark of
respectability in the gradually rising tide of deterioration which was

(06:34):
engulfing the neighborhood, but of which Brent, absorbed in his studies,
was scarcely aware. Brent was in his relic littered study,
delving into the obscure volumes which were at once his
vocation and his passion, distinctly the scholar and appearance he
contrasted strongly with his visitors, but he took charge without
undue perturbation, summoning to his aid a half course of

(06:58):
medical studies. Hogan having ascertained that Harrison's wounds were little
more than scratches, took his departure, and presently the big
detective sat opposite his host, a long whiskey glass in
his massive hand. Steve Harrison's height was above medium, but
it seemed dwarfed by the breadth of his shoulders and
the depth of his chest. His heavy arms hung low,

(07:20):
and his head jutted aggressively forward. His low, broad brow,
crowned with heavy black hair, suggested the man of action
rather than the thinker, but his cold blue eyes reflected
unexpected depths of mentality. As I died in the sand,
he was saying, that's what he yammered. Was he just
a plain nut? Or what the hell? Brent shook his

(07:43):
head absently, scanning the walls as if seeking inspiration in
the weapons antique and modern which adorned it. You could
not understand the language in which he spoke before, not
a word. All I know is it was in English,
and it wasn't Chinese. I do know. The fellow was
all steel, springs and whalebone. It was like fighting a

(08:04):
basket full of wildcats. From now on, I pack a
gun regular. I haven't totaled one recently, things have been
so quiet. Always figured I was a match for several
ordinary humans with my fists anyway, But this devil wasn't
an ordinary human, more like a wild animal. He gulped

(08:24):
his whiskey loudly, wiped his mouth with the back of
his hand, and leaned toward Brent with a curious glint
in his cold eyes. I wouldn't be saying this to
anybody but you, he said, with a strange hesitancy. And
maybe you'll think I'm crazy, But well, I've dumped off
several men in my life. Do you suppose, well, the

(08:45):
Chinese believe in vampires and ghouls and walking dead men,
and with always talk about being dead and killing him,
do you suppose nonsense? Exclaimed Brent with an incredulous laugh.
When a man's dead, he's dead. He can't come back.
That's what I've always thought, muttered Harrison. But what the

(09:06):
devil did he mean about me feeding him to the vultures?
I will tell you. A voice, hard and merciless as
a knife edge cut their conversation. Harrison and Brent wheeled,
the former, starting out of his chair at the other
end of the room, one of the tall shuttered windows
stood open for the sake of the coolness. Before this

(09:26):
now stood a tall, rangy man, whose ill fitting garment
could not conceal the dangerous suppleness of his limbs nor
the breadth of his hard shoulders. Those cheap garments, muddy
and blood stained, seemed incongruous with the fierce, dark, hair
like face. The flame of the dark eyes, Harrison grunted explosively,

(09:46):
made a concentrated ferocity of that glare you escape me
in the darkness, muttered the stranger, rocking slightly on the
balls of his feet as he crouched catlike a wicked,
curved dagger gleaming in his hand. Fool did you dream
I would not follow you? Here is light. You shall
not escape again. Who the devil are you? Demanded Harrison,

(10:10):
standing in an unconscious attitude of defense, legs braced, fist poised,
poor of wit and scant of memory, sneered the other.
You do not remember, ameer amen Izidine, whom you slew
in the valley of the vultures thirty years ago. But
I remember from my cradle. I remember, before I could

(10:31):
speak or walk, I knew that I was a mere amen,
and I remembered the valley of vultures. But only after
deep shame and long wandering was full knowledge revealed to me.
In the smoke of Chaitan, I saw it. You have
changed your garment of flesh, Ahmed Pasha. You bedo one dog,

(10:51):
but you cannot escape me by the golden calf. With
a feline shriek, he ran forward, dagger on high. Harrison
sprang aside, surprisingly quick for a man of his bulk,
and ribbed an archaic spear from the wall with a
wordless yell like a war cry. He rushed, gripping it
with both hands like a bayonet. A mere amin wheeled

(11:14):
toward him, litly, swaying his pantherish body to avoid the
onrushing point. Too late, Harrison realized his mistake, knew he
would be spitted on the long knife as he plunged
past the elusive Oriental, but he could not check his
headlong impetus, and then amere amen. Foot slipped on a
sliding rug. The spear had ripped through his muddy coat

(11:36):
plowed along his ribs, bringing a spurting stream of blood.
Knocked off balance, he slashed wildly, and then Harrison's bull
like shoulder smashed into him, carrying them both to the floor.
Amere amine was out first Minus's knife as he glared
wildly about for it. Brent, temporarily stunned by the unaccustomed violence,

(11:57):
went into action from the rocks on the walls. The
scholar had taken a shotgun, and he wore a look
of grim determination as he lifted it. A mere men
yelped and plunged recklessly through the nearest window. The crash
of splintering glass mingled with the thunderous war of the shotgun. Brent,
rushing to the window, blinking in the powder fumes, saw

(12:17):
a shadowy form dart across the shadowy lawn under the trees,
and vanished. He turned back into the room where Harrison
was rising, swearing luridly twice in a night? Is too
danked much? Who is this not? Anyway? I never saw
him before? A jrue, stuttered Brent, his accent, his mention

(12:38):
of the golden calf, his hawklike appearance. I am sure
he is a dreue. What the hell is a druce?
Bellowed Harrison in a spasm of irritation. His bandages had
been torn and his cuts for bleeding again. They live
in a mountain district in Syria, answered Brent, A tribe
of fierce fighters. I can tell that, snarled Harrison. I

(13:01):
never expected to meet anybody that could lick me in
a stand up fight, but this devil's got me buffaloed anyway.
It's a relief to know that he's a living human being.
But if I don't watch my step, I won't be
I'm staying here to night. If you've got a room
where I can lock all the doors and windows. Tomorrow

(13:22):
I'm going to see Woon Sun Part two. Few men
ever traversed the modest curio shop that opened on Dingy
River Street and passed through the cryptic curtain hung door
at the rear of that shop to be amazed at
what lay beyond luxury in the shape of gilt worked
velvet hangings, silken cushioned divans, tea cups of tinted porcelain

(13:46):
on toy like tables of lacquered ebony, overall which was
shed a soft colored glow from electric bulbs, concealed and
gilded lanterns. Steve Harrison's master's shoulders. Where it's congruous among
these exotics around as Wom's son. Short, sleek claden close
fitting black silk was adapted to them. The Chinaman smiled,

(14:08):
but there was iron behind his save mask. And so
he suggested politely. And so I want your help, said
Harrison abruptly. His nature was not that of a rapier
fencing for an opening, but a hammer smashing directly at
its objective. I know that you know every orient on
the city. I've described a bird to you, frent says,

(14:30):
he's a drue. You can't be ignorant of him. He'd
stand out in any crowd. He doesn't belong with the
general run of the river street gut or rats. He's
a wolf. Indeed, he is, murmured wom Son. It would
be useless to try to conceal from you the fact
that I know this young barbarian. His name is Ali

(14:50):
e being Suleiman. He called himself something else, scowled Harrison. Perhaps,
but he is Ali being Suleiman to his friends. He is,
as your friend said, a drue. His tribe lived in
stone cities in the Syrian mountains, particularly about the mountains
called the dej Bel Drue. Mohammedans hmm, rumbled Harrison arabs, No,

(15:17):
they are as it were a race apart. They worship
a calf cast of gold, believe in reincarnation, and practice
heathen rituals aboard by the Moslems, first the Turks and
now the French have tried to govern them, but they
have never really been conquered. I can believe it all right,
muttered Harrison. But why did he call me Ahmed Pasha?

(15:39):
What's he got it in for me for? Won Sun
spread his hands helplessly. Well, anyway, growled Harrison. I don't
want to keep on dodging knives in back alleys. I
want you to fix it so I can get the
drop on him. Maybe he'll talk sense. If I can
get the cuffs on him, maybe I can argue him
out of this idea of killing me. Whatever it is,

(16:01):
he looks more like a fanatic than a criminal. Anyway,
I want to find out just what it's all about.
What could I do? Murmured Woone's son, folding his hands
on his round belly, malice gleaming from under his dropping lids.
I might go further and ask why should I do
anything for you? You've stayed inside the law since coming here,

(16:25):
said Harrison. I know that curious shop is just the blind.
You're not making any fortune out of it. But I
know too that you're not mixed up with anything crooked.
You had your dough when you came here, plenty of it,
and how you got it is no concern of mine.
But Wom's son, Harrison leaned forward and lowered his voice.

(16:46):
Do you remember that young Eurasian Joseph latour I was
the first man to reach his body the night he
was killed in Osman Pasha's gambling den. I found a
note book on him and I kept it. Woone's son,
your name was in that book. An electric silence impregnated
the atmosphere. Won's Soun's smooth yellow features were mobile, but

(17:10):
red points glimmered and the shoe button blackness of his eyes.
Lettore must have been intending to blackmail you, said Harrison.
He'd worked up a lot of interesting data reading that
note book. I've found that your name wasn't always Woon's
son found that we got your money too. The red
points have faded, and woon Son's eyes, those eyes seemed glazed.

(17:35):
A greenish pallor overspread the yellow face. You've hidden yourself well,
Wound's son muttered. The detective. But the but crossing your
society and skipping with all their money was a dirty trick.
If they ever find you, they'll feed you to the rats.
I don't know, but what it's my duty to write
a letter to a Mandarin and canton named stop the Child.

(18:00):
The man's voice was unrecognizable. Say no more, for the
love of Buddha, I will do as you ask. I
have this juice confidence and can arrange it easily. It
is now scarcely dark at midnight. Be in the alley
known to the Chinese of River Street as the alley
of Silence. You know the one I mean good waiting

(18:21):
the note made by the angle of the walls near
the end of the alley, and soon Ali Ibin Suleiman
will walk past it, ignorant of your presence. Then if
you dare, you can arrest him. I've got a gun
this time, grunted Harrison. Do this for me and we'll
forget about Latour's notebook. But no double crossing, or you

(18:45):
hold my life and your fingers. Answered woon Son, how
can I double cross you? Harrison grunted skeptically, but rose
without further words, strode through the curtained door. And through
the shop and let himself into the street. Woon's sun
watched inscrutably, the broad shoulders swinging aggressively through the swarms
of stoop turring Orientals, men and women who thronged the

(19:07):
river street at that hour. Then he locked his shop
door and hurried back through the curtained entrance into the
ornate chamber behind. And there he halted, staring smoke curled
up in a blue spiral from a satin divan. And
on that divan lounged a young woman, a slim, dark,
supple creature whose night black hair, full red lips, and

(19:29):
scintillant eyes hinted a blood more exotic than her costly
garment suggested Those red lips curled in malicious mockery, But
the glitter of her dark eyes belied any suggestion of humor,
however satirical, just as their vitality belied the languists expressed
in the listlessly drooping hands that held the cigarette joan.

(19:53):
The Chinaman's eyes narrowed to slits of suspicion. How did
you get in here through that door over there, which
opens on a passage which in turns open on the
alley that runs behind this building. Both doors were locked,
but long ago I learned how to pick locks. But
why I saw the brave detective come here? I have

(20:13):
been watching him for some time now, though he does
not know it. The girl's vital eyes smoldered yet more
deeply for an instant. Have you been listening outside the door?
Demanded Woon's son, turning gray. I am no eavesdropper. I
did not have to listen. I can guess why he came,
and you promised to help him. I don't know what

(20:36):
you are talking about, answered Woone's son, with a secret
sigh of relief. You lie. The girl came tensely upright
on the divan, her convulsive fingers crushing her cigarette. Her
beautiful face momentarily contorted. Then she regained control of herself
in a cold resolution, more dangerous than spitting fury Woon's son,

(20:56):
she said, calmly, drawing a stubby black automatic from her mantle.
How easily and with what good will? Could I kill
you where you stand? I do not wish to. We
shall remain friends. See I replaced the gun, But do
not tempt me, my friend. Do not try to eject
me or to use violence. With me here, Sit down

(21:18):
and take a cigarette. We will talk this over calmly.
I do not know what you wish to talk over,
said Won Soun, sinking down on divan and mechanically taking
the cigarette she offered, as if hypnotized by the glitter
of her magnetic black eyes and the knowledge of the
hidden pistol. All his oriental immobility could not conceal the

(21:38):
fact that he feared this young pantherus more than he
feared Harrison. The detective came here merely in a friendly call.
He said, I have many friends among the police. If
I were found murdered, they would go to much trouble
to find and hang the guilty person who spoke of killing,
protested Jones, snapping a match on a pointed and a

(22:01):
tinted nail and holding the tiny flame to wound sun cigarette.
At the instant of contact, their faces were close together,
and a China man drew back from a strange intensity
that burned in her dark eyes. Nervously, he drew on
the cigarette and haaling deeply. I have been your friend,
he said. You should not come here threatening me with

(22:22):
a pistol. I am a man of no small importance.
On River Street. You perhaps are not as secure as
you suppose. The time may come when you will need
a friend like me. He was suddenly aware that the
girl was not answering him, or even heating his words.
Her own cigarette smoldered unheeded in her fingers, and through
the clouds of smoke or eyes, burned at him with

(22:44):
the terrible eagerness of a beast of prey. With a gasp,
he jerked the cigarette from his lips and held it
to his nostrils. She devil. It was a shriek of
pure terror, Hurling the smoking stuff from him. He lurched
to his feet, where he swayed dizzily on legs, suddenly
grow numb and dead. His fingers groped toward the girl

(23:05):
with strangling motions, poisoned dope the black lotos. She rose,
thrust an open hand against the flowered breast of his
silk jacket, and shoved them back down on the divan.
He fell, sprawling and lay in a limp attitude, his
eyes open but glazed and vacant. She bent over him,
tense and shuddering with the intensity of her purpose. You

(23:28):
are my slave, she hissed, as a hypnotizer impels his
suggestion upon his subject. You have no will but my will.
Your conscious brain is asleep, but your tongue is free
to tell the truth. Only the truth remains in your
drug brain. Why did the detective Harrison come here to
learn of Ali Ebin Suleiman? The druice muttered, Wun sun

(23:52):
and his own tongue and a curious, lifeless sing song.
You promise to betray the dreus to him, but I lied,
the monotonous voice continued. The detective goes at midnight to
the alley of Silence, which is the gateway to the Master.
Many bodies have gone feet first through that gateway. It

(24:12):
is the best place to dispose of his corpse. I
will tell the Master he came to spy upon him,
and thus gain honor for myself, as well as reading
myself of an enemy. The white Barbarian will stand in
the nook between the walls, awaiting the juice as I
bade him. He does not know that a trap can
be opened, and the angle of the walls behind him,

(24:34):
and a hand strike with a hatchet. My secret will
die with him. Apparently, John was indifferent as to what
the secret might be, since she questioned the drug man
no further, but the expression on her beautiful face was
not pleasant. No, my yellow friend, she murmured, Let the
white barbarian go to the alley of silence. Ay, what

(24:56):
is not a yellow belly who will come to him
in the darkness. He shall have his desire. He shall
meet Ali being Suleiman, and after him the worms that
writhe in darkness. Taking a tiny jade vowal from her bosom,
she poured wine from a porcelain jug into an amber
gablet and shook into the look of the contents of

(25:18):
the vial. Then she put the goblet into wound Sun's
limp fingers and sharply ordered him to drink, guiding the
beaker to his lips. He gulped the wine mechanically and
immediately slumped sideways on the van and lay still. You
will wield no hatchet this night, she muttered. When you'll
waken many hours from now, my desire will have been accomplished,

(25:39):
and you will need fear Harrison no longer either, whatever
may be his hold upon you. She seemed struck by
a sudden thought and halted as she was turning toward
the door that opened on the quarridor not as secure
as I suppose, She muttered, half aloud, What could he
have meant by that? A shadow, almost of a hension,

(26:00):
crossed her face. Then she shrugged her shoulders, too late
to make him tell me. Now, no matter, the Master
does not suspect, and what if he did, He's no
master of mine. I waste too much time. She stepped
into the quarridor, closing the door behind her. Then when
she turned, she stopped short before stood three grim figures, tall, gaunt,

(26:24):
black robed, the shaven vulture like heads nodding in the
dim light of the corridor. That instant, frozen with awful certainty,
she forgot the gun in her bosom. Her mouth opened
for a scream, which died in a gurgle as a
bony hand was clapped over her lips. Part three. The alley,
nameless to white men, but known to the teeming swarms

(26:46):
of River Street as the Alley of Silence, was as
devious and cryptic as the characteristics of the race which
frequented it. It did not run straight, but slanting unobstrusively
off River Street while through a maze of tall, gloomy
structures which to outward, seeming at least were tenements and
warehouses and crumbling forgotten buildings apparently occupied only by rats,

(27:10):
where boarded up windows stared blankly. As River Street was
the heart of the Oriental Quarter, so the Alley of
Silence was the heart of River Street, though apparently empty
and deserted. At least that was Steve Harrison's idea, though
he could give no definite reason why he ascribed so
much importance to a dark, dirty, crooked alley that seemed

(27:31):
to go nowhere. The men at headquarters twitted him, telling
him that he had worked so much down in the
twisty maze of rat haunted River Street that he was
getting a Chinese twist in his mind. He thought of
this as he crouched impatiently and the angle formed in
the last crook of that unsavory alley, that it was
past midnight. He knew from a stealthy glance at the

(27:53):
luminous figure on his watch, only the scouring of rats
broke the silence. He was well hidden in a clo
left formed by two jutting walls whose slanting planes came
together to form a triangle opening on the alley. Alley
architecture was as crazy as some of the tails which
crept forth from its dank blankness. A few paces further on,

(28:15):
the alley ended abruptly at the cliff like blankness of
a wall, and which showed no windows and only a
boarded up door. Miss Harrison knew only by a vague
luminance which filtered grayly into the alley from above. Shadows
looked along the angles, darker than the stygion pits, and
the bordered up door was only a vague splotch in

(28:36):
the shear of the wall. An empty warehouse, Harrison supposed,
abandoned and rotting through the years, probably affronted on the
bank of the river, ledged by crumbling wharfs, forgotten and
unused in the years since the river trade and activity
had shifted into a newer part of the city. He
wondered if he had been seen ducking into the alley.

(28:59):
He had not directly off River Street, with slinking, furtive
shapes that drifted silently passed all night long. He had
come in from a wandering side street, working his way
between leaning walls and jutting corners until he came out
into the dark, winding alley. He had not worked the
oriental quarter for so long not to have absorbed some

(29:20):
of the stealth and wariness of its inhabitants. But midnight
was pasted, and no sign of the man he hunted.
Then he stiffened. Some one was coming up the alley,
but the gate was a shuffling step, not the sort
he would have connected with a man like Ali being Suliman.
A tall, stooped figure loomed vaguely in the gloom and

(29:41):
shuffled on past the detective's covert. His trained eye, even
in the dimness, told Harrison that the man was not
the one he sought. The unknown went straight to the
blank door and knocked three times, with a long interval
between the wraps. Abruptly, a red disc glowed in the door.
Words were hissed in Chinese. The man on the outside

(30:03):
replied in the same tongue, and his words came clearly
to the tense detective Arlik Khan. Then the door unexpectedly
opened inward, and he passed through, illumined briefly in the
reddish light which dreamed through the opening. Then darkness followed
the closing of the door. In silence, rain again in
the alley of its name. But crouching in the shadowed angle,

(30:26):
Harrison felt his heart pound against his ribs. He had
recognized the fellow who passed through the door as a
Chinese killer with a price on his head. But it
was not that recognition which sent the detective's blood pumping
through his veins. It was the password muttered by the
evil visage visitant. Arlik Khan was like the materialization of

(30:48):
a dim nightmare, dream, like the confirmation of an evil legend.
For more than a year, rumors had crept snakily out
of the black alleys and crumbling doorways behind which the
mysterious Yellow people moved, phantom like and inscrutable, scarcely rumors.
Either that was a term to concrete and definite, to

(31:09):
be applied to the maunderings of dope fiends, the ravings
of mad men, the whimpers of dying men, disconnected whispers
that died on the midnight wind. Yet through these disjointed
mutterings had wound a dread name, fearsomely repeated in shuddering whispers,
or lick Khan. It was a phrase always coupled with

(31:30):
dark deeds. It was like a black wind moaning through
midnight streets, a hint of breath, a myth that no
man could deny orifirm, none knew if it were the
name of a man, a cult, a course of action,
a curse or dream. Through its association, it became a
slogan of dread, a whisper of black water lapping at

(31:53):
rotten piles, of blood, dripping on slimy stones of death,
whimpers and dark corners, of stealthy feet shuffling through the
haunted midnight to unknown dooms. The men at headquarters had
laughed at Harrison when he swore that he sensed a
connection between various scattered crimes. Had told them as usual,

(32:15):
they had worked too long among the labyrinths of the
Oriental District. But that very fact made a more sensitive
to fertive and subtle impressions than were his mates, And
at times he had seemed almost a sense a vagant,
monstrous shape that moved behind a web of illusion. And
now like the hiss of an unseen serpent in the dark,

(32:36):
had come to him at least as much concrete assurance
as was containing the whispered words early Khan. Harrison stepped
from his nook and went swiftly toward the boarded door.
His feud with Ali being Suleiman was pushed into the background.
The Big Dick was an opportunist. When chance presented itself,

(32:57):
he seized it first and made plans later, and his
instinct told him that he was on the threshold of
something big. A slow, almost imperceptible drizzle had become overhead.
Between the towering black walls. He got a glimpse of
thick gray clouds hanging so low they seemed to merge
with the lofty roofs, dulling reflecting the glow of the

(33:18):
city mirrid lights. The rumble of distant traffic came to
his ears, faintly and far away. His environs seemed curiously strange, alien,
and aloof. He might have been stealing through the gloom
of Cantan or Forbidden Peak King, or of Babylon or
Egyptian Memphis. Halting before the door, he ran his hands

(33:39):
lightly over it and over the boards, which apparently sealed it,
and he discovered that some of the bolt heads were false.
It was an ingenious trick to make the door appear
inaccessible to the casual glance, setting his teeth with a
feeding as of taking a blind plunge in the dark,
Harrison rapped three times as he had heard the killer fanging.

(34:01):
Almost instantly, a round hole opened in the door, level
with his face and framed dimly in a red glow.
He glimpsed a yellow mongoloid visage. Sibilant Chinese hissed at him.
Harrison's hat was pulled over his eyes, and his coat
collar turned up against the drizzle, concealed the lower part
of his features. That the disguise was not needed. The

(34:23):
man inside the door was no one Harrison had ever
seen our lik Khan muttered the detective. No suspicion shadowed
the slant eyes evenly. White men had passed through that
door before it swung inward, and Harrison slouched through, shoulders hunched,
hands thrust deep in his coat pocket, the very picture

(34:46):
of a waterfront hoodlum. He heard the door close behind
him and found himself in a small square chamber at
the end of a narrow corridor. He noted that the
door was furnished with a great steel bar, which the
Chinaman was now lowering into play in the heavy iron
sockets set on each side of the portal, and the
hole in the center was covered by a steel disk

(35:08):
working on a hinge outside of a squatting cushion beside
the door for the door man. The chamber was without furnishings.
All this Harrison's trained eye took in at a glance
as he slouched across the chamber. He felt they would
not be expected as a denizen of whatever resort the
place proved to be to remain long in the room.

(35:29):
A small red lantern swinging from the ceiling lighted the chamber,
but the corridor seemed to be without limitation, save such
as was furnished by the aforesaid lantern. Harrison slouched on
down the shabby corridor, giving no evidence of the tensity
of his nerves. He noted with sidelong glances the firmness

(35:50):
and newness of the walls. Obviously a great deal of
work had recently been done on the interior. The supposedly
deserted building, like the alley outside the Quarridor, did not
run straight ahead of him. It bent at an angle,
around which shone a mellow stream of light. And beyond
this ben Harrison heard a light patting step approaching. He

(36:12):
grabbed at the nearest door, which opened silently under his
hand and closed as silently behind him and pitched darkness.
He stumbled over steps, nearly falling, catching at the wall
and cursing the noise he made. Heard the padding step
halt outside the door, then a hand pushed against it,
but Harrison had his forearm and elbow raced against the panel.

(36:36):
His groping fingers found a bolt, and he slid it home,
wincing at the faint scraping. It made a voice hissed
something in Chinese, but Harrison made no answer. Turning, he
groped his way hurriedly down the stairs. Presently his feet
struck a level floor, and in another instant he bumped
into a door. He had a flashlight in his pocket,

(36:56):
but he dared not use it. He fumbled at the
door and found it unlock. The edges all and jams
seemed to be padded. The walls, too, seemed to be
specially treated. Beneath his sensitive fingers. He wondered, with a shiver,
what cries and noises those walls and padded doors were
devised to drown? Shoving opened the door, he blinked in

(37:17):
a flood of soft, reddish light and drew his gun
in a panic, but no shots or shouts greeted him.
As his eyes became accustomed to the light, he saw
he was looking into a great basement like room, empty
except for three huge packing cases. There were doors at
either end of the room and along the sides, but

(37:37):
they were all closed. Evidently he was some distance under
the ground. He approached the packing cases, which had apparently
but recently been opened, their contents not yet remove. The
boards of the lids lay on the floor beside them
with wads of excelsior and toe packing booze. He muttered
to himself, dope smugglers. His scowled down into the nearest case.

(38:01):
A single layer of tow sacking covered the contents, and
he frowned in puzzlement at the outlines under that sacking. Then, suddenly,
with his skin crawling, he snatched at the sacking and
pulled it away and recoiled, joking in horror. Three yellow faces,
frozen and immobile, stared sightlessly up at the swinging lamp.

(38:23):
There seemed to be another layer underneath. Gagging and sweating,
Harrison went about his grisly task of verifying what he
could scarcely believe, and then he mopped away the beads
of perspiration, three packing cases full of dead chinamen. He
whispered shakily, eighteen yellow stiffs, great cats talk about wholesale murder.

(38:47):
I thought I'd bumped into so many hellish slights that
nothing could upset me. But this is piling it on
too thick. It was the stealthy opening of a door
which roused him from his morbid meditations. He wheeled galvanized.
Before him crouched the monstrous and brutish shape, like a
creature out of a nightmare. The detective had a glimpse

(39:09):
of a massive, half naked torso, a bullet like shaven
head split by a toothy and slavering grin. Then the
brute was upon him. Harrison was no gunman. All his
instincts were of the strong arm variety. Instead of drawing
his gun, he dashed his right maler into that toothy grin,
was rewarded by a jet of blood. The creature's head

(39:32):
snapped back at an agonized angle, but his bony fingers
had locked on the detective's lappeles. Harrison drove his left
wrist deep into his assailant's mid drift, causing a green
tint to overspread the coppery face, but the fellow hung
on and with a wrench, pulled Harrison's coat down over
his shoulders. Recognizing a trick meant to imprison his arms,

(39:52):
Harrison did not resist the movement, but rather aided it
with a headlong heave of his powerful body that drove
his low head hard against the yellow man's breastbone and
tore his own arms free of the cleaning sleeves. The
giants staggered backward, gasping for breath, holding the futile garment
like a shield before him, and Harrison, inexorable in his attack,

(40:14):
swept him back against the wall by the sheer force
of his rush and smashed a bone, crushing left and
right to his jaw. The giants pitch backward, his eyes
already glazed, his head struck the wall, fetching blood into streams,
and he toppled face first to the floor, where he lay,
twitching his shaven head and a spreading pool of blood.

(40:37):
A mongol strangler panted Harrison, glaring down at him. What
kind of a nightmare is this? Anyway? It was just
at that instant that a black jack, wielded from behind,
smashed down on his head. The lights went out. Part four.
Some misplaced connection with his present conditions cosed Steve Harrison

(40:59):
to dream fit the Spanish Inquisition just before he regained consciousness.
Possibly it was the clank of steel chains drifting back
from a land of enforced dreams. His first sensation was
that of an aching head, and he touched it tenderly
and swore bitterly. He was lying on a concrete floor.
A steel band girdled his waist, hinged behind, and fastened

(41:21):
before with a heavy steel lock, so that band was
riveted as chain, the other end of which was made
fast to a ring in the wall. A dim lantern
suspended from the ceiling lighted the room, which seemed to
have put one door and no window. The door was closed.
Harrison noted other objects in the room, and as he

(41:41):
blinked and they took definite shape, he was aware of
an icy premonition, too fantastic and monstrous for credit. Yet
the objects at which he was staring were incredible too.
There was an affair with levers and windlasses and chains.
There was a chain suspended from the ceiling, and some
odd that looked like iron fire tongs, And in one

(42:04):
corner there was a massive, grooved black and beside it
leaned a heavy brodaged axe. The detective shuddered in spite
of himself, wondering if he were in the grip of
some damnable medieval dream. He could not doubt the significance
of those objects, he had seen their duplicates and museums.
Owa that the door had opened, he twisted about and

(42:24):
glared at the figure. Dimly framed there a tall, shadowy form,
clad and night clad robes. This figure moved, like a
shadow of doom into the chamber and closed the door.
From the shadow of a hood. Two icy eyes glittered
eerily framed in a dam yellow oval of a face
for an instance. A silence held broken suddenly by the

(42:47):
detective's irate bellow, What the hell's this? Who are you
get this chain off me? A scornful silence was the
only answer, and under the unwinking scrutiny of those ghostly eyes,
Harrison felt cold perspiration gather on his forehead and among
the hairs on the back of his hands. You fool,

(43:09):
at the peculiar, hollow quality of the voice, Harrison started nervously.
You have found your doom. Who are you demanded the
detective men call me erlik Khan, which signifies lord of
the dead, answered the other. A trickle of ice meandered
down Harrison's spine, not so much from fear, but because

(43:31):
of the grisly thrill and the realization that at last
he was face to face with the materialization of his suspicion.
So Erlikhan is a man after all, grunted the detective,
I had begun to believe that it was the name
of a Chinese society. I am no Chinese, returned erlik Khan.

(43:52):
I am a Mongol, direct descendant of Genghis Khan, the
great conqueror before whom all Asia bowed. What tell me this,
growled Harrison, concealing his eagerness to hear more. Because you
are soon to die was a tranquil reply, and I
would have you realize that it is into the hands
of no common gangster scum y have blundered. I was

(44:17):
head of a lamissary in the mountains of Inner Mongolia,
and had I been able to attain my ambitions, would
have rebuilt a lost empire. I the old empire of
Genghis Khan. But I was opposed by various fools merely
escaped with my life. I came to America, and here

(44:38):
a new purpose was born in me, that of forging
all secret Oriental societies into one mighty organization to do
my bidding and reach unseen tentacles across the seas into
the hidden lands here, unsuspected by such blundering fools as
you have. I built my castle already, I have accomplished much.

(45:00):
Those who oppose me die suddenly. Or you saw those
schools in the packing cases in the cellar. They are
members of the yachts city who thought to defy me Judas,
muttered Harrison, A whole tongue scuppered, not dead, corrected erlik

(45:20):
Khan merely in a cataleptic state, and is by certain
drugs introduced into their liquor by trusted servants. They were
brought in order that I might convince them of their
falling opposing me. I've a number of underground crips like
this one, wherein are implements and machines calculated to change
the mind of the most stubborn torture chambers under a

(45:44):
river street, muttered the detective. Damn, if this isn't a nightmare,
you who have puzzled so long amidst the maze of
River Street. Are you surprised at the mysteries within its mysteries?
Murmured Erlik Khan. Truly you have but touched the fringes
of its secrets. Many men do my bidding, Chinese, Syrians, Mongols, Hindus, Arabs, Turks, Egyptians.

(46:11):
Why demanded Harrison, Why should so many men of such
different and hostile religions serve you? Behind all difference of
religion and belief, said Erli Khan, lies the eternal oneness,
that is the essence and roots them of the East.
Before Mohammed Was, or Confucius or Gautama, there were signs

(46:34):
and symbols ancient beyond belief, but common to all sons
of the Orient. They are cults stronger and older than
Islam or Buddhism, cults whose roots are lost in the
blackness of the dawn age before Babylon Was or Atlantis
sank to an adept. These young religions and beliefs are
but new cloaks, masking the reality beneath. Even to a

(46:58):
dead man. I can say no more, suffice to say
that I whom men call Erlik Khan have power above
and behind the powers of Islam or of Buddha. Harrison
lay silent, meditating over the Mongol's word, and presently the
latter resume. You have but yourself to blame for your plight.

(47:19):
I am convinced that you did not come here to
night to spy upon me, poor blundering barbarian fool, who
did not even guess my existence. I have learned that
you came, in your crude way expecting to trap a
servant of mine the juice, Ali being Suleiman. You sent
him to kill me, growled Harrison, a scornful laugh put

(47:43):
his teeth onage. Do you fancy yourself so important? I
would not turn aside to crush a blind worm another
put the juice on your trail. A deluded person, A miserable,
egotistic fool, even now is paying the price of folly.
Ali being Suleiman is like many of my henchmen, in

(48:04):
outcasts from his people his life forfeit of all virtues
the druces most greatly esteemed the elementary one of physical courage.
When a jeuce shows cowardice, none taunts him. But when
the warriors gather to drink coffee, someone spills a cup
of his abbah, that is, his death sentence at the

(48:25):
first opportunities, obliged to go forth and die as heroically
as possible. Ali Ebing Suleiman failed on a mission where
success was impossible. Being young, he did not realize that
his fanatical tribe would brand him a coward because and failing,
he had not got himself killed, but the cup of

(48:47):
shame was spilled on his robe. Ali was young, he
did not wish to die. He broke a custom of
a thousand years. He fled the the Jabelle Druze and
became a wanderer over the earth. Within the past year
he joined my followers, and I welcomed his desperate courage
and terrible fighting ability. But recently the foolish person I

(49:11):
mentioned decided to use him to further a private feud
no way connected with my affairs. That was unwise. My
followers lived, but to serve me, whether they realize it
or not, Ali goes often to a certain house to
smoke opium, and this person caused them to be drugged
with a dust of the black Lotos, which produces a

(49:33):
hypnotic condition during which the subject is amenable to suggestions, which,
if continually repeated, carry over into the victim's waking hours.
The Jewices believe that when a Jeuice dies, his soul
is instantly reincarnated in a Jew's baby. The great Jews
hero amer Amin Izidan was killed by the Arab Shaikh

(49:56):
Ahmed Pasha the night Ali, being Suliman was Ali has
always believed himself to be the reincarnated soul of Amir
Amin and mourned because he could not revenge his former
self on Ahmed Pasha, who was killed a few days
after he slew the Jruice chief. All this, the person

(50:16):
is certain and by means of the black lotos known
as the smoke of Chaitan, convinced the Jeuce that you,
Detective Harrison, were the reincarnation of his old enemy Shake
Ahmed Pasha. It took him time and cunning to convince him,
even in his drugged condition, that an Arab Shake could
be reincarnated in an American detective. But the person was

(50:40):
very clever, and so at last Ali was convinced and
disobeyed my orders, which were never to molest the police
unless they got in my way, and then only according
to my directions, for I do not want publicity. He
must be taught a lesson. Now I must go. I've

(51:00):
spent too much time with you already. Soon one will
come who will lighten you of your earthly burden. Be
consoled by the realization that the foolish person who brought
you to this past is expiating her crime, likewise in fact,
separated it from you. But by that padded partition. Listen

(51:22):
from somewhere near rose a feminine voice and coherent but urgent.
The foolish one realizes her mistake, smiled Irlik Khan benevolently.
Even though these walls pierce her lamentations. Well, she is
not the first to regret foolish actions in these cripts.
And now I must be gone. Those foolish shad soyls

(51:43):
will soon begin to awaken. Wait, you devil, roared Harrison,
struggling up against his chains. Enough enough. There was a
touch of impatience in the mongol's tone. You weary, me
get you to your meditation. Time is short. Farewell, mister Harrison,
not out revoirs. The door closed silently, and the detective

(52:07):
was left alone with his thoughts, which were far from pleasant.
He cursed himself for falling into that trap, cursed his
peculiar obsession, for always working alone. None knew of the
trysts he had tried to keep. He had divulged his
plans to no one beyond the partition. The muffled sobs continued,
Sweat began to beat Harrison's brow, His nerves, untouched by

(52:30):
his own plight, began to throb in sympathy with that
terrified voice. Then the door opened again, and Harrison, twisting about,
new with numbing finality that he looked on his executioner.
It was a tall, gaunt mongol clad only in sandals,
in a trunk like garment of yellow silk. From the girl,
which depended a bunch of keys. He carried a great

(52:54):
bronze bowl and some objects that looked like jowsticks. These
he placed on the floor near Harrison, and, squatting just
out of the captive's reach, began to arrange the evil
smelling sticks and a sort of pyramid shape in the bowl.
And Harrison, glaring remembered a half forgotten horror among the
myriad dim horrors of River Street, a corpse he had

(53:17):
found in a sealed room where acrid fumes still hovered
over charred bronze bowl, the corpse of a hindoo shriveled
and crinkled like old leather, mummified by a lethal smoke
that killed and shrunk the victim like a poisoned rat.
From the other side came a shriek so sharp and
poignant that Harrison jumped and cursed. The Mongol halted in

(53:41):
his task, a match in his hand, his parchment like
visage split in the leer of appreciation, disclosing the withered
stump of a tongue. The man was a mute. The
cries increased in intensity, seemingly more in fright than in pain,
Yet an element of pain was evident. The mute, wrapped

(54:03):
in his evil glee, rose and leaned nearer the wall,
cocking his ears, if unwilling to miss any whimp or
agony from that torture. Cell slaver dribbled from the corner
of his loose mouth. He sucked his breath in eagerly, unconsciously,
edging nearer the wall, Harrison's foot shot out, hooked suddenly

(54:24):
and fiercely about the lean ankles. The mongol, through wild arms,
aloft and toppled into the detective's waiting his arms. It
was with no scientific wrestling hole that Harrison broke the
executioner's neck. His pent up fury had swept away everything
but a berserk madness to grip and rend and tear
and primitive passion. Like a grizzly he grappled and twisted

(54:47):
and felt the vertebrae give way like rotten twigs. Dizzy
with glooded feur, he struggled up, still gripping the limb shape,
gasping incoherent blasphemy. His fingers closed upon the keys dangling
on the des man's belt and ripping them free. He
hurled the corpse savagely to the floor in a paroxym
of excess ferocity. The thing struck loosely and lay without twitching,

(55:09):
the sightless face grinning hideously back over the yellow shoulder.
Harrison mechanically tried the keys in the lock at his waist,
and instant later freed of his shackles. He staggered in
the middle of his cell, almost overcome by the wild
rush of emotions, hope, exultation, and the realization of freedom.

(55:30):
He snatched up the grimax that leaned against the darkly
stained block and could have yelled with bloodthirsty joy as
he felt the perfect balance of the weighty weapon and
saw the dim light gleaming on its flaring razor edge.
In an instant fumbling with the keys at the lock
and the door open, he looked out into a narrow corridor,
dimly lit, lined with closed doors. From one neck to his,

(55:54):
the distressing cries were coming, muffled by the padded door
and especially treated walls. At his berserk wrath, he wasted
no time, and trying his keys on that door, Heaving
up the sturdy axe with both hands, he swung it,
crashing against the panels, heedless of the noise, mindful only
of his frenzied urge to violent action and his flailing strokes.

(56:15):
The door burst inward and through its splintered ruins. He lunged,
eyes glaring, lips snarl. He had come into a cell
much like the one he had just quitted. There was
a rack of veritable medieval devil machine, and in its
cruel grip, with the pitiful white figure a girl clad
only in a scanty chemise. A gaunt mongole bent over

(56:35):
the handles, turning them slowly. Another was engaged in heating
a pointed iron over a small brazier. This he saw
at a glance as the girl rolled her head toward
him and cried out in agony. Then the Mongol with
the iron ran at him silently. The glowing white hot
steel thrust forward like a spear in the grip of

(56:56):
red fury. Though he was Harrison did not lose his
head a wolfish grin. Twisting his thin lips, he side
stepped and split the torture's head like a melon. Then,
as the corpse tumbled down, spilling blood and brains, he
wheeled catlike to meet the onslaught of the other. The
attack of this one was silent as that of the other.
They too were mutes. He did not lunge in so

(57:18):
recklessly as his mate, but his caution availed him little.
As Harrison swung his dripping axe, the Mongol threw up
his left arm, and the curved edge sheered through muscle
and bone, leaving the limbs hanging by a shred of
flush like a dying panther. The torture sprang in turn,
driving in his knife with a fury of desperation. At
the same instant, the bloody axe flailed down the thrusting

(57:41):
knife point tore through Harrison's shirt, plowed through the flesh
over his breastbone, and as he flinked involuntarily, the axe
turned in his hand and struck flat, crushing the mongol's
skull like an eggshell. Swearing like a pirate, the detective
wheeled this way and that, glaring for new foes. Then
he remembered the girl on the rock, and then he
recognized her at last. Joan, LeTour what in the name

(58:06):
let me go? She wailed, Oh, for God's sake, let
me go. The mechanism of the devilish machine balked them,
but he saw that she was tied by heavy cords,
unrests and ankles, and cutting them, he lifted her free.
He set his teeth at the thought of the ruptures,
dislocated joints, untorn sinews that she might have suffered, but

(58:27):
evidently that torture had not progressed far enough for permanent injury.
Jones seemed none the worse physically for experience, but she
was almost hysterical as he looked at the carrying, sobbing
figure shivering in her scanty garment. I remembered the perfectly
poised sophisticated and self sufficient beauty as he had known her.
He shook his head in amazement. Certainly early conye how

(58:50):
to bend his victims to his despotic will Let us go,
she pleaded, between sobs. They'll be back, they will have
heard the noise all right, grunted, But where the devil
are we? I don't know, she whimpered, somewhere in the
house of Early Khan. His mongol mutes brought me here
earlier tonight, through passages and tunnels connecting various parts of

(59:13):
the city with his place. Well, come on, said he,
We might as well go somewhere. Taking her hand, he
led her out into the quarter, and, glaring about uncertainly,
he spied a narrow stair whining upward. Up this they
went to be halted soon by a padded door which
was not locked. This he closed behind him and tried

(59:34):
to lock, but without success. None of his keys would
fit the lock. I don't know whether a racket was
hurt or not, he grunted. Unless somebody was nearby. This
building is fixed to drown noises. When some sort of
the basement, I reckon, well, never get out alive, whispered
the girl you're wounded. I saw blood on your shirt.

(59:56):
Nothing but a scratch, grunted the big detective, stealthily investing,
gaining with his fingers the ugly ragged cash that was
soaking his torn shirt and waistband with steadily seeping blood.
Now that his fury was beginning to cool, he felt
the pain of it. Abandoning the door, he groped upward
in thick darkness, got in the girl of whose presence

(01:00:18):
he was aware only by the contact of his soft
little hand trembling in his Then he heard her sobbing convulsively.
This is all my fault I got you into. Is
the drucee Ali bin Suliman, I know, he grunted. Erlik
Khan told me, I never suspected that you were the
one who put this crazy heathen up to this knife

(01:00:39):
in me? Was earlik Khan lying, No, She whispered, my
brother Joseph. Until tonight, I thought you killed him. He
started convulsively. ME, I didn't do it. I don't know
who did. Somebody shot him over my shoulder, aiming at me.

(01:01:00):
I reckon during that raid on Alsman Pasha's joint. I know, now,
she muttered, But I'd always believed you light about it.
I thought you killed him yourself. Lots of people think that,
you know. I wanted revenge. I hit on what looked
like a sure scheme. The Jews doesn't know me. He's
never seen me awake. I bribe the owner of the

(01:01:22):
opium joint that Ali being Suliman frequents to drug him
with the black Lotos. Then I would do my work
on him. It's much like hypnotism. The owner of the
joint must have talked anyway. Erlik Khan learned had been
using Ali being Suliman, and he decided to punish me.
Maybe he was afraid that the Jews talked too much

(01:01:44):
while he was drugged. I know too much too for
one not sworn to obey Erli Khan. I'm part Oriental,
and I've played in the fringe of River Street affairs
until I've got myself tangled up in them. Joseph played
with fire too, just as I've been doing, and it
cost him his life. Erlik Khan told me tonight who

(01:02:06):
the real murderer was. It was Osmond Pasha. He wasn't
aiming at you. He intended to kill Joseph. I've been
a fool now my life is forfeit. Arlik Khan is
the king of River Street. He won't belong, growled the detective.
We're going to get out of here somehow, and then

(01:02:27):
I'm coming back with a squad and clean out this
damn rat hole. I'll show Erlikhan that this is America,
not Mongolia when I get through with him. He broke
off short at Jones's fingers closed on his convulsively. From
somewhere below them sounded a confused muttering well lay above.
He had no idea, but his skin crawled at the

(01:02:48):
thought of being trapped on that dark, twisting stare. He hurried,
almost ragging the girl, and presently encountered the door that
did not seem to be locked. Even as he did so,
a light flared below, and a shrill yelp galvanized him.
Far below, he saw a cluster of dim shapes in
a red glow of a torture lantern. Rolling eyeballs flashed whitely,

(01:03:09):
steel glimmered, darting through the door and slamming it behind him.
He sought for a frenzied instant for a key that
would fit the lock enow, finding it, seized Jone's wrist
and ran down the quarridor that wound among black velvet
hangings where it led. He did not know he had
lost all sense of direction, But he didn't know that death,

(01:03:31):
grim and relentless, was on their heels. Looking back, he
saw hideous crew swarm up into the quarter men in
silk jackets and baggy trousers, grasping knives. Ahead him loomed
a curtain hung door, tearing aside the heavy satin hangings.
He hurled the door open and leaped through, drawing Joan
after him, slamming the door behind him, and stopped dead,

(01:03:53):
an icy despair gripping at his heart. Part five Dead
come into a vast, all like chamber such as he
had never dream existed under the prosaic groups of any
Western city. Gilded lanterns on which writhed fantastic carven dragons
hung from the fretted ceiling, shedding a golden luster over

(01:04:15):
velvet hangings that hid the walls. Across these black expanses,
other dragons twisted worked in silver, gold and scarlet, And
an alcove near the door reared a squat idol bulky
taller than a man, half hidden by a heavy lacquer screen,
an obscene, brutish travesty of nature that only a Mongolian

(01:04:35):
brain could conceive before it stood a low altar whence
curled up a spiral of incense smoke. But Harrison at
the moment gave little heed to the idol. His attention
was riveted on the roped and hooded form which sat
cross like the unvelvet divan at the other end of
the hall. They had blundered full into the web of

(01:04:57):
the spider. About earlik Cohn and some inbordinate attitude set
a group of Orientals, Chinese, Syrians and Turks. The paralysis
of surprise that held both groups was broken by a
peculiarly menacing cry from Early Khan, who reared erect his
hands flying to his girdle. The others sprang up, yelling

(01:05:17):
and fumbling for weapons behind him. Harrison heard the clamor
of their pursuers just beyond the door, and in that
instant he recognized and accepted the one desperate alternative to
instant capture. He sprang for the idol, thrust Joan into
the alcove behind it, and squeezed after her. Then he

(01:05:38):
turned at Bay. It was the last stand trail's end.
He did not hope to escape. His motive was merely
that of a wounded wolf which drags itself into a
corner which killers must come at it from in front.
The greenstone bulk of the idol blocked the entrance of
the alcove save for one side, where there was a

(01:05:59):
narrow space between the smithshapen hip and shoulder and the
corner of the wall. The space on the other side
was too narrow for a cat to have squeezed through,
and the lacquer screen stood there before it. Looking through
the interstice of this screen, Harrison could see the whole
room into which the pursuers were now storming. The detective

(01:06:19):
recognized their leader as fang Yim the Hatchetman, a furious
babble rose dominated by erlik Khan's voice, speaking English, the
one common language of those mixed breeds. They hide behind.
The God drag them forth, let us rather fire. Volley
protested a dark skin, powerfully built man whom Garrison recognized

(01:06:41):
as ak Bacha, a Turk, his fez contrasting with his
full dress suit. We risk our lives standing here in
full view. He can shoot through that screen. Fool the
Mongol's voice rasped with anger. He would have fired already
if he had a gun. Let no man pull a trigger.
They can behind the idol, and it would take many

(01:07:02):
shots to smoke them out. We are not now in
the crips of silence. A volley would make too much noise.
One shot might not be heard in the streets. But
one shot will not suffice. He has but an axe
rush in and cut him down blad hesitation. Ac Boga
ran forward, fall by the others. Harrison shifted his grip

(01:07:24):
on his axe haft. Only one man could come at
him at a time. Ak Baga was in the narrow
street between Idle and while before Harrison moved from behind
the green bulk. The Turk yelped in fierce triumph and lunched.
Lifting his knife, he blocked the entrance. The men crowding
behind him only had a glimpse over his straining shoulder

(01:07:48):
of Harrison's grim face and blazing eyes. Full into oc
Baga's face, Harrison thrust the axe head, smashing nose, lips
and teeth. The turk reeled, gasping and choking with blood
and half blinded, but struck again like the slash of
a dying panther. The keen edge sliced Harrison's face from
temple to jaw, and then the flailing axe crushed in

(01:08:11):
Ocpaga's breastbone and sent him reeling backward to fall dying.
The men behind him gave back. Suddenly, Harrison, bleeding like
a stuck hog, again, drew back behind the idol. They
could not see the white giant who looked at Bay
in the shadow of the god, but they saw Akpaga
gasping his life out on the bloody floor before the idol,

(01:08:33):
like a gory sacrifice in the sight shook the nerve
of the fiercest and Now, as matters hovered at a
deadlock and the Lord of the Dead seemed himself uncertain,
a new factor introduced itself into the tense drama. A
door opened and a fantastic figure swaggered through Behind him.
Harrison heard Joan gasp incredulously. It was Ali bin Is Suliman,

(01:08:57):
who strode down the hall as if he trod his
own castle, and the mysterious Jebel Drus no longer the
garments of western civilization clothed them. On his head. He
wore a silken Kafeillenne bound about the temples with a
broad gilded band. Beneath his voluminous girdled abba showed silver
heeled boots ornately stitched. His eyelids were painted with coal,

(01:09:21):
causing his eyes to glitter even more delethally than ordinarily.
In his hand was a long curved scimitar. Harrison mopped
a blood from his face and shrugged his shoulders. Nothing
in the house of Erlik Khan could surprise him any more,
not even his picturesque shape, which might have just swaggered
out of an opium dream of the east. The attention

(01:09:43):
of all was centered under Druce as he strode down
the hall, looking even bigger and more formidable in its
native costume than he had in western garments. He showed
no more all the Lord of the Dead than he
showed of Harrison. He halted directly in front of Erlik
Khan and spoke without meek. Why was it not told
me that mine enemy was a prisoner in the house,

(01:10:05):
He demanded in English, evidently the one language he knew
in common with a Mongol. You were not here, Erlik
Khan answered brusquely, evidently liking little de Druce's manner. Nay I,
but recently returned and learned that the dog who was
once Ahmed Pasha stood at bay in this chamber. I've
donned my proper garb for the occasions. Turning his back

(01:10:27):
full on the lord of the dead, Ali being Suliman,
strode before the idol oh infidel. He called, come forth
and meet my steel stead of the dog's death, which
is your due. I offer you honorable battle, your axe
against my sword. Come forth ere, I hail you. Thence
by your beard. I haven't any beard, grunted the detective.

(01:10:51):
Come in and get me, Nay, scowled Ali bin Suliman.
When you were Ahmed Pasha, you were a man. Come forth,
we can have room to wield our weapons. If you
slay me, you shall go free. I swear by the
golden calf. Could I dare trust him? Muttered Harrison, A
jewice keeps his word, whispered Joan, But there is Irlik Khan.

(01:11:16):
Who are you to make promises? Called Harrison, Early Khan
is master here? Not in the matter of my private feud,
was the arrogant reply. I swear by my honor that
no hand but mine shall be lifted against you, and
that if you slay me you will go free. Is
it not so, arly, Khan? Let it be as you wish,

(01:11:37):
answered the Mongol, spreading his hands in a gesture of resignation.
Joam grasped Harrison's arm convulsively, whispering urgently. Don't trust him.
He won't keep his word. He'll betray you and Ali both.
He's never intended that the Jews should kill you. It's
his way of punishing Ali by having someone else killed you.

(01:12:01):
Don't don't We're finished anyway, muttered Harrison, shaking the sweat
and blood out of his eyes. I might as well
take to chance if I don't rush us again, and
I'm bleeding so I'll soon be too weak to fight.
Watch your chance, girl, and try to get away while
everybody's watching Ali and me. Aladi called, I have a

(01:12:22):
woman here, Ali, let her go before we start fighting.
To summon the police to your rescue, demanded Ali. No
she stands or falls with you. Will you come forth?
I'm coming, greeted Harrison. Grasping his axe, he moved out
of the alcove, a grim and ghastly figure, blood masking
his face and soaking his torn garments. He saw Alen

(01:12:46):
Eve Suliman gliding toward him, half crouching, the scimitar in
his hand, a broad curved glimmer of blue light. He
lifted his axe, fighting down a sudden movement of weakness.
There came a muffled report, and at the same instant
he felt a paralyzing impact against his head. He was
not aware of falling, but realized that he was lying

(01:13:07):
on the floor, conscious but unable to speak or move.
A wild cry rang in his dulled ears, and joan lettour,
a flying white figure threw herself down beside him, her
fingers frantically fluttering over him. Oh you dogs, dogs, She
was sobbing, you've killed him. She lifted her head to scream,
where is your honor now? Ali being Suliman. From where

(01:13:29):
he lay, Harrison could see Ali standing over him, scimitar
still poised, eyes flaring, mouth gaping, an image of horror
and surprise. And beyond the Jews, the detective saw the
silent group clustered about Erlik Khan and Fangyam was holding
an automatic with a strangely misshapen barrel a maximum silencer.

(01:13:50):
One muffled shot would not be noticed. From the street.
A fierce and frantic cry burst from Ali Ibn Suliman. Ay,
my honor, my pledged word, my oath on the golden calf.
You have broken it. You have shamed me to an infidel.
You rob me both a vengeance and honor. Am I

(01:14:11):
a dog to be dealt with? Thus? Yam roof, his
voice soared to a feline screech, and wheeling, he moved
like a blinding burrel of light Fangyam's scream cut short
hardly in a ghostly gurgle, as a scimitar cut the
air in a blue flame. The chinaman's head shot from
his shoulders on a jetting fountain of blood and thut

(01:14:32):
it on the floor. Grinning awfully in the golden light.
With a yell of terrible exultation, Ali bin Suleiman leaped
straight towards the hooded shape on the divan. Feazed and
turban figures ran in between, steel fliesh showering sparks, blood spurted,
and men screamed. Harrison's father drew scimitar flame bluely through
the lamplight, full on Earli Khan's quoifed head. The hood

(01:14:56):
fell in halves and the lord of the dead rolled
to the floor, his fingers come vulsively, clenching and unclenching.
The others swarmed about the mad and drus, hacking and stabbing.
The figure in the wide sleeved abba was the center
of a score of licking blades, of a gasping, blaspheming,
clutching knot, of straining bodies, and still the dripping scimitar

(01:15:16):
flashed and flamed, shearing through flush sinuine bone, while under
the stamping feet of the living rolled mutilated corpses. Under
the impact of the struggling bodies, the altar was overthrown,
the smoldering incense scattered over the rugs. The next instant
flame was licking at the hangings with a rising roar
and a rush. The fire enveloped one whole side of

(01:15:37):
the room, but the battlers heeded it not. Harrison was
aware that someone was pulling and tugging at him, someone
who sobbed and gasped, but did not slacken their effort.
A pair of slender hands were locked in his tattered shirt,
and he was being dragged bodily through billowing smoke that
blinded and half strangled him. The tugging hands grew weaker,

(01:15:59):
but did not release her as their owner fought on
in a heartbreaking struggle. Then suddenly the detective felt a
rush of clean wind and was aware of a concrete
instead of carpeted wood under his shoulders. He was lying
in a slow drizzle on a sidewalk, while above him
towered a wall reddened in a mountain glare. On the
other side loomed broken docks, and beyond them the lurid

(01:16:21):
glow was reflected on water. He heard the scream of
fire sirens and felt the gathering of a chattering, shouting
crowd about him, Life and movement slowly seeping back into
his numb veins. He lifted his head feebly and saw
Joan LeTour crouch beside him, oblivious to the rain as
to her scanty attire. Tears were streaming down her face,
and she cried out as she saw him move. Oh

(01:16:44):
you're not dead. I thought I felt life in you,
but I dared not let them know. Just crease my scalp,
he mumbled, thickly. Knock me out for a few minutes.
Seen it happen that way before? You dragged me out.
While they were fighting I thought, but I'd never find
an outer door. Here come the fireman. At last, the

(01:17:05):
yacht sois, he gasped, trying to rise. Eighteen chinamen in
that basement. My god, they'll be roasted. We cannot help it,
panted Joan Letore. We are fortunate to save ourselves. The
crowd surged back, yelling, as a roof began to cave
in showering sparks and through the crumbling walls by some
miracle rilled and awful figure, Ali bin Suliman. His clothing

(01:17:28):
hung in smoldering, bloody ribbons, revealing the ghastly wounds beneath
he had been slashed almost to pieces. His headcloth was gone,
his hair crisped, his skin singed and blackened where it
was not blood marred. His scimitar was gone, and blood
streamed down his arm over the fingers that gripped a
dripping dagger. Aye, he cried in a ghastly croak. I'd

(01:17:50):
see you, I am at Pasha, did the fire mist
you live in spite of mongol treachery? That is well
only by the hand of Ali being Suliman, who was
a mere amen Izidin shall you die? I have washed
my honor and blood, and it is spotless. I am
a son of Maruf, of the Mountain of Sanctuary. When

(01:18:11):
my sword is rusty, I make it bright with the
blood of my enemies. Reeling, he pitched faced for a
strapping at Harrison his feet as he fell, Then rolling
on his back, he lay motionless, staring sightlessly up at
the fame lurid skies.

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