near him, so he was all right.
Benson went back to his temporary headquarters. He told Smitty to go to Blessings’ home and help Mac watch. Then the man with the death-mask face and the eyes like ice under a polar dawn, rigged up his tiny laboratory for an intricate experiment.
Because the experiment might have ruined the delicate instrument of Smitty’s invention if it were too close, he did something seldom done by any of the dauntless little band.
He took off his belt radio.
Thus The Avenger, bending pale-eyed over work that could scarcely have been duplicated in any of the great commercial laboratories, did not hear that single, despairing call from Josh.
It was one of those rare occasions where every radio seemed dead—save the one over which Josh had sent his anguished plea.
As long as Josh lived, the sacrifice scene in the reproduced Egyptian temple would live in his mind. And all he could do at the moment was watch in frozen horror. He was too far away to reach the victim in time to save her; and, anyhow, the odds against him were too great.
Three shapes, not men but things, and a fourth that was swatched in cerements of an ancient grave! What could one normal human do against such a force?
He could only watch, in a trance, while the high priest with the bald skull and the vulture beak brought his copper dagger down at the throat of Nellie Gray. That dagger which glittered with a dark gold gleam but which had been tempered to hold an edge as keen as any steel.
The knife plunged down—and there was a clang as it hit stone instead of soft white flesh.
Josh cried aloud with the swiftness of it. At one moment Nellie had been a limp bundle, helpless at the high priest’s feet. At the next, she was a writhing, lithe form a yard away and still rolling. She hadn’t been unconscious. Through the fringe of lowered lashes, she had watched the priest move, and gauged her movement at the last possible instant.
So the knife had swished four inches past her throat as she jerked her body away. And the priest had been off balance with the vicious blow so that he didn’t get to her till she had gotten to her feet.
Josh yelled. It was a battle call. His trance of sheer horror was broken. There was a chance to help her now, time to reach her side. He bounded over the stone floor.
One of the most ghastly things about these dread shapes of ancient death was their silence. The funereal chant was the only sound Josh had heard from them. They continued to be silent, wordless, now.
In savage soundlessness, they leaped.
The shapes might represent deathless, malevolent souls, but the bodies housing the souls were indubitably of flesh and could be touched. So Nellie touched them plenty!
Though scarcely five feet tall, and weighing little more than a hundred pounds, Nellie Gray could turn a man’s own strength against him so deftly, by jujitsu, that he never knew what happened.
The gaunt high priest stretched infuriated arms for her. Next moment the emaciated figure was staggering beyond the girl, brought up against a stone sarcophagus with an audible smack.
The other two priests—with the faces of Senator Blessing and Dr. Marlowe—got to her.
The first fell heavily as Nellie caught the priestly robe, deftly pulled, and guided his rush so that he tripped over her shapely right leg. But, after all, she was only one person. She couldn’t handle three.
The man with Marlowe’s face got her by the arms.
And then Josh arrived from the distance.
The Negro could fight like a black tiger when he had to. They might nickname him Sleepy, but there was nothing a slumbrous about him in a rough and tumble.
He slammed his fist home against the chest under a flying robe, felt the shape give ground. He heard a shrill sound, like a whistle, from the gaunt shape near the sarcophagus, and paid no attention. He started for that shape.
“Josh!”
It was Nellie’s agitated call. She had chanced to look at the doorway.
Josh turned,
Benson went back to his temporary headquarters. He told Smitty to go to Blessings’ home and help Mac watch. Then the man with the death-mask face and the eyes like ice under a polar dawn, rigged up his tiny laboratory for an intricate experiment.
Because the experiment might have ruined the delicate instrument of Smitty’s invention if it were too close, he did something seldom done by any of the dauntless little band.
He took off his belt radio.
Thus The Avenger, bending pale-eyed over work that could scarcely have been duplicated in any of the great commercial laboratories, did not hear that single, despairing call from Josh.
It was one of those rare occasions where every radio seemed dead—save the one over which Josh had sent his anguished plea.
As long as Josh lived, the sacrifice scene in the reproduced Egyptian temple would live in his mind. And all he could do at the moment was watch in frozen horror. He was too far away to reach the victim in time to save her; and, anyhow, the odds against him were too great.
Three shapes, not men but things, and a fourth that was swatched in cerements of an ancient grave! What could one normal human do against such a force?
He could only watch, in a trance, while the high priest with the bald skull and the vulture beak brought his copper dagger down at the throat of Nellie Gray. That dagger which glittered with a dark gold gleam but which had been tempered to hold an edge as keen as any steel.
The knife plunged down—and there was a clang as it hit stone instead of soft white flesh.
Josh cried aloud with the swiftness of it. At one moment Nellie had been a limp bundle, helpless at the high priest’s feet. At the next, she was a writhing, lithe form a yard away and still rolling. She hadn’t been unconscious. Through the fringe of lowered lashes, she had watched the priest move, and gauged her movement at the last possible instant.
So the knife had swished four inches past her throat as she jerked her body away. And the priest had been off balance with the vicious blow so that he didn’t get to her till she had gotten to her feet.
Josh yelled. It was a battle call. His trance of sheer horror was broken. There was a chance to help her now, time to reach her side. He bounded over the stone floor.
One of the most ghastly things about these dread shapes of ancient death was their silence. The funereal chant was the only sound Josh had heard from them. They continued to be silent, wordless, now.
In savage soundlessness, they leaped.
The shapes might represent deathless, malevolent souls, but the bodies housing the souls were indubitably of flesh and could be touched. So Nellie touched them plenty!
Though scarcely five feet tall, and weighing little more than a hundred pounds, Nellie Gray could turn a man’s own strength against him so deftly, by jujitsu, that he never knew what happened.
The gaunt high priest stretched infuriated arms for her. Next moment the emaciated figure was staggering beyond the girl, brought up against a stone sarcophagus with an audible smack.
The other two priests—with the faces of Senator Blessing and Dr. Marlowe—got to her.
The first fell heavily as Nellie caught the priestly robe, deftly pulled, and guided his rush so that he tripped over her shapely right leg. But, after all, she was only one person. She couldn’t handle three.
The man with Marlowe’s face got her by the arms.
And then Josh arrived from the distance.
The Negro could fight like a black tiger when he had to. They might nickname him Sleepy, but there was nothing a slumbrous about him in a rough and tumble.
He slammed his fist home against the chest under a flying robe, felt the shape give ground. He heard a shrill sound, like a whistle, from the gaunt shape near the sarcophagus, and paid no attention. He started for that shape.
“Josh!”
It was Nellie’s agitated call. She had chanced to look at the doorway.
Josh turned,
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