"It had a colony, though, that didn't sink; and when you get too
confidential with one of the Tuareg priests in Africa, he's likely
to tell you wild tales about it--tales that connect up with whispers
you'll hear among the mad lamas and flighty yak-drivers on the secret
table-lands of Asia. I'd heard all the common tales and whispers when I
came on the big one. What that was, you'll never know--but it pertained
to somebody or something that had come down from a blasphemously long
time ago, and could be made to live again--or seem alive again--through
certain processes that weren't very clear to the man who told me. "Now, James, in spite of my confession about the fever, you know I'm
not bad as a doctor. I plugged hard at medicine, and soaked up about
as much as the next man--maybe a little more, because down there in
the Hoggar country, I did something no priest had ever been able to
do. They led me blindfolded to a place that had been sealed up for
generations--and I came back with Surama. "Easy, James! I know what you want to say. How does he know all he
knows?--why does he speak English--or any other language, for that
matter--without an accent?--why did he come away with me?--and all
that. I can't tell you altogether, but I can say that he takes in ideas
and images and impressions with something besides his brain and senses. He had a use for me and my science. He told me things, and opened up
vistas. He taught me to worship ancient, primordial, and unholy gods,
and mapped out a road to a terrible goal which I can't even hint to
you. Don't press me, James--it's for the sake of your sanity and the
world's sanity! "The creature is beyond all bounds. He's in league with the stars and
all the forces of nature. Don't think I'm still crazy, James--I swear
to you I'm not! I've had too many glimpses to doubt. He gave me new
pleasures that were forms of his palesgean worship, and the greatest of
those was the black fever. "God, James! Haven't you seen through the business by this time? Do you
still believe the black fever came out of Tibet, and that I learned
about it there? Use your brains, man! Look at Miller's article here! He's found a basic antitoxin that will end all fever within half a
century, when other men learn how to modify it for the different forms. He's cut the ground of my youth from under me--done what I'd have given
my life to do--taken the wind out of all the honest sails I ever flung
to the breeze of science! Do you wonder his article gave me a turn? Do
you wonder it shocks me out of my madness back to the old dreams of my
youth? Too late! Too late! But not too late to save others! *       *       *       *       *

"I guess I'm rambling a bit now, old man. You know--the hypodermic. I
asked you why you didn't tumble to the facts about black fever. How
could you, though? Doesn't Miller say he's cured seven cases with his
serum? A matter of diagnosis, James. He only thinks it is black fever. I can read between his lines. Here, old chap, on page 551, is the key
to the whole thing. Read it again. "You see, don't you? The fever cases _from the Pacific Coast_ didn't
respond to his serum. They puzzled him. They didn't even seem like
any true fever he knew. Well, those were _my_ cases! Those were the
_real_ black fever cases. And there can't ever be an antitoxin on earth
that'll cure black fever! "How do I know? _Because black fever isn't of this earth!_ It's from
_somewhere else_, James--and Surama alone knows where, because he
brought it here. _He brought it and I spread it!_ That's the secret,
James! That's all I wanted the appointment for--_that's all I ever
did--just spread the fever that I carried in this gold syringe and in
the deadlier finger-ring-pump-syringe you see on my index finger!_
Science? A blind! I wanted to kill, and kill, and kill! A single
pressure of my finger, and the black fever was inoculated. I wanted to
see living things writhe and squirm, scream and froth at the mouth. A single pressure of the pump-syringe and I could watch them as they
died, and I couldn't live or think unless I had plenty to watch. That's why I jabbed everything in sight with the accursed hollow
needle. Animals, criminals, children, servants--and the next would have
been----"

Clarendon's voice broke, and he crumpled up perceptibly in his chair. "That--that, James--was--my life. Surama made it so--he taught me, and
kept me at it till I couldn't stop. Then--then it got too much _even
for him_. He tried to check me. Fancy--_he_ trying to check anybody in
that line! But now I've got my last specimen. This is my last test. Good subject, James--I'm healthy--devilish healthy. Deuced ironic,
though--the madness has gone now, so there won't be any fun watching
the agony! Can't be--can't----"

A violent shiver of fever racked the doctor, and Dalton mourned amidst
his horror-stupefaction that he could give no grief. How much of
Alfred's story was sheer nonsense, and how much nightmare truth he
could not say; but in any case he felt that the man was a victim rather
than a criminal, and above all, he was a boyhood comrade and Georgina's
brother. Thought of the old days came back kaleidoscopically. "Little
Alf"--the yard at Phillips Exeter--the quadrangle at Columbia--the
fight with Tom Cortland when he saved Alf from a pommeling.... He helped Clarendon to the lounge and asked gently what he could
do. There was nothing. Alfred could only whisper now, but he asked
forgiveness for all his offenses, and commended his sister to the care
of his friend. "You--you'll--make her happy," he gasped. "She deserves
it. Martyr--to--a myth! Make it up to her, James. Don't--let--her--know--more--than she has to!" His voice trailed off in a mumble, and he fell into a stupor. Dalton
rang the bell, but Margarita had gone to bed, so he called up the
stairs for Georgina. She was firm of step, but very pale. Alfred's
scream had tried her sorely, but she had trusted James. She trusted him
still as he showed her the unconscious form on the lounge and asked her
to go back to her room and rest, no matter what sounds she might hear. He did not wish her to witness the awful spectacle of delirium certain
to come, but bade her kiss her brother a final farewell as he lay there
calm and still, very like the delicate boy he had once been. So she
left him--the strange, moonstruck, star-reading genius she had mothered
so long--and the picture she carried away was a very merciful one. Dalton must bear to his grave a sterner picture. His fears of delirium
were not vain, and all through the black midnight hours his giant
strength restrained the frenzied contortions of the mad sufferer. What
he heard from those swollen, blackening lips he will never repeat. He
has never been quite the same man since, and he knows that no one who
hears such things can ever be wholly as he was before.