The features vanished in a wave of blood; mutely
the thing sank out of sight, and I hauled myself up the bank, under the
thick bushes. Stark had run from his hut, a pistol in his hand. He was staring wildly
about, alarmed by the noise he had heard, but I knew he could not see
me. His ashy skin glistened with perspiration. He who had ruled by fear
was now ruled by fear. He feared the unknown hand that had slain his
mistress; feared the negroes who had fled from him; feared the abysmal
swamp which had sheltered him, and the monstrosities he had created. He
lifted a weird call that quavered with panic. He called again as only
four heads broke the water, but he called in vain. But the four heads began to move toward the shore and the man who stood
there. He shot them one after another. They made no effort to avoid the
bullets. They came straight on, sinking one by one. He had fired six
shots before the last head vanished. The shots drowned the sounds of my
approach. I was close behind him when he turned at last. *       *       *       *       *

I know he knew me; recognition flooded his face and fear went with it,
at the knowledge that he had a human being to deal with. With a scream
he hurled his empty pistol at me and rushed after it with a lifted
knife. I ducked, parried his lunge and countered with a thrust that bit
deep into his ribs. He caught my wrist and I gripped his, and there
we strained, breast to breast. His eyes were like a mad dog's in the
starlight, his muscles like steel cords. I ground my heel down on his bare foot, crushing the instep. He howled
and lost balance, and I tore my knife hand free and stabbed him in the
belly. Blood spurted and he dragged me down with him. I jerked loose
and rose, just as he pulled himself up on his elbow and hurled his
knife. It sang past my ear, and I stamped on his breast. His ribs caved
in under my heel. In a red killing-haze I knelt, jerked back his head
and cut his throat from ear to ear. There was a pouch of dry powder in his belt. Before I moved further I
re-loaded my pistols. Then I went into the hut with a torch. And there
I understood the doom the brown witch had meant for me. Tope Sorley lay
moaning on a bunk. The transmutation that was to make him a mindless,
soulless semi-human dweller in the water was not complete, but his mind
was gone. Some of the physical changes had been made--by what godless
sorcery out of Africa's black abyss I have no wish to know. His body
was rounded and elongated, his legs dwarfed; his feet were flattened
and broadened, his fingers horribly long, and _webbed_. His neck was
inches longer than it should be. His features were not altered, but the
expression was no more human than that of a great fish. And there, but
for the loyalty of Jim Braxton, lay Kirby Buckner. I placed my pistol
muzzle against Tope's head in grim mercy and pulled the trigger. And so the nightmare closed, and I would not drag out the grisly
narration. The white people of Canaan never found anything on the
island except the bodies of Saul Stark and the brown woman. They think
to this day that a swamp negro killed Jim Braxton, after he had killed
the brown woman, and that I broke up the threatened uprising by killing
Saul Stark. I let them think it. They will never know the shapes the
black water of Tularoosa hides. That is a secret I share with the cowed
and terror-haunted black people of Goshen, and of it neither they nor I