So, for the
world's good, he dares not speak, and he thanks God that his layman's
ignorance of certain subjects makes many of the revelations cryptic and
meaningless to him. *       *       *       *       *

Toward morning Clarendon suddenly woke to a sane consciousness and
began to speak in a firm voice. "James, I didn't tell you what must be done--about everything. Blot out
these entries in Greek and send my notebook to Dr. Miller. All my other
notes, too, you'll find in the files. He's the big authority today--his
article proves it. Your friend at the club was right. "But everything in the clinic must go. _Everything without exception,
dead or alive or--otherwise._ All the plagues of hell are in those
bottles on the shelves. Burn them--burn it all--if one thing escapes,
Surama will spread black death throughout the world. _And above all
burn Surama!_ That--that _thing_--must not breathe the wholesome air
of heaven. You know now--what I told you--you know why such an entity
can't be allowed on earth. It won't be murder--Surama isn't human--if
you're as pious as you used to be, James, I shan't have to urge you. Remember the old text--'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'--or
something of the sort. "_Burn him, James!_ Don't let him chuckle again over the torture of
mortal flesh! I say, _burn him_--the Nemesis of Flame--that's all that
can reach him, James, unless you can catch him asleep and drive a stake
through his heart.... _Kill him--extirpate him--cleanse the decent
universe of its primal taint--the taint I recalled from its age-long
sleep...._"

The doctor had risen on his elbow, and his voice was a piercing shriek
toward the last. The effort was too much, however, and he lapsed very
suddenly into a deep, tranquil coma. Dalton, himself fearless of fever
since he knew the dread germ to be non-contagious, composed Alfred's
arms and legs on the lounge and threw a light afghan over the fragile
form. After all, mightn't much of this horror be exaggeration and
delirium? Mightn't old Doc MacNeil pull him through on a long chance? The governor strove to keep awake, and walked briskly up and down the
room, but his energies had been taxed too deeply for such measures. A
second's rest in the chair by the table took matters out of his hands,
and he was presently sleeping soundly despite his best intentions. Dalton started up as a fierce light shone in his eyes, and for a moment
he thought the dawn had come. But it was not the dawn, and as he rubbed
his heavy lids he saw that it was the glare of the burning clinic in
the yard, whose stout planks flamed and roared and crackled heavenward
in the most stupendous holocaust he had ever seen. It was indeed the
"Nemesis of Flame" that Clarendon had wished, and Dalton felt that some
strange combustibles must be involved in a blaze so much wilder than
anything normal pine or redwood could afford. He glanced alarmedly at
the lounge, but Alfred was not there. Starting up, he went to call
Georgina, but met her in the hall, roused as he was by the mountain of
living fire. "The clinic's burning down!" she cried. "How is Al now?" "He's disappeared--disappeared while I dropped asleep!" replied Dalton,
reaching out a steadying arm to the form which faintness had begun to
sway. Gently leading her upstairs toward her room, he promised to search at
once for Alfred, but Georgina slowly shook her head as the flames from
outside cast a weird glow through the window on the landing. "He must be dead, James--he could never live, sane and knowing what he
did. I heard him quarreling with Surama, and knew that awful things
were going on. He is my brother, but--it is best as it is." Her voice had sunk to a whisper. Suddenly through the open window came the sound of a deep, hideous
chuckle, and the flames of the burning clinic took fresh contours till
they half resembled some nameless, cyclopean creatures of nightmare. James and Georgina paused hesitant, and peered out breathlessly through
the landing window. Then from the sky came a quick, thunderous peal,
as a forked bolt of lightning shot down with terrible directness into
the very midst of the blazing ruin. The deep chuckle ceased, and in
its place came a frantic, ululant yelp as of a thousand ghouls and
werewolves in torment. It died away with long reverberant echoes, and
slowly the flames resumed their normal shape. [Illustration: "The deep chuckle ceased, and in its place came a
frantic, ululant yelp as of a thousand ghouls in torment."] The watchers did not move, but waited till the pillar of fire had
shrunk to a smoldering glow. They were glad of a half-rusticity which
had kept the firemen from trooping out, and of the wall which excluded
the curious. What had happened was not for vulgar eyes--it involved too
much of the universe's inner secrets for that. In the pale dawn, James spoke softly to Georgina, who could do no more
than put her head on his breast and sob. "Sweetheart, I think he has atoned. He must have set the fire, you
know, while I was asleep. He told me it ought to be burned--the clinic,
and everything in it, Surama, too. It was the only way to save the
world from the unknown horrors he had loosed upon it. He knew, and he
did what was best. "He was a great man, Georgie. Let's never forget that. We must always
be proud of him, for he started out to help mankind, and was titanic
even in his sins. I'll tell you more sometime. What he did, be it good
or evil, was what no man ever did before. He was the first and last to
break through certain veils, and even Apollonius of Tyana takes second
place beside him. But we mustn't talk about that. We must remember
him only as the Little Alf we knew--as the boy who wanted to master
medicine and conquer fever." *       *       *       *       *

In the afternoon the leisurely firemen overhauled the ruins and found
two skeletons with bits of blackened flesh adhering--only two, thanks
to the undisturbed lime pits. One was of a man; the other is still a
subject of debate among the biologists of the coast. It was not exactly
an ape's or a saurian's skeleton, but it had disturbing suggestions of
lines of evolution of which paleontology has revealed no trace. The
charred skull, oddly enough, was very human, and reminded people of
Surama; but the rest of the bones were beyond conjecture. Only well-cut
clothing could have made such a body look like a man. But the human bones were Clarendon's. No one disputed this, and the
world at large still mourns the untimely death of the greatest doctor
of his age; the bacteriologist whose universal fever serum would have
far eclipsed Dr. Miller's kindred antitoxin had he lived to bring it to
perfection. Much of Miller's late success, indeed, is credited to the
notes bequeathed him by the hapless victim of the flames. Of the old
rivalry and hatred almost none survived, and even Dr. Wilfred Jones has
been known to boast of his association with the vanished leader.