




                         Black Hound of Death

                          By ROBERT E. HOWARD

             _A grim tale of stark horror--of the terrible
            disfigurement inflicted upon Adam Grimm by the
           dark priests of Inner Mongolia, and the frightful
        vengeance that pursued his enemy to the United States._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Weird Tales November 1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _1. The Killer in the Dark_


Egyptian darkness! The phrase is too vivid for complete comfort,
suggesting not only blackness, but unseen things lurking in that
blackness; things that skulk in the deep shadows and shun the light of
day; slinking figures that prowl beyond the edge of normal life. Some such thoughts flitted vaguely through my mind that night as I
groped along the narrow trail that wound through the deep pinelands. Such thoughts are likely to keep company with any man who dares invade,
in the night, that lonely stretch of densely timbered river-country
which the black people call Egypt, for some obscurely racial reason. There is no blackness this side of Hell's unlighted abyss as absolute
as the blackness of the pine woods. The trail was but a half-guessed
trace winding between walls of solid ebony. I followed it as much
by the instincts of the piny woods dweller as by the guidance of
the external senses. I went as hurriedly as I dared, but stealth
was mingled with my haste, and my ears were whetted to knife-edge
alertness. This caution did not spring from the uncanny speculations
roused by the darkness and silence. I had good, material reason to be
wary. Ghosts might roam the pinelands with gaping, bloody throats and
cannibalistic hunger as the negroes maintained, but it was no ghost I
feared. I listened for the snap of a twig under a great, splay foot,
for any sound that would presage murder striking from the black
shadows. The creature which, I feared, haunted Egypt was more to be
dreaded than any gibbering phantom. That morning the worst negro desperado in that part of the state had
broken from the clutches of the law, leaving a ghastly toll of dead
behind him. Down along the river, bloodhounds were baying through the
brush and hard-eyed men with rifles were beating up the thickets. They were seeking him in the fastnesses near the scattered black
settlements, knowing that a negro seeks his own kind in his extremity. But I knew Tope Braxton better than they did; I knew he deviated from
the general type of his race. He was unbelievably primitive, atavistic
enough to plunge into uninhabited wilderness and live like a blood-mad
gorilla in solitude that would have terrified and daunted a more normal
member of his race. So while the hunt flowed away in another direction, I rode toward
Egypt, alone. But it was not altogether to look for Tope Braxton that
I plunged into that isolated fastness. My mission was one of warning,
rather than search. Deep in the mazy pine labyrinth, a white man and
his servant lived alone, and it was the duty of any man to warn them
that a red-handed killer might be skulking about their cabin. I was foolish, perhaps, to be traveling on foot; but men who wear the
name of Garfield are not in the habit of turning back on a task once
attempted. When my horse unexpectedly went lame, I left him at one of
the negro cabins which fringe the edge of Egypt, and went on afoot. Night overtook me on the path, and I intended remaining until morning
with the man I was going to warn--Richard Brent. He was a taciturn
recluse, suspicious and peculiar, but he could scarcely refuse to put
me up for the night. He was a mysterious figure; why he chose to hide
himself in a southern pine forest none knew. He had been living in an
old cabin in the heart of Egypt for about six months. Suddenly, as I forged through the darkness, my speculations regarding
the mysterious recluse were cut short, wiped clear out of my mind. I
stopped dead, the nerves tingling in the skin on the backs of my hands. A sudden shriek in the dark has that effect, and this scream was edged
with agony and terror. It came from somewhere ahead of me. Breathless
silence followed that cry, a silence in which the forest seemed to hold
its breath and the darkness shut in more blackly still. Again the scream was repeated, this time closer. Then I heard the pound
of bare feet along the trail, and a form hurled itself at me out of the
darkness. *       *       *       *       *

My revolver was in my hand, and I instinctively thrust it out to fend
the creature off. The only thing that kept me from pulling the trigger
was the noise the object was making--gasping, sobbing noises of fear
and pain. It was a man, and direly stricken. He blundered full into me,
shrieked again, and fell sprawling, slobbering and yammering. "Oh, my God, save me! Oh, God have mercy on me!" "What the devil is it?" I demanded, my hair stirring on my scalp at the
poignant agony in the gibbering voice. The wretch recognized my voice; he clawed at my knees. "Oh, Mas' Kirby, don' let him tetch me! He's done killed my body, and
now he wants my soul! It's me--po' Jim Tike. Don' let him git me!" I struck a match, and stood staring in amazement, while the match
burned down to my fingers. A black man groveled in the dust before
me, his eyes rolling up whitely. I knew him well--one of the negroes
who lived in their tiny log cabins along the fringe of Egypt. He
was spotted and splashed with blood, and I believed he was mortally
wounded. Only abnormal energy rising from frenzied panic could have
enabled him to run as far as he had. Blood jetted from torn veins and
arteries in breast, shoulder and neck, and the wounds were ghastly to
see, great ragged tears, that were never made by bullet or knife. One
ear had been torn from his head, and hung loose, with a great piece of
flesh from the angle of his jaw and neck, as if some gigantic beast
had ripped it out with his fangs. "What in God's name did this?" I ejaculated as the match went out, and
he became merely an indistinct blob in the darkness below me. "A bear?" Even as I spoke I knew that no bear had been seen in Egypt for thirty
years. "_He_ done it!" The thick, sobbing mumble welled up through the
dark. "De white man dat come by my cabin and ask me to guide him to
Mistuh Brent's house. He said he had a tooth-ache, so he had his head
bandaged; but de bandages slipped and I seen his face--he killed me for
seein' him." "You mean he set dogs on you?" I demanded, for his wounds were such as
I have seen on animals worried by vicious hounds. "No, suh," whimpered the ebbing voice. "He done it hisself--aaaggghhh!" The mumble broke in a shriek as he twisted his head, barely visible in
the gloom, and stared back the way he had come. Death must have struck
him in the midst of that scream, for it broke short at the highest
note.