When the black monks of Yahlgan gave me _this_" (his hand
seemed to stab at his face, and Richard Brent cried out slobberingly),
"they also instilled in my nature something of the spirit of the beast
they copied. "To kill you was not enough. I wished to glut my vengeance to the
last shuddering ounce. That is why I sent a telegram to your niece,
the one person in the world that you cared for. My plans worked out
perfectly--with one exception. The bandages I have worn ever since I
left Yahlgan were displaced by a branch and I had to kill the fool who
was guiding me to your cabin. No man looks upon my face and lives,
except Tope Braxton who is more like an ape than a man, anyway. I fell
in with him shortly after I was fired at by the man Garfield, and I
took him into my confidence, recognizing a valuable ally. He is too
brutish to feel the same horror at my appearance that the other negro
felt. He thinks I am a demon of some sort, but so long as I am not
hostile toward him, he sees no reason why he should not ally himself
with me. "It was fortunate I took him in, for it was he who struck down
Garfield as he was returning. I would have already killed Garfield
myself, but he was too strong, too handy with his gun. You might have
learned a lesson from these people, Richard Brent. They live hardily
and violently, and they are tough and dangerous as timber wolves. But
you--you are soft and over-civilized. You will die far too easily. I
wish you were as hard as Garfield was. I would like to keep you alive
for days, to suffer. "I gave Garfield a chance to get away, but the fool came back and had
to be dealt with. That bomb I threw through the window would have had
little effect upon him. It contained one of the chemical secrets I
managed to learn in Mongolia, but it is effective only in relation
to the bodily strength of the victim. It was enough to knock out a
girl and a soft, pampered degenerate like you. But Ashley was able
to stagger out of the cabin and would quickly have regained his full
powers, if I had not come upon him and put him beyond power of harm." *       *       *       *       *

Brent lifted a moaning cry. There was no intelligence in his eyes, only
a ghastly fear. Foam flew from his lips. He was mad--mad as the fearful
being that posed and yammered in that room of horror. Only the girl,
writhing pitifully on that ebony table, was sane. All else was madness
and nightmare. And suddenly complete delirium overcame Adam Grimm, and
the laboring monotones shattered in a heart-stopping scream. "First the girl!" shrieked Adam Grimm--or the thing that had been
Adam Grimm. "The girl--to be slain as I have seen women slain in
Mongolia--to be skinned alive, slowly--oh, so slowly! She shall bleed
to make you suffer, Richard Brent--suffer as I suffered in black
Yahlgan! She shall not die until there is no longer an inch of skin
left on her body below her neck! Watch me flay your beloved niece,
Richard Brent!" I do not believe Richard Brent comprehended. He was beyond
understanding anything. He yammered gibberish, tossing his head from
side to side, spattering foam from his livid, working lips. I was
lifting a revolver, but just then Adam Grimm whirled, and the sight of
his face froze me into paralysis. What unguessed masters of nameless
science dwell in the black towers of Yahlgan I dare not dream, but
surely black sorcery from the pits of hell went into the remolding of
that countenance. Ears, forehead and eyes were those of an ordinary man; but the nose,
mouth and jaws were such as men have not even imagined in nightmares. I find myself unable to find adequate descriptive phrases. They were
hideously elongated, like the muzzle of an animal. There was no chin;
upper and lower jaws jutted like the jaws of a hound or a wolf, and the
teeth, bared by the snarling bestial lips, were gleaming fangs. How
those jaws managed to frame human words I cannot guess. But the change was deeper than superficial appearance. In his eyes,
which blazed like coals of hell's fire, was a glare that never shone
from any human's eyes, sane or mad. When the black devil-monks of
Yahlgan altered Adam Grimm's face, they wrought a corresponding change
in his soul. He was no longer a human being; he was a veritable
werewolf, as terrible as any in medieval legend. The thing that had been Adam Grimm rushed toward the girl, a curved
skinning-knife gleaming in his hand, and I shook myself out of my
daze of horror, and fired through the hole in the shutter. My aim was
unerring; I saw the cape jerk to the impact of the slug, and at the
crash of the shot the monster staggered and the knife fell from his
hand. Then, instantly, he whirled and dashed back across the room
toward Richard Brent. With lightning comprehension he realized what had
happened, knew he could take only one victim with him, and made his
choice instantly. [Illustration: "The thing that had been Adam Grimm rushed toward the
girl, a skinning-knife in his hand."] I do not believe that I can logically be blamed for what happened. I
might have smashed that shutter, leaped into the room and grappled with
the thing that the monks of Inner Mongolia had made of Adam Grimm. But
so swiftly did the monster move that Richard Brent would have died
anyway before I could have burst into the room. I did what seemed the
only obvious thing--I poured lead through the window into that loping
horror as it crossed the room. That should have halted it, should have crashed it down dead on the
floor. But Adam Grimm plunged on, heedless of the slugs ripping into
him. His vitality was more than human, more than bestial; there was
something demoniac about him, invoked by the black arts that made him
what he was. No natural creature could have crossed that room under
that raking hail of close-range lead. At that distance I could not
miss. He reeled at each impact, but he did not fall until I had smashed
home the sixth bullet. Then he crawled on, beast-like, on hands and
knees, froth and blood dripping from his grinning jaws. Panic swept me. Frantically I snatched the second gun and emptied it into that body
that writhed painfully onward, spattering blood at every movement. But
all hell could not keep Adam Grimm from his prey, and death itself
shrank from the ghastly determination in that once-human soul. With twelve bullets in him, literally shot to pieces, his brains
oozing from a great hole in his temple, Adam Grimm reached the man on
the divan. The mis-shapen head dipped; a scream gurgled in Richard
Brent's throat as the hideous jaws locked. For a mad instant those two
frightful visages seemed to melt together, to my horrified sight--the
mad human and the mad inhuman. Then with a wild-beast gesture, Grimm
threw up his head, ripping out his enemy's jugular, and blood deluged
both figures. Grimm lifted his head, with his dripping fangs and bloody
muzzle, and his lips writhed back in a last peal of ghastly laughter