Part 7

His breath was returning to him now. And with the fresh night air came realization. He remembered that elementals fear the touch of iron; the steel from which the gun was made had been manufactured from this element.

He thrust the weapon forward until it touched the horrible monstrosity pressing him down--passed through its vaporish body. It squeaked like a cornered rat as it darted away.

Then it slowly floated out through the open window, leaving him gasping and panting....

4. Exorcism

Consciousness returned to Doctor Lamontaine slowly. For a few moments he lay in a daze trying to recollect what had happened. He opened his eyes. The first gray of dawn was breaking in the east. He straightened up, almost over-turning the chair in which he was still sitting.

He wondered if it had all been a dream. The sight of the gun lying on the floor beside the chair told him that such was not the case. His throat and lungs ached; the pressure on his windpipe had been such that breathing was still difficult. He leaned across the desk, and picking up the rum-jug, managed to pour himself a drink. The potion strengthened him. He staggered back to the living-quarters in the rear of the house and brewed himself a pot of strong coffee. Mixing rum with the black coffee, he gulped down several cupfuls. Feeling better, he returned to his little office and, filling and lighting his pipe, sat down to think the problem out.

Bit by bit the happenings of the night were coming back to him. Somewhere in the hidden fastness of the fetid swamp the man who called himself Aaron Kronk had his habitat. From this hiding-place he was directing the campaign which was rapidly laying waste the little hamlet of La Foubelle and which would, unless speedily checked, make of it another deserted village. In the red-headed physician he had recognized the only barrier in his way; therefore he had set upon Lamontaine the dreadful thing that his sorcery had conjured from behind the veil. His hypnotic power had paved the way for the monstrosity's attack. Only the chance finding of the gun with its content of iron had kept him from glutting his vengeance to the full.

Why? Lamontaine believed that he knew the reason and could bring the orgy of horror to a stop. It was a question of obtaining the evidence. Little use to search for Kronk in the midst of the swamp. It was filled with tiny islets and oases where a man might hide for weeks without being found. No, there were other ways of laying the fiend by the heels.

The red-haired physician's battered car was in the shed at the rear of the house. Scribbling a hasty note to Le Front, telling him that he had been called away for the day, he hurried out and climbed painfully beneath the wheel. Five minutes later the little village lay behind him and he was on his way to New Orleans.

It was late in the evening when he returned. Instead of stopping at his own home, he skirted the village, coming in from the opposite direction. The streets were deserted, with only an occasional light showing in the windows behind which the afflicted lay fighting their battle for life. He drove straight to the little cottage of the schoolmaster and, parking his car in the rear, hastened inside.

Le Front was there. The dominie looked up at the newcomer with feverish eyes in which there was no light of recognition. Lamontaine hastily mixed him a sleeping-potion, then turned to the constable.

"Worse," he said non-committally.

Le Front nodded.

"I theenk zat devil weel come for heem tonight," he answered, crossing himself hastily.

Lamontaine gave him his instructions. He made several trips to the car, returning each time bending under the weight of many packages. Laying them on the floor, he turned to the physician.

"You are determin' to see thees theeng through?" he asked.

Lamontaine nodded.

Le Front turned and, without a single backward glance, hurried out of the house like a man laboring under a great fright.

* * * * *

Turning the kerosene lamp down low, Lamontaine busied himself in the semi-darkness with the packages that Le Front had carried in from the car. Most of them contained long strips of iron rolled as thin as tin. Using a small tack-hammer, he nailed them over all the doors and windows except one. He took great precautions to see that all the holes were covered, not even a keyhole being left open. The window that he did not close, he stripped with iron so that when it was pulled down, the strips protruded over the edges.

His task completed, he opened the window again and, leaving the lamp turned low, settled down to his lonely vigil. In his hand was a small pentagon made of iron, attached to a handle. This was his only weapon.

The sick man on the bed breathed heavily, the result of the sleeping-potion Lamontaine had given him. The physician was weary after what he had gone through the night before and the activities of the day; yet he did not sleep.

Then that for which he had been waiting made its appearance.

Lamontaine drew a quick breath. There had been no sound, yet its dim shadow was easily discernible as it lurked for a moment in the darkness. The big physician, his eyes apparently closed, watched it with a queer, tingling sensation creeping up and down his backbone as it waited, seemingly planning its attack.

It finally drew itself slowly through the window, a cloud-like, shapeless monstrosity, almost formless, yet having the general outlines of a human being. It was horrible, grotesque, diabolical.

For a moment it floated in midair as if debating which of the two men to attack. Then, its mind--if mind it had--made up, it settled down over the bed where the little schoolmaster lay.

Lamontaine's hand moved slowly to the window. He was about to pull it down....

From outside came a muffled report. Lamontaine slid slowly from the chair as a bullet grazed his head.