"It" and his thoughts, to his country villa. It had stared over his shoulder when he played at cards. It had spoiled his putts on the golf course. It had laughed with him at the musical comedy. It had cried with him at the tragic opera. He did not know what, or who, it was, but he knew that it worried him. It bore a strange, abstract resemblance to the man he had murdered so many years ago. It could not be Radnor! Radnor was dead.
A kingfisher swooped low, and away, with a bright flash of color. An owl gave a melancholy hoot from the thick-foliaged shore. "The Thing" behind him gave a hollow laugh—a laugh that blended strangely with an unseasonable wind.
He raised his hand nervously to his hair. It had been a glossy black three weeks ago. It was a dull gray now. A chill not of the night wind seemed to freeze the marrow in his bones. He laughed a discordant laugh in answer to "The Thing." He glanced back again, and again. His eyes were staring strangely. There was a queer light in them, a light not so much fear as madness.
"The Thing" was gaining on him. There was no doubt of that. Perhaps it would like a drink from the silver flask in his pocket. He would fool it! There was only enough for one. He would make for the shore! That was the thing to do.
The bow of the light canoe turned gently to the right. In a moment it was caught in the churning current. The man in the stern stood bolt upright. The canoe swirled round and round, then sailed out into space, over the falls, in a fifty-foot drop to the angry rocks below. The man saw, just before he dropped, that "The Thing" behind had gone.
The onyx door swung open, and closed again. A man, in a tattered cloak, walked to the table and seated himself. There was an expectant silence. He took a bottle from the table, broke the neck, and drank deeply.
"I drink," he said, "to your new comrade."
In WEIRD TALES for January
An uncanny sea story about a strange monster of the deep that oozed over the side of a ship and sent a long, white, gelatinous arm down into the cabin. A weirdly imaginative tale.
ON SALE EVERYWHERE DECEMBER FIRST
