Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/81

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80
THE SNAKE FIEND

revengeful spirit on the story he had waited two days to hear.

Even when he gazed on those whom he had consigned to a horrible death, the thought that they were alive did not penetrate his consciousness. The idea of failure had never entered his mind for even an instant. They were dead, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, and now—their avenging ghosts stood before him!


CRIMI dropped to his knees in white terror and crawled behind his chair. He clasped and unclasped his hands in agony of fear. Sweat poured from his face and bathed his body. He implored mercy. He screamed for forgiveness. He gibbered like a frightened ape. Half forgotten words of Italian, learned at his mother’s knee, fell from his lips. He pleaded and begged for his life, crawling on his face toward the amazed couple in an endeavor to clasp their knees.

As the meaning of his broken ejaculations was borne in on them, a tremendous loathing and disgust overcame them. Marjorie clung to her husband, unnerved at the repulsive sight of the malicious coward groveling on the floor and trying to kiss their feet.

Crimi shrieked and gnawed his hands as he saw the avenging angels of his victims leave the cabin.


IT was impossible for the stern hand of the law to inflict a greater punishment on Jack Crimi than his own malice had wrought for him. Today he occupies a padded cell in a hospital for the incurably insane.




Find Skull of Man Million Years Old

THE fossilized skull of a man, who lived more than a million years ago, was recently unearthed in Patagonia, and it antedates by hundreds of thousands of years any human relic previously discovered. Dr. J. G. Wolfe, who brought news of the remarkable discovery to Buenos Aires, says the fossilization was that of Tertiary sandstone, and this means the man lived in the Tertiary Era, which ended before the Glacial Era began, which in turn means the skull is considerably more than a million years old. Except for the lower jaw, which is missing, the skull is almost perfect. The eye sockets and the teeth sockets in the upper jaw are well defined. The cranium is long and oval-shaped, the forehead extremely low and sloping.

Ruins of an ancient fortified town were also discovered by the scientist in the wild region north of Lake Cardiel, in the territory of Sante Cruz. This he regards as the remnants of a civilization that was perhaps even earlier than that of the Peruvian Incas. On one of the walls he found a carving of an animal that resembled the extinct glyptodon.