Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu/55

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Black and white illustration of a man carrying an axe heading towards a hut in thick, almost-leafless woodland.
Black and white illustration of a man carrying an axe heading towards a hut in thick, almost-leafless woodland.


The Liers in Wait


By Manly Wade Wellman


Could it have been that Oliver Cromwell, ruthless Puritan dictator of England, used the Black Arts to win his struggle with the Cavaliers?


Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing.
Nor ever did a wise one.

Proffered Epitaph on Charles II
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

(1647-1680)


Yes, Jack Wilmot wrote so concerning me, and rallied me, saying these lines he would cut upon my monument; and now he is dead at thirty-three, while I live at fifty, none so merry a monarch as folks deem me. Jack's verse makes me out a coxcomb, but he knew me not in

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