ascendedthose steps? Entered?
* * * * *
With drawn face he began to skirt the base of the black building,searching every nook and cranny, scanning the bare walls. His heartlay like ballast in his breast. If--if something had lured Vilma intothat demon-infested vault ... he checked the thought.
Suddenly he cursed. Mechanically he had begun to measure his stride intime with the doleful dirge from the castle. He stalked on withaltered pace. As he rounded the corner at the rear of the structure,he saw a shadow outlined against the sky, crouching on a ledge belowone of the little windows. He looked again--cried:
"Vilma!"
The figure above him stirred, looked down, then climbed hastilyearthward. It was Vilma ... Vilma, with black hair hanging stringilyabout her head, face pale, eyes fixed in the wideness of fear ...Vilma, with her wet clothing clinging to the lovely contours of hersymmetrical body.
"Oh, Cliff!" she gasped, a dry sob choking her. "Thank God--thankGod!"
She clung to him, her face hidden against his shoulder, quiveringuncontrollably. Then tears came, saving tears, relieving her pent-upemotions.
Cliff said nothing, only held her close, strongly protective. Andgradually he felt the tempest of terror subside. At last she lookedup. Some of the dread had gone from her face, and she tried to smile.
"I guess--I can't take it," she said.
Cliff shook his head solemnly. "You're a game girl, Vilma! You'venerve enough for two men. If you can, tell me what happened. Or ifyou'd rather let it wait, just say so."
"I'll feel better if I get it off my chest," she said. "You probablysaw those--things--carry me from the yacht." Cliff nodded. "Well, Iwas just about paralyzed when they dropped me in their terrible boat.I remember, you tried to arouse me; then that horn blew, and I justseemed to float away in an ocean of sleep.
"After that I can remember nothing till I awoke with water filling myeyes and nose and mouth, choking me. Someone's arms were around me--itmust have been you, Cliff--and then they weren't there any more, and Istruggled wildly, out of my wits. I don't know how I got to shore, butI did, and I lay there in the shadow of the galley, choking andgagging, but afraid to cough. It wasn't altogether dark, and I couldsee those dreadful things with people hanging over their shoulders,carrying them along a narrow ledge close to the water's edge, headinginland. I thought maybe you were one of those limp bodies; and I--Ialmost died of fright. After a while the last one had gone, and thelight went out. Then I heard another pair of feet moving over therocks. Corio, I suppose. The sound died--and I was alone.
"That place was awful, Cliff. The blackness almost drove me mad. Iwanted to scream, but I was afraid to. Some terrible weight seemed tobe crushing my lungs. If I followed those undead things, they mightcapture me, but it seemed worse to stay there in that dreadful dark.
"I got out of there somehow, though it seemed to take hours. Then Ididn't know what to do. I stood at the edge of the dead forest tryingto decide; trying, too, to keep myself from shrieking andrunning--anywhere. Then Corio's horn blew again--a sound, Cliff, worsethan anything I've ever heard. It--it was a wicked sound, promising tofulfill every foul desire that ever tainted a human mind. It repelled,yet it lured irresistibly. And--I answered!"
She stopped, and buried her face in her hands. After a moment she wenton. "The sound stopped just as I found myself crawling on hands andknees up the stone stairway on the other side. Another started--thatawful groaning--music--but it didn't draw me. I ran down the steps andscurried away like a rabbit trying to find a place to hide.
"After a while I came back--I thought you must be in there--and Iclimbed up to the window. And--and--Cliff, it's hellish!"
Her eyes, boring into his, widened in the same rigid terror he hadseen in them when he joined her.
"We could go back to the cove and get away on the _Ariel_, Vilma,"Cliff said stonily. "And if you think we should, we will. But--Ibrought our friends here, and--well, I want to get them out if I can."
With an effort Vilma nodded. "Of course. We can't do anything else."
He released her and stepped up to the wall.
"I'm going to see what's going on in there," he said. "You wait heretill I come down."
In sudden dread Vilma seized his arm. "No, Cliff. I couldn't standwaiting here alone. I'll go with you."
He nodded understandingly. And together they began climbing theprecipitous wall, fitting hands and feet in step-like crevices thatmade progress fairly rapid. Soon they were crouching on a wide stoneledge, clinging to thin, rusted bars, staring into the black castle.
_3. The Steps of Torture_
A gigantic hall lay before them, a single chamber whose walls were thewalls of the castle, whose arched ceiling rose far above them.Directly below their window a stone platform jutted from the wall,spreading entirely across the chamber. A stone altar squatted in thecenter of the platform, a strangely phosphorescent fire smoldering onits top. And from the altar descended a wide, wide stairway ending inthe middle of the hall. All this Cliff saw in a single sweepingglance; afterward he had eyes for nothing save the lethal horror of amad, mad scene, revealed by the dim radiance of the altar fire.
Behind the altar stood five huge figures clad in long, hooded cloaksof scarlet. The central figure had arms raised wide, his cloak spreadlike the wings of some bloody bird of prey; and from his lips came aguttural incantation, a blasphemous chant in archaic Latin, in timewith the wheeze of the buried organ. Now his arms dropped, and he wassilent.
From the room below came a concerted whine of ceremonial devotion, ahollow, hungry wail. It rose from the bloodless lips of strangelyassorted human figures ranging down the center of the long stairway intwo facing columns. A hundred or more there must have been,representing half as many periods and countries, according to theirstrange and ancient costumes. Men in the armor of medieval Persia--thecrew of the black galley; yellow-haired Vikings; hawk-faced Egyptianswith leather-brown skins; half-naked islanders; red-sashed piratesfrom the Spanish main; men of today! And about all, like the dampnessthat clings to a tombstone, hovered a cloud of--death! The undead!
Cliff's gaze roved over the tensely waiting columns, then leaped tothe foot of the stairs. There, cowering dumbly like sheep in aslaughter-pen, were his friends from the _Ariel_. All clothing hadbeen stripped from them, and they stood waiting in waxen, statuesquestiffness. He saw then that three others lay prone before the stonealtar, naked and ominously still.
And far down at the very end of the hall stood Leon Corio, draped in ahooded cape of unbroken black, a glint of silver in his hand--his hornof drugging sounds.
Now, as though at a silent command, a girl left the group and began tomount the stairs, as those motionless three must have mounted!Vivacious Ann--she had been the life of Cliff's yacht party; but nowshe was--changed. Her blanched face was rigid with inexpressibleterror despite the semi-stupor which numbed her senses. Her nude bodyglowed like marble in the dim light. Horribly, her feet began theirclimb with a little catch step suggested by the moaning chant of thatcracked organ note.
She reached the first of the undead, and Cliff saw light glint on aknife-blade. A crimson gash appeared in the flesh of her thigh; anddead lips touched that wound, drank thirstily. The girl strode on,blood gleaming darkly on the white skin. A second drank of the crimsonflow--a third--and the blood ceased gushing forth.
Another knife flashed--and lips closed again and again on a redlydripping wound. And the girl with the unchanging pace of a robotclimbed the stairway to its very top--climbed while fiendish corpsesdrank her life's blood--climbed, to sink down on the altar.
One of the red-clad figures stooped over her, lifted her, buried longteeth in her throat--and Cliff saw his face.... His own face paled,and talons of fear raked his brain. Those others on the stairs--theywere abhorrent, zombies freed from the grave. But this monster! Avampire vested with the lust and cruelty and power of hell!
He lowered her, finally, and she sank down, lay still, beside
theother three.
Another began the hellish climb, a giant of a man with a thicklymuscled torso. Cliff knew him instantly; and his heart seemed to stop.Leslie Starke! They'd played football together. A brave man--afighter. He mounted the stairway with the same little catch step, thesame plodding stiffness. No resistance, no struggle--only a hell offear on his face.
The marrow melted from Cliff Darrell's bones. What--what could he doagainst a power that did _that_ to Les Starke? He tried to swallow,but the saliva had dried on his tongue. He wanted to turn to Vilma,but he could not wrench his eyes from the frightful spectacle.
Up the stone steps Starke strode. And no blade leaped toward him; nothirsty lips closed on his flesh! In an unwavering line he mountedtoward the cowled monster in the center of the dais, like a puppet onthe end of a string; mounted to