Genre Short Story. Page - 10

r as she jumped up and down in rage and pointed a finger at him. "You get out of here, Melvin Hastings! You're not a nice boy at all!"

Face red, he had hastily retreated as the teacher assured Alice and the rest of the girls that he had made a simple mistake. But how angry Alice had been! It was a week before she would speak to him.

He smiled and sank back deeply into the pillow. He remembered how proud he had been when old Doc Collins, who came out to do the honors every Fall, had told him there wasn't a thing wrong with him and that if he continued to drink his milk regularly he'd grow up to be a football player. He could still hear Doc's words whistling through his teeth and feel the coldness of the stethoscope on his chest.

Suddenly, he sat upright in bed in the darkness.

Stethoscope!

They had tapped and inspected and listened to Alice that day, and all the other examination days.

If Doc Collins had been unable to find a heartbeat in her he'd have fainted--and spr

illings, say five, say two andsix. You don't say even two and six? You say two and three? No.You shan't have the lot for two and three. I'd sooner give it toyou, if you was good-looking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the oldman and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em awayand bury 'em!" Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my ownfather, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my ownmother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followedas mourner.

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work,as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I don'tsay it because it's myself, but because it has been universallyacknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. I haveworked at it. I have measured myself against other publicspeakers,--Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsellearned in the law,--and where I have found 'em good, I have took abit of imagination from 'em, and where I have found 'em

'Do you suppose,' I asked suddenly, 'that anyone exists twice on the same earth? Reincarnation in the sense of the Hindus?'

He laughed scornfully. 'The age of the earth is somewhere between a thousand million and three thousand million years. What proportion of eternity is that?'

'Why--no proportion at all. Zero.'

'Exactly. And zero represents the chance of the same atoms combining to form the same person twice in one cycle of a planet. But I have shown that trillions, or trillions of trillions of years ago, there must have been another earth, another Jack Anders, and'--his voice took on that whining note--'another crash that ruined Jack Anders and old de Neant. That is the time you must remember out of lethargy.'

'Catalepsy!' I said. 'What would one remember in that?'

'God knows.'

'What a mad scheme!' I said suddenly. 'What a crazy pair of fools we are!' The adjectives were a mistake.

'Mad? Crazy?' His voice became a screech. 'Old de Neant is mad, eh?

oke.

----

He still pretends like he had it all worked out but he was still shaking when he showed up on the dock that night and he was so nervous from having to run from the police that he could barely speak.

Your father was really rattled, but he came and he sat down next to me and he smiled. I've always said that if your father's smile wasn't cute none of this would have happened. But it was cute. Very cute. I had always known that and some part of me was happy that this boy I always sort of liked was sitting next to me. And eventually he stopped shaking and we chatted for a long time and then we kissed. I don't think I need to go into details. I do remember that at one point after our kiss he turned around and lay back against my shoulder and it was very sweet but there was sand everywhere. I remember trying to run my fingers through his hair and brush it out but your father was perpetually covered in sand. That was something I could do nothing about. But that was our first kiss. It wa

as visible.

Proceeding now quite alone upon his homeward way he grew really nervous and uncomfortable, as he became sensible, with increased distinctness, of the well-known and now absolutely dreaded sounds.

By the side of the dead wall which bounded the college park, the sounds followed, recommencing almost simultaneously with his own steps. The same unequal pace -- sometimes slow, sometimes for a score yards or so, quickened almost to a run -- was audible from behind him. Again and again he turned; quickly and stealthily he glanced over his shoulder -- almost at every half-dozen steps; but no one was visible.

The irritation of this intangible and unseen pursuit became gradually all but intolerable; and when at last he reached his home his nerves were strung to such a pitch of excitement that he could not rest, and did not attempt even to lie down until after the daylight had broken.

He was awakened by a knock at his chamber-door, and his servant, entering, handed him several lett

a handsome man of twenty-eight or thirty, with anattractive hint of wickedness in his manner that was sure to make himadorable with good young women. The large dark eyes that lit hispale face expressed this wickedness strongly, though such was theadaptability of their rays that one could think they might haveexpressed sadness or seriousness just as readily, if he had had amind for such.

An old and deaf lady who was present asked Captain Maumbry bluntly:'What's this we hear about you? They say your regiment is haunted.'

The Captain's face assumed an aspect of grave, even sad, concern.'Yes,' he replied, 'it is too true.'

Some younger ladies smiled till they saw how serious he looked, whenthey looked serious likewise.

'Really?' said the old lady.

'Yes. We naturally don't wish to say much about it.'

'No, no; of course not. But--how haunted?'

'Well; the--THING, as I'll call it, follows us. In country quartersor town, abroad or at home, it's just the same.'

'How do you account

t to his feet, dug out the bandanna and mopped at his face. He heard the soft thud of the step behind him and turned his head. It was the tracker.

"It's all right, Sipar," he said. "You can quit worrying. I got it. We can go home now."

* * * * *

It had been a long, hard chase, longer than he had thought it might be. But it had been successful and that was the thing that counted. For the moment, the vua crop was safe.

He tucked the bandanna back into his pocket, went down the slope and started up the knoll. He reached the place where the Cytha had fallen. There were three small gouts of torn, mangled fur and flesh lying on the ground and there was nothing else.

He spun around and jerked his rifle up. Every nerve was screamingly alert. He swung his head, searching for the slightest movement, for some shape or color that was not the shape or color of the bush or grass or ground. But there was nothing. The heat droned in the hush of afternoon. There was not a breath of

The cruiser vanished back into hyperspace and he was alone in the observation bubble, ten thousand light-years beyond the galaxy's outermost sun. He looked out the windows at the gigantic sea of emptiness around him and wondered again what the danger had been that had so terrified the men before him.

Of one thing he was already certain; he would find that nothing was waiting outside the bubble to kill him. The first bubble attendant had committed suicide and the second was a mindless maniac on the Earthbound cruiser but it must have been something inside the bubble that had caused it. Or else they had imagined it all.

He went across the small room, his magnetized soles loud on the thin metal floor in the bubble's silence. He sat down in the single chair, his weight very slight in the feeble artificial gravity, and reviewed the known facts.

The bubble was a project of Earth's Galactic Observation Bureau, positioned

to let you in."

Horn and Muller both looked the young man over very carefully. He seemed perfectly innocent, and their suspicion that he might have turned the key in pretense only, soon vanished. It would have been a foolish suspicion anyway. If he were in league with the murderer, he could have let the latter escape with much more safety during the night. Horn let his eyes wander about the rooms again, and said slowly: "Then the murderer is still here--or else--"

"Or else?" asked the doctor.

"Or else we have a strange riddle to solve."

Johann had laid the pistol down again. Muller stretched forth his hand and took it up. He looked at it a moment, then handed it to the commissioner. "We have to do with a murder here. There was not a shot fired from this revolver, for every chamber is still loaded. And there is no other weapon in sight," said the detective quietly.

"Yes, he was murdered. This revolver is fully loaded. Let us begin the search at once." Horn was more excited th

e couldn't afford to lose it, as it was all he had in the world to sell for food for his mother and himself, and it couldn't have been his fault the jar was broken. They both went to the king who questioned them very carefully about the matter and finally said he couldn't see that either one was to blame. They were both good men, took good care of their old mothers and were honest in all their dealings, and so far as he could see no one was at fault but the donkey and the rock, and he would judge them. So the little donkey was chained with chains around his legs and around his neck and led into prison, while five of the king's men were sent out for the rock. As soon as they brought it in he ordered it wrapped with chains and tied outside the prison door to a post. By this time the news of this strange case and the queer doings of the king had spread throughout the city. When the people heard their great king was having a trial about a donkey and a rock they thought he had surely gone mad. The next morning the