The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes Read Online Free PDF Page B

indefinable change. The man's jaws appeared prolongued into a snout, almost as if he were thrusting his lower face forward, like an angry monkey's. And his eyes were narrowed in what looked like a damned vicious glare. He did indeed 'look bad.' He looked evil, if ever a man did and as his eyes wandered over us, it was as though he were cataloguing us for some peculiar vengeance.
     
                  "Further, there was something markedly unpleasant about his posture. He was squatting but somehow gave the impression of a dangerous animal crouching to spring, rather than a human being seated or resting. I stepped back almost involuntarily and Krock and Sizenby both raised their guns.
     
                  " 'Stand away from him, Ffellowes,' said Sizenby sharply. 'I was afraid of this. It's one of the legends of the Kerit.'
     
                  " 'By God, you said it!' said Krock. 'Just look at him!'
     
                  " 'What's this?' I asked, as I turned around, baffled by the menace in their voices. All the blacks, faces set like flint, were leveling rifles and spears at the silent Italian.
     
                  " 'Why, it's got to him,' said Sizenby. 'Look at him, Ffellowes! He's not a man any longer. Can't you see that?'
     
                  " 'Are you completely daft?' I shouted. 'This man is my prisoner. What the hell do you mean, not a man? Put those guns down! That's an order, damn it!'
     
                  "At this point Bruckheller sprang. I say 'Bruckheller,' but I doubt the name was deserved any longer. In the light of what I next saw and heard, our companion of the night was frankly no longer anything that could be called human. The creature on the ground leapt with a snarl on my back and with a strength I wouldn't have believed possible seized me and held me as a shield between itself and the leveled rifles of the rest of the party. Helpless to move, I was neatly interposed against any bullets as my captor backed rapidly away toward the nearest point of bamboo jutting into the rapidly clearing glade.
     
                  "I could not move, but I could hear, see and speak. What I heard was a noise made by the thing clutching my neck in an iron grip, a rumbling, chuckling growl. It was pleased with itself, like a circus animal which has somehow downed the trainer.
     
                  "What I saw were the agonized faces of all of our party, white and black, as they tried to get a point of aim from which to shoot, or throw in the Wanderobo's case, without hitting me. Some appeared frozen, others were moving but slowly, as one seems to in a nightmare.
     
                  "That is not all I saw. The mist was thinning, but in swirls and twists, not all at once. And behind the men, in a patch of clarity for one second, I saw something appear.
     
                  "Reddish, matted fur, upright posture, great gnarled, hunched shoulders and surmounting them, I saw—Anubis!
     
                  "In one blinding instant I saw the great, pointed head, like a giant jackal's, the razor fangs bared in a snarl and I realized the truth of Bruckheller's story, the hidden horror behind the beast-headed statues of ancient Egypt .
     
                  " 'For God's sake—behind you.' I managed to scream. It was Krock who caught my meaning fastest and he whirled and fired in one motion, one arm cradling the rifle against his side and doing the firing as well. He could shoot, could Krock.
     
                  "Again from out of the mist we all heard that awful cry, like a coughing shriek which ran up the scale until it actually hurt one's ear. But this time there was a dreadful note of pain, so that the cry was half a wail. We all heard it. The second time, the Boer had hit his target.
     
                  "My own captor lost his head. What ghastly metamorphosis was working