"Run... Betty!" I gasped. "The house...!" The accursed thing was upon me. I sprang away from it... but too late. Its club-like arm struck me a wild, swinging blow that sent me crashing to the ground a dozen feet away. It was upon me before I could pull myself to my feet. I felt its stubby fingers twisting themselves about my throat. Its face was close to my own, its fetid breath fanning my cheek as it snapped at me with its gnashing fangs. I threw my arm upward in a futile gesture of self-preservation. The movement was a lucky one, for the jagged end of the broken club crashed into the bestial face. The beast's own weight, rather than my puny strength, drove the sharp point to the bone.
It leaped away from me squealing with pain. Through the darkness I could see it clawing at its face as it strove to pull the weapon from its flesh. I dragged myself to my feet and, turning, raced after Betty. She was already on the tumbledown porch, her tiny fists pounding a frenzied tattoo on the wooden panels of the door.
"Help! Help!" she shouted. The door was jerked open and a man stared out at us; the rays of the lamp suspended from the ceiling brought out his tall, gaunt figure in bold relief. Despite my excitement, I noted that he was wearing a tattered dressing gown, the front of which was stained as from acid or chemicals.
"What is wanted?" he demanded. I halted him with a gesture. Leaping inside, I dragged Betty after me and, hastily slamming the door, I plunged home the bolt.
"Attacked by... wild beast!" I managed to ejaculate pantingly. "Drove it off... may be following us..."
HE turned and looked at us curiously. His eyes were sunken, his face so emaciated as to give his countenance a skull-like appearance.
"Beast?" he exclaimed. "You say that you were attacked by some sort of animal? What do you mean? There have been stories..."
He led the way into a small study. It was the room, through the window of which we had glimpsed the light, for the shade was partly raised. The walls were lined with built-in bookcases, filled to overflowing. In the center of the room was a large table upon which were piled other books and manuscripts over which he had evidently been working when we made our precipitate entrance.
He motioned us to chairs and turned to us wonderingly.
"I do not understand...?" he mused. "There have been strange tales, as I say. I have discounted them as silly rumors. You are certain...?"
I pointed to Betty's torn garments—to my coat ripped by the creature's sharp nails as if by a knife.
"Our appearance bears out my statement," I snapped. Then, as he seated himself at the desk, I hastily sketched what had happened—the breaking down of the automobile, our long tramp through the chilling cold and darkness, of the thing that had trailed us for hours, the discovery of the dead woman among the underbrush and the sudden attack of the fur-coated monster a moment later.
The old man stared at us questioningly, his glance shifting from one to the other. Taking a huge pipe from the desk, he stuffed it with tobacco and, lighting it, took a short turn about the room.
"It seems fantastic... unbelievable," he said finally, stopping his restless pacing for a moment. "Yet, as you have said, your appearance bears out your statement. If you will pardon the assertion, I have been wondering if the cold... and your privations... have not..."
He stopped in the middle of the sentence, allowing the remainder to go unsaid.
"But we will not quibble now," he smiled. "The young woman is almost spent. Let me offer you some refreshment. My name is Bixby—Professor Bixby—a poor scholar come to this old place to work out certain theories. I wanted a place where I might have solitude. I can offer you but little, yet I do not want to appear unhospitable. I—"
Betty screamed. "The window!" she gasped. "The... thing!" She leaned forward, her face twitching with excitement, her eyes filled with terror.
Bixby whirled as I leaped to my feet. Pressed against the glass was a flat, hairy face, the thick lips drawn back over fang-like teeth, the matted hair hanging down over a tiny forehead. The creature's eye—bloodshot, flashing with anger—glared at us malevolently. Bixby gave a sudden exclamation and took a step forward. The diabolical creature leaped backward; we heard the crash of its body as it dashed through the underbrush.
For an instant the old scholar appeared petrified. Then he rushed to the door opening into the hall and clapped his hands together in a sort of signal.
"Jarbo!" he rasped excitedly. "Come... quickly!"
The summons was answered by a huge black—a powerful, broad-shouldered creature with a tiny head and a face almost as evil as the accursed thing that had glared at us through the window. For an instant his glance hovered over us appraisingly, shifted to Betty's slender form—then turned reluctantly again to the old man. Bixby was addressing him rapidly in some foreign jargon. At the finish of the speech the black nodded and, with another glance at Betty, shuffled out of sight.
"Jarbo is an Algerian and speaks but little English," our host explained. "He is absolutely fearless. I have told him to go after the creature— he will be armed, of course. Meanwhile I have sent him for refreshment."
He resumed his restless pacing, stopping again and again to glance at us. A question seemed on the point of his tongue—a question he seemed averse to giving voice to. The big black came back into the room carrying a tray on which was a decanter of wine, some bread and cold meat, thinly sliced.
Bixby apologized.
"We eat sparingly, Jarbo and I," he said as the black deposited the tray on the table. "When a man reaches my age, he is apt to overstuff himself."
Again I noted the quick glance of the black man rest on Betty's slender loveliness. Bixby muttered something to him. He grunted an unintelligible reply and shuffled out. A moment later we heard the front door slam. Bixby scowled, then waved his hand toward the meager fare.