Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 234 - Temple of Crime

VIP免费
2024-12-23 0 0 188.46KB 74 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
TEMPLE OF CRIME
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. THE TEMPLE OF AMMON
? CHAPTER II. MURDER EXPLAINED
? CHAPTER III. VANISHED FIGHTERS
? CHAPTER IV. CRIME WITHOUT REASON
? CHAPTER V. THE SHADOW'S THEORY
? CHAPTER VI. THE LAW DECIDES
? CHAPTER VII. VOICE OF AMMON
? CHAPTER VIII. REIGN OF TUMULT
? CHAPTER IX. THE BOOK OF THOTH
? CHAPTER X. WITHOUT A TRACE
? CHAPTER XI. THE CROCODILE GOD
? CHAPTER XII. PATHS THROUGH THE DARK
? CHAPTER XIII. CREATURES OF DOOM
? CHAPTER XIV. IN THE SPHINX ROOM
? CHAPTER XV. A MATTER OF PROOF
? CHAPTER XVI. AMMON STRIKES
? CHAPTER XVII. THE FINAL NIGHT
? CHAPTER XVIII. THE TEMPLE SECRETS
CHAPTER I. THE TEMPLE OF AMMON
STRANGE, solemn was the procession that moved beneath the trees. Figures clad in white, ghostly amid
the darkness, the marchers were revealed as humans only when the glare of flaming torches threw
wavering light upon their stern, fixed faces.
Above, the stirring leaves of the poplar grove rustled a weird greeting. Below, fantastic shapes withdrew
among the tree trunks like slinking ghouls, affrighted by the torches. Perhaps they were nothing more than
shadows of the trees themselves, rendered grotesque and given motion by the shifting light of the passing
torches. But they had the look of real figures.
Robed members of the procession were darting sidelong glances, their own fears roused by the imaginary
things amid the grove. It was as though a terror of their own creation had echoed back to them. A
distinct shudder passed through the marching throng, carried by those most sensitive to imaginary
impressions.
Margo Lane felt the shiver, but did not share it. Nor did she feel that her imagination had gained the
upper hand. She believed that there was reality among the creatures of the grove; that one, at least,
though shadowy, possessed actual substance.
She was thinking of The Shadow.
If it hadn't been for The Shadow, Margo wouldn't have been in tonight's procession. As Lamont
Cranston, New York clubman, The Shadow did not make a practice of joining bizarre organizations like
the Cult of Ammon. He preferred to have other persons associate themselves with such groups, and tell
him the details later.
In this case, he had delegated Margo Lane as proxy. However, Margo was confident upon one point:
namely, that since Cranston wasn't a participant in this weird parade, he would be somewhere in the
offing, as The Shadow.
Such thoughts curbed Margo's fear. Each time she spied a fantastic figure vanishing amid the poplars, she
regarded it as friendly, not hostile. Still, she didn't like to people the grove with many shadows when she
was thinking in terms of only one: The Shadow. So Margo set her eyes straight ahead and kept steady
pace with the torch bearers who accompanied the procession.
Poplar leaves were whispering louder; with their welcome they seemed to lisp that there would be no
turning back. New thoughts gripped Margo, and they didn't comfort her. She was worried, even though
sure that The Shadow was near.
The Cult of Ammon!
It had all seemed quite silly, when Margo first joined it. Along with two dozen others, she had come to
the great mansion owned by Amru Monak, the very wealthy and extremely modern Egyptian who
claimed to be a direct descendant of the ancient pharaohs.
True, Monak liked to talk of the past and dwell upon the marvels of ancient Egypt, the land of his
ancestors; but not until lately had he let such subjects take full control of him. It had all come about when
Monak bought the Temple of Ammon, at a price of half a million dollars, and had set it up in this poplar
grove, which was located on his large, high-walled estate.
A famous edifice, the Ammon temple. Unearthed from the Egyptian sand dunes, it had first been bought
by Uriah Keldon, a business magnate whose profits from railways, steamships, mines, and oil, had gone
into the purchase of fabulous art treasures, valued at many millions. Upon Keldon's death, the treasures
had been placed on the auction block, the Ammon temple among them.
Long ago, the temple had been taken apart, block by block, and brought to America, there to languish in
a warehouse, until Keldon would decide to erect it again, something that he had never done.
Having bought the temple from the Keldon estate, Amru Monak had promptly ordered it to be
assembled, and while the artisans were at work, Monak had struck upon the idea of forming an Ammon
Cult to revive the ancient rituals once held within the temple.
Quite intriguing, but very absurd, and it had reached its height tonight. Like the other members of the cult,
Margo had retired early, to be wakened a half-hour before dawn. Then, for the first time, she had attired
herself in the ancient Egyptian garb of sandals, skirt, and sleeveless tunic, all of white. She had joined the
others, to find the women similarly arrayed, while the men were clad in long white robes.
THEY had begun their march, these faithful, with Amru Monak at their head, and now, within the grove
of whispering poplars, the parade had lost all semblance of a farce. It had become something very
solemn, gripping the participants with awe. Slow, steady steps along the tree-shrouded path were
carrying Margo and her companions centuries into the past.
No longer were they treading the ground of a modern estate not many miles from New York City. They
were tramping the soil of a sacred grove near the ancient city of Elephantine, in Egypt, Land of the Nile.
All that was needed to complete the illusion was sight of some landmark belonging to antiquity. It came
as they reached a clearing in the grove.
There, the procession halted, the eyes of all the marchers riveted upon the building that awaited them.
White as alabaster, the Temple of Ammon reared from the darkness, catching the glow of the dying
moonlight that struggled through clouds overhead.
The temple was built in peristyle form, an oblong structure surrounded by pillars, each column a stalwart
sentinel that seemed ready to crash itself upon any marauder who disturbed these sacred preserves. Like
the rest, Margo felt herself drawn back to the shelter of the trees, unwilling to advance another step until
someone gave the proper word.
That someone was ready.
Tall, imposing, firm of stride, Amru Monak advanced toward the temple, then turned to face his
followers. Glaring torches threw their glow upon his olive face, gave it a ruddy touch that, for the
moment, seemed satanic. But there was nothing of the demon in Monak's countenance, as the observers
viewed it more closely.
Monak was handsome, his visage smooth and sculptured, as perfect, in its human way, as the pillared
temple which made a background for his majestic pose. His eyes, black as coals, caught the glow of the
torches and reflected a glitter that seemed fixed upon each member of the cult.
Those eyes were piercing the veil of the past, and when Monak raised one hand, with pointing finger,
even the poplars seemed to cease their whispers, that they might listen.
Monak spoke. His words had the clear chime of a bell.
"Above us is the moon of Isis," declaimed Monak, "the great goddess who rules the realm of night. Soon
her sway will end, and from the east" - he lowered his hand to an angle, so that the finger pointed above
the trees - "will rise the sun, symbol of Ammon-Ra, to whom this temple is dedicated.
"Let us enter singing praise to Ammon. Let us be present at the moment when the rule of Isis ends and
that of Ammon begins. Then, with the dawn itself, we shall hear the voice of Ammon proclaim the coming
of the day!"
Imposingly, Monak turned toward the temple. His lips began a chant that the others took up. Margo
knew the words, for she had learned them like the rest.
The chant was in the Egyptian tongue, a greeting to Ammon, sung almost in a monotone. For the first
time, the chanters were hearing themselves in unison, and the effect was powerful.
Each voice imbued the others with its strength. Of one accord, the cult members moved forward behind
Monak. Ahead, the great doors of the temple stood closed, but the marchers advanced, undeterred.
Margo felt the curious sensation that no physical barrier could block this inspired procession; that the
doors themselves would melt under the power of the chant.
What did happen was almost as amazing.
AS Monak and his followers reached the doors, they opened, swinging inward on unseen hinges to let
the procession through. The marchers crossed the marble floor of an atrium, or outer room, and as
Monak ended the chant with a sweep of his arms, Margo looked back, to see the great doors closing as
smoothly as they had opened.
She noticed, too, that there were gaps in the front wall, at the top, just below the roof. They were narrow
apertures, no more than a foot square, through which the moonlight trickled and formed patches on the
floor of the atrium. Those were the spaces through which the light of dawn would come.
Then, Margo was looking straight ahead again. They were through the atrium and into an inner room,
called the cella. This was the heart of the temple, and the procession halted, its members spreading to
form a double-ranked semicircle, which Monak joined.
Straight ahead was a stone pedestal, its front covered with curious hieroglyphs, and upon the pedestal sat
the throned statue of Ammon, carved from stone, of slightly more than human size. But the carved head
of Ammon was something other than human. It was the head of a ram, adorned with horns.
The torch bearers set their flaming brands in stone brackets on the tiled wall. The light did not reach the
statue directly, for it sat in a domed niche called the apsis. Rather, the moonlight, carrying through from
those distant apertures in the outer room, revealed the figure of Ammon to the full.
The ram's eyes were staring straight into the moonlight, as though watching for the dawn to replace the
silvery glow. One of the statue's hands was resting on an arm of the stone throne; the other, half raised,
clutched a long staff made of bronze. The staff was topped with a small ram's head, and the base was
poised a foot above the pedestal which held the throned statue.
Glancing around the cella, Margo saw that the walls bore sculptured figures of other Egyptian deities, all
about life-size. They were in bas-relief, and formed a grotesque assortment, for they had the heads of
birds and animals, and one even resembled a crocodile. She noticed, too, that each corner contained a
great stone brazier, where fires could be kindled.
These, however, were not in use. Monak had foregone all other rites upon this first visit to the temple. He
and the cult were concentrated upon one thing only. They had come to hear the voice of Ammon greet
the dawn.
The time was very close. Already, the feeble moonlight was fading. Only the torches illuminated the
scene. Looking at the faces nearest her, Margo saw that they were tense, for they belonged to women
members of the cult. She saw one man's face among them, and recognized its owner.
He was Hugh Calbot, a man past middle age. Formerly secretary to old Uriah Keldon, Calbot had
arranged the final sale of the temple to Amru Monak, and for some reason had become interested
enough in the Ammon Cult to join it.
But Calbot was still a skeptic. His thin, drying face wore a smirk which indicated plainly that he
considered the present ceremony to be clap-trap. Still, Calbot was making a pretense of belief. When
Monak spoke, calling upon his followers to draw closer to the statue, Calbot edged forward near the
leader.
Other robed men were forming the front rank, for the women were more timid. Perhaps the thing that
awed them was the trickle of dawn that began to illuminate the ram's head of Ammon, actually changing
the expression of its stony eyes from a brooding look to one of triumph. The light was feeble, for the day
was cloudy, but Amru Monak was pleased by the glow.
"We are here, great Ammon!" he exclaimed. "We await your word, for the hour is at hand! Let us hear
the voice of Ammon -"
Monak was bowing forward, and other robed men copied his action. A stir followed in the rear rank, as
more heads began to bow, only to stop in frozen fashion. Margo could understand the horror that
gripped the rest, for she was riveted, too.
IT was a voice that halted them.
A voice that spoke with anguished shriek, as though the great stone statue of Ammon had poured out all
the stored fervor of the centuries that had passed while the temple stood idle.
Wild, high, prolonged, the screech reverberated through the stone room, as though the fanciful creatures
carved on the walls were echoing it with their distorted tongues.
Bowing men raised their heads and turned, terror written on their faces. Even Monak's eyes looked
glassy when Margo saw them. It was then that Margo realized that the statue had not spoken.
Turning with the others, Margo saw the woman next to her, a middle-aged woman whose hair bore
traces of gray. It was she who had screamed, not waiting for the voice of Ammon.
The woman was pointing toward the pedestal that bore the statue. Slowly, all eyes followed the wavering
finger. There was a sudden shift of robed figures, as every man, Monak included, recoiled from the thing
toward which the woman pointed.
There lay a robed member of the cult who had bowed much farther than the others in the front rank, and
with good reason.
He was sprawled, face downward, with extended arms, and from his back projected the object that had
felled him - a knife, buried to the hilt. The light from a flickery torch gave a view of his profile, for his
head had rolled to one side.
His was the face that had shown contempt for the rites of Ammon, but now its expression displayed the
horror that came with sudden death. The man on the floor was Hugh Calbot, whose membership in the
Ammon Cult had puzzled Margo Lane!
CHAPTER II. MURDER EXPLAINED
SILENT, the great statue of Ammon stared at the dim streaks of dawn. Stony lips remained frozen, as
fixed as those of Calbot, the dead man on the floor. Persons who looked upward shrank, at first, when
they viewed the ram's face of the idol.
Perhaps the fact that Ammon had not spoken was more terrible than if the statue had voiced a greeting to
the dawn. Silence could mean that Ammon was offended by some mocker among the cult that owned
him. It might be that this strange god of Egypt possessed a power from the past, and with it was able to
deliver death when he so chose.
One man was prepared to broach that claim: Amru Monak. Stepping toward the statue, he turned and
swept both arms high. He was more than a defender of Ammon; he was acting as human proxy for the
ram god. While Ammon still stared stonily toward the feeble dawn, Monak hurled his wrath upon the
members of the cult.
"We have offended Ammon!" Monak stormed. "He has shown his anger by taking a human sacrifice
from among us! Instead of speaking, he has acted -"
Monak's voice was drowned by a dozen others. This business of attributing all to Ammon did not appeal
to them. True, they had been awed during their approach to the temple; they had felt that sensation of
being in a far-away land in a remote century. But murder in their midst had jarred them from the illusion.
Had Calbot merely flattened from some unknown cause, they could have believed that Ammon was
responsible. But the knife in the dead man's back was something that a human hand could have driven
there. They wanted to find the killer, and Monak was hindering them with this foolish talk of the ancient
Ammon's wrath.
They were coming closer to Monak as they argued, and he tried to motion them back. When they seized
at his arms, he struck out furiously - so furiously, that some began to think he was the killer. They pinned
Monak against the pedestal that supported the Ammon statue. There, Margo saw a face thrust up to
Monak's.
Margo recognized the challenger. His name was Basil Gorth; he was an archaeologist, and had
accompanied the Keldon expedition to Egypt when it unearthed the Ammon temple, a dozen years ago.
Gorth had a square-set, tawny face, the sort that marked a man of determination. Bronzed by desert
suns, his complexion had never changed, nor had his nature.
While others choked back Monak's remarks, Gorth gave his own opinions in hard-voiced tone.
"You are a fool, Monak!" accused Gorth. "To think that we would fall for such a paltry fake! You knew
that the Ammon statue could never speak, so you went the limit to provide us with some other mystery.
A fanatic of your sort would stop at nothing, not even murder, to impress the members of your cult!"
Gorth was putting it too strongly. Some of the others turned to argue with him. Murder had been done;
they could agree that far with Gorth. But to heap the charges upon Monak without studying the case, was
rushing matters too heavily. Furthermore, Monak was in no position to answer.
Clutched by a dozen hands, he was back against the pedestal, his head tilted at the feet of Ammon. Like
the stone statue, Monak was staring at an upward angle, his own face lighted by the clouded rays of
dawn. He couldn't speak, for an arm was tightened around his neck, but there was something in his stare
that made men wonder.
One man turned, to stare in the same direction. From where she stood, Margo studied the man's canny
face. He was elderly, but active; his eyes, sharp as gimlets, formed a distinct contrast to the withered face
beneath his thin, gray hair. He was Jan Ravion, the most distinguished member of the Ammon Cult.
Ravion was a professor who spoke a dozen languages, ancient as well as modern. He had been many
places and had seen many things, and his urge to go farther and see more had brought him into this
strange group.
AT present, Ravion was viewing something that intrigued him. He was looking out from the cella, through
the atrium, to the high, thin apertures through which the dawn entered the temple.
Ravion began to gesture; watching him, men silenced. Stepping to Calbot's body, Ravion tilted it slightly
upward and motioned for others to help him. He clutched the knife handle and tried to draw the blade
from Calbot's back.
Failing, he shook his head; then shrugged, deciding that it was not necessary. Calbot's body was coming
upright, lifted by four pairs of hands. That was all that Ravion wanted.
As the dead form reached a position where it was nearly erect, Ravion said:
"Hold him there."
Then, as the others obeyed, the withered professor drew his hand along the line of the knife and ended
with a bony finger pointing off through the outer room. Ravion was pointing to the very spot where
Monak's eyes had fixed. He was indicating one of the distant openings above the temple doors.
"Look there," said Ravion. "That is where the knife came from. It was hurled by someone outside."
"You are right, Ravion." Released, Monak had found his breath, and was coming forward to extend his
hand. "The very thought occurred to me as I stared from the foot of the statue."
Taking a long breath, Monak turned to the others and spoke in apologetic tone.
"You will excuse me," he said. "I have dreamed of this moment; of the time when Ammon would speak.
Perhaps I have attributed more to Ammon than was plausible, for I have steeped myself in Egyptian lore.
It was only naturally that I should first attribute Calbot's death to Ammon's wrath.
"Now, I realize the truth. Ravion's theory is correct. The knife came through that opening, and the eyes of
Ammon saw its flight. Ammon is a passive god, who trusts his followers to guard his own temple. He
would do nothing to halt the knife, but when it found its mark in a human victim, the temple was profaned.
That is why Ammon did not speak."
Gorth pushed himself in front of Monak. However much Monak had impressed the others, Gorth did not
find the words reasonable. His voice still carried accusation.
"We've taken you seriously, Monak," declared Gorth, "but in the wrong way. You slipped that knife into
Calbot and tried to alibi it with a lot of talk about Ammon! Now you say that the knife came through the
hole over the door. Next, you'll claim you saw it coming -"
"I would have seen it," interrupted Monak, "if I had been looking that way."
"You would have?" sneered Gorth. "Then tell me: how could anyone have thrown a knife to a hole twenty
feet above the ground, sent it through, and made it carry to a mark forty feet inside this temple?"
"Only Ammon can answer," began Monak solemnly. "One morning, when Ammon speaks -"
Before Gorth could scoff an interruption, Ravion intervened. The sharp-eyed professor had drawn a pair
of eyeglasses from a fold of his robe and was putting them on. The glasses had a ribbon, producing an
incongruous contrast to Ravion's ancient attire, but there was nothing ludicrous about the professor's
statement.
"Ammon does not need to speak," declared Ravion. "I can explain the case, Gorth. The knife was
thrown through the aperture on almost a straight line."
"From the ground outside?"
"Not from the ground," Ravion returned. "From one of the high poplar trees that encroach almost to the
wall of the temple."
MEN looked toward the aperture as Ravion spoke. Beyond the opening, in the dim dawn, they could
see a wave of green, indicating a poplar tree. Gorth's effort at new argument was drowned out by the
excited shouts of others. Monak was taking charge, ordering them all outdoors, and they were eagerly
accepting his leadership anew.
Margo saw Monak gesture to the torch bearers. They were two of Monak's servants, Hakim and Eltab.
Monak had many servants, all stout and loyal, but only these two were members of the Ammon cult.
Hakim and Eltab plucked the torches from the stone brackets and started out with the throng of men. By
the light of the flares, Margo saw a pleased leer fix itself on Monak's features.
Oddly, that leer seemed meant for Ravion, rather than Gorth, for Monak was glancing toward the
professor. Still, Margo could understand it, knowing Monak. The Egyptian was more contemptuous of a
man who would play into his hands, as Ravion had, than of a man who defied him, like Gorth.
Certain it was that Monak had obtained a better alibi through Ravion, than the absurd talk about Ammon
that Monak, himself, had cooked up for a starter. But when Margo looked back at the statue and saw its
stony face take on grimaces as the torch light changed, she wasn't so sure that Monak hadn't been right.
In fact, Margo wasn't at all anxious to stay within the temple with the rest of the women, huddling along
the walls that bore strange images as ugly as Ammon. She decided to follow the torch bearers.
Men reached the big temple doors and drew them inward. Hakim and Eltab went out first, for their lights
were needed. The struggling dawn was reflected against the temple, but it hadn't begun to penetrate the
poplars. Hakim went one way, waving his torch, Eltab the other.
Margo didn't expect that they would find an assassin in a tree. Certainly such a knife thrower would be
gone by this time. But when a loud cry came from Hakim, Margo looked and saw the servant gesturing
upward with his torch, beckoning for other men to join him.
He was sweeping his flare toward the lower branches of a poplar, and all that Margo saw there was
blackness. The sudden meaning of the thing filled her with alarm.
Such alarm was genuine. Before Margo could even gasp, the result came. Blackness took life and flung
itself downward from the tree, squarely upon Hakim, bowling the servant to the ground. But Margo's
gasp, when she uttered it a moment later, was no expression of concern for Hakim.
A hideous mistake had been made. Men, searching for an assassin, had come upon a personage who
sought to curb crime, not to help it. Margo knew it the very instant that she saw the descending blackness
from the tree, for the figure was the cloaked form of her friend, The Shadow!
Murder stood explained, through the theory that Monak had so aptly seized from Ravion - and now, a
dozen men, lusty in their shouts, eager in their drive, were sure that they had found the killer. Once they
had him in their clutches, they would pin full blame for Calbot's death upon The Shadow!
CHAPTER III. VANISHED FIGHTERS
WITH men converging from every side, The Shadow had seemingly flung himself into trouble. Actually,
his hard surge from the tree ended his chief worry, which happened to be Hakim's torch. The brand
struck the ground along with Hakim, and no longer did the flame illuminate the tree boughs.
Instead, darkness blanketed the space beneath the poplars, for the leaves were too thick to be
penetrated by the cloudy dawn. Darkness as thick as blackest night, save at the one tree trunk where
Hakim's torch flickered in dying fashion. Even that failing light did not last long.
Springing for the brand, The Shadow seized it and flung it off among the trees, so swiftly that no one
caught further sight of him. The torch simply seemed to fly away of its own accord, leaving a mass of
utter blackness.
So far, men had viewed The Shadow only as a swirl of blackness, and he remained as such. But he
became a swirl of substance, too, as men clutched for him in the gloom. Whirling, he treated them to
tornado-like tactics that sent them stumbling against one another, tripping over roots and bashing into tree
trunks.
Amid that spin for freedom, The Shadow eluded eyes as well as hands. The white robes of the
floundering attackers made a helpful contrast to his own black garb. It really seemed that the members of
the Ammon Cult were struggling among themselves; that the ghostly shape from the tree was purely a
figment of their own imagination.
Even to Margo, who had expected The Shadow and therefore identified him with a glimpse, the illusion
seemed real. But her wits returned when she saw a new menace that threatened to disclose The Shadow
in full.
Eltab was turning with the other torch, ready to dash toward the struggling men in white. If he arrived too
soon, The Shadow would surely be revealed.
Spontaneously, Margo sprang forward to block off the second servant. Her mind was in tumult from
conflicting thoughts. Most certainly, an assassin could have hurled a knife from that very tree, through the
opening beneath the temple eaves.
If so, the man in black might be the killer, which was plausible enough, because, at times, men of crime
had imitated The Shadow's garb. It wasn't always safe to accept any black-cloaked figure as The
Shadow.
Still, those arguments didn't hold. Back in Margo's brain was the fact that no impostor could impersonate
The Shadow in action. No other living fighter could be creating such chaos amid a dozen foemen. They
were unarmed; hence he was handling them without the use of weapons, something that no assassin
would be considerate enough to do.
Such was the logic that inspired Margo to halt Eltab's arrival, if only for ten seconds. Such a margin might
be all that The Shadow required to dodge away among the trees. So Margo sprang with all the speed
that she could muster, which happened to be better than Eltab's, considering that she wasn't handicapped
by a trailing robe to trip her sandaled feet.
Midway to the white-clad strugglers, Margo intercepted the Egyptian servant and grabbed his arm. He
had the torch in his other hand, and he turned about in savage style that threatened to reduce Margo's
delaying efforts from ten seconds to two.
Uttering a snarl that might have been an Egyptian oath, Eltab turned the torch into a cudgel and drew his
hand back for a hard, fierce swing, without pausing to see who gripped him.
Before Margo could duck, a strange thing happened. Eltab's weapon was gone from his grasping hand. It
scaled up through the tree branches so suddenly, that Margo thought the force of his hurried backswing
had sent it, until she realized that it was flying far too high to have gone in such wise.
An unseen hand, sweeping up from darkness, had plucked the brand from the servant's clutch and given
it that long toss. The proof was the startled way in which Eltab turned to grab frantically at a new
assailant who had deprived him of his only weapon.
Then Eltab, himself, was plucked by hands from nowhere, and sent on a long, whirling dive that landed
him squarely against the rising form of his fellow servant, Hakim.
FROM the darkness at Margo's elbow came a whispered laugh, more weird than any previous
happening. It was The Shadow's token of identity, and an approval of Margo's well-meant aid. It told her
that he had slipped the robed members of the Ammon Cult and doubled around to take care of Eltab's
torch. The Shadow's swift tactics had saved Margo from sad results of overzeal.
Others heard The Shadow's sibilant tone. Hakim and Eltab, half on their feet, clutched each other as they
rose. The sinister whisper brought a mutual gasp from their lips; a name that Margo heard repeated, but
did not understand:
"Khaibet! Khaibet!"
Next, Margo was under the shelter of the poplars, guided by The Shadow's hand. She could hear his
fading laugh as he left her, and knew that its peculiar evanescence must have impressed Hakim and Eltab,
for they were still uttering that odd word: "Khaibet!"
Moreover, they were making no effort to pursue The Shadow, nor to hurry after Margo. As for the
members of the Ammon Cult, they were tired of grappling each other and pummeling tree trunks.
It seemed that The Shadow's departure was assured, when a high, commanding voice resounded through
the grove. Margo recognized the tone; it belonged to Amru Monak. He had hurried off toward the
mansion and was summoning his other servants.
Quick to obey their master's call, they were arriving with flashlights, far better spotters than torches.
Margo shrank back against a tree, wondering how The Shadow would fare.
A brilliant beam swept through the trees, and again, as during the march, Margo had the impression of
fantastic figures dodging away to cover. As the light came closer and began another slice, she actually
saw a shape close by, a form that huddled for the nearest tree trunk.
With a warning word, Margo cut over to block the flashlight's beam, motioning for The Shadow to dive
away.
Instead, the figure lunged. Margo was gripped by a pair of sweatered arms that almost strangled her.
Hauled toward a tree, she was clutched by another shape that bobbed out suddenly. Her scream was
brief, but it brought the flashlights.
Staring at the faces of the men who were suppressing her, Margo saw that they were hard and ugly. But
that wasn't the thing that frightened her most.
All past illusions were real! Those shapes that had dodged off to shelter when the procession passed
were living occupants of the grove, as actual as The Shadow. Ghouls, they had seemed to Margo then;
ghouls, they were at present. The Shadow was gone, and in his place these unknown creatures of evil
had arrived.
The laugh that Margo heard seemed a mockery of The Shadow's mirth. She thought that her ugly captors
uttered it as they flung her to the turf. Then the hard clash of metal, the sudden spurt of guns, jarred her
back to reality. She was looking up, a witness to a new struggle.
That laugh hadn't been an imitation of The Shadow's; it was his own, given in taunting style, that these
enemies would understand and fear.
Bobbing flashlights showed The Shadow wheeling toward the nearest tree, jabbing shots from an
automatic. Other guns were answering, handled by sweatered men whose caps were pulled well down
over their eyes. They were using revolvers, firing at full blast. Having slugged them first, The Shadow was
testing them at longer range.
摘要：

TEMPLEOFCRIMEMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI.THETEMPLEOFAMMON?CHAPTERII.MURDEREXPLAINED?CHAPTERIII.VANISHEDFIGHTERS?CHAPTERIV.CRIMEWITHOUTREASON?CHAPTERV.THESHADOW'STHEORY?CHAPTERVI.THELAWDECIDES?CHAPTERVII.VOICEOFAMMON?CHAPTERVIII.REIGNOFTUMULT?CH...

展开>> 收起<<
Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 234 - Temple of Crime.pdf

共74页,预览15页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：74 页 大小：188.46KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-23

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 74
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注