Conrad and Kirowan by Robert E Howard

Author:Robert E Howard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: opensource
Published: 2012-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

THE END

The Dwellers Under the Tombs

I awoke suddenly and sat up in bed, sleepily wondering who it was that was battering, on the door so violently; it threatened to shatter the panels: A voice squealed, sharpened intolerably as with mad terror.

"Conrad' Conrad!" someone outside the door was screaming. "For God's sake, let me in! I've seen him! I've seen him!"

"It sounds like Job Kiles," said Conrad, lifting his long frame off the divan where he had been sleeping, after giving up his bed to me. "Don't knock down the door!" he called, reaching for his slippers. "I'm coming."

"Well, hurry!" squalled the unseen visitor. "I've just looked into the eyes of Hell!"

Conrad turned on a light and flung open the door, and in half fell, half staggered and wild—eyed shape which I recognized as the man Conrad had named—Job Kiles, a sour, miserly old man who lived on the small estate which adjoined that of Conrad, Now a grisly change had come over the man, usually so reticent and self—possessed. His sparse hair fairly bristled; drops of perspiration beaded his grey skin, and from time to time he shook as with a violent ague.

"What in God's name is the matter, Kiles?" exclaimed Conrad, staring at him. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost! "

"A ghost!" Kiles' high pitched voice cracked and dribbled off into a shriek of hysterical laughter. "I've seen a demon from Hell! I tell you, I saw him—tonight! Just a few minutes ago! He looked in at my window and laughed at me! Oh God, that laugh!"

"Who?" snapped Conrad impatiently.

"My brother Jonas!" screamed old Kiles.

Even Conrad started. Job's twin brother Jonas had been dead for a week. Both Conrad and I had seen his corpse placed in the tomb high upon the steep slopes of Dagoth Hills. I remembered the hatred which had existed between the brothers—Job the miser, Jonas the spendthrift, dragging out his last days in poverty and loneliness, in the ruined old family mansion on the lower slopes of the Dagoth Hills, all the brooding venom in his embittered soul centering on the penurious brother who dwelt in a house of his own in the valley. This feeling had been reciprocated. Even when Jonas lay dying Job had only grudgingly allowed himself to be persuaded to come to his brother. As it chanced, he had been alone with Jonas when the latter died, and the death scene must have been hideous, for Job had run out of the room, grey—faced and trembling, pursued by a horrible cackle of laughter, broken short by the sudden death rattle.

Now old Job stood shaking before us, sweat pouring off his grey skin, and babbling his dead brother's name.

"I saw him! I sat up later tonight than usual. Just as I, turned out the light to go to bed—his face leered at me through the window, framed in the moonlight. He's come back from Hell to drag me down, as he swore to do as he lay dying. He's

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