The Shadow - 211 - Xitli, God of Fire by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1940-11-30T23:00:00+00:00

He was telling the members of his cult that a duty lay ahead.

It was a task that pleased them.

Voices mingled in obedience. Hands gripped stone weapons with new fervor. A wave of Xitli’s hand brought his worshippers to their feet. A dozen or more, they were waiting only the fire god’s departure before proceeding with the task assigned. They expected another of Xitli’s remarkable demonstrations, and he did not disappoint them.

A fling of Xitli’s hand, a puff of fire more vivid than the one before. When the smoke cleared, Xitli had vanished. The Aztecs left the throne room and started for the stairs.

When they had gone, Xitli himself appeared surprisingly from the room that they had left. Closing its door, he went back to the costume room and disposed of his flame-hued garb.

Again wearing his muffling overcoat, he descended in the elevator, once more passing the Aztecs, who were taking the slower stairway route.

THE modern Xitli had overlooked one detail. In leaving the throne room open while meeting with his followers, he had supposed that the glare of his chemical flame could not be seen from the windows of the top floor.

He was right, so far as a view from the ground was concerned, because a series of broad terraces intervened.

It happened, however, that an observer was much closer at hand. The Shadow had returned to the museum; desiring to visit its interior, he was scaling the smooth walls at the time the flash came.

The Shadow was using his favorite method for the climb. He was wearing rubber suction cups on hands and feet, squidging those concave disks against the smooth wall that rose from one terrace to the next.

His eyes, looking upward, caught the reflection of the final flash - dim, yet sufficient to tell that something was amiss. The Shadow paused, clinging to the wall; then, on the theory that he might find an inner route from some hidden entrance below, he started downward.

He made rapid progress, for the terraces were only a dozen feet in height, each an easy drop to the one below it.

By the time The Shadow reached the ground, the man from the elevator had gone. But The Shadow’s keen eyes picked out the swift-moving figures of the Aztecs who had just come from the pyramid. On foot, The Shadow took up their trail, to find it one of the shiftiest that he had ever attempted to follow.

Had there been less of the Aztecs, The Shadow would have lost them. But with a dozen or more, he was able to gain fleeting glimpses of different natives at sufficient intervals to remain upon their route. It led through dilapidated districts, where houses were thicker, until finally it reached the narrow streets of the French quarter.

There, under a line of balconies, The Shadow found the trail was gone. His only course was to eliminate the places that the Aztecs would have avoided, particularly lighted streets. Choosing alleyways and courtyards, The Shadow soon narrowed down his search, but still he was hunting in the dark.

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