lifeless.
Panic struck the mob. In all directions they fled back. The thing that had been Sammy seemed to glide down the steps in pursuit.
'Oh, my God!' Court whispered. His face was drawn with pain as he slowly took aim with his pistol. 'Sammy—'
He did not finish. The shot snarled out in the night.
The glowing bulk was unharmed. With his breath catching in his throat, Court pumped bullet after bullet at it. It stumbled down the lawn, while the mob vanished along the slope.
'No use!' Court gritted between his teeth. 'It absorbs every kind of energy, including kinetic.'
He let out a shout. Glancing up, he pointed. From the windows above him came a burst of sound. Submachine-guns and rifles rattled lethally, concentrating their fire on the shining horror that moved into the night.
It vanished behind a tree and was gone. Marion gripped Court's arm.
'Poor Sammy! Can't we go after him?'
'That isn't Sammy,' Court said grimly. 'Not now. It—it's a horror, an alien thing out of another universe, perhaps. Yes, I'm going after it, Marion, but not till I've put on my lead suit. I'm not sure I can capture it, even then.' He blew across the smoking muzzle of his gun. 'A creature whose touch means instant death is loose in the countryside. And I don't even know if it can be killed!'
CHAPTER XI
The Man from Carthage
Scipio Agricola Africanus sat in a dungeon beneath the circus arena. Through a barred grating, he watched one gladiator disembowel another. The stroke, he thought, was clean and good for the men from Gaul were like wolves, dark, feral and quick. Scipio rather hoped he would be matched against them, rather than against lions or an elephant. There was something about the feel of steel matched against your own sword that put heart into a man.
An armored guard, coming along the corridor, pushed open the door of Scipio's cell. His hawk face peered in.
'Your turn soon,' he said.
'Good,' replied Scipio, with a pleasant oath. 'I grow tired of battling fleas.'
The soldier chuckled as he bent to adjust a greave.
'By my Lares, you have courage! Too bad your dream failed. I would not have objected to serving under such a man as you.'
'I failed because none of my men had the courage of a rabbit,' Scipio spat in disgust. 'Faith, we could have taken Carthage almost without bloodshed.'
'Had your army not fled, leaving you to face the Imperial Guard alone!' The soldier shook his head, grinning wryly. 'Nothing but trouble since you came to Africa, Scipio. It was bad enough with those damned Romans yelling that Carthage must be destroyed, but at least they had not tried to destroy it. And what did you do?'
Scipio's eyes lighted. He was a huge, swarthy man, with the scarred face of a gargoyle. His nose had been broken so often that it sprawled shapelessly awry. Atop that monstrous face, the ringlets of short, curly black hair were incongruous.
'What did I do?' the adventurer asked. 'Faith, I tried to serve your king, but he would not let me.'
The guard choked and spluttered his outrage.
'Jupiter! You got drunk and dragged the king off to some low gambling hell. No wonder you had to flee to the mountains after that! Then you got some insane idea about creating an independent city of your own. That might have worked, if you had gone far enough into the Nubian country with your followers. But you decided to take Carthage. Carthage!'
The soldier made an infuriating roar of merriment.
'Come within the reach of my manacled hands,' Scipio invited pleasantly, 'and I'll tear off your head with considerable joy.'
'Save that for the arena,' said the soldier, moving back slightly. 'Tonight the cries will announce that the Carthaginian Scipio is no more. Only, you are not a man of Carthage, come to think of it. Are you?'
'Why not?' The giant captive shrugged. 'Rome is a melting pot. The blood of a dozen races mix in my veins. I am a citizen of Carthage now, at least for awhile. By the way, how do I die?'
'Elephant. They have a huge tusker whom they've driven musth with rage and hunger. You are to face him on equal terms, both of you unarmed.' He glanced cautiously over his shoulder. 'I am to accompany you to the arena gate. And if you happen to seize my sword and take it with you—Well, such things have happened.'
Scipio nodded. 'Too bad you're not carrying a lance. However a sword must do. I can spill the behemoth's blood before it tramples me. Thanks, soldier. If you let me escape now, I'll make you a prince of the nation I intend to establish.'
'Listen to the lunatic,' the guard said, with rapt admiration. 'In chains, penniless, and offering to make me a prince! A prince of dreams, mayhap. Anyway, my vows are to Caesar, and not the Roman Imperator, either. So you must remain a captive.'
The filthy straw rustled under Scipio as he shrugged. A death-cry drifted in from the arena, then the triumphant roar of some ferocious beast.
'Well,' said the soldier, 'your time has come.'
'I wonder.' There was a curious look in Scipio's deep-set eyes. 'Lately I have had a queer feeling, as though the gods were watching me. Perhaps…'
He did not finish. More guards came, and the Carthaginian was unfettered and escorted along an underground corridor. Almost naked, his brawny body gleamed like mahogany in the sharp contrasts of light and shadow that filtered in through bars. Then the arena opened before them. Scipio was thrust forward. He saw at his side the friendly soldier, turned so that his sword-hilt was exposed.
With a grin and quick movement, Scipio clutched the weapon and whipped it out. Before the startled guards could move, he ran forward into the hot sands of the arena. The soles of his feet burned, then cooled as he halted in a patch of reddened sand.
The blazing African sun flooded down in blinding whiteness. Scipio had only a vague impression of the crowd that filled the circus. He could pick out no individuals. He felt as though one vast entity, surging, whispering, watching, surrounded him, and the head of the entity was the canopied box of the Lord of Carthage.
Scipio shifted his grip on the sword. He brushed the curly hair from his eyes with one hand, and stood warily on the balls of his feet. A musth elephant, eh? Well, no man could resist such an enemy, yet a man could die fighting.
'Alas for my dreams of empire,' the Carthaginian murmured, with a crookedly sardonic smile. 'Faith, I might have ruled the world, given time. And now I must water the sand with my blood.'
He turned to the Imperial box, lifting his hand in salute. The emperor nodded, expecting to hear the usual, 'We who are about to die—' of the gladiators.
Scipio disappointed his host. At the top of his voice he howled the words that would most enrage the onlookers.
'Carthage must be destroyed!'
A wave of fury, a gasp of astonishment and rage, rippled around the arena. The emperor make a quick, angry gesture. Grinning, Scipio turned to see a barred gate far across the sanded arena rise slowly.
For a few heartbeats there was silence throughout the circus. The blinding white heat was oppressive. Steam curled up from the blood-stains on the sands.
Then the musth elephant pounded to the gate. Huge, monstrous, a gray, walking vastness of animated dull savagery, he lurched through the gate and stood motionless, only his bloodshot little eyes alive with hatred. The trunk did not move, save for the tip, which swayed back and forth slightly.
A shadow darkened the arena as a cloud crossed the Sun, and then was gone.
