"Behold, the last link in the chain!" he affirmed. "Strike, then! I fear not!"
The sword-point flickered to its mark.
Before the eyes of the dying saint there passed a vision. He saw first illimitable space, through which a cold wind blew. He saw the planets wheeling on their courses, beyond them a great white light. Then these, too, vanished.
Gasping, he raised himself a little on one elbow.
"Lo, there is nothing!" he murmured. "No Good!—No Evil!—Only Maya, Illusion!"
And so he died.
Yet, had they known this, Jai Singh and Aparajita would have deemed him mistaken.
Often they mourned the death of Bauna the Dwarf; but they had other things to think of—the cares and joys of ruling, children, and the pleasant government of a house.
For they were young, and in love with each other, and the world seemed to them very good.
Strange Was the Death of the Antiquary
An Occurrence in an Antique Shop
By August W. Derleth
"Well, no, it's not that."
"Then what is it?"
"There seems to be something wrong with the thing, but I can't tell you what it is, nor why I feel that there's some difference about it."
Morrison handed the carving to Clavering, who took it and examined it carefully. It was an antique wood of a pirate in the act of plunging his c atlas into a hapless sailor. The pirate's left arm was extended straight out from his shoulder much in the attitude of a fencer; his right arm was crooked at the elbow, and in his hand he clutched a long knife which just touched the sailor's bared breast. The expression on the pirate's face was positively fiendish; the face of the kneeling sailor was a picture of abject terror. The two stood on a block of wood cut to resemble the flooring of a ship. There was dust on the carving.
"Humph!"
"Well?"
"What a peculiar obsession, Morrison! There isn't a thing different with this piece since I last saw it."
"It isn't an obsession, Clavering. Isn't the pirate's weapon nearer to the sailor's breast?"
"Not a fraction of an inch!"
"Clavering! You're not lying—just to case me?"
"Nonsense! You've been reading again—reading some of that"
"I have not!"
