The Thing That Walked In The Rain Read Free

splash of a huge raindrop on my shoulder. This was followed by a swift patter, and then a veritable deluge.
    “Come,” said the professor, “we must get back to the cottage. This may last for hours.”
    I was about to turn away with the others when I noticed through the sheets of rain, a disturbance in the water just in front of the stone diving platform that evidently was not caused by the torrential downpour. Then I distinctly saw a green serpentine thing reach up out of the water. It was followed by several more, groping and lashing about blindly, like earthworms, exploring the ground around their lairs.
    “Look!” I cried excitedly.
    THE professor looked with a gasping: “Good God !” and Anita with a scream of fear. One of the lashing arms reached toward us, and we scrambled, slipping and stumbling, up the winding path with a speed of which I had not thought any of us capable.
    The rain pelted us unmercifully until we reached the cottage, but with the usual perversity of rainstorms, ceased almost as soon as we had attained shelter.
    “What was it?” I asked, as we stood there, making little pools on the floor of the screened porch.
    Mabrey mopped his wet face with his handkerchief. “God only knows!” he replied. “I’m willing to concede, however, that it wasn’t an anaconda. Let’s get into some dry things.”
    Anita retired to her father’s bedroom to change, while the professor and I went into the kitchen to discard our wringing wet garments, rub down, and put on dry ones.
    When we emerged into the living room once more we found Anita seated at her father’s desk. She had rumpled her dark-brown shingle-bobbed hair to dry it. and I thought she looked more beautiful than ever.
    “I’ve found something interesting,” she announced, "perhaps a key to the mystery. It’s father’s diary.”
    “A diary,” said the professor, “is a personal and sacred thing.”
    “But it says: ‘For my daughter, Anita, when I am gone,’ ” replied the girl, “and instructs me to communicate the contents to you, Uncle Charley.”
    “That’s different,” said the professor, settling himself comfortably and loading his pipe. “Suppose you read it to me.”
    “I’ll go out on the porch,” I said.
    “No, stay, Jimmie,” begged Anita. “There’s nothing secret about it. After all, even if there were, you are in this adventure with us—one of us. Sit down and smoke your pipe. I’ll read it to both of you.
    “The first part,” continued Anita, “tells Dad’s reason for coming here—to investigate the persistent legend of a terrible monster living in the crater lake. We all know that. He soon found the place of sacrifice and brought away some of the hydropolyps for examination in a temporary laboratory he had set up in a hut, while native workmen, under his direction, were building this house for him. Then he---”
    She was interrupted by the slam of the screen door and the sound of footsteps on the porch. Pedro stood, bowing in the doorway.
    “Pardon senorita y senores,” he said, “but three Indios come in strange dress. Almost they are ’ere. I await instructions.”
    “Find out who they are and what they want,” said Mabrey.
    Pedro bowed and departed, and we all went to the window to watch him meet the newcomers. Our two Misskitos, we noticed, arose at their approach and bowed very low. The strangers were attired in garments unlike anything worn today, except perhaps on feast days or at masquerades or pageants. One Indian, much taller than the other two, was more richly and gaudily attired. And into his feather-crown were woven the red plumes of the quetzal, the sacred bird whose plumage might be worn only by an emperor under the old regime.
    The tall red man spoke a few words to Pedro in an authoritative manner, and the latter, after making obeisance, turned and hurried back to us.
    “He ees the great Bahna, the holy one!” said Pedro. "He would ’ave speech weeth the senores.”
    “All