hem
heedless of thorns and whipping branches. The flashlight stabbed and
revealed nothing. Out of the shadows a bass croaking came again, and
Thwaite fired twice at the sound and there was silence save for a
renewed flurry of cracking twigs.

Along the water's edge, obscured by the trees between, moved something
black and huge, that shone wetly. Thwaite dropped to one knee and
began firing at it, emptying the magazine.

They pressed forward to the margin of the slough, feet squishing in
the deep muck. Dalton played his flashlight on the water's surface and
the still-moving ripples seemed to reflect redly.

Thwaite was first to break the silence. He said grimly, "Damned lucky
for me you got here when you did. It--_had_ me."

Dalton nodded without speaking.

"But how did you know what to do?" Thwaite asked.

"It wasn't my discovery," said the linguist soberly. "Our remote
ancestors met this threat and invented a weapon against it. Otherwise
man might not have survived. I learned the details from the Martian
records when I succeeded in translating them. Fortunately the Martians
also preserved a specimen of the weapon our ancestors invented."

He held up the little reed flute and the archeologist's eyes widened
with recognition.

Dalton looked out across the dark swamp-water, where the ripples were
fading out. "In the beginning there was the voice of evil--but there
was also the music of good, created to combat it. Thank God that in
mankind's makeup there's more than one fundamental note!"

End of Project Gutenberg's The Record of Currupira, by Robert Abernathy

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