er dancer. And this time the vanishing happened
before my eyes, a creature at the rear of the group went out of
existence as suddenly and completely as though a light had blinked out.

The others, driven by their danger, rushed.

I met them, feet planted. I tried to embrace them all at once, went over
backward under them. I struck, wrenched, tore. I think I even bit
something grisly and bloodless, like fungoid tissue, but I refuse to
remember for certain. One or two of the forms struggled past me and
grappled Miss Dolby. I struggled to my feet and pulled them back from
her. There were not so many swarming after me now. I fought hard before
they got me down again. And Miss Dolby kept tearing and stabbing at the
canvas--again, again. Clutches melted from my throat, my arms. There
were only two dancers left. I flung them back and rose. Only one left.
Then none.

They were gone, gone into nowhere.

"That did it," said Miss Dolby breathlessly.

She had pulled the picture down. It was only a frame now, with ragged
ribbons of canvas dangling from it.

I snatched it out of her hands and threw it upon the coals of the fire.

"Look," I urged her joyfully. "It's burning! That's the end. Do you
see?"

"Yes, I see," she answered slowly. "Some fiend-ridden artist--his evil
genius brought it to life."

"The inscription is the literal truth, then?" I supplied.

"Truth no more." She bent to watch the burning. "As the painted figures
were destroyed, their incarnations faded."

We said nothing further, but sat down together and gazed as the flames
ate the last thread of fabric, the last splinter of wood. Finally we
looked up again and smiled at each other.

All at once I knew that I loved her.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Golgotha Dancers, by Manly Wade Wellman

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