文档介绍：THE MONSTER MEN
THE MONSTER MEN
Edgar Rice Burroughs
1
THE MONSTER MEN
1 THE RIFT
As he dropped the last grisly fragment of the dismembered and
mutilated body into the small vat of nitric acid that was to devour every
trace of the horrid evidence which might easily send him to the gallows,
the man sank weakly into a chair and throwing his body forward upon his
great, teak desk buried his face in his arms, breaking into dry, moaning
sobs.
Beads of perspiration followed the seams of his high, wrinkled
forehead, replacing the tears which might have lessened the pressure upon
his overwrought nerves. His slender frame shook, as with ague, and at
times was racked by a convulsive shudder. A sudden step upon the
stairway leading to his workshop brought him trembling and wide eyed to
his feet, staring fearfully at the locked and bolted door.
Although he knew perfectly well whose the advancing footfalls were,
he was all but e by the madness of apprehension as they came
softly nearer and nearer to the barred door. At last they halted before it,
to be followed by a gentle knock.
"Daddy!" came the sweet tones of a girl's voice.
The man made an effort to take a firm grasp upon himself that no tell-
tale evidence of his emotion might be betrayed in his speech.
"Daddy!" called the girl again, a trace of anxiety in her voice this time.
"What IS the matter with you, and what ARE you doing? You've been
shut up in that hateful old room for three days now without a morsel to eat,
and in all likelihood without a wink of sleep. You'll kill yourself with
your stuffy old experiments."
The man's face softened.
"Don't worry about me, sweetheart," he replied in a well controlled
voice. "I'll soon be through now--soon be through--and then we'll go
away for a long vacation-- for a long vacation."
"I'll give you until noon, Daddy," said the girl in a voice which carried
a more strongly defined tone of authority than her father's soft drawl, "and
the