A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, February 1950 — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SMOKING LAND And was it not certain that I was one of the first whites ever to reach this Smoking Land? And if certain cautious scientists had already come here to set up an experimental laboratory, what in thunder would they be doing with an ar- quebus? No, they would have automatic pistols and machine guns. But arquebus was unmistakably the word he had used. I said, finally, that this was not an arquebus. That an arquebus was to my people a thing for laughter, but that this killed like thought and almost as pain- lessly. He considered me for a time, after I had said this, and I could see m his eye the blank coldness of a man who is sure that what he is hearing is a vast and glorious lie. At the same moment, or a shade later, a shadow fell across the tail of my eye. I tried to twist myself around, but I was too late, for a pair of efficient hands laid hold of me and squeezed me into submission. TRIED to bank him in the nose with an upward jerk of my head. Then I tried to get him in the ribs with a swing of my elbow. An elbow will do about ten times what a fist can ever manage, but I found that I had spilled myself into all sorts of trouble. What happened to me was a strangle- hold, a toehold, a full nelson, a body scissors, a wrist-and-nose-hold, all at once. I lay still. If I hadn’t, I would have broken myself to bits. I gave myself about ten seconds to survive the various moun- tains of weight and strength that had been dumped upon me, one after the other. The giants who had grabbed me disen- tangled themselves when their lord gave a couple of grunts, and they rose, with me dripping from their hands. I did not struggle. Nobody wants to struggle when he has just had a hand- to-hand conference with the assembled heavyweight champions of the world. They had gathered around me waiting for further orders, while the rest of the circle moved in without haste to look me over. The big man was now planted just before me. He was about fifty, and ran a little to stomach and.whiskers, He looked, say, like a Swedish, banker out for an airing on skis during the summer vaca- tion. He was no darker in the skin than’ I would have been minus eight months of smoke from seal oil flame. He had a lot of jaw and a lot of cheekbone, and he had small, gray-blue eyes, that looked me over judicially. He asked me, “Of what land are you, Stranger? And how have you come to this country?” I said that I had been trying to tell him that I came from the far South where the sun shone every day of the year, but that I had been led away by unlucky fate and had gone north, and the storms and floating ice had brought me, at last, to the first meal of beef I had had in eight moons. When I got through, he spent another few minutes looking me over, and then he said, in a rather broad dialect, that seemed to me like a cross between Scotch and Irish brogues, “Wherefore dost thou lie, friend, seeing that a lie eats the tongue that speaks it!” It fairly flattened me, when I heard English spoken. But what English. He put in the “dost thou” and the literary phrasing, as naturally as you please. I gasped at him. “What I’ve said is no lie. I’ve told you the truth. As a matter of fact, I’ve been through white hell to get this far. I’ve really been eight months on the ice, and that’s not a lie at all.” “Of what race are you?” said the big fellow. “‘American,” said I, “American?” said he. “American? That is a country of which I’ve never heard.” , I laughed a little, easily, “Stop kidding,” said I. “Or do you want to say that you’ve never heard of the United States of America?” “The United States of America? It is a strange name,” said he. “And are all the people of that country black?” “Rub my face with a handful of snow and you'll get down to the white,” said I. And, so help me, that’s exactly what he did. He picked up a handful of snow and rubbed my cheeks hard—so hard that he almost froze the flesh to the bone. And then he squinted. What he saw made him nod his head. 43, COMicaoo® S C@ iin