A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, February 1950 — page 64: what you’re looking at

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

64 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY No, I was sort of pushed in by myself, and then I found myself in a long, narrow room which was rigged up like a labora- tory. At its far end was a big man wearing a long white robe, or apron, that covered him from neck to heel; and his head was covered with a white coif. His back was turned to me, and he was giving all his at- tention to a balance scales of the most delicate sort. The beam, mind you, was no bigger than a ray of light, so to speak; it looked as though a breath could be measured in that machine, and the man in white was adjusing the balance by touch- ing it with a long needle. I waited a minute, but no one else ap- peared, and no one spoke to me, so finally I cleared my throat rather noisily. The big fellow in white turned slowly about. When he faced me, I saw that his face was masked in a gruesome manner, and that he was looking out of narrowed eye slits. Perhaps that was because of the faint, acrid odor that filled the air. But when he saw me, the needle—if that’s what the tool was—dropped out of his hand and tinkled on the floor. And the man himself slumped into a chair, and grabbed the arms of it hard with his hands. Even at that distance, I could feel him shake. I said, “I was sent here. But may- be. Ff m interrupting something impor- tant.’ The man in white gave me no answer for another long moment. Then he pushed himself up from his chair on trembling arms and standing before me, he tore the hood from his head. His hair was as white as the cloth had been; I never have seen a finer, purer head of silver hair. But the face under it’ was young. It was a worn and tortured face, but it was wonderfully familiar to me, And then he said, ‘‘Are you, in mercy’s name, Bill Cassidy—or his ghost?” It was the voice of Cleve Darrell! CHAPTER 18 Reunion at the Ice Pole fy Y MIND, stunned and protesting, half denied my eyes and all my other senses, and vowed that this could not be he—not Cleve Darrell—but a cousin, a brother, an older man, who had lived a long weary time in the center of hell! But I started for him with my hands out, grinning, and then laughing, and then howling like an hysterical fool with joy and bewilderment and wonder. For I had spent too much life and time in the search for him to really believe, in the end, that I had found him. And as I crossed the floor to get to him, a million pictures crossed my mind, also, such as the gun of poor Franklin, and the Eskimo dead, face downwards, in the snow; and I saw the iceberg turn turtle again, and felt once more the flaming white rush of the Fountain of Life as it filled the crater of the volcano. I began wringing his hands, while he looked on me without a smile, but with wonder and awe. Then, when I could get my voice work- ing, I cried out,” Cleve, what brought you here, and how did you come, and what happened i in the laboratory, and what was behind your disappearance, and did you really come up here just to-be safely alone with your work?” Then, at last, he smiled, faintly. “Leave that all to the side. I got up here without a miracle. You may find out how, later on. I’m not sure. But you—did you fly? Have you landed an aeroplane up here?” I shook my head. “You don’t fly an aeroplane,” said I, “to find a place that doesn’t exist. No, Cleve. [ll tell you what—I came out of a crazy book that’s out of print, and the only copy is destroyed. Every thing that hap- pened to me from first to last is a dream that never happened—any more than it’s true that I’m talking to you here in the midst of nowhere.”’ He merely nodded. “Now start at the first,’ he said, Well, I started at the first. I told him the whole yarn. By the time I was nearly finished, I had lost most of my interest in what had happened. I broke out: “Now what happens to that girl? Don’t tell me that she’s really to be sacrificed?” I'll never forget how he looked at me, when I said this, and how his grave glance seemed to measure me up and down, while he found the right words for the answer— as a man does when he has to speak to a "comicbooks.com|