A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, February 1950 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

@ A. MERRITT’S FANTASY face, high in the cheekbones, and he had “a drooping moustache, six hairs to a side. “Well,’’ he said, “I for one like it not!” “Neither did the captain like it,” said Darrell, “but thou didst see him obey !” At that the man nodded and grunted. “Well,” he said, “it is not a thing to take a chance about. But neither is the signet of Wilbur the son of John a light thing. Therefore we go on—”’ And again I breathed, and we went on behind the pair, opening two doors, and ‘presently we stepped into a long, low chamber into which was fitted, almost like a Cigar in its wrapper, a thing shaped ‘like a torpedo, if you can imagine a torpedo sixty feet long, and on top and below, were projections like fins. Behind, it flattened out into a tail. It looked ready to slide without effort through either air or water! Darrell went up to it in the most casual way. “Open the exit door,” said he, and ‘turning a knob in the side of the silver ship, he opened a door, and Sylvia and I climbed into a little cabin furnished all about with small windows, and, looking straight ahead, I could see the dorsal fin of the airship straight before us, sweep- ing backward in a curve, something like the fin of a killer whale. How sleek and swift the curve of that top surface looked, and how it gleamed, pearl gray, in the soft light that filled the chamber. Darrell, climbing in after us, gave me ‘one look—and never have I seen more burning joy, and the will to do. He sat down in the foremost of the two broad seats, and began to work at some levers, hauling on this one and depressing that until a tremor passed through the body of the air boat. In the meantime, just as the ship came to life, as it were, and was capable of movement, I saw the barrier before us roll back, and looked out at what ap- pend a leaden gray wall of mist. But I ew it was the outer air, seen by me for the first time since I had entered the heart of the smoking mountain, “Ready!” said Darrell, through his teeth. And now, umder us, as the tremor of the ship increased, I heard a rushing = like ed Tee aed of a stream heard down wing. It grew much louder. We began to move—the side walls were creeping by us and the nose of the ship approaching the entrance, when I heard a loud shouting, and saw a form rush out of a side door, throwing up his hands. I saw him—and then I saw blackness of night, For it was the captain of the last guard, and he was screeching, “Shut the entrance gate. Shut it, even if the ac- cursed ship is crushed within its jaws. Treason! Treason!” To the right of the gate, on the verge of liberty and escape, I saw one of the workmen seize a long lever and pull—and the vast barrier slid a vard outwards to block our way! And then I did what I never had done before. I shot at a human being. And, mind you, with as little compunction, and with as great a calm as I would: have shot at a rabbit. T DID not seem to be a man, really, who stood there hauling away at the © lever; it was more like a mechanism that was preparing to entomb us and give us over to frightful death. Well, at any rate, I opened the door of the cabin, leaned out, and smashed a forty- five caliber bullet straight through the poor devil’s body. The impact slammed him against the wall. The other mechanic, instead of seizing ~ the lever, turned and ran for his life. I don’t blame ‘him, because he could guess that I was no more in the humor to miss a second target than I had the first. But now I had something else on my mind. For a flicker of light came under my eyes, and then the shining length of a sword, and a strong hand behind it, and behind that the powerful arm of the cap- tain of the guard. He shouted, “Death to traitors!” and rammed the point of his weapon straight against my breast. There was enough push in that thrust to drive me far back into the cabin, but I was not hurt. No, the point of that heavy rapier simply crumpled against the cuirass which I was wearing, and shards of steel fell glittering from me. It was a strange feeling—like a-taste of immortality. I think that I know, after that, es the anes ae of Cotter |