A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

THE NINTH LIFE | 91 hurrying. the stumbling man toward. the car, whose side door swung open. Sheep crowded, surging past the Rolls-Bentley, while more sheep poured out from behind the high wall. They clanked against. the wings, scraped past, baa-ing in fright, and Tott yelled: “Get on! get on!”’ It was impossible to move the car with the mass of sheep driving at it. Short of leaping out, he could do nothing. Perry Drake—she’s got Drake— tried to get the door on his side open, but — the pressure of the crowding sheep pre- vented it, and if he got over it on to the runningboard the animals would have swept him off his feet with their rush, driven on as they were by the pressure of others following them. And Gees saw that Drake, his spectacles missing, stumbled toward the sedan in the grip of whatever it was, like a man sense- less, already half dead. His black-furred captor urged him on, almost lifting him from his feet. Gees reached down to the pocket beside him and got out his automatic, Reaching over the side he fired, and the bullet starred the oblong glass in the back of the limousine. He tried for a second shot, but the pistol had jammed, and he drew it back to tug desperately and vainly at the recoil casing. But, with the report, the black-furred figure released its hold on Drake, who fell in a crumpled heap, while it leaped to disappear within—and the sedan began to move down the hill. “Oh, blast these sheep!” Perry shouted. The last of them surged past the car as the shepherd and his dog appeared in the opening by which they had emerged to the road, Perry got out, over the side of the car, and ran to the man, who stood staring, and lifted a hand to ‘scratch his head. Perry shook a fist at him, and then pointed to Drake’s still, crumpled figure. “See to that man, you!”’ he commanded fiercely. Without waiting for reply, he ran back to the car and climbed in again. ‘Get on, Mr. Green—get on!” he ordered. ‘‘We’ve got to catch that car.” “Before they can get inside the Grange, too,” Tott said sharply. “Remember how you looked for ’em there this morning, Mr. Green? They’ve got secret hiding places in that old house. My God, Fd never have believed—it was a mask, though, A lioness-head mask.” “Yes,’’ Perry said, as the Rolls-Bentley shot at the descent, “it must have been a mask; but why?” Gees spared one glance at Drake as he passed, and saw that he lay crumpled and ominously inert. The tires ground, half-skidding, on the curve of the hill, and the car swung out so menacingly that Gees had to slow down for an instant. Coming to straight road again, Gees saw the car ahead take the right-hand turn at the foot of the hill on two wheels. He almost held his breath for the crash seemed inevitable, but the black car straightened out and disap- peared, hurtling toward the Grange. “You'll lose them—you'll lose them!” Tott moaned. Slow, a little slower—that turn at the foot of the hill was dangerous. Open out —now brake strongly with the steering wheel hard over. Tott emitted a long, “Aah-h-h!” as the back wheels swung in a dry skid, and with the brake released | the car shot swiftly forward in its new direction. Past the last cottage of the hamlet, and on. Turning in with another dry skid between the posts where once a gate had marked the entrance to the drive, and now no more than fifty yards divided the two cars. Tott leaned forward. “You’ ve got ‘em. Pull up sharp, and we'll have ’em before they can get inside and hide that mask. We'll jump out after them as he stops, Perry.” The car ahead was almost leaping on the rutted, flinty way. Almost on to the moat-bridge, it lurched and swerved as the report of a bursting front tire, cut by the flints on the drive, reached their hear- ing. Lurched, swerved—crashed on the crumbling parapet, and, for a moment that lasted interminably, hung, toppling, drop- ping, to plunge thunderously. Only the ripples remained when Gees braked the Rolls-Bentley to a standstill. Perry, out on the bridge, laid a hand on the cracked and partly shattered para- pet to look over. Great bubbles came to — the surface, and more ripples rayed out comicbooks.com