A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, July 1950 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

ee ccwared Graydon, facing them steadily. z; “T t'ink you damned liar!” said Dancre, viciously. “We get Sterrett awake,” he turned to Soames. “We get him awake — quick. J tink he tell us more about this, — oui. A girl who wears stuff like this— ~ and he lets her go! Lets her go when he knows there must be more where this come from, eh, Soames? Damned funny is right, eh? Come, now, we see what - Sterrett tell us.” Graydon watched them go into the tent. Soon Soames came out, went to a spring that bubbled up from among the trees; returned, with water. Well, let them waken Sterrett; let him tell them whatever he could. They would not kill him that night, of that he was sure. They believed that he knew too much. And in the morning— What was hidden in the morning for them all? | That even now they were prisoners, Graydon did not doubt. Suarra’s warn- ing not to leave the camp. had been too — explicit. And since that tumult of the elfin horns, her swift vanishing and the silence that had followed he had no longer doubt that the within the grasp of some power, formi- dable as it was mysterious. The silence? Suddenly it came to him that the night had become strangely still. There was no sound either of insect or bird nor any stirring of the familiar after- twilight life of the wilderness. HE STRODE away, through the Al- garroba clump. There was a scant score of the trees. They stood up like a little leafy island peak within the brush covered savannah. They were great trees, every one of them, and set with a curious _ regularity as though they had not sprung up by chance; as though indeed they had been carefully planted. Graydon reached the last of them, rested a hand against the bole that looked like myriads of tiny grubs turned to soft brown wood. He peered out. The slope that lay before him was flooded with moonlight; the yellow blooms of the chilca shrubs that pressed to the very feet of the trees shone wanly in the silver flood. The faint- aay aromatic him “fiovene of the quenuar stole Set him. Movement or sign of ‘life = _—" a ~— A |. MERRITT’S FANTASY | Se eas had strayed as she had said | been for long. But oll At nese, he gos aoe Ene Pe Ce ee nt Ne ~~ ~~7y - — “<< 7 orl S ae oo Se re * Se _—S Od . - ry there — none in the still wilderness. yet— The spaces seemed filled with watchers} he felt their gaze upon him; knew with an absolute certainty that some hidden host girdled the camp. He scanned every bush and shadow; saw nothing. Never- theless the certainty of a hidden, unseen multitude persisted. A wave of nervous irritation passed through him. He would force them, whatever they were, to show themselves. He stepped boldly into the full moon- light. On the instant the silence intensified ; seemed to draw taut; to lift itself up whole octaves of stillnesses ; to become alert, ex- pectant—as though poised to spring upon him should he take one step further { A coldness wrapped him, a shudder shook him. He drew swiftly back to the shadow of the trees ; stood there, his heart beating furiously. The silence lost its poignancy, dropped back upon its haunches—but watchful and alert! What had frightened him? What was there in that tightening of the stillness that had touched him with the finger of nightmare terror? Trembling, he groped back, foot by foot, afraid to turn his back to the silence. Be- hind him the fire flared. And suddenly his fear dropped from him. His reaction from the panic was a heady recklessness. He threw a log upon the fire and laughed as the sparks shot up among the leaves. Soames, coming out of the tent for more water, stopped as he heard that laughter and scowled at him malevolently. “Laugh,” he said. “Laugh while you can—you damned traitor. You'll laugh on the other side of your mouth when we get Sterrett up and he tells us what he knows.” “That was a sound sleep I gave him, anyway,” jeered Graydon. “There are sounder sleeps! Don’t for- get it.” It was Dancre’s voice, cold and menacing from within the tent. He heard Sterrett groan. Graydon turned his back to the tent and deliberately faced that silence from which he had just fled. How long he sat thus he did not know. It could not have j git ee iy %, : rhe