All-Story Weekly, March 1, 1919 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

ah 2 3 THE CONQUEST. OF THE MOON POOL. tion as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritual oppression as though sdme vast- ness was falling, pressing, stifling me. I turned—and Larry caught me as I reeled. “Steady! _ Steady, old man!” he whis- pered. - At first all that my staggering conscious- ness could realize was an immensity, an immeasurable uprearing, that brought with it the same throat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some great height—then a blur of white faces—intol- erable shinings of hundreds upon thousands of eyes—huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheater of jet, a stupendous semi- circle held within its mighty arc the ivory platform on which I stood. It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into the sparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebon bulwarks—like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheer greatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphi- theater, sloping slightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of faces against its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes, were those of myriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gaze focused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like a torrent—tangible, appalling! Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of the amphitheater raised itseli—above it the first terrace of the seats, and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feet upward, set within them like a panel, was a dead- black surface in which shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above it and around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones. Gn each side of me, bordering the plat- form, were scores of small pillared alcoves; a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate, fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an. opening stared— | it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancient Gothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins and peo- ple of my own race on earth’s fair face. And within these alcoves were gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish men, of the fair-haired folk. At _ through which we had come, a passageway =a -Lugur! opposite where the ramp ran up to the dais == ee my right, a few feet from the neering —— led back between the fretted stalls. Half- way between us and the massive base of the __ amphitheater a dais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp and dais and along the center of the gleam- ing platform down to where it kissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers lay like a fairy carpet. On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line or curve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stood Yolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing blue Stones, his mighty body stark bare, was a! } ii Lear he af ‘ ) Yyhe ip sil ' Capek y ae ' Res ry MF th Ante ee my : ‘ag Wi Mente Bs s)} aN th id A) Rs \y TQ EE Uae ONT ON ANTE TE 1 \ fa’ O’Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, I let my= self be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ran behind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarf paused, opened a door, and motioned us within. Entering, I found that 9 we were exactly ysl p> AL pi fubd fty foveal Air's Shorten id iv of 116 a Sal) 5 thf iM PRS Gt a OWI Ut CTE co Vd eA CAL ERT Cty 7 ia au AN y —and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. She glanced at O’Keefe and. smiled. I noted her extraordinary exhilara-. = tion—her eyes ablaze with little dancing points of light; her body that seemed to palpitate, the rounded delicate muscles be-. neath the translucent skin to run with little eager waves; she seemed—what is the word the Scotch use?—fey! Suddenly Larry whistled softly. ‘““ There’s Von Hetzdorp!”’ he said. 7 I looked where he pointed. Opposite us sat the German; clothed as we were, lean-. ing forward, his eyes eager behind his ape yeahs ie ni tiled hey Oe UTA a || why ibd, Vihel Ai rub, j / A abi AS 4 AN) L vel yy ae TM i) eit : bd Pius Me LEGON alee AA a | glasses; but if he saw us he gave no sign. _ = * And there’s Olaf!” said O’Keefe. = Beneath the carved stall in which sat the German was an aperture. Unprotected by pillars, or by grills, opening clear upon the platform, near it stretched the trail of flow- ers up to the great dais which Lugur the Voice and Yolara the Priestess guarded. Nor was Olaf clad as we. His mighty torso | covered with a white tunic stuffed into his old dungarees, his feet bare, he sat immo- bile, staring out toward the prismatic veil, and in his eyes, even at that distance, I J sw!" on AY Aa ee) ich 4 ; PT TU BL To bal tf Ny { My 7) 2 eps Ay , 4. ¥ f SAH ie?) bt fy) i mi uh sth ~~ Pe : Me Phi A i Nv 1s comicbooks.co os s -7,