Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 1 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

about. Bradley was a brave man, yet so keen was the feeling of revulsion engendered by the sight and sound of that grim, uncanny shape that he dis- tinetly felt the goose flesh rise over the surface of his body; and it was with difficulty that he re- frained from following an instinctive urge to fire upon the nocturnal intruder. Better, far better would it have been had he given in to the insistent demand of his subconscious mentor; but his almost fanatical obsession to save ammunition proved now his undoing, for while his attention was riveted upon the thing circling before him and while his ears were filled with the beating of its wings, there _ swooped silently out of the black night behind him another weird and ghostly shape. With its huge wings partly closed for the dive and its white robe fluttering in its wake, the apparition swooped down upon the Englishman. So great was the force of the impact when the thing struck Bradley between the shoulders that the man was half stunned. His rifle flew from his grasp; he felt clawlhike talons of great strength seize him beneath his arms and sweep him off his feet; and then the thing rose swiftly with him, so swiftly that his cap was blown from his head by the rush of air as he was borne rapidly upward into the inky sky and the cry of warning to his companions was forced back into his lungs. The creature wheeled immediately toward the east and was at once joined by its fellow, who cir- cled them once and then fell in behind them. Brad- ley now realized the strategy that the pair had used to capture him and at once concluded that he was in the power of reasoning beings closely related to the human race if not actually of it. Past experience suggested that the great wings were a part of some ingenious mechanical device, for the limitations of the human mind, which is al- ways loath to accept aught beyond its own little experience, would not permit him to entertain the idea that the creatures might be naturally winged and at the same time of human origin. From his position, Bradley could not see the wings of his eaptor, nor in the darkness had he been able to examine those of the second creature closely when it circled before him. He listened for the purr of a motor or some other telltale sound that would prove the correctness of his theory. However, he was rewarded with nothing more than the constant flap-flap. The Captive of a Great Human Bird — RESENTLY, far below and ahead, he saw the waters of the inland sea, and a moment later he was borne over them. Then his captor did that which proved beyond doubt to Bradley that he was in the hands of human beings who had devised an almost perfect scheme of duplicating, mechanically, the wings of a bird—the thing spoke to its com- panion and in a language that Bradley partially understood, since he recognized words that he had learned from the savage races of Caspak. From this he judged that they were human, and being human, he knew that they could have no natural wings—for who had ever seen a human being so _ adorned! Therefore their wings must be mechan- st Po ee wets, aD) -, * : ree oa © vt 2 -4-- te > ” - ~~ ¥ a THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT 73 ical. Thus Bradley reasoned—thus most of us rea- son; not by what might be possible; but by what has fallen within the range of our experience. What he heard them say was to the effect, that having covered half the distance, the burden would now be transferred from one to the other. Bradley wondered how the exchange was to be accomplished. He knew that those giant wings would not permit the creatures to approach one another closely enough to effect the transfer in this manner; but he was soon to discover that they had other means of doing it. He felt the thing that carried him rise to a greater altitude, and below he glimpsed momentar- ily the second white-robed figure; then the creature above sounded a low call, it was answered from be- low, and instantly Bradley felt the clutching talons release him; gasping for breath, he hurtled down- ward through space. For a terrifying instant, pregnant with horror, Bradley fell; then something swooped for him from behind, another pair of talons clutched him beneath the arms, his downward rush was checked within another hundred feet, and close to the surface of the sea he was again borne upward. As a hawk dives for a songbird on the wing, so this great, human bird had dived for Bradley. It was a har- rowing experience, but soon over, and once again the captive was being carried swiftly toward the east, though to what fate he could not even guess. It was immediately following his transfer in mid-air that Bradley made out the shadowy form of a large island far ahead, and not long after, he realized that this must be the intended destination of his captors. Nor was he mistaken. Three quar- ters of an hour from the time of his seizure his captors dropped gently to earth in the strangest city that human eye had ever rested upon. Just a brief glimpse of his immediate surroundings was vouchsafed Bradley before he was whisked into the interior of one of the buildings; but in that momen- tary glance he saw strange piles of stone and wood and mud fashioned into buildings of all conceivable sizes and shapes, sometimes piled high on top of one another, sometimes standing alone in an open courtway, but usually crowded and jammed to- gether, so that there were no streets or alleys be- tween them other than a few which ended almost as socn as they began. The principal doorways ap‘ peared to be in the roofs, and it was through one of these that Bradley was inducted into the dark interior of a low-ceiled room. Here he was pushed roughly into a corner where he tripped over a thick mat, and there his captors left him. He heard them moving about in the darkness for a moment, and several times he saw their large luminous eyes glowing in the dark. Finally these disappeared and silence reigned, broken only by the breathing of the creatures which indicated to the Englishman that they were sleeping somewhere in the same apartment. It was now evident that the mat upon the floor was intended for sleeping purposes and that the rough shove that had sent him to it had been a rude invitation to repose. After taking stock of him- self and finding that he still had his pistol and ammunition, some matches, a little tobacco, a can- som icbool (Elo) a? = 4 % . - rs ‘ - ¥ Pi . be at - —_" Pd ‘ ‘