Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

BEYOND THE STARS. haps it was a little frightened. Perhaps even now it was huddling at the threshold oi eternity—peeping out, dazzled by the light, eager yet timorous. All so silent, so hidden from me as I sat gazing from above. Mysterious business! Awesome! Frightening! Suddenly it occurred to me that Dr. Weatherby was dead. A finger had stirred, no more. But there was a change, a new emptiness to the mask, an aura of peace. The spirit perhaps had been less afraid as it took the step and gently closed the door behind it. I straightened. Outside in the street a man was shouting again. The girls looked up from their whispering. I knew, and I was glad, that Dolores and Alice were ab- sorbed in these things Sonya had to tell them. The shock of Dr. Weatherby’s im- pending death had come to them when first they knew it was inevitable; and now they were absorbed in other tragedies. The man in the street shouted again. And Sonya sprang from the coucn. “He says ‘Our king is dead.’” She laughed hysterically. ‘‘ Death everywhere! I must go to the Island of the Virgins. Will you come? I can take you. The virgins are ready! We must act at once!”’ CHAPTER IX. THE NAMELESS HORROR. ‘NT was the first time we had ever left this house in which virtually we had been imprisoned ever since our arrival. Ren had not returned with Jim and Lupe. If the king were really dead, there would be a great confusion at the castle; they might be detained indefinitely. Sonya would not wait. “A few hours only,” she urged. ‘“ Then we will be back. I will leave a message for my uncle and your friends.” The first shock of Dr. Weatherby’s death was over; there was no advantage in the girls remaining here. We started finally. On the lower floor of the house we found long dark cloaks and donned them, with a queerly flat, mound-shaped hat for me and light scarfs to cover the girls’ heads. The lower door 871 was open; Ren had left it so, knowing that Sonya would stay with us. Technically we were prisoners; but Sonya paid scant ceremony now to that. The king was dead; our oath of allegiance to the nation could be taken for granted. ‘My allegiance goes to you,” Dolores said naively. “ You girls.” And Alice nodded. “Yes,” agreed Sonya. ‘“ But do not say so, openly. And you, my friend Leonard —you are a man—hbe careful what you say if you have any sympathy for our cause.” Sympathy! How mild a word, as again visions of what she had told us sprang be- fore me! I felt at that moment that I was with these girls heart and soul. I did not know what was impending; nor could I guess what a strange part my own was to be! In this residential section of the city there was at this hour no traffic in the street. The shouting crowd had disap- peared. Sonya led us to the main street level. The pedestrian bridges were above us. A hurrying man shouted down at us. But Sonya ignored him. An unnatural silence seemed to hang about the dark, somnolent city—-as though it only seemed sleeping and were wide awake. <A tenseness was in the air. The houses were dark, but in almost every win- dow I fancied that figures were watching, faces peering out. It was not wholly fancy, for I saw some of them—women standing, peering expectant, frightened. About the streets men were lurking. We passed a garden which had a soft, pale glow of light suffusing it. In a thicket of vivid flowers, I saw a man crouching, eying us. A tenseness was on Sonya; and a erimness. We hurried past the garden; the man did not move. On the metallic pavement along here our footsteps sounded very loud. We avoided the lights; mounted the hill for a block or two, then turned into a very narrow street of shadows. The houses here—the backs of houses, I assumed—were blank, two-storied walls. We passed each of them hurriedly; my heart was thumping. Sonya had said that these were merely back entrances to inner courtyards of the houses, but it seemed, to Gomichooks (E@)