Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 47: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAD PLANET, ‘And then, as the day drew to an end, he saw in the distance what seemed a range of purple hills. They were tall hills to Burl, some sixty or seventy feet high, and they seemed to be the agglomeration of a formless growth, multiplying its organ- isms and forms upon itself until the whole formed an irregular, cone-shaped mound. Burl watched them apathetically. Presently, he ate again of the oily fish. The taste was pleasant to him, accustomed to feed mostly upon insipid mushrooms. He stuffed himself, though the size of his prey left by far the larger part still uneaten. He still held his spear firmly beside him. It had brought him into trouble, but Burl possessed a fund of obstinacy. Unlike most of his tribe, he associated the spear with the food it had secured, rather than the difficulty into which it had led him. When he had eaten his. fill he picked it up and examined it again. The sharpness of its point was unimpaired. Burl handled it meditatively, debating whether or not to attempt to fish again. The shakiness of his little raft dissuaded him, and he abandoned the idea. Presently he stripped a sinew from the garment about his middle and hung the fish about his neck with it. That would leave him both hands - free. Then he sat cross-legged upon the sogvily floating fungus, like a pink-skinned Buddha, and watched the shores go by. Time had passed, and it was drawing near - sunset. Burl, never having seen the sun save as a bright spot in the overhanging haze, did not think of the coming of night as “sunset.” To him it was the letting down of darkness from the sky. — To-day happened to be an exceptionally bright day, and the haze was not as thick as usual. Far to the west, the thick mist turned to gold, while the thicker clouds above became blurred masses of dull-red. Their shadows seemed like lavender from the contrast of shades. Upon the still sur- face of the river, all the myriad tints and shadings were reflected with an incredible faithfulness, and the shining tops of the giant mushrooms by the river brim glowed faintly pink. Dragonflies buzzed over his head in their swift and angular flight, the metallic luster * of of. their bodies glistening in the rosy light. Great yellow butterflies flew lightly above the stream. Here, there, and everywhere upon the water appeared the shell-formed boats of a thousand caddis flies, floating upon the surface while they might. Burl could have thrust his hand down into their cavities and seized the white worms that inhabited the strange craft. The huge bulk of a tardy bee droned heavily overhead. Burl glanced upward and saw the long proboscis and the hairy hinder legs with their scanty load of pollen. He saw the great, multiple-lensed eyes with their ex- pression of stupid preoccupation, and even the sting that would mean death alike for him and for the giant insect, should it be used. The crimson radiance grew dim at the edge of the world. The purple hills had long been left behind. Now the slender stalks of ten thousand rougd-domed mush- rooms lined the river-bank,: and beneath them: spread fungi of all colors, from the rawest red to palest blue, but all now fading slowly to a nonochromatic background in the growing dusk. The buzzing, fluttering, and the flapping of the insects of the day died slowly down, while from a million hiding-places there crept out into the deep night soft and furry bodies of great moths, who preened them- selves and smoothed their feathery antennz before taking to the air. The strong-limbed crickets set up their thunderous noise— grown gravely bass with the increasing size of the organs by which the sound was made —and then there began to gather on the water those slender spirals of tenuous mist that would presently blanket the stream in a mantle of thin fog. : Night fell. The clouds above seemed to lower and grow dark. Gradually, now a drop and then a drop, now a drop and then a drop, the languid fall of large, warm rain- drops that would drip from the moisture- laden skies all through the night began. The edge of the stream became a place where great disks of coolly glowing flame appeared. The mushrooms that bordered on the river were faintly phosphorescent (Pleuro- tus phosphoreus ) and shone coldly upon the cComiclbooks.com