Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

ERRAND OF MERCY Lewes ran, in a kind of shrinking way, towards him. He was fearful of going—and equally fearful of not going. “If he fails,’ he thought, frantically, “‘then I'll be here alone!”’ Just before he got there, the rifle seemed to be jerked by an unseen cord. It shot away over the brink, pulling Raikes, hopelessly off balance, after it. There was a double splash. Lewes halted, staring with panic-wide eyes at the swift torrent. But Raikes didn’t reappear. Then it became certain that he never would. Lewes was, indeed, alone amid inexplicable dangers. As he stood there, frozen, one, two, three, four, five, six black snouts lifted slowly above the waves. Six pairs of beady eyes regarded him fixedly. Then, from the distant mists to the right, a moving mountain, jet black, came like a thunderbolt. Every- thing became confusion, the confusion of a nightmare. The river was lashed into a maelstrom. In it, huge black bodies whirled in a mad dance. The thrashing of fins became a sound of thunder, stunning the senses. Domin- ating it all, the leviathan, indistinctly seen, swiftly active. Lewes turned his back on it all and ran, past the ship, on across the plateau where no living thing larger than worm or ant could touch him. But was that true? As he ran, his heart pounding almost as fast as his feet, the noises of hell roaring about him, he remembered Hacking’s des- cription of the skeletons. Such monsters could leap onto the land, even if it cost them their lives. If the one behind him leaped now! The vision of his being crushed beneath that immense weight made him strain harder. He overtaxed him- self. The filter wasn’t allow- ing enough oxygen through for this effort. He began to reel as he ran, gasping. And as yet he'd not covered a 85 conmmicloooks.com