Avon Fantasy Reader No. 7 — page 112: what you’re looking at

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

108° | FRANK BELKNAP LONG, JR. to lessen the torture, to ease the tension as I crawled forward on my hands and knees. oa _ “Miss Beardsley, you must have faith. I am coming for you on my hands and knees. The way is long, and there will be much pain—but you must fight Ishtar through your will!” | | “Arthur, it is squeezing me. It is soft, and I cannot grip it. It flips away from me. You must hurry! But I shall not fear, Arthur. Fear is deadly, and will destroy us both.” | Long and white and smooth was the passage that opened out before me, and ran down into the earth. Into my mind came fragments of horrid super “4 stition, and malicious memory, and a phrase from Joseph Glanvill which Poe : had once quoted: “the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus!” The passage before me was a tunnel of nightmare, and with my brain I doubted; but I saw the, tunnel clearly, and the light streaming out of it. And the thing that had carried Miss Beardsley over the rough ground, the thing of slime and night, bad crept into the tunnel, and it did not expect me to follow. Or did it expect me to follow? 3 : Through interminable windings and turnings I clambered on my hands and knees. The tunnel narrowed and threatened to embrace me, and then it widened until I could not glimpse in the wavering light its high, sloping top. Forward I pressed through the shadows, and shouted and wept in the dark- ness; and far ahead I heard an audible swishing, as the thing crawled through the damp cold, leaving a trail of slime and unspeakable odor in its wake. The impressions left me by that horrible descent were profoundly grave and unforgettable. But some destiny over which I had no control had arranged that 1 should suffer, and as I crawled downward on my hands and knees I knew that no bestial god could survive that destiny. Suffering and terror would be mine, but out of the night would come a marvelous dawn, and the confused discords about me would somehow harmonize one with the other, and | should listen with exaltation and ecstasy to a gorgeous and stupendous sym- phony. I would return from the brink of the pit, and Miss Beardsley and I would face the new dawn together. Why is a cold, ill-lighted tunnel that twists and turns superior to the darkness? Why did I feel a resurgence of confidence as I moved forward over the cold ground? For eternities [ crawled forward on my hands and knees, and then, quite unexpectedly, upon turning a bend I saw it. Stupendous and awful! And to think that one might anywhere, unexpectedly, come upon such an abomina- tion. “What is the use of going on?” I thought. “This thing cannot be. If it Comicbooksreomr