Avon Fantasy Reader No. 9 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

-_—s grunting:—oooaze; arrrr; arrrr; oooaze—a volume of sound so great that it seemed to make the loom of the oar in my hand vibrate. “Good Lord!” said the Captain, and levelled his revolver into the mist; but he did not fire. ____ I had loosed one hand from my oar, and gripped my axe. I remember thinking that the Skipper’s pistol wouldn’t be much use against whatever _ thing made a noise like that. “It wasn’t ahead, Sir,” said the Third Mate, abruptly, from where he sat and steered. “I think it came from somewhere over to starboard.” “Damn this mist!” said the Skipper. “Damn it! What a devil of a stink! Pass that other anchor-light forrard.” I reached for the lamp, and handed it to the next man, who passed it on. “The other boat-hook,” said the Skipper; and when he’d got it, he lashed the lamp to the hook end, and then lashed the whole arrangement upright in the bows, so that the lamp was well above his head. “Now,” he said. “Give way gently! And stand by to back-water, if I tell you. .. . Watch my hand, Mister,” he added to the Third Mate. “Steer as,1 tell you.” - : ae We rowed a dozen slow strokes, and with every stroke, I took’a look over my shoulder. The Captain was leaning forward under the big lamp, with the bull’s-eye in one hand and his revolver in the other. He kept flashing the beam of the lantern up into the night. “Good Lord!” he said, suddenly. “Vast pulling.” . _ We stopped, and I slewed round on the thwart, and stared. | 3 Fle was standing up under the glow of the anchor-light, and shining the - bull’s-eye up at a great mass that loomed dully through the mist. As he _ flicked the light to and fro over the great bulk, I realised that the boat was within some three or four fathoms of the hull of a vessel. « Pull another stroke,” the Skipper said, in a quiet voice, after a few min- utes of silence. “Gently now! Gently! ... Vast pulling!” | I slewed round again on my thwart and stared. I could see part of the thing quite distinctly now, and more of it, as I followed the beam of the Captain’s lantern. She was a vessel right enough; but such a vessel as I had never seen. She was extraordinarily high out of the water, and seemed _ very short, and rose up into a queer mass at one end. But what puzzled me more, [ think, than anything else, was the queer look of her sides, down a which water was streaming all the time. oS ae” “That explains the sound of the water running,” I thought to myself; “but what on earth is she built of?” —ees You will understand a little of my bewildered feelings, when I tell you that as the beam of the Captain’s lamp shone on the side of this queer vessel, it showed stone everywhere—as if she were built out of stone. I never felt so dumb-founded in my life. “She’s stone, Cap’n!” I said. “Look at her, Sir!” I realised, as I spoke, a certain horribleness, of the unnatural. ...A 95 Comicbooks.co