Avon Fantasy Reader No. 11 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

tone scream of terror, caught at Mogglesby with all four hands, but the next sostant was raised aloft and crashed down on its skull under the man’s weight. The thing fay stilf, Somewhere the white man heard a great shouting and hallooing. In a red haze he saw the wood-men flying on feet and kouckles toward the trees, while the black men came running toward the gladiators with joyous shouts. They were calling him the lion man, the white panther. They had seen the spirit of Mumbo fighting by his side. “Sit here,” cried Loaga ia intoxication. “Rest here where the sun will cure your wounds!” “What an acm you have!” cried Sammu, touching the torn arm, “As huge as the wood-man’s,” Mogglesby sat panting, his huge breast rising and falling. The Baloongas gathered about him, gazing at him with excited eyes. Never had the sun witnessed such a battle. At a signal from Loaga, the black men began pull- ing up dried grass and running with it to Mogglesby for a bed, for a soft bed for their champion to rest on. Suddenly Sammu began flinging up his hands and screeching in ecstasy. The brothers of the M’Bembi piled dead grass around the wounded hero. All at once from behind, the white man felt a crashing blow on his neck. It did not decapitate him. He leaped up with a roar of rage and dashed at the black man who had struck with his assegat. He had the miscreant in his hands. Instantly assegats from a dozen of the M’Bembi launched at the champion. Mogglesby felt a kind of profound universal pain, as if dull pain covered the red sky and soaked the earth itself. He tried to strike out at the nearest black man, but the next moment was down on the earth. He saw a multitude of hands piling dry grass over him. The sky, the sunlight was lost in grass. Somewhere Mogglesby felt that fire was burning something; somewhere pain was flowing through nerves and flesh other than his own... . Toward sunset Loaga stopped the dancing and the feeding and spoke to the Baloongas. “Brothers of the M’Bembi,” said the head-man of the village, “your hearts are now the hearts of a lion. All of you are brave, generous, uncon- querable*warriors. But the great Mogglesby looked with forbidding eyes on these sacrifices. We now, who have the heart of the master, we too must look upon this custom with forbidding eyes. We are a great people and the sacrificing of our brothers must cease. Tomorrow the warriors of the Baloongas will trek to Ghandis and submit ourselves to the governor.” ¢ *® & NoTE— Here the doctor’s narrative ended abruptly and most inconclusively. A number of questions could and should have been asked in the interest of science but the utter queerness of the tale prevented a considered interroga- tion. It would have been like an attempt to question Scheherazade about Comicbooks.com