Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

the Captain would be likely to call him Collins. So it was the Captain who called out, “My, God Collins!” And what was it that came aft?’ “You're acting like a damned fool!’ I told him bluntly, though I was all but unnerved myself. You would have been too, to hear those terrible screams ringing through the ship every minute or so, and those strange voices of vanished men repeating those terror-stricken words! But I still had enough sense to face the fact it was only a parrot talking and that we had to get the Robert Sutter into port. I got Mathews below at last and we had a stiff drink together, after which we ate some canned beef and sea biscuit, the supper that had been preparing in the galley being hopelessly ruined. We knew for certain now there had been no third boat! | | “Well, that night we faced another complication, for none of the men would remain for’ard, but insisted on bringing their mattresses aft and crouch- ing down by the break of the poop. The helmsmen refused to be left alone and we had to let two men steer through the dark hours. Neither Mathews nor myself could sleep, with those screams ringing out, and we paced the night away together. It was uncanny to be on deck. We all had the feeling that at any moment something would loom up out of the sea and come toward us. “You'd have thought that parrot would have grown tired, or that its throat would have worn out. But it never ceased its clamor. Hour after hour there was that terrible screaming, exquisitely depicting everything that vanished crew must have suffered in that last hour or those last minutes, And between the screaming, the voices and words of dead men shouted across the noises of the flying ship! Can you wonder we all had the same terrors a child has in the dark, a darkness it peoples with dragons and burning-eyed bogies? I have always considered myself a moderately courageous man, but I tell you that on the Robert Sutter 1 really knew fear, the sort of utter fear that gets you by the throat and turns your stomach and knees to water. “As for Mathews, he was half insane, and he kept going below for a drink until he finally brought the bottle on deck with him. ‘We ought to kall the damned thing!’ he kept saying over and over. ‘We ought to kill it? But no one would go ‘midships and kill it. 1 would not have gone ’midships myself that night for all the money in the world. And by the time the dawn came the sheer panic of the night had subsided enough to give Mathews some element of reason. Perhaps it was the whisky he had consumed, but he certainly evidenced more control with the coming of the tropical sun all red and gold along the horizon. And still, remember, that parrot was scream- ing and shouting, with never‘a let-up! I would never have thought any crea- ture could survive such exhaustion as must have sapped its body. “"No, you're right, we can’t kill the damned thing,’ Mathews agreed alter we'd talked it over. ‘It’s the only clue we have. We've got to turn it over to the authorities and let them see what they can make of it.’ He swore thickly to himself. “But I'll go mad if it doesn’t stop! He plugged up his ears with some oakum, but he did not seem able to shut out the noise. He looked exhausted, drained out by the light of dawn. I think we were all drained out and I gave the men a tot of whisky apiece and made them go for’ard. 113