Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 114: what you’re looking at

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

116 THE METAL MONSTER I gripped Drake; shrank with him into the farthest corner—for on the other side of us the wall was opening. First it was only a crack; then rapidly it widened. There stretched another passageway, luminous and long; far down it we glimpsed movement. Closer that movement came, grew plainer. Out of the mistily luminous distances, three abreast and filling the corridor from side to side, raced upon us a company of the great spheres! | | Back we cowered from their approach—back and back; arms out- stretched, pressing against the barrier, flattening ourselves against the shock of the destroying impact menacing. “It’s all up,” muttered Drake. “No place to run. They’re bound to smash us. Stick close, Doc. Get back to Ruth. Maybe I can stop them!” Before I could check him, he had leaped straight in the path of the rushing globes, now a scant twoscore yards away. The globes stopped—halted a few feet from him. They seemed to - contemplate us, astonished. They turned upon themselves, as though consulting. Slowly they advanced. We were pushed forward and lifted gently. Then as we hung suspended, held by that force which always I can liken only to myriads of tiny invisible hands, the shining arcs of their backs undulated beneath us. Their files swung around the corner and marched down the passage by which we had come from the immense hall. And when the last rank had passed from under us we were dropped softly to our feet; stood swaying in their wake. | A curious frenzy of helpless indignation shook me, a rage of humilia- tion obscuring all gratitude I should have felt for our escape. Drake’s eyes blazed wrath, : \ | “The insolent devils!” He raised clenched fists. “The insolent, dom- ineering devils!” | We stared after them. | Was the passage growing narrower—closing? Even as I gazed I saw it shrink; saw its walls slide silently toward each other. I pushed Drake into the newly opened way and sprang after him. | Behind us was an unbroken wall covering all that space in which but a moment before we had stood! | Is it to be wondered that a panic seized us; that we began to run _ crazily down the alley that still lay open before us, casting over our shoulders quick, fearful glances to see whether that inexorable, dreadful closing was continuing, threatening to crush us between these walls like flies in a vise of steel? But they did not close. Unbroken, silent, the way stretched before us and behind us. At last, gasping, avoiding each other’s gaze, we paused. And at that very moment of pause a deeper tremor shook me, a GOGO .S (GO)