Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 143: what you’re looking at

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

A, MERRITT 145 How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling— the seeming leisureness with which the wall drifted up past us? And was this punishment—a sentence meted out for profaning with our eyes a forbidden place; a penalty for touching with our gaze the ark of the Metal Tribes—their holy of holies—the budding place of the Metal Babes? | The valley was swinging—swinging in slow broad curves; was oscil- lating dizzily. i | | Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward. Realization swept me; left me amazed; only half believing. This was no illusion. After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked. We were swinging—not the valley. | | Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across the City’s scarp; three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking. And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again were twinkling, regarding us with impish mockery. | It was the grip of the living wall that held us; that rocked us from side. to side as though giving greater breadths of it chance to behold us: that was dropping us gently, carefully, to the valley floor now a scant two thousand feet below. _ A storm of rage, of intensest resentment swept me; as once before any gratitude I should have felt for escape was submerged in the utter humiliation with which it was charged. I shook my fists at the twinkling wall, strove to kick and smite it like an angry child, cursed it—not childishly. Dared it to hurl me down to death. I felt Drake’s hand touch mine. “Steady,” he said. “Steady, old boy. It’s no use. Steady. Look down.” Hot with shame for my outburst, weak from its violence, I obeyed. The valley floor was not more than a thousand feet away. Thronging about where we must at last touch, clustered and seething, was a multi- tude of the Metal Things. They seemed to be looking up at us, watch- ing, waiting for us. : “Reception committee,” grinned Drake. | I glanced away; over the valley. It was luminously clear; yet the sky was overcast, no stars showing. The light was no stronger than that of the moon at full, but it held a quality unfamiliar to me. It cast no shadows; though soft, it was piercing, revealing all it bathed with the distinctness of bright sunshine. The illumination came, I thought, from the encircling veils falling from the band of amethyst. , | And, as I peered, out of the veils and far away sped a violet spark. With meteor speed it flew toward us. Close to the base of the vast facade it landed with a flashing of blue incandescence. I knew it for one ECOMC OOO (GO)