Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT 17 « A vast circle of light sprang out upon the folds of the flickering, rushing curtains. Misty at first, its edges sharpened until they rested upon the blazing glory of the northern sky like a pale ring of cold flame. And about it the aurora began to churn, to heap itself, to revolve. - Toward the ring from every side raced the majestic folds, drew them- selves together, circled, seethed around it like foam of fire about the lip of a cauldron, and poured through the shining circle as though it were the mouth of that fabled cavern where old Aeolus sits blowing forth and breathing back the winds that sweep the earth. Yes—into the ring’s mouth the aurora flew, cascading in a columned stream to earth. Then swiftly, a mist swept over all the heavens, veiled that incredible cataract. “Magnetism?” muttered Drake. “I guess not!” “Tt: struck about where the Ting-pa was broken and seemed drawn down like the rays,” I said. “Purposeful,” Drake said. “And devilish. It hit on all my nerves like a—like a metal claw. Purposeful and deliberate. There was intelligence behind that.” “Intelligence? Drake—what intelligence could break the rays of the setting sun and suck down the aurora?” “T don’t know,” he answered. “Devils,” croaked Chiu-Ming. “The devils that defied Buddha—and have grown strong—” “Like a metal claw!” breathed Drake. Far to the west a sound came to us; first a whisper, then a wild rushing, a prolonged wailing, a crackling. A great light flashed through the mist, glowed about us and faded. Again the wailing, the vast rush- ing, the retreating whisper. Then silence and darkness dropped embraced upon the valley of the blue poppies. CHAPTER II The Sigil on the Hock AWN came. Drake had slept well. But [, who had not his youthful resiliency, lay for long, awake and uneasy. I had hardly sunk into troubled slumber before dawn awakened me. | As we. breakfasted, I approached directly that matter which my GOGO .S (GO)