Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 171: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XXVII “The Drums of Destiny LOWLY we descended that mount of desolation; lingeringly, as though the brooding eyes of Norhala were not yet sated with destruc- tion. Of human life, of green life, of life of any kind there was none. Man and tree, woman and flower, babe and bud, palace, temple and home—Norhala had stamped flat. She had crushed them within the rock—even as she had promised. | The tremendous tragedy had absorbed my every faculty; I had had no time to think of my companions; I had forgotten them. Now in the painful surges of awakening realization, of full human understanding of that inhuman annihilation, I turned to them for strength. Faintly I wondered again at Ruth’s: scantiness of garb, her more than half nudity; dwelt curiously upon the red brand across Ventnor’s forehead. In his eyes and in Drake’s I saw reflected the horror I knew was in my own. But in the eyes of Ruth was none of this—sternly, coldly tri- umphant, indifferent to its piteousness as Norhala herself, she scanned the waste that less than an hour since had been a place of living beauty. I felt a shock of repulsion. After all, those who had been destroyed so ruthlessly could not a// have been wholly evil. Yet mother and blossom- ing maid, youth and oldster, all the pageant of humanity within the great walls were now but lines within the stone. According to their different lights, it came to me, there had been in Ruszark no greater number of the wicked than one could find in any great city of our own civilization. From Norhala, of course, I looked for no perception of any of this. But from Ruth— My reaction grew; the pity long withheld racing through me linked with a burning anger, a hatred for this woman who had been the direct- ing soul of that catastrophe. | ; My gaze fell again upon the red brand. I saw that it was a deep inden- tation as though a thong had been twisted around Ventnor’s head biting the bone. There was dried blood on the edges, 4 double ring of swollen white flesh rimming the cincture. It was the mark of—torture! “Martin,” I cried. “That ring? What did they do to your” “They waked me with that,” he answered quietly. “I suppose I ought to be grateful—although their intentions were not exactly—therapeu- tic—” “They tortured him,” Ruth’s voice was tense, bitter; she spoke in 173 GOGO .S (GO)