Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

A, MERRITT 33 The disc tilted back to place, bent toward me again. I heard a shout; heard a bullet strike the pigmy that now clearly menaced; heard the bullet ricochet without the slightest effect upon it. Dick leaped beside me, raised a foot and kicked at the thing. There was a flash of light and upon the instant he crashed down as though struck by a giant hand, lay sprawling and inert upon the floor. There was a scream from Ruth; there was softly sibilant rustling all about her. I saw her leap the crevice, drop on her knees beside Drake. There was movement on the flagging where she stood. A score or more of faintly shining, bluish shapes were marching there—pyramids and cubes and spheres like those forming the shape that stood before me. There was a curious sharp tang of ozone in the air, a perceptible tightening as of electrical tension. They swept to the edge of the fissure, swam together, and there, hanging half over the gap was a bridge, half spanning it, a weird and fairy arch made up of alternate cube and angle. The shape at my feet disintegrated; resolved itself into units that raced over to the beckoning span. At the hither side of the crack they clicked into place, even as had the others. Before me now was a bridge complete except for the one arc near the middle where an angled gap marred it. I felt the little object I held pulse within my hand, striving to escape. I dropped iit. The tiny shape swept to the bridge, ascended it—dropped into the gap. The arch was complete—hanging in one flying span over the depths! Upon it, over it, as though they had but awaited this completion, rolled the six globes. And as they: dropped to the farther side the end of the bridge nearest me raised itself in air, curved itself like a scorpion’s tail, drew itself into a closer circled arc, and dropped upon the floor beyond. | Again the sibilant rustling—and cubes and pyramids and spheres were gone. Nerves tingling slowly back to life, mazed in absolute bewilderment, my gaze sought Drake. He was sitting up, feebly, his head supported by Ruth’s hands. “Goodwin!” he whispered. “What—what were they?” “Metal,” I said—it was the only word to which my whirling mind could cling—‘“métal—” | “Metal!” he echoed. “These things metal? Metal—alive and think ing!” ) Suddenly he was silent, his face a page on which, visibly, dread gathered slowly and ever deeper. And as I looked at Ruth, white-faced, and at him, I knew that my ECOMC OOO (GO)