Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

42 THE METAL MONSTER the woman, her gaze resting upon Drake, his arms about Ruth, her head hidden on his breast. The valley was empty—save for the huddled heaps that dotted it. High up on the mountain path a score of figures crept, all that were left of those who but a little before had streamed down to take us captive or to slay. High up in the darkening heavens the /ammergeiters, the winged scavengers of the Himalayas, were gathering. The woman lifted her hand, beckoned us’ once more. Slowly we walked toward her, stood before her. The great clear eyes searched us— but no more intently than our own wondering eyes did her. CHAPTER VI Norhala of the Lightnings E LOOKED upon a vision of loveliness such, I think, as none has beheld since Trojan Helen was a maid. At first all I could note were the eyes, clear as rain-washed April skies, crystal clear as some secret spring sacred to crescented Diana. Their wide gray irises were flecked with golden amber and sapphire—flecks that shone like clusters of little aureate and azure stars, Then with a strange thrill of wonder I saw that these tiny constella- tions were not in the irisés alone; that they clustered even within the pupils—deep within them, like far-flung stars in the depths of velvety, midnight heavens. a | Whence had come those cold fires that had flared from them, I won- dered—more menacing, far more menacing, in their cold tranquillity than the hot flames of wrath? These eyes were not perilous—no, Calm they were and still—yet in them a shadow of interest flickered; a ghost of friendliness smiled. Above them were level, delicately penciled brows of bronze. The lips were coral crimson and—asleep. Sweet were those lips as ever master painter, dreaming his dream of the very soul of woman’s sweetness, saw in vision and limned upon his canvas—and asleep, nor wistful for awakening. A proud, straight nose; a broad low brow, and over it the masses of the tendriling tresses—tawny, lustrous topaz, cloudy, metallic. Like spun silk of ruddy copper; and misty as the wisps of cloud that Soul’tze, Goddess of Sleep, sets in the skies of dawn to catch the wandering dreams of lovers. GOGO .S (GO)