Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

52 THE METAL MONSTER Drake’s grin cut like a sunray through the nightmare dread that. shrouded my mind. “Catch,” he called; placed one hand beneath the beast’s belly, the other under its throat; his shoulders heaved—and up. shot the pony, laden as it was, landed softly upon four wide-stretched legs beside me. The faces of the two gaped up, ludicrous in their amazement. “Follow,” cried Norhala. | - Ventnor leaped wildly for the top, Drake beside him; in the flash of a humming-bird’s wing they were gripping me, swearing feebly. The unseen hold angled; struck upward; clutched from ankle to thigh} held us fast—men and beast. Away swept the block that bore Ruth and Norhala; I saw Ruth crouching, head bent, her arms around the knees of the woman. They slipped into the mists; vanished. And after them, like a log in a racing current, we, too, dipped be- neath the faintly luminous vapors. The cubes moved with an entire absence of vibration; so smoothly and skimmingly, indeed, that had it not been for the sudden wind that had risen when first we had stirred, and that now beat steadily upon our faces, and the cloudy walls streaming by, I would have thought ourselves at rest. I saw the blurred form of Ventnor drift toward the forward edge. | He walked as though wading. I essayed to follow him; my feet I could not lift; I could advance only by gliding them as though skating. | Also the force, whatever it was, that held me seemed to pass me on from unseen clutch to clutch; it was as though up to my hips I moved through a closely woven yet fluid mass of cobwebs. I had the fantastic idea that if I so willed I could slip over the edge of the blocks, crawl about their sides without falling—like a fly on the vertical faces of a huge sugar loat. I drew beside Ventnor. He was staring ahead, striving, I knew, to pierce the mists for some glimpse of Ruth. He turned to me, his face drawn with anxiety, his eyes feverish. “Can you see them, Walter?” His voice shook. “God—why did | ever let her go like that? Why did I let her go alone?” “They'll be close ahead, Martin.” I spoke out of a conviction I could not explain. “Whatever it is we’re bound for, wherever it is the woman’s taking us, she means to keep us together—for a time at least. ’'m sure ofr it “She said—follow.” It was Drake beside us. “How the hell can we do anything else? We haven't any control over this bird we’re on. But she has. What she meant, Ventnor, is that it would follow her.” ) “That’s true” —new hope softened the haggard tace— “that’s. true— ECOMC OOO (GO)