Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

60 THE METAL MONSTER Far ahead raced the Thing on which stood woman and maid. Their hair streamed behind them, mingled, silken web of brown and shin- ing veil of red-gold; little clouds of sparkling corpuscles threaded them, like flitting swarms of fireflies; their bodies were nimbused with tiny, flickering tongues of lavender flame. | | About us, above us, began again to rumble the countless drums of the thunder. CHAPTER IX The Portal ot Flame T WAS as though we were on a meteor hurtling through space. The split air shrieked and shrilled, a keening barrier against the ava- lanche of the thunder. The blast bent us far back on thighs held rigid by the magnetic grip. The pony spread its legs, dropped its head;-through the hurricane roaring its screaming pierced thinly, that agonizing, terrible lamentation which is of the horse and the horse alone when the limit of its endur- ance is reached. | Ventnor crouched lower and lower, eyes shielded behind arms folded over his brows, straining for a glimpse of Ruth; Drake crouched beside him, bracing him, supporting him against.the tempest. Our line of flight became less abrupt, but the speed increased, the. wind-pressure became almost insupportable. I twisted, dropped upon my right arm, thrust my head against my shoulder, stared backward. When first I had looked upon the place I had sensed its immensity; now I began to realize how vast it must really be—for already the gate- -way through which we had come glimmered far away on high, shrunk to a hoop of incandescent brass and dwindling fast. Nor was it a cavern; I saw the,stars, traced with deep relief the familiar Northern constellations. Pit it might be, but whatever terror, whatever ordeals were before us, we would not have to face them buried deep within earth. There was a curious comfort to me in the thought. | Suddenly stars and sky were blotted out. We had plunged beneath the surface of the radiant sea. - ‘Lying in the position in which I was, I was sensible of a diminution of the cyclonic force; the blast streamed up and over the front of the cube. To me drifted only the wailings of our flight and the whimpering terror of the pony. 7 | GOGO .S (GO)