Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT 67 the Searcher of Hearts and the Eater of Souls, judging the jostling hosts of the newly dead. | | Temple it was in its immensity, and its solemn yastness—but unlike any temple ever raised by human toil. In no ruin of earth youth giants’ work now crumbling under the weight of time had I ever sensed a shadow of the strangeness with which this was instinct. No—nor in the shattered fanes that once had held the gdds of old Egypt, nor in ‘the pillared shrines of Ancient Greece, nor Imperial Rome, nor ‘mosque, basilica nor cathedral. a All these had been dedicated to gods which, whether created by hu- manity as science believes, or creators of humanity as their worshippers believed, still held in them that essence we term human. | The spirit, the force, that filled this place had in it nothing, nothing of the human. | | No place? Yes, there was one—Stonehenge. Within that monolithic circle I had felt a something akin to this, as inhuman; a brooding spirit stony, stark, unyielding—as though not men but a people of stone had raised the great Menhirs. | | This was a sanctuary built by a people of metal! It was filled with a soft yellow glow like pale sunshine. Up from its floor arouse hundreds of tremendous, square pillars down whose pol- ished sides the crocus light seemed to flow. - Far, far as the gaze could reach, the columns marched, oppresively ordered, appallingly mathematical. From their massiveness distilled a sense of power, mysterious, mechanical yet—living; something priestly, hierophantic—as though they were guardians of a shrine. ‘Now I saw whence came the light suffusing this place. High up among the pillars floated scores of orbs that, shone like pale gilt frozen suns. Great and small, through all the upper levels these strange lumi- naries gleamed, fixed and motionless, hanging unsupported in space. Out from their shining spherical surfaces darted rays of the same pale gold, rigid, unshifting, with the same suggestion of frozen stillness. “They look like big Christmas-tree stars,” muttered Drake. “They’re lights,” I answered. “Of course they are. They’re not matter —not metal, I mean—” a “There’s something about them like St. Elmo's fire, witch lights— condensations of atmospheric electricity,” Ventnor’s voice was calm; now that it was plain we were nearing the heart of this mystery in which we were enmeshed he had clearly taken fresh grip, was again his observant, scientific self. ~ We watched, once more silent; and indeed we had spoken little since we had begun that ride whose end we sensed close. In the unfolding of enigmatic. happening after happening, the mind hag deserted speech ECOMC OOO (GO)