The Black Mask — page 65: what you’re looking at

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

Followed a groan—an animal Snarl 230.. Tremaine Mengelced aside the screen, drawing his revolver and moving for- - ward in the darkness. After a mo- ment of blind groping his hand touched something—the door-knob— and with a jerk he swung the door wide. A sword of moonlight leaped through the oblong aperture, smiting | the sable shadows and falling in steely clarity across two figures— Amber and the gold-robed woman, As the light touched the creature ‘she reeled away from the man, throwing her shoulders against the wall, arms outflung, eyes blazing, staring at Tremaine, who was out- lined in the doorway. He lifted his revolver—fired .... With a scream of pain she hurled herself upon him. The jar of her body knocked the revolver from his Be rasp—aent him upon his back on the -floor of the balcony; and locked to- gether they rolled over and over, her hot breath scorching his cheek. _ By a sudden twist of his arm—the same twist that she had employed to down Amber—she forced his shoul- ders to the floor, her eyes aflame, lips parted, baring the white teeth. | Her face sank low—lower.. . . _ The touch of her was to him more revolting than contact with the most loathsome viper... . yet a sort of deadly lassitude was, beginning to lock its tentacles about him. He felt a sharp pain in his throat. That stung him to greater effort and with a powerful wrench he freed one arm, locking his fingers in her hair. She shrieked ; loosened the vise upon him. He sprang to his feet, bent, caught her about the waist; lifted her and swung her body through the air .. . out over the balcony. Another shriek... . More Deadly than the Viper 63 He clung to the railing, trembling violently, watching the Thing as it shot straight down into the bowels of the awful chasm. . % He turned, stumbled ‘into the hall. As he entered a great clamor came from the double-doors. Through a blurr he saw them burst open ad- mitting a flood of human beings. They were so indistinct in the semi- dark that he could make out no de- tails, but he understood. The La- pid 7 Sy He sthopered out on the balcony, gripping the railing and trying to steel himself for the encounter; but weakness drove home to him; his bones seemed to melt within him, he slipped, to the floor; and before un- consciousness closed its opaque doors upon him, he beheld a huge bird-like creature winging its way out of the abyss, rising high in the air and crossing the face of the moon. It was an enormous bat. IV 4 Lire came back to Tremaine slow- ly, with a faint roaring and crackling. As he opened his eyes he saw a vast blaze not far away, tongues of fire that lapped hungrily at a dark cur- tain; saw the moon, too, above the flames, seeming wreathed in smoke. Voices near him were talking. He struggled to a sitting position, looking about dazedly. “Ah, barin, at last you are awake—” Following that the tangles in his vision were wiped away and he recognized the speaker—Yashka, the Cossack. At the same time he under- stood the flames and the voices. A large group of men, all mounted on Tartar ponies and armed with ‘balalaikas and Cossack whips, were gathered around him, and above— for they were near the foot of Tsa-