The Metal Monster

tridges venturing too close yielded three to our guns. We break

tion. Giant rhododendrons and tree ferns gave way to occasional clumps of stately kopek and clumps of the hardier bamboos. We added a few snow c

ep came to us quickly and overmastering. An hour after dawn we

hen we caught the fir

tween their rims the wide ribbon of sky was like a fantastically shored river, shimmering, dazz

essening, darkening imperceptibly with luminous shadows of ghostly beryl,

sing its crystalline quality. Now the high overhead rive

landed with tawny orchids, gay with carmine fungus and

circular, as though, while plastic still, the thumb of God had run round its rim,

heast slope; another, the tunnel mouth through which we had come. The third lifted itself out of the bowl, creeping up the precipitous bare

t had tongue of human hands which had cut it there in the mountain's breas

ind soul of loneliness

p of the verdant bowl. It was tangible - as though it had be

n. They huddled in two bent rows to the bottom. They crouched in a wide cluster against th

n steps lifted to a ledge and h

lower ranks were the legs, the cluster the body, the upper row an outflung arm and above the neck of the stairway the ancient for

y upon him, his face drawn. The Chinaman and Tibet

f a grin lightening the distress on his face. "But

tepped over the rim, rifles on the alert. Close b

fficult. Here and there beside the path upreared huge broken blocks. On them I thought I could see faint tracings as of carvin

the crumbling piles that stretch

against Drake, clutchi

to our hearts with ghostly fingers dripping with despair. From every shattered heap it seeme

filled me, a desire to drop upon the stones, to be rolled away. To die. I felt Drake's

e muttered.

remembered that mine carried precious specimens; a surge of anger pass

thrust each an arm through his own. Then, like swimmers, heads

foot of the cyclopean stairs, now we were half up them - and now as we struggled out upon the ledge on which the watching fortress stoo

gain like swimmers who have fought th

ceptible movement at the

dropped from her hands. S

ran I rec

Ven

soft arms around my neck, was weepin

"What on earth ar

"Walter Goodwin - Oh,

my arms, catching her

deep blue eyes that were now all seriousness, now sparkling wells of mischief; petite, rounded and tender; th

insinuatingly.

ld not see who you were, did not know whether friend or enemy - but oh, my hea

ok my

on. "He was watching the road that le

" I asked. "Wat

k I'd rather tell you before him.

d thought. The floor of the vast chamber we had entered was strewn with fragments fallen from t

of the eye-like apertures. Black against it, perched high upon a pile of blocks, I recognized the long, lean outline of Ve

called R

his face, flashing it out from the semidarkness of the corner in whi

g me by the shoulders. "If I had been in the way of praying

I answered. "But Lord! I

he asked, keenly. I thre

t hollow?" he as

rough," Drake broke in. "It cost us

id. "Son of old Alvin

nted me to go to Kamchatka to get some confounded sort o

" replied D

"Oh - I'm sorry. H

m with my wanderings, m

a sort. If it hadn't been for it we'd have been out of this hole two days ago. I'm pretty sure it must be gas. A

at hollow might indeed be a pocket into which a gas flowed; just as in the mines the deadly coal damp collects in pits,

respirators

to operate as well through the skin as through the nose and mouth. We just couldn't make it - and t

myself

a little whil

, underst

. "Well, we'll w

ou make for the road up the mountain? What

inned. "Tell 'em. After all

he cried,

't ME they admi

ied again, and s

. "I'm busy. I'v

nted to come over somewhere here. So we crossed the passes. That was about a mo

we wanted to go. It took us first into a country of little hills; then to the very

moment. "Bing - just like that. Slap dash against

r road," went on Ruth. "All we c

"God! But I'm glad to see you, Walter Goodw

e heart of the range. All around us was a forest of enormous, snow-topped peaks. The

e. It was as though no human beings except ourselves had ever been there. Game was plentiful. We had no tr

ittle valley. There was a mound that stood up like a tiny watch-

I sat watching the beauty of the skies and of the shadowy vale. I heard

st within the glow of

. She shook her head

uth screamed and awakened me. I caught a

swathed and bound by the thongs of his high buskins. He carried a small, round, hide-covered shield and

lain enjoyment

he said, and to

t. It was as white as mine, Walter, and cruel, so cruel; the eyes glowed and they lo

Martin awakened

the light and was g

; had believed

But I could not sleep - I sat hour after hour, my pistol in my han

ain it was dawn - and - and -" she covered her eyes, then: "TWO men

terrupted Ventnor again

eated blankly; "

, as you know, comes straight through from the speech of Xerxes, of Cyrus, of Darius whom Alexander of Macedon conquered. It has b

ite easily. They were talking about Ruth. To be explic

she cried

matter of fact, I had seen the pair steal up. My rifl

- prodigiously. So in my interest I passed over the matter of their speech; not alone because I thought Ruth asleep but also because I took into consideration that the m

med to regard with much fear and respect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire to observe -

amazement was - well - ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, but they seem

shot at one but missed. Ruth hadn't though; she h

e made for the opposite direct

itter a mile or two away in the direction we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In a little

een dead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them, with their

ht to have turned the pony loose, but we didn't. It carried my inst

d again. We stole through a tree-covered plain; we struck an ancient road

ss the hollow to the crevice - we knew nothing of the entrance you came t

e issued out of it a most unusual and disconcerting c

ick; absorbed, he was drink

think of, that we were not encouraged to proceed. Also the

en next we tried to go through the hollow, to search for ano

Darius." Dick broke the silence that had foll

relics of Darius's armies. They might have been of Xerxes before him - or of Artaxerxes after him.

Alexander the Great smashed his empire he did it rather thoroughly. There wasn't much sympathy for the vanquished in those days. And it's entirely conceivable t

lter at last up here. As long as history runs this has been a well-nigh unknown land. Penetrating some mountain-guarded, easily defended valley they

e old. And they might have been locked in their valley by some accident - landslid

d you weren't locked

drifted into their preserves by a way they don't know. Maybe they've f

f these had been the description of those we had he

swered, hesi

hose soldiers you saw ar

who would give up a hunt easily - at least not a hunt for such novel, interestin

y the hollow again, at once. There's Ruth - and we'd neve

enough to try it?