The Face in the Abyss by Abraham Merritt

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Introduction of The Face in the Abyss by a Merit.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Ben Tucker, The Face
in the Abyss by a Merit Introduction. And now the

(00:23):
readers of Argosy All Story Weekly come once again to
their old favorite. A Merrit who flashed like a shooting
star across the pages of All Story Weekly in the
issues of June twenty second, nineteen eighteen and from February
first to March twenty second, nineteen nineteen, illuminating that most
classically fantastic of all stories, The moon Pool, which was

(00:44):
afterward brought out in book form and accepted in England,
France and America as equal to the best imaginative work
of H. G. Wells, or that older master, the late
Jules Verne, after which he rose to greater heights in
his serial that appeared under the title of The Metal Monster.
In these two works, Merit struck an entirely new note,

(01:04):
rich in imagination, the wondrous possibilities of science, and the
fine balance of human interest and narrative charm. In every
chapter he struck the cosmic chords of superlative invention. Letters
from all over the world asking for further work from
the pin of Merit came to this office. He has
recently been induced, or to be perfectly frank, He has

(01:26):
again taken up his pen of his own volition and
made another contribution entitled The Face in the Abyss, which
is published in this issue in full on the pages
which follow. We know of no more kaleidoscopic imagination among
living writers. Merit possesses not only a transcendental vision, but
the power to put in words the scenes that unfold

(01:46):
and come full winged, shimmering with light from the cathedral
of his mind. End of introduction chapter of The Face
in the Abyss by A. Merrit. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain. Read by Bin Tucker, Chapter one

(02:09):
out of the Haunted Hills. It has been just three
years since I met Nicholas Graydon in the little Indian
village of Chupon, high on the eastern slopes of the
Peruvian Uplands. I had stopped there to renew my supplies,
expecting to stay not more than a day or two.
But after my arreros had unlimbered my luggage from the

(02:31):
two burroughs, and I entered the unusually clean and commodious Posada.
Its keeper told me that another North American was stopping there.
He would be very glad to see me, said the innkeeper,
since he was very ill and there was no other
americanos in the hamlet. Yes, he was so ill that
he was to tell me all the truth. Certain to die,

(02:52):
and it would beyond doubt comfort him much to have
a fellow countryman with him when that sad moment came.
That is, he added, if he were able to recognize
a fellow countryman. Since all the time the signor had
been at the Posada, he had been out of his
mind with fever and would probably pass away. So then,
with a curiously intense anxiety, he implored me to stay

(03:15):
on until death did come, a matter, he assured me,
that could be one of only a few days, maybe hours.
I bluntly asked him whether his desire for me to
remain was through solicitude from my ailing countrymen or through
fear for himself, and after a little hesitation, he answered
that it was both. The signor had come to the
village a week before with one burrow, and neither guides

(03:37):
nor aarreros. He had been very weak, as though from
privations and long journeying, but weaker far from a wound
on his neck which had become badly infected. The wound
seemed to have been made by either an arrow or
a spear. The signor had been taken care of, as
well as the limited knowledge of the Cura and himself permitted.
His burrow had been looked after, and his saddleback kept

(04:00):
scrupulously closed. But I could understand that questions might be
raised after the Signor's death. If I remained, I could
report to the authorities that everything possible had been done
for the Signor's comfort, and testify that none in Chupon
was responsible for his injuries. This did not sound very
convincing to me, and I said so. Then the worthy

(04:21):
innkeeper revealed what actually was in his mind. The Signor,
he said, had spoken in his ravings of dreadful things,
things both accursed and devilish. What were they? Well, he
crossed himself. If I remained, I would no doubt hear
for myself. But they had even greatly disturbed the good Cura,
despite that he was under the direct protection of God.

(04:44):
The signor had come, so his ravings indicated from a
haunted place. No less a place, the innkeeper whispered, crossing
himself again than the Chande Cordillera de Kirbaya, which every
one knew was filled with evil spirits, yes, evil which
would not lightly give up any one who had once
been in their power and in fine. The idea seemed

(05:08):
to be that some of these demons of the Cordillera,
about which as a matter of fact, I had heard
some strange tills, might come at any time for the
sick man. If they did, they would be more apt
to wreak their fury on one of the Signor's own countrymen,
especially if he was in the same room. The keeper
of the Posada did not put it that way, of course,

(05:29):
He said that one of his own people was better
qualified to protect the signor in such case that any
strangers were. Nevertheless, the theory plainly was that if I stayed,
I would act as a lightning rod for any leaven
of hell that might strike. I went to the room
of the sick man. At first glance I could see
that here was no anderen no mountain vagabond, neither fever

(05:53):
nor scrub beard could hide the fineness, the sensitivity, the
intelligence of the face on which I looked. He was
I judged about thirty, and he was in ill case. Indeed,
his temperature showed one O five point six at the
moment he was in delirium. My first shock of surprise
came when I examined his wound. It seemed to me

(06:13):
more like the stab of some great bird beak than
the work of spear or arrow. It was a puncture,
or better, perhaps a punch, clear through the muscles of
the back and left shoulder, in base of the neck.
It had missed the arteries of the last by the
narrowest of margins. I knew of no bird which could
make such a wound as this. Yet the closer I

(06:34):
looked and probed, the more sure I was that it
had been inflicted by no weapon of man. That night,
after I had arranged my own matters and had him
sleeping under a hypodermic, I opened up his saddle bags.
Papers in them showed his name to be Nicholas Graydon,
a mining engineer, a graduate of the Harvard School of Mines.
His birthplace Philadelphia. There was a diary that revealed so

(06:58):
much of him truly likable, that had I not already
made up my mind to stop on with him, it
would have impelled me to do so. Its last entry
was about a month before and ran two weeks now
since our aery Ros deserted us, and we seemed to
be pretty thoroughly lost. Effects upon the three are curious.
Sterot manages to keep himself evenly drunk all the time.

(07:21):
That spare burrow of his must be loaded with nothing
but that Indian hell brew. Donker is moody and sullen.
Solmes seems to have developed a morbid suspicion of all
of us. Strange how the wilderness, the jungle, the desert
bring out the latent man in all of us. And
Quito none of the three was half bad. But now well,

(07:43):
the luckiest thing for me will be for us to
find no treasure. If we do, my throat will probably
be the first to be cut. Further down in the
bag were two parcels, each most carefully and securely wrapped.
Opening the first, I found a long black feather, oddly
marked with white. I did not reckgnized the plume as
belonging to any bird. I knew its shaft was inlaid

(08:04):
with little bands of gold. Altogether a curiously delicate bit
of Goldsmith's work. But the contents of the second package
made me gasp with amazement. It was a golden bracelet,
clearly exceedingly ancient, the band an inch broad and expanding
into an oval disc perhaps three inches long by too wide.

(08:25):
That disk held in high relief the most extraordinary bit
of carving I had ever seen. Four monsters held on
uplifted paws, a bowl on which lay coiled a serpent,
with a woman's face and a woman's breasts. Nor had
I ever beheld such suggestion of united wisdom and weirdness
as the maker had stamped upon the snake woman's face.

(08:47):
Yet it was not that which called forth the full
measure of my wonder. No, there are certain pictures, certain sculptures,
certain works of art, which carry to their beholders conviction
that no fantasy, no imagining, went into their making, and
that they are careful, accurate copies of something seen by
those who made them. This bit of golden carving carried

(09:09):
that conviction. The four monsters which held up the snake
woman were dinosaurs. There was no mistaking them. I had examined,
too many of the reconstructions made by scientists from the
fossil bones of these gigantic, monstrous, reptilian creatures to be
in error. But these giants were supposed to have died

(09:29):
off millions of years before man first appeared on earth.
Yet here they were carved with such fidelity to detail,
such impress of photographic accuracy, that it was impossible to
believe that the ancient goldsmith who made this thing had
not had before him living models marveling. I held the
bracelet closer to the light, and as I did so,

(09:51):
I thought I heard, far away, in the blackness of
the mountains, and high in the air, a sound like
a tiny bugle, And that note was something profound, alienly weird.
I went to the window and listened, but the sound
did not come again. I turned to find the eyes
of Graydon opened, and regarding me for a moment, he
had slipped from the thrall of the fever. And the

(10:14):
thought came to me that it had been that elfin
bugling which had awakened him. It was six weeks before
I had great and well out of danger, and in
that time he had told me, bit by bit that
well nigh incredible experience of his in the haunted hills
of the Cordillera to Karabayah, and what it was that
had sent him so far down into the Valley of

(10:34):
the Shadow. Three years it has been since then three years,
and I have heard nothing of him. Three years, and
he has not returned from his journey back to the
Cordillera to Carabayah, where he went to seek mystery ancient
beyond all memory of man he believed was hidden there,
but more than that, to seek Suara. If you don't

(10:56):
hear from me in three years, tell the story and
let the people who knew me know what became of me,
he said, as I left him at the beginning of
that strange trail he had determined to retrace, And so
I tell it, reconstructing it from his reticences as well
as his confidences, since only so may a full measure
of judgment of that story be gained. End of chapter one,

(11:27):
Chapter two of The Face and the Abyss by A. Merritt.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Ben Tucker. Chapter two, Sowara of the Golden Spears, Graydon
had run into sterret in Quito, or rather Sterot, sought
him out there. Graydon had often heard of the giant

(11:48):
West Coast adventurer, but their trails had never crossed. It
was with a lively curiosity, then, that he opened the
door of his room to this visitor. And he had
rather liked Sterit. There was a bluff directness about the
big man that made him overlook a certain cruelty of eye,
and a touch of brutality about mouth and jaw. Sterret
came to the point at once. Graydon had no doubt

(12:10):
heard the story of the treasure train which had been
bringing to Pizarro the ransom of the Inca Attahuapa, and
learning of the murder of that monarch, had turned back
and buried that treasure somewhere in the Peruvian wilderness. Graydon
had heard of it hundreds of times, and like every
other adventurer in the Andes, spent a little time himself
searching for those countless millions and jewels and gold. Sterret nodded,

(12:34):
I know how to find it, he said, and Graydon
had laughed. How many had told him that they too
knew where lay hidden the horde of Ottahuapa the Inca.
But in the end Sterret convinced him, convinced him at
least that there was something more solid than usual in
his story, something decidedly worth looking into. There would be
two others in the expedition, Sterret told him, both men

(12:57):
long associated with him. One was Dunker, a Frenchman, the
other an American named Solmes. These two had been with
Sterret when he had got hold of the old parchment,
with its alleged map of the treasure trail, and with
its carefully drawn signs that purported to be copies of
those along that trail, signs cut by its makers to

(13:17):
guide those who, one day, when the Spaniard was gone,
would set out to recover the hidden hoarde. Graydon asked
why they wanted him. Sterret bluntly enough told him because
he was an American, because they knew he could be trusted,
because he could afford to pay half the expenses of
the expedition. He Donker and Solmes would pay the other half.

(13:41):
They would all share equally if the treasure was found.
Still another reason, Graydon was a mining engineer, and his
special knowledge might be essential when it came to recovering
the stuff. Furthermore, if the treasure was not found the
region where they were going was full of minerals. He
might make some valuable discoveries, in which event all would
share equally. As before, there were no calls on Graydon

(14:03):
at the time. It was true that he could well
afford the cost. At the worst, there would be adventure
in some pleasant excitement. He met Donker and Solmes, the
first cynical but amusing little bunch of wires and nerves,
the second a lanky, saturnine, hard bitten Yankee. They had
gone down by rail to Cerro de Pasco for their outfit,

(14:23):
that being the town of any size closest to where,
according to the map, their trail into the wilderness began.
A week later. With eight burrows and six arrieros or
pac men, they were well within the welter of peaks
through which the old map indicated their road lay. They
found the signs cut in the rocks, exactly as the
parchment had promised, gay spirits high. With anticipation, three of them,

(14:46):
at least spending in advanced their share of the treasure.
They followed the symbols steadily. They were led into the
uncharted wilderness. At last, the Aarrieiros began to murmur. They
were approaching, they said, a region that was accursed, Perdiera
de Karabaya, where demons dwelt, and only fierce amarus their
servants lived. Promises of more money, threats, pleadings took them

(15:10):
along a little further. Then one morning the four awoke
to find the Arierros gone, and with them half the
burrows in a portion of their supplies. They pressed on.
Then suddenly the signs had failed them. Either they had
lost the trail, or there were no more carbon symbols,
and the parchment, which had led them truthfully so far,
had lied at the last. Or was it possible that

(15:31):
the signs had been obliterated cut away? The country into
which they had penetrated was a strangely deserted one. They
saw no sign of Indians, had seen none, indeed, since
when more than a week before they had stopped at
a Quicha village, and Sterot had got mad, drunk on
that fiery spirit. The Quicha's distill food, too, was curiously

(15:52):
hard to find. There were few animals and fewer birds.
But worst of all was the change that had come
over his companions. As high as they had been lifted
by their certainty of success just so deep or they
now cast into despair the wilderness, the loneliness of it.
Their disappointment had brought out the real man that lies
hidden beneath the veneer we all of us carry. Sterret

(16:15):
kept himself at a steady level of drunkenness, alternately quarrelsome
and noisy, or sunk in a sullen mood of brooding
brutal rage. Danker had become silent and irritable. Solmes seemed
to have reached the conclusion that Graydon, Sterret and the
Frenchman had combined against him, that they had either deliberately
missed the trail or had raised the signs. Only when

(16:36):
the two of them joined Sterot and drank with him
the quecha Hellbrew did either of them relax. At such times,
Graydon had the uneasy feeling that they were holding the
failure against him, and that his life might be hanging
on a thin thread. On the day that his adventure
really began, that strange adventure to which all that had
passed before had been prelude, Graydon was coming back to

(16:59):
the camp he had been hunting since morning. Dunker and
Solmes had gone off together on another desperate search for
the missing cymbals that would lead them to the treasure trail,
again cut off in mid flight, the girl's cry came
to him as the answer to all his apprehensions, materialization
of the menace towards which his vague fears had been
groping ever since he had left Staret alone at the

(17:21):
camp hours ago. He had since some culminating misfortune close
and here it was. He knew it. How he did
not stop himself to ask he was sure. He broke
into a run, stumbling up the slope to the group
of gray green algoroba trees where the tint was pitched.
What had the drunken fool done. Graydon had warned them

(17:44):
all that their situation was perilous, that if Indians came,
they must try to make friends with them, that they
must be superlatively careful in their treatment of any Indian women.
He reached the algorobas, crashed through the light undergrowth to
the little clearing. Why didn't the girl cry out again,
he wondered. There was a sickness at his heart. A

(18:04):
low chuckle reached him. Thick sator toned, then Sterret's voice
cruel mocking no more fight anyway, Well, what shall it be,
pretty lady? The way of the gold are you? And
by Heaven, I guess it'll be you first. For an
instant Graydon paused, he saw that Sterret, half crouching, was

(18:25):
holding the girl beau fashion over one knee. A thick
arm was clenched about her neck, the fingers clutching her mouth,
brutally silencing her. His right hand fettered her slender wrists.
Her knees were caught in the vice of his bent
right leg. She was helpless, but as Graydon sprang forward,
he caught a flash of wide black eyes, wrath filled
and defiant, staring fearlessly into those leering. So close he

(18:50):
caught Sterret by the hair, locked an arm under his chin,
Drawing his head sharply back drop her, he ordered drop
her quick stare at her himself to his feet, dropping
the girl as he rose, What the hell are you
butting in for? He snarled, his hand struck down toward
his pistol, But even while the fingers were tightening around

(19:10):
the butt, Graydon's fist shot out and caught him on
the point of the hairy jaw. The clutching fingers loosened,
the half drawn pistol slipped to the ground. The great
body quivered and toppled over. Long before it fell, the
girl had leaped up and away. Graydon did not look
after her. She had gone, no doubt, to bring down
upon them her people, some tribe of those fierce Eyemaras

(19:32):
that even the Incas of old had never quite conquered,
and who would avenge her in ways that Graydon did
not like to visualize. He bent down over Staret. His
heart was beating feebly, it was true, but beating the
reek of drink was sickening. Graydon's hand touched the fallen pistol.
He picked it up and looked speculatively at the fallen

(19:53):
man's rifle stare it between the blow and the drink
would probably be out of the running for hours. He
wished that Donker and Solmes would get back soon to camp.
The three of them could put up a good fight
at any rate, might even have a chance for escape,
so ran his thoughts. But Donka and Solmes would have
to return quickly. The girl would soon be there with
the Avengers, no doubt. At this very moment she was

(20:15):
telling them of her wrongs he turned, she stood there,
looking at him and drinking in her loveliness. Graydon forgot
the man at his feet, forgot all, and was content
to let his soul sit undisturbed within his eyes and
take its delight to her. Her skin was palest ivory.
It gleamed translucent through the rents of the soft amber fabric,

(20:37):
like the thickest silk that swathed her. Her eyes were deep,
velvety pools oval, a little tilted Egyptian, and the wide
midnight of their irises. But the features were classic Cameo,
the nose small and straight, the brows level and black,
almost meeting above it. And her hair was cloudy, jet

(20:57):
misty and shadowed, and a narrow filet of gold bound
the broad low forehead in it, like a diamond, were
entwined the sable and silver feathers of the Kharakinke, that
bird whose plumage and lost centuries was sacred to the
princesses of the Incas alone. Above her dimpled elbows, golden
bracelets twined, reaching to the slender shoulders. The little, high

(21:21):
arched feet were shod with high buskins of deer skin.
She was light and slender as the willow maid who
waits on Quannan, when she passes into the world of trees,
to pour into them new fire of green life. And
like the willow maid, green fire of tree and jungle
and flame of woman gleamed within her. Nothing so exquisite,
so beautiful, had ever graden beheld. Here was no Aymara,

(21:45):
no daughter of any tribe of the Cordilleras, no descendant
of Incas, nor was she Spanish. There were bruises on
her cheeks, the marks of Steret's cruel fingers. Her long,
slim hands touched them, the red lips open. She spoke
in the eyemar a tongue. Is he dead, she asked.

(22:06):
Her voice was low, a faint chime, as of little
bells ringing through it. No, Graydon answered. In the depths
of the midnight eyes, a small hot flame flared. He
could have sworn it was of gladness. It vanished as
swiftly as it had come. That is well, she said,
I would not have him die. The voice become meditative.

(22:28):
So who are you, Graydon asked, wonderingly. She looked at
him for a long moment, enigmatically. Call me Swara, she answered,
at last, stare it stirred, groaned. The girl gazed down
upon him. The slim hand touched once more the bruises
on her cheek. He is very strong, she murmured. Graydon

(22:50):
thought there was admiration in the voice. Wondered whether all
that delectable beauty was, after all, but a mask for
primitive woman worshiping brute strength. Looked into the eyes scanning
Sterret's bulk, noted the curious speculation within them, and knew
that whatever the reason for her comment, it was not
that which his fleeting thought had whispered. She looked at

(23:12):
him questioningly. Are you his enemy? She asked? No, said Graydon,
We travel together. Then why she pointed to the outstretched figure,
Why did you do this to him? Why did you
not let him have his way with me? Graydon flushed uncomfortably.
The question, with all its subtle implications, cut What kind

(23:34):
of a beast did she think him? His defense of
her had been elementary as well. Be asked to explain
why he did not stand by and watch idly while
a child was being murdered. What do you think I am?
His voice shook with half shame wrath. No man stands
by and lets a thing like that go on. She

(23:56):
looked at him curiously, but her eyes had softened. She asked, no,
man does then what is he? Graydon found no answer.
She took a step closer to him, her slim fingers
again touching the bruises on her cheek. Do you not wonder?
She said? Now? Do you not wonder why I do

(24:17):
not call my people to dill him the punishment he
has earned? I do wonder. Grayton's perplexity was frank, I wonder, indeed,
why do you not call them if they are close
enough to hear? And what would you do were they
to come? She whispered? I would not let them have
him alive? He answered, nor me, perhaps, she said slowly, perhaps,

(24:45):
knowing that is why I do not call them. Suddenly
she smiled upon him, and it was as though a
draft of wild sweet wine had been lifted to his lips.
He took a swift step towards her. She drew up
to her slim, lithe height and thrust out a warning hand.
I am Sara, she said, then, and I am death.

(25:10):
An odd chill passed through Graydon again. He realized the unfamiliar,
the alien beauty of her was there truth. After all,
in those legends of the haunted Cordillera, he had never
doubted that there was something behind the terror of the Indians,
the desertion of the Hereros. Was she one of its spirits,
its demons? For an instant the fantasy seemed no fantasy.

(25:34):
Then reason returned this girl a demon, He laughed. She
frowned at that laughter. Do not laugh, she said. The
death I mean is not such as you who live
beyond the high rim of our land may know. It
is death that blots out not alone the body, but
that lord whose castle is the body, that which looks

(25:56):
out through the windows of your eyes, that presence, that
flame you believe can never die, That too, our death
blots out, makes as though it never had been, or
letting it live changes it in dreadful ways. Yet, because
you came to me in my need, nay more, because
of something I sense within you, something that calls out

(26:19):
to me and to which I must listen and do
desire to listen. Because of this, I would not have
that death come to you. Strange as were her words,
graydon hardly heard them, certainly did not then realize fully
their meaning lost. Still as he was in wonder what
was this girl doing here in these wild mountains, with
her bracelets of gold and the royal Inca feathers on

(26:41):
her lovely little head. No daemon of the wilderness, she absurd.
She was living, desirable, all human. Yet she was of
no race, he knew, despite the karakinki plumes, not of
the Incas. But she was of pure blood, the blood
of kings. Yes, that was it. A princess of some

(27:04):
proud empire, immemoriably ancient, long lost. But what empire? How
you came by the watchers? I do not know how
you passed unseen by them. I do not know nor
how you came so far within the forbidden land. Tell me,
her voice was imperious. Why came you here? It all?

(27:24):
Graydon stirred. It was a command. We came from afar,
he said, on the track of a great treasure of
gold and gems, the treasure of Attahuapa, the Inca. There
were certain signs that led us. They brought us here,
and here we lost them, and found soon that we
too were lost Attahuapa. She nodded, Yes, his people did

(27:48):
come here. We took them and their treasure. Graydon stared
at her, jaw dropping in amazement. You you took them
and the treasure, he gasped, Yes, she nodded indifferently. It
lies somewhere in one of the thirteen caves. It was
nothing to us, to us of the u Adlanchi, where

(28:11):
treasures are as the sands in the stream bed a
grain of sand. It was among many, But the people
of Attahuopa were welcome, since we needed new folks to
care for the Zinli and to feed the wisdom of
the snake mother. The snake mother, exclaimed Grayton. The girl
touched the bracelet on her right arm, and Graydon, looking close,

(28:35):
saw that this bracelet held a disc on which was
carved a serpent with a woman's head and woman's breasts
and arms. It lay coiled upon a great dish, held
high on the paws of four animals. The shapes of
these did not at once register upon his consciousness, so
absorbed was he in his study of that coiled figure.
And now he saw that this face was not really

(28:57):
that of a woman. It was reptilian. But so strongly
had the maker feminized it, so great was the suggestion
of womanhood modeled into every line of it, that constantly
the eyes, saw it as a woman forgetting all that
was of the serpent. Her eyes were of some small,
glittering intensely purple stone, and as Graydon looked, he felt

(29:17):
that those eyes were alive, that far far away, some
living thing was looking at him through them, that they
were in fact prolongations of some one's some things vision.
And suddenly the figure seemed to swell the coils to
move the eyes come closer. He tore his gaze away,

(29:39):
drew back dizzily. The girl was touching one of the
animals that held up the bowl or shield or whatever
it was that held the snake woman the zenely, she said.
Graydon looked, looked, and felt increase of bewilderment, for he
knew what those animals were, and, knowing knew that, he
looked upon the incredible. They were dinosaurs, those gigantic, monstrous

(30:03):
grotesques that ruled Earth millions upon millions of years ago,
and but for whose extinction, so he had been taught,
man could never have developed. Who in this endean wilderness
could know or could have known the dinosaur? Who here
could have carved the monsters with such lifelike detail as
these possessed. Why it was only yesterday that science had

(30:26):
learned what really were their huge bones, buried so long
that the rocks had molded themselves around them an adamantine matrix,
And laboriously, with every modern resource still haltingly and laboriously,
science had set those bones together, as a perplexed child
a picture puzzle, and timidly put forth what it believed

(30:50):
to be reconstructions of these long vanished chimeras of Earth's
nightmare youth. Yet here, far from all science, it must
surely be some one had modeled those same monsters for
a woman's bracelet. Why then, it followed that whoever had
done this must have had before him the living forms
from which to work, or, if not, copies of those

(31:12):
forms set down accurately by ancient men who had seen them.
And either or both of these things were incredible. What
were these people to whom this girl belonged? People? Who
what was it she had said, could blot out both
body and soul, or change the soul to some dreadful thing.
There had been a name, you, Adlanche Suara, He said,

(31:37):
where is you? Adlanchi? Is it this place where we are? Now? This?
She laughed? No, you Atlanchi is the ancient land, the
hidden land, where the five Lords and the Lord of
Lords once ruled, and were now rules only the Lord
of Fate and the Lord of Folly and the Snake Mother.

(31:58):
This place you alanche again, she laughed. Now, and then
we hunt here with the Zenli and the She hesitated,
looking at him oddly, then went on. So it was
that he she pointed to ster. It caught me. I
was hunting. I had slipped away from my my again
she hesitated, as oddly as before my followers, For sometimes

(32:23):
I would hunt alone, wander alone. I came through these
trees and saw your tetoine, your lodge. I came face
to face with him, and I was amazed, too amazed
to strike with one of these. She pointed to a
low knoll a few feet away. So before I could
conquer that a maze, he seized me, choked me, and

(32:44):
then you came. Graydon stared at the place where she
had pointed. There upon the ground lay three slender, shining spears.
Their slim shafts were of gold. The arrow shaped heads
of two of them were of fine opal, but the third,
the third was a single emerald, translucent and flawless, all
of six inches long and three at its widest and

(33:06):
ground to keenest point and cutting edge. There it lay
a priceless jewel tipping a spear of gold, and a
swift panic shook Grayton. He had forgotten Solmes, and Donker
supposed they should return while this girl was there, this girl,
with her ornaments of gold, her gem tipped golden spears,
and her beauty. Well he knew what they could do.

(33:30):
And while now he knew too, how with all his
wit and strength he would fight for her. Still they
were two and armed and cunning, and he only one.
Suddenly he discounted all that tale of hers, of a
hidden land with its lords and snake mother, and its
people who dealt out mysterious, unfamiliar deaths. If this were
all so, why had she come alone into that algorobas?

(33:53):
Why was she still alone? As suddenly he saw her
only a girl speaking fantasy and helpless, Sara, He said,
you must go and go quickly. This man and I
are not all. There are two more, and even now
they may be close. Take your spears and go quickly,
else I may not be able to save you. You
think I am, She began, I tell you to go,

(34:15):
he answered, whoever you are, whatever you are, go now
and keep away from this place. Tomorrow I will try
to lead them back. If you have people to fight
for you, well let them come and fight of you
so desire. But take this instant your spears and go.
She crossed to the little knoll and slowly picked them up.
She held one out to him, the one that bore

(34:36):
the emerald. Point this, she said, to remember Swara. No
he thrust it back. No. Once the others saw that jewel,
never he knew would he be able to start them
on the back trail if they could find it. Sterret
had seen it, of course, but that was not like
having it in the camp. A constant reminder to Solmes

(34:58):
and Danker of what might be on limited riches within
their reach, and he might be able to convince those
others that Sterret's story was but a drunken dream. The
girl regarded him meditatively, a quickened interest in the velvety eyes.
She slipped the golden bracelets from her arms, held them
out to him with the three spears. Will you take

(35:18):
all of them and leave your comrades? She asked, Here
are gold and gems, they are treasures, They are what
you have been seeking. Take them, Take them and go,
leaving that man there and those other too. Consent, and
I will not only give you these, but show you
a way out of this forbidden land. For a moment,

(35:42):
graydon hesitated. The Great Emerald alone was worth a fortune.
What loyalty did he owe? After all to Staret and Solmes,
and Donker and Sterrett had brought this thing upon himself. Nevertheless,
they were his comrades. Open eyed he had gone into
this venture with them. He had a swift vision of
himself skulking away with this glittering golden booty, creeping off

(36:06):
to safety, while he left them unwarned, unprepared to meet
what peril certainly, nay, almost as certainly death. For whatever
the present danger of this girl might be at the
hands of his comrades, subconsciously, Graydon knew that it must
be but a brief one. That she could not be
all alone, That although through some chance she had strayed

(36:28):
upon the camp, somewhere close were those who would seek
for her when they missed her. That somewhere were forces
on which she could call, and against which it was unlikely.
Three men even well armed as they were, could prevail
very definitely. He did not like that picture of himself
skulking away from the peril, whatever it might be. No,

(36:50):
he said, these men are of my race, my comrades.
Whatever is to come, I will meet it with them
and help them fight it. Now go, Yet you would
have fought them for my sake, indeed did fight, She said,
as though perplexed. Why then do you cling to them

(37:10):
when you can save yourself go free with treasure? And
why if you will not do this, do you let
me go? Knowing that if you kept me prisoner or
slew me, I could not bring my people down upon you.
Graydon laughed. I couldn't let them hurt you, of course,
he said, And I'm afraid to make you prisoner because

(37:32):
I might not be able to keep you free from
hurt and I won't run away. So talk no more,
but go go. She thrust the gleaming spears into the ground,
slipped the golden bracelets back on her arms, held her
white hands out to him. Now, she cried, Now, by
the wisdom of the Snake Mother, by the five Lords,

(37:52):
and by the Lord of Lords, I will save you
if I can. All that I have tempted you with
was but to test that truth which I had hoped
was in you and now know is within you. Now
you may not go back, nor may they. Here is
you Adlanchi, and you Atlanche's power into that power. You
have strayed, Nor have those who have ever so strayed

(38:13):
ever escaped. Yet you I will save if I can.
Before he could answer her, he heard a horn sound,
far away and high in air. It seemed faintly. It
was answered by others closer, by mellow questing notes, yet
with weirdly alien beat in them that subtly checked the
pulse of Grayton's heart. They come, she said, my followers,

(38:39):
light your fire to night, sleep without fear, But do
not wander beyond these trees. Suara, he cried, silence. Now,
she warned, silence until I am gone. The mellow horns
sounded closer. She sprang from his side, darted through the
trees from the little ridge above the camp. He heard
her voice raised and one clear, ringing shout. There was

(39:02):
a tumult of the horns about her elfinly troubling. Then silence.
Graydon stood listening. The sun touched the high snow fields
of the majestic peaks towards which he faced, touched them
and turned them into robes of molten gold. The amethyst
shadows that draped their sides thickened, wavered, and marched swiftly forward.

(39:24):
Still he listened, scarce breathing, far far away. The horns
sounded again, faint echoings of the tumult that had swept
about sware, faint, faint, and very sweet. The sun dropped
behind the peaks. The edges of their frozen mantles glittered
as though sown with diamonds, darkened into a fringe of

(39:46):
gleaming rubies. The golden fields dulled, grew amber, and then
blushed forth a glowing rose. They changed to pearl, and
faded into a ghostly silver, shining like cloud wraiths in
the highest heave down upon the Algaroba clump, the quick
andean dusk fell, And not till then did Graydon, shivering

(40:08):
with sudden, inexplicable dread, realize that beyond the calling horns
in the girl's clear shouting, he had heard no other sound,
no noise either of man or beast, no sweeping through
a brush or grass, no fall of running feet, nor
clamor of the chase, nothing but that mellow chorus of

(40:29):
the horns. From infinite distances, it seemed to him he
heard one single note, sustained and insistent. It detached itself
from the silence. It swept toward him with the speed
of light. It circled overhead, hovered and darted, arose, and
sped away, a winged sound bearing some message, carrying some

(40:52):
warning where end of chapter two, chapter three of The
Face in the Abyss by A. Merritt. The LibriVox recording
is in the public domain read by Ben Tucker. Chapter three,

(41:16):
The Eyes of the Snake Mother. Graydon turned back. He
bent over Sterret, who had drifted out of the paralysis
of the blow into a drunken stupor. There were deep
scratches on the giant's cheeks, the marks of Sowara's nails.
The jaw was badly swollen where he had hid it.
Graydon dragged him over to the tent, thrust a knapsack

(41:37):
under his head, and threw a blanket over him. Then
he went out and built up the fire. Hardly had
he begun to prepare the supper when he heard a
trampling through the underbrush. Soon Solmes and Donker came up
through the trees. Find any signs, he asked them. Signs?
Hell no, snarled the new Englander, say, Grayton, does you

(41:59):
hear something like a lot horns? Damn? Queer horns too?
They seemed to be over here. Graydon nodded abstractedly. Abruptly,
he realized that he must tell these men what had happened,
must warn them and urge them to prepare for defense.
But how much should he tell? All? Tell them of
Sowara's beauty, of her golden ornaments and her jim tipped

(42:20):
spears of gold, Tell them what she had said of
Antowapa's treasure, and of that ancient yu Atlanchi, where priceless
gems were thick as the sands upon the bed of
a stream. Well, he knew that if he did, there
would be no further reasoning with them, that they would
go berserk with greed. Yet something of it he must

(42:41):
tell them if they were to be ready for that assault,
which he was certain would come with the dawn. And
of Sowara they would learn soon enough from Sterret. When
he awakened, he heard an exclamation from Donker, who had
passed out into the tent, heard him come out, stood
up and faced the wiry little Frenchman was simetto with
stare it Eh, Donker snapped. First, I saw he's drunk.

(43:04):
Then I see his scratch like wild cat and with
a lump on his jaw as big as one. Oenge,
what you do to stare it? Eh? Graydon had made
up his mind was ready to answer Donker. He said, Solmes,
we're in a bad box. I came in from hunting
less than an hour ago and found Sterret wrestling with
a girl. That's bad medicine down here, the worst, and

(43:26):
you two know it. I had to knock stare It
out before I could get the girl away from him.
Her people will probably be after us in the morning.
There's no use trying to get away. They'll soon enough
find us in this wilderness of which we know nothing,
and they presumably know all. This place is as good
as any other to meet them, and it's a better
place than any if we have to fight, we'd better
spend the night getting it ready so we can put

(43:48):
up a good one if we have to. Eh girl, eh,
said Donker. What's she look like? Where's she come from?
How's she get the way? Graydon chose the last question
to answer. I let her go, He said, you let
her go, snarled Solmes, What the hell'd you do that for? Man?
Why didn't you tie her up? We could have held

(44:10):
her as a hostage, Grayton had something to do some
tradin with when her damned bunch of Indians came. She
wasn't an Indian, Solmes began. Grayton then hesitated, you mean
she was white Spanish, broke in Dunker incredulously. No, not
Spanish either. She was white, yes, white as any of us.

(44:33):
I don't know what she was, answered Grayton. The pair
stared at him, then to each other. There's something damn
funny about this, growled Solmes at last. But what I
want to know is why you let her go, whatever
the hell she was, because I thought we'd have a
better chance if I did than if I didn't. Grayton's
own wrath was rising. I want to tell you too

(44:55):
that we're up against something mighty bad, something one of
us knows about, and we've got just one chance of
getting out of the mess. If i'd kept her here,
we wouldn't have even that chance, he halted. Donker had stooped,
had picked up something from the ground, something that gleamed
yellow in the firelight. And now the Frenchman nudged the

(45:16):
link new Englander. Something funny is right, Solmes, he said,
look at this. He handed the gleaming object over. Graydon
saw that it was a thin golden bracelet, and as
Solmes turned it over in his hand, he caught the
green glitter of emeralds. It had been torn from Sowara's arm.
He realized in her struggle. Would stare it? Yes, something funny,

(45:41):
repeated Dunker. He glared at Graydon venomously through slitted eyes.
What's that girl give you to letter girl? Gridon? Eh?
He spat what she tell you? Eh? Solmes hand dropped
to his automatic. She gave me nothing, I took nothing,
answered Grace. I think your damned liar, said Dunker viciously.

(46:04):
We get stare at the wake. He turned to Solmes.
We get them away quick. I think he'd tell us
more about this. We a girl who wear stuff like this,
and he lets her go, let her go, which she
knows they must be more. Where'd this come from? Hey,
Solms them? Funny is right? Eh? Come now we see
what Staret tell us. Graydon watched them go into the tent.

(46:27):
Soon Solmes came out, went to a spring that bubbled
up from among the trees, returned with water. Well, let
them wake and stare it. Let him tell them whatever
he would, They would not kill him that night. Of that,
he was sure they believed that he knew too much.
And in the morning, what was hidden in the morning
for them all that even now they were prisoners. Graydon

(46:50):
did not doubt Sowaa's warning not to leave the camp
had been too explicit, And since that tumult of the
elfin horns, her swift vanishing in the silence that had followed,
he had no longer doubt that they had strayed, as
she had said, within the grasp of some power, formidable
as it was mysterious the silence. Suddenly it came to

(47:10):
him that the night had become strangely still. There was
no sound either of insect or bird, nor any stirring
of the familiar after twilight life of the wilderness. The
camp was ringed with silence. He strode away through the
Algaroba clump. There was a scant score of the trees.
They stood up like a little leafy island peak within

(47:32):
the brush covered savannah. They were great trees, every one
of them, and sat with a curious regularity, as though
they had not sprung up by chance, as though indeed
they had been carefully planted. Graydon reached the last of them,
rested a hand against the bowl that looked like myriads
of tiny grubs turned to soft brown wood. He peered out.

(47:54):
The slope that lay before him was flooded with moonlight.
The yellow blooms of the chilica shrugbes that pressed to
the very feet of the trees shone wanly in the
silver flood. The faintly aromatic fragrance of the canoir stole
around him. Movement or sign of life there was none,
and yet the spaces seemed filled with watchers. He felt

(48:17):
their gaze upon him, knew with an absolute certainty that
some hidden host girdled the camp. He scanned every bush
in shadow, saw nothing. Nevertheless, the certainty of a hidden,
unseen multitude persisted. A wave of nervous irritation passed through him.
He would force them, whatever they were, to show themselves.

(48:39):
He stepped boldly into the full moonlight. On the instant
the silence intensified, seemed to draw it taunt to lift
itself up whole octaves of stillnesses to become alert, expectant,
as though poised to spring upon him. Should he take
one step further, a coldness wrapped him, A shudder shook him.

(49:00):
He drew swiftly back to the shadow of the trees,
stood there, his heart beating furiously. The silence lost its poignancy,
dropped back upon its haunches, but watchful and alert. What
had frightened him? What was there in that tightening of
the stillness that had touched him with finger of nightmare? Terror? Trembling,

(49:21):
he groped back foot by foot, afraid to turn his
back to the silence behind him. The fire flared, and
suddenly his fear dropped from him. His reaction from the
panic was a heady recklessness. He threw a log upon
the fire and laughed as the sparks shot up among
the leaves. Solmes coming out of the tent for more
water stopped as he heard that laughter, and scowled at

(49:43):
him malevolently. Laugh he said, laugh while you can, yo,
damn traitor. You'll laugh on the other side o your
mouth when we get stared up and he tells us
what he knows. That was a sound sleep I gave
him anyway, jered Graydon, Zarah, sound as sleeps. Don't forget it.

(50:04):
It was Dunker's voice, cold and menacing. From within the tent,
he heard Staret groan. Graydon turned his back to the
tent and deliberately faced that silence from which he had
just fled. How long he sat thus, he did not know.
It could not have been for long, But all at
once he was aware that he was staring straight into

(50:24):
two little points of vivid light that seemed at once
far far away and very close. They were odd, he thought.
What was it so odd about them? Was it their color?
They were purple, a curiously intense purple. As he stared,
it seemed to him that they grew larger, but the
puzzling double aspect of distance and nearness did not alter.

(50:47):
It was very curious. He thought he had seen two eyes. Yes,
they were eyes of that peculiar purple, somewhere, not long ago,
but he could not remember just where. There was a
drowsiness clouding his thought. He would look at them no more.
He raised his gaze slowly and with perceptible effort, to

(51:07):
the leafy screen above him. Unwinkingly, the brilliant orbs stared
back at him from it. He forced his gaze downward.
There too, they were, and now he knew them, the
eyes that had glittered from Soara's bracelet, of the dinosaurs,
the eyes of that mingled serpent and woman she had
called the snake mother. They were drawing him, drawing him.

(51:33):
He realized that his lids had closed, yet closing, they
had not shut out the globes of vivid purple. His
lethargy increased, but it was of the body, not of
the mind. All his consciousness had concentrated, been gathered into
the focus of the weird invading eyes. Abruptly they retreated, and,

(51:55):
like lines streaming out of a reel, the consciousness of
Graydon streamed out of him, and after them, out of
his body, out of the camp, through the grove, and
out into the land beyond. It seemed to him that
he passed swiftly over the moonlit wastes. They flashed beneath him,
unrolling like panorama under racing plain. Ahead of him frowned

(52:17):
a black barrier. It shrouded him and was gone. He
had a glimpse of a wide, circular valley rimmed by sky,
piercing peaks, towering scarps of rock. There was the silver
glint of a lake, the liquid silver of a mighty torrent,
pouring out of the heart of a precipice. He caught
wheeling sight of carved colossi, gigantic shapes that sat bathed

(52:39):
in the milky flood of the moon, guarding each the
mouth of a cavern. A city rushed up to meet him,
a city, ruby roofed and opal turreted, and fantastic, as
though built by gin out of the stuff of dreams.
And then it seemed to him that he came to
rest within a vast and columned hall, from whose high
roof fell beams of soft and dimly azure light. High

(53:04):
arose those columns unfolding far above, and to wide wondrous
petalings of opal, and of emerald and turquoise, flecked with gold.
Before him were the eyes that, in this dream, if
dream it were, had drawn him to this place. And
as the consciousness which was he, and yet had he knew,

(53:26):
neither visible shape nor shadow beheld, it recoiled, filled with
terror of the unknown, struggled to make its way back
to the body from which it had been lured, fluttered
like a serpent trapped bird. At last, like the bird,
gave itself up to the serpent fascination. For Graydon looked
upon the snake mother. She lay just beyond the lip

(53:48):
of a wide alcove, set high above the pillared floor.
Between her and him. The azure beams fell curtaining the
great niche, with a misty radiance that half shadowed, half
revealed her. Her face was ageless, neither young nor old.
It came to him that it was free from time, forever,

(54:09):
free from the etching acid of the years. She might
have been born yesterday or a million years agone. Her eyes,
set wide apart, were round and luminous. They were living jewels,
filled with purple fires. Above them rose her forehead, wide
and high and sloping sharply back. The nose was long
and delicate, the nostrils dilated, the chin small and pointed.

(54:34):
The mouth was small too, and heart shaped. In the
lips a scarlet flame. Down her narrow, childlike shoulders flowed
hair that gleamed like spun silver. The shining argent strands,
arrow headed into a point upon her forehead, coifed, they
gave to her face that same heart shape in which
her lips were molded, a heart of which the chin

(54:55):
was the tip. She had high little breasts, up tilted
and facing neck. Shoulders and breasts were the hue of pearls,
suffused faintly with rose, and like rosy petals, they glistened
Below her breast began her coils mistily. Graydon saw them
half buried in a nest of silken cushions, thick coils,

(55:19):
and many circle upon circle of them covered with great
heart shaped scales, glimmering and palely gleaming, each scale as
exquisitely wrought, as though by elfin jeweler, each opalne necreous
mother of pearl. Her pointed chin was cupped in hands,
tiny as a baby's, like a babe's, were her slender arms,

(55:41):
their dimpled elbows resting on her topmost coil, And on
that face, which was neither woman nor serpents, but subtly both,
and more far more than either. On that ageless face
sat side by side and hand in hand, a spirit
of wisdom that was awesome, and a spar it weary
beyond thought. Graydon forgot his terror. He paid homage to

(56:05):
her beauty, for beautiful. She was, though terrible, this serpent woman,
with hair of spun silver, her face and breasts of
rosy pearls, her jeweled and shimmering coils, her eyes of
purple fire, and her lips of living flame. A lesser homage.
He paid her wisdom, and he pitied her for her
burden of weariness. Fear of her he had none. Instantly

(56:28):
he knew that she had read all his thought, knew
too that he had pleased her. The scarlet lips half
parted in a smile. Almost she preened herself. A slender,
red and pointed tongue flicked out and touched her scarlet lips.
The tiny hands fell. She raised her head up from
her circled coils, lifted and swayed. A pearled pillar bearing

(56:51):
that head aloft slowly, sinuously, foot by foot, until it
paused twice the height of a tall man above the floor.
Twisting it turned its face to the alcove. Graydon, following
the movement, saw that the alcove was tenanted. Within it
was a throne, a throne that was as though carved
from the heart of a colossal sapphire. It was oval

(57:13):
ten feet or more in height and hollowed like a shrine.
It rested upon, or was set within, the cupped end
of a thick pillar of some substance resembling milky rock crystal.
It was empty so far as he could see, but
around it clung a faint radiance. At its foot were
five lesser thrones, low and with broad table like seats.

(57:35):
They were arranged in a semi circle. The throne at
the right end of this semicircle was red, as though
carved from ruby. The throne at the left was black,
as though cut from jet. The three central thrones were
red gold, black throne and ruby throne, and middle throne
of red gold were empty, and each of the other
two A figure sat cross legged and squatting, and swathed

(57:58):
from feet to chin and silken robes of blue and gold.
Incredibly old were the faces of the pear, the stamp
of lost eons deep upon them, except their eyes. Their
eyes were young, as incredibly young as their settings were
ancient and incredibly alive. And those vital, youthful eyes were

(58:20):
reading him. The minds behind them were weighing him, judging him,
judging him with what purpose floated through Graydon's mind or
whatever It was of him that hovered there, in dream
or in spell, or in obedience to laws unknown to
the science of his world, the memory of Sawara's vow,

(58:42):
by the wisdom of the Snake Mother, and by the
five Lords, and by the Lord of Lords she had
sworn to save him if she could. Why these must
be they? The two lords she had told him, still
lived in youw Adlanchi. Certainly there was the Snake Mother,
and that sapphire throne of life, umanous mystery must be
the seat of the Lord of Lords, whatever he might be.

(59:06):
That fantastic city that had raced upward to unfold him
was you at Lachie, You auld Lanchi were death? Were death?
The Snake Mother had turned her head. The eyes of
the two lords no longer dwelt on his. They were looking,
the three of them beyond him. The serpent woman was speaking.

(59:27):
He heard her voice like faint, far off music. Graydon
thought that he glanced behind him. He saw Sowara so
close to him, she stood that he could have touched
her with his hand. Slender feet bare, her cloudy hair unbound,
clothed only in a single scanty robe that hid no
curve nor lightsome line of her, no ornament, but the

(59:48):
bracelet of the dinosaurs. She stood. If she saw him,
she gave no sign, and it came to him that
she did not see him, did not know that he
was there. On her face was the light of a
great gladness, as of one who has made a prayer
and knows that prayer has been granted. He reached out
a hand to touch her, make her aware of him.

(01:00:09):
He felt nothing, nor did she move, and suddenly he
realized once more that he had no hands. As he
labored to understand this, he saw the snake Mother's swaying
column grow rigid, her purple eyes fix themselves upon some
point it seemed far far beyond the walls of that
mysterious temple. Swift as a blow, they returned to him.

(01:00:32):
They smote him, They hurled him away. The hall disintegrated, vanished.
He had vertiginous sensation of nightmare speed, as though the
earth had spun from under him and let him drop
through space. The flight ended, a shock ran through him. Dazed,
he raised his lids. He lay beside the crackling campfire,

(01:00:54):
and half way between him and the tent was sterot
charging down on him. Like a madman and bellowing red
rage and vengeance. As he came. Graydon leaped to his feet,
but before he could guard himself, the giant was upon him.
The next moment he was down, overborne by sheer weight.
The big adventurer crunched a knee into his arm and
gripped his throat. Sterret's bloodshot eyes blazed into his. His

(01:01:18):
teeth were bared as though to rend him. Let her go,
did you, he roared, knocked me out and then let
her go? Well, damn you, Crayton, here's where you go
to Frantically, Grayton tried to break that grip on his throat.
His lungs labored. There was a deafening roar in his ears.
Flecks of crimson began to dance across his vision. Sterret

(01:01:40):
was strangling him. Through fast dimming sight, he saw two
black shadows leap through the fire like glare and throw
themselves on his strangler clutch the slaying hands the fingers relaxed. Graydon,
drawing in great sobbing breaths, staggered up a dozen paces away.
Stood Sterret still curse him, vilely, quivering, straining to leap

(01:02:03):
again upon him. Dunker, arms around his knees, was hanging
to him like a little terrier. Beside him was Solmmes.
The barrel of his automatic pressed against the giant's stomach.
Why don't you let me kill him? Rape, Sterrett? Didn't
I tell you the wench had enough on her to
set us up the rest of our lives? Didn't I
tell you she had made an emerald that would have

(01:02:24):
made us all rich. And there's more where that one
came from. And he let her go, let her go
the again his curses flowed. Now look here, Sterret. Solmes's
voice was deliberate, cold. You'll be quiet, or I'll do
it for you. We ain't going to let this thing
get byas me and Dunker, we ain't going to let
this double cross and well do us. And we ain't

(01:02:47):
going to let you spill the beans by killing him.
We've struck something big, all right. We're going to cash
in on it. We're going to sit down, peaceable, and
mister Graydon is going to tell us what happened after
he put you out, what dicker he made with the girl,
and all of that. If he won't do it peaceable,
then mister Graydon is going to have things done to

(01:03:08):
him that'll make him give up. That's all. Donc let
go his legs. Stare it. If you kick up any
more trouble until I give the word, I'm going to
shoot you from now on. I boss this crowd, me
and Doc. You got me? Stare it? Graydon Head, once
more clear, slid a cautious hand down toward his pistol
Holster it was empty. Solmes grinned sardonically. We got it, Grayton,

(01:03:34):
he said, yours too. Stare it fair enough? Sit down, everybody.
He squatted by the fire, still keeping Sterret covered, and
after a moment the latter grumbling followed. Suit Donker dropped
beside him. Come over here, mister Graydon, snarled Solmes, Come
over and cough up. What are you holding out on us?

(01:03:55):
Did you make a date with her to meet you
after you got rid of us? If so, where is it,
because we'll all go together. Where'd you hide those gold spears?
Growled Sterrett. You never let her get away with them?
Not sure? Shut up, Sterrett, ordered Solmes. I'm holding us
in quest still, there's something in that? Was that it? Grayton?

(01:04:15):
Did she give you the spears and her jewelry? To
let her go. I've told you, answered Graydon. I asked
for nothing, but I took nothing. Sterrett's drunken folly had
put us all in jeopardy. Letting the girl go for
you was the first vital step toward our own safety.
I thought it was the best thing to do. I
still think so, Yes, sneered the link new Englander. Is

(01:04:40):
that so well? I'll tell you, Graydon, if she'd been
an Indian, maybe I'd agree with you, but not when
she was the kind of lady Sterret says she was. No, sir,
it ain't natural. You know damn well that if you'd
been straight, you'd have kept her here till Dunk and
I got back. Then we all have got together and

(01:05:01):
figured what was the best thing to do. Hold her
until her folks came along and paid up to get
her back undamaged, or give her the third degree till
she gave up where all that gold and stuff she
was carrying came from. That's what you would have done,
mister Graydon, if you weren't a dirty lion double crossing hound.

(01:05:23):
Graydon's temper awakened under the insult, His anger flared up.
All right, Solmes, he said, I'll tell you what I've
said about freeing her for our own safety is true.
But outside of that, I would as soon have thought
of trusting a child to a bunch of hyenas as
I would have trusting that girl to you three. I
let her go a damn sight more for her sake

(01:05:44):
than I did for our own. Does that satisfy you, ah,
jeered Dunker. Now I see here is this strange la
day of so much wealth and beauty. She is too
pure and good for us to be heard. He tell
her so, and bids her fly My hero. She say,
take all I have and give up this bad company. No, no,

(01:06:07):
he'd tell her, thinking all the time. If he play
his cards right, he get much more and thus out
of the way, so he need not divide. No no,
he tell her. But long as these bad men stay here,
you will not be safe, my hero, says she. I
will go and bring back my family, and they shall
dispose of your bad company. But you they shall reward,

(01:06:28):
my hero. We ah ha, So that is what it was.
Graydon flushed the little Frenchman's malicious travesty, shot uncomfortably close.
After all, Sawaa's unsought promise to save him if she
could might be construed as Donker had suggested. What if
he told them that he had warned her that whatever
the Phaeton store for them, he was determined to share it,

(01:06:50):
and that he would stand by them to the last.
They would not believe him. Solmes had been watching him closely.
By god donc He said, I guess you've hit it.
He changed color. He sold us out for a moment.
He raised his automatic, held it on graydon Sterrett touched
his hand. Don't shoot him, Solmes, he begged, Give him

(01:07:13):
to me. I want to break his neck. Solmes pushed
him away, lowered the gun. No, he said deliberately, this
is too big a thing to let slip by beIN
too quick on the trigger. If your dope is right, dunk,
and I guess it is. The lady was mighty grateful.
All right. We ain't got her, but we have got him,

(01:07:36):
as I figure it, being grateful, she won't want him
to get killed. Well, we'll trade him for what they
got that we want. Tie him up. He pointed the
pistol at Grayton. Sterret and Donker went into the tent,
returning with ropes from the pack. Saddles. Unresisting Graydon let
them bind his wrists. They pushed him over to one

(01:07:57):
of the trees and sat him on the ground with
his back against its bowl. They passed a rope under
his arms and hitched it securely around the trunk. Then
they tied his feet. Now, said Solmes, if her gang
show up in the mornin, we'll let em see you
and find out how much you're worth. They won't rush us.
There's bound to be a palaver. And if they don't

(01:08:18):
come to terms, well, Graydon, the first bullet out of
this gone goes through yer gots. That'll give ye time
to see what goes on before you die. Graydon did
not answer him. Nothing that he might say he knew
would change them from their purpose. He closed his eyes,
reviewing that strange dream of his for dream he now
believed it thrust back among the realities of the camp,

(01:08:41):
a dream born of Sowara's words and that weird bracelet
of the dinosaurs from which gleamed the purple orbs of
the serpent woman. Once or twice, he opened his eyes
and looked at the others. They sat beside the fire heads,
close together, talking in whispers, their faces tens and eyes
that glitter with greed, feverish with the gold lust, And

(01:09:03):
after a while Graydon's head dropped forward he slept. End
of chapter three. Chapter four of The Face and the
Abyss by A. Merritt. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter four, The White Lama.

(01:09:29):
It was dawn when Graydon awakened. Some one had thrown
a blanket over him during the night, but he was
nevertheless cold and stiff. He drew his legs up and down, painfully,
trying to start the sluggish blood. He heard the others
stirring in the tent. He wondered which of them had
thought of the blanket, and why he had been moved
to that kindness. Sterret lifted the tent flap, passed by

(01:09:52):
him without a word, and went on to the spring.
Graydon heard him drinking thirstily. He returned and busied himself
about the fire. There was an oddly furtive air about
the big man now and then he looked at the prisoner,
but with neither anger nor resentment. Rather were his glances
apologetic ingratiating. He slipped at last to the tent, listened,

(01:10:16):
then trod softly over the Grayton. Sorry about this, he muttered,
but I can't do anything with Solmes or Donker had
a hard time persuading them even to let you have
that blanket. Here, take a drink of this. He pressed
a flask to Graydon's lips. He took a liberal swallow.
It warmed him. Sh warned stare it, don't bear any grudge.

(01:10:39):
Drunk last night. I'll help you. He broke off, abruptly,
busied himself with the burning logs. Out of the tent.
Came Solmes. He scanned stare It suspiciously, then strode over
to Graydon. I'm going to give you one last chance, Graydon,
he began, without preliminary Come through clean with us on
your dicker with the girl, and wilt take you back

(01:11:00):
with us, and all work together and all share together.
You had the edge on us yesterday, and I don't
know that I blame you, But it's three to one
now and the plain truth is you can't get away
with it, So why not be reasonable? What's the use
of going over all that again? Solms? Graydon answered wearily,
I've told you everything. If you're wise, you'll let me loose,

(01:11:22):
give me my guns and I'll fight for you when
the trouble comes. For trouble is coming, man, sure, big trouble, yeah,
snarled the new Englander, trying to scare us. Are you
all right? There's a nice little trick of driving a
wedge under each of your fingernails and keeping driving them in.
It makes most anybody talk after a while. And if

(01:11:45):
it don't, there's the good old fire dodge, rolling your
feet up to it, closer and closer and closer. Yes, anybody,
I'll talk When their toes began to crisp up and toast,
suddenly he bent over and sniffed at Graydon's lips. So
that's it, he faced sterre It tense, gun leveled from
his hip pockets straight at the giant been feeding him

(01:12:07):
the liquor? Have you been talking to him? Have you?
After we'd settled it last night, that I was to
do all the talking, all right? That settles you, ster It?
Donker don't come here quick, he roared. The Frenchman came
running out of the tent. Tie him up. Solmes nodded
towards Sterrett. Another damn double crosser in the camp, gave

(01:12:27):
him liquor. Got their heads together while we were inside
tie him, but Solmes, the Frenchman was hesitant. If we
have to fight the Indians, it is not well to
have half of us helpless. No, perhaps starlight, he did nothing.
If we have to fight, two men will do as
well as three, said Solmes. I ain't gonna let this

(01:12:48):
thing slip through my fingers. Dunk. I don't think we'll
have to do any fighting if they come. I think
it's going to be a trading job sterit's turned trader.
Two tie him, I say, well, I don't like it,
began Donker. Solmes made an impatient motion with his automatic.
The little Frenchman went to the tent, returned with a
coil of rope, sidled up to stare it. Put up

(01:13:10):
your hands, ordered Solmes. Sterrett swung them up, but in
midswing they closed on Donker, lifted him like a doll
and held him between himself and the gaunt New Englander.
Now shoot damn you, he cried, and bore down on Solmes,
meeting every move of his pistol arm with Donker's wriggling body.
Then his own right hand swept down to the Frenchman's belt,

(01:13:31):
drew from the holsters automatic leveled it over the twisting
shoulder at Solmes, drop your gun, Yanke grinned Sterrett triumphantly,
or shoot if you want, But before your bullet's half third, Donker,
here by Heaven, I'll have you drilled clean. There was
a momentary, sinister silence. It was broken by a sudden
pealing of tiny golden bells. Their chiming cleft through the

(01:13:54):
murk of murder that had fallen on the camp lightened,
it dissolved it as the sunshine does a cloud. Graydon
saw Some's pistol drop from a hand turned nerveless, saw
Sterrett's iron grip relax and let Donker fall to the ground.
Saw the heads of Donker and Sterret and Somes stiffen
and point to the source of that aureent music, like

(01:14:15):
hounds to a huddling covey. His own eyes followed through
the trees. Not a hundred yards away was Sowara, and
there was no warrior host around her she had brought
with her, neither avengers nor executioners. With her were but
two followers. Yet, even at his first glimpse, it came
to Grayton that if these two were servants, they were

(01:14:36):
two strange, strange servants. Indeed, a cloak of soft green
swathed the girl from neck almost to slender feet. In
the misty midnight hare gleamed a coronal of emeralds set
in red gold, and bandlets of gold studded with the
same vorescent gems circled her wrists and ankles. Behind her

(01:14:57):
paced sedately a snow white lama. There was a broad
golden collar around its neck, from which drooped the strands
of golden bells that shook out the tinkling harmonies. Its
eyes were blue, and between them swayed a pendant of
some gem rosy as the fruit of rubies, mate it
to white pearls. From each of its silver silken sides

(01:15:18):
a panier hung woven, it seemed, from shining yellow rushes.
And at the snow white lama's flanks were two figures,
bodies covered by voluminous robes, whose goods covered their faces.
One was draped in darkest blue, He carried a staff
of ebony, and strode beside the lama, somberly, something disconcertingly

(01:15:38):
mathematical in each step he took. The other was draped
in yellow. He carried a staff of vermilion, and he
fluttered and danced beside the beast, taking little steps backward
and forward, movements that carried the weird suggestion that his
robes clothed not a man but some huge bird. Save
for the tinkling of the bells, there was no sound.

(01:15:59):
As they came on. Graydon's three jailers stared at the caravan,
struck him obile with amazement, incredulous, like dreaming men. Graydon
himself strained at his bonds, a sick horror in his heart.
Why had Sowara returned deliberately back to this peril? He
had warned her she could not be so innocent as
to not know what dangers threatened her at the hands

(01:16:21):
of these men. And why had she come decked out
with a queen's ransom and jewels and gold. Almost it
seemed that she had done this deliberately, had deliberately arrayed
herself to arouse to the full the very passions from
which she had most to fear. DIEU. It was Dunker
whispering the emeralds, God, what a girl. It was Sterot muttering,

(01:16:47):
his thick nostrils distended, a red flicker in his eyes.
Only Solmes said nothing. Perplexity, suspicion, struggling through the blank
astonishment on his bleak and crafty face. Nor did he
beak as the girl in her attendants halted close beside him.
But the doubt, the suspicion in his eyes grew as
he scanned her in the hooded pair, then sent his

(01:17:09):
gaze along the path up which they had come, searching
every tree, every bush. There was no sign of movement,
There no sound, Swara, cried Grayton, despairingly. Swara, why did
you come back? Quietly, she stepped over to him, drew
a dagger from beneath her cloak, cut the thong that
bound him to the tree, slipped the blade under the

(01:17:32):
cords about his wrists and ankles, freed him. He staggered
to his feet. Was it not well for you that
I did come, she asked sweetly. Before he could answer,
Solmes strode forward, and Graydon saw that he had come
to some decision, had resolved upon some course of action.
He made a low, awkward, half mocking, half respectful bow

(01:17:54):
to the girl, then spoke to Grayton, All right, he said,
you can stay loose as long as you do what
I want you to. The girl's back, and that's the
main thing. She seems to favor you quite a lot, Grayton,
and maybe that's going to be damn useful. I reckon
that gives us a way to persuade her to talk.
If how happens it she turns quiet, like when I

(01:18:18):
get to asking her certain things like where those emeralds
come from and how to get there and the likes
of that. Yes, sir, and you favor her, that's useful too,
I reckon you won't want to be tied up and
watch certain things happen to her. Eh. He leered at Graydon,
who curbed with difficulty the impulse to send his fist

(01:18:38):
crashing into the cynical face. But there's just one thing
you've got to do if you want things to go
along peaceable, Solmes continued. Don't do any talking to her
when I close by. Remember I know the Eyemera as
well as you do, and I want to be right
alongside listening in all the time. Do you see? That's all?

(01:19:01):
He turned to Sara, bowed once more. Your visit has
brought great happiness, Maiden, he spoke in the Eyemara, it
will not be a short one if we have our way,
and I think we will have our way there was
covert but unmistakable menace in the phrase. Yet if she
noted it, she gave no heed. You are strange to us,

(01:19:22):
as we must be to you. There is much for
us each to learn one of the other. That is true, stranger,
she answered, tranquility, I think, though, that your desire to
learn of me is much greater than mine to learn
of you, since, as you surely know, I have had
one not too pleasant lesson. She glanced at stare it

(01:19:44):
the lessons, sister, he told her bluntly, indeed, brutally, shall
be pleasant or not pleasant, even as you choose to
teach us or not to teach us what we would learn.
This time, there was no mistaking the covert menace in
the word, nor did Sara again let it pass. Her
eyes blazed sudden wrath. Better not to threaten, she warned, her,

(01:20:08):
proud little head thrown haughtily back, I Sowara, I am
not used to threats, and if you will take my counsel,
you will keep them to yourself hereafter? Yes? Is that so?
Solmes took a step toward her, face groaned grim and ugly. Instantly,
Grayton thrust himself between him and the girl. There came

(01:20:29):
a curious, dry chuckling from the hooded figure, and yellow
Sowara started her wrath. Her hauteur vanished. She became once
more naive, friendly, She pushed Grayton aside. I was hasty,
she said to Solmes. Nevertheless, it is never wise to
threaten unless you know the strength of what it is

(01:20:51):
you menace. And remember of me, you know nothing Yet
I know all that you wish to learn. You wish
to know how I came by this and this and this.
She touched her coronal, her bracelet her anklets. You wish
to know where they came from, and if there are
more of them there, and if so, how you may

(01:21:11):
possess yourself of as much as you can carry away.
Well you shall know all that I have come to
tell you. At this astonishing announcement, apparently so frank and open,
all the doubt and suspicion returned to Solmes again. His
gaze narrowed and searched the trail up which Sowara and
her caravan had come. It returned and rested on the girl.

(01:21:34):
Then scrutinized the two servitors, who Graydon now realized had
stood like images ever since that caravan had come to
rest within the camp, motionless and except for that one
dry admonitory chuckling, soundless. And as he stood thus considering,
Donker came up and gripped his arm. Solmes, he said,

(01:21:55):
in his voice and his hand were both shaking the
baskets on the lamma down the rushes. They're gold, pure gold,
pure soft gold, woven like straw. Dieu, Solmes, what have
we struck? Solmes's eyes glittered. Better go over and watch
where they came up dunk, he answered. I don't quite

(01:22:17):
get this. It looks too cursed. Easy to be right.
Take your rifle and squint out from the edge of
the trees while I try to get down to what's what.
As though she had understood the words, Sowara struck in
there is nothing to fear. No harm will come to
you from me. If there is any evil in store
for you, you yourselves shall summon it, not us. I

(01:22:38):
have come to show you the way to treasure. Only
that come with me, and you shall see where jewels
like these she touched, the gems meshed in her hair
grow like flowers in a garden. You shall see the
gold come streaming forth living from she hesitated, then went on,
come streaming forth like water. You may bathe in them stream,

(01:23:00):
drink from it. If you will carry away all that
you can bear. Or if it causes you too much
sorrow to leave it, why you may stay with it forever.
May become a part of it, even men of gold.
She laughed, turned from them, walked toward the lama. The
men stared at her and at each other on the

(01:23:23):
faces of three greed in suspicion, bewilderment on Graydon's For
beneath the mockery of those last words, he had sensed
the pulse of the sinister It is a long journey.
She faced them, one hand on the lama's head. You
are strangers here, indeed my guests in a sense. Therefore
a little I have brought for your entertainment. Before we start.

(01:23:46):
She began to unbuckle the paniers, and Graydon was again
aware that these two attendants of hers were strange servants.
If servants, again they were, they made no move to
help her. Silent, they still stood, motionless, faces covered in
their immobility. He felt something implacable, ominous dread. A little

(01:24:07):
shiver shook him. He stepped forward to help the girl.
She smiled up at him, half shyly. In the midnight
depths of her eyes was a glow warmer far than friendliness.
His hands leaped to touch hers instantly, Somes stepped between them.
Better you remember what I told you, he snapped, then
ran his hand over the side of the panier, and

(01:24:30):
Graydon realized that Donker had spoken the truth. The poniers
were of gold, soft gold, gold that had been shaped
into willow like wythes, and plaited help me, came, Sawara's voice.
Graydon lifted the basket and set it down beside her.
She slipped a hasp bent back the soft metal wides
drew out a shimmering packet. She shook it and it

(01:24:52):
floated out on the dawn wind, a cloth of silver.
She let it float to the ground, where it lay
like a great web of gossamer spun silver spiders. Then
from the hamper she brought forth cups of gold and
deep boat shaped golden dishes, two tall ewers whose handles
were slender carved dragons. Their scales made it seamed from

(01:25:13):
molten rubies. After them, small golden withed baskets. She set
the silver cloth with the dishes and the cups she
opened the little baskets. In them were unfamiliar fragrant fruits
and loaves and oddly colored cakes. All these Sowara placed
upon the plates. She dropped to her knees at the

(01:25:33):
head of the cloth, took up one of the ewers,
snapped open its lid, and from it poured into the
cups clear amber wine. She raised her eyes to them,
waved a white hand. Graciously, sit, she said, eat and drink.
She beckoned to Graydon pointed to the place beside her, silently,
gaze fixed on the glittering hoarde. Sterret and Dunker and

(01:25:56):
Somes squatted before the other plates. Solmes thrust out a hand,
took up one of these, and waited, scattering what it
held upon the ground. Gold, he breathed. Strett laughed crazily,
raised his wine filled goblet to his lips. Wait Donker
caught his wrist. Ethan's drink, she said, hey, Ethan, drink

(01:26:17):
and be merry for tomorrow we die. Hey is that it? Solmes?
The New Englanders started, face once more dark with doubt.
You think it's poisoned, he snarled, maybe, sir, maybe no.
The little Frenchman shrugged. But I think it better always
say after you to her. They are afraid. They think

(01:26:40):
it is that you have. Graydon stumbled that I have
put sleep or death in it. Sawara smiled, and you,
she asked for answer. Graydon raised his cup and drank it.
For a moment, she contemplated him approval in her gaze.
Yet it is natural, she turned to Solmes. Yes, it

(01:27:02):
is natural that you three should fear this, since is
it not so? It is what you would do if
you were we and we were you. But you are wrong.
I tell you again that you have nothing to fear
from me, who come only to show you away. I
tell you again that what there is to fear as
we go on that way is that which is in yourselves.

(01:27:25):
She poured wine into her own cup, drank it, broke
off a bit of Sterret's bread and ate it. Took
a cake from Donker's plate, and ate that set white
teeth in one of the fragrant fruits. Are you satisfied,
she asked them. Oh, be very sure that if it
were in my wish to bring death to you, it

(01:27:46):
would be in no such form as this. For a moment,
Solmes glared at her. Then he sprang to his feet,
strode over to the hooded watching figures, and snatched aside
the cowl of the blue robed one. Graydon, with a
cry of anger, leaped up, and after him, then stood
turned to stone. For the face that Solmes had unmasked
was like old ivory, and it was seamed with a

(01:28:09):
million lines, a face stamped with unbelievable antiquity, but whose
eyes were bright and as incredibly youthful as their setting
was ancient. The face of one of those two draped
figures that had crouched upon the thrones in that mystic
temple of his dream, the face of one of those
mysterious lords, who, with that being of coiled beauty Sawara

(01:28:31):
had named the snake mother had listened to, and, as
he then had thought, had granted Sowara's unknown prayer a
dozen heartbeats. It may be the gaunt new Englander stared
into that inscrutable ancient face and its unwinking, brilliant eyes.
Then he let the hood drop and walked slowly back

(01:28:53):
to the silver cloth. And as he passed him, Graydon
saw that his face was white, and his gaze was fixed,
as though he had looked into some unnameable terror, And
as he threw himself down at his place and raised
his wine cup to his lips, his hand was shaking.
The spell that had held Graydon relaxed. He looked at

(01:29:13):
the black robed figure. It stood as before, motionless and silent.
He dropped beside Sowara. Solme's hand, still shaking, held out
to her his empty goblet. She filled it, He drained it,
and she filled it again. And Graydon saw now that
Sterret's ruddy color had fled, and that Donker's lips were

(01:29:33):
twitching and had grown gray. What was it that they
had seen in that seamed ivory face that had been
invisible to him? What warning? What vision of horror? They
drank thirstily of the wine, and soon it had taken effect,
had banished their terror, whatever it had been. They ate

(01:29:54):
hungrily of the loaves, the little cakes, the fruit. At
last the plates were in the tall You are too,
And now Sawara arose. It is time for us to go.
If you desire still to be led to that treasure
house of which I have told you, or go and
sist her never fear. Solmes grinned half drunkenly and lurched

(01:30:16):
to his feet. Doc, stay right here and watch things
come on stare it. He slapped the giant on the back.
All distrust for the moment at least vanished. Go on, Graydon,
let by gones be by gods. Starret laughed vacantly, scrambled
up and linked his arms in the New Englanders. Together

(01:30:37):
they made their way to the tent. Donker rifle ready
settled down on a boulder just beyond the fire and
began his watch. Graydon, lingered behind. Solmes had forgotten him
for a little while. At least he meant to make
the best of that time with this strange maid, whose
beauty and sweetness had netted heart and brain as no
other woman ever had. He came close to her, so

(01:31:00):
close that the subtle fragrance of her cloudy hair rocked
his heart, so close that her shoulder touching his sent
through him little racing, maddening flames sorrow. He began hoarsely. Swiftly,
she turned and silenced him with slender fingers on his lips.
Not now, she whispered, You must not tell me what

(01:31:22):
is in your heart, o man, to whom my own
heart is eager to speak. Not now, nor it may be. Ever,
there was sorrow in her eyes. Longing to quickly she
veiled them. I promised you that I would save you
if I could, And of that vow was borne another promise.
Her glance sought the two silent, quiet shapes in blue

(01:31:45):
and yellow meaningly. So speak to me, not again, she went, unhurriedly.
Or if you must, let it be of commonplace things,
not of that which is in your heart or mine. Stupidly,
he looked at her. What did she mean by a
promise born of that which she had made to him?
A vow to these lords, to the mystery of the

(01:32:07):
serpent's coils and woman's face and breasts the snake mother,
a vow in exchange for his life, had they seen
deeper into her heart than he and found there in
very truth what he had half dreamed might be, had
she vowed to them to hold him apart from her
if they would grant him protection. His comrades too, if

(01:32:28):
they would have it. Suddenly it came to him that
for him, at least, the life she would save by
such a barter would not be worth living. She was
packing away the golden cups and dishes mechanically. He set
about helping her and save for what he handled. He
thought with grim humor. This was a commonplace thing, enough,

(01:32:49):
surely to satisfy her. She accepted his aid without comment,
looked at him no more, and after a while the
fever in his blood cooled, His hot revolt crystallized and
to cold determination. For the moment, he would accept the situation.
He would let matters develop. His time would come. He
could afford to wait without a word. When the last

(01:33:10):
shining cup was in the panier and the mouth of
the latter closed, he turned and strode to the tent
to get together his duffel package Burrow. The voices of
Sterret and Solmes came to him. He hesitated, listened What
it was when I looked into his damp, wrinkled old face.
I don't know, he heard Solmes say, But something came

(01:33:30):
over me, Sterre It I can't remember, only that it
was like looking over the edge of the world, and
the hell I know. Sterrett's voice was hoarse. I felt
the same way. Hypnotism, said Solmes. That's what it was.
The Indian priests down here know how to work it.

(01:33:50):
But he won't catch me again with that trick. I'll
shoot you can't hepnotize a gun, sterre it. But they're
not Indians, Solmes, came Sterrett's voice. They're whiter than you
and me. What are they? And the girl? God, what
they are we'll find out. Never fear grunted the new Englander.
To hell with the girl. Take her if you can

(01:34:13):
get her. But I'd go through a dozen hells to
get to the place where that stuff they're carrying samples
off comes from man. With what we could carry out
on the burrows and the Lama and come back for man,
we could buy the world. Yes, unless there's a trap somewhere,
said Sterrett dubiously. We've got the cards in our hands. Plainly,

(01:34:36):
the drink was wearing off Solmes, all his old confidence
and cunning were returning. Hell, what's against us? Two old
men and a girl. Now, I'll tell you what I think.
I don't know who or what they are, but whoever, whatever,
you can bet there ain't many of em. If there was,
they'd be landing on us hard. No, they're damned anxious

(01:34:58):
to get us away, and they're willing to let us
get out with what we can to get us away.
Poor boobs, they think if they can give us what
we want now, we'll slip right off and never come back.
And as for what they are, well, i'll tell you
what I think half breeds. The Spanish were down here.
Maybe they bred in with the Incas. There's probably about

(01:35:21):
a handful left. They know we could wipe them out
in no time. They want to get rid of us
quick and cheap as possible, and the three of us
could wipe them out. Three of us, asked Starret. For
you mean there's Graydon? Graydon, don't count the damn crook.
Thought he'd sold us out, didn't he. All Right, we'll
fix mister Graydon when the time comes. Just now, he's

(01:35:44):
useful to us on account of the girl. She's stuck
on him. But when the time comes to divide, there'll
only be three of us, and there'll only be two
of us if you do anything like you did this morning.
Cut that out, so growled the giant. I told you
it was the drink. I'm through with that. Now that

(01:36:04):
we've seen this stuff, I'm with you to the limit.
Do what you want with Graydon, but save the girl
for me. I'd be willing to make a bargain with
you on that. Give up a part of my share.
Oh well, drawled Solmes. We've been together a good many years. Bell,
There is enough and plenty for the three of us.
You can have the girl for nothing. Little flecks of

(01:36:27):
red danced before Graydon's eyes, with his hand stretched to
tear open the tent flap and grapple with these two
who could talk so callously and evilly. Of Sowara's disposal,
he checked himself. That was no way to help her. Unarmed,
What could he do against these armed adventurers? Nothing? Some

(01:36:48):
way he must get back his own weapons, and the
danger was not imminent. They would do nothing before they
reached that place of treasure to which Sawara had promised
to lead them. There had been much of reason and
Soome's explanation of the mystery. That vision of his, What
was it, after all but an illusion? He remembered the
sensation that had caught him when he had first seen

(01:37:10):
those brilliant purple jewels and Sowara's bracelet, the feeling that
he looked along them for great distances, back to actual eyes,
of which the purple jewels were but prolongations. That vision
of his, Was it not but a dream induced by
those jewels, a fantasy of the subconsciousness whipped out of
it by some hypnotic quality they possessed. Science, he knew,

(01:37:34):
admits that some gems hold this quality, though why they
do science cannot tell. Dimly, he remembered that he had
once read a learned article that had tried to explain
the power, something about the magnetic force and light, a
force within those vibrations we call color. Something about this
force being taken up by the curious mechanism of rods

(01:37:56):
and cones in the retina, which flashes the sensations we
call color, or along the optic nerves to the brain.
These flashes, he recalled, the article had said, were actual,
though minute, discharges of electricity. And since the optic nerves
are not, in reality nerves at all, but prolongations of
the brain, this unknown force within the gems impinged directly

(01:38:19):
upon the brain, stimulating some cells, depressing others, affecting memory
and judgment, creating visions, disturbing all that secret world, until
the consciousness became dazzled, bewildered, unable to distinguish between reality
and illusion, so much for his vision that the face
of the figure in blue seemed to be one of

(01:38:41):
those lords he had seen in that vision, Well, was
not that but another illusion? Solmes might well be right too,
he thought, in his interpretation of Sowara's visit to the camp.
If she had power behind her, would she not have
brought it? Was it not more reasonable to accept the
new Englander's version of the thing. And if that were so,

(01:39:03):
then Sowara was but a girl with only two old
men to help her. For he had no doubt that
the figure in yellow, like that in blue, was an
old man too, and all that meant that he Graydon
was all of strength that Sowara could really count on
to protect her. He had spun his web of reasoning
with the swiftness of a dream. When he arrived at
its last strand, he stole silently back a score of paces,

(01:39:27):
waited for a moment or two, then went noisily to
the tent. For the first time in many hours, he
felt in full command of himself. Thought he saw his
way clear before him. Faintly he recognized that he had
glossed over, set aside arbitrarily many things. No matter, it
was good to get his feet on earth again, to
brush aside all these cobwebs of mystery to take the

(01:39:50):
common sense view, it was good and it was safer.
He thrust aside the tent flap and entered been a
long while Comin, snarled som again, his old suspicious self
been talking. After what I told you? Not a word,
answered Graydon cheerfully. He busied himself with his belongings. By

(01:40:11):
the way, Solmes, he said, casually, don't you think it's
time to stop this nonsense and give me back my guns?
Solmes made no answer, went on with his hasty packing.
Oh all right, then, Grayton went on. I only thought
that they would come in handy when the pinch comes.
But if you want me to look on while you
do the scrapping, well I don't mind. You'd better mind.

(01:40:35):
Solmes did not turn around, but his voice was deadly.
You'd better mind, Graydon. If a pinch, calms were taking
no chances of a bullet in our backs. That's why
you got no guns. And if the pinch does come,
well we'll take no chances on you anyway. Do you
get me? Graydon shrugged his shoulders in silence. The packing

(01:40:56):
was completed, the tent struck, the burrows loaded, Sawara stood
awaiting them at the sight of the white Lama. Solmes
walked up to her, drew from its holster his automatic,
balanced it in outstretched hand. You know what this says,
he asked her. Why, Yes, she answered, It is the
death weapon of your kind, right, said Solmes, And it

(01:41:19):
deals death quickly, quicker than spars are arrows. He raised
his voice so there could be no doubt that Blue
Cowl and Yellow cowl must also hear. Now, sister, I
and these two men here, he indicated, Steroton donker carry
these and others still more deadly. This man's weapons we've
taken from him, He pointed to Graydon. Your words may

(01:41:41):
be clearest truth. I hope they are, for your sake
and this man's and the two who came with you,
him and him. He wagged a long finger at Graydon,
at Blue Cowl at yellow cowl. Quick death. We'll get
them out of the way first and will attend to
you later, as it seems best to me. He scanned

(01:42:02):
her through slitted eyes that gleamed coldly. You wonder stand me,
he added, and grinned like a hungry wolf. I understand
Sara's eyes and face were calm, but there was more
than a touch of scorn in her golden voice. You
need fear nothing from us, wait, doubt, said Solmes. But

(01:42:23):
you have much to fear from us another moment. He
regarded her menacingly, then shoved his pistol back into its holster.
Go first, he ordered. You are two attendants behind you,
and then you. He pointed to Grayton. We three march
in the rear with guns ready. Without a word, Souara

(01:42:44):
swung away at the white llama's head. Behind her paced blue,
cowl and yellow, and a dozen paces behind them walked Grayton.
Behind the file of burrows, strode giant stereret lank, Solmes
little Donker rifles ready, eyes watchful, And so they passed
through the giant algorobas out into the oddly park like

(01:43:06):
spaces beyond. End of chapter four. Chapter five of The
Face and the Abyss by A. Merrit the Slebrivox recordings
in the public domain read by Ben Tucker, Chapter five,

(01:43:28):
The Thing That Fled. They had traveled over the savannah
for perhaps an hour when Sowara abruptly turned to the left,
entering the forest that covered the flanks of a great mountain.
Soon the trees closed in on them. Graydon could see
no trail, Yet the girl went on shortly without pause.
He knew there must be signs to guide her, since

(01:43:50):
her course took them now to one side, now to another.
Once he was certain that they had almost circled. Yes, trail,
there must be, unless Sowara was purposefully trying to confuse
them to prevent them from return. He could see nothing
around him but the immense tree trunks, while the thick
roof of leaves shut out all sight of the sun

(01:44:11):
and so hid this means of discovering direction. Another hour
went by, and the way began to climb the shade
to grow denser. Deeper it became and deeper, until the
girl was but a flitting shadow blue robe. He could
hardly see it all, but yellow robe stood out sharply.
His bird's suggestion suddenly accentuated, as though he had been

(01:44:33):
a monstrous yellow parrot. Once or twice, Graydon had glanced
at the three men behind him. The darkness was making
them more and more uneasy. They walked close together, eyes
and ears obviously strained to catch first faint stirrings of ambush.
And now, as the green gloom grew denser, still Solmes

(01:44:54):
strode forward and curtly ordered him to join Dunker and
stare it for an stant. He hesitated red murder in
the new Englander's eyes, realized the futility of resistance, and
dropped back. Solmes pressed forward until he was close behind
Blue Cowl and Yellow. They did not turn their heads,
nor did the girl. Donker motioned him in between himself

(01:45:17):
and Sterret, grinning wickedly. Zumps has changed his plan, he whispered,
If Sarah's trouble, he shot the old devils quick. He
keep the girl to make tread with her people. He
keep you to make tread with the girl. Eh. Graydon
did not answer. He had already realized what the maneuver meant.
But a wave of jubilation swept over him. When the

(01:45:39):
Frenchman had pressed close to him, he had felt an
automatic in his side pocket. If an attack did come,
he thought he would leap upon Donker, snatch the pistol,
and gain for himself at least a fighting chance. He
kept as close to him as he dared, without rousing suspicion.
Darker grew the woods until the figures in front of
him were only a moving blue. Then swiftly the gloom

(01:46:00):
began to lighten. It came to him that they had
been passing through some ravine, some gorge, whose unseen walls
had been pressing in upon them, and that had now
begun to retreat. A few minutes longer, and he knew
he was right ahead of them. Loomed a prodigious doorway,
a cleft whose sides reached up for thousands of feet.

(01:46:21):
Beyond was a flood of sunshine, dazzling. Sawara stopped at
the rocky threshold with a gesture of warning, peered through,
beckoned them on. Blinking Graydon walked through the portal behind,
and on each side towered the mountain. He looked out
over a broad grass covered plain strewn with huge, isolated

(01:46:42):
rocks rising from the green, like men ears of the druids.
There were no trees. The plain was dish shaped, an
enormous oval, as symmetrical as though it had been molded
by the thumb of Cyclopean potter. Straight across it, five
miles or more away, the forests began again. They clothed
the base of another gigantic mountain, whose walls around perpendicularly

(01:47:06):
a mile at least in air. The smooth scarps described
He saw an arc of a tremendous circle, as round
as Fujiama's sacred cone, but hundreds of times its girth.
Rushed back on Graydon the picture of that hidden circular valley,
with its wheeling moon bathed Colossi and uprushing city of Djinns,

(01:47:27):
into which last night he had dreamed the purple eyes
of the snake mother had drawn him. Had it, after all,
been no real dream but true vision? Were these rounded
precipices the outer shell of that incredible place Sawara's story true? Shaken,
he glanced toward her. She stood a dozen paces away,

(01:47:47):
hand on the white Llama's neck and gazing intently over
the plane. There was an anxiety in her gaze, but
there was none in the attitude of those two strange
servitors of hers. As silent, as unconcerned, as detached as ever,
they seemed to await the girl's next move. And now
Graydon noted that they were on a wide ledge that

(01:48:08):
bordered this vast oval bowl. The shelf was a full
hundred feet higher than the bottom of the valley, whose
sides sloped up to it like the sides of a saucer.
And again carrying out that suggestion, of huge dish. The
ledge jutted out like a rim. He guessed that there
was a concavity under his feet, and that if one
should fall over the side, it would be well nigh

(01:48:30):
impossible to climb back because of that overhang. The surface
was about twelve feet wide and more like road carefully
leveled by human hands than work of nature. Its nearer
boundary was a tree covered wall of rock, unscalable. On
one side the curving bowl of the valley with its
weird monoliths, and the circular scarp of the mysterious mountain.

(01:48:52):
On the other, the wooded cliffs. There was a stirring
in the undergrowth where the trees ended their abrupt descent.
A goat like animal slipped out of the covert and
paused head high, nostrils testing the air. Meet, exclaimed Sterrett.
His rifle cracked. The beast sank to the path, twitched
and lay still. Sawara leaped from the lama's side and

(01:49:15):
faced the giant eyes, blazing wrath and behind that anger,
or so it seemed to Graydon fear fool, she cried
and stamped her foot. You fool, get back to the
cleft quick, all of you She ran to the lama,
caught it by the bridle, drove it the burrows, and
the four men back to the shelter of the ravine mouth. You,

(01:49:37):
she spoke to Solmes, if you desire to reach that
gold for which you thirst, see that this man uses
no more that death weapon of his while we are
on this path, nor any of you. Now stay here
and be quiet until I bid you come forth. She
did not wait for reply. She ran to the cleft's opening,
and Graydon followed. She paused there, scanning the distant forest edge,

(01:49:59):
and once, and with greater force than ever before, the tranquility,
the inhuman immobility, the indifference of those two enigmatic servitors
assailed him. They had not moved from the path. Sawara
took a step toward them and half held out helpless,
beseeching hands. They made no movement, and with a little

(01:50:20):
helpless sigh, she dropped her hands and resumed her scrutiny
of the plane. There flickered through Graydon a thought, a
vague realization, and these two cloaked and hooded figures dwelt power.
He had not been wrong in recognizing them as the
two lords of the Luminous temple. But the power they
owned would not be spent to save him or the

(01:50:42):
three from many consequences of their own acts, would not
be interposed between any peril that they themselves should invite. Yes,
that was it. There had been some vow, some bargain.
Even as Sawara had said she had promised to save
him Graydon if she could, She had promised the other's
treasure and freedom if they could win them very well.

(01:51:06):
The hooded pair would not interfere, But neither would they help.
They were judges watching a game. They'd given Sara permission
to play that game, but left the playing of it
rigidly up to her. That nevertheless, they would protect her,
he also believed, and would that conviction. A great burden
lifted from his mind her anxiety. Now he understood it

(01:51:30):
was not for herself, but for him. Sowara, he whispered.
She did not turn her head, but she quivered at
his voice. Go back, she said, those for whom I
watch have sharp eyes, stay with the others. Suddenly, he
could have sworn that he heard the whirling beat of
great wings over her head. He saw nothing. Yet she

(01:51:54):
lifted her arms in an oddly summoning gesture, spoke in
words whose sounds were strange to him, all alien, liquid
labials and soft sibilants. Once more he heard the wing beats,
and then, not far away, but faint, so faint, a
note of the elfin horn. She dropped her arms motioned

(01:52:15):
him back to the others. From the dimness of the cleft,
he watched her slow minutes passed. Again, he heard the
horn note, the faint whirring as of swiftly beating pinions
above her, and again could see nothing, But as though
she had received some message, Sowa returned, the anxiety, the
trouble gone from her face. She beckoned, come out, She said,

(01:52:40):
none has heard. We can be on our way, But
remember what I have said, not a second time. May
you escape. She marched on with the lama. When she
reached the animal that had fallen to stare its aim,
she paused. Take that, She ordered, throw it back among
the trees as far as you can from this path.

(01:53:00):
Hell Solmes cried, Sterrett, don't fall for that. It's good meat.
I'll slip it in on one of the burrows. But
Solmes was staring at the girl, afraid somethin'll track us
by it. He asked. She nodded. Some of the scenic
evil fled from the new Englander's face. She's right, he

(01:53:20):
spoke curtly to Staret. Pick it up and throw it away,
and do as she says. I think she is going
to play square with us. No more shootin d ye, hear.
Sterrett picked up the little animal and hurled it viciously
among the trees. The caravan set forth along the rim
like way. Noon came, and in another ravine that opened
upon the strange road, they snatched from saddle bags a

(01:53:42):
hasty lunch. They did not waste time in unpacking the burrows.
There was a little brooks singing in the pass, and
from it they refilled their canteens, then watered the animals.
This time Sawara did not join them, sitting aloof with
blue cowl and yellow. By mid afternoon they were nearing
the northern end of the bowl. All through the day,

(01:54:03):
the circular mountain across the plain had unrolled its vast
arc of cliff, and through the day Sowara's watch of
its forest clothed base had never slackened. A wind had arisen,
sweeping toward them from the wooded slopes, bending the tall
heads of the grass so far below them. Suddenly, deep
within that wind, Graydon heard a faint, far off clamor,

(01:54:25):
an eerie hissing, shrill and avid, as of some on
rushing army of snakes. The girl heard it too, for
she halted and stood tense, face turned toward the sounds.
They came again and louder, and now her face whitened,
but her voice, when she spoke, was steady. Danger is abroad,
she said, deadly danger for you. It may pass, and

(01:54:48):
it may not until we know what to expect. You
must hide. Take your animals and tether them in the underbrush. There.
She pointed to the mountain side, which here was broken
enough for cover. The four of you take trees and
hide behind them. Tie the mouths of your animals, that
they may make no noise, so snarled Solmes. So here's

(01:55:10):
the trap. As it all right, sister, you know what
I told you. We'll go into the trees, but you
go with us where we can keep our hands on you.
I will go with you, she answered, indifferently. If those
who come have not been summoned by the noise of
that fool's death weapon. She pointed at Sterret. You can
be saved if they have been summoned by it. None

(01:55:33):
can save you. Solmes glared at her, then turned abruptly donk.
He ordered, stare it, get the burrows in and Graton.
You'll stay with the burrows and see they make no noise. Well,
be right close with the guns and we'll have the girl.
Don't forget that again. The wind shrilled with the hissing.

(01:55:53):
Be quick, cried Suara. Swiftly they hid themselves when trees
and underbrush had closed in upon them. It flashed on Graydon,
crouching behind the burrows, that he had not seen the
two cloaked familiars of Sawara joined the hurried retreat and
seek the shelter of the woods. He was at the
edge of the path, and cautiously he parted the bushes

(01:56:13):
peered through. The two were not upon the rim. Simultaneously,
the same thought had come to Dunker. His voice came
from a nearby bowl, silms where there's two old devils
with the gelgeux. Where'd they go? Solmes repeated blankly, Why
they came in with us? Of course I did not

(01:56:35):
see them, persisted Duncer. I think not, Sermes. If they did,
then where are they? You see those two fellows out
on the path, Graydon cried Solmes, anxiety in his tones. No,
answered Graydon curtly. Solmes cursed wickedly. So that's the game, eh,
he grunted. It's a trap and they've cut out and

(01:56:58):
run to bring em here. He dropped into the Eyemara
and spoke to Sowara. You know where those men of
yours are? He asked, menacingly. Graydon heard her laugh and
knew that she was close beside the new Englander, with
Dunker and stare At flanking her. They come and go
as they will, she answered serenely. They'll come and go
as I will. He snarled, call them, I call them again,

(01:57:23):
Soara laughed, Why they do not my bidding? Nay, I
must do theirs. Don't do that, soerms. Donker's cry was sharp,
and Graydon knew that Solmes must have made some threatening movement.
If they are gone, you cannot bring them back. We
have the gird, stop, I say, Graydon jumped to his feet.

(01:57:43):
Bullets are no bullets. He would fight for her. As
he poised to leap, a sudden gust of wind tore
at the trees. It brought with it a burst of
the weird, hissing closer, strident in it, a devilish undertone
that filled him with unfamiliar nightmarish terror. Instantly came Sawara's
voice down down Graydon, then donkers quivering. Graydon knew with

(01:58:07):
the same fear that had gripped him down, son some
a hurtar. For God's sake, hide yourself, Graydon, till we
know what's coming. Graydon turned, looked out over the plain
before he sank again behind the burrows, and at that moment,
from the forests, which at this point of the narrowing
bowl were not more than half a mile away, he
saw dart out a streak of vivid scarlet. It hurled

(01:58:31):
itself into the grass and scuttled with incredible speed straight
toward one of the monoliths that stood black and sheer
a good three quarters of the distance across the dish
shaped valley and its top fifty feet or more above
the green. From Graydon's own height, he could see the
scarlet things swift rush through the grasses. As he sank down.

(01:58:51):
It came to him that whatever it was, it must
be of an amazing length to be visible, so plainly
at that distance, and what was it? It ran like
some gigantic insect. He parted the bushes peered out again.
The scarlet thing had reached the monolith's base, and as
he watched, it raised itself against the rock and swarmed

(01:59:14):
up its side to the top. At the edge, it paused,
seemed to raise its head cautiously and scan the forest
from which it had come. The air was clear, and
against the black background of the stone, the vividly colored
body stood out. Graydon traced six long, slender legs by
which it clung to the rocky surface. There was something

(01:59:36):
about the body that was monstrous, strangely revolting in its listening,
reconnoitering attitude, and the shape of its head was something
more monstrous still, since it carried with it a vague,
incredible suggestion of humanness. Suddenly, the scarlet shape slipped down
the rock breast and raced with that same amazing speed

(01:59:57):
through the grasses toward where Graydon watched. An instant later,
there burst out of the forest. What at first glance
he took for a pack of immense hunting dogs, then
realized that whatever they might be dogs, they certainly were
not they came forward in great leaps that reminded him
of the motion of kangaroos, And as they leaped, they

(02:00:17):
glittered in the sun with flashes of green and blue,
as though armored in mail made of emeralds and sapphires.
Nor did ever dogs give tongue. As they did, they
hissed as they ran shrilly, stridently. The devilish undertones accentuated
a monstrous, ear piercing sibilation that drowned all other sounds

(02:00:39):
and struck across the nerves with fingers of unfamiliar primeval terror.
The scarlet thing darted to the right, to the left frantically,
then crouched at the base of another monolith, motionless, and
now out of the forest burst another shape, like the
questing creatures, this glittered tube, but with sparkles of black,
as though its body was cased in polished jet. Its

(02:01:03):
bulk was that of a giant draft horse, but its
neck was long and reptilian. At the base of that
neck astride it, he saw plainly the figure of a
man a dozen leaps, and it was close behind the
glittering pack, now nosing and circling between the first monolith
and the woods. The Zenely, came Swara's voice from above him.

(02:01:26):
The Zenely. It was the name she had given the
beasts of the Bracelet that held in their paws the
disk of the snake Mother. The dinosaurs his own burrow
lay close beside him. With trembling hand, he reached into
a saddle bag and drew out his field glasses. He
focused them upon the pack. They swam mistily in the lenses,

(02:01:47):
then sharpened into clear outline. Directly in his line of vision.
In the center of the lens was one of the
creatures that had come to gaze, that stood rigidly its
side toward him, pointing like a hunting The excellent glasses
brought it so closely to him that he could stretch
out a hand, it seemed, and touch it. And it
was a dinosaur, dwarfed to the size of a great

(02:02:12):
Dane dog. Still there was no mistaking its breed, one
of those leaping upright walking monstrous lizards that millions of
years ago had ruled Earth, and without whose extinction, so
science taught, man, could never have arisen ages later to
take possession of this planet. Graydon could see its blunt
and spade shaped tail, which with its powerful pillar like

(02:02:35):
hind legs made the tripod upon which it squatted. Its
body was nearly erect. It had two fore legs, or arms,
absurdly short, but muscled as powerfully as those upon which
it sat. It held these half curved as though about
to clutch, and at their ends were no pause, no
but broad hands, each ending in four merciless talons, of

(02:03:00):
which one thrust outward like a huge thumb, and each
of them armed with chisel like claws, whose edges he
knew were sharp as scimitars. What he had taken for
male of sapphire and emerald were the scales of this
dwarfed dinosaur. They overlapped one another, like the scales upon
an armadillo, and it was from their burnished blue and

(02:03:20):
green surfaces and edges that the sun rays struck out
the jewel glints. The creature turned its head upon its
short bull like neck. It seemed to stare straight at Graydon.
He glimpsed little fiery red eyes set in a sloping
bony arch of narrow forehead. Its muzzle was shaped like
that of a crocodile, but smaller truncated. Its jaws were

(02:03:44):
closely studded with long, white and pointed fangs. The jaws slavered.
In a split second of time, the mind of Grayton
took in these details. Then beside the pointing dinosaur leaped
the beast of the rider swiftly. His eyes took it
in true dinosaur, this one too, But Eben scaled, longer tailed,
the hind legs, more slender. In its neck a cylindrical

(02:04:07):
rod five times thicker than the central coil of the
giant boa. His eyes flashed from it to the rider. Instantly,
graydon knew him for a man of Sowara's own race,
whatever that might be. There was the same ivory whiteness
of skin, the same more than classic regularity of feature.
The face, like hers, was beautiful, but on it was

(02:04:27):
stamped in inhuman pride and a relentless, indifferent cruelty. Equally
as inhuman He wore a close fitting suit of green
that clung to him like a glove. His hair was
a shining golden that gleamed in the sun with almost
the brilliancy of the hunting dinosaur's scales. He sat upon
a light saddle fastened to the neck of his incredible steed,

(02:04:48):
just where the shoulders met it. There were heavy rains
that ran to the mouth of the snake's slender snake
long head of the jetty dinosaur. Graydon's glasses dropped from
a nerveless hand. What manner of people were these who
hunted with dinosaurs for dogs and a dinosaur for steed?
His eyes fell to the base of the monolith where

(02:05:09):
had crouched the scarlet thing. It was no longer there.
He caught a gleam of crimson in the high grass,
not a thousand feet from him, Where he watched cautiously.
The thing was creeping on and on toward the rim.
He wondered whether those spider legs could climb it, carry
it over the outjutting of the ledge. He shuddered. A

(02:05:30):
deeper dread grew. Could the dinosaur pack scramble or leap
over that ledge in pursuit? If so? There came a
shrieking clamor like a thousand fumaroles, out of which hissed
the hate of hell. The pack had found the scent
and were leaping down in a glittering green and blue wave.
As they raced. The scarlet thing itself leaped up out

(02:05:51):
of the grasses, not a hundred yards away, and Graydon
glared at it with a numbing, sick horror at his heart.
He heard behind him an incredulous oath for somes her
dunker groan with he knew the same horror that held him.
The scarlet thing swayed upon two long and slender legs,
its head a full fifteen feet above the ground eye
on these stilts of legs was its body, almost round

(02:06:14):
and no larger than a child's. From its shoulders waved
four arms, as long and as slender as the legs,
eight feet or more in length. They were human arms,
but human arms that had been stretched like rubber to
thrice their normal length. The hands or claws were gleaming white. Body,
arms and legs were covered with a glistening scarlet silken down.

(02:06:38):
The head was a human head, a man's head, and
a man's face, brown skinned, hawked nosed, the forehead broad
and intelligent, the eyes inordinately large, unwinking, and filled with
soul destroying terror. A man's spider, a man who by
some infernal art had been he modeled into the mechanical

(02:07:01):
semblance of the spinning arachnidae, without the stamp of his
essential human origin, having been wiped away in the process,
only for a moment. The man Spider stood thus revealed.
The pack was rushing down upon it like a cloud
of dragons. It screamed one shrill, high pitched note that
wailed like the voice of ultimate agony, above the hissing

(02:07:23):
clamor of the pack. It hurled itself a thunderbolt of
scarlet fear, straight toward the rim beneath him. Graydon heard
the sounds of frantic scrambling and a scratching. Two hands,
a full foot long, pallidly shining, shot over the rim
of the ledge, gripping it with long fingers that were
like blunt needles of bone horn covered. They clutched and

(02:07:47):
shot forward. Behind them A length of spindling scarlet downed arm.
It was the man Spider, drawing himself over, and the
wave of dinosaurs was now almost at the spot from
which it had hurled itself at the ledge. The spell
of terror upon Graydon broke a gun. He gasped, for
God's sake, Solmes, throw me a gun against his will.

(02:08:09):
His gaze swept back to those weird, clutching hands. He
thought he saw a rod dart out of the air
and touch them. The long blue rod he had last
seen carried by SaaS hooded a tendant and blue. Whether
he saw it whether he did not, the needle fingered
claws opened convulsively, released their hold, slid off. Glittering pack

(02:08:30):
and ebon dinosaur steed alike were hidden from him by
the overhang of the shelf like road. But up from
that hidden slope came a fiendish triumphant screaming. An instant later,
and out into the range of his sight bounded the
great black dinosaur, its golden haired rider, shouting behind it,
leaped the jewel scaled horde. They crossed the plain like

(02:08:50):
a thundercloud. Pursued by emerald and sapphire lightnings. They passed
into the forest and were gone. That danger is over,
he heard Saaas say, coolly, come, we must go on
more quickly. Now. She stepped out of the tree shadows
and came tranquility to him. Solmes and Donker and stare at,
white faced and shaking, huddled close behind her, graydon arose

(02:09:15):
managed to muster something of his old reckless air. She
smiled at him, that half shy approval of him. Again
in her eyes it was just a weaver, she said, gently,
We have many such. He tried to escape, or maybe
Laantlu opened the door that he might try to escape
so he could hunt him. Lantlu loves to hunt with

(02:09:35):
the Zindli. Or it may be that his weaving went
wrong and this was his punishment. At any rate, it
is fortunate that he did not gain this road, since
if he had, the Zinly and Laantlu would surely have followed.
And then she did not end the sentence, but the
shrug of her shoulders was eloquent. Just a weaver, Solmes

(02:09:55):
broke in hoarsely, what do you mean, God in heaven,
it had a man's It was a man, gasped Dunker. No,
she paid no heed to him, speaking still to Graydon. No,
it was no man, at least, no man as you are,
long long ago. It is true his ancestors were men

(02:10:17):
like you, but not he. He was just a weaver.
She stepped out upon the path, and Graydon following, saw
waiting there as quietly, silently as tranquility, as though they
had not stirred since first he and his companions had
fled the Blue cowled and Yellow cowled familiars of Sawara immobile.

(02:10:38):
They waited while she led forth the white Lama, and
as she passed Graydon, she whispered to him, the weaver
had no soul. You at lunche fashioned him as he was.
But remember him, Graydon, when you come to our journey's end.
She took her place at the head of the little caravan.
Blue Cowl and Yellow paced behind her. Solmes touched Grayton,

(02:11:00):
woke him from the stark amaze into which those last
words of hers had thrown him. Take your old place,
said Solmes. Well follow later. We want to talk to you, Graydon.
Maybe you can get your guns back if you are reasonable.
Sawara turned hurry, she urged. The sun sinks, and we
must go quickly. Before tomorrow's noon. You shall see your

(02:11:23):
garden of jewels and living gold streaming for you to
do with it, or the gold to do with you
as you yourselves shall will it. They set forth along
the rimmed trail. The plain was silent, deserted. From the
far forests came no sound. Graydon, as he walked, strove
to fit together in his mind all that swift tragedy

(02:11:44):
he had just beheld, and what the girl had told him.
A weaver she had called the scarlet thing and soulless
and no man. Once more, she had warned him of
the power of that hidden, mysterious you Adlanche. What was it?
She had told him once before, of that power that
its slew souls or changed them. A weaver, a man

(02:12:09):
spider who was soulless, but whose ancestors ages ago had
been men like himself, so she had said, Did she
mean that in that place she called you, ad Lanche,
dwelt those who could reshape not only that unseen dweller
in our bodies that we named the soul, but change
at will the house of the soul. A weaver, a

(02:12:30):
spider man whose arms and legs were slender and long
and spider like, whose hands were like horn covered needles
of bone, whose body was like the round ball of
a spider. And she had said that the scarlet Thing
might have offended Lantlu by its weaving. Lantlu, the writer
of the Jetty Dinosaur, of course, a weaver. A picture

(02:12:53):
flashed in its brain, clean cut as though his eyes
beheld it, A picture of the scarlet Thing in a
great web, moving over it, with his long and slender
legs clicking his needled hands, a human brain in a
super spider's body, weaving, weaving the very clothing that Suara
herself wore, a vast haul of giant webs, each with

(02:13:17):
its weaver man headed, man faced spider bodied. Was that true?
Picturing suddenly he was sure of it? Nor was it impossible?
He knew that rou that great French scientist, had taken
the eggs of frogs, and by manipulating them, had produced
giant frogs and dwarfs, frogs with two heads and one body,

(02:13:38):
frogs with one head and eight legs, three headed frogs
with legs like centipedes. Another monster. Still, he had molded
from the very stuff of life, monstrous things that were
like nothing this earth had ever seen, nightmare things that
he had been forced to slay and quickly. If Roux
had done all this, and he had done it great knew,

(02:14:01):
then was it not possible for greater scientists to take
men and women, and by similar means breed such creatures
as the scarlet thing a man spider. Nature herself had
given the French scientist the hint upon which his experiments
had been based. Nature herself produced from time to time

(02:14:21):
such abnormalities human monsters marked outwardly and inwardly with the
stigmata of the beast, the fish, even of the insect.
In man's long ascent from the speck of primeval jelly
on the shallow shores of the first seas, he had
worn myriad shapes, And as he moved higher from one

(02:14:43):
shape to another, his cousins kept them becoming during the
ages the fish he caught today, the horses he rode,
the apes he brought from the jungles to amuse him
in his cages. Even the spiders that spun in his gardens,
the scorpion that scuttled from the tread of his feet,
were abysmal, distant blood brothers of his sprung from the

(02:15:03):
ancient trilbite, that, in its turn had sprung from forms
through which was to be at last man himself had come. Yes,
had not all life on earth a common origin, divergent
now and myriad formed Man and beast, fish and serpent,
lizard and bird, ant and bee and spider. All had

(02:15:24):
once been in those little specks of jelly, adrift in
the shallow lattorals of seas of an earth still warm
and pulsating with the first throbs of life. Protalbion, he
remembered Gregory of Edinburgh had named it the first stuff
of life, from which all life was to emerge. Could
the germs of all those shapes that he had worn

(02:15:45):
in his progress to humanity? Be dormant in man, waiting
for some master hand of science to awaken them, and,
having awakened, blend them with the shape of man. Yes,
nature had produced such monstrosity. And unless these shapes had
lain dormant and been capable of awakening, even nature could
not have accomplished it. For even nature cannot build something

(02:16:08):
out of nothing. Rue had studied that work of hers,
dipped down into the crucible of birth, and molded there
his monsters from these dormant forms, even as had nature.
Might it not be then that a new atlanche dwelt
those who knew so well the secrets of evolution, that
in the laboratories of birth they could create men and

(02:16:28):
women things of any shape desired. Allom is but a
dead machine on which fingers work more or less clumsily.
The spider is both machine and living, artisan spinning weaving
more surely more exquisitely than could any dead mechanism worked
by man who had approached the delicacy the beauty of

(02:16:48):
the spider's web. Suddenly Graydon seemed to look into a
whole new world of appalling grotesquery, soulless spider men and
spider women, spread out over great webs, weaving with needled fingers,
wondrous fabrics, gigantic soulless ant men and ant women, digging
burrowing mazes of subterranean passages, conduits kloaca for those who

(02:17:12):
had wrought them into being strange soulas amphibian folk, busy
about that lake that, in his vision, had circled up
to him before he glimpsed the gin city. Phantasmagoria of
humanity twinned with nature's perfect machines, while still plastic in
the egg, came to him. Remembrance of Swara's warning of

(02:17:32):
what might await him at journey's end, had she meant
to prepare him for change like this? Shuddering, he thrust
away that nightmare vision. End of chapter five, Chapter six
of The Face in the Abyss by a Merit the

(02:17:54):
sliprivox recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker.
The elfin horns. The sun was half way down the
west when they reached the far end of the plain.
Here another ravine cut through the rocky wall, and into
it they filed. The trees closed in behind them, shutting

(02:18:15):
out all sight of the bowl in the great circular mountain.
The new trail ran always upward, although at an almost
imperceptible grade. Once looking backward through a rift in the trees,
Grayton caught a glimpse of the grassy slopes far beneath.
For the rest of the tree screened, tree bordered way
gave no hint of what lay ahead. It was close

(02:18:35):
to dusk when they passed out of the trees once
more and stood at the edge of a little more
a barren. It was indeed more than a more. Its
floor was clean, white sand, and dotted with hillocks mounds,
flat topped, as though swept by constant brooms of wind.
Upon the rounded slopes of these mounds, a tall grass
grew sparsely. The mountains arose about one hundred feet apart,

(02:18:57):
with curious regularity. Almost the fancy came to him as
though they were graves in a cemetery of giants. The
little baron covered he estimated roughly about five acres around
its sides. The forest clustered near by. He heard the
gurgling of a brook straight across the sands. Sowara led
them until she had reached a mound close to the

(02:19:18):
center of the baron. Here, she halted. You will camp here,
she said, water is close by for you and your animals.
You may like to fire and sleep without fear. By dawn,
we must be away. She turned and walked toward another
knoll a hundred feet or more away. The white lama
followed her behind it stalked the silent pair. Graydon had

(02:19:40):
expected Solmes to halt her, but he did not. Instead,
his eyes flashed some crafty message to dunker and stare it.
It seemed to Grayton that they were pleased that the
girl was not to share their camp, that they welcomed
the distance she had put between them, and their manner
to him had changed. They were comradleigh once more. Mine
taking the burrows over the water, asked Solmes, we'll get

(02:20:01):
the fire going and chow ready. He nodded and led
the little beasts over to the noisy stream, taking them
back after they had drunk their fill. He looked over
at the mound to which Sara had gone. There at
its base stood a small square tint, glimmering in the
twilight like silk, and fastened to the ground at each
corner by a golden peg. Tethered close to it was

(02:20:22):
the white Lama, placidly munching grass and grain. Its hampers
of woven golden whites were gone. Nor was Swara or
the hooded men visible. They were in the little tint,
he supposed. Whence they had carried the precious cargo off
the Lama. At his own hillock, a fire was crackling,
and supper being prepared. Sterret jerked a thumb over toward
the little tint, got it out of the saddle bags,

(02:20:45):
He said, looked like a folded up umbrella, and went
up like one who'd ever think to find anything like that?
Miss Wilders, Yes, iting zat tink and the settle bags
we have not yet seen, maybe, whispered d Donker, an eager,
covetous light in his eyes. Yo Bat said Solmes and
the lout we have scenes enough to set us all
up for life, Egg Grayton. She has promised you much more,

(02:21:08):
answered Grayton. There was an undercurrent of sinister meaning in
the New Englander's voice that troubled him, Ah, said Solmes absently.
I guess so, but well, let's eat. The four sat
around the burning sticks, as they had done many nights before.
His quarrel would stare it, and, to Graydon's perplexity, they
ignored that weird tragedy of the plain. They pushed it aside,

(02:21:31):
passed it by, seemed to avoid it. Their talk was
all of treasure and of what they would do with
it when out of these mountains and back in their
own world. Piece by piece they went over the golden
hoard and the white lama's packs. Gloatingly they discussed Sowara's
emeralds and their worth. Well, which is those emeralds, none
of us d have to worry, exclaimed Sterret. Graydon listened

(02:21:53):
to them with increasing disquiet. They were mad with the
gold lust. But there was something more behind their studied
avoidance of the d ragging down of the scarlet thing
by the dinosaurs. This constant reference to the lama's treasure,
the HARKing back to what ease and comfort and luxury
it would bring them all, something lurking unsaid in the
minds of the three of them, of which all this

(02:22:14):
was but the preliminary at last, Solmes looked at his watch.
Nearly eight, he said, abruptly, dawn breaks about five. Time
to talk, Turkey, Graydon, come up close. Graydon obeyed, wondering,
The four drew into a cluster in the shelter of
the knoll, from where they crouched Soara's tent was hidden,
as they were hidden to any watchers in that little

(02:22:36):
silken pavilion, looking now like a great golden moth at
rest under the moonlight. Graydon began the New Englander. We've
made up our minds on this thing. We're going to
do it a little different where wellin and glad to
let bygones be bygones hell. Here we are for white
men and a bunch of god knows what white men
ought to stick together? Ain't that so? Graydon nodded, waiting,

(02:22:59):
all right, went on Solmes. Now here's the situation. I
don't deny. We're up against something I don't know much about.
We ain't equipped to go up against anything like that
paca hissen devils we saw to day. But we can
come back again. Graydon nodded. They decided then to go
no further. The lesson of the afternoon had not been lost,

(02:23:20):
Solmes would ask Sara to lead them out of the
haunted Coodiera. As for coming back, that was another matter.
He would return, but he would come back alone seek Sowara,
since well he knew no mysterious peril either to lie
or soul, could keep him from her. But first he
must see these men safe, wipe off the debt that
he believed as one man of his race to another.

(02:23:42):
He owed them he was glad, but the gladness was
tempered with sudden doubt. Could the game be finished? Thus?
Would Sowara and that pair of strange old men let
them go? Solmes next words brought him back to reality.
There's enough on that lama and the girl to set
us all up right. But there's also enough to finance

(02:24:02):
the greatest little expedition that ever struck the trail for treasure,
he was saying, And that's what we plan doing, graydon
get those hampers and all that's in them, get the
stuff on the girl, beat it and come back. But
those hissing devils wouldn't stand up long under a couple
of machine guns and some gas bombs. And when the
smoke's cleared away, we can lift all we want and

(02:24:22):
go back and sit on top of the world. What
do you say to that graydon fenced? How will you
get it? He asked, How will you get away with it? Easy?
Solmes bent his head closer. We got it all planned.
There ain't any watch being kept in that tent. You
can bet on that they're too sure of us. All right,

(02:24:43):
if you're with us, we'll just slip quietly down there,
stare it and don't they'll take care of the old devils,
no shooting, just slip their knives into their ribs. Man,
you'll attend to the girl. We won't hurt her, just
tie her up and gagger. Then we'll stow the stuff
on a couple of the burrows to the rest. And
that damn white beast and beat it quick, beat it where?

(02:25:05):
Asked Grayton, Striving to cover the hot anger that welled
up in him, He slipped a little closer to Dunker
Handler to seize the automatic in his pocket. Well, get out,
replied Solmes, confidently. I've been figuring out where we are,
and I saw a peak to the west there both
stare at and me recognized looked like pretty open forest
country between us two. Once we're there, I know where

(02:25:25):
we are, and traveling light and all night, we can
be well on our way to it by this time tomorrow.
Graydon thrust out a cautious hand touched Dunker's pocket. The
automatic was still there. He would try one last appeal
to fear, but Solmes, he urged, there would be pursuit.
What would we do with those brutes you saw today

(02:25:46):
on our track? Why, man, they'd be after us in
no time. You can't get away with anything like that.
Instantly he realized the weakness of that argument. Not a
bit of it, Solmes grinned evilly. It's just the point.
Nobody's worrying about that girl. Nobody knows where she is.
She was damned anxious not to be seen this afternoon. No, Graydon,

(02:26:07):
I figure she slipped away from her folks to help
you out. I take my hat off to you. Yeah,
got her sure hooked. Nobody knows where she is, and
she don't want nobody to know where she is. The
only ones might raise trouble is the two old devils
and a quick knife in their ribsl put him out
of the run in soon enough. Then there's only the girl.
She'll be damn glad to show us the way out

(02:26:28):
if chance we do get lost again, but me and
Stret know that Peak will carry her along, and when
we get where we know we are, we'll turn her
loose to go home none the worse off, Hey boys,
ster It and Donker nodded. Graydon seemed to consider fighting
still for time. He knew exactly what was in Solme's
mind to use him in the cold blooded murder the

(02:26:48):
three had planned, and once beyond the reach of pursuit,
to murder him too. Nor would they ever allow Sawara
to return to tell what they had done. She too
would be slain after they had done as they willed
with her. Come on, Graydon, whispered Solmes, impatiently. It's a
good scheme and we can work on it. Are you
with us if you ain't well? His knife glittered in

(02:27:11):
his hand. Simultaneously, Sterret and Donker pressed close to him,
knife too, in readiness awaiting his answer. Their movement had
given him the one advantage he needed. He swept his
hand down into the Frenchman's pocket, drew out a gun,
and as he did so, landed a sidewise kick that
caught stare It squarely in the groin. The giant reeled back,
but before Graydon could cover Solme's Donker's arms went around

(02:27:33):
his knees, his feet torn from beneath him. Swart Graydon
cried before he was down. At least a shout might
waken and warn her. The cry was choked in mid utterance.
Solmes's bony hand was at his throat. Down they crashed together.
Graydon reached up, tried to break the strangle and clutch it.
Gave a little enough to let him gasp in one breath. Instantly,
he dropped his hold on the New Englander's wrists, hooked

(02:27:55):
the fingers of one hand in the corner of his mouth,
pulled with all his strength. There was a sputtering curse
from Solmes, and his hands let go. Graydon tried to
spring to his feet, but one arm of the gaunt
man slipped over the back of his head, held his
neck in the vise of bent elbow against his shoulder.
Knife him donc growled Solmes. Graydon suddenly twisted, bringing the

(02:28:16):
New Englander on top of him. He was only in
time for as he did so, he saw Donkers strike
the blade, barely missing Solmes. The latter locked his legs
around his tried to jerk him over in range of
the little Frenchman. Graydon sank his teeth and the shoulder
so close to him. Solmes roared with pain and wrath,
threshed and rolled, trying to shake off the agonizing grip

(02:28:37):
Around them. Danced Donker, awaiting a chance to thrust. There
came a bellow from Sterret the Llama. It's running away,
the lama, and voluntarily Graydon loosed his jaws. Solmes sprang
to his feet. Graydon followed on the instant, shoulder up
to meet the blow he expected from Donker. Yuck selms lick.
The little Frenchman was pointing a zef put the hampers

(02:28:59):
back into deluse. There he goes with the gold, with
the jewels. Graydon followed the pointing finger. The moon had
gathered strength, and under its flood the white sands had
turned into a silver lake, in which the tufted hillocks
stood up like tiny islands golden hampers on its sides.
The Lama was flitting across that lake of silver a
hundred paces away, and headed apparently for the trail along

(02:29:21):
which they had come. Stop at, shouted Solmes, All else
forgotten after it stare it that way, donk, I'll head
it off. They raced out over the shining barren. The
lama changed its pace, trotted leisurely to one of the mounds,
and bounced up to its top. Close in, We've got
it now, he heard Solmes cry. The three ran to

(02:29:42):
the hillock on which the white beasts stood, looking calmly around.
They swarmed up the mound from three sides, Solmes and
stare at. He could see Donker was hidden by the slope.
As their feet touched the sparse grass, a mellow sound
rang out, one of those elfin horns Graydon had heard
chorusing so joyously about Sawara that first day. It was

(02:30:02):
answered by others close all about again the single note,
and then the answering chorus swirled toward the hillock of
the llama, hovered over it, and darted like a shower
of winged sounds upon it. He saw sterret staggers, though
under some swift shock whirl knotted arms around him, as
though to ward off attack. A moment the giant stood

(02:30:23):
thus flailing with his arms. Then he cast himself to
the ground and rolled down to the sands. Instantly, the
notes of the elfin horns seemed to swarm away from
him to concentrate around Solmes. He had staggered too under
the unseen attack, but he had thrown himself face downward
on the slope of the mound, and was doggedly crawling
to its top. He held one arm, shielding his face,

(02:30:45):
but shielding against what all that graydon could see was
the hillock top, and on it the lama bathed in
the moonlight. The giant prone at the foot of the mound,
and Somes now nearly at its crest, And the horn
sounds were ringing, scores upon scores of them, like the
horns of a fairy hunt. But what it was that

(02:31:06):
made those sounds he could not see. They were not visible,
they cast no shadow. Yet once he thought he heard
a whirring as of hundreds of feathery wings. Solmes had
reached the edge of the mound's flat summit. The lama
bent its head contemplating him. Then, as he scrambled over
that edge, thrust out a hand to grasp its bridle.
It flicked about, sprang to the opposite side, and leaped

(02:31:28):
down to the sands. And all that time the clamor
of the elfin horns about Solmes had never stilled. Graydon
saw him, whence strike out, bend his head and guard
his eyes as though from a shower of blows. Still
he could see nothing. Whatever that attack of the invisible
it did not daunt the new Englander. He sprang across
the mound and slid down its side, close behind the lama.

(02:31:50):
As he touched the ground stare it arose slowly to
his feet. The giant stood swaying, half drunkenly dazed. The
horn notes ceased abruptly, as though they had been candlelight
blown out by a sudden blast. Donker came running around
the slope of the hillock. The three stood for a
second or two, arguing, gesticulating, and Graydon saw that their
shirts were ragged and torn, and as Somes shifted and

(02:32:13):
the moonlight fell upon him, that his face was streaked
with blood. The lama was walking leisurely across the sands,
as slowly, as though it were tempting them to further pursuit.
Strange too, he thought, how its shape seemed now to
stand forth sharply, and now to fade almost to a
ghostly tenuity, And when it reappeared it was as though
the moonbeams thickened, whirled and wove swiftly, and spun it

(02:32:37):
from themselves. The llama faded and then grew again on
the silvery warp, and the woof of the rays like
a pattern on an enchanted loom. Sterret's hand swept down
to his belt. Before he could cover the white beast
with the automatic, Somes caught his wrist. The new Englander
spoke fiercely, wrathfully. Graydon knew that he was warning the
giant of the danger of the pistol crack urging silence.

(02:33:01):
Then the three scattered, Donker and ster It to the
left and right to flank the lama. Solmes approaching at
what speed he might without startling it into a run.
As he neared it, the animal broke into a gentle lope,
heading for another hillock, and as before, it bounded up
through the sparse grass to the top. The three pursued,
but as their feet touched the base of the mound
once more, the mellow horn sounded menacingly mockingly. They hesitated,

(02:33:25):
and then stare it breaking from Some's control, lifted his
pistol and fired. The silver Lama fell the fool the
damned fool, groaned Graydon. The stunned silence that had followed
on the hills of the pistol Shot was broken by
a hurricane of the elfin horns. They swept down upon
the three like a tempest. Donker shrieked and ran toward

(02:33:46):
the camp fire, beating the air wildly. As he came halfway,
he fell, writhed and lay still. And Solmes and the
Giant they too were buffeting the air with great blows, ducking, dodging.
The Elfin horns were now a ringing, raging, tumult death
in their notes. Sterret dropped to his knees, arose, and
lurched away. He fell again close to Dunker's body, covered

(02:34:08):
his head with a last despairing gesture, and lay as
still as the little Frenchman. And now Solmes went down
fighting to the last. There on the sands lay the
three of them motionless, struck down by the invisible, Graydon
shook himself into action, leaped forward. He felt a touch
upon his shoulder. A tingling numbness ran through every muscle.

(02:34:29):
With difficulty. He turned his head. Beside him was the
old man in the blue robe, and it had been
the touch of his staff that had sent the paralysis
through Graydon. The picture of the clutching talons of the
spider man upon the edge of the rimmed road flashed
before him. That same rod had, then, as he had thought,
sent the weird weaver to its death, simultaneously, as though

(02:34:51):
at some command. The clamor of the elfin horns lifted
from the sands, swirled upward, and hung high in air, whimpering,
whining prote He felt a soft hand close around his wrist,
Sowara's hand again. He forced his reluctant head to turn.
She was at his right and pointing. On the top

(02:35:11):
of the hillock, the white Lama was struggling to its feet.
A band of crimson ran across its silvery flank, the
mark of Sterreit's bullet. The animal swayed for a moment,
then limped down the hill. As it passed Solmes, It
nosed him. The new Englander's head lifted, he tried to rise,
fell back. Then, with eyes fastened upon the golden panniers,

(02:35:31):
he squirmed up on hands and knees and began to
crawl on the white Lama's tracks. The beast went slowly stiffly.
It came to Sterret's body and paused again, and Sterret's
massive head lifted, and he tried to rise, and failing,
even as had Solmes, began like him, to crawl behind
the animal. The white lama passed Donker. He stirred and moved,

(02:35:52):
and followed it on knees and hands over the moon
soaked sands. Back to the camp they trailed. The limping
lama was blood dripping, dropped by drop from its wounded side.
Behind it, three crawling men, their haggard, burning eyes riveted
upon the gold wife paniers. Three men who crawled, gasping
like fish, drawn up to shore. Three broken men, from

(02:36:15):
whose drawn faces glared that soul of greed which was
all that gave them strength to drag their bodies over
the sands. End of Chapter six, Section seven of the
Face in the Abyss by A. Merritt. This LibriVox recording

(02:36:36):
is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter seven,
Come back Graydon. Now lama and crawling men had reached
the camp. The elfin horn notes were still. Graydon's muscles
suddenly relaxed. Power of movement returned to him with a
little cry of pity. Swirre ran to the white lama's side,

(02:36:58):
caressed it, strove to staunch its blood. Crayton bent down
over the three men. They had collapsed as they had
come within the circle of the camp fire. They lay
now huddled, breathing heavily, eyes fast closed. Their clothes had
been ripped to ribbons, and over all their faces, their breasts,
their bodies were scores of small punctures, not deep, theirredges

(02:37:19):
clean cut, as though they had been pecked out. Some
were still bleeding, and others the blood had dried. He
ran to the rushing brook. Sowarro was beside her, tint
the lama's head in her arms. He stopped, unbuckled the paniers,
let them slip away, probe the animal's wound. The bullet
had plowed through the upper left flank without touching the bone,
and had come out. He went back to his own camp,

(02:37:41):
drew forth from his bag some medical supplies, returned and
bathed and dressed the wound as best he could. He
did it all silently, and Sowarro was silent too, Her
eyes were eloquent. Enough. This finished, he went again to
the other camp. The three men were lying as he
left them. They seemed to be in a stupor. He
walked their faces of the blood, bathe their stained bodies.

(02:38:03):
He spread blankets and dragged the three up on them.
They did not awaken. He wondered at their sleep, or
was it a coma? The strange punctures were bad enough,
of course, yet it did not seem to him that
these could account for the condition of the men. Certainly
they had not lost enough blood to cause unconsciousness, nor
had any arteries been opened, nor was one of the

(02:38:24):
wounds deep enough to have disturbed any vital organ. He
gave up, conjecturing wearily. After all, what was it but
one more of the mysteries among which he had been moving,
and he had done all he could for the three
of them. Graydon walked away from the fire, threw himself
down on the edge of the white sands. There was
a foreboding upon him, a sense of doom, and as

(02:38:46):
he sat there, fighting against the blackness gathering around his spirit,
he heard light footsteps and Sawara sank beside him. Her
cloudy hair caressed his cheek, her rounded shoulder touched his own.
His hand dropped upon hers, cover it, and after a
shy moment. Her fingers moved then interlaced with his. It
is the last night, Graydon, she whispered, tremulously, the last night,

(02:39:11):
And so they have let me talk with you. Awhile, no,
he called her to him fiercely. There is nothing that
can keep me from you now, Sara, except death, Yes,
she said, and thrust him gently away. Yes, it is
the last night. There was a promise, Grayton, a promise
that I made. I said that I would save you

(02:39:33):
if I could, I asked the two lords. They were amused.
They told me that if you could conquer the face,
you would be allowed to go. I told them that
you would conquer it, and I promised them that after
that you would go. And they were more amused, asking
me what manner of man you were who had made
me believe you could conquer the face? The face, questioned Grayton,

(02:39:57):
The great face, she said, the face in the abyss.
But of that I may say no more. You must
meet it, and these men too, he asked, The men
who lie there, They are as already dead, she answered,
indifferently dead. And worse, they are already eaten. Eaten, he cried, incredulously. Eaten,

(02:40:22):
she repeated, eaten, body and soul. For a moment she
was silent. I do not think, she began again. I
did not really think that even you could conquer the face.
So I went to the snake Mother, and she too laughed,
but at the end, as woman to woman, since after
all she is woman, she promised me to aid you,

(02:40:44):
and then I knew you would be saved. Since the
Snake Mother far excels the two lords in craft and guile,
and she promised me as woman to woman. The two
lords know nothing of that, She added, naively. Of this, Grayton,
remembering the youthful eyes and the old old faces that
had weighed him in the Temple of the Shifting rays,
had his doubts. So she said, was the bargain made,

(02:41:08):
and so its terms must be fulfilled. You shall escape
the face, Grayton, but you must go to that. He
answered nothing, and after another silence, she spoke again, wistfully.
Is there any maid who loves you or whom you
love in your own land? Grayton? There is none, Sowara,

(02:41:29):
he answered. I believe you, she said simply, and I
would go away with you if I might, But they
would not allow it, and if I tried, they would
slay you. Yes, even if we should escape, they would
slay you and bring me back, So it cannot be.

(02:41:49):
He thrilled to that, innocently self reverent as it was.
I am wary if you would lanchy, She went on somberly. Yes,
I am wary of its ancient wisdom and its treasures,
and its people who are eternal, eternal at least as
the world. I am one of them. And yet I
long to go out into the new world, the world

(02:42:09):
where there are babes and many of them, and the
laughter of children, and where life streams passionately, strong and
shouting and swiftly, even though it is through the opened
doors of death that it flows, and you at Launche
those doors are closed except to those who choose to
open them. And life is still a stream without movement,

(02:42:31):
and there are few babes and of the laughter of children.
Little what are your people soaa, he asked the ancient people?
She told him, the most ancient ages upon ages ago.
They came down from the north, where they had dwelt
for other ages. Still they were driven away by the

(02:42:53):
Great Cold. One day the earth rocked and swung. It
was then the Great Cold came down and the darkness
and icy tempests, and even the warm seas began to
freeze their cities, so the legend run are hidden now
under mountains of ice. They journeyed south and their ships,
bearing with them the serpent people, who had taught them

(02:43:14):
most of their wisdom, and the snake mother is the
last daughter of that people. They came to rest here.
At that time the sea was close, and the mountains
had not yet been born. They found here hordes of
the Zenli. They were larger, far larger than now. My
people subdued them and tamed and bred them to their uses,

(02:43:35):
and here for another age they practiced their arts and
their wisdom and learned more. Then there were great earth shakings,
and the mountains began to lift. Although all their wisdom
was not great enough to keep the mountains from being born,
it could control their growth around that ancient city and
its plain that were u Alanchi. Slowly, steadily, through another age,

(02:43:58):
the mountains arose, until it was as they girdled Yolanchi
like a vast wall, a wall that could never be scaled.
Nor did my people care. Indeed, it gladdened them, since
by then they had closed the doors of death and
cared no more to go into the outer world, And
so they have dwelt for other ages more. Again she

(02:44:19):
was silent, Musing Graydon struggled against his incredulity. A people
who had conquered death, a people so old that their
birthplace was buried deep beneath eternal ice. And yet, as
to the last at least, why not did not science
teach that the frozen poles had once basked beneath a
tropical sun. Expeditions had found it, both of them, the

(02:44:41):
fossil forms of gigantic palms, strange animals, a flora, and
a fauna that could only have lived under tropical conditions.
And did not science believe that, long long ago the
earth had tipped, and that thus the frozen poles had
come to be? An inexplicable irritation filled him, instinctive revolt
of the young against the very old. If your people

(02:45:04):
are so wise, he questioned, why do they not come
forth and rule this world? But why should they? She asked?
In turn, they have nothing more to learn. If they
came forth, what could they do but build the rest
of the earth, And to likeness of that part in
which they dwell, what use is that grayton None. So
they let the years stream by while they dream, the

(02:45:26):
most of them, For they have conquered dream. Through dream,
they create their own worlds, do therein as they will live,
life upon life as they will it. In their dreams,
they shape world upon world upon world, and each of
their worlds is a real world to them. And so
they let the years stream by while they live in dream.
Why should they go out into this one world when

(02:45:49):
they can create myriads of their own at will? Again,
she was silent. But they are barren, the dream makers,
she whispered, barren. That is why there are few babes
and little laughter of children. And you, alanchi, why should
they mate with their kind, these women and men who
have lived so long that they have grown weary? If

(02:46:11):
all their kind can give them, Why should they mate
with their kind? When they can create new lovers and dream,
new loves and hates, Yes, new emotions and forms utterly
unknown to earth, each as he or she may will.
And so they are barren, not alone the doors of death,
but the doors of life are close to them, the

(02:46:33):
dream makers. But you, he began, I. She turned a
wistful face to him. Did I not say that when
they closed the doors of death, the doors of life
closed too. For these are not really too, but only
the two sides of the one door. Some there are
always who elect to keep that door open, to live

(02:46:53):
the life that is their own, to have no dealing
with dreams. My father and mother were of these. They
took the hazard of death that they might love ancient arts,
ancient wisdom. She went on, wisdom that perhaps you have
rediscovered and called new wisdom, you yet may gain wisdom

(02:47:13):
that may never be yours. And think, whatever gods you
worship that you have not, pray to them that you
never may have such wisdom as shaped the weaver. He
asked that he was child's play. She answered, a useful toy.
There are far far stranger things than the weaver and

(02:47:34):
you Atlanchi graydon Sowara, He asked, abruptly, Why do you
want to save me a moment? She hesitated. Then, because
you make me feel as I have never felt before,
she whispered slowly. Because you make me happy, because you
make me sorrowful. When I think of you, it is

(02:47:55):
like warm wine in my veins. I want both to
sing and to weep. I want your touch to be
close to you. When you go, the world will be darkened,
life will be drab. Sowara. He cried, and drew her,
unresisting now to him. His lips sought hers, and her

(02:48:15):
lips clung to his. A flame leaped through him. She quivered,
and his arms was still. I will come back, he whispered.
I will come back, Sowara. Come, she sobbed, Come back, Grayton.
She thrust him from her, leaped to her feet. No, no,

(02:48:36):
she cried, No, Grayton, I am wicked. No, it would
be death for you, as God lives. Sowara. He said,
I will come back to you. She trembled, leaned forward,
pressed her lips to his, slipped through his arms, and
ran to the silken pavilion. For an instant she paused there,
stretched wistful arms to him, entered, and was hidden within

(02:48:59):
its folds. There seemed to come to him, faintly, heard
only by heart, Come back, come back to me. He
threw himself down where their hands had clasped, where their
lips had met. Hour after hour, he lay there, thinking, thinking,
his head dropped forward. At last he carried her into

(02:49:19):
his dreams. End of chapter seven, Chapter eight of the
Face on the Abyss by A. Merritt. The sliprivox recording
is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker, Chapter eight,

(02:49:40):
The face in the Abyss, The white sands of the
Baron were wan in the first gleaming of the dawn.
When Graydon awakened, he arose with the thought of Sawara
warm around his heart, chilling that warmth swift upon him
like a pall. Fell that bleak consciousness of doom against
which he had struggled before he slept, and bleaker heavier

(02:50:01):
now not to be denied. A wind was sweeping down
from the heights. Beneath it. He shivered. He walked to
the hidden brook, doft clothing dipped beneath its icy floe.
Strength poured back into him at the touch of the
chill current. Returning, he saw Soara, less than half clad,
slipping out of the silken tent. Clearly she too was

(02:50:22):
bound for the brook. He waved a hand. She smiled,
Then long silken lashes covered the midnight eyes. Rose Pearl
grew her face, her throat, her breasts. She slipped back
behind the silken folds. He turned his head from her,
passed on to the camp. He looked down upon the three,
Gaunt Solmes, little Donker, giant staret. He stooped and plucked

(02:50:46):
from Solmes's belt and automatic his own. He satisfied himself
that it was properly loaded, and thrust it into his pocket.
Under Solmes's left arm pit was another. He took it
out and put it in the holster from which he
had withdrawn his He slipped into sterrets a new magazine
of Cartridges. Donker's gun was ready for use. They'll have

(02:51:06):
their chance anyway, he said to himself. He stood over
them for a moment, scanned them. The scores of tiny
punctures had closed. Their breathing was normal. They seemed to
be asleep, And yet they looked like dead men, Like
dead men, livid and wan and bloodless as the pallid
sands beneath the growing dawn. Graydon shuddered, turned his back

(02:51:29):
upon them. He made coffee, threw together a breakfast, went
back to rouse the three. He found Solmes sitting up,
looking around him dazedly. Come and get something to eat, Solms,
he said, and gently, for there was a helplessness about
the gaunt man that roused his pity, black hearted, Even
as the new Englander had shown himself. Solmes looked at

(02:51:52):
him blankly, then stumbled up and stood staring, as though
waiting for their command. Graydon leaned down and shook Sterret
by the shoulder. The giant mumbled, opened, dull eyes, lurched
to his feet. Donker awakened, whimpering as they stood before him,
gaunt man, little man, giant. A wonder, a fearful wonder,

(02:52:12):
seized him, for these were not the men he had known. No,
what was it that had changed these men? So sapped
the life from them, until they seemed, even as Sawara
had said, already dead. A verse from the rhyme of
the ancient mariner rang in his ears. They groaned, they stirred,
They all up, rose, nor spake, nor moved their eyes.

(02:52:33):
It had been strange, even in a dream, to have
seen those dead men rise. Shuddering again, he led the
way to the fire. They followed him stiffly, mechanically, like automatons,
And like automatons, they took the steaming coffee from him
and drank it the food and swallowed it. Their eyes, blank,
devoid of all expression, followed his every movement. Graydon studied them,

(02:52:58):
the fear filled wonder growing. They seemed to hear nothing,
see nothing, save for their recognition of himself to be
cut off from all the world. Suddenly he became conscious
of others near him, turned his head and saw close
behind him, Sawara and the hooded pair. The eyes of Solmes,
of Stereot and of Donker turned with his own, and

(02:53:18):
now he knew that not even memory had been left them,
blankly with no recognition. Unseeing, they stared at Sowara. It
is time to start, Grayton, she said softly, her own
eyes averted from their dead gaze. We leave the Lama
here it cannot walk. Take with you only your own animal,

(02:53:39):
your weapons, and what belongs to you. The other animals
will stay here. He chilled, for under her words he
read both sentence of death and of banishment, death of
all of them, perhaps banishment for him, even if he
escaped death in his face. She read his heart accurately,
tried to soften his sorrow. They may escape, she continued hastily,

(02:54:03):
and if they do, the animals will be here waiting them.
And it is well for you to have your own
with you in case. In case, she faltered, he shook
his head. No use, Sowara, he smiled, I understand, Oh,
trust me, trust me. She half sobbed. Do as I say, Graydon,

(02:54:26):
he said, no more. He unhobbled his burrow, fixed the
saddle bags, took his own rifle and strapped it to them.
He picked up the rifles of the others and put
them in their hands. They took them as mechanically as
they had the coffee in the food. Now, Blue Cowl
and Yellow swung into the lead soara at their heels.
Come on, solmes, he said, come on, stare it, it's

(02:54:48):
time to start, Donker. Obediently, they swung upon the trail,
marching side by side, gaunt man at left, giant in
the center, little man at right. Like Marionette's. They marched obediently, unquestioning,
without word. If they knew the Lama and its treasures
were no longer with them, they gave no sign. If
they knew Graydon again carried his guns, they gave no

(02:55:09):
sign either. Another line of the rhyme echoed in his memory.
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools. Graydon swung in
behind them, the patient burrow trotting at his side. They
crossed the white sands, entering a broadway stretching through close
growing enormous trees, as though it had once been a
road of stone upon whose long deserted surface the leaves

(02:55:33):
had rotted for centuries, upon which turf had formed, but
in which no trees had been able to get root hold.
And as they went on he had evidence that it
had been actually such a road, for where there had
been washouts, the faces of gigantic cut and squared granite
blocks were exposed. For an hour they passed along this ancient,
buried trail, they emerged from it abruptly out upon a

(02:55:56):
broad platform of bare rock. Before them were the walls
of a split mountain, its precipices towered thousands of feet.
Between them, like a titanic's sword. Cut was a rift,
a prodigious cleavage which widened as it reached upward, as
though each side had shrunk away from the splitting blade
as it had struck downward. The platform was the threshold

(02:56:18):
of this rift, fifty feet wide from edge to edge
it ran. At each edge stood a small conical shaped building,
temple or guard house, whose crumbling stones were covered with
a gray lichen so ancient looking that it might have
been withered Old time's own flower. The cowled figures neither
turned nor stopped. They crossed the threshold between the ruined cones.

(02:56:41):
Behind them, Sowara, and after her, never hesitating, the stiffly
marching three. Then over it went Grayton and the burrow.
The way led downward at an angle barely saved from
difficult steepness. No trees, no vegetation of any kind could
he see, unless the ancient gray and dry lichen that
cover the road and whispered under their feet could be

(02:57:02):
called vegetation. But it gave resistance. That lichen made the
descent easier. It covered the straight rock walls that arose
on each side. The gorge was dark, as he had expected.
The light that fell through its rim, thousands of feet overhead,
was faint, but the gray lichens seemed to take it
up and diffuse it. It was no darker than an

(02:57:23):
early northern twilight. Every object was plainly visible. Down they went,
and ever down, for half an hour an hour, always
straight ahead. The road stretched, never varying in its width,
and growing no darker. Even the gray lichens lightened it.
He estimated its drop was about fifteen feet in the hundred.

(02:57:44):
He looked back and upward along its narrowing vista. They
must be, he thought. Half a mile or more below
the level of the rift threshold, the road angled a
breast of rock, jutted abruptly out of the cliff, stretching
from side to side like a barrier. The new road narrower,
barely wide enough for the three marionettes in front to
walk on side by side. As they wheeled into it,

(02:58:07):
Graydon again felt a pang of pity. They were like
doomed men marching to execution, hopeless, helpless and drugged. Nay,
they were men who had once been slain and drawn
inexorably on to a second death, never speaking, never turning,
with mechanical swing of feet, rifles held slack in limp arms,

(02:58:29):
their march was a grotesqueerly tinged with horror. The new
road was darker than the old. He had an uneasy
feeling that the rocks were closing high over his head,
that what they were entering was a tunnel. The gray
lichens rapidly dwindled on walls and underfoot. As they dwindled,
so did the light. At Last, the gray Lichens ceased

(02:58:49):
to be. He moved through a half darkness in which
barely could he see save his shadows those who went before,
And now he was sure that the rocks had closed overhead,
burying them. He fought against a choking oppression that came
with the knowledge. And yet it was not so dark
after all. Strange, he thought, strange that there should be

(02:59:09):
light at all in this covered way. And stranger still
was that light itself. It seemed to be in the air,
to be of the air. It came neither from walls
nor roof. It seemed to filter in, creeping along the
tunnel from some source far ahead. A light that was
as though it came from radiant atoms infinitely small, that
shed their rays as they floated. Slowly by thicker grew

(02:59:33):
these luminous atoms, whose radiance only and not their bodies,
could be perceived by the eye. Lighter and lighter grew
the way again, and as abruptly as before it turned.
They stood within a cavern that was like a great
square auditorium to some gigantic stage, the interior of a
cube of rock, whose four sides, whose roof a hundred

(02:59:56):
feet overhead, and whose floor were smooth and straight, as
though trued by a giant's spirit. Level and by plane,
and at his right dropped a vast curtain, a curtain
of solid rock, lifted a foot above the floor and
drawn aside at the far end for a quarter of
its sweep. From beneath it and from the side streamed
the radiant atoms, whose slow drifted down the tunnel had

(03:00:17):
filled it with its ever increasing luminosity. They streamed from
beneath it and around the side swiftly, now like countless
swarms of fire flies, each carrying a lamp of diamond light.
There Sawarra pointed to the rocky curtain's edge. There lies
your way. Beyond it is that place I promised I
would show you the place where the jewels grow like

(03:00:38):
fruit in a garden, and the living gold flows forth.
Here we will wait. You now go long. Graydon looked
at that curtain and at the streaming radiant atoms pouring
from beyond it. Gaunt man, little man, giant man stood
beside him, soulless faces staring at him, awaiting his command
his movement. In the hood, he sensed a cynical amusement,

(03:01:02):
and yellow Cowl, at least for blue Cowl, seemed but
to wait, as though as though even now he knew
what the issue must be. Were they baiting him, he wondered,
playing him for their amusement? What would happen if he
were to refuse to go farther, refuse to walk around
the edge of that lifted curtain, summoned the three and

(03:01:23):
march them back to the little camp and the baron
Would they go? Would they be allowed to go? He
looked at Swara. In her eyes of midnight velvet was sorrow,
a sorrow, unutterable despair and agony and love. Whatever moved
that pair she called the two lords in her at
least was no cynical gaming with human souls, And he

(03:01:47):
remembered her promise that he could look upon the face
and conquer it. Well. He would not retreat now, even
if they would let him. He would accept no largeasse
at the hens of this pear, who were so now
seemed to him looked upon her as a child who
must be taught what futile thing it was that she
had picked for chosen toy. He would not shame himself

(03:02:09):
nor her. Wait Here, he spoke to the three staring ones.
Wait here, do you understand? Solmes? Donker stare it? Do
not move? Wait here until I come back. They only
stared on at him, unanswering, either with tongue or face.
Stay here, he repeated, sharply. He walked up to the

(03:02:30):
hooded pair. To hell with you, he said, clearly, and
as coldly as he felt they themselves might speak, were
they to open those silent lips of theirs, do you
understand that I said? To hell with you? They did
not move. He caught Sawara in his arms, kissed her, suddenly,

(03:02:51):
reckless of them, He felt her lips cling to his remember,
he whispered, I will come back to you. Strode over
to the curtain's edge, swinging his automatic as he went.
He strode past the edge and full into the rush
of the radiance. For perhaps a dozen heart beats, he
stood there, motionless, turned to stone. Blank incredulity stamped deep

(03:03:14):
upon his face, and then the revolver dropped from nerveless hand,
clattered upon the floor of stone. For Graydon looked into
a vast cavern filled with the diamonded atoms, throbbing with
a dazzling light that yet was crystalline clear. The cavern
was like a gigantic hollow globe that had been cut
into and one half cast away. It was from its

(03:03:37):
curving walls that the luminosity streamed. And these walls were
jetty black and polished like mirrors, and the ray that
issued from them seemed to come from infinite depths within them,
darting through them with prodigious speed, like rays shot up
through inconceivable depths of black water, beneath which in some
unknown firmament blazed a sun of diamond incandescence. And out

(03:04:01):
of these curved walls, hanging to them, like the grapes
of precious jewels in the enchanted vineyards of the Paradise
of el charraz like flowers in a garden of the
King of the Gin, grew clustered gems, great crystals, cabauchamp
and edged, globular and angled alive under that jubilant light,
with the very soul of fire, that is the lure

(03:04:22):
of jewel rubies that glowed with every rubrius tint from
that clear scarlet that is sunlight streaming through the finger
tips of delicate maids, to deepest sullen reds of bruised hearts,
sapphires that shone with blues as rare as that beneath
the bluebird's wings, and blues as deep as those which
darken beneath the creamy crest of the gulf stream's crisping waves.

(03:04:46):
Huge emeralds that gleamed now with the peacock verdancies of
tropic shallows, and now are green as the depths of
a jungle glade. Diamonds that glittered with irised fires or
shot forth showers of rainbowed rip great burning opals, gems
burning with amethyst stem flames, Unknown jewels whose unfamiliar beauty

(03:05:08):
checked the heart with wonder. But it was not the
clustered jewels within this chamber of radiance that had released
the grip of his hand upon the automatic turned him
to stone. It was the face from where he stood.
A flight of cyclopean steps ran down a hundred feet
or more into the heart of the cavern. At their
left was the semi globe of gemmed and glittering rock.

(03:05:32):
At their right was space, an abyss whose other side
he could not see, but which fell sheer away from
the stairway in bottomless depth upon depth. The face looked
at him from the far side of this cavern. Its
eyes were level with his bodiless its chin rested upon
the floor a little beyond the last Monolithic step. It

(03:05:55):
was carved out of the same black rock as the walls,
but within it was no faintest sparkle of the darting luminescences.
It was man's face and devil's face in one luciferian, arrogant, ruthless, colossal,
thirty yards or more in width from ear to ear.
It bent a little over the abyss, as though listening

(03:06:16):
upon the broad brow. Power was throned, an evil and
imperial power, power that could have been godlike in beneficence,
had it so willed, but which had chosen instead the
lot of Satan. The nose was harpy, curved, vulture bridged
and cruel. Merciless was the huge mouth, the lips full

(03:06:37):
and lecherous, the corners cynically drooping. Upon all its carved
features was stamped the very secret soul of humanity's insatiable
eternal hunger for gold. Greed and avarice were graven there,
and spendthrift, recklessness, and callous waste. It was the golden
lust given voice of stone. It promised, it lured, it threatened,

(03:07:00):
it cajoled, and it summoned he looked into the eyes
of the face a hundred feet above the chin. They
were made of pale blue crystals, cold as the glint
of the polar ice. Within them was centered all the
faces Demoniac's strength, and as Graydon glared into their chill depths,
swift visions passed from them to his own, ravishing of

(03:07:23):
cities and looting of ships, men drunk with greed, resting
great golden nuggets from the breast of earth, men crouching
like spiders in the hearts of shining yellow webs, and
gloating over hordes of golden flies. He heard the shouts
of lute crazed legions sacking golden capitals, the shouting of
all argonauts since first gold and men were born, and

(03:07:45):
he thrilled to their clamor answered it with shoutings of
his own. Poured into him from the cold eyes. Other visions,
visions of what gold, gold without end could do for him,
flaming lures of power over men and nations, power limitless
and ruthless as that which sat upon the face's own brow,
fair women, earthly paradises, Fata morganas of the senses. There

(03:08:09):
was a fire in his blood, a satanic ecstasy, a
flaming recklessness. Why the face was not of stone, the
eyes were not cold jewels. The face was living, and
it was promising him this world and dominion over all
this world, if he would but come to it. He
took a step down the stairway. There came to him

(03:08:33):
Sowara's heart broken cry. It checked him. He looked again
at the colossal face, and now he saw that all
the darting luminous atoms from the curving walls were concentrated
upon it. It threw them back into the chamber and
under and passed the curtain of rock and out into
the abyss. And that there was a great circlet of

(03:08:54):
gold around the face's brow, a wide, deep crown, almost
like a cap. From that, like drops of yellow blood,
great globes of gold fell slowly. They crept sluggishly down
the cheeks. From the eyes ran slowly other huge golden drops,
like tears, and out of each down turned corner of
the mouth, the gold dripped like slaver, the drops of

(03:09:18):
gold and sweat the golden tears. The golden slaver rolled
and joined a rivulative gold that crept out from behind
the face crawled sluggishly to the verge of the abyss
and over its lip into the unfathomable depths. Look into
my eyes, Look into my eyes. The command came to him,

(03:09:39):
imperious not to be disobeyed. It seemed to him that
the face had spoken it. He stared again, straight into
the cold blue crystals, and forgotten now was its horror.
All that he knew was its promise. Graydon dropped to
the second step, then to the third. He wanted to
run on straight to that gigantic mask of black rock

(03:10:01):
that sweated, wept in slattered gold, Take from it what
it had offered, give it whatever it should demand in return.
He was thrust aside, reeled, and caught himself at the
very edge of the stairway. Past him rushed the three
gaunt man, giant man, and little man. He caught a
glimpse of their faces. There was no blankness in them now,

(03:10:23):
no vagueness. No, they were as men reborn. Their eyes
were burning bright, and upon the face of each was
set the stamp of the face its arrogance, its avarice,
its recklessness, and its cruelty. Faster, faster they ran down
the steps, rushing to the gigantic face, and what it
had promised them as it had promised him. Rage, murderous

(03:10:47):
and confusing, shook him by heaven. They couldn't get away
with that earth and the dominion of earth. They were
his own for the taking. The Face had promised them
to him. First, he would kill them. He leaped down
behind them, then caught his feet, pinioned them. Wrapped itself
around his knees, brought him to an abrupt halt. He
heard a sharp hissing, raging, cursing. He looked down around

(03:11:11):
his ankles. Around his knees were the coils of a
white serpent. It bounded him tightly like a rope. Its
head was level with his heart, and its eyes looked
unwinkingly into his For a breathless moment, revulsion shook him,
an instinctive and panic terror. He forgot the face, forgot
the three. The white serpent's head swayed, then shot forward,

(03:11:32):
its gaze fastened upon something beyond him. Grayton's gaze followed
its own. He saw the snake mother at one and
the same time, real and unreal. She lay stretched out
upon the radiant air, her shining lengths half coiled. She
lay within the air. Directly between him and the face.
He saw her, and yet plainly through her he could

(03:11:54):
see all that weird cavern and all that it held.
Her purple eyes were intent upon him, and instantly his
rage and all that fiery poison of golden lust that
had poured into him were wiped away. In their place
flowed contrition, shame, a vast thankfulness. He remembered Sara through

(03:12:15):
this phantom, the snake Mother, if phantom it was. He
stared full and fearlessly into the eyes of the face,
and their spell was broken. All that Graydon saw now
was its rapacity, its ruthlessness, and its horror. The white
serpent loosed, its coils, released him, slipped away. The phantom
of the Snake Mother vanished. Trembling, he looked down the stairway.

(03:12:39):
The three men were at its end. They were running,
running toward the face. In the crystalline luminosity, they stood
out like moving figures cut from black cardboard. They were
flattened by it. Three outlines, sharp as silhouettes cut from
black paper, lancn gaunt silhouette, giant silhouette, and little one.
They ran side by side, and now they were at

(03:13:01):
the point of the huge chin. He watched them pause
there for an instant, striking at each other, each trying
to push the others away. Then, as one, and as
though answering some summons irresistible, they began to climb up
the cliffed chin of the face. Climbing graydon new up
to the cold blue eyes and what those eyes had

(03:13:22):
seemed to promise. Now they were in the full focus
of the driving rays, the storm of the luminous atoms.
For an instant they stood out still, like three men
cut from cardboard, a little darker than the black stone.
Then they seemed to gray, their outlines, to grow misty, nebulous.
They ceased their climbing, they writhed, as though in sudden

(03:13:45):
intolerable agony. They faded out where they had been there
hovered for a breath, something like three wisps of stained cloud.
The wisps dissolved like mist. In their place stood out
three glistening droplets of gold. Sluggishly, the three droplets began

(03:14:07):
to roll down the face. They drew together and became one.
They dripped slowly down to the crawling golden stream, where
merged with it, were carried to the lip of the
abyss and over into the gulf. From high over that
gulf came a burst of the elfin horns. And now,
in that strange light, Graydon saw at last what it

(03:14:30):
was that sent forth these notes, what it was that
had beaten out on the moonlit barren, the souls of
the three, breaking them, turning them into dead men walking.
Their bodies were serpents, sinuous, writhing and coiling, silver scaled,
but they were serpents winged. They dipped and drifted and
eddied on snowy long feathered wings, blanched phosphorescent plumes, fringed

(03:14:55):
like the tails of ghostly birds of paradise, large and small,
some the size of the great python, saw no longer
than the little ferd lence. They writhed and coiled and
spun through the sparkling air above the abyss, trumpeting triumphantly,
calling to each other with their voices like elfin horns,

(03:15:15):
fencing joyously with each other, with bills that were like
thin straight swords. Winged serpents paradise plumed, whose bills were
sharp rapiers, winged serpents, sending forth their peons of fairy trumpets,
while that crawling stream of which somes dunker sterret were
now apart, dripped, dripped, slowly, so slowly, down into the

(03:15:40):
unfathomable void. Graydon fell upon the great step, sick in
every nerve and fiber of his being. He crept up
the next and the next, rolled over the last, past
the edge of the rocky curtain. Out of the brilliancy
of the diamonded light, and the sight of the Face,
and that trumpet clam of the flying serpents, he saw

(03:16:02):
Sowara flying to him, eyes wild with gladness. Then he
seemed to sink through wave after wave of darkness into oblivion.
End of chapter eight. Chapter nine of The Face and
the Abyss by A Merrit the Slebrivox recordings in the

(03:16:26):
public domain read by Ben Tucker. Chapter nine. I am
going back to her, Grayton awakened, Sowara beloved, He whispered
and stretched out eager arms. Memory rushed back to him.
He leaped to his feet, stared around him. He was
in a dim forest glade. Beside him, his burrow nibbled

(03:16:48):
placidly the grass. Sowara, he cried again loudly. A figure
stirred in the shadow, came toward him. It was an Indian,
but one of a type Grayton had never seen before.
His features were delicate, fine. He wore a corselet and
kilt of padded yellow silk. There was a circlet of
gold upon his head, and bracelets of the same metal

(03:17:10):
on his upper arms. The Indian held out a package
wrapped in silk. He opened it. Within it was Sowara's
bracelet of the dinosaurs, and the karakinky feather she wore
when first he had seen her. Graydon restored the feather
and its covering, thrust it into the pocket over his heart.
The bracelet and why he did it, he never knew.

(03:17:31):
He slipped over his own wrist. He spoke to the
Indian in the eyemara. He smiled, shook his head, nor
did he seem to understand any of the half dozen
other dialects that Graydon tried. He pointed to the burrow
and then ahead. Graydon knew that he was telling him
that he must go, and that he would show him
the way. They set forth. He tried to etch every

(03:17:52):
foot of the path upon his memory, planning already for
return in a little while. They came to the edge
of a steep hill. Here the Indian paused, pointing down
fifty feet or so below him, Graydon saw a well
marked trail. There was an easy descent, zig zagging down
the hill side to it. Again, the Indian pointed, and
he realized that he was indicating which way to take

(03:18:13):
upon the lower trail. The Indian stood aside, bowed low,
and waited for him to pass down with the burrow.
He began the downward climb. The Indian stood watching him,
and as Graydon reached a turn in the trail, he
waved his hand and farewell, and slipped back into the forest.
Graydon plodded slowly on for perhaps a mile farther. There

(03:18:34):
he waited for an hour, then he turned resolutely back,
retraced his way to the hill side, and, driving his
burrow before him, quietly reclimbed it. In his brain and
in his heart were but one thought and one desire
to return to Sawara, no matter what the peril, to
go back to her. He slipped over the edge of

(03:18:56):
the hill and stood there for a moment, listening. He
heard nothing. He pushed ahead of the burrow, softly bade
it follow strode forward instantly. Close above his head, he
heard a horn note sound menacing angry. There was a
worrying of great wings. Instinctively, he threw up his arm.

(03:19:17):
It was the one upon which he had slipped Sowara's bracelet.
As he raised it, the purple stones that were the
eyes of the snake woman carved upon it flashed in
the sun. He heard the horn note again, protesting curiously startled,
there was a whistling flurry in the air close beside him,
as of some unseen winged creature striving frantically to check

(03:19:37):
its flight. Something struck the bracelet a glancing blow. He
felt another sharp blow against his shoulder. A searing pain
darted through the muscles. He felt blood gush from shoulder
and neck. The buffet threw him backward. He fell and
rolled over the edge of the hill and down its side.
In that fall, his head struck a stone, stunning him.
When he came to his senses, he was lying at

(03:19:58):
the foot of the slope, with the burrow standing beside him.
He must have lain there unconscious for considerable time, for
the stained ground showed that he had lost much blood.
The wound was in an awkward place for examination, but
so far as he could see, it was a clean
puncture that had passed like a rapier thrust through the
upper shoulder and out of the neck. It must have
missed the artery by a hair, and well he knew

(03:20:21):
what had made that sound, one of the feathered serpents
of the abyss. The cliff or hill marked no doubt
the limits of u at Lanchi at that point. Had
the strange Indian placed the creature there in anticipation of
his return, or had it been one of those watchers
of whom Sowara had spoken, and this frontier one of
its regular points of observation. The latter he was inclined

(03:20:43):
to think, for the Indian had unquestionably been friendly, and
did not the bracelet and the karakhink feathers show that
he had been Sowara's own messenger. But Graydon could not
go back into the unknown perils with such a wound.
He must find help. That night, the fever took him.
The next day he met some friendly Indians. They ministered

(03:21:05):
to him as best they could, but the fever grew
worse and the wound a torment. He made up his
mind to press on to Chupon the nearest village, where
he might find better help than the Indians could give him.
He had stumbled on to Chipon reached it on his
last strength. Such was Grayton's story. If you ask me
whether I believe it or whether I think it the

(03:21:25):
vagaries of a fever stricken wanderer, I answer, I do
believe it. Yes. From the first to the last, I
believe it true. For remember, I saw his wound, I
saw the bracelet of the dinosaurs, and I listened to
Grayton in his delirium. A man does not tell precisely
the same things in the cool blood of health that
he raves of in delirium, not at least, if these

(03:21:48):
things are but fancies born of that delirium, he cannot
He forgets. There was one thing that I found it
hard to explain by any normal process. You say you
saw this well being, you call the snake mother as
a phantom in that cavern of the face. I asked,
but are you sure of that, Grayton? Are you sure

(03:22:08):
that this was not hallucination or some vision of your
fever that you carried into waking. No, he said, no,
I am very sure. I would not call what I
saw a phantom. I only used that word to describe it.
It was more a projection of her image. You forget,
don't you that other exercise of this inexplicable power of

(03:22:30):
projection the night I was drawn into you at Lanche
by her eyes. Well of the reality of that first experience,
there cannot be the slightest doubt. I do not find
the other more unbelievable than that. The cavern of the face,
He went on thoughtfully, that I think was a laboratory
of nature, a gigantic crucible, where under certain rays of

(03:22:52):
light a natural transmutation of one element into another took place.
Within the rock out of which the face was carved
was some mineral which, under these rays was transformed into gold,
a purely chemical process of which our race itself is
not far from learning the secret. As you know the face,
I think it was an afterthought of some genius of

(03:23:13):
hud Lanche. He had taken the rock, worked upon it,
and symbolized so accurately man's universal hunger for gold, that
inevitably he who looked upon it responded to its call
the subconsciousness. The consciousness, too, leaped out in response to
what the face portrayed with such tremendous power. In proportion
to the strength of that hunger, so was the strength

(03:23:36):
of the response like calls to like the world over.
But do you think that Solmes and Steret and little
Dunker really turned into gold? I asked him frankly. Of that,
I have my doubts. He answered, It looked so, But
the whole scene was so well, so damnably devilish, that

(03:23:56):
I can't quite trust to my impressions of that. It
is possible that something else occurred. Unquestionably, the concentration of
the rays on the region about the face was terrific.
Beneath the bombardment of those radiant particles of force, whatever
they were, the bodies of the three may simply have disintegrated.
The droplets of gold may have been oozing from the

(03:24:16):
rock behind them, and their position in the exact place
where the three disappeared may also have been only a
vivid coincidence that the flying serpents were visible in that
light and not in normal light shows. I should think
that it must have been extraordinarily rich in the ultraviolet vibrations,
I suggested. He nodded. Of course, that was it, he said,

(03:24:39):
invisible in day or night light. It took the violet
rays to record their outlines. They are probably a development
of some form of flying saurians, such as the ancient pterodactyls,
he mused for a moment. But they must have possessed
a high degree of intelligence, he went on. At last,
those serpents intelligence higher even than the dog, intelligence, perhaps

(03:25:00):
on par with that of the elephant. The creature that
struck me certainly recognized Sara's bracelet. It was that recognition
which checked it. I am sure it tried to stop
its thrust, but it was too late to do more
than divert it. And that is why I think I
am going to find her, he whispered. She wanted me
to come back. She knew that I would. I think

(03:25:22):
the bracelet is a talisman, or better still, a passport
to carry me by the watchers, as she called them.
It was not just as a remembrance that she gave
it to me. No, I will come back and with her,
he told me. On that day, we clasped hands in farewell.
I watched him until he and the little burrow were

(03:25:42):
hidden by the trees of the trail. He must follow
until he had reached the frontier of the haunted Cordillera,
the gateway of those mysteries with which he had determined
to grapple, to wrest from them the maid he named Soara.
But he has not come back. End of chapter nine.
End of the Face in the Abyss by A. Merritt