Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

~ 698 The black eunuch squatted a dozen feet away, facing us, chin upon his knees, tak- ing us in with unblinking eyes blank of any emotion. Then he began to move slowly his tremendously long arms in easy, sooth- ing motion, the hands running along the floor upon their talons in arcs of circtes. It was curious how those hands seemed to be endowed with a volition of their own, independent of the arms upon which they swung! ' And now I could see only the hands, shutting so smoothly, so rhythmically back and forth—weaving so sleepily, so sleepily back and forth—black hands that dripped sleep—hypnotic. Hypnotic! I sprang from the lethargy closing upon me! In one quick side glance I saw Drake’s head nodding—nodding in time to the movement of the black hands! I jumped to my feet, shaking with an in- tensity of rage unfamiliar to me; thrust my pistol into the wrinkled face. ‘Damn you!” I cried. ‘Stop that! Stop it and turn your back!” The corded muscles of the arms con- tracted, the claws of the slithering paws drew in as though he were about to clutch me; the ebon pools of the eyes were cov- ered with a frozen film of malignant hate. He could not have known what was this tube with which I menaced him; but its threat he certainly sensed and was afraid to meet. Lips drawn in a devilish sneer he squattered about, wrapped his arms around his knees, crouched with back toward us. . What’s the matter?” asked Drake drowsily. '“ He tried to hypnotize us,” I answered shortly. ‘‘ And pretty nearly did it.” : “So that’s what it was!” He-was now wide awake. ‘‘I watched those hands of his and got sleepier and sleepier—I guess we'd better tie Mr. Yuruk up.” He jumped to his feet. ‘“No,” I said, restraining him. ‘“ No. He’s safe enough as long as we’re on the alert. I don’t want to use any force on ‘him yet. Wait until we know we‘can get something worth while by doing it.” “All right,’’ he nodded grimly. ‘‘ But when the time comes ]’m telling you straight, Doc, I’m going the limit. There’s ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. . something about that human spider that makes me itch to squash him—slowly!”’ “Tl have no compunction, Dick—when it’s worth while,” I answered as grimly. We sank down again against the saddle- bags; he brought out a black pipe, looked at it sorrowfully; at me appealingly. ‘‘ All mine was on the pony that bolted,” IT answered his wistfulness. ‘ All mine was on my beast, too,” he sighed. ‘‘ And I lost my pouch in that spurt from the ruins.” He sighed again, clamped white teeth down upon the stem. ‘Of course,” he said at last, “if Vent- nor was right in that—that disembodied analy sis of his, it’s rather—well, terrifying, a t it?” “Tt’s ail of ‘that,” I replied, “ and con- siderably more.” “Metal, he said,” Drake mused. “ Things of metal with brains of thinking crystal and their blood the lightnings! You accept that?” ° _ “So far as my own observation has gone —yes,” I said. “ Metallic yet mobile; in- organic but with all the qualities we have hitherto thought only those of the organic and with others added. Crystalline, of course, in structure and highly complex. Activated by magnetic-electric forces con- sclously exerted and as much a part of their life as brain energy and nerve cur- rents are of our human life. Animate, moving, sentient combinations of metal and electric energy.” He said: ‘ The opening of the disk from the globe and of the two blasting stars fram the pyramids show the flexibility of the outer —plate would you call it? I couldn’t help thinking of the armadillo after I had time to think Yt all.”’ “Tt may be ’—1I struggled against the conviction now strong upon me—“ it may be that within that metallic shell is an or- ganic body, something soft—animal, as there is within the horny carapace of the turtle, the nacreous valves of the oyster, the shells of the crustaceans—it may be that even their: inner surface is organic—”’ “No,” he interrupted, “if there is a body—as we know a body—it must be be- 6)(0)©) nn (C(O) (C S 43