Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

of the nerves that you get after the first whiffs of an opium pipe. It rubbed against my face like an invisible kitten. It touched my hands and my bare calves. It got into my hair and tickled my scalp. It had the ways of a bazaar woman. Now and then I swung round with the belief that some one had touched me with a finger on the back of the neck. “There were small toads hopping about on the stone floor of the vault—he jerboa type of toad, with long legs. Ilyin, the old man, and the girl Sava took care not to step on the toads; and when the girl saw that I did not take much care, she spoke to the Russian, and he whispered to me: ‘Please be careful,’ he said; ‘the old man will get annoyed if you squash them.’ ““Why?’ I asked. ““The old man speaks to them,’ said Ilyin. ‘When he wants to show me something extraordinary, he tells them to keep close to the wall so that they will not be trodden on by the others.’ “ “What others?’ I snapped. “*You'll see,’ he grinned. ‘You'll see, Dutchman.’ “He was full of mystery, was that fellow. It was bubbling out of him. And the air that had fingers, and the phosphorescent lichen, were the hypodermic syringes with which he tried to squirt it into my system. “We walked the length of that place. It was enormous. The pillars were beautifully carved with figures of birds and monkeys, and at the bottom of each pillar was a square stone box like those at Brambanan, that are filled with the dust of the dead. We did not speak. The only sounds were the slap- slap of the toads as their bellies hit the oor. It was not nice. The only sweet thing in that place was the girl. I thought she was afraid of that vault—quite a lot afraid of it. : “We came out from that place in the same manner as we went in—slipping quickly through the door at the bottom of the stairs. For an hour or so I felt that | had been drugged; then I was myself again, and able to argue with that Russian. I had to admit that the air was curious, but more I would not admit. “*You have no imagination! cried Hyin. ‘The French named you Dutch well when they called you Téres-de-Fromage. Cheese-heads you are! You could not feel the Past in that place?’ “TY felt the air, and I heard the jerboa toads,’ I said. ‘Not more than that. It is good to have belief, but it is not good to have too much of it. That is the way to madness.’ “Wait around,’ said the Russian; ‘you will see what you will see. The girl has promised me.’ “He smacked his lips when he spoke of that girl. There are two nations that strut when they speak of women—the Germans and the Russians; but the Russian has more charm. He is more dashing. He is a little mad, and women like madmen. “I wanted to go away from that place, but I could not. It held me there because I felt that something would happen, something big. Have you noticed that lots of tragedies have been photographed? Those photographers have been there with the machines aiming at the spot where an automobile turns comiclooks.com