Page:The Quest Volume 13 (1921-22).djvu/117

 brains. Then howling, irresistible, amok-running madness explodes, until the lead-storm has nothing to hurt but corpses.

"From West and from East, from America and from Asia, they stream on to the war-dance, the brown monsters, their round mouths filled with murder-lust.

"Steel sharks lurk round the coasts, stifling in their bellies those who have given them life.

"But even the home-stayers, the seemingly lukewarm ones who have been so long neither hot nor cold—those who have previously procreated only tools of peace—are awakened and contribute their share to the great massacre. Restlessly they spew their glowing breath up to the skies day and night, and out of their bodies flow swords and cartridges, bayonets and projectiles. Not a single one of them wants to lie down and sleep.

"Ever new giant vultures hurry to get fledged, to circle above the last hiding-places of men; and thousands of restless iron spiders run to and fro, to weave shimmering silver-white wings for them."

For a moment the flow of words ceased and I saw that Count du Ghazal was suddenly present. He stood behind the chair in the west, leaning with his arms crossed over its back; his face was pale and haggard. Then Dr. Zagreus with an impressive gesture continued:

"And is it not a ghostly resurrection? What had long ago decayed into rock-oil and lain quiet in mountain-caves, the blood and fat of antediluvian dragons, begins to stir and would become alive again. Boiled and distilled in pot-bellied cauldrons it flows as petrol into the heart-valves of new phantastic air-monsters and makes them pulsate. Petrol and