Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 4 (1925-04).djvu/178

Rh (Continued from page 30)

it does not come from outside. Vagrant visions of the past, somber scenes of other days, flash before me in stereoscopic review. A flaming factory hysterical screams of terrified women penned in by walls of fire; a blazing schoolhouse  pitiful cries of helpless children trapped by collapsing stairs; a theater fire  frantic babel of panic-stricken people fighting to freedom over blistering floors; and, over all, impenetrable clouds of black, noxious, malicious smoke polluting the peaceful sky. The air of the room is saturated with thick, heavy, stifling waves at any moment I expect to feel hot tongues of flame lick eagerly at my useless legs  my eyes smart  my ears throb  I cough and choke to rid my lungs of the Ocypetian fumes  smoke such as is associated only with appalling catastrophes  acrid, stinking, mephitic smoke permeated with the revolting odor of burning flesh.

Once more I am alone with this portentous calm. The welcome breeze that fans my cheeks is fast restoring my vanished courage. Clearly, the house cannot be on fire, for every vestige of the torturous smoke is gone. I cannot detect a single trace of it, though I have been sniffing like a bloodhound. I am beginning to wonder if I am going mad; if the years of solitude have unhinged my mind—but the phenomenon has been too definite to permit me to class it as mere hallucination. Sane or insane, I cannot conceive these things as aught but actualities—and the moment I catalogue them as such I can come to only one logical conclusion. The inference in itself is enough to upset one's mental stability. To

 A Complete Novelette

'By WILL SMITH and'' R. J. ROBBINS'''

''An unbelievably fascinating story, with a touch of horror—a combination of science and weird occultism—a tale that will hold you spellbound, that rises gradually to a tremendous climax—such a tale is "Under the N-Ray." Not the least of its many vivid pictures is the destruction of Atlantis by meteors, earthquake and flood.''

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