Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 5 (1926-05).djvu/48

 persons of earth are mentally in absolute balance. Superstitions are slight forms of insanity and often one is declared insane simply because he has views which one can not understand.

There was something awesome about that soundless road. I was terrified. Many things there were as mysterious as the blue lake. I noticed that the few coral clouds in the sky did not move. Stationary also was the sun. It did not even seem to cast off heat as it blazed down. Neither was the air cold. The climate was neutral. I marveled at this but not nearly as much as at the fact that I cast no shadow. I had read that only the dead east no shadows. It was an old belief. Ancient also was the saying that a man's shadow is really his soul. When one casts no shadow one has lost one's soul. I had never given credence to such fantasies, yet now that I cast no shadow I shuddered. Was I dead? Was I a ghost? I laughed mirthlessly at the bare thought, but no sound came from my lips. I, too, was voiceless, as soundless as the silent trees. Now I quickened my pace. I sped down the road as though pursued by the wrath of the gods. My blood froze in my veins. My heart almost stopped beating. My lips grew cold. The whole island seemed to be a seething menace, yet it was more beautiful than a landscape by Corot.

Soon I came to a gray city, a deserted city, the weirdest place in which I had ever walked. It was as though some horrible plague had driven the inhabitants from their homes. I roamed through street after street of gray houses, all deserted and dead. They stood somberly malignant like bleached bones from which all flesh had been torn by vultures. All were of peculiar design, built like shelves, each floor with a stone balcony, opening into rooms of yawning blackness. I, who had always hated noise and clamor, who had yearned for solitude, was now crushed by the weight of that velvet silence. It enmeshed me as it lay about me in folds. My tongue was parched and dry, my lips blistered and cracked. I drew my blackened tongue across my lips, but it was without moisture. The rasping feel of it made me shudder.

long I wandered helplessly about I do not know, but the next thing I remember I was standing in front of a house. It was a gray house, a forbidding house, not one bit different from the others. Yet it arrested my attention. Something within me, I know not what, urged me to enter that house. It was a command more subtle than the perfume of poppies, but I acceded to it without question. It was an onward urge that could not be disputed. I paused for a moment to get my courage somewhat into shape, then I entered the house. At first the halls seemed as gloomy as a night fog, an effect heightened by my sudden transition from the glaring sunlight to the subdued shadows, but as my vision gradually cleared I gasped at the vast splendor that lay before me. It was as though the city had been drained of all its grandeur until it was a drab thing in order that all the color and beauty might be concentrated into this one house. I knew instinctively that all the other houses would be as gray and colorless within as their drab exteriors.

All about were rich rugs and tapestries, rugs and draperies of every material and color. There were lamps and lanterns of all shapes and sizes, magnificent vases and small idols of solid gold, set with diamonds and pearls and precious stones. On the floor was a jade-green carpet more luxurious than grass.

In awe I passed through the rooms. Even though everything was as silent as death I walked slowly. It was hard to realize that I could not make a