Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 1 (1926-07).djvu/6



silence of tropical midnight had descended upon Tenjo, the rugged little peak which crowns the island of Guam. Far below its steep slopes flickered the crude torches of a few Chamorran fishermen, where the lazy Pacific merged obscurely under the moonless sky with the jutting coral reefs. Near the tip of the peak stood the tent of an outpost commander, where two men sat conversing in low tones.

"Kent, I'll swear it’s not my imagination!" muttered the smaller of the two, a thin-faced, nervous man wearing the bars of a lieutenant. "I know—you think I've gone mad, as Tyndall and Haines did up here. But you're wrong; it isn't Tenjo, this time at least. The sound I've heard is real. My blood runs cold every time I hear it—it's not human!"

Captain Richard Kent, the young commanding officer of the Marine Air Station, laid his hand soothingly on the lieutenant's shoulder.

"I don't doubt your sanity, Alcott," he replied in a calm, self-possessed manner which was in strong contrast to the other's apprehension. "I believe you have heard something strange, but I don't understand its coming from the sky. You say it has