Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 3 (1926-09).djvu/15

 comes after us, I don't see how it will get to us in here," he thought, as he resigned himself to the sleep of exhaustion which he felt would bring him temporary respite from despair. "He's a little bird, if he gets through that window."

followed night; night followed day. Every other day, the drugged five in the adjoining cave were fed. This was a most pitiful process. The five were permitted barely to begin to regain consciousness. When this stage had been reached, Gorlog would take them some of the reddish-brown soup, and force them to swallow it. They were always sick from the effects of the drug, and hardly conscious of their surroundings, and their faint moans and protests were harrowing to listen to. Immediately after being fed, they were drugged again, and allowed to sleep their heavy sleep for another forty-eight hours, until time for another feeding. Alison was not sure whether or not his lot was more fortunate than theirs; his was the greater consciousness of misery, and yet their helpless plight and their half-heard complainings seemed more horrible than all his own dark forebodings.

After several days had passed, it occurred to Alison that it would while away the time if he could keep a diary. He asked his captor if there were any means of writing, hardly hoping for a favorable reply. But to his surprize, he was immediately given a small notebook and a lead pencil.

"We have our methods of writing on Furos," he was told. "On Earth, I supply myself with what is available. One should not be without the means of writing, even though the need is not evident."

After all, he had no heart to write at length, and so his entries were brief, and killed little time for him. He put down only a few of his many conjectures, the oscillations of his spirit between despair and desperate hope. He put down the things the man with the green face told to him; and soon it occurred to him that if he should ever escape with that book in his possession, it would be enough to gain him admission to an insane asylum for life. For he put down Gorlog's sayings as the truth, and they made strange reading indeed!

"August 9. It must be the 9th, as I have been here four days, counting today. I have not learned yet why he wants to take us to Furos. I believe he would tell me if I asked again, but somehow I hesitate. His manner was so strange when I asked him before. Either that question makes his insanity more violent, or the answer is more terrible than I have been able to imagine.

"I have discovered one thing. When he was on Earth before, he painted his face and neck, arms and hands dark brown, and passed for an East Indian. To account for his rubbery physique and double-jointedness, he posed as being a double-jointed freak from a side show. And another thing: that green color is not so strange, under the circumstances. He attributes the difference in our color to the fact that on the Earth, life is sustained by heat in connection with light; that is, the light develops in animal life ruddy or brown-pigmented skins. But the darkness of Furos of course favors a contrary development. Hence, the men of Furos are green. That is natural enough. Their vegetation, however, itis [sic] white.

"And one thing more. Nature's laws must be fairly consistent throughout the universe. On Earth, lack of light favors the development of rickets, in which condition the bones are soft. On Furos there is no