Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 3 (1926-09).djvu/16

 light, except for starlight, or that light a little stronger than our starlight which reaches them from the nearest bright star, our sun; and there men's bones are soft—like his. But the universal law of adaptation makes that a natural condition there, and their muscular development supplements the bone development.

"August 12. For three days I have had no heart to write. I have been too deep in the slough of despond. It was the feeding of the other captives that got me down. It is too pitiful, and reminds me of the way dumb, tied animals are hauled from the country where they grow to the cities where they are to give up their lives. Perhaps it is more merciful to keep them drugged than tied. It would be more merciful to leave them drugged, and to forget to feed them. What can he want with us all?

"August 13. I have discovered when he expects his Bird of Space. At the end of another week. Another week of this! Perhaps the drugged ones will die before it is over. I hope they will. At the end of the week, what will happen? Will he count the days off and then go violently insane, and imagine his Bird has come—and then perhaps kill us all?

"He remembers the period of time of its absence when he was on Earth before. He has calculated everything to a fine point. And on August 20, at night, it is to alight on top of Castle Rock. He has a dozen helmets for himself and me and the drugged ones to wear during the flight through space. The helmets manufacture oxygen, he says. The Bird is kept warm by its feathers, and by the skin covering of its body, which is adapted to the cold of interstellar space. Besides the helmets, we are to wear suits which will protect us from that absolute cold.

"The Bird, as he said before, is a sort of ether-amphibian. As an amphibian lives in water for long periods but breathes air, so the Bird can live in ether for a long time, but breathes air. I wonder what the air of Furos is like, and if we six can breathe it? I suppose so, since he breathes ours.

"August 14. The girl in red is my girl in red. I forced myself to go in this morning with Gorlog when he fed them. He will not allow me near that room without him. I believe that the opening through which we shall pass, if we ever leave this dungeon, is somewhere in that dark room.

"Well, I forced myself to go with him, and I looked at her closely. If I had any plan of escape, it would include her or I would abandon it. I would risk my life to get her out. There is no use in thinking of saving the other four, as I could barely carry one—if there were any getting away in any case. I have no hope at all. And I believe Green-Face's story, God help me!

"August 15. I do not believe in his story. I do not believe in his Bird of Space. I never will. If I see it with my own eyes, I shall believe it is some strange unknown giant bird of Earth; or I shall believe that I am mad, or that he has made me see it as the fakirs of India make one see them climb a rope and disappear into the air. Yes, he may hypnotize me into seeing it—but I shall never believe.

"And yet, last night I had a strange dream. Perhaps worry is wearing away my mind, for when I waked, the dream seemed plausible to me. I dreamed that the Bird came, and that I saw it with my own eyes. Suddenly, in the dream, the idea came to me that perhaps the men of Furos had learned to traverse space in some such way as he mentioned,