Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 06.djvu/62

712 by its black domes and towers and unbroken, windowless walls. Then he tore his eyes from it and peered frantically along the forest edge for some trace of his wife.

"Woher kommst du?" The voice came from close behind him, with startling unexpectedness.

David spun around. Two men had come up behind him on the beach without his observing them. They were staring at him suspiciously.

The man who had asked the question in German was a solidly built, sandy-haired man of forty, with searching eyes. He was clad in a time-worn, ragged and stained gray uniform.

The other man was a huge, broad-shouldered Scandinavian in sweater and sea-boots almost as ragged, his weather-beaten Viking face a little older than that of the German, his blond head bare. Both men carried steel-pointed spears.

David Russell said, with difficulty, "I—I don't understand you." Then he cried, "In God's name, what kind of place is this?"

The German's suspicious face cleared and he exclaimed in English, "You're new here, then? Did your ship run onto the island? Were any others saved?"

To his excited questions, David answered, "We were in a yawl—my wife and I. This hellish island suddenly appeared right in front of us. Our boat struck—there it is out on the rocks. We got to shore, but I passed out, and when I came around, Christa was gone for help. And now I can't find her. I've got to find her!" he cried. "To get her away from this devilish place!"

The German shook his head sadly. "There is no escape from this island—none except death or whatever horrible fate the Master deals out to those whom he calls to his castle. I myself have been here on the island for twenty years."

"Twenty years?" cried David, appalled.

The Teuton nodded. "I am Leutnant Wilhelm von Hausman, of U-Boat 321 of the Imperial German Navy. In the spring of 1918 our boat, running on the surface to recharge our batteries, sighted a strange flickering just ahead. The next moment, this island appeared, we crashed into it, and I, who was on deck, was the only one saved."

He motioned toward the giant blond Scandinavian seaman. "This is Halfdon Husper, first mate of a Norwegian freighter that ran onto the island in 1929. There are a couple of hundred such survivors from similar wrecks—we have a little village over yonder in the forest."

David cried, "But why haven't you tried to get away? And what kind of hellish place is this island, anyway, that it's completely invisible until you're right on it?"

Von Hausman shrugged. "I know no more than you how the island is made invisible to the outside world. The Master has made it so, but how he does it, I can't guess."

"The Master?" repeated David. "Who is that?"

Von Hausman pointed to the black castle brooding on the distant cliffs. "That is the castle of the Master. He is supreme ruler of this island, but who or what he is, I cannot say, for none of us who live here have ever seen him."

"You mean—he never comes out of that place?" David asked wonderingly. "But then how do you know he exists?"

The German shuddered a little. "We know well he exists, because from time to time he calls one among us to the castle, and whoever goes into that black place never comes out again."

The torturing anxiety uppermost in David's mind burst forth. "But what