The Face in the Abyss
By A. MERRITT
_Author of "The Moon Pool," "The Metal Monster," etc._
_A NOVELETTE--COMPLETE IN THIS ISSUE_
INTRODUCTION
And now the readers of ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY come once
again to their old favorite, A. Merritt, who flashed like a shooting
star across the pages of _All-Story Weekly_ in the issues of June
22, 1918, and from February 1, to March 22, 1919, illuminating that
most classically fantastic of all stories, THE MOON POOL, which was
afterward brought out in book form and accepted in England, France,
and America as equal to the best imaginative work of H. G. Wells or
that older master, the late Jules Verne; after which he rose to greater
heights in his serial that appeared under the title of THE METAL
MONSTER.
In these two works Merritt struck an entirely new note, rich in
imagination, the wondrous possibilities of science, and the fine
balance of human interest and narrative charm. In every chapter he
struck the cosmic chords of superlative invention. Letters from all
over the world asking for further work from the pen of Merritt came to
this office.
He has recently been induced, or, to be perfectly frank, he has again
taken up his pen of his own volition and made another contribution
entitled THE FACE IN THE ABYSS, which is published in this issue in
full on the pages which follow.
We know of no more kaleidoscopic imagination among living writers.
Merritt possesses not only a transcendental vision but the power to put
in words the scenes that unfold and come full winged shimmering with
light from the cathedral of his mind.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
OUT OF THE HAUNTED HILLS.
It has been just three years since I met Nicholas Graydon in the little
Andean village of Chupan, high on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian
uplands. I had stopped there to renew my supplies, expecting to stay
not more than a day or two. But after my _arrieros_ had unlimbered my
luggage from the two burros, and I entered the unusually clean and
commodious _posada_, its keeper told me that another North American was
stopping there.
He would be very glad to see me, said the innkeeper, since he was very
ill and there was no other _Americanos_ in the hamlet. Yes, he was
so ill that he was, to tell me all the truth, certain to die, and it
would beyond doubt comfort him much to have a fellow countryman with
him when that sad moment came. That is, he added, if he were able to
recognize a fellow countryman, since all the time the _señor_ had been at
the _posada_ he had been out of his mind with fever, and would probably
pass away so.
Then with a curiously intense anxiety he implored me to stay on until
death did come; a matter, he assured me, that could be one of only a
few days--maybe hours.
I bluntly asked him whether his desire for me to remain was through
solicitude for my ailing countryman or through fear for himself. And
after a little hesitation he answered that it was both. The _señor_ had
come to the village a week before, with one burro and neither guides
nor _arrieros_. He had been very weak, as though from privations and
long journeying. But weaker far from a wound on his neck which had
become badly infected. The wound seemed to have been made by either
an arrow or a spear. The _señor_ had been taken care of as well as the
limited knowledge of the _cura_ and himself permitted. His burro had been
looked after and his saddlebags kept scrupulously closed. But I could
understand that questions might be raised after the _señor's_ death. If I
remained I could report to the authorities that everything possible had
been done for the _señor's_ comfort and testify that none in Chupan was
responsible for his injuries.
This did not sound very convincing to me, and I said so. Then the
worthy innkeeper revealed what actually was in his mind. The _señor_,
he said, had spoken in his ravings, of dreadful things, things both
accursed and devilish. What were they? Well--he crossed himself--if
I remained I would no doubt hear for myself. But they had even
greatly disturbed the good _cura_, despite that he was under the direct
protection of God. The _señor_ had come, so his ravings indicated, from
a haunted place--no less a place, the innkeeper whispered crossing
himself again, than the shunned Cordillera de Carabaya, which every one
knew was filled with evil spirits. Yes, evil spirits which would not
lightly give up any one who had once been in their power!
And, in fine, the idea seemed to be that some of these demons of
the Cordillera--about which, as a matter of fact, I had heard some
strange tales--might come at any time for the sick man. If they did,
they would be more apt to wreak their fury on one of the _señor's_ own
countrymen--especially if he was in the same room. The keeper of the
_posada_ did not put it that way, of course; he said that one of his own
people was better qualified to protect the _señor_ in such case than any
strangers were. Nevertheless the theory plainly was that if I stayed I
would act as a lightning rod for any levin of hell that might strike!
I went to the room of the sick man. At first glance I could see that
here was no _anderine_, no mountain vagabond. Neither fever nor scrub
beard could hide the fineness, the sensitivity, the intelligence of the
face on which I looked. He was, I judged, about thirty, and he was in
ill case indeed. His temperature showed 105 point 6. At the moment he
was in delirium.
My first shock of surprise came when I examined his wound. It seemed to
me more like the stab of some great bird beak than the work of spear or
arrow. It was a puncture--or better, perhaps, a punch--clear through
the muscles of the back and left shoulder and base of the neck. It had
missed the arteries of the last by the narrowest of margins. I knew of
no bird which could make such a wound as this, yet the closer I looked
and probed the more sure I was that it had been inflicted by no weapon
of man.
That night, after I had arranged my own matters and had him sleeping
under a hypodermic, I opened up his saddlebags. Papers in them showed
his name to be Nicholas Graydon, a mining engineer, a graduate of the
Harvard School of Mines, his birthplace, Philadelphia. There was a
diary that revealed so much of him truly likable that had I not already
made up my mind to stop on with him it would have impelled me to do so.
Its last entry was about a month before and ran:
Two weeks now since our _arrieros_ deserted us, and we seem to
be pretty thoroughly lost. Effects upon the three are curious.
Sterrett manages to keep himself evenly drunk all the time.
That spare burro of his must be loaded with nothing but that
Indian hell-brew. Dancre is moody and sullen. Soames seems to
have developed a morbid suspicion of all of us. Strange how the
wilderness, the jungle, the desert, bring out the latent man in all
of us. In Quito none of the three was half bad. But now--well, the
luckiest thing for me will be for us to find no treasure. If we do,
my throat will probably be the first to be cut.
Further down in the bag were two parcels, each most carefully and
securely wrapped. Opening the first I found a long black feather oddly
marked with white. I did not recognize the plume as belonging to any
bird I knew. Its shaft was inlaid with little bands of gold, altogether
a curiously delicate bit of goldsmith's work.
But the contents of the second package made me gasp with amazement. It
was a golden bracelet, clearly exceedingly ancient, the band an inch
broad and expanding into an oval disk perhaps three inches long by
two wide. That disk held in high relief the most extraordinary bit of
carving I had ever seen. Four monsters held on uplifted paws, a bowl on
which lay coiled a serpent with a woman's face and woman's breasts. Nor
had I ever beheld such suggestion of united wisdom and weirdness as the
maker had stamped upon the snake woman's face.
Yet it was not that which called forth the full measure of my wonder;
no. There are certain pictures, certain sculptures, certain works of
art which carry to their beholders conviction that no fantasy, no
imagination, went into their making and that they are careful, accurate
copies of something seen by those who made them. This bit of golden
carving carried that conviction.
The four monsters which held up the snake woman were--dinosaurs!
There was no mistaking them. I had examined too many of the
reconstructions made by scientists from the fossil bones of these
gigantic, monstrous reptilian creatures to be in error. But these
giants were supposed to have died off millions of years before
man first appeared on earth! Yet here they were, carved with such
fidelity to detail, such impress of photographic accuracy, that it was
impossible to believe that the ancient goldsmith who made this thing
had not had before him living models!
Marveling, I held the bracelet closer to the light and as I did so I
thought I heard far away in the blackness of the mountains and high in
air a sound like a tiny bugle. In that note was something profoundly,
alienly weird. I went to the window and listened, but the sound did not
come again. I turned to find the eyes of Graydon opened and regarding
me. For a moment he had slipped from the thrall of the fever--and
the thought came to me that it had been that elfin bugling which had
awakened him.
It was six weeks before I had Graydon well out of danger. And in that
time he had told me bit by bit that well nigh incredible experience of
his in the haunted hills of the Cordillera de Carabaya and what it was
that had sent him so far down into the valley of the shadow.
Three years it has been since then. Three years and I have heard
nothing of him. Three years and he has not returned from his journey
back to the Cordillera de Carabaya where he went to seek mystery,
ancient beyond all memory of man, he believed was hidden there. But
more than that--to seek Suarra.
"If you don't hear from me in three years, tell the story and let the
people who knew me know what became of me," he said, as I left him at
the beginning of that strange trail he had determined to retrace.
And so I tell it, reconstructing it from his reticences as well as his
confidences, since only so may a full measure of judgment of that story
be gained.