question of the Monster's origin.

If answers there were, they were lost forever in the slag we trod.

It was afternoon of the second day that we found a rift in the blasted
wall of the valley. We decided to try it. We had not dared to take the
road by which Norhala had led us into the City.

The giant slide was broken and climbable. But even if we could have
passed safely through the tunnel of the abyss there still was left the
chasm over which we could have thrown no bridge. And if we could have
bridged it still at that road's end was the cliff whose shaft Norhala
had sealed with her lightnings.

So we entered the rift.

Of our wanderings thereafter I need not write. From the rift we emerged
into a maze of the valleys, and after a month in that wilderness, living
upon what game we could shoot, we found a road that led us into Gyantse.

In another six weeks we were home in America.

My story is finished.

There in the Trans-Himalayan wilderness is the blue globe that was the
weird home of the lightning witch--and looking back I feel now she could
not have been all woman.

There is the vast pit with its coronet of fantastic peaks; its
symboled, calcined floor and the crumbling body of the inexplicable,
the incredible Thing which, alive, was the shadow of extinction,
annihilation, hovering to hurl itself upon humanity. That shadow is
gone; that pall withdrawn.

But to me--to each of us four who saw those phenomena--their lesson
remains, ineradicable; giving a new strength and purpose to us, teaching
us a new humility.

For in that vast crucible of life of which we are so small a part, what
other Shapes may even now be rising to submerge us?

In that vast reservoir of force that is the mystery-filled infinite
through which we roll, what other shadows may be speeding upon us?

Who knows?

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metal Monster, by A. Merritt

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METAL MONSTER ***

***** This file should be named 3479.txt or 3479.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/7/3479/

Produced by Judy Boss

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States wi