ire to arouse him from this
sleep, this dream that could never be real. But McGuire, lieutenant
one-time in the forces of the U. S. A., had seen it too, and he stared
back with a look that gave dreadful confirmation.

The observatory--Mount Lawson--the earth!--those were the things
unreal and far away. And here before them, in brain-stunning
actuality, were the markings unmistakable--the markings of Venus. And
they were landing, these two, in the company of creatures wild and
strange as the planet--on Venus itself!

(_To be continued._)

* * * * *

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The Destroyer

_By William Merriam Rouse_

[Illustration: "The connection is made," murmured Von Stein.]

[Sidenote: Slowly, insidiously, there stole over Allen Parker
something uncanny. He could no longer control his hands--even his
brain!]

The pencil in the hand of Allen Parker refused to obey his will. A
strange unseen force pushed his will aside and took possession of the
pencil point so that what he drew was not his own. It was the same
when he turned from drawing board to typewriter. The sentences were
not of his framing; the ideas were utterly foreign to him. This was
the first hint he received of the fate that was drawing in like night
upon him and his beautiful wife.

Parker, a young writer of growing reputation who illustrated his own
work, was making a series of pencil sketches for a romance partly
finished. The story was as joyous and elusive as sunlight, and until
to-day his sketches had held the same quality. Now he could not tap
the reservoir from which he had taken the wind-blown hair and smiling
eyes of Madelon, his heroine.

When he drew or wrote he seemed to be submerged in the dark waters of
a measureless evil pit. The face that mocked him from the paper was
stamped with a world-old knowledge of forbidden things.

Parker dropped his pencil and leaned back, tortured. He and his wife,
Betty, had taken this house in Pine Hills, a small and extremely
quiet suburban village, solely for the purpose of concentration on the
book which was to be the most important work he had done. He went to
the door of the room that he used for a studio and called:

"Betty! Can you come here a moment, please?"

* * * * *

There was a patter of running feet on the stairs and then a girl of
twenty, or thereabout, came into the room. Any man would have said she
was a blessing