Sunset illumined Leadanfoot with a glory of orange and crimson light when Hunter reached the village. He walked slowly down the silent, deserted street, and sat down wearily on a bench in front of the inn. With an uncertain smile he remembered his conversation with the innkeeper and wondered where the man was now.

And, too, with a flash of sudden pity, he remembered Marlowe, and their toiling race up the hill. A kindly, honest man he had seemed, one who had probably lived a life of serene content in his quiet museum before fate dragged him into the whirlpool of cosmic war. A war that he had striven to prevent, however powerlessly. And, more somberly, Hunter thought of the other man, of Powell. Well, it was over now, and what could one say of the dead!

As it was, he thought, with those two dead, he was the only man on Earth to know what had really happened. Those others, those millions in the world outside, they would be wondering, doubtful, puzzled, yet thankful, too. Well, soon he would be getting back to that world, to tell them what he knew.

But just now he wanted to sit in the quiet, deserted village, breathing its peace after his two nights and days of nightmare fear and terror. Just now he wanted to sit and listen to little, trivial sounds, the wind that whispered in his ears, the crickets in the long grass.

Original Publication Information

“The Peacock’s Shadow” by E. Hoffman Price originally published in Weird Tales, November 1926.

“The White Lady of the Orphanage” by Seabury Quinn originally published in Weird Tales, September 1927.

“The Terrible Old Man” by H.P. Lovecraft originally published in Weird Tales, August 1926.

“The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt originally published in Weird Tales, August 1926.

“Bat’s Belfry” by August W. Derleth originally published in Weird Tales, May 1926.

“The Curse of Everard Maundy” by Seabury Quinn originally published in Weird Tales, July 1927.

“The Tomb” by H.P. Lovecraft originally published in Weird Tales, January 1926.

“Saladin’s Throng Rug” by E. Hoffman Price originally published in Weird Tales, October 1927.

“The Dog-Eared God” by Frank Belkhap Long Jr. originally published in Weird Tales, Nevember 1926.

“A City of Spiders” by H. Warner Munn originally published in Weird Tales, November 1926.

“The Cats of Ulthar” by H.P. Lovecraft originally published in Weird Tales, February 1926.

“Back to the Beast” by Manley Wade Wellman originally published in Weird Tales, November 1927.

“A Suitor from the Shades” by Greye La Spina originally published in Weird Tales, June 1927.

“Pickman’s Model” by H.P. Lovecraft originally published in Weird Tales, October 1927.

“The Atomic Conquerors” by Edward Hamilton originally published in Weird Tales, February 1927.

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