Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 05 (1928-11).djvu/98

James Symington's translation; but what had at that moment happened? If for some incomprehensible motive the youth had been taken captive and transferred to a flying-machine, where had it alighted, and how arisen? Not a sign of such a happening was visible amid the fields of tall grass ripe for mowing, that lay on the landward side, while to the seaward lay a narrow strip of broken, boulder-strewn waste bounded by a sheer hundred-foot drop; the road itself was much too narrow to accommodate the smallest plane man has ever flown in. Yet by what other means had been effected that rapid migration? For less than half an hour later his body had ended its terrible flight—the taller of the two discoverers, with an eye to future questioning, had glanced at his watch as he emerged from the shrubbery.

Two planes had indeed some hours earlier passed over the neighborhood and been noted by several persons, but both had flown high over the water and quickly vanished into the cloud-weighted horizon; and on inquiry they proved to be a couple of military "busses" used by instructors and their pupils. So there lay not a single shred of tangible evidence to connect the tragedy with the only possible means of its consummation, with an assailant of any nature whatsoever.

The wrecked car was itself inexplicable, the road affording no reasonable excuse for an accident, or any evidence of its nature. The youth's camera was discovered about fifty feet distant, immersed in the scummy seepage that lay in festering pools over the ditch bottom. And though the tracks were barely decipherable because of a stiff breeze that had stirred the fine dust and almost smoothed the indentations, yet there was sufficient evidence to hazard the presumption that the car had been stopped and the owner had alighted and wandered slowly ahead and stood a little while, probably taking pictures of the lonely scenery. Then, more uncertainly, he had returned rapidly, and midway had broken into a run. Ten feet from the car his hat was discovered, in the ditch also; there the steps had ceased, at least no trace of them remained.

From all evidence of the wrecked engine the car had been standing motionless at the moment of its capsizal, and no trace of deep-gashed ruts of swerving wheels was visible. It had simply capsized as though a huge lever had been applied to its side and heaved it over.

There all logical deductions and reasonable surmises ceased; other tracks were obviously more recent and probably left by the wondering farm-hands who early the next morning had passed that way. All that was certain was a car overturned and an owner who had vanished as though snatched aloft by the fabled jinn.

But the medical profession had further and equally astounding testimony to offer. The inquest revealed the startling fact that almost certainly the poor boy had died before that frightful landing, and been done to death in a most abominable manner. The doctors stated that by some strange means every drop of blood had been extracted from the veins and what they examined was but an arid shell as devoid of moisture as a dry sponge. No known wound would account for such complete extravasation; for normally there always remained a residue imprisoned in a network of the lesser conduits by the rapid caving in of the main channels. But this shattered thing was absolutely devoid of the least drop of its life's fluid.

Then more abstrusely the medical evidence spoke of some small areas of skin and tissue still intact about the throat, face and hands; areas