Crack! spoke the automatic, point-blank at this rushing horror, this blacker shadow in the blackness.
The fire-stab revealed a grinning white-fanged face close to his own, and clutching hands, and terrible, thick, hairy arms.
Then something hurled itself on Stern; something bore him backward--something beside which his strength was as a baby's--something vast, irresistible, hideous beyond all telling.
Stern felt the flesh of his left arm ripped up. Crushed, doubled, impotent, he fell.
And at his throat long fingers clutched. A fetid, stinking breath gushed hot upon his face. He heard the raving chatter of ivories, snapping to rend him.
Up sprang another shadow. High it swung a weapon. The blow thudded hollow, smashing, annihilating.
Hot liquid gushed over Allan's hand as he sought to beat the monster back.
Then, fair upon him, fell a crushing weight.
Swooning, he knew no more.