The mark of the monster

How it begins

A vivid thrill-tale of the black altar on the hill-top, and the dark doom that hung over two lovers like a living horror—by the author of "Golden Blood". [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales May 1937. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Beyond the miserable poverty of Creston, its squalid ignorance and its rotting antiquity, there is something more appalling—something that has always seemed to me like a colossal, invisible spider, gloating over the broken victims in its intangible, unbreakable web. I had escaped it once; now I dared it again to set free Valyne Kirk.