（外文电子版资料）The.Dweller.in.the.Gulf.docVIP

The Dweller in the Gulf Clark Ashton Smith Swelling and towering swiftly, like a genie loosed from one of Solomons bottles, the cloud rose on the planets rim. A rusty and colossal column, it strode above the dead plain, through a sky that was dark as the brine of desert seas that have ebbed to desert pools. Looks like a blithering sandstorm, commented Maspic. It cant very well be anything else, agreed Bellman rather curtly. Any other kind of storm is unheard of in these regions. Its the sort of hell-twister that the Aithais call the zoorth -- and its coming our way, too. I move that we start looking for shelter. Ive been caught in the zoorth before, and I dont recommend a lungful of that ferruginous dust. Theres a cave in the old river bank, to the right, said Chivers, the third member of the party, who had been searching the desert with restless, falcon-like eyes. The trio of earthmen, hard-bitten adventurers who disdained the services of Martian guides, had started five days before from the outpost of Ahoom, into the uninhabited region called the Chaur. Here, in the beds of great rivers that had not flowed for cycles, it was rumored that the pale, platinum-like gold of Mars could be found lying in heaps, like so much salt. If fortune were propitious, their years of somewhat unwilling exile on the red planet would soon be at an end. They had been warned against the Chaur, and had heard some queer tales in Ahoom regarding the reasons why former prospectors had not returned. But danger, no matter how dire or exotic, was merely a part of their daily routine. With a fair chance of unlimited gold at the journeys end, they would have gone down through Hinnom. Their food-supplies and water-barrels were carried on the backs of three of those curious mammals called vortlups, which with their elongated legs and necks, and horny-plated bodies, might seemingly have been some fabulous combination of llama and saurian. These animals though extravagantly ugly, were tame and