H. P. Lovecraft is working on a tale called "The Shadow Out of Time."
Adolph de Castro, author of "The Last Test" and "The Electric Executioner," is 74 years old, a graduate of Bonn, and master of 7 languages. He has had published work of undoubted importance. Some of his unpublished books are of great potential interest and value.... He lived in Mexico from 1922 to 1925 and had interviews with Villa and his generals in 1923; from whom he derived an account of the end of his associate and colleague Ambrose Bierce at the hand of these revolutionists. There are three slightly differing reports as to Bierce's death, all of which are probably carelessly transmitted variants of the actual facts. De Castro's original name is Gustav Adolf Danziger—he changed it during the World War, taking the name of a remote Spanish ancestor. He came to America in 1886 and was a dentist for a long period. Also pursued politics to some extent and was American consul at Madrid for a time. The piece of work he did with Bierce was translating the German novel of Richard Voss—"The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter." He was German-speaking and (1889) was not fluent in English. Bierce, on the other hand, was a master of English but knew no German. De Castro—or Danziger—admired the Voss novel and made a rough translation, with certain modifications, into such English as he knew. Then Bierce took that crude translation and made the present admirable English novelette out of it. The book as it stands is a curious three-man job. It is not a weird tale.
The Mirror
(Annals of the Jinns—9)
by R. H. Barlow
Upon a certain day in the year of the Plague of Dragons, the Emperor of Yondath held court in his ancient palace above the crypts. Many of his subjects had come from sheer curiosity, and when he cast sentence upon Khalda, at least two of the more squeamish shuddered. For he had condemned the sorcerer Khalda to the tortures of the Green Fungi, and of course every one knew what meant. Even if they had been obtuse or ignorant of the ways of the torturers in the subterranean rooms, the austere and saturnine look upon the face of His Majesty would have implied much that was not pleasant.
But Khalda, the only pupil of the wise one Volnar, stood scornfully before the throne and gave no sign of terror, although his doom was a fabled and terrible one. He even contrived an ironic obeisance before they took him away. The two ugly slaves that held him exchanged significant looks as they silently led him out of the gorgeously-hung room. Then those who had gathered began to depart, and many resolved not to anger their ruler after that.
Khalda's crime, it had been proclaimed, was that of high sacrilege. Not only had he sought through ancient and unwholesome magic the creation of artificial life, but he had spat upon the greenstone feet of the great idol in the market place, and asserted that the deity was impotent and its priests humbug. Perhaps this iconoclastic behavior was regretted by Khalda, since his destination was not pleasant to contemplate, but he gave no sign as the slaves led him through a series of connected chambers. Each of these dimly-lit rooms was more ancient in appearance than the one preceding, and after he had traversed some dozen, the very bricks of the wall were so slimy with old moss that they emitted a noxious odour. Likewise the passages grew steadily darker.
Legend told of the things that lay beneath the palace, and of the Head Torturer Malyat that had dwelt in his crypt for untold years without being seen by man. It was said that his face was obscured from even his victims, by an ancient and grotesque mask. On this Khalda reflected as the guards paused to light their tapers at a sconce tipped by a pool of sulphurous flame that seethed and boiled endlessly. He wondered at this, for no tracks disturbed the settled dust, yet the torch was as if newly kindled. Guided now by this melancholy light, they descended again, their torch but little dispelling the gloom. In this manner they made their way toward the lower chambers. Khalda wondered at the labor that must have gone into chiseling these chambers from the rock, and at the ponderous ornamental masonry that remained yet immovable after so long a time.